Longshore Crew session 5

Session 5 of the Longshore Crew campaign.

While the Longshore Crew were considering what they should do next, Travar got a phone call from George Sefanova, the NEL man. Goerge asked after Tom (the shot boy) and then George and Travar had a conversation where Travar failed to persuade George to turn himself in, and George outlined what a PR disaster the shootings in Keepsake could become for the GEO. Shortly after that, there was a report on CommCore about how GEO Patrol officers were involved in a shootout in Keepsake, and now one GEO officer was dead, and several others, including a young boy, were seriously injured. Travar contacted the GEO Communications office to put out a counter-statement.

Following some prompting from the Marshal, the Crew decided to raid and investigate the camp in the heart of the mangrove swamp. Together with the Marshal and his team, the Crew overflew the mangrove and managed to spot a boat partially hidden in the mangrove. They decided to land several kilometres from the camp and travelled there in boats.

About 300m short of the camp, everyone got out of the boats and started to sneak through the mangroves to the camp. Joe was first out of the boat, and got a burst of something like the Lesear effect, even though he'd been on Posiedon for a long time. As others got into the water, they also had the same feelings.

The Marshal's team went throught the mangroves faster than most, although Joe took a different route to gain a good sniping position. Jamirika approached the camp in the open water channel that led to it. Surveillance remotes revealed that George and two people from the hydrofoil (one wounded by Joe) were in the camp, resting in an open-walled barn full of bales. The crew decided to wait and, after a while, Hannibal appeared in the camp. A short while after that, their boat phoned the Crew with an intruder alert, which was quickly cut off. Before they could react, Jamirika was spotted by a person swimming in the water.

Jamirika gave chase, but not before the person in the water could raise the alarm in the camp. The uninjured member of the hydrofoil crew went for his gun, but was quickly dropped by sniper fire from Joe. Then the Marshal's team opened up with precision-guided suppression grenades and the Crew charged in. Everyone in the camp was quickly subuded, though the Marshal's team did have to enter the water to capture the person still fighting with Jamirika in the pool.

In an open pool near the camp were two boats: a Native cataraman and a ocean-going hydrofoil. The hydrofoil had a cetacean loader and some robot arms fitted to the back. Milo quickly surmised that they were for capturing, skinning, and dumping sunbursts. Meanwhile, other members of the Crew were questioning the prisoners, examining the boats, and confirming that the bales were sunburst skins. Movement in the bushes around the camp was revealed to be a hiding Gustav; he was arrested, but events overtook the Crew before they could question him properly.

A remote sent to where the boat was left saw an orange patch in the water, perhaps where the boat had sunk. Joe volunteered to investigate the boat, but hadn't gone far before there were explosions in the water at the camp and both boats blew up. Then an orca surfaced, popped a minigun out from its weapon harness, and started shooting up the camp. Between three and eight people also popped out of the water and started shooting. The Crew decided that it was time to beat a fighting retreat, and the left the area, taking Gustav with them.