"Abbie," said Nash, pausing briefly in their pursuit of Armand. "He's got a massive lead on us and I can hear the CVMC bikes revving up, making themselves known. The road's not far over to our left so what do you think about cutting up there and making better time to the Pony. We'll move a lot faster on the road."

"Hmmm." Abbie picks a long piece of grass and shoves the base into his mouth to chew on while mulls Nash's suggestion over. "I don't know...if he decides he can't get to Pony Express cause of the bikers, it's going to take a lot longer to catch up with him." Abbie considers for another moment until he's struck by an idea. "Can we have the bikers bring the truck up with 'em to the farmhouse? Then we won't have to worry about it and can have 'em help us find him."

”Copy that.” Carswell replies to Guillory before shifting his attention to what’s outside the vehicle, looking for any sign of the other two fugitives.

Carswell
Observing

Saul leans back in his chair, resting a little easier now, but still exhausted by Brienne.  "Chevelle," he calls out the other room, "I need you on the prisoner, please."  Prisoner, there's a charming thought.  When Watkins comes in, Saul stands and helps cover her while she cuffs Brienne and sits her back down at the table.  "Just keep her in here for a bit.  I need time to think," Saul advises Watkins.  "Brienne, thank you for your cooperation."  He doesn't really mean it, but polite form never hurts.  And if she's lying to him, at this point it's probably a stronger play if she believes she's won. Maybe.

Stepping outside to clear his head, Saul sits down on the small porch that now overlooks the grave site of the previous owners and sighs hard.  Rubs his eyes and temples.  Sighs again.  Cao is a little busy right now to be briefed on little miss law breaker, that means he's holding it all for now.  That's fine.  Fine.

But now what?  Brienne's as good as admitted to being a party to multiple armed robberies and they've basically got her to rights on accessory to two or more counts of murder.  So what kind of "justice" and law enforcement do they try and enforce here?  Scott will come down harsh, Saul is pretty sure.  Cao...unknown, but between the lies and the combat, probably not looking to good for Brienne there either.  Red and the boys have made no qualms about the harsh justice they've been handing down.  Sierra hasn't exactly been playing with kid-gloves either.  With the info Sierra has, they've got enough for Brienne to hang.  If they want and who would question them if they did?  The Grady folks are probably just going to be glad to walk with what they've already gotten away with.

Truth be told, Saul wants to advocate for her, but he doesn't know if it's because he's got a soft spot for young women in bad situations (having daughters will do that do you) or because he thinks Brienne is worth saving.  But to do what with? Lock her up for five years?  How does that even work?

His eyes fall on the grave site.  Wonders how many folks are under there.  Two?  Four?  One would be too many, but can he expect Brienne to have stood up to Reeves and the gang to stop them from the crime?  Does that even matter?

"Well that's what I get paid the big bucks for," Saul says.  The grave stands, a mute accusing finger.  "Yeah, I know.  We're getting most of them.  Sorry we weren't here sooner."  He stands back up and rubs his hip, feeling the blood head back to the joint.  He'll see if they get any prisoners.  Go with collecting more information.  But if the entire Reeves gang goes down hard, the locals are going to need someone to pay for the crimes in person.

Carissa's nerves re-ignite at the sight of their quarry.  While the SUV repositions, Carissa keeps her eyes glued to the spot they disappeared.  It's a little difficult with the turns, but with marking a few trees for reference, she figures she's got a pretty good grip on where the marauders went.  "I've got where they went back into the trees," she says to Scott.  Her fingers tap lights on the barrel of the shotgun braced between her legs.

Lauren has set up her command post in the kitchen. Command post is something of a misnomer. The Air Force Captain is perched on a stool at what would have once been the breakfast bar, trying to ignore the frat house smell that wafts through the place every now and then. She’s taken her helmet off - pity Scott isn’t there to see it - and it’s now sitting upside down on the bar together with her carbine, taking up the space where in happier times the house’s occupants would have had their cornflakes and orange juice.

A solitary Jerome militiaman is keeping her company as she listens to the transmissions going backwards and forwards over the radio network. Or, more accurately, a solitary militia woman, in this case a bespectacled young lady called Olivia who’s the sister of the former TSA screener and looks like she should maybe be a Freshman in College. Or maybe a Sophomore.  If it wasn’t for the AR clone that she was holding with what appeared to Lauren to be some degree of familiarity.

”You know this Brienne?” she asks her - bodyguard? Yep, that probably covers it. She gets a shake of the head in response. ”No, Ma’am.” Lauren nods, one ear listening to the interchange between Guillory and Ironhorse. Word had spread quickly enough that the woman that they’d thought was a victim might not be. Or at least not in the way that they had initially thought. What happened to her next Lauren really didn’t know. Technically this particular operation is under military primacy. Which equates to her. And clearly Reeves and his men - at least the ones still alive if they’re captured rather than killed, which is a big of at the moment - are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. But given the deal worked out locally between the Air Force and the State in Arkansas convention would probably be to hand any civilian prisoners over to the appropriate authorities for processing after the operation is over. Which is Scott.

So she’s got an out, can pass the buck, boot the problem upstairs so to speak. But she’s not sure how she feels about that. She probably won’t know until she’s spoken to the prisoner / victim herself. But that will need to wait until later.

”Perimeter is set up.” It’s the former PLA soldier that speaks, reentering the kitchen. ”And I had two of my men move the body. It’s in a back room, covered up.” He’s referring to the dead body in the front room.

Lauren nods. ”Good job.” There’s a brief pause. She’s five feet away from a Chinese soldier. Former Chinese soldier. A Communist. She can feel the silence start to stretch. #Awkward. ”I’m Captain Cao. What’s your name?”

”Ho.” He replies, nods, adds with perhaps the hint of a smile. ”Captain Ho. Pleased to meet you, Captain.”
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:22, Thu 13 Feb 2020.

"Copy that," Scott responds noncommittally.  He gives the situation a few seconds' thought, then: "I really want these assholes but there's two more out there who we haven't seen and I don't want to get blue-on-blued by our biker friends.  I'll take suggestions."

"Yea, that's a good idea," Nash replied with a nod. "I'll call it in."

Pressing the transmit button on his radio he then broadcast. "Talker to Garryowen. Can you move the Pony Express up to the farmhouse?" Even though it was framed as a question it was really an instruction. He didn't pause for an answer. "Break. Talker to Falcon. Target is still moving fast so we're getting Garryowen to move the Pony Express up to the farmhouse while we continue tracking him. Over," he continued transmitting, updating their CO.

As he waited for any responses over the radio, Nash turned back to Abbie. "OK, lead us off again. Let's try to make a quicker pace for a couple of minutes to catch up a little."

Trackers

"Will do, Talker," the biker coms-man replies. Abbie and Nash resume pushing through the broken brush, following Carter's trail.  After a few minutes, the biker convoy passes them in the other direction, Pony Express in tow, moving slowly.

Bourbon Street & Razorback

Following Guillory's instructions, the militia wheel-man drives the unmarked police SUV off of the dirt access road and on to the overgrown power line right-of-way and starts pushing east-northeast. Skillins, meanwhile, brings Razorback up to the edge of the right-of-way to provide over-watch.

The militia driver takes it slowly, trying to follow a set up slightly rutted tire tracks that cuts through the overgrowth. To the pursuers, the pace feels glacially slow. It's not hard to imagine the fleeing marauders opening up another big lead. Finally, the Suburban arrives near where Carissa and Carswell spotted the bandits crossing the clear strip. Thankfully, it's not met with gunfire. As Guillory opens his door, he hears the rumble of motorcyle engines to the north, carrying through the thickening air. If he can hear them over the Suburban's idling multi-fuel engine, then the fleeing bandits certainly can too.

Farmhouse

With Watkins watching Brienne, Saul steps into the backyard to think. The air still smells like burning rubber. If the two bandit corpses lying on the front lawn- one of them supposedly Reeves'- aren't buried soon, they'll certainly start to stink even worse.

Cao gets to know her Chinese counterpart. "Cao... is that Vietnamese?" he asks. When Cao answers in the affirmative, Ho smiles, confides, "I was captured near Hanoi. Do you speak the language? I do, a little."

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


Your Turn.

-

Carissa cracks her door open when Scott does, then steps out into the hot Arkansas sun.  The brief break under the SUVs A/C immediately surrenders to a renewed onslaught of body armor contained sweat.  She's going to need a bath when this is over.  Or just hide behind the fact that everyone else smells like a barnyard of adrenaline and work as well.  When her ears pick up the sound of the CVMC boys rolling to their north, the farm girl nods.  With any luck, the runners are starting to get frustrated with the constant pursuit.  That's a good thing, except that maybe Sierra is going to have to follow them into the trees and dig them out.  Which would not be easy.

Without wasting any more time, Carissa hustles to the treeline about where she thinks the raiders went back into the woods and starts looking for a trail.  She's not much of a hunter, but with any luck, the folks they're chasing had better things to do than try to conceal evidence of their passing.

Saul meanders around the front of the house, still trying to piece it all together when he comes upon the rest of the dead "shit heads."  Might as well take some concrete action for now, he muses.  Nobody like burial detail, but people dislike disease and rot more.  He casts about for a few of the Jerome locals that look promising and asks for help.

"I know it's not fun," he tells the locals, "but the only thing these folks are going to be good for any more is fertilizer.  We've got these two on the lawn and two more inside the house that we need to get done with before the rot sets in and the smell gets any worse.  We'll bury'em unmarked. One pit.  And far enough from the people that lived here that maybe the innocent can rest in peace."

Abbie stops and listens to the small convoy pass him and Nash, heading in the opposite direction. While stopped, he reaches down and knocks a stubborn burr off of the knee of his loose-fitting BDU pants.

Wiping some sweat from his brow under his OCP boonie hat, Abbie turns to Nash, "We'll run into him sooner or later; the truck heading back the other direction'll have him spooked. I reckon he's deciding one of two things right now. Does he follow the truck back to the house and pray for an opening? Or does he risk heading back to the that small town we passed on the way here and hope they have a working vehicle he can steal." Abbie considers the question himself for a moment before continuing, "If it were me, I'd swing back around after our truck. He knows it's working, it's got supplies, and it has gas. Any of the small towns around here'll likely have their guard up, being mighty insular and all that. They won't take kindly to a shifty looking outsider, either. And if he does swing back our way, we best be ready for him."

With that last sentence, Abbie raises his M4 into more a ready position and sets off again. He hopes things won't come to that, but Campbell's already running like a scared squirrel - who knows what that boy was capable of when desperate.

Abbie Clark
Campbell's trail through the wilderness
M4A1 5.56mmN 27/30
Following Campbell. If Campbell is seen, Abbie will call out to him in a friendly tone, asking him to talk. If Campbell raises a weapon toward him or Nash, Abbie will try to take cover but still try to talk him down first. If Campbell starts shooting, he'll take cover and return fire.

”Vâng, tôi nói tiếng Việt.” Lauren replies in flawless Vietnamese. Yes, I speak Vietnamese. ”I’ve never been to Vietnam.” She immediately lapses back into English, although she’s not really sure why. Maybe she doesn’t want it to look like she’s fraternising with the enemy. Even although Ho isn’t actually her enemy any more. On the contrary, they’re on the same side now, their mutual enemy people like Reeves. Lauren’s struck by the irony of the situation. She’s joined forces with Chinese troops - Communists - to fight Americans. But then the Chinese hadn’t killed locals, committed God knows what other crimes. A small part of Lauren’s world had been turned upside down.

She had never been to Vietnam. When the United States had first committed troops to assist the Socialist Republic of Vietnam - their new found ally, under the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend - against the invading Chinese she’d volunteered of course. But despite the fact that she spoke fluent Vietnamese for whatever reason she’d not been accepted. Maybe the people that decided these things thought that her background made her unsuitable, that her family lineage might have made things awkward. Maybe.

”This is my second time in America.” Ho offers, unprompted, the Chinese man’s mouth then curling into a grin. ”Although this time is very different from the last time. First time I was a student, spent a year at the University of Michigan.” Now the grin becomes a laugh. ”Go Wolverines!”

Despite herself, Lauren can’t help but smile as she keeps one ear alert for any transmissions on the radio, but the airwaves are quiet. She’s not sure where Saul is. Behind her Olivia continues to stand sentinel as Ho continues to speak. ”So what happens next, Captain? After you put in your report?” His tone has grown altogether more serious.

”I don’t know.” Lauren replies. It’s not an untruthful answer. This is above her pay grade. Strictly speaking Ho and his men were escaped enemy prisoners of War. Even if the circumstances were somewhat unusual.  ”But we should be able to work something out.” It’s the best she can do at the moment.

"Be ready in case they double back," Scott advises Mike.  He pauses and grins humorlessly.  "But check your target ID in case we double back."  The addition is more for the benefit of the militiaman behind Bourbon Street's wheel.

He moves to sling his carbine, then pauses and eyes the terrain.  The woods in summer don't accommodate a lot of long shots and friendlies are operating on the other side of the woods.  He pops the SUV's rear hatch and digs into his rifle case.  It's a matter of thirty seconds to swap out the ammo placard clipped to his armor, and less to safe and clear his AR and slide out the shotgun in its place.  He racks a round of buckshot into the chamber and tops off the tube as he moves to join Carissa.

"Sexton checking Ironhorse.  We're sending a team of two into the woods to try to push the subjects toward you.  Over."  He doesn't bother to add any additional admonitions about checking targets before opening fire.  Most of the bikers have been in at least as many gunfights as he has, if not more.

With that, he moves into the foliage, eyes out for the trail of his prey.

Abbie & Nash

The trackers continue following Campbell's trail, ready, though, in case the AWOL Sierra doubles back to go after Pony Express. They push on for five minutes without running into him, then ten. Unless he somehow slipped past them (and his trail says otherwise), he's still heading northeast, towards the bridge over Bayou Bartholomew.

Carissa & Guillory

"Roger that Sexton. Standby." Half-a-minute later, Red continues, "We're gonna set up an ambush line on the north side of this access road, near the bend, be the anvil to your hammer. Over."

Stepping off the grassy right-of-way into the trees, Guillory catches the fugitives' trail first and keys Carissa in on it. Once she's got it, it's not very hard to follow. The bandits are moving fast but flagging, as evidenced by the longer drag marks their boots are leaving, and the decreasing distance between them. And it appears that there are more than two of the bad guys up ahead. The two Sierras arrive at a clearing. They no longer hear the staccato growl of motorcycle engines. The trail exits the trees, presumably proceeding across the brushy clearing, which appears to be about 85m wide at its narrowest point. Guillory and Carissa scan the tree line opposite, looking for signs of their quarry, but spot none.

Farmhouse

The rumble of motorcycle engines signals the arrival of the CVMC's first squad, Pony Express in tow. The militiamen begin digging a pit for the three marauders lying dead in the yard (the driver of the truck is a vaguely person-shaped lump of smoking carbon). The Jerome natives are a bit salty about being assigned to burial detail, but the Chinese ex-POWs seem to understand the importance of task at hand, and get to work without complaint.

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


Your Turn.

-
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:24, Sat 22 Feb 2020.

Scott uncoils the earpiece from his pocket, plugs it into his radio's handset, and screws the speaker into his right ear with a grimace.  "Sexton copies all."

At the edge of the clearing, he takes a knee, slits his eyes, and scans the grass and undergrowth from a lower angle.  The trail definitely crosses the clearing but the distance is far too great for him to trace it all the way across.  "Fuck a whole bunch of walking into an ambush," he tells Carissa.  "Let's pick up the trail on the far side."  He lifts his support hand from the shotgun to indicate a counterclockwise track, the direction which will keep a right-handed shooter's muzzle pointed toward the far treeline.

"He must be heading to that small town," Nash said to Abbie, based on the direction that Campbell's tracks were still heading in. "I'd have done the same as you suggested and tried to loop in behind the vehicles but it seems Armand is just intent on getting away from here. I wonder why?" Though he asked the question it was more rhetorical than one that he expected Abbie to be able to answer. "He must be aiming towards the bridge over Bayou Bartholomew that we crossed coming the other way earlier on. I'll call in a SITREP."

Pressing the button on his radio he transmitted. "Talker to Falcon. SITREP. Garryowen is well on his way to you. We're continuing with our tracking. Looks like our target is heading fast for the bridge over that last river we crossed. We're proceeding to there and will update you accordingly. Over." He wasn't sure whether Captain Cao wanted them to continue with their patrol so he assumed that they would carry on unless instructed otherwise.

In reply to Nashoba 'Nash' Carterby (msg # 311):

"Yep. I think you're right, sarge." Abbie keeps his eyes locked on the trail like a bloodhound hunting down an escaped convict. They were getting close. Abbie felt like he could almost smell Campbell at this point.

The more time that passes, the more Abbie comes to the conclusion that Campbell has just gone AWOL. Someone like that could be really dangerous if they got cornered or felt desperate, and it made Abbie's skin itch. "If he did cross the bridge, I don't much fancy trying to cross it after him just in case he decides to hang out right on the other side waiting for us. That's a whole lot of ugly open ground to try to cross."

Lauren Cao has always been impatient. It’s a character trait. If she has to do something she has to do it right now, can’t wait until later. Some might call her impetuous. After the battle of Carthage a Texas Guard Colonel had called her a lot worse than that after she’d pushed her unit on too far, got cut off by Allianza forces, had had to have her ass hauled out of the fire before she - and her troops - could be overrun.

A hand reaches for her radio. ”Talker, Falcon, copy that, Garryowen is almost here. Stand by.” She takes her finger off the PTT switch, looks over at Olivia. ”You know the bridge he’s talking about?”

”I guess he means the one over the Bayou, on the 82.” The young woman replies, not adding a Ma’am this time. ”You cross it going from here to Montrose.”

Lauren nods. Campbell has a head start on Clark and Carterby so if he’s headed straight for the bridge there’s a fair chance he’ll get there before them. Particularly since Carterby had said that Campbell was moving fast.

”Talker, Falcon, I’m going to take a squad and head for the bridge, try and intercept him before he gets there. We’ll use Pony Express. We can pick you up en route or you can carry on on foot. Break.” Her mind is made up. There’s nothing at the house that requires her immediate attention. Saul has everything under control and all she’s been doing for the last five minutes is monitoring a radio and making small talk with Ho. ”Sexton, Falcon, I’m going mobile. If you need anything here coordinate with Gimp. Over.”

Picking up her carbine she looks over to Olivia and Ho. ’You two are with me. We don’t know for sure what’s happening but one of my men has gone AWOL so we’re trying to track him down. We’ll roll when Pony Express gets here. I just need to bring Saul up to speed.”

Leaving her new squad to await the arrival of the bikers and Pony Express, Lauren then goes in search of Saul. ”I’m going to go and help look for Campbell.” She advises the former cop when she’s located him. ”You take charge here.”

Nash listened to Captain Cao's response and plan and then replied. "Talker to Falcon. We're getting close to the bridge already so we'll keep heading there on foot and if we beat you there then we'll start observing it. If we hear Pony Express go passed us then I'll let you know. Out."

He then updated Abbie. "Cao's coming in Pony Express with some troops to back us up. Let's see if we get to the bridge first so that we can observe it as you're right, it's a classic place for an ambush. One man with a rifle isn't going to try anything against a vehicle though."

While strait force on force combat hasn't been Carissa's forte so far, she's finding that she's a quick study to the concept.  And she doesn't want to walk across 90 yards of open field any more than Scott does.  Especially when they're both carrying shotguns.

"We might as well being throwing rocks, we get caught out there," she says to Guillory, raising the barrel of her weapon in acknowledgment of their limits.  Like the gun toting lawyer, she kneels and eyeballs the far trees, tries to mark the likely spot the trail goes back into the far woods.  "Lead on."
This message was last edited by the player at 17:53, Sat 22 Feb 2020.

Saul leans on the shovel he's been trying to turn dirt with, rather unsuccessfully.  Just hurts too much.  He suspects that if he were to give the slightest hint, the tool would be taken from him by a much younger and fitter Chinese man.  The whole 'respect for your elders' thing being no small part of it.  He's also only really slowing down the operation.

"Yeah," he says to Cao, "I'll take operations here.  That's no problem."  He pauses, coming off the tool which is deftly taken by the younger and fitter man in question who starts using it with more success than Saul would have managed in an hour.  He leads the Captain a little bit away from the digging party.  "But I gotta say ma'am, you should probably figure out what your end game is before you get there.  We've known this guy for like six minutes, he wants to scoot, might not be our concern.  Might just be he wants to scoot.  Not telling you what to do here, just considering the options before we get side tracked or end up in a totally optional shooting match.  We've got folks in the field against known combatants and our runner is taking a lot of attention at the moment."

”You’re probably right.” Lauren nods in agreement with Saul as she puts on her sunglasses. Her helmet is nestled against her hip, secured to her LBE vest by a MOLLE strap. Her obsession about ensuring everyone wears their helmets notwithstanding, the thought of putting it on when Ho and Olivia are going to have to make do with what they’ve got isn’t sitting well with her. Scott would probably have a field day. It’s a follow up point, one they need to look at after they’ve dealt with the current problem. If they’re going to work with local militias it’s incumbent on them to do what they can to get those militias properly equipped. They could probably make a start by handing over any kit recovered from Reeves and his men.

”But we brought Campbell here. That makes him our concern. My concern. If he’s gone rogue and ends up causing trouble we own that as far as I’m concerned.” Her eyes now hidden behind the polarized lenses of her ballistic sunglasses she offers the older man a smile. Her tone is warm despite the fact that she’s essentially disregarding the advice that he’s offering. Hopefully that won’t come back to bite her on the ass. But she feels responsible for Campbell. And any future actions he might take. So she’s not going to be dissuaded.

”So far he hasn’t actually done anything wrong. Except go walkabout. Hopefully it will stay that way and we can deal with this without anyone getting hurt.” Still smiling, she then adds. “Oh, and Saul, you know you can call me Lauren.”

Abbie & Nash

With word that Cao is on the way with backup in the unit's pickup trick, the trackers step up their pace. The trail starts to angle more northerly, finally emerging from the thickets bordering an overgrown field that runs along the highway. The trackers follow the lane of matted grass with their eyes, spot a figure- presumably, Cambpell- jogging in the direction of the bridge. He's got about a 300m lead; it looks like he has about a kilometer to go to the river crossing. As Abbie and Nash watch, Campbell flags, starts walking, hand clutching his side. He glances over his left shoulder, but he's looking to the road, not the bush from which the trackers are watching.

Guillory & C. Noble

As the Sierras cut east, electing to follow the treeline around the clearing instead of walking across it, gunshots ring out. At least one round passes between Scott and Carissa, severing a sapling at about waist height. Glancing left, Carissa sees the faint glimmer of a muzzle flash in the opposite tree line, about 100m away. It sounds like two or three rifles firing rapid single shots.

Jones' Homestead

With the militia handling burial duty, the bikers take over on the perimeter.

Watkins pokes her head out of the bedroom, says, "Girlfriend say she gotta take a piss,"

"Shit!" the unseen Brienne shouts, in clarification.


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


Your Turn.

-
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:58, Sat 22 Feb 2020.

"Let's keep the pace up to try to close the distance on him," muttered Nash to Abbie beside him. He was feeling the exertion himself but it looked like Campbell, and he was starting to think of him as Campbell rather than Armand, was suffering worse than he was. The fleeing man had clearly run hard for a long time and had some kind of stitch as a result. "Hopefully we can stop him crossing the bridge and find out what the hell is going on."

As he tried to catch Campbell up Nash listened out for the sound of vehicle approaching along the road.