Storm at Sea

Log Title: Storm at Sea Characters: Alley-Viper 301, Cookie, Poise Location: Hampton Roads Date: August 7, 2018 TP: America Burning TP Summary: A strange boat out on choppy waters is found by Cobra and Joe forces at the same time. As logged by  Cookie Log session starting at 18:45:29 on Tuesday, 7 August 2018.

Outside, Hovercycle>  Thunder cracks as the sky rolls with long dark clouds. Out here in the deep Atlantic, the sky has darkened, leaving everything with a twilight feel. A massive squall is coming through, about four hours out from land, and it is enough to rip lesser boats to shreds...

Which is why Poise is out here, enjoying herself.

The waves kick up and surge, as she roars atop the water, occasionally splashing right through a small wave, and ramping up the larger ones. Of course the waves out here don't hit tidal wave status as they need a shallow depth for that sort of height (Thanks, Oceanography class!), but there's still significant peril for non-military vessels.

A flare hits the darkened sky a few miles away. About it, a single mast boat, rolling heavily on the sea, being tossed about by nature herself, like a ball being passed from one hand to the other. Surely the boat is in desperate peril.

Cookie is just trying out her new toy, riding the choppy waves and enjoying the stormy winds. Okay, it's not a toy. It's a serious piece of military hardware. Which is why any responsible Joe would test it out before there's a crisis.

Speaking of which... Cookie turns the Dragonfish and heads towards the flare.

Outside, Sky Serpent - Redfang 1> Perfect, the low profile of this craft had made it difficult for the Hydro-Vipers to track this craft, just the bouys that had been spotted and unceramoniously destroyed. Redfang 1 has its wings swung full forward and the rotors pointed to the front for maximum speed.

The flare allowed for visual scanners to focus, and then ID the ship. In the cockpit, Alley-Viper 301 leans back in his control couch, looking over the displays on the canopy HUD. "About bloody time..." he tags in information with a few key-presses and a bite of a toggle in his helmet, sending up triangulation data to D.C.

Outside, Hovercycle> Poise ramps another heavy wave, and her bracing "WAHOOOOO!" is enough to show her enjoyment of the rough weather. The wind rushes past her, as she and her cycle soar into the air, then hit the water, dunking into it for a second. Her mouth closes as she notes the flare in the distance, and veers that way. She thumbs a few holographic keys on her controls. Her sidecar pops up, showing a sophisticated sensor system, which may still have a bit of multicolored paint on it.

At the ship itself, crates are being knocked over, and there's three people on deck, using ropes to either save the cargo or save themselves. A wave crashes over the ship, and now two people remain as the boat lists heavily to the side. One woman raises the flare gun again, and sends out a second plea for help, a red star into the sky...

Cookie finds the radio on her vessel and calls the Coast Guard, but even if they have a boat nearby it's going to take them precious time to get here. Still, she calls in the coordinates. Late help is better than none. That done, she urges her little craft faster, ignoring the battering of the waves as she closes the distance.

As she approaches, Cookie lifts one hand and waves to the heeling craft.

Another flare  excellent further confirmation of position. Tapping a side control  301 adjusts his systems for terrain following - keeping the craft just over the height of the highest waves being shown on sensors... and then two more blips

"301 - command... I have vessels approaching target  attempting to identify..." More foolish deep water rovers? Rescue craft? Additional targets - here's hoping."

Outside, Hovercycle> There's little but the crashing din of the waves as Cookie approaches. The woman tries to speak, but cannot be heard. She motions to the man nearby, as they brace against the ship. Of course, what can one small Dragonfish do in this situation?

There's a splash from the side that rains over everyone, not that anybody can get much wetter, as a green hovercycle (with sidecar) comes up. Poise, wearing her full explorer's gear, meaning helmet and jumpsuit looks at the listing ship, and then it happens.

The ship rolls over, sending the people into the drink, and on the belly of the hull is a sonar device that shouldn't be there. Something fishy might be going on.

She says something incomprehensible at the Dragonfish, and points towards the ship, her craft gently going forward as she punches in something to her sensor suite.

GAME: Cookie PASSES an INTELLIGENCE roll of Very High difficulty.

Cookie looks up at the splash, and miracle of miracles, remembers the alien hovercycle being mentioned in the rather intense briefing just earlier this week. She waves to herself, then at the people in the water, indicating where her priorities lie.

That done, she carefully nudges her own tiny craft as close to the nearest human as she can, adjusting her grip so she can reach out for them.

GAME: Cookie PASSES a DEXTERITY roll of Average difficulty.

Outside, *PING* a sonar echo... on the Skyserpents own system. 301 sits up a little straighter and taps a few more keys. The internal servos of the craft humm as missiles are loaded into position and the chin gun begins to spin up. The Skyserpent raises altitude another five feet and thrusters engage, "Command, confirm sonar craft found. Engaging." He switches on active targeting, lining up the craft in his brackets.

Outside, Hovercycle> Poise putters on over to the other side of the capsized boat, and clips a safety line to herself as she stands up. The fool daredevil wasn't using one until now! She searches the other side for any sign of survivors, when her sensor system flashes a warning alert. She looks across to the Sky Serpent, hidden just behind a wave within sixty feet of her. She immediately slams on a paddle, causing her cycle to skim sideways, hopefully out of the vehicle's line of fire. The sensor drum rotates downward, and is replaced by a four barrel chain gun, with several optical attachments to it. Just in case this guy means to engage.

GAME: Cookie PASSES an INTELLIGENCE roll of Average difficulty.

Cookie drags one person aboard, loading the Dragonfish to its safe limit. But who needs to be safe? She nudges her craft towards her next potential rescue, looking up only when she catches a shadow rising from the water in her peripheral vision.

Vehement cursing gets swallowed by the wind, but people's lives are the first priority. Cookie returns to her original task, but keeps a wary eye on the Sky Serpent not far away.

Outside, The Sky Serpent's rotors flip upward, putting the craft in hover, but still easily within range to fire. The external speakers kick on with a brief burst of static before the pilot's voice can be heard, even over the roar of waves. "You are tresspassing in Sovereign waters. You are assisting a criminal craft and it is to be seized by this authority, and its' personnel are under arrest. You may provide life-preserver equipment to the overboard personnel and then must leave immediately upon arrival of Cobra rescue craft. Failure to comply will result in arrest, resistance will be met with extreme force..." The chin gun continues to spin, and several missiles swing into position, while 301 begins marking targets in brackets for a barrage.

[G.I. Joe] Poise says, "*garbled transmission*"

Outside, Hovercycle> Poise looks indignant at the Sky Serpent, not that it could make out her facial expressions. There could still be people in the hull, and he was going to fire on it! She was having no luck finding the terran's callsign, it had to be encrypted. Without much else she could do for Cookie, Poise attempts to catch her attention with a wave, holding a glowing sphere in her hand. The Nebulan points over to a certain area, then throws the glowing orb into the water. Hopefully, the message could get across. Then she turned back to the Sky Serpent and grimaced as she eyed the twin-rotor terran craft. Her thumb came up and flicked a switch. Her head tracked towards the craft, and her own gun followed. Poise had no want to start combat, but maybe she could at least draw fire away from the ship.

The Sky Serpent registers incoming fire as her chain gun whirs to life, and shoots a warning burst of fire at it.

"Like hell!" Cookie shouts when the Cobra vessel commands her to abandon the swimmers. Not that she can probably be heard from here, but the sentiment is there. She quickly double-checks the weapons on this thing. Heck, yeah, this thing is loaded. All weapons green, too. She delays long enough to throw a line to the second swimmer, then settles at the controls and targets the Sky Serpent.

Nobody could say she lacks courage.

Outside, Resistance! Armed resistance. Good. 301 jukes the stick as energy weapon fire rakes across part of his fuselage. Growling he taps the firing stud, letting missiles fly at both interfering vehicles, and even at the capsized vessel... If Cobra can't have it...

Outside, >> Sky Serpent - Redfang 1 misses Poise with Mini-Missile. <<

Outside, GAME: Poise FAILS a DEXTERITY roll of Above Average difficulty.

Outside,  Tiny missiles explode in the air as Poise's threat recognition matrix goes off, the autocannon fires at the mini-missiles headed her way, destroying those immediately in her sights. The ship, however, suffers as well, and the resulting explosion puts enough of a hole in the ship, that it immediately starts to sink beneath the waves. She growls, "Ugh! You'll pay for that! Get out of here!" Her chaingun keeps spinning, and fires back at the Sky Serpent again, a more sustained burst.

Outside, >> Poise strikes Sky Serpent - Redfang 1 with Ballistic . <<

Cookie holds steady on the rocking platform and readies.. the machine guns? Who puts machine guns on a jetski? Crazy ass SEALs, that's who. Well, they're her crazy ass SEALs now. And her stupid machine guns that she aims at the Cobra vehicle. She fires.

Outside, >> Dragonfish strikes Sky Serpent - Redfang 1 with Machineguns . <<

Outside, The ship is sunk, that's good at least, but the continued damage to the hull was setting off warning signals. Strafing the VTOL, attempting to circle the area, 301 starts to spiral in, opening up with the vulcan on the chin of his craft, swinging to try and rake fire across the bow of the dragonfish.

Outside, >> Sky Serpent - Redfang 1 misses Dragonfish with Machine-Gun . <<

Outside, Missing with his barrage, 301 guns the throttle as his sensors confirm the ship dropping below the surface, tagging sensor information about where and sending that to naval command. No point in fighting aliens and Joe's when the important work has been handled. The craft angles, dropping to terrain follow mode again, to use the waves for additional cover.

Outside, Poise stumbles as she looks over at the submerging craft, her hand comes up green. She blanches, then looks down at her thigh where her jumpsuit had been pierced by missile shrapnel.. "Oh...that's not good." She revs her craft over to the little standing craft and points down at her water flare, "My sensors detected someone down there! Down near the light. No idea if they're living or not but..." She shows off the green on her hand, "but I can't really do much about it."

Cookie nods. "If you have a long enough safety line, I'm willing to risk one dive, but you and these two need to get to shore. We can't hang around here."

Outside,  Poise says, "well lets not leave this undecided. I think at this point the chance of getting the downed person is an END roll"

Outside,  Poise says, "its got to be tough, so END=8 I think would be proper"

GAME: Cookie FAILS an ENDURANCE roll of Very High difficulty.

 Cookie says, "Yeah, that wasn't likely :)"

Outside,  Poise says, "makes it more tragic and unfortunate"

Outside,  Poise says, "see, I could've gone due to my space suit if I hadn't had it punctured, so there'd be no drama there"

Log session ending at 21:13:24 on Tuesday, 7 August 2018.