|
Previous: |
|||||||||||||||||
|
Next: |
|||||||||||||||||
| Skirmish at the Supply Cache | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||
|
Conflict: |
|||||||||||||||||
|
Date: |
2014 | ||||||||||||||||
|
Location: |
Volm Supply Cache | ||||||||||||||||
|
Outcome: |
Tactical draw
| ||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
The Skirmish at the Supply Cache was a minor skirmish between elements of the 2nd Mass and the Volm against Espheni collaborators.
Prelude[]
Following the devastating Battle of Chinatown, Tom and Hal Mason noticed green flashes on the Moon that caused a shot-down Beamer to power up. Studying it, Cochise realized that the flashes of light came from the Espheni power core the Volm had been looking for. Realizing that the power core powered all Espheni technology on Earth, Tom decided to launch a strike against the power core and destroy it and thus all Espheni technology on the planet. In order to do this, Tom decided to use the shot-down but still intact Beamer to reach the Moon. However, the Beamer had to be unburied, a process that would take weeks. As such, Cochise offered another solution: Volm explosives that could do the job much faster. These explosives were located at a nearby supply cache so a team set out to find and retrieve them.
Skirmish[]
Soon after arriving at the cache at an old heavy metals plant, the team encountered Mira, Matt Mason's old girlfriend from the Espheni re-education camp. Mira told them that she played along with the Espheni brainwashing until graduation at which point she escaped and began looking for people to help her. However, Tom found her story a little too convenient as she found them at a Volm supply cache and tied her up. Mira eventually managed to convince Matt to untie her by complaining of pain and revealed she had been brainwashed for real. Mira pulled out her scout whistle and blew it, summoning a Beamer strike that destroyed the cache before the group could get more than a few things from it. After the strike, seven Team Leaders arrived, led by Kent Matthews. Matt chased Mira into the woods where the Team Leaders darted him and Mira refused to help him due to her brainwashing. As the group prepared to take Matt away, Colonel Daniel Weaver arrived and shot one of the Team Leaders dead. Mira ran off while three of the Team Leaders chased Weaver and Kent and two others went after Tom and Anne Glass. The three that chased Weaver were drawn to Cochise who stunned them with a taser-like weapon that he said would knock them out for a few hours. Anne and Tom shot two of the others, but were drawn into a gun fight with Kent. Anne was shot, but not seriously wounded and lost her pistol in the process. Tom ended up cornered in a container where he exchanged fire with Kent who tried to convince him to surrender. Tom ran out of ammunition and Kent noticed that a nearby barrel of fuel had overturned and ignited it to force Tom out of hiding. As Kent taunted Tom, Anne noticed her gun was near Tom and yelled at Kent, running between him and Tom, distracting Kent long enough for Tom to retrieve Anne's gun and shoot Kent in the chest, mortally wounding him. Tom questioned Kent about how he could betray his own race, but Kent showed no remorse, telling him that he sold out his own mother for the peace the Espheni promised him. Kent died of his wound, ending the fight.
Aftermath[]
While the collaborators were defeated, the team were unable to retrieve the needed explosives before the supply cache was destroyed. As such, they took what they had gotten and returned to Chinatown. However, the team also took Mira's scout whistle with them and Tom handed it over to Dingaan Botha who was working with Shaq at figuring out the Beamer's controls. Shaq studied the whistle and was eventually able to figure out how it worked. As such, he was able to modify it to activate the Beamer's engines without drawing in more Beamers, causing it to fly itself up out of the ground and unbury itself.