Godlike - The Dying Days (Part 2)

Mission 2: Operation Cheese – the night of June 2nd 1944

As a follow-up to the previous night’s mission, the PCs are ordered to capture the American cryptographer being parachuted in to translate Jean-Philippe Gervon’s letter (now back in the hands of the Abwehr.

Unfortunately, Jerry’s poor hip required him to stay off active duty for a few days.

According to the maps recovered at the boulangerie-patisserie, the parachutist is going to be dropped into a farmer’s field about twelve miles northeast of Paris at approximately 0200 hrs.

The squad arrive at the drop zone at 2200 hrs, giving them a four hour window in which to subdue or eliminate any Maquis presence and then capture or kill the OSS agent as he lands.

The basic plan is that Spook takes on the appearance of a Resistance fighter and sets up a welcoming committee, lulling the parachutist into a false sense of security before the rest of the squad place him under arrest. As a contingency plan, Bullet is to offer sniper cover for the capture, and, if the alarm is raised while the parachutist is still on the way down, fly up and chloroform him.

The mission goes well to start with. The squad drive up to the general area in a truck, accompanied by a pair of non-Ubermensch Brandenburg Division commandoes, before approaching the farmhouse on foot.

There’s movement inside after the Germans knock on the door. They try forcing the door, only to find someone leaning on the other side. After a few moments of struggling, the threat is made that the squad will shoot through the door at whoever’s on the other side. The door opens, and an elderly Frenchman steps back, allowing them entrance to the one-room cottage. His wife sits on the bed in the far corner, looking nervous.

The Brandenburg regulars are sent to conceal the truck in the barn a few hundred metres further along the road, while the Ubermenschen search the house. A rifle and a revolver are found tucked down the side of the fireplace. Although not proof that the couple are members of the Resistance, they are placed under arrest anyway, and tied up to keep them out of the way.

Fool’s Mate uses his uncanny charisma to persuade Gaston the farmer, to the Frenchman’s mounting distress, to admit everything he knows about the planned parachute drop.

Six Resistance fighters are expected to meet the cryptographer, a Lieutenant Michael Anderson of the American OSS, and they will guide him down by torch. However, he is not privy to the passwords or future plans of the fighters.

When asked to name the Maquis welcoming committee, Gaston says that he only knows one name: Patrick St. Pierre. This causes the squad to relax a little – after all, the six-man cell are either dead or in Abwehr custody.

The regular soldiers return and are ordered to guard Gaston and his wife while Ubermenschen set up their trap, hiding in various patches of undergrowth, with Bullet up a tree. Fool’s Mate decides to remain in the farm house and go for an astral walk around the area. He finds nothing and returns to his body, deciding to rely on more conventional binoculars.

At around 0200 hrs, they hear the sound of an aeroplane passing overhead. Bullet keeps watch on the road to the south, in case of approaching Resistance fighters. He is the only one who does not see the flashing of a battery-powered torch from the bushes at the south side of the farm, close to the stream that forms part of the perimeter. Fool’s Mate determines that the flashes, although making up a regular pattern, are not in any code that his Hyperbrain can conceive.

Sturmdrang moves up to investigate, MP40 at the ready. As he approaches within about fifteen metres of the bush, he sees the glint of moonlight off a rifle barrel. He sees the flash of a muzzle flare and dives to one side, firing as he does so.

Unable to see the outcome of the gunfire in the darkness, and hearing the sound of an aircraft engine overhead, Spook moves to investigate. Fool’s Mate leaves his body again and starts walking across the fields towards the shrubbery.

Spook enters the undergrowth, Walther PPK in hand, to find an unhurt Sturmdrang standing over the baker’s wife, whose blouse is bloodied from a bullet wound in her chest. A rifle and a torch lie beside her. Sturmdrang seizes the rifle while Spook resumes flashing the signal up at the plane.

She is rewarded by the sight of a parachute opening.

Because they have no idea what the parachutist or the men in the plane may have seen of the gunfire, and because the team are out of position, Bullet takes it upon himself to intercept the parachutist in mid-air.

He flies up behind the American and pulls out the chloroform. The American detects him and pulls out a heavy automatic pistol … and drops it as the pad is pressed against his face and he falls limp. The pistol drops from his hands and falls through Fool’s Mate, who is standing several hundred feet below. Bullet carefully carries his prisoner down to the ground.

On searching him, they find that he’s wearing the uniform of the US 101st Airborne and his dogtags name him as Lieutenant Michael Anderson. So, it’s a POW camp rather than a firing squad. A search of the surrounding area finds a bicycle hidden in bushes to the south, presumably how the baker’s wife reached the farm.

Anderson and the baker’s wife are brought back to the farmhouse until the Brandenburg regulars can bring the truck from its hiding place in the barn.

There is the tramping of feet, and the door caves in under a heavy jackboot.

The squad look at the SS soldiers. The SS soldiers look at them, and at the corralled prisoners. They lower their MP40s

One of them turns to look out into the darkness and calls, “Fuhrer Kruger!”

Void mumbles, “Oh shit.”

Hauptsturmfuhrer Kruger shoves his way into the farmhouse and confronts Fool’s Mate. “What time did he drop?”

“Two o’clock,” Fool’s Mate replies.

“It was meant to be three o’clock,” Kruger says to himself. He scowls. “Klaes!” he bellows at one of the men outside. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

An SS Mann enters the farmhouse, blushes and says, “Time zones, Fuhrer Kruger. 0200 in Stalingrad. I’m sorry.” The Abwehr squad notice the Odal rune on his lapels.

Several of the Brandenburgers openly laugh. Others smirk. Fool’s Mate, of course, keeps a poker face and informs the furious Kruger that, as with the previous night, the prisoners are the responsibility of the Abwehr.

(Actually, in the game, Mann Klaes was confusing the German and French time zones, which, as I discovered today, are actually the same… oops! I assumed that because Britain and France have different time zones, so did France and Germany. That’ll teach me to improvise in-game, without fact-checking first. Stalingrad gives him a more interesting back story anyway.)

June 6th arrives, and the unthinkable happens. The Allies invade Normandy. It gets worse when, on the 7th, rumours start spreading that Konrad Rahn, the Aviator, the first known Ubermensch, has been shot down and killed near Banville.

Then other rumours suggest he was knocked from the sky by an enemy Ubermensch. More than one Abwehr soldier is removed from duty after spreading such seditious lies.

On the 8th, Rahn crash lands in Paris and is taken to the nearest hospital. Abwehr reports suggest that he is suffering from multiple broken bones, but no bullet or shrapnel wounds. The Aviator’s injuries cause him to be sedated and unable to be transported from the civilian hospital to a military facility.

The most famous man in the world (after, perhaps, Hitler) is lying helpless in a Paris hospital. Der Flieger is a sitting duck.