What a piece of history to be part of!
We were in the outpost discussing the differences between the different ‘crats way of working when we received word from a Fortitude rebel that other members of the group were in a running gunfight with a loyalists group.
After a pitched battle in the dark we rescued a few rebels and found out some relevant information.
We were informed that:
- Fortitude morale was terrible.
- Foster took on hive and lost huge number of people.
- Foster had started executions as a method of control and the people were made to watch
- If People deserted they were executed or placed in bomb collars and forced to work.
- Hive infiltrated Fortitude’s bunker but were sealed off in a dormitory.
- Foster has decided on a show of shock and awe, to take back the forward base. Foster very rarely leaves the command center but may do to do a raid.
- Farming was going terribly. Stricken attacks on farming areas were occurring and a Scientist, Caulder was trying to increase yield and couldn’t clean the soil.
After a good discussion with the rebels they requested a compound 7 generator, food and medicine as people were starving. Max and Justin started work immediately in an armoured drone drop for supplies and did a fantastic job of putting everything together quickly.
We also found out that a Medical supply drop was due into Fortitude no one knows who is delivering it or why.
And more horrifically, conscripts with bomb collars were being forced to work and a figure of around 1000 untrained women and children were exucuted for being unhelpful to Fosters cause.
One of the people rescued was Dr Anita Forbes who was quite a senior member of the rebellion. There was a discussion regarding hive weapons and their ability to infect people via the ammunition. We made a request to Major Brennan to see if he and his team could acquire a working gun.
By this point Max and Julian had worked out drone drops can happen and the engineer (the name currently escapes me) had written some very provocative propaganda songs to encourage Foster to leave the bunker and run the raid personally.
The following morning we set out on a mission to meet with rebels and acquire a bit of tech.
We immediately ran into trouble finding a Fortitude defector who had been wearing a bomb collar and who had had his tongue ripped out. We were hit by Fortitude patrols but succeeded in taking down the enemy. We then found a member of the rebels and after analysis it was discovered he had been crushed by power armour.
After being harassed by Fortitude patrols we met with another rebel Wilson who assisted our engineer Jacob getting the Major into a suit of very impressive looking power armour! I mainly tried to stay out of the way and filled up our soldiers’ ammo as needed. It’s amazing to watch the soldiers work together to take down the enemy!
After we got back to base and had some lunch and everyone examined the power armour, we headed out again after learning that the hive were harassing some settlements. We found strange irradiated plants (that after we got back to base with the medics and scientists got excited by) and a trail of bullets and fighting and of bodies being dragged away. But we of the FEF are made of stern stuff and continued following the trail.
We stumbled across a patrol that contained injured members of Bunker Fortitude, there was a tense stand off but after the doc had patched them up they identified themselves as a patrol trying to deal with the Hive (especially the one they call the Widow Maker) which included a high ranking member of Fortitude, Castellan Kincaid. Most of their other members were dead and the remaining ones were very aggressive and understandably so. I tried to reason with them, appealing to their sense of duty to Fortitude to put aside their differences with Bunker Ascendant and work together on the destruction of the hive. They spouted the usual rhetoric of our weakness and inability to make good on our advantages. Julian would not have approved of my language but I didn’t care I needed to get through to them!
It wasn’t until we showed them how effective our FEF team was in the field that they started to realise that we could help them. Kincaid and I bargained for him to come to visit our outpost to talk about the Ascendancy if we escorted his men to safety. The soldiers did a brilliant job of securing the field and killing the Hive and so we got his patrol to safety and he back to the bunker
Progress at last! I contacted Julian immediately to let him know who I was walking into the bunker and handed off Kincaid. After diversing myself of field kit I got straight into the conversation with Julian and Kincaid and watched a master lesson in diplomatic talk from Julian. Kincaid was pretty unpleasant but a product of his upbringing and by the end of the conversation at least had had his convictions challenged.
I spent the rest of the day writing up my notes and recollections and fell asleep on my notebook, missing all the trouble with the investigation into the murders and the bunker traitors.
The next morning I awoke to work from Max that Fortitude forces were surrounding the outpost and soon we were being bombarded with explosives and radiation from a mortar position. I go with the team to take the Mortar position mainly keeping to the back and running forward with ammo when the soldiers needed it. After an amazing display of skill by Dancer to secure the weapons and Jacob to deactivate them and make them safe for our troops we headed back to the outpost and defended it against all comers including mech suits and Foster himself that the team managed to take down in short order. I mainly stayed behind the lines running ammo once again, a small but helpful part of the fight.
After Foster was dead, Kincaid came to talk to the FEF and further progress! He’s going to go back to Fortitude and try and show his people there is another way. He is to hold a referendum on the future of Fortitude. Myself, Max, Julian and Doc Shannon are going to go back to Fortitude with the rebel Washington and help set up a fledgling bureaucrat service and do anything else that we can to help.