“Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.”

― Joseph Conrad

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This message was last edited by the GM at 16:44, Thu 22 Aug 2013.

December 2, 2000
1400 hrs.
Bydgoszcz, Poland
35F, cloudy with a slight southerly breeze


The Krolowa reluctantly approaches the ruins of Bydgoszcz, giving LaRue time to take several readings on the Geiger counter. The results of the survey show that the radiation levels here, on the edge of the devastated city, are only slightly above the background levels normal to this particularly nuked area of the planet. Assuming that Bydgoszcz was itself the victim of a nuclear weapon (a safe assumption, considering the look of the place), it must have occurred 2-3 years ago, and all of the recent rain and snow will have at least suppressed any particularly radioactive particulate matter, making the city less dangerous even than Warsaw, in which you spent a considerable amount of time. All things considered, you determine that Bydgoszcz is safe enough to explore. Griet finds a suitable anchorage near the city and drops anchor. Although currently upwind of the city, the tug is now slightly downriver from it, making fishing a little less attractive as a food-gathering option. As those that remain on board busy look for tasks to keep themselves busy, Tadeuz takes the landing party ashore in the Princess, returning to the tug after dropping the scout-scavengers off.

The small team (consisting of Tucker, Craig, Mariusz, and Minh) heads into the ruined city. Very little still stands over one story in height, and most buildings, regardless of previous size, are now shapeless heaps of snow-covered rubble. The team steadily works its way inshore. Hitting what used to be a main road, the group finds a rusting procession of Soviet military vehicles. It looks like a motor rifle regiment was making its way through the city when it was nuked. Most of the trucks in the long convoy have burned down to shriveled skeletons, but the few armored vehicles here- prime movers, mostly- are relatively intact. Two-three years of sitting, badly scorched, under the elements have resulted in quite a lot of rust, though, so whatever armor you could salvage here would likely be of suspect structural integrity (and heavy cutting tools will be needed). The procession of the dead stretches as far down the road as the landing party can see. Perhaps there is a wider selection of AFVs further inland. The road is so littered with debris that it now only allows cautious foot (and maybe bicycle) traffic.

Mariusz, Craig, Minh, and Tucker immediately set to scrounging. There's not much to be found. There's very little here that hasn't been blasted, crushed, or burned. Still, in the bowels of a collapsed apartment building, Mariusz does find a single tin of anchovies. There's possibly more to be found deeper inside the rubble, but in order to search it more thoroughly, Mariusz will have to squeeze into some tiny passages, and there's no telling how stable the remains of the building are.

The others have less luck. There's the tantalizing possibility that much more canned food is buried throughout the city, destroyed as it was earlier in the war, when such supplies weren't yet as uncommon. But, considering the small size of the landing party and the sad state of the surroundings, many more hours of searching the ruins- a task not without a degree of danger- would be required to harvest it.

While searching a somewhat less demolished building on the other side of the street, Tucker spies what looks like the rippling air of a heat mirage atop what looks to be an upright pipe of some sort, about a block further inland.


Next Moves?

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This message was last edited by the GM at 16:38, Sat 07 Sept 2013.

Happy that their beginning scrounge had turned up a can of sardines, Robert knew they would need a lot more than that.  The work would be tough and long and time wasn't on their side and who knew how bad the rads were they would be digging through.  On a chance, Tucker happened to look up and see that there was some kind of heating emission coming a pipe about a block away and wanted to make it known to the others in case they were being watched.  He goes back to work and says in a low voice to them, "I'm not sure if we're being watched or not but, about a block away there's a pipe sticking up and it looks like someone has the heat on over there.  Without looking too obvious, can anyone see anything else?"

Tucker gives the general direction of the pipe to the other three in the recon unit.

Connolly pans her field glasses across Bydogoszcz's shoreline, looking for nothing in particular.  The mounded snow obscures the worst of the jagged rubble.  It's peaceful and distracting enough that it takes her a while to realize what's missing.  "No docks," she murmurs to herself.  "Big city, no docks.  Why?"  She steps into the chartroom and answers her own question after a few minutes of perusal.  "Aha."

Trailing a half-formed thought, she seeks out the tug's mistress-after-God.  "Griet.  Do you have a minute?"  She waits for an acknowledgement, then tilts her head toward the city.  "The chart says there's a canal that runs through Bydogoszcz, but it looks pretty narrow to me.  Did it see commercial traffic before the war?  Would there be warehouses along it?"

Anders picked himself an assault rifle from the ship's stores along with six magazines and a chest-mounted carrier for them. It was not a M/62 the Finn was accustomed to, but a somewhat similar albeit shorter AKS-74U. It was in a different caliber than those he had fired before and Anders wasn't sure how it would handle - it'd require some practice with it at some point.

He loitered around the Vasilek, maintenancing the weapon even further and offering anyone willing a chance to study the weapon in a bit more detail. The crew would need to learn how to handle the auto-mortar, should something happen to him. He was not perhaps the best instructor and didn't know as much about the weapon as he would have liked, but still enough to teach people to operate it in a pinch.

Griet looked at the chart and said, "Those canals were the link between the Wistula and the Warta and from there the German waterways. I would imagine they still had commercial traffic, maybe even more once the bombings started. There should be warehouses along them."

Mariusz looked at the chimney and said, "Ah, a badger hunt. Two ways to take on a badger sett. One, find the front door and knock on it politely or two: find the exits and cover them and then stop up the chimney. Once the smoke starts you capture the badgers as they run out. The first option is risky as the badgers might be hostile. The second guarantees the badgers will be hostile but gives us a chance to get our retaliation in first. I'd like option one but either works for me."

"We smoke 'em out like that and we're asking for trouble.  Let's just keep an eye on it.  I was thinking maybe they've already got eyes on us."

In reply to Robert 'Tuck' Tucker (msg # 8):

Craig had kept an eye out for any of the salvage on his mental list, sheet metal, house framing etc... It would seem that most of the wood had burnt up in the fire-storm and anything else was buried under heaps of rubble.

In reply to Tucker he adds;

"Yea smoking them out would start a shit storm if they have woman and kids. They probably have eyes on us now, so a meeting shouldn't be to hard.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:07, Sat 24 Aug 2013.

"Hmm."  Connolly idly begins re-braiding her hair while she contemplates the map.  "Here's what I'm thinking.  The warehouses probably have been looted by now.  But they'll have shipping and receiving offices, and no one bothers to loot mundane paperwork.  So, assuming they didn't burn down, we go in there and get the ledgers.  Those will show us where major shipments of food were going in the city.  That'll be either distribution centers, restaurant suppliers, or big institutions with cafeterias."  She looks up at Griet and wobbles a hand.  "It'll take some time to set up but it may be more effective than poking around the ruins at random."

Danny sets up shop in the wardroom, hangs a red rag on the door to indicate that medical procedures are in progress, and begins check-ups on his patients.  Kellerman and McClurg appear to be healing reasonably well from the injuries they received at Plock, though Mac's left ear is still an ugly mass of crust and pink tissue.  Danny cleans the wounds, checks for signs of infection, and puts Mac on another few days of antibiotics just to be sure.  He decides to spare Thijs any further humiliation and simply gives the Dutchman materials for a fresh dressing and instructions for how to clean his bullet graze.  Bayer's recently-extracted tooth also seems to be healing normally, within the limits of Danny's dental knowledge.  Jan, having only been stitched up a few hours ago, escapes further indignities this time.

After cleaning up the impromptu examining room, Danny wanders over to the laundry room.  He hunts up Mariusz's stash of sewing materials and begins washing and repairing the salvageable garments, starting with the jacket and pants he cut open to treat Thijs' and Jan's injuries.

"It sounds like a hell of a lot of work," Griet replied to Connolly, "and the chances of finding anything are slim. You're right though, the chances have to be better than flailing around at random. When the group get back we'll arrange a second team to try the shipping offices. We'll need people that can read manifests in Polish."

Back on the tug, Jay topped up his used magazine with rounds taken from the dead boarders. He also spied the SOCOM pistol, and considered it as a replacement for his Makarov. He would ask Bayer about that later.

Seeing Anders reviewing the various AK options from the hold, Jay went over and offered a smile. While no teacher, he tried his best to demonstrate each weapon and showed the Finn how to hold, operate and clean the weapon. Compared to NATO equivalents the AKs were pretty simple and hopefully the officer would benefit from Jay's simple demonstration.

Once finished in the hold he performed any other duties as required.

Thijs ate his lunch standing up, still being unable to sit down.  "Good food, Mariusz.  It is better than anything I could make," he said, complimenting the young Pole.

Having once again had his offer to pilot the Princess turned down, he spent some time taking care of other things that needed to be done.  He went to see Danny and was given a fresh bandage for the graze on his left buttock and instruction (not particularly necessary) on how to apply it.  Once he had completed that task, he spent a few moments topping off his snail drum with rounds from his other, nearly empty, drum.

Looking toward the future where the ammunition for the C7A1 LSW and the RPK he'd claimed both fell dangerously low, he went below to the hold/armory.  Carefully inspecting the AK-74s there, he picked the one with the least amount of wear.  Next, he looked over the 5.45mm magazines and chose 8 of the best-looking ones.  From the available load-bearing equipment, he took two rifle magazine pouches (three if they only have a capacity of 2 mags each) and placed 6 of the magazines in them.

Taking the acquired booty up on deck he went to find Griet and asked, "Do we have something on board we can float overboard that can be used as a target?"

"Grab one of the life rings from the side and then rig a target up on it," Griet replied, "this cord is marked at ten meter intervals and there's two hundred meters of it. Tie it to the ring and let it into the current. That should help you if you're trying to zero in a new gun."

"Enh."  Connolly shrugs.  "I'm not expecting us to find an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, but a targeted search has gotta be a better use of our time than throwing darts at random.  It'll be my fault if it doesn't work, so I'm okay with taking the search team out.  Gimme a native speaker to translate the hard stuff and a couple of shooters for security and I'll be okay.  Maybe someone who knows Russian, too, in case we run across military log records."

At Thijs's request, she turns and raises an eyebrow.  "Sergeant, if you're doing a range day, can I beg you for assistance?  I'm still pretty useless if I don't have three door gunners to do my shooting for me."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:25, Tue 03 Sept 2013.