Twenty minutes later...
"I had no idea there were this many Mercs on the planet," Reave murmurs, as she drives the APC towards the battlefield. "Look at them all."
The calmness of the sea is at odds with the abject chaos of the coastline. A loyalist dropship crashes against the rocks in an avalanche of fiery debris. It is fortunate, perhaps, that the APC is such a small and innocuous target by comparison, able to brave the winding roads and approach Ivory Cliff from the rear. The sound of gunfire is constant, punctuated by the occasional rumble of heavier ordnance.
The cliffs are a dirty orange colour, stained from decades of fumes from the now-disused industrial estate that sits on decaying ocean platforms. The base itself is a concrete pyramid surrounded by watchtowers: and at the apex of the pyramid sits a massive cannon. Conglomerate-era tech or not, it's still capable of laying waste to the planet Valon's capital. At the moment it sits idle: neither faction appears to have seized control of it as yet.
Two of the watchtowers begin exchanging fire, chipping at each other's fortifications until they're both ablaze. Every section of the ramparts seems to have its own personal war going on.
"League-issue armour works well against explosives and bullets but plasma weapons are another story. To say nothing of fighting someone who has the exact same tactical training as you." Reave shakes her head. "What a bloodbath."
A crater suddenly appears in the road. Reave swerves violently to avoid it, and then has to curve around another, and another. Someone on the battlements must have noticed the APC's approach and decided to put an end to it.
"We have to get out of their line of sight!" she shouts.
Too late. A plasma blast clips the carrier's antigrav module and it falls to the road, ploughing a furrow before it smashes through a wall with bone-shaking, teeth-rattling force.
This is something that people tend to notice, but the occupants of the courtyard are too concerned with trying to kill each other to care about the sudden arrival of an APC. A dozen Mercs face off against a smaller force of psionic Adepts and power-armoured Arbiters. This is one of Ivory Cliff's perimeter supply depots, but its current purpose seems to be a graveyard. Moments after the party's arrival one of the Arbiters cuts a Mercenary down the middle.
It's Lyra Pollec, the Arbiter that Pudge talked to at the Diamond Cavern bar: she must have received Chief Cáceres' last transmission. She and her allies are cornered by a far superior force. Lyra's orange-highlighted power armour now sports smears of black and red. High Council initiates lie motionless alongside countless renegade Mercs.
The surviving Mercenaries are clearly the elites, veterans of many a campaign. At their rear stands a towering cyborg, a nine-foot-tall powerhouse with an oddly tiny head. And not just any towering cyborg: his insignia shows he's a major. He's packing a Hellfire cannon, a Domarian-made heavy plasma weapon that's a cut above the usual League fare.
The party watches as a squadron of exhausted Adepts tries to maintain a telekinetic field against the enemy's constant barrage. The Major turns to them and adds his own fire to the volley, a withering cascade of bolts that leaves them smoking on the ground. Now it's only the three Arbiters left standing.
OOC:
The party acts first!
Special rules:
* Reave's psi aura grants the party a +1 bonus to all rolls. Should a party member roll a critical, she'll chip in with an added effect of her own.
(Note that while the APC tile counts as heavy cover, the enemy will attempt to target her once she makes her presence known.)
* Should you roll an Exploit, the Major will immediately spend it and fire on your position, dealing a 2HP hit that ignores cover.
