PDEE Underwater: Excelsior! - Looking for a lost fusion bomb. Oops.
Continuing with his rampage through prehistory, Mark returns with another Palaeo Diet: Pulp (mis)adventure!
The freighter Excelsior! was carrying a fusion bomb to the Europa colony when it lifted off from Suvarnabhumi at the start of its most recent voyage. Unluckily, in what is being officially described as a sequence of unforeseeable events, the weapon had to be jettisoned to allow the ship to break earth orbit and enter the aether flux. Luckily the astrogation crew got a good fix on where and when it impacted.
Six months later, and the Eromanga Sea about 93+/- 0.02Mya is the focus of the search for the errant weapon. As usual in such cases the Uttlerley-Barkinge (Time-travel & landscape gardening) Corporation is leading the search, on contract from Imperial Spaceways. The approximate site has been confirmed by aerial sensing, and a recovery team is ready for insertion.
Here is the official group photo of the recovery team. It comprises six divers (Gold 1-3 & Red 1-3) and two special recovery units specially designed to lift and move the fusion bomb on the seabed. The large drums in front of the group are practice bomb casings (Photo #1).
There are no celebrity wannabe trophy hunters on this mission, so the professionals can get on with completing the tasks. The divers are all armed with spearguns (PDEE spears). The recovery units count as having both spears and clubs, and also have a bulk of 3 rather than 2.
And here is a high level view of the area to be searched. The cloth is approx 900x1400mm. There are five possible locations, each of which must be reconnoitred until one of them turns out to be the actual device. All team members have radiation detectors to verify this at 1S. Once located the bomb must be moved by one of the recovery units, at 1S per activation success, to the recovery site on the top level of the central mudbank. After that, recovery on board the Lady Ursula Utterley-Barkinge will be handled by the on-board salvage cranes (Photo #2).
Very little is known of the palaeontology of the Eromanga Sea during this era. It is generally believed to have been sparsely inhabited, especially by marine macro fauna. The recovery team may be about to add significantly to the sum of scientific knowledge about this (Photo #3).
The team entered the area of operations § from the SW corner. All team members advanced, but eschewing activation on coloured dice. Red team moved to the L of the tall sea grass bed, and ascertained the possible bomb location there was a false positive. Gold team moved a bit more quickly, and ended up attracting the Predate attention of a shark that appeared in front of them (Photo #4).
The only other fauna that has shown itself so far is a giant ammonite which could become a problem for Red team, and a starfish, slow moving but unstoppable, but a long way away.
Turn 2 began with blood in the water as Gold leader skulked forwards and fired at the shark (Pack Predator), wounding it and provoking an attack which caught the hunter off-guard and wounded him too. Then Gold 2 stepped forward and killed the shark with a second shot. Way over the table the starfish awoke and began moving towards the wounded Hunter. It’s very slow, but it never stops. The rest of Gold team kept moving, but an activation fail saw another pack predator appear on top of the central mud bank (Photo #5).
Meanwhile Red team, out of LOS of these events, continued moving towards its next objective. They piled on the speed (Loped, but used only two dice each) and the only activation fail was ignored by the Ammonnite (Apex Predator) (Photo # 6).
On Turn 3 Gold team moved to its designated second objective, and found that this too was a false positive. The activations were completed without incident (Photo #7).
Turn 4 begins, and part 1 of the mission has been successfully completed. Gold team moves towards the recovery site on top of the mud bank. The special recovery unit leads off and forces the sawfish cruising around the bank to react as ambles within 1M. It attacks but fails to wound the hunter, who responds with a club swing which also misses. Then things started to get interesting, fast. Gold 2 failed an activation and the sawfish, responding, went into Predate mode and attacked Gold 1 who is already wounded, but failed. Gold 1 struck back, wounding the sawfish, and Gold 3 moved up and finished it off with a second hit (Photo #9).
Red team were not idle while this scuffle was being fought. The recovery unit picked up the bomb (2 actions) and moved 1S towards the recovery site. The other Red team members took up defensive positions to escort it.
Just at this point more fauna appeared: a trio of ferocious squid (Pack Predators) approached from the N. And the Ammonite, which had spent the entire time so far minding its own business down in the SE corner, came to life and moved towards the first dead shark, apparently in Predate mode. And the Starfish, moving unobtrusively at the start of every turn, is getting worrying close to Gold team (Photo #10).
Turn 5. Red team activated first this time. They moved towards the recovery zone. Red 1 attracted an Attack move from the Ammonite, but it was slightly too far away to be contacted, and the Red team members left it alone and kept tiptoeing (skulking) along (Photo #11).
Gold team changed tactics. Instead of all heading fro the recovery site, they changed direction and started retreating towards the insertion point at the SW corner, which is also the pickup point after the bomb has been deposited in the recovery area. Starting the retreat now is recognition Red team have the bomb situation in hand - it appears - and that the Starfish mustn’t be allowed to cause problems for the recovery gear, for example by blocking physical access to the bomb. All Gold team members completed a two-activation Amble move without incident (Photo #12).
Turn 6. Uh-oh! The Red team recovery unit, carrying the Bomb, failed an activation. The Ammonite, as the nearest beast, activated and attacked, but once again was slightly too far away to make contact with the closest figure, Red 3. Who promptly failed both his activation dice. In response the Ammonite Rested, twice. Then Red 2 failed an activation, and this time the Ammonite woke up and Roared (gave a terrifying threat display), which helpfully accelerated most of Red team towards their destination (Photo #13).
Gold team continued retreating. They had several activation fails though, which § resulted in the squid getting interested and ending up with multiple Predate reactions towards the team. I removed the dead sawfish and shark as being of no further interest to predators (Photo #14).
Turn 7. The members of Red team mostly reached the top level of the mudbank. But Red 3 failed an activation and the Ammonite, still stalking the team, Attacked, and made contact with the Red recovery unit carrying the bomb, which hadn’t activated yet. It failed to cause a wound however. The RRU cannot fight back while carrying the bomb, so it used its double activation success to skulk atop the mudbank with the rest of the team (Photo #15).
Mission accomplished. Now the divers must make it back to the recovery zone in the SW corner. Gold team is already nearly there, although the squid are continuing to take an interest (Photo #16).
Turn 8. Red team begin the delicate task of extracting themselves from the recovery zone, surrounded as they are by an Apex Predator (Ammonite), 3 x Pack Predators (Squid) and the Starfish (which only tracks wounded hunters). This time all succeed in making a double-skulk activation and thus didn’t attract any unwanted attention.
Gold team supported this by activating on minimal dice and aso avoiding any fails that would activate a beast (Photo #17).
Turns 9, 10. On each of these turns Gold team activated first, using a single dice per figure. All activations were successful so there were no beast reactions. Red team activated on 2 dice per figure, and were able to move Amble rate on turn 9 and Lope on turn 10 without attracting undue attention. There was a single activation fail on turn 10 which did provoke an attack reaction from the closest squid, but it was too far away to make contact.
The last photo shows the position of Red and Gold teams at the end of turn 10 when I called it as a clear win for the Utterley-Barkinge Corporation and their deep-time recovery dive team. They were able to locate the missing Bomb, move it to the designated recovery position, and get out themselves without loss (only a single wound to Gold Leader) (Photo #18).
Cheers from the Eromanga Sea,
Mark
***
The freighter Excelsior! was carrying a fusion bomb to the Europa colony when it lifted off from Suvarnabhumi at the start of its most recent voyage. Unluckily, in what is being officially described as a sequence of unforeseeable events, the weapon had to be jettisoned to allow the ship to break earth orbit and enter the aether flux. Luckily the astrogation crew got a good fix on where and when it impacted.
Six months later, and the Eromanga Sea about 93+/- 0.02Mya is the focus of the search for the errant weapon. As usual in such cases the Uttlerley-Barkinge (Time-travel & landscape gardening) Corporation is leading the search, on contract from Imperial Spaceways. The approximate site has been confirmed by aerial sensing, and a recovery team is ready for insertion.
There are no celebrity wannabe trophy hunters on this mission, so the professionals can get on with completing the tasks. The divers are all armed with spearguns (PDEE spears). The recovery units count as having both spears and clubs, and also have a bulk of 3 rather than 2.
***
The only other fauna that has shown itself so far is a giant ammonite which could become a problem for Red team, and a starfish, slow moving but unstoppable, but a long way away.
But then the radio net crackled to life with the news that Red team had located the Bomb and confirmed identification. These activations were also uneventful. So far it’s been a walk in the park, except possibly for Gold Leader (Photo #8).
Red team were not idle while this scuffle was being fought. The recovery unit picked up the bomb (2 actions) and moved 1S towards the recovery site. The other Red team members took up defensive positions to escort it.
Turn 8. Red team begin the delicate task of extracting themselves from the recovery zone, surrounded as they are by an Apex Predator (Ammonite), 3 x Pack Predators (Squid) and the Starfish (which only tracks wounded hunters). This time all succeed in making a double-skulk activation and thus didn’t attract any unwanted attention.
Turns 9, 10. On each of these turns Gold team activated first, using a single dice per figure. All activations were successful so there were no beast reactions. Red team activated on 2 dice per figure, and were able to move Amble rate on turn 9 and Lope on turn 10 without attracting undue attention. There was a single activation fail on turn 10 which did provoke an attack reaction from the closest squid, but it was too far away to make contact.
Cheers from the Eromanga Sea,
Mark
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