A chapter by chapter summary of the story so far.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:50, Wed 09 July 2008.

A motley group of NATO soldiers* finds themselves stranded well behind enemy lines in the relative safety of the Free City of Krakow. There, each, for his or her own reasons, enters into the employ of one "Old" Adam Rataj, a civilian river tug captain, signing on as members of the vessel's fledgling security team.

Old Adam intends to steam down the Vistula as far as the Warsaw area, there to aid relatives rumored to be living in the vicinity. He has received command of a converted river tug from the Krakow Rada (governing body) with the Rada appointed mission of delivering a consignment of locally manufactured goods to the newly "independent" town of Sandomierz, there to exchange this cargo for a significant amount of raw gunpowder needed by the Krakow militia in order to continue to maintain its autonomy.

The security team pools it's meager resources and, through one of "Old" Adam's contacts in the Krakow ORMO (city defense force), acquires several heavy weapons- including an 82mm Vasilek auto-mortar- with which to equip the old tug.

On their way to the tug's anchorage near an abandoned monastary, on the road between Krakow and the ruined industrial annex of Nowy Huta, the team's truck is ambushed by a small band of marauders, among them likely former members of the notorious ZOMO (Pre-war Polish government riot police). During the ambush American Sergeant "Tuck" Tucker and U.N. Sergeant Bruce "Bluey" Thompson (Australia) are wounded but the marauders are routed and one of their number is taken prisoner.

The group proceeds to the monastary, currently inhabited by an enclave of refugees who wish to remain removed from Krakow's exploitative labor practices.

*See the Motley Crew notice for a full and detailed listing of current and former party members.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:21, Tue 08 July 2008.

After being well fed by the small but thriving community of refugees at the monastary, the group is taken to the steam tug. There, they are introduced to Dawid Waldus Piotrowksi, a young Polish army deserter who promptly, and without warning or overt provocation, executes (some prefer the term "murders") the bound marauder captive. This rocks the group, and one of their number, Wayne Freeman, a camera-armed "war correspondent" (in truth a U.S. Army deserter) parts ways with the others to make his own way home.

After the dust settles, half of the group sets about reinforcing the tug's defenses while the other departs to search for makeshift armor in the radioactive ruins of Nowy Huta. Among the ruins, the group is attacked by a group of near feral, teenaged boys who had taken refuge in the rubbled shell of the former industrial city. The tug's scavening party escape with a few scrapes and bruises and one large plate of sheet steel and return the the anchorage.

Meanwhile, a small boat arrives from Krakow, bearing one Griet Niewadomska, a former chief petty officer in the Polish Navy currently serving in a similar capacity in the Krakow ORMO. She had been granted the assignment of accomplanying the tug and its crew in order to assure the completion of their Rada-sponsored mission.

After Specialist Trevor "Snowy" White fashions the sheet steel recovered from Nowy Huta into an armored barbette for the tug's recently installed 82mm Vasilek automortar, the tug sallies forth to commence its long and perilous journey.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:19, Tue 08 July 2008.

From the anchorage at the monastary, the tug steams downriver towards a set of damaged locks last known to be contolled by the Krakow ORMO. Along the way, the Krolowa passes beneath a severed bridge span and has a brief, long distance encounter with two scouts perched atop it. The scouts are clad in old Soviet uniforms and, as soon as the tug passes beneath them, ride off ahead of the tug on a motorcycle/sidecar combination.

It is instantly suspected that these two men are deserters from the Soviet 38th TD, known to have dissolved and be operating as marauders in the area through which the Krolowa is presently passing. Based on the direction of their travel, it is postulated that suspected marauders might have been part of a group that has taken possession of the locks and it is decided to send in a reconaissance element consisting of John Yazzie and Gunny Parks to test the hypothesis.

Under the cover of darkness, the recon team infiltrates to within visual range of the locks and notes a group of soldiers, a few dressed in Polish fatigues resembling those worn by the Krakow ORMO, the majority of the others dressed in Soviet fatigues, standing guard there. Furthermore, a motorcycle/sidecar combination is seen parked near the lock's control building. Overlooking the locks on the north side lock control platform is a ZU-23-2 dual purpose cannon mounted in the bed of a large URAL 6X truck. Based on this information, it is decided to launch a pre-emptive attack on the lock complex.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:48, Tue 08 July 2008.

At dawn, the Krolowa launches an indirect fire Vasilek mortar attack on the locks complex based on targetting information transmitted by scout John Yazzie. The innitial barrage is incredibly accurate and the north side of the lock complex is swept clear of living defenders. A few badly shaken survivors on the south platform flee into the interior of the large island that borders the locks on that side.

The tug proceedes through the damaged lock gates and hurtles down the artificial rapids that tumble down the long, now unregulated channel. In calmer water at the far end of the channel, the tug anchors in order to recover the scout team and to send an additional scavenging party (consisting of WO2 Clarence Milk, Dawid Piotrowski, Griet Niewiadomska, Major Anneka Soleblume, and Sergeant Tucker) to the locks to recover what weapons and equipment it can from the battlefield.

On the way to the locks, the scavenging party is ambushed by a trio of marauders who somehow avoided the deadly Vasilek fire mission. Dawid is wounded in the head and temporarily knocked uncounscious. However, decisive and violent action by the others in the party succeedes in breaking the small ambush and clearing the way to the lock control complex.

In the meantime, the tug begins to receive mortar and small arms fire from the island and several aboard return fire with heavy machine guns and the AGS-17 automatic grenade launcher, quickly silencing it. Unfortunatley, security team member Joost Vanden Haas, a South African adventurer (some would prefer the term "mercenary"), is killed by a mortar fragment while manning the automatic grenade launcher.

The scavenging party and the scouting party link up at the locks and begin policing the battlefield. In the ruined lock control building, the party finds a treasure trove of stolen goods and an unlikely new ally- a Royal Marine named Maddock who had been waylaid and imprisoned by the marauders.

At this point, a controversy arises as Major Anneka Soleblume- formerly the assistant commander of a field hosptital- attempts to take over operational command of the ground element from Hauptman Konrad Bayer and suggests splitting the reunited ground element in order to send a clearing party across the river to secure mortar ammunition suspected to be there. Her plan is opposed by several others in the party as being too risky. After much heated debate, CPO Griet Niewadomska, as Krakow ORMO designated mission supervisor, casts the deciding vote, demanding that the ground element return forthwith to the waiting tug.

A broken down UAZ light truck is hastily repaired by the revived Dawid and the marauder's ZU-23-2 DP cannon is towed towards the recovery point. The motorcycle/sidecar combo is taken as well. The UAZ dies within sight of the tug, but the group manhandles the ZU aboard a Soviet combat engineer's assault boat recovered from the island. The spoils of war are taken aboard the Krolowa, and the team reunited. Unfortunately, while climbing from the small inflatable to the deck of the tug, Gunny Parks tears his ACL.

The locks are soon left behind.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:43, Tue 08 July 2008.

Approaching the small town of Niepolomice, lookouts on the tug spot a man dressed in civilian attire desperately trying to flag them down from the shore. He is being pursued by two men on horseback, both dressed in Soviet attire- marauders.

The tug's crew chases off the bandits with HMG fire and brings the shaken and exhausted civilian on board. He happens to be an old acquaintance of Adam and hails from Nieoplomice, located a few kilometers to the east. He explains that his town has been besidged by a score of horse-mounted marauders for several weeks and requests assistance. He also reveals that a stranded American soldier is working with the town's militia. Adam is honor bound to offer his services and the security team gallantly follow's suit.

Carrying surplus weapons and ammunition badly needed by the town's rag-tag defenders, a ground team from the Krolowa heads towards Niepolomice under cover of darkness. They fight through a marauder ambush along the way, and approach the church where the town's survivers plan to make their last stand. From the town cemetary nearby, the party successfully assaults a nearby marauder position, then another, until the marauder force withdraws, leaving part of the village in flames.

The siege thus broken, the party hands over the surplus weapons and ammo to the remainder of the town's militia and stay the night. In the morning, they depart for the tug, accompanied by a new member, Minh Quyen, a U.S. Army combat engineer and former M.P., who had been stranded in Nieopolomice, fighting alongside the town militia.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:25, Tue 08 July 2008.

On the way towards Ulcie Solne, the Krolowa runs into a curious merchant vessel of sorts headed in the other direction. Its erstwhile captain is a young, self-styled pimp named Damien who bills his small cabin cruiser as a "Floating Emporium of Pleasures". The Krolowa trades a few luxury goods retrieved from the blown lock house upriver for information on conditions downriver. The party learns of the sound of a firefight in the vicinity of Ulcie Solne, a badly damaged bridge at Szczucin and the sighting of helicopter nearby, marauder depravity at Tarnobrzeg, and a civilized, businesslike ORMO at Sandomierz.

After conducting this rather distasteful transaction and parting ways with Damien and his "girls", the tug cautiously approaches Ulcie Solne. John Yazzie is inserted near the town's fiverside loading facilities to reconoiter the area. While the tug awaits his report, the crew sights a Soviet camoflage-clad man bearing a white flag approaching the tug on foot. He is briefly detained by a shore party (Tuck, Minh, ) but is shot in the back while attempting to escape after it becomes apparent that they intend to take him aboard the tug for further questioning. A brief, one-sided firefight ensues and the party easily comes out on top.

Meanwhile, Yazzie witnesses a large group of Soviet soldiers with armored vehicles assaulting the outskirts of town. The town's defenders likewise appear to be Soviet troops. It is later surmised that the party was witness to a turf dispute between rival marauder groups likely fighting over the underground gasoline storage tanks rumored to be hidden somewhere in the town. The party wisely decides to mind their own business, and quickly exits the area.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:36, Tue 08 July 2008.

The Krolowa stops for the night near the riverside village of Nowy Korczyn. From a distance, the village appears uninhabited so a shore party led by Major Soleblume moves in to investigate. They find startling evidence suggesting that the village had been abandoned due to an outbreak of some kind of plague. A message scrawled on the door of an empty home indicates that at least some of the villagers departed for neighboring Szczucin. The shore party returns immediately to the tug and begins makeshift decontamination procedures.

Based on information gleaned from Damien the river pimp, the party begins to make preparations to blow the damaged bridge over the Vistula near Szczucin in order to allow the tug to pass.

Latent tensions within the party threaten to come to a boil and Hauptman Bayer requests Clarence Milk's assistance in smoothing things over. Hoping to give the party a unifying cause as well as assuage his guilt at having secretly endangered his comrades, "Sergeant" Milk reveals that he is a Green Beret warrant officer working with the CIA station chief in Krakow. He is carrying blueprints for a highly classified, Polish designed and successfully tested cold fusion device known by the code name RESET (the working prototype was destroyed in a raid by U.S. special forces personel). Clarence believes that the Soviet intelligence agencies are currently in pursuit of him and his nearly priceless cargo and, therefore, after the Wilsa Krolowa and its crew as well.

Clarence's plan does not have the desired effect as most of the party seems indiferent to the news while an indignant Dawid cites the RESET papers as more evidence of Poland's rape by foreign powers.

A few kilometers downriver from the plague village, the Krolowa steams unwittingly into a brutal ambush. A wire guided anti-tank missile streaks away from the east bank of the river and detonates against the tug's bridge, killing Max Fosters, mortally wounding first mate Karl Uller, and badly wounding Old Adam and chief Niewadomska. Almost simultaneously, Bruce "Bluey" Thompson is struck in the head by a sniper's bullet and killed instantly.

The unscathed remainder of the security team scrambles to return fire as LMG and rifle bullets impact all around them. The Vasilek once again proves it's worth, killing several ambushers and providing an instant smoke screen with accurate direct fire of an 82mm white phosporous round. Unfortunately, not all of the enemy lose sight of the Krolowa. A second sniper's bullet finds "Mad" John Maddock on the tug's poop, severing his jugular vein (he bleeds to death shortly thereafter).

Corporal Yazzie, stationed in the sniper's nest above the bridge, spots and kills two ambushers with accurate rifle fire, knocking the enemy's GPMG out of the fight. Major Soleblume is hit in the left arm by a bullet as she engages the ambushers with an RPD light machine gun.

On the bridge, the wounded chief Niewadomska and specialist White struggle to maintain control of the tug and render aid to the wounded crew. They succeed in the former and the tug steams away from the ambush. Unfortunately, first mate Uller dies of shock or blood loss, his right leg having been severed just beneath the hip.

Bloody, battered, but not beaten, The Krolowa moves onward towards the bridge at Szczucin.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:57, Thu 10 July 2008.

On the way to the bridge, Clarence Milk contacts a CIA asset- a small band of Polish partisans- last known to be operating out of the woods north of Szczucin, and requests their assistance in reconoitering the area. As the Krolowa continues downriver, a Mi-17 helicopter is spotted moving parallel to the river in the opposite direction. Several minutes later, the helicopter is spotted again, this time heading north along the river. Suspicion grows that the enemy unit that ambushed the Krolowa earlier in the day is being repositioned for a second try, further downriver.

The tug moors a few kilometers upriver from the bridge and an away team is dispatched to perform a route recon and link up with the CIA sponsored partisan unit a couple of kilometers from the river on the east-west road between the bridge and Szczucin. Maverick scout John Yazzie proceeds directly towards the bridge itself to perform a target recon.

As the two units approach the bridge, it becomes apparent that it is held by a small enemy force, preparing to ambush the approaching tug. It is quickly surmised that this is indeed the same elite force that mauled the Krolowa earlier that same day. Yazzie is spotted and the enemy force attempts to neutralize him through fire and manouver. Thus compromised, the rest of the recon team double times to link up with the partisans and assault the west end of the bridge. The tug makes way towards the bridge, in order to provide fire support. As it approaches the bridge, a concealed enemy sniper team- likely the very same one that killed Maddock and Blue that morning- makes their presence felt, killing the Krolowa's own sniper, Gunny Parks. The Vaslilek mortar crew exacts a small measure of revenge, immolating the enemy sniper team with a well placed 82mm WP round.

The Krolowa and partisan teams approach the road to Szczucin from opposite sides, the partisans on the northern side and the Krolowa's people on the south, and proceed to assault the enemy force holding the west end of the bridge. The partisan team catches an enemy squad attempting to outflank the Krolowa's team. With fire support from the Krolowa's Vasilek mortar, the two allied squads manage to wipe out the enemy force but partisan fighter Gregorz 'Bear' Rzasa receives a mortal bullet wound in the process.

The enemy force routed, the ground elements link up, collect the slain enemies' weapons and ammunition, and prepare to reboard the tug. Meanwhile, Minh Quyen goes ashore to rig a demolitions charge to the badly damaged and sagging central bridge span, obstructing the Krolowa's passage underneath.

As preparations are made, the Soviet Mi-17 helicopter returns, strafing the tug with rocket fire, damaging the Krolowa slightly and holing the barge below the waterline. As the helicopter races north along the river to loop back and finish the job, an unknown ally, concealed on the western shore about 1km downriver from the bridge, somehow manages to shoot it down with either an autocannon or automatic grenade launcher of some kind. A patrol is dispatched to locate and identify their mysterious savior. They encounter a lone U.S. Navy machinist's mate, Jay 'Chopper' Hicks, manning a badly damaged river patrol boat.

Once aboard the Krolowa, Chopper reveals that he and a small SOF team were on their way upriver on a secret mission, the nature of which he not fully aware, when they were ambushed near the town of Tarnobrzeg. In the dark of night, in heavy fog, the PBR was hit by multiple heavy weapons- including what was likely a 30mm autocannon- and torn to pieces. Its entire crew, save Chopper, was killed or missing in action. Chopper managed to keep the baot afloat and under way until the engine gave out near the Szczucin bridge.

The damaged span is successfully demolished and the Krolowa party, now joined by the American Navy man, partisans Stanislaw Switek, Mariusz Tokarski, and CIA helicopter pilot Jason Kasparov, continues downriver towards the town of Tarnobrzeg.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:58, Sat 16 Aug 2008.

Earlier on the journey, the river pimp Damien told the party that Tarnobrzeg was held by a band of multi-national marauders undertaking a systematic orgy of violence and depravity. The Krolowa proceeds towards the town with caution. A few kilometers south of Tarnobrzeg, the Krolowa anchors for the night near the village of Baranow Sandomierski and a clearing party is put ashore. On the outskirts of town, the clearing party encounters an armed paramilitary group led by an American SF officer. The paramilitary unit calls itself the Independent Polish Army of Tarnobrzeg (IPAT) and claims to be undertaking anti-marauder operations in the area. This claim is borne out by the hanged corpses and outsized graffiti declaring "Death to Bandits" adorning the walls of several of the village's outlying buildings. The IPAT are headquartered in Tarnobrzeg and the American officer sends word ahead that a merchant tug is on its way, seeking to do business. They also release two prisoners into the Krolowa's custody- a U.S. Navy SEAL corpsman named Dave 'Bones' Stoner and a militia fighter from the Sandomierz ORMO named Viktor Ritter.

The next day, Switek and Hicks, along with the newly acquired Mk-19 AGL, are put ashore on the west bank in the Ural motorcycle and sidecar in order to provide shore-based fire support should the tug face an opposed passage. The Krolowa proceeds warily to Tarnobrzeg were they are stopped and instructed to dock at the town's pier. The crew attempts a ruse, claiming to be carrying some sort of contagious disease, and the IPAT instead directs the tug to anchor in midstream and prepare to receive an inspection team. Griet volunteers to go ashore to attempt negotiations with the IPAT's self-styled Hetman. In the town, she finds that the local inhabitants appear to be living in relative peace and prosperity. A few bandits caged in the town square, however, are not so well off. Apparently the public torture and execution of captured marauders passes for entertainment in Tarnobrzeg.

Griet finds the Hetman holding court in the town hall. Major Florek and his A Team were sent to the area several months previously to help train and lead a partisan group to disrupt WARPACT supply lines in advance of the planned NATO summer offensive. When the offensive broke down and the NATO divisions withdrew, he refused to abandon his Polish fighters. Instead, he decided to stay and recreate the multi-ethnic power of the Poland of the 17th century. He is effectively a freelancer, no longer following the orders of higher command. Fighters of almost every participating belligerent nation have rallied to his IPAT flag, and the local population, tired of the predations of various marauder groups, has hailed him and his polyglot army as heroes.

Major Florek makes no secret of his desire to add the Krolowa and her substantial armament to his growing army. Furthermore, he announced that the rival town of Sandomierz, just a few kilometers downriver, can not be allowed to take possession of such a significant military asset. The implied threat is clear. The Hetman does, however, offer to exchange a sizeable convoy of ground vehicles for the tug, allowing Old Adam and his crew to continue their trade mission downriver. Griet returns to the Krolowa, agreeing to pass along the proposal to her captain.

With the only other alternative being the running of the imposing Tarnobrzeg gauntlet, the party agrees in principle to the Hetman's offer. They have no intention of completing the deal, however. At the proposed meeting point a couple of kilometers downriver from the town, the Krolowa blasts the waiting IPAT party and literally shoots her way past the waiting convoy. The surprise of the unprovoked attack and the overwhelming firepower of the tug allow the Krolowa to make good her escape. She does not escape unscathed. The new man, Ritter, is killed and the ZU-23-2 he was manning on the barge is badly damaged. The Ural trike team heads north along the west bank, making for a hoped-for rendezvous at Sandomierz.

As the tug puts more distance between herself and the IPAT enclave, she is assailed from astern by the IPAT's secret weapon, a 30mm cannon-armed KPV hovercraft, likely the same vessel that had a hand in destroying Chopper's PBR. Thanks to the bravery and good shooting of Jason Kasparov and Dawid Piotrowski, the hovercraft is repulsed and the Krolowa is only superficially damaged.

The tug proceeds towards Sandomierz, it's official destination.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:11, Sun 21 Sept 2008.

The tug arrives at Sandomierz, a quaint, old, tourist attraction, newly declared a free city and defended by an independent ORMO. The Krolowa ties up alongside the city's pier where they are welcomed by the mayor- soon revealed as nothing more than a figurehead- and invited to meet with the city's true ruler, a Ukranian and former Soviet officer named Timoshenko who has dubbed himself the Commandant of the recently declared Free City of Sandomierz.

At this point, Old Adam reveals that Griet, all along assumed to be working for the Krakow Rada, is actually his daughter, working her way up the Krakow ORMO hierarchy for the past year in preparation for this very personal mission. As the presumably official representative of the trade expedition, she will negotiate a revised trade agreement with the Sandomierz ORMO. However, instead of exchanging their load of Krakow manufactured bicycles, sewing machines, and WOJO mortars for unrefined gunpowder, as per their Krakow Rada mandate, the cargo consignment will be exchanged for food, clothing, and medical supplies intended for Adam's true beneficiaries, his family and the refugees living in the shadow of the ruins of Warsaw.

As Griet and the trade delegation head for the Commandant's headquarters in the castle overlooking the town, other members of the Krolowa's party head into the city, looking to do some trading of their own. Both groups are struck by the strict order imposed in the town. It also appears that the slave trade is allowed, if not encouraged, within the city.

The commandant, somewhat suspicious of the unexpected revisions, reluctantly agrees to the trade proposal. He offers a proposal of his own- in exchange for some mortar ammunition and a share in the spoils, the tug is asked to provide fire support for an attack on Tarnobrzeg, now perceived as the major threat to Sandomierz's modest but expanding trade empire. Not wanting to make yet another enemy along the river, the Krolowa contingent agrees to the proposal. The attack is set for the afternoon of the same day.

Preparations are made, including the construction of an earth and wood bunker on the Krolowa's barge. After assisting in the reinforcement of the tug's defenses, Snow takes his leave of the party to push west on his own. His motives for doing so are kept to himself. With a team detached ashore to assist in directing fire support from the tug, the Krolowa sets off towards Tarnobrzeg, keeping pace with the main column of Sandomierz militia.

A couple of kilometers outside of Tarnobrzeg, the column runs into an enemy outpost which retreats under fire, but not before calling down 120mm mortar fire on the deploying militia force. A militia BTR-60 pursues the fleeing enemy down the main road and is disabled by command detonated mine. Casualites begin to mount and the attack stalls before it even has the chance to start. Konrad, Tucker, Stoner, and Mariusz abandon the observer role and push forward, rallying the Sandomierz troops, while the Krolowa hammers IPAT shore positions with mortar and HMG fire. Meanwhile, the main body of the Sandomierz militia, including two BMP-1s, assault the town from the north west. Under increasing pressure from three fronts, the IPAT garrison begins to break and the Sandomierz forces push into the town.

As the Krolowa advances along the shore, riddling enemy positions with gun and mortar fire, engineman Hicks does something quite unexpected. In the middle of the firefight, he unholsters his .45 and cooly shoots two Sandomierz militiamen assisting him on the tug's poop. He then lobs a hand grenade onto the tug's quarterdeck where Switek, Soleblume, and Kasparov are stationed. Switek shouts a warning and dives atop the grenade, saving the lives of the others in exchange for his own. Hicks moves deliberately forward towards the steps to the port-side companionway. Hicks climbs the stairs and opens fire on Milk from point-blank range. Milk somehow avoids getting hit and shoulder-charges Hicks down the stairway. Before the dazed traitor can recover, Soleblume opens fire from the quarterdeck railing, hitting Hicks several times. Badly wounded, Hicks plays possum, pulling the pin on a second grenade and waiting for a chance to use it. Anneka prevents him from doing so with a couple of additional well placed shots. Hicks' own grenade finishes him.

The shore party and Krolowa converge on a shore-side warehouse werein is discovered the IPAT hovercraft, under repair after the last engagement. A group of Sandomierz militia arrives at the warehouse with orders to burn it to the ground. By now, other parts of the town are ablaze as well. The shore party attempts to salvage the craft while Minh and Jason leave the tug to investigate a stockpile of 55 gallon drums spied aboard an old, barge-mounted river dredge moored in the main channel.

Aboard the dredging barge, Minh discovers that the drums contain fuel- gasoline- likely for the hovercraft. She also disovers a booby trap among the drums rigged to prevent tampering. As the rain begins to pour down, she attempts to disarm it. Slipping, she nearly blows the barge, herself, and Kasparov to kingdom come. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, she leaves the fuel cache and returns to the tug with Kasparov.

Meanwhile, another militiaman arrives at the warehouse. This one is an American special forces soldier named Sam McCoy, acting, as of late, as an advisor to the fledgling Sandomierz defense force. Disgusted with the attrocities currently being committed by Sandomierz troops in the blazing town, he offers his services to the Krolowa's party in exhcange for a lift out of town and away from Sandomierz. The hovercraft has been stripped of its weapons and is clearly in no shape to leave under its own power. As the shore group explore ways to recover the damaged hovercraft, the Sandomierz militia sets fire to the warehouse, rendering the discussion moot.

The party reassembles aboard the tug where a debate is underway about whether or not to attempt recovering any or all of the gasoline hoarded aboard the barge. The debate ends abruptly when the barge errupts into an enormous fireball. As the rain continues to stream down, the Krolowa wings around and steams north, illuminated in the fading light by a slick of burning gasoline.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:15, Thu 25 Sept 2008.

The next obstacle in the path of the Wisla Krolowa is a Polish garrison holding an intact bridge across the Vistula near the town of Annopol. On his trip up the Vistula a little over three months earlier, SEAL medic Dave 'Bones' Stoner surveyed the bridge's defenses first hand. At that time, approximately a full-strength platoon of Polish conscripts manned the sandbagged bunkers guarding either end of the bridge. The lynchpin of the defenses was a static T-55 tank.

As the tug approaches the bridge, a small team is sent over land to perform a point recon. They confirm Stoner's report but discover that the garrison appears to have been reinforced, doubling the number of defenders. Among the reinforcements are several Soviet troops. It appears that presence of RESET aboard the Krolowa has once again compromised Adam's mission of mercy. T

When the recon team returns, a bold but arguably reckless plan of attack is hatched. The Krolowa will create a diversion of sorts, noisily feigning distress, in order to lure some of the defenders away from the bridge into an ambush set on shore. In the meantime, Stoner, slathered in engine grease, will swim downriver to the bridge carrying demolitions charges.

Despite the long odds, the plan is executed to near perfection. Stoner lands beneath the bridge and, despite a mild case of hypothermia, manages to creep to within arm's length of the enemy tank. The defenders, meanwhile, have fallen for the lure and send a reinforced squad of Soviet troops over land to locate the tug. They detect the awaiting ambush but it is too late. Fierce and accurate rifle, machine gun, and grenade fire, supplemented by the tug's heavy weaponry, literally tears the enemy force to pieces. Stoner, hearing the distant and one-sided firefight from afar, makes his play while the bridge defenders peer off into the distance looking for the source of the gunfire. He just finishes placing the second charge on the tank when he's spotted. Stoner shoots the tank commander and leaps down the embankment, trailed by a stream of bullets fired by a young and frightened sentry. Slipping back into the icy, swift-flowing waters of the Vistula, Stoner hears the charges detonate, destroying the T-55 and depleting the defenses of their heavy firepower.

The Krolowa's main force hears the exposion as well. The ambush party reembarks, and the tug races towards the bridge, hoping to exploit the shock and confusion caused by Stoner's success. Heavy fire greets them, but the Krolowa packs a bigger punch. Those defenders not killed by fire flee. Only a few brave souls continue to defend the bridge, holing the tug's stern at the waterline with a rocket-propelled grenade as the tug races away north.

Stoner crawls ashore, weak and delirious, and bumps into one Jan Cerny, an ethnic Czech in the service of the French Foreign Legion. The men exchange awkward introductions and Cerny treats Stoner's hypothermia while the pair awaits the arrival of the tug. They are met instead by a small rowboat carrying Polish soldiers. Spotted by a searchlight beam, they are taken under MG fire. Cerny returns fire, dousing the spotlight, killing one of the soldiers, and forcing the others to withdraw. The Krolowa arrives shortly thereafter and picks up the heroic Stoner and his new friend. Milk spots the rowboat pulled ashore and riddles it with HMG fire.

The Krolowa pushes on slowly as the crew struggles to plug the leak in the stern caused by the earlier enemy RPG strike. In the morning light, the tug passes a couple of ravaged towns, victims of both marauders and, most recently, floods. She finally stops at the burned out ruins of the village of Solec, and repairs are made. In Solec, the customary clearing team encounters a solitary old man, apparently quite insane, and joins him for tea in the shell of his home. They are besieged there by a large pack of feral dogs, breaking the siege with a hand grenade tossed over the wall of the house. The grateful old lunatic thanks them in giberish and presents Dawid with an old Communist medal. The clearing team begs their leave and returns to the Krolowa. With repairs complete, the party moves on to their night anchorage near the wreck of Old Adam's former command.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:28, Thu 15 Oct 2009.

The Krolowa moors under the shadow of her half-sunk sister ship, the "River Princess" and, as per SOP, a clearing party consisting of McCoy, Tucker, Minh, and Stoner proceeds ashore. On the west bank, they are ambushed by a party of poorly disciplined marauders. The team begins to fire and manouver and, while attempting to outflank the enemy position, Stoner is wounded in the head. Accurate rifle and 40mm grenade fire kills several of the marauders and forces the others to withdraw. Anneka and Griet land and the Israeli medic treats Stoner's non-life-threatening injuries. The SEAL corpsman, however, will be in no shape to do much of anything for the next couple of days or so.

The clearing operation is completed and the reinforced team returns to the Krolowa. An uneventful night passes and the tug gets underway in the morning. Shortly after setting off, lookouts spot a large, self-powered river barge heading towards them. It appears to be carrying a load of refugees. The two vessels meet and news and information is exchanged. The captain of the tug and the leader of the civilian refugees fleeing the Warsaw area introduce the party to an unusual passenger, one Alexei Ondar, a Soviet Special Forces officer. He brings unwelcome news. A large force (two reinforced companies) of seasoned Polish government bandit hunters, as well as the remaining Spetznaz personel (an ad-hoc platoon consisting largely of signals and rear echelon troops), lies in wait at the Pulawy river crossing. The leaders of the enemy force know about RESET and are waiting specifically for the arrival Wisla Krolowa. They are well prepared, with a pair of T-62s and BMP-1s as well as mortars, AT rockets, and heavy machine guns. Ondar's motives for sharing this information are unclear at first. It later becomes known that Ondar's pregnant lover- a Soviet army nurse- had recently been raped and murdered by the Soviet colonel in charge of Spetznaz operations in the area; it all came down to revenge.

The party now faces a difficult decision. They have overcome long odds before, but the obstacle that awaits them now seems insurmountable. Old Adam, captain of the Krolowa, makes a difficult decision. The party will disembark and head for Warsaw on foot. Mariusz, the young Polish partisan, explains that he and his small party of freedom fighters, including the late Father Switek, wintered at a farm near the town of Zwolen the year before. Zwolen is only 15km or so away and there is a Polish army repair yard there where the party could obtain (steal, really) vehicles. Unfortunately, most of the humanitarian cargo meant for the surviving residents of Warsaw will have to be left behind with the Krolowa, as well as the formidable Vasilek auto-mortar.

Entrusting his beloved river tug to chief deck hand Tadeuz, and the humanitarian aid to the river barge refugees, the party loads as much of its weapons and equipment, including the URAL motorcyle/sidecar combination, aboard the two Zodiac boats and, bidding the Vistual Queen one last farewell, motors up a tributary towards the friendly farm near Zwolen.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:39, Thu 02 July 2009.

The party rendezvouz at the farm near Zwolen where they are treated to some rural Polish hospitality. They also meet with an American POW, Latrell Watkins, currently paroled to the farm family as a replacement laborer (the original Polish farmhands long ago having been drafted). The party hashes out a plan to infiltrate the town and raid the Polish army motorpool to steal a few trucks in order to transport their remaining martial and humanitarian supplies the remaining distance to Warsaw.

The party leaves the farm in the dead of night and follows the tributary to a canal skirting the southern edge of town. There the party splits into two three elements, an assault team, a fire support team, and a logistics team.

The raiding party attempts to approach the motor pool garage covertly but Jan inadvertently triggers the alarm. Compromised, Jan, Tucker, and Mariusz execute a tactical entry into the garage office, shooting several of the motor pool troops in the process. Sam McCoy climbs to the roof of the garage and proceeds to snipe at a the Polish troops manning the checkpoint several hundred meters to the north.

The support group engages the alerted guards at the southern checkpoint, eliminated them both after a brief firefight. Minh and Milk make for the mortar pit to secure the position and block enemy reinforcements from the town. The mortar squad, unaware that their post has been occupied by the raiders run into an ambush. The survivors are content to remain pinned down short of their objective. Dawid makes his way to the pit and convinces the pinned mortar crew to surrender.

The remainder of the fire support team moves to the motor pool yard and begins "shopping" for suitable transport. Enemy reinforcements from the Zwolen garrison arrive on scene and deploy in two multistory homes on the western edge of the town, from which they begin firing into the motor pool. While Ondar returns aimed fire, Jan and Griet manouver the motor pool's heavy hitter, a Polish STAR 6x6 gun truck (armed with a ZU-23-2 auto-cannon), into position and discourage the enemy troops' resistance with a couple of bursts of 23mm HEI rounds.

The party appropriates three additional vehicles- a former American M151 "Mutt" jeep, a Tarpan-Honker 4x4 squad carrier, and a  Ural 6x6 tow-truck/wrecker- and loads its gear aboard. After a quick side trip to grab the town garrison's 120mm M1943 mortar and its ammunition, the four vehicle convoy leaves town in a hurry, headed north towards the ruined factory town of Kozienice.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:40, Thu 02 July 2009.

After putting some distance between themselves and Zwolen, the party pulls off of the road into a stand of trees to sort things out. The jeep is on its last legs and it is decided that it will be left behind. The party leaves a little surprise under its hood and gets back on to the road. As they pull back on to the 76 North, they see a group of military vehicles- a BRDM-2, two armored 5-ton trucks, a 2.5 ton truck, and a WTO jeep- heading in the same direction, presumably a pursuit force.

The party moves with haste, followed at just outside of small-arms range. Heading for the national forest just south of Kozienice, Mariusz and Jason, on point aboard the Ural motorcycle-sidecar combo, spot a waiting ambush just inside the woodline and direct the party onto an unpaved side road. The trucks make a sharp turn and begin heading perpendicular to the highway. The shadow convoy makes known its intentions with a burst of heavy machine gun fire, shredding one of the URAL wrecker's tires. The heavy truck swerves and bounces, throwing a crate of three HE 120mm mortar bombs, but remains on the road.

The convoy makes the relative saftety of the woods, stopping a few hundred meters into the trees at what appears to be the park caretaker's cottage. While the party attempts to make contact with the caretaker, Minh and Milk move east along the convoy's backtrail to see whether they are still being pursued. The pursuit force, led by the BRDM is still on the move. Milk and Minh emplace an AT mine in the roadway and heads back to the cottage to meet up with the rest of the group. The party decides to abandon the damaged URAL wrecker and transfers the disassembled mortar to the STAR gun-truck. They also decide to leave Jason and Mariusz behind to ambush the hostile pursuit force, hoping to delay them further, if not dissuade them altogether from continuing their pursuit.

As the main body of the convoy continues deeper into the woods, Jason and Mariusz watch as the pursuit force BRMD runs over the burried AT mine, blasting off one of its wheels and sending it caroming, patially ablaze, into a tree. As the enemy infantry dismount their armored trucks to begin their counter ambush manouvers, Jason and Mariusz open fire. The enemy troops immediately return fire and, as the ambush team hastily prepares to leave, Jason is shot in the thigh. Struggling through the pain, Jason nevertheless rides the URAL motorcycle out of the danger zone.

Meanwhile, the rest of the convoy races east, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the pursuit force as possible. Suddenly, a UAZ and a 4x STAR truck are spotted through the trees, moving quickly on a converging course along a feeder road. The party opens fire, their STAR's 23mm canon blasting the troop-laden bed of the larger truck. It smashes into some trees, burning furiously as its ruptured fuel tanks ingite. The UAZ, however, escapes serious damage and continues on down the forest road. The party stops to salvage the wreckage and wait for the ambush team to rejoin them. As soon as the motorcyle arrives, Jason is transferred to the bed of the STAR and Sam McCoy takes his place. The motorcyle team sets off in pursuit of the UAZ while the rest of the group prepares to ambush the pursuit force.

The Tarpan-Honker stays at the crossroads while Konrad, Milk, Minh, Stoner, and Ondar set up an ambush a couple of hundred meters to the east. They don't have to wait long. The Polish Army pursuit force's two armored troop-carrying trucks soon appear on the road through the trees. The ambush team waits for the first truck to pass before innitiating the ambush. Most of the team's fire is ineffective but Minh hits the truck's rear wheels with an RPG-16 rocket, bringing it to a sudden halt. The others engage the dismounting Polish troops with small arms and grenade fire, Milk bounding ahead to get a better shot.

As the first truck approaches the crossroads, Tucker threads 30mm grenade fire into its machine gun turret and through the driver's vision slit, instantly killing its entire cab crew. The driverless truck speeds forward another 50m or so before jacknifing among the trees on the north side of the road. A few seconds later, stunned and shaken Polish soldiers emerge from the armored bed.

Meanwhile, McCoy and Mariusz pursue the Polish army UAZ. They come across the broken-down squad carrier a couple of kilometers down the road. Both parties open fire on the other. Although outnumbered over two-to-one, McCoy and Mariusz manage to drive the Polish troops into the woods. As the enemy soldiers conduct a hasty fighting withdrawal, McCoy is wounded in the left arm. Nevertheless, the enemy troops are forced from the field, and the two attackers are left in sole possession of a damaged UAZ.

Back at the ambush site, Konrad, Minh, Milk, Stoner, and Ondar take on at least twenty angry Polish troops. More begin filtering towards the kill zone from the first truck, on its side a hundred meters down the road. It's a desperate fight, at the ambushers try to repulse nearly over four times their number. Accurate rifle and grenade fire thins out the force on the south side of the road while Stoner keeps reinforcements from the north side from joining the fight with sustained M240 fire. A barrage of indirect 30mm HE grenade fire called in by Konrad from the Tarpan-Honker further reduces the enemy's strength, allowing the ambushers to attempt to break contact to the southwest, through the woods. Just as the team is about to assault through the enemy survivors to the west, Clarence Milk is shot through the head. Ondar is wounded again trying to reach his mortally wounded fellow special operator. Unable to recover their fallen comrade's body due to accurate enemy fire and an impending counterattack from the other side of the road, the survivors beat a hasty retreat.

The ambush team eventually reunites with the Tarpan-Honker, STAR, and motorcycle teams and, remounted, they continue west, exiting the forest and turning on to a road leading back towards the main highway north to the riverside town of Gora-Kalwaria.

In the early afternoon, about midway to their destination, the bloodied, exhausted party decides to stop for the night. They exit the highway and head east down a two-lane road, arriving at a seemingly abandoned village. Just as they arrive, freezing rain begins to fall, turning to a blizzard just before dusk. The party camps out in a small, empty post office and awaits the coming darkness. At the same time, they inadvertently scare off a small group of armed men who had been sheltering in a ruined house across the street. Ondar and Cerny head out in surreptitious pursuit (more to keep an eye on them and determine their strenght and intentions). Shortly after they depart, Mariusz, on sentry duty at the post office, spots a strange procession heading towards the village through the falling snow. A caravan of several heavily laden horses and mules marches towards the post office, led by what appears to be a single-humped camel. Going out to meet them, Mariusz learns that it is indeed a merchant caravan out of Gora-Kalwaria carrying foodstuffs and liquor to the Polish army garrison at Kozienice, in an attempt to trade for badly-needed ammunition for the hard-pressed Gora-Kalwaria miltia. Caught in the unexpected blizzard, the merchant caravan leader- a self-styled gypsy by the name of Jupyzyk- decided to seek shelter in the abandoned farming village where the party has made their camp. Satisfied that the merchants pose no threat, the party allows them to stay the night nearby in an empty tractor shed.

Meanwhile, Ondar and Cerny track the armed men to a damaged building at the far east end of the small village. As they pair gets ready to head back to the post office, they are cornered by a pack of feral dogs. Using their silenced weapons, Ondar and Cerny kill one of the dogs and wound the alpha, sending the others scurrying for safety. They return to the post office to find a campfire waiting and the party spends an otherwise uneventful night in the mostly dry building.

The next morning, Mariusz and X are sent ahead to reconnoiter the route to Gora-Kalwaria in the Ural motorcyle/sidecar. Stopping at a conspicuous roadside crucifix several kilometers away from Gora-Kalwaria, the pair meets a horse-mounted militia patrol from the town. Using the gypsy merchant as a character reference, Mariusz secures entry for the party to the town and an audience with its leader.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:41, Thu 15 Oct 2009.

Escorted by the town militia's horse-mounted patrol, the party's convoy enters Gora-Kalwaria with empty weapons and good intentions.

They meet the town militia commander, a former Polish parachute infantryman called "The Bishop" and learn of the town's predicament.

Gora-Kalwaria, once a pilgrimage site for pious Polish Catholics, was much fought over during the '97 Siege of Warsaw battles. Its position on Warsaw's southern flank and its two bridges across the Vistula river made it a strategic and operational objective for the armies on both sides of the conflict and much fighting took place in and around the town. Both bridges were destroyed and rebuilt multiple times, finally being destroyed and permanently abandoned shortly after the final NATO withdrawal and tactical nuclear strikes on Warsaw and its environs.

After being abandoned by most of its civilian residents during most of the fighting, Gora Kalwaria's people began to return after the last of the British occupiers pulled out. The first returnees were members of the town's clergy and holy orders. Later, civilian residents and refugees from nearby communities followed. Once rumors of a nun's miraculous healing powers (her tears were rumored to cure radiation-induced cancer) began to spread throughout the region, Gora-Kalwaria's population exploded. With the infusion of willing labor, much of the town was rebuilt and its surrounding fields planted and sown. Built around a small cadre of veteran Polish deserters, a small miltia was formed to protect the town, making up for in furor what it lacked in training and weaponry. The town miltia was bolstered by a New Zealander in the service of the British army by the name of Alan Wicks.

Currently, the town is being strong-armed by a group of heavily armed river pirates operating out of the Otwock area (a southern suburb of Warsaw). The pirates are the Black Baron's riverine fighting force and have been spending more of their time terrorizing and robbing river traffic and riverside settlements than preparing sufficient food stores for the early onset of winter. They have recently demanded a couple tons of food and several thousand rounds of small arms ammunition from the residents of Gora-Kalwaria in exchange for the pirates' "protection". No one is naive enough not to realize what non-compliance with the pirates' demands would mean.

Well aware of the potential value of his new guests' military experience and firepower, the Bishop asks for the party's assistance in defending the town from the pirates. Grateful for the town's hospitality, and badly in need of a place to rest and recuperate, the party agrees to help the town's militia resist the pirate's attempts at violent extortion.

After their first full night of sleep in weeks, the party begins preparing the town and its militia to repel the pirate attack that will surely follow refusal to part with the food and ammunition they are demanding. Wracked with guilt over Milk's death and frustrated by the party's nebulous command situation, Sam McCoy takes his leave of the party, heading back towards the national forest around Kozienice. Before much can be accomplished by the rest of the group, a large steam-powered vessel is spotting approaching the town from the south. Fearing the worst, the town milita is called out to repel an early pirate attack from a most unexpected direction (the pirate's base is downriver; the mystery vessel is approaching from upriver). As the ominous vessel comes into full view, it is instantly recognized as the Wisla Krolowa river tug. It's crew decided to come after Old Adam and the security team since, having effectively stolen the Krakow government's consignment of bicycles, sowing machines, and WOJO mortars, they could not return to Krakow and the only other significant settlement on the way there (Sandomierz) was in the hands of a Ukranian warlord not averse to practicing slavery. Somewhere on the way back downriver, the tug crew picked up a British straggler, one Tom Jones of the Queen's regiment.

Reunited with their floating home and base of operations, the party is just about to continue its preparations to repel a pirate attack when lookouts on the destroyed railroad bridge spot five small attack boats approaching the town at high speed from downriver. Half of the party boards the Krolowa while the other heads towards the north side of the town.

Four of the small boats advance past the destroyed railway bridge and head straight for the tug, now putting off from the town's pier (a Soviet pontoon bridge section used by the townspeople as a ferry). The fifth boat stops behind a railway bridge staunchion. The tug engages the oncoming small boats with HMG and AGL fire, causing some damage and a few casualties to their attackers but failing to stop them. The pirate attack boats' small arms fire is largely inneffective against the large, armored river tug-cum-gunboat. While attempting a boarding manouver from astern, the boats are destroyed or driven off by desperate machine gun and grenade fire.

Alan Wicks, meanwhile, takes a squad of miltia riflemen to the railroad bridge embankment and destroys the lurking pirate boat with a well-placed 40mm grenade.

The pirate's attempt to seize the river tug in a coup de main is a total failure. One small boat survives the fight and returns to its base to share news of the debacle.

The tug returns to its makeshift pier and the party urgently continues preparations to repell a second pirate attack. It is not long in coming. The entire pirate fleet, it seems, is spotted heading upriver towards the town. Several of the boats land on the west bank a kilometer or so north of Gora-Kalwaria and begin landing troops while a fast police boat armed with a jerry-rigged 100mm Rapira anti-tank gun leads several small boats in a second attack on the Wisla Krolowa. The pirate's flagship, a '60s-era motor torpedo boat armed with a turreted twin 23mm autocannon, coordinates the operation from a position several hundred meters north of the destroyed railroad bridge.

TO BE CONTINUED...
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:57, Thu 11 Nov 2010.

The party launches an audacious raid on the river pirate base. During a tough fight, the party destroys the pirate's Polish motor torpedo boat and inflicts heavy casualties on the pirate force, effectively destroying it as a coherent unit. During the raid, the party newcomer Angelita Ling KIA.

The Baron, furious over the loss of his brown-water navy, sends a heavily-armed convoy to punish Gora-Kalwaria with a D-30 howitzer and several chemical blood-agent rounds. The party, tipped off to the convoy's imminent arrival by a pair of deserters from the Baron's "army"- a Brit named Craig Sutherland and an Armenian-American named Avel Avtomian- ambushes the Baron's convoy, destroying most of it and capturing the D-30 and couple of beat-up AFVs. During the ambush, Tom Jones and Dave 'Bones' Stoner are killed.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION...
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:58, Thu 11 Nov 2010.

The party decides to reconnoiter Warsaw. They set off in G-K's Stalwart amphibious 6x6 transport which is forced to drop them off well short of their objective due to mechanical difficulties.

The party makes for a farmhouse where Craig had taken shelter earlier in the year. They arrive to find a man dressed as a Red Army soldier who claims to be a CIA operative attached to the turncoat [former Soviet] 10th TD. Apparently, he was leading a recon patrol from the 10th TD when they were run to ground by a unit of the Baron's Cossack cavalry. The recon unit was all but wiped out and the newcomer, who calls himself Warren, managed to slip away.

Shortly after this meeting, a company-sized mounted force approaches the farm from the north.

The party ambushes the mounted force and wipes them out almost to a man. During the mostly one-sided gunfight, Jared Coulter is killed and Avel Aptomian deserts the group.

From the farm, the party, sans Aptomian and Coulter but including the mysterious Warren, continues on foot towards Warsaw.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION...
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:00, Thu 11 Nov 2010.

Thanks to Warren, the party meets up with the turncoat ex-Soviet 10th Tank Division, now employed, in the loosest sense of the word, by the CIA and consisting of about 250 hungry, footsore effectives. Instead of tanks, they have a couple of horse-drawn wagons. Their heaviest weapons are a couple of 120mm mortars.

Plans begin for an attack on the Black Baron's Warsaw garrison, the primary objective, the food stored in the city granaries (located near the Baron's HQ in the former Egyptian embassy). The Baron's psyops troops arrive and tempt the near-starving Kazak 10th TD troops with promises of food and shelter.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION...
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:10, Sat 28 Mar 2015.

After sowing quite a bit of confusion among the Black Baron's defenders, the Kommando and Warsaw's small, ill-equipped rebels take to the offensive. Their objective is the city granary, a converted socialist-realist "grey box" apartment block located a block or two from the Baron's palace. While the 10th TD launches a diversionary attack on the outskirts of the east bank, the Kommando launches its coup-de-main.

The ensuing battle is bloody, claiming many of the inexperienced rebel fighters, but the Kommando prevails, wounding the Baron, killing a substantial percentage of his Black Legion's most reliable troops, and capturing the granary and spoils that it contains intact.

The Kommando leaves Warsaw, with several members of Old Adam's family, and returns to Gora-Kalwaria. After picking up newcomer Daniel Larue's fellow rescue chopper crewmen, the River Queen and its crew steams north down the Vistula.

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This message was last edited by the GM at 15:41, Sun 29 Mar 2015.

An audacious night assault launched by the remnants of the Black Baron's Korsairs (Polish river pirates) fails spectacularly. Unfortunately, during the brief, confused engagement, Dominique 'Boots' Connolly falls overboard. Although she's rescued, the operation is not without complications. The tug's zodiac is struck by a large, semi-submerged bower, spilling Jay the Gurkha into the river. Bad goes to worse as a second rescue team stumbles into a firefight with boys clad in garish animal costumes. These strange adolescent warriors turn out to be part of a local strong-woman's militia. The self-styled Queen of Plock and her fanatical pre-teen army rule the surrounding area. A Kommando assault on one of their riverside outposts kills several more boys and earns the enmity of their strange sovereign.

The tug receives an envoy who arrives aboard an explosive-laden suicide boat. Konrad reluctantly accepts the Queen's offer of parley. However, upon arrival at her throne room in the partially ruined cathedral atop Tum Hill, overlooking the passing Vistula, Konrad turns down her demand for reparations. Alarmed by the bluff that the tug carries a cargo of deadly chemical shells, the Queen casts the Kommando emissaries out and gives them a few minutes to board the tug and leave the town. At the quay, Dawid is reunited with his sister, Ursula, who was sold to the Queen of Plock in exchange for the very same chemical shells at the center of Konrad's bluff. Ursula further informs the tug crew that the Black Baron Czarny himself is set to arrive that same day for surgery to repair his badly infected leg wound (courtesy of the Kommando's own sniper element). Once the tug is underway, it is learned that Anneka has skipped off with some of the tug's precious medical supplies.

TO BE CONTINUED...

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This message was last edited by the GM at 15:42, Sun 29 Mar 2015.

After killing a cannibalistic serial killer, the lone resident of a small hamlet in a wood near Dobiegniewo, the crew of the Wisla Krolowa assist the Soviet 89th Cavalry Division in crossing the Vistula. The men and officers of the 89th CD simply want to go home. Standing in their way is the Soviet garrison at Torun, a few kilometers downriver. In payment for this service, the division gives the tug crew its lone surviving ZU-23-2 AA gun.

During the first ferry crossing, two spooked horses into the river and are carried away by the current. Two days later, as crossing operations continue, the Torun Soviets make their presence known, sending a powerful, armored river monitor called the Krokodil (a converted infantry landing craft) and an escort to stop the ferry operation. At very little cost to itself, the Wisla Krolowa- with the help of the 89th CD- wins the duel of river gunboats, destroying the escort and forcing the battered and beaten monitor to run itself aground.

The rest of the 89th CD is ferried across the Vistula and they hand over the payment agreed upon. At this point, an envoy from the Soviet garrison at Torun contacts the tug with an offer. If the Krolowa will tow the beached monitor to Torun, the Soviet garrison will grant the tug safe passage. With no better option, the Kommando agrees to the deal. Before a salvage party from Torun arrives, a wood-cutting party from the Krolowa is ambushed, resulting in the deaths of CIA operative Jeff Warren and newcomer Ryan-something-or-other.

After standing off while the Torun salvage party patched the holes in the monitor's hull and pumped out its flooded compartments, the Krolowa begins towing the Krokodil back to Torun. Upon arrival there, the tug manouvers the powerless river monitor against a concrete pier. As soon as the Soviet gunboat is moored, the Torun garrison's duplicitousness is revealed. The Soviets launch a ferocious ambush, attempting to seize the Wisla Krolowa by force. The tug attempts to escape but cannot due to the tow-cable. While it's tethered to the Krokodil, which itself is tethered to the pier, the Krolowa must battle enemies on shore, on a highway bridge downriver, and boarders on its own decks. Griet's deployment of the tug's "lobster cooker" anti-boarding device manages to incapacitate two of the boarders but at the cost of blocking the sight of the Kommandos posted on the main deck. After suppressing the shore fire and killing off the remaining boarders, Minh is able to activate the charge attached to the tow cable, immediately severing it and cutting the tug free. The Krolowa steams quickly past Torun, the town's weak riverside defenses (it relied on the monitor to control the river) failing to stop or even slow her down.

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