[RP] Turn 5, 1312 Kowloon

[Dave Baughman]

"Kowloon Control, this is FSS Coeur de Lion, transporting Marshal Victor Ian Steiner-Davion and his honor guard. We have brought aid supplies and request permission to land and render assistance."

[chaosxtreme]

FWL Init
[blockquote]Rolled 2d6 : 1, 3, total 4[/blockquote]

[Fatebringer]

ND Initiative

[blockquote]Rolled 2d6 : 6, 3, total 9[/blockquote]

[Fatebringer]

A steady stream of jump signatures began to form like a procession.  The first ship to materialize was a battlecruiser. An Indigo-violet distortion wave swept thru the heavens as the red, white and black form of a Kirishima emerged.



The vessel may have been Kuritan built, vessel had flown another flag for most of it's exhistance. Other ships followed, most of them were smaller than the Kirishima but also of Draconis Combine origin with the exception of a large and very robust Potemkin.

The numerous dropships attached along the Potemkin's outter hull were a mix of aerodyne and spheroid designs. As the ships lingered they detached forming a buffer zone around the fleet. Slowly, their IFF markers came on line identifyed them as New Dominion vessels.

Despite the assurances of the Kowloonese that the Leviathan II was elsewhere, the fleet began scanning the system to see who else was in system.

"Kowloon Control, I am Star Admiral, commander of the Blood Raven. I bring with me my Hellgate Assault Star. Our intentions are honorable as we plan on holding at your Nadir Jump point and recharge while a New Dominion delegation heads planetside. For this purpose, we request safcon for thirty dropships to enter the planetary atmosphere."

[Cannonshop]

A steady stream of jump signatures began to form like a procession.  The first ship to materialize was a battlecruiser. An Indigo-violet distortion wave swept thru the heavens as the red, white and black form of a Kirishima emerged.



The vessel may have been Kuritan built, vessel had flown another flag for most of it's exhistance. Other ships followed, most of them were smaller than the Kirishima but also of Draconis Combine origin with the exception of a large and very robust Potemkin.

The numerous dropships attached along the Potemkin's outter hull were a mix of aerodyne and spheroid designs. As the ships lingered they detached forming a buffer zone around the fleet. Slowly, their IFF markers came on line identifyed them as New Dominion vessels.

Despite the assurances of the Kowloonese that the Leviathan II was elsewhere, the fleet began scanning the system to see who else was in system.

"Kowloon Control, I am Star Admiral, commander of the Blood Raven. I bring with me my Hellgate Assault Star. Our intentions are honorable as we plan on holding at your Nadir Jump point and recharge while a New Dominion delegation heads planetside. For this purpose, we request safcon for thirty dropships to enter the planetary atmosphere."

"Blood Raven, this is Kowloon system control-There are still some problems finding safe landing zones in most of the Primary continent-between the weather and the damage, most normal port zones are in pretty bad shape. , for the time being, portage at Hue is best bet, but the port there is only capable of handling a max of ten droppers at a time.  There is a secondary port at Coast Guard Naval Air Station Giap Island, coordinates as follows..."

[Daemonknight]

Techniclly, FS should have Int here, they might arrive before the Ravens

FS Arrival Initiative
[blockquote]Rolled 2d6 : 4, 1, total 5[/blockquote]

[Daemonknight]

nope, after the Ravens, before the FWL.

"Kowloon control, FSS Coeur de Lion. We have a corps of engineers on board able to setup a temp pad near the damage sites, if you can authorize a low-orbit pattern for us. The Prince would like to do all he can to assist. We have mostly bulk-haulers and personnel transports, but not much ground effect transport, so the closer the pad, the better for our cargoes. Over."

[Cannonshop]

"Cour De Lion, um... direct engineering teams to grid 671459 by 000810, that should put you near Da Nang and north of VDL on the land side, weather looks clear there for the next seventy two hours, after that there is a big blow coming up from the south coast along the river-valley, looks like forty to fifty knot winds driving a cold front.  Hope you packed warm, Over."

[stage dressing: what landing ships will see...]

At first, the damage doesn't look that bad-the heavy black cloud over the former Camp John area is mostly gone, revealing a charred waste, visible from space, but the really telling thing, is the whiteness of the landmass as deorbiting ships come down on the main continent-it is early spring, and teh grip of the hard winter hasn't eased in the slightest.  Clouds roil with snowfall and ice across a land gripped in sub-freezing temperatures from the near-tropics south to the antarctic circle.  It should be spring, but it is definitely, visibly, late this year.

as dropships descend in a landing burn, the damage becomes apparent-bridges across rivers-gone, dams? gone, the shattered craters where there were cities stand with shallow, frozen ice, and highways are buried, unplowed and uncleared more often than not, and occasionally, signs of brutal cold and raging fires seem frozen together.  Some areas show clustered tent-cities of disaster shelters huddled against grounded smallships or dropships, in other areas, villages stand in a sea of refugee temp-shelters, with water vessels frozen into port, stretching cables into towns near the shattered shells of power plants.

Hue, which stood on a raised knob of land on a peninsula made by the joining of two rivers, now stands in the middle of a frozen lake, with bits of structures poking out of the ice like broken fingers.

When spring comes, things will be, if anything, worse-the cold has kept most of the dead from rotting, kept the fury of the rivers running down from the Ia Drang Plateau in check-and when that ice and snow melts, the Hue basin will fill-far above what the city can survive.

But it is the major cities-Nha Tranh, Vin Drin Lap, Da Nang, Ben Het, Bethlehem, that are the worst, for there is nothing left of them, but craters choked in ice and ruins.

Ice, and death chokes everything in sight.

[Daemonknight]

A military dropper, a Conquistador from the signatures, detatches from the jumpship and burns towards the planet, making a short hop through the upper atmo, where what looks like light battle armor is paradropping in. In actuality, it is military engineers in PAL suits, and after they land, a few smaller pallets fitted with specialize shocks are dropped in a 2nd pass. While the Engi team is setting up the temporary landing pads for the bulk lifters, the FWL forces arrive in system...

[Dave Baughman]

Airfield near Da Nang

Victor Ian Steiner-Davion stepped out onto the tarmac, leaning on his finely crafter fox-headed cane. A gift from my son, he mused, though possibly also a warning. Looking at the devastation around the port he shook his head sadly.

Behind him, IndustrialMechs from the Davion Honour Guards' combat engineering units started to disembark from FSDS Galahad, forming up for final disembarkment check before moving out to the worst-hit disaster areas.

While he waited for the local authorities, Steiner-Davion wondered what would come of the other ships arriving on Kowloon...

[Fatebringer]

"Blood Raven, this is Kowloon system control-There are still some problems finding safe landing zones in most of the Primary continent-between the weather and the damage, most normal port zones are in pretty bad shape. , for the time being, portage at Hue is best bet, but the port there is only capable of handling a max of ten droppers at a time.  There is a secondary port at Coast Guard Naval Air Station Giap Island, coordinates as follows..."

"Have you not heard, we are Clan Snow Raven, we make our own. Give us coordinates and we can create a new drop port for you. Five of the dropships we are bringing have heavy equipment."

[Cannonshop]

Traffic control...

"Have you not heard, we are Clan Snow Raven, we make our own. Give us coordinates and we can create a new drop port for you. Five of the dropships we are bringing have heavy equipment."

Officer Sarah Truk Hapsell muted the send, and checked the meteorology report.  "Jason, the Plateau looks clear for the next thirty-six hours, should we point 'em there?" she asked.

Major Ben Gurion reviewed the data from the weathersats, "Yeah, direct 'em to the southeast side of the Plateau, near Ia Drang city, it's close enough to the Hue sector."

She keyed the send to 'live', "Blood Raven, we found a clear spot and it is near a relatively lightly hit urban area, Ia Drang City on the east side of the big plateau, coordinates 00350102 south by 194432 West, elevation is two thousand meters ASL.  Local temp is a balmy negative five Celsius, weather plot shows clear and still for the next thirty six hours.  Be advised though, a major cold-front is moving north along the Little Yangtze valley pushing blizzard and blow, so I hope your men are packing warm,  Point of contact on the ground is Commander Mai Huyn, do you copy, over?"

[Cannonshop]

Airfield near Da Nang

Victor Ian Steiner-Davion stepped out onto the tarmac, leaning on his finely crafter fox-headed cane. A gift from my son, he mused, though possibly also a warning. Looking at the devastation around the port he shook his head sadly.

Behind him, IndustrialMechs from the Davion Honour Guards' combat engineering units started to disembark from FSDS Galahad, forming up for final disembarkment check before moving out to the worst-hit disaster areas.

While he waited for the local authorities, Steiner-Davion wondered what would come of the other ships arriving on Kowloon...

Victor didn't have to wait long, and the person to greet him was a face he'd seen last during the first years of the initial Clan invasion. She looked a lot better than the VERY last time he'd seen her, with FS medics trying to patch together a face where hers had been burnt away covering the retreat...  "Highness."  Evelyn Mosovich hopped out of the side door of a snowcat, "Welcome to Kowloon."  She added, "We've got eighteen hours before the cold front hits, They're already reporting whiteout conditions in Haiphong-so first order fo business, is getting your gear bunkered in for the storm.  I've got half my people doing emergency line-repair between the dock-" she pointed at an iced-over area in which a ship shaped much like an oil tanker was frozen in place, "and the ten or so villages that managed NOT to be hammered flat when they OrBombed the city centre.  Once we have your guys laagered in and the storm's past, we can actually do some serious work here."

[Daemonknight]

Airfield near Da Nang

Victor Ian Steiner-Davion stepped out onto the tarmac, leaning on his finely crafter fox-headed cane. A gift from my son, he mused, though possibly also a warning. Looking at the devastation around the port he shook his head sadly.

Behind him, IndustrialMechs from the Davion Honour Guards' combat engineering units started to disembark from FSDS Galahad, forming up for final disembarkment check before moving out to the worst-hit disaster areas.

While he waited for the local authorities, Steiner-Davion wondered what would come of the other ships arriving on Kowloon...

Victor didn't have to wait long, and the person to greet him was a face he'd seen last during the first years of the initial Clan invasion. She looked a lot better than the VERY last time he'd seen her, with FS medics trying to patch together a face where hers had been burnt away covering the retreat...  "Highness."  Evelyn Mosovich hopped out of the side door of a snowcat, "Welcome to Kowloon."  She added, "We've got eighteen hours before the cold front hits, They're already reporting whiteout conditions in Haiphong-so first order fo business, is getting your gear bunkered in for the storm.  I've got half my people doing emergency line-repair between the dock-" she pointed at an iced-over area in which a ship shaped much like an oil tanker was frozen in place, "and the ten or so villages that managed NOT to be hammered flat when they OrBombed the city centre.  Once we have your guys laagered in and the storm's past, we can actually do some serious work here."

Victor smiled warmly at Evelyn. He had so few friends left, it was good to see a face(albeit much improved from his last sight of it) he remebered.

"It is good to see you General. And Marshal will do just fine, theres no need for such formalities here. I havn't spoken with my engineers just yet, perhaps you'd care to accompany me?" Despite the fact that the unit's engineers had deployed in force(from what she knew of FS military doctrine, the size of the engineer unit here would usually be deployed alongside atleast an RCT-sized formation), Evelyn still spotted a handful of battlemechs that seemed to always be facing Victor wherever he happened to be. Much less conspicious were the Hauberk battle armor troopers: while some were assisting the engineers with heavy lifting, most seemed to shadow the Prince as he moved.

Ever the gentleman, Victor held out his arm for Evelyn to take, and he led her over to a burly man in a heavy PAL suit, currently looking at a datapad being held up by an engineer in normal fatigues. She could spot his rank insignia on the shoulder of his suit, a Command Sergeant Major. He snapped a quick salute when he noticed the Prince and the General walking over to him. Victor nodded, and the NCO relaxed before giving a few quiet orders to his fellow engineer, who scurried off. Victor inquired quietly about their progress.

"Well my Prince, it's about as bad as it looks, as bad as you'd expect. Their lasers fried off a good ammount of cloud cover, and glassed a portion of the landscape. Take months to clear that all up. The craters are easier to deal with, but the volume of dirt thats been thrown up...well, you'd expect it from a small-yield nuke at the least. Gonna make the planet a bit colder I'd say, but a meteorologist could give you some hard numbers on that. Screwy weather patterns for sure. So far, we've got 3 pads of stabalized earth and ferrocrete, enough to handle any dropships we've got. We have a few warehouses going up to store our own supplies: fuel, food, water, spares for the IndustrialMechs, that sorta thing. Figure after we get the barracks done, we can move into the outskirts of the city, setup some temp housing, mostly just be rammed-earth with plasticizer to keep it solid. Get some soup kitchens and field hospitals going. The NAIS Cadre lent us their full set of newlie medics, so we've got plenty of medical personnel, considering I doubt we'll have many survivors.

And ah, my Prince? Might want to ask the Archduchess what shes wanting but...in my opinion, stave off disease and all that...I say we burn the bodies we find. Stack 'em or not, burial isn't gonna be real feasible for a city. Best bet is to send out squads with flamers, give 'em a pyre. Not proper, sure, but its the best way I can see, from the scope..."

[Fatebringer]

Traffic control...

"Have you not heard, we are Clan Snow Raven, we make our own. Give us coordinates and we can create a new drop port for you. Five of the dropships we are bringing have heavy equipment."

Officer Sarah Truk Hapsell muted the send, and checked the meteorology report.  "Jason, the Plateau looks clear for the next thirty-six hours, should we point 'em there?" she asked.

Major Ben Gurion reviewed the data from the weathersats, "Yeah, direct 'em to the southeast side of the Plateau, near Ia Drang city, it's close enough to the Hue sector."

She keyed the send to 'live', "Blood Raven, we found a clear spot and it is near a relatively lightly hit urban area, Ia Drang City on the east side of the big plateau, coordinates 00350102 south by 194432 West, elevation is two thousand meters ASL.  Local temp is a balmy negative five Celsius, weather plot shows clear and still for the next thirty six hours.  Be advised though, a major cold-front is moving north along the Little Yangtze valley pushing blizzard and blow, so I hope your men are packing warm,  Point of contact on the ground is Commander Mai Huyn, do you copy, over?"

"We copy. That is like a heat wave on Circe. We shall manage just fine. Our delegation is en route."