Ghost Cartels - Retributive First Strike

Runners: Kitsune, Polo, Sirius, El Torro, Spirit, zipCode, Blackout

The Yinhe

From zipCode’s blog…

Just back from sunny Atlanta and it’s raining in Seattle – what else - when a call comes in for a meet a Smiley’s. I go along next day to find all the others already there. Cartel_Lady comes on a conference call, and before you know it we’ve all agreed to jet off to Honk Kong!

As we left, there was a bit of hurried discussions among the others. Apparently on their last trip to the east LT, Sirius and Polo had had some entanglements with the local law. The Cartel had offered to fund new SINs, but as they headed off into the night there was much discussion about how they could change their appearance. I booked the flights that night; no-one would spring for the scam-jet so it would have to be a 14 hour slog in cattle class.

Peninsula Hotel

Couple of days later we met at the airport, LT was sporting a spiffy new goatee and Polo had ditched her normal floral-cretonne-frock-and-combat-boots ensemble and was dressed to the nines in the latest corp. fashion business attire. On arrival at the Honk Kong sprawl we booked into various hotels, Polo at The Peninsula, Kitsune at the Hilton, LT and Sirius went for a reasonably priced alternative and I got a room at the Y! We met Cartel_Lady in her suite in The Peninsula next day – the mission was to disrupt a Smoke Circle Society Triad supply ship - the Yinhe - coming in with a rival for Tempo. This apparently involved lots of scuba-diving! I fragging hate swimming, dwarves and water don’t mix – it’s unnatural. So I was not pleased as we got a crash course in diving over the next couple of days.

Sunday afternoon, we set out in a boat provided by the Cartel – fortunately the boat came with a crew otherwise we’d probably be the ones ending up on the bottom of the South China Seas! The weather was a drekking nightmare, but I managed to avoid upchucking my nutrisoy. En-route Kitsune got way too chummy with the captain, who offered us a deal to grab the cargo and split the proceeds. Tempting though that was , it was probably too risky to frag with the Cartel this far from home – especially as some of us already had a price on our heads from the Yaks and didn’t need any more aggro!

That night after the weather calms, we were suiting up when the captain tells us the target has suddenly veered off course. He starts to follow and soon catches up, but puts us in the water way too far away for my liking! So we head to the ship , which spookily enough seems to be deserted!

Leaving LT to look after the limpet mine, the rest of us went on board – big fragging mistake!!!

The ship was dead, like literally, crewed by zombies. Man was it scary – and cold as the grave.

We put one down on the foredeck with a combination of bullets and a fire spell from Sirius. Polo and Kitsune went round the starboard side and ran into another one. Thinking we’d cleared the way I went inside the main deck – even bigger mistake – as I was confronted by another walking corpse, and this time I was all by my lonesome!

Run-Run-Run –Runaway!

Before I could do drek, the deader slings some kind of juju at me slamming me back against the wall and doubtless rupturing several internal organs. Whatever it hit me with hurt –badly, and needless to say rather than take this thing alone ( and claim all the glory) I had better warn the others. So despite the overwhelming pain I took to my heels, only to find the others in the middle of a fire-fight!

Ducking behind LT, I shouted at him to set the charges and get the hell out of dodge. Unfortunately as I did so, Kitsune hit the deck felled by the deader! As I’m scrambling over the ladder heading towards the jet-ski I saw Sirius take out the bad guy with a spell and then pick up Kitsune and heave him over her shoulder.

As the others started coming down the ladder I saw another deader heading towards them – Polo fired off a couple of shots as she climbed down the ladder and then a final shot as she go on her jet-ski that dropped the brute. Sirius dropped Kitsune behind me and joined LT on his jet-ski.

LT set the charges and then, with Polo following, roared off through the beautiful briny, . As they did, I suddenly realised, that I hadn’t got a fragging clue how to pilot the jet-ski. Luckily the others hadn’t gone too far and were able to come back and get us otherwise Kitsune and I were drek and the sharks would be dining!

As we headed back to the boat, there was an explosion behind us. In the light of the fire I saw someone – or something – dive off the deck into the water and begin swimming towards us. We gunned the jet-skis and left it to the sharks! Once on the ship I headed for the cabin where later, as we headed away, the first mate came and give me some first-aid.

Arriving back in H-K, we reported into Cartel Lady and then a couple of days well-earned rest.

A few days later we get to the call to escort Cartel Lady and some overdressed scientist into the Walled City in Kowloon

Kowloon Kill-zone

So we heads on down to the walled City – it made housing in the Barrens look like a “des-res”. More people than you could shake a stick at crammed into less than a tenth of a square mile. We formed a cordon round Sacristan and went in on foot through the crowded streets. We arrived at a heavily-guarded three storey building and CartelLady and the Dandy Professor disappeared inside. We were supposed to augment the local security and took up positions in the courtyard. I took it upon myself to guard the door into the building while the others took up strategic positions - which pretty much meant where they currently happened to be stood!

It was pretty quiet for a while then suddenly all hell broke loose. The first heads-up we had was when one of the local muscle guarding the gate to the courtyard went down with a freaking arrow in the eye for frag’s sake! Then a massed bunch of locals hopped-up to the eyeballs on something-or-other charged the gate. We were holding the rabble back when suddenly a call came in from CartelLady – sounded like some more serious opposition was coming in across the rooftops Leaving the locals to handle the mob, we headed upstarts . There were several opposition teams coming in the skyward route – and these guys were pros – much better armed and armoured than the rabble below. We took up positions on the top floor and let rip with a mess of steel-jacketed persuasion to go away!

These guys were determined however and had started to breach the parts of the building we weren’t defending and the call quickly came in from CartelLady to evac via the roof as she’d called-in a chopper . LT, Sirius and Polo went up the stairs to secure the LZ on the roof while Kitsune and I met up with CartelLady and the Dandy Professor and provided security.

Once the LZ was secured we made it hell-for leather on to the chopper and got out of Dodge!

Friends: The Cartel

Foes: Smoke Circle Triad

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