The bullet's passage sends Scott behind cover before he's consciously processed it.  A quick glance over his shoulder shows Carissa doing the same thing and moving without apparent injury.

"We were saying," he grunts as his hands go through the Beretta's unloading drill.  He dumps a handful of buckshot shells and starts thumbing slugs out of his chest rig and into the tube.  He pauses after three rounds to hit his mic button.  "Sexton to all units, we're in contact, taking fire from the far side of a large clear area."

Scott
Beretta 1301 [7+1/7]
behind best available cover
unloading 3 rounds buckshot, loading 3 rounds slug

”Sexton, Doc. Copy that.” Standing next to the SUV, Carswell’s initial response to Guillory’s transmission is brief, to the point. On hearing it Scott would probably be forgiven for wondering if the paramedic was simply acknowledging the message, as though it was a routine update.

Carswell looks at the trees, ponders for a moment. To quote the legendary John Fogerty, he ain’t no military son. But there’s just him and the driver, whatsisname, Meadows, here. The JLTV’s further down the road, and even if he calls it up to help out he’s not sure how effective its heavy machine gun will be in these surroundings. Plus there’s more friendlies out there, so firing the M2 blind into the trees without knowing where those friendlies are doesn’t seem like a particularly good idea.

The paramedic unslings his carbine, bangs a clenched fist on the driver’s door. ”Yo, Meadows, let’s go man. Time to go for a walk. Grab you weapon. We’ll head into the trees there -“ a hand points to treeline several dozen metres east of where Scott and Carissa entered ’- move through the trees, try and outflank those fuckers. And make sure you lock the doors and bring the keys. Just in case they try and steal it.” They refers to the on the run deserters. Seeing the look he gets from Meadows the medic shrugs. ”What, you want to explain that to Cao if it happens?”

While he’s waiting for the militiaman to get his shit together Carswell keys his mike again. ”Sexton, Doc. Be advised me and Meadows will try and work our way round on your right, sneak around and outflank the fuckers.” Fucker seems to be the word of the day. I’ll have unimaginative ways to refer to the marauders for three hundred, Mario*. ”It you can hold their attention that would be good. Break. Ironhorse from Doc, be advised we got more people in the woods. Out.”

That done, he turns to Meadows. ”Good to go?”

Carswell
Planning to creep into the forest all stealthy ninja like and try and outflank the fuckers and shoot them with aimed shots. With Meadows.
HK416 (30/30)

* Mario Lopez Jr replaced Alex Trebek as Jeopardy Host upon the latter’s retirement

In reply to Nashoba 'Nash' Carterby (msg # 319):

"Sounds good. Let's go, and let's try to keep close to the trees for now The longer we can keep him in the dark about us the better I think.." Abbie's pace quickens as he no longer has to pay attention to the trail, instead keeping his visual focus on Campbell himself.

As Abbie and Nash begin to close the distance to the escaping soldier, Abbie glances over to Nash once more, "Should we try calling out to him or anything? Try to get him to stop?"

The problem with hitting the dirt is that once you take your eyes off a target, every tree a hundred yards away pretty much looks like every other tree.  Carissa steps side ways, pushing as much of her bulk behind a fairly decently sized oak and tries to hold on to the location of the muzzle flashes.  It's not easy.  Especially when one of the shooters sends a round cracking by her ear.  But if she'd been hit, she wouldn't be around to be nervous about it, now would she?  It's rodeo logic at its finest.

"S'pose it could have been worse.  Could'a walked directly into their ambush." Gallows humor.  Carissa brings her shotgun to her shoulder, sets the sight on a muzzle flash, tries to compensate for ballistic drop from sabot discarding slug, and squeezes the trigger.  She racks the slide, realigns her shot, and squeezes again.  "I hope they flank quickly.  I only have so many solid rounds."  Exactly one more in the pipe. Then she's pulling the same loading drill Scott is.

Rawhide
Standing behind tree.  2x aimed shots
Remington 870 Overseer 4 w/reflex sight, powered
7/6 30 rounds remaining

Saul grins warmly at Cao before she heads out, genuinely impressed by her gesture.  "You know ma'am, I appreciate that.  I could call you Lauren.  But I probably won't.  I'm a southern gentleman at heart."  It's said gently, with genuine affection.  And, though he doesn't say it, he wants Lauren to feel that the command is hers.  Mentoring is a tricky art, and he's doing his level best to make sure she doesn't feel dominated by his presence.  It would be all too easy to do.

Leaving the burial detail to the more physically able, Saul makes is way back to the farmhouse in time to hear both Brienne's body function request and Scott's report of contact with their adversaries.

"I hope she likes pooping in a bucket," Saul mutters to himself.  He waves to Chevelle with a general "hang on a sec" motion and scrounges through the house for a minute, reemerging from the basement with blue plastic bucket and half a roll of toilet paper.

When he enters reenters the room with Chevelle and Brienne, he takes the anticipated dagger eyes in stride.  "Yeah, I get it," he says.  "Pooping in a bucket sucks.  But I can't spare the attention right now to take you out into the woods where you can have both a view and some privacy.  So the bad news is you get the bucket.  Chevelle gets the worse news, because you aren't going to get any privacy to get it done.  Apologies to you both."  Saul nods slowly and backs out of the room, convinced he's managed to make two ladies miserable. At least Lauren still likes him. One out of three is a hell of a career in baseball.

Picking up his pace further to keep up with Abbie, Nash managed to grunt between breaths. "Only if he spots us or is getting close to the bridge." While they could it made sense to close the distance before he spotted them as the fear of being caught would surely give Campbell a second wind.

Scott & Carissa

While Scott switches out buck for slugs, Carissa sends two of the latter downrange. After the first shot, she and Scott hear someone- presumably her target- cry out from across the clearing. (Carissa -2 12-gauge sabot slugs)

Meanwhile, Carswell leads a two-man flanking team (himself included) through the woods to the east of the reported clearing in an attempt to flank the hapless ambushers. The gunfire, from both sides, is clearly audible- the throaty BOOM of a shotgun and the sharper CRACK of ARs trading shots back and forth across the interstice.

Trackers (Abbie & Nash)

Abbie and Nash step out of the thick underbrush in order to close the distance to the fleeing Campbell. The runner looks over his shoulder again, seems to spot his pursuers, then runs towards the tree line ahead of him- this particular stretch running right up to the road. He doesn't have far to go, disappearing into the vegetation in a few strides.

Pony Express (Cao, Ho, Olivia)

Lauren, Ho, and Olivia climb into the cab of the former ARDOT pickup truck and set out towards the bridge. Olivia's got a lead foot and in less than a minute, Cao spots Abbie and Nash bout half-a-kilomter ahead on near the brush line south of the road (Abbie and Nash now hear the truck approaching). Campbell, on the other hand, is nowhere to be seen.

Farmhouse (Saul & Chevelle)

Brienne scowls, swipes the TP out of Saul's outstretched hand.

"And you're supposed to be the good guys? Thanks."

Chevelle echoes the prisoner, but her tone not-quite-as-sardonic, more good-natured, "Yeah, thanks, sir."

https://drive.google.com/open?...ZAW3&usp=sharing


Your Turn.

-
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:46, Sun 01 Mar 2020.

"Moving," Scott calls out.  He matches deed to word and crawls about five meters west, putting some distance between himself and Carissa in the unlikely event that the guys on the other side of the woods have explosives they haven't used yet.  He tucks himself behind the trunk of a large pine that appears to have come down in the recent hurricane.  "Doc, I'm clear on your last.  We'll keep 'em occupied.  Be advised, if we can push 'em toward Ironhorse, he'll solve the problem for us."

He leans around the splintered end of the pine trunk to get his bearings, re-identifies the slightly yellow-tinged bush just next to where the fire is originating from, and pulls back.  He gives it a minute, then pops up over the log and orients on any movement.

Scott
Scott
Beretta 1301 [3 slug, then 5 buckshot]
moving cover to cover
I'm up, aimed shot on movement or muzzle flashes, I'm down

"Huh," Carissa says quietly, half in disbelief, half in self-congratulations. "Got one."  Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Scott as he starts his move to cover.  "Go!" she calls out before reengaging target in front of her.  Only the first shell is a slug, the second to go is a round of OO buck, but her targets probably don't know that and hopefully the sound of all the metal blasting through the air will keep them occupied for a second or six.  With the second shot done, she pulls back around the tree.

"Reloading!"

Rawhide
Standing behind tree.  1x aimed shot (slug), one quick (OO)
Remington 870 Overseer 4 w/reflex sight, powered
5/6 30 rounds remaining (1 slug, 4 00)

"Well, I aim to please.  And usually disappoint," Saul quips back to the ladies in question.  "Let me know when she's done and I'll take care of it."  He steps backwards through the door and pulls it closed to give Brienne (and let's be honest here, himself) some privacy to do her business.  It's likely she didn't have any nefarious plan ready to go using bodily functions as an excuse, but after the "I'm an innocent prisoner" gambit, Saul doesn't really feel like giving her the benefit of the doubt.  The last thing Sierra needs with everything else going on is a their prisoner/victim taking a runner.

Saul doesn't go far.  Doesn't actually leave the doorway.  He stands, left hand on the knob of the door, ready to turn and push.  Right hand on the grip of his pistol, sitting in his holster.  Has your level of paranoia really come to this?  Or is it just easier to focus on this problem than the others?

Waving at the occupants of the Pony Express to get their attention, Nash then pointed at the bridge ahead, trying to indicate their destination. For further clarification he then got on the radio. "Talker to Falcon. He's in the woods ahead of us. Secure the bridge ahead. That's what he's heading for. Out."

He then turned to Abbie. "Let's take it slower now. He's gonna get desperate if they block his way out." Nash then continued advancing, SAW held tight in his shoulder like a large rifle, ready to engage.

Sat in the front passenger seat of the ARDOT truck, Lauren keys her radio to reply to Carterby. ”Talker, Falcon, copy that. Out.”

Letting the radio drop back against her LBE she turns to Olivia, points in the general direction of the road ahead, relatively confident that her driver knows the area far better than she does. ”Keep heading for the bridge.”

Twisting slightly in her seat - she’d fastened her seat belt just in case something unexpected happened - she turns to Ho. ”Once we get to the bridge you and I will get out and set up security. If we see him before the bridge Olivia can bring us in close and then we’ll dismount and try and detain him. At this point I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt so we don’t shoot unless it looks like he’s going to shoot at us first, OK?”

”Sexton, Doc, copy that.” Carswell replies to Guillory. The paramedic exhales, turns to Meadows, his voice low. ”So what did you do before all of this shit happened man?”Maybe his new found compadre was a retired U.S. Army Ranger. Or even a Park Ranger. Or something.

”I worked at the Days Inn in Monticello. I was the front office manager.”

Carswell nods. ”OK, here’s the plan. We’ll push up through the trees until we’re at the north east corner of the clearing. Then we open fire. Like we said, all we gotta do is push them towards the bikers. They can take care of them.” He’s hoping that if the deserters start taking fire from two directions they’ll bug out. Towards Red and his boys. ”We good?”

”Yessir, we’re good.”

”OK, let’s do it. I’ll take point.” Keeping his carbine at a low ready Carswell starts to move forward as the sound of firing continues off to his left, hoping to get to the NE corner, from where he and Meadows can engage the deserters with fire from their flank.

Carswell
Advancing towards NE corner of clearing
Hoping to get a clear shot at deserters and start engaging with multiple single shots to try and either a) kill them or b) encourage them to bug out
HK416 (30/30)
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:53, Wed 04 Mar 2020.

Team Bourbon Street

When Carissa leans out from behind her tree to send more lead downrange someone grabs her by the hair and yanks her head back hard. At least, that's what her mind tells her. In any case, she loses her balance, and her eyesight. The next thing she knows, she's lying on the forest floor, her head pounding. Her eyes are working again. She sees patches of blue skies through the leaves above. When she tries to sit up, she vomits, flops back down, and blacks out for a few seconds. When she comes to, the side of her face feels wet, warm.

As Carissa is going down, Scott pops up, notes a muzzle flash from the opposite tree-line, quickly lines up his shot, and squeezes the trigger. As he drops behind cover, something tells him that his slug hit home. (Scott -1 12-gauge slug)

Team medic and his militia comrade-at-arms execute their flanking attack. At 50m, Carswell spots his quarry through the trees. The man is preoccupied with his tormentors on the south side of the clearing, doesn't notice the danger. Gun up, Mike advances until he's confident he'll either hit his target or get spotted if he moves any closer, and opens fire. Two shots rings out; he sees puffs of dust and atomized blood erupt from the man's torso. As his first target falls, Mike spots and rapidly engages a second bandit. He keeps squeezing the trigger until this target drops too. Meadows is firing away from just off Carswell's right shoulder. A third bandit's screams are choked off as he's cut down by the militiaman's rapid fire. A little bit further on, a fourth bandit lies on his side, back to the Sierra/Jerome flankers; he's moving and his hands aren't visible. (Carswell -7 rounds 5.56mm)

Farmhouse

"She done!" Watkins calls from the bedroom. When Saul reenters, Brienne kicks the bucket across the floor, spewing urine and shit across the faux wood floor. Some of the piss splashes Saul's boots, Watkins' too.

Bridge over the Bayou

Pony Express arrives at the bridge- thanks to Olivia's lead foot, most certainly ahead of Campell. Nash and Abbie have retreating back into the brush, continuing to follow its edge towards the woods into which their AWOL teammate disappeared seconds before.

Now it's a waiting game. Either Campbell will emerge at the bridge or he won't. He knows he's being pursued, and he doesn't seem to want to talk about why. Abbie and Nash are really feeling the heat. Both men are dripping with sweat. The brush seems to capture the new day's growing heat. Campbell must be flagging too, especially after his recent sprint.

https://drive.google.com/open?...ZAW3&usp=sharing


Your Turn.

-

They had blocked the bridge with a vehicle so the next move was Campbell's. He was getting hemmed in but that might well make him desperate and prone to doing something really stupid. Well, even more stupid than he was already being. Maybe stupid enough to start firing if he thought that he was cornered and was frantically trying to escape. Pausing Abbie with a hand on the shoulder, Nash sucked in a couple of breaths and then spoke. "Let's stop here a sec. Have some water and get your breath back while I'll trying yelling to him."

While Abbie did so Nash let the SAW hang loosely on its strap and raised both hands to make a cone in the hope that it would make him louder and easier for Campbell to hear him. "Armand. Let's stop this running shit and talk. You haven't done anything wrong so you just need to talk to the Captain. Or me if you'd rather. Show yourself. No one is going to shoot at you."

Not unless he started shooting at them, he thought to himself as he waited for an answer.

Once Abbie had had a drink, Nash took one himself while his partner kept watch, the break doing a lot to calm his heart rate. He was getting a bit old for all this running around in the woods crap.

The barrel of Carswell’s carbine swings in the direction of the fourth man, the one that’s got his back to them. It would be easy enough to squeeze the trigger, put a couple of rounds in to him. But it wouldn’t be right. Even if the fucker might be headed for an appointment with a rope there’s still such a thing as due process.

”You on the ground!” He draws a bead on the dude’s center mass as he calls out. ”Show me your hands or I open fire!” The warning’s been given. Dude has one chance to cooperate. If he tries to screw around the medic will fire. He’s all for doing the right thing but there’s no point in taking chances.

Without taking his eyes off the deserter the paramedic calls over to his teammate. ”Meadows, keep covering the others.”

Carswell
Advancing towards NE corner of clearing
Calling on deserter to surrender
If he does as instructed will call it in to Sexton
HK416 (23/30)

”Ok, Olivia, park the truck so that it blocks the road. Then let’s secure this bridge.” Lauren remarks as Pony Express rolls up to the bridge. ”And remember, don’t shoot unless we’re fired upon. I’ve got two men out there tracking Campbell down.” Clearly they can’t go blazing away at anyone that they see coming towards the bridge.

Stepping down, the Air Force Captain reaches for her radio to give Carterby a quick SITREP. ”Talker, Falcon, we’re at the bridge. No Sign of Campbell. Out.” Taking her hand away from the radio she then starts to direct her squad. ”Ho, you go to that side -“ she points towards the rear of the truck. ”Olivia, you and I will take the front. We’ll keep the truck between us and him.” There was no point in taking any chances. ”Call out if you see him.”

Intent is to park truck across both lanes then use it as cover against any fire from the west bank

Bile fills Carissa's throat, a burning taste that wars with the burning sensation of her scalp for most uncomfortable sensation.  Then she opens her eyes again and the world takes on a distinctly yellow tint that stabs into her eyeballs and takes the clear lead in the pain department.  She barely manages to hold down a second round of vomiting.

Holy sweet fuck.  One time in her rodeo career, Carissa got thrown from a mustang and struck the fence to the collected "ohhhh!" from the audience.  This is reminiscent of that moment except the groans of the spectators have been replaced with cracking assault rifles that keep assaulting her ear drums.

"Owwww..." she manages before the precariousness of her situation comes to her.  Cover, get behind cover.   Takes quite a bit of willpower to roll behind a downed log, hoping that no one across the clearing saw the movement.

"I'm okay," she calls out to Guillory., just in case he saw her go down.  She's not fine, she's okay.  Hurt, but not done.

A quick assessment reveals a scalp wound, and worse, her favorite hat torn to shreds.

Amazing it took this long scraps it out with dad is going to be pissed for most irrelevant thought.

With the gun fight progressing, Carissa makes the executive decision that she's not going to bleed to death and reloads her shotgun.  She manages to only puke a little more with the effort.

Rawhide
Reloading behind cover
Feeling the pain

Rolling excrement and fluid sloshes across the floor, the heat immediately making it a putrid waste.

Saul sighs.  Girl is a goddamn delight.

"Your displeasure is noted," Saul says calmly.  He's had worse thrown at him.  Not much worse, but still.  Shit only stinks unless it's put on a sharp stick.  Inside, he's angry, but he's not going to let that leak out.  Discipline is an option.  He toys with making her clean it up, but to what end?  They're not staying here.  And it's just going to piss Brienne off worse.  Better to not give in.

The former cop turns to Watkins who is clearly put off by the whole show.  Rightfully so.  "We'll move her to another room," he tells Chevelle, ignoring the cause of the mess.  "Spare your nostrils that way.  I have no problem handcuffing her to the oven instead of a bed frame."  You're not going to get a rise out of me, please stop trying.

Chevelle is not amused. She looks back and forth between her tainted boots and a rather smug Brienne.

"You pull somethin' like that again, you gettin' the pepper spray, got that?" she warns the prisoner. Just ten minutes ago, she'd been acting meek, traumatized; now, she's gone into full on bitch mode and Chevelle's last nerve is pretty frayed.

"I mean it. You best start using yo' best manners or you ain't gonna like what happens next."

-

In reply to Lauren Cao (msg # 336):

"Talker to Falcon," Nash responded across the radio. "He's somewhere between my position and yours on the bridge. South side of the road and this side of the river. Somewhere in the woods between us. My guess is that he's gonna try to cut south to try and get away in that direction. We're gonna keep following his trail but we're taking it slower now, just in case he gets desperate and starts shooting. Over"

Having reported in Nash then turned to Abbie. "Break's over. Let's keep advancing and see if we can pick up his trail again from where he ducked off the path." He let Abbie lead again, and held his SAW ready to open up in case Campbell tried something.

Nash & Abbie

A voice calls out from within the thick brush up ahead. "I'll talk to you, Nash, but I ain't talkin' to the Cap'n! I just want out of this chickenshit outfit!"

Cao

The captain's team sets up a hasty roadblock on the east side of the bridge over Bayou Bartholomew. According to the local, it's the only bridge for miles. The lazy river is running about six inches higher than normal due to the recent heavy rains, but it's not very wide, and the current is not particularly strong. A decent swimmer should be able to cross it fairly easily.

Carswell

Back still turned, the last living marauder calls out, "I can't move my arm!" Mike notices that the man's upper right sleeve is dark with blood.

"I'm giving up! Don't shoot!", the wounded man yells. He rolls slowly on to his back, perhaps anticipating a bullet, raises his left arm, palm out. His right arm lays limply across his chest.

Carissa & Guillory

Carissa's fingers fumble a bit as she works to reloads her shotgun. Blood is running down her face, dripping on the fat green shells as slips them into the tube magazine loading port. She's feeling a bit light-headed. Guillory risks a peek over his log, but holds his fire as a flurry of shots from across the clearing, apparently not directed at him and his partner, abruptly tapers off.

Farmhouse

Watkins un-cuffs Brienne, walks her around the splashed excrement, and towards the kitchen. Down the hallway, the young woman is walking in front, her left arm behind her back, Watkins holding it firmly (but not roughly) by the wrist. Brienne suddenly throws her head back, aiming to crack her captor in the face. Watkins was anticipating some sort of shenanigan, so she's able to avoid the blow. She grabs Brienne around the neck and cranks her back, taking her down to the hard floor and landing on top of her. In her combat gear, the airman outweighs the sleight prisoner by about 50 pounds. Roughly now, Watkins cuffs Brienne's hands behind her back and starts to unholster her OC pepper spray...

"Argh! My fucking arm!"


Your Turn.

-
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:43, Sat 21 Mar 2020.

Carissa watches in detached fascination at the blood dropping off her face and forming small droplets on the leaves and shotgun shells on the ground.  She's aware that in the background, the gunfire has either slackened or dropped off entirely.  Taking advantage of the respite in fire, she hunkers herself father down below the log and tears open the first aid kit on her belt.  The worry for infection can come later.  For now, she just wants to stop the bleeding.  Slightly vibrating hands pull the trauma dressing apart and she pushes the white padding down on her scalp, getting rewarded with fresh stinging pain for her trouble.

"Found it," she mumbles.  It isn't easy to tie the dressing in place around her scalp, but she manages.  Mike or Scott can tie it better when there's time. At least there's less blood dripping on her face.

"We good?" she manages to Scott when her self care is complete.

Saul moves forward quickly, or as quickly as he can, and puts a gentle hand on Chevelle's arm before the military policewoman can bring her pepper spray to bear. "You've got her Chevelle," he says softly.  "I hardily agree with your decision to mace the shit out of our prisoner."  That's it, he's labeled her now. "But," he continues, "we're in a hallway and I don't want to gas out the whole house.  Stay on her for a moment."

Saul picks his way around the pile of women on the floor and parks himself by Brienne's face.  Anger and pain are pulsing out of her eyes.  "We're going to do this for form now," he says, kneeling down.  Years of law work and he's got the script down pat.  With an alteration or two.  "Brienne, you are under arrest for murder, terrorism, resisting arrest, assault, and strong arm robbery.  You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say can and will be used against you.  Given the reality of the world we live in, you have the right to ask for an attorney.  You probably won't find one."

With his right hand, Saul fishes out his own set of handcuffs.  He stands back up and crosses behind Chevelle one last time.  Grateful that Brienne has narrow angles, he locks her feet together.  She won't be walking anywhere, but that's kinda the point.

"Let's drag her out of here."

"Talker to Falcon," Nash transmitted. "He wants to talk to me about leaving. I reckon that he was a lot greener than we realised. I'll move forward a bit with Abbie covering. Over."

Turning round to glance at Abbie he then continue. "If the shit hits the fan then cover my ass as I get the hell out of there." Nash might have had a heavier weapon than Campbell but the other man was picking the terrain and Nash hoped that it didn't turn into a final stand.