Godlike - The Dying Days (Part 3)
Mission 3: Operation Grapes, 11th June 1944
The enemy have started to carve out a beachhead in France. Things aren’t too bad for the Brandenburgers though, since Paris is some distance from the front line… for now. There are more important things to worry about though.
On the 8th June, Schutze Konrad Ottman, a.k.a. Void, receives redeployment orders, sending him to Finland. Officially, this is because High Command believe that the Finns need Ubermensch support to hold off the impending Russian invasion.
Void is less convinced, as the truck that arrives to carry him eastward is emblazoned with the twin-lightning strikes of the SS. Kruger’s revenge deprives the squad of their Zed Talent. This could come back to haunt them at some point in the future.
On 9th June, the Red Army invades Finland and smashes the Finnish army and its German allies. Void’s in for a fun trip, but that’s fine, because he’s an NPC now. (Ricky found that his reluctant Zed wasn’t the most fun character to play, so spent this session coming up with a replacement.)
Despite his personal loathing for the flying arrogant son of a bitch, Admiral Canaris appreciates the disastrous effect on morale should Konrad Rahn, The Aviator, be assassinated in his hospital bed. Since The Aviator flew publicly into the city, and since the SS, as unimaginative as ever, have beefed up security around the hospital in which he is being treated, rather than attempting to conceal the Ubermensch’s presence and vulnerability, Canaris orders the squad to join the sentry detail.
In addition to around thirty Waffen-SS soldiers, the SS assign their own ubermensch, an SS-Untersturmfuhrer (lieutenant) by the codename of Dante, who remains at The Aviator’s side at all times. The realisation that there are four fire extinguishers in the small side-room gives Fool’s Mate and company a clue as to what Dante’s abilities entail, although he refuses to share any specifics, citing military secrecy with an arrogant curl of his lip.
Rahn’s injuries prevent him from being moved to a different room, so Spook takes on his appearance and lies in a hospital bed. Unfortunately, since she is imitating the wounded Aviator, she is unable to take any part in the operation without blowing her cover, and needs to be sedated for the pain. (Okay, Erfalaswen was away this session, and the plan was made the week before.)
Sturmdrang takes up a sentry position outside Spook’s room over the first night, while Bullet hangs about in one of the SS MG42 nests on the roof of the hospital. At around 0200 hours, eighteen SS men completely fail to pass any Sense + Hearing rolls and get shot, stabbed and/or beaten to death.
Bullet is the first to notice something is awry, when he spots a pair of hospital orderlies standing in the other machine gun nest, along with a pair of uniformed feet jutting out from behind the sandbags. Before he can react, the MG42 has been brought to bear and peppers his own nest with bullets. One smashes through his arm, ripping out a hefty chunk of flesh and leaving him lying between a pair of ammo crates.
The noise alerts the rest of the squad, who emerge from their side-rooms and spot a group of gunmen in hospital uniform creeping along the corridor at the other side of the hospital courtyard. Firing recklessly through the windows from one side of the yard to the other, the squad takes down at least two of the suspected Maquis.
Sturmdrang, confident that most of the Maquis are dead, separates from the squad and goes to finish off the survivors. He is confronted on the corridor by a ‘doctor’ holding an MP40. The world slips into slow-motion as he weaves around the bullets. There’s no time to admire the ripples in the air as they pass over him, as he aims and returns fire. The Frenchman stumbles to the floor and falls still.
Meanwhile, the rest of the squad are hit from another angle by a trio of fighters who spray gunfire in through the window. Fool’s Mate manages to order one of them to shoot himself, and another throws his gun away to avoid doing the same. Jerry levels his MG42s at the window and opens fire. One of the Maquis ducks. The other smiles and casually sidesteps dozens of bullets, one after the other, without breaking a sweat. Something about him, an aura, a glow, a tang in the air, screams TALENT! He fires a Sten back at the squad, who dive for cover.
On the roof, Bullet grits his teeth and ties a length of shredded tunic around his wounded arm. Blinking back tears, he levels his PPK at the Maquis fighters in the other machinegun nest and takes them both out with lucky headshots, one after the other. Hearing the automatic fire coming from the hospital grounds below, he looks over the edge of the roof and sees the French Talent laughing as he avoids another flurry of gunfire. He heaves a grenade down into the Maquis men.
The Talent doesn’t stand a chance. The grenade hurls him through the air in three pieces. His comrade is shielded from most of the blast and is barely shaken. He retrieves his revolver and fires a shot up at Bullet, who ducks back, unwilling to be shot again.
Irritated by the French Talent’s avoidance of his shooting, Jerry storms towards the window. Guessing where the last Maquis is crouching, he punches his hands through the wall and drags him back. Hard. Concussed by the surprise attack, the Frenchman gives up.
Sturmdrang steps over his kill and moves to investigate the rest of the Maquis the squad fired on. Two bodies lie on the linoleum, covered in shattered glass and masonry, blood pools spreading around them. A ‘nurse’ lies beside them, groaning from a leg wound.
“Surrender!” Sturmdrang barks and crouches down, his MP40 trained on her.
She grins and shoots him with a Luger concealed beneath her skirt. As Sturmdrang registers the pain in his arm and stumbles backwards, he realises that the pistol didn’t make any noise. There’s that intensity in the air that says that there is another ubermensch present. Or an uberfrau. He shoots her dead.
Later investigation reveals that seventeen of the thirty SS soldiers guarding the hospital have been murdered, some by knives, but others by bursts of fully automatic fire – yet nobody heard anything. While being treated by the doctors, Sturmdrang reports his experience with the Maquis woman. Fool’s Mate takes the concussed survivor into the ward consultant’s office and has a ‘friendly conversation’ with him. A few Hypercommands later and the man is in tears, having revealed the identities of every fighter involved in the operation, and also that the mission was an opportunistic strike on the life of Konrad Rahn, rather than an attack ordered from a higher cell within the Resistance.
Dante thanks the squad for their assistance and, once Admiral Canaris has kindly replaced the dead SS men with more trusted and alert Brandenburg commandoes, and 'secretly smuggled' Spook in the guise of Konrad Rahn, out of the hospital (i.e. let enough people know that he's gone so that it becomes common knowledge by morning), the squad retires for the rest of the night.
posted by Richard @ 3/21/2005 09:27:00 PM
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