Copied from Pruszkow thread:
The past week has past with the two vehicles playing cat and mouse with searching Pact forces. A couple of tight scrapes have taught you the tremendous value of never letting your fuel tanks go dry and keeping as much as possible loaded up (to enable a quick escape). Travelling in a generally southerly direction, you have skirted around most of the towns and villages but travelled by road during the night as much as possible. Winters' image intensifiers and the IR goggles carried by Dave, Andy, Tanya and Dettinger aid greatly in avoiding trouble, their batteries charged by the vehicles electical system in turn.
Two days ago, as you were skirting around the western side of the radioactive remains of Czestochowa, Sgt Guido called a halt. He had spotted a caravan of merchant wagons. If if wasn't for the rifles they were carrying, you'd almost have sworn you were back in the middle ages due to their "low tech" approach to hauling their wares by horsecart. After cautiously approaching (your food supplies were getting low again), and establishing contact, you heard a strange but interesting story.
Apparently back in '99, the city of Krakow declared itself a soveriegn state and a free city. The war did not exist within it's borders. Everyone was welcome, no matter what side they had fought on just as long as they could support themselves.
You'd heard similar tales before of cities, towns and even whole provinces declaring themselves "neutral" but none of them survived a few weeks or a month or two before on side or the other decided they needed the areas resources too much and invaded. Krakow should have suffered the same fate except for one thing - the ORMO consisted mainly of the Polish 8th Motorised Division!
The choice was fairly easy to make. Either struggle to survive until you found a break in the lines to allow you to slip westward, or keep heading south to Krakow and ride out the forseeable future in relative saftey and comfort.
Naturally, Krakow won out.
This message was last updated by the GM at 17:19, Sat 30 July 2005.

The past two days since the meeting with the merchants has been harrowing to say the least. First, you were almost ambushed by a group of ragged men in Soviet uniforms. Fortunately they were only armed with rifles and a couple of machineguns. It did however cause Dettinger to dive inside the BTR-80 and nearly break his neck. Who knows why such poorly armed people attacked armoured vehicles? Starvation, desperation, suicide? Whatever their reasons, Major Smythe made the decision to keep on driving, no need to stop admidst a hail of hot lead after all.
Another concern was the sudden appearence of a helicopter! Admittedly it was far off in the distance and couldn't even be recognised as Pact of Nato, but the general stir it caused....
Nobody had seen a helicopter in one peice for over a year, and even those few had been grounded either due to lack of fuel, lack of spare parts, lack of pilots, too high a risk to fly in combat (even if it wasn't shot out of the air, it'd attract just about everybody within a 100km radius) or all of the above. Whoever owned this one had some serious balls and fuel to burn!
The past weeks slow progress (only about 100km) has been mainly due to the need to stop and brew alcohol every day or two. The BTR-80 running on Gasoline has made it doubly frustrating as it's fuel gauge has barely moved - still about 3/4 of a tank left (210 litres left, max cap 290 litres) and theres another 270 litres still in jerrycans!

The morning has dawned with it's usual inevitable slowness over the battered and scarred landscape that is modern day Poland. Anybody who could has been instucting the others in Language skills - specifically English. Camilla is begining to pick up a few words and can even carry on a simple conversation with some people.
The still has been working all night as usual and (since a guard was posted to stop Don syphoning off some for his own collection), another couple of litres produced. Not much, but it may make the difference between escape and reinprisonment (for some).
As usual, Dave leads out in the BRDM as scout vehicle while the BTR hangs back ready to react in case of trouble. Within an hour of slow and cautious travel, Dave calls a halt. [Private to Aaron Winters; Staff Sgt Dave Guido; WO2 Andrew (Andy) Corrigan; WO1 Gary Irwin Herbert Kett: He's spotted some vehicle tracks crossing the dirt path you are presently following. While not unusual in itself, it's the shape and age of them that has attracted his attention. It appears that they were made in the last day or so by a LAV-25 or similar 8 wheeled NATO vehicle. 1st to read this PM please respond.]
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:43, Mon 20 Dec 2004.

Tanya, when she sees the BRDM come to a stop, will nudge the driver... (OOC: Ket/Don/someone else?) ...to confirm he has noticed (so he may stop too) and then let the rest of the passangers know...

"Eyes and ears peeled boys and girls... Dave's just called a stop, Winters can you see anyone or anything ahead?"

(Tanya will have head and shoulders out of the commander's hatch and be scanning to the left and right of the BRDM with a pair of binoculars she recently added to her belongings...)

"Major Smythe do you want to get on the horn to Sgt Guido, Sir? or just wait 'n see?"
[Private to Plt Sgt Tanya Redgrave: 1st edition rules - 1D10 roll against skill alone. See "rules" thread.]
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:58, Mon 20 Dec 2004.