Yellow Alert

Veronica's voice enters Doc's head unannounced as the mob picks the weapons and armor off the remains of the defeated guards.

"I don't know what you just did but the alert level just skipped to yellow. Expect a lot of resistance ahead."

"Affirmative," Doc replies as if he's responding to his old CO. Seeing the carnage these strange weapons can create put his head right back into the old days; the bad days when remorse was suicide. "We're headed into the commercial strip for this deck."

The mob spills out of the capillary residential hallway into the arterial strip mall that runs the length of the ship. If it were not for the advertisements rolling electronically across the ceiling sky, Doc would think they just stepped outside. It is a lot like a long city block. The shops and offices do not rise the entire thirty stories to the top of the deck. There are green spaces between the buildings as well, giving the entire ship a grand sense of openness. The central road is mildly busy with hover cart traffic, most burdened with shoppers and their bags.

Doc continues to shout through the megaphone. "Rise up! Take arms! This ship is run by pirates and you're all in danger! Grab whatever you can! We're taking over this ship!"

The people enjoying coffee at a bistro stare blankly at the spectacle. Only a couple dozen out of the hundreds of shoppers here seem to respond to Doc's words, shouting out and joining the rest of the crowd.

Three riot guards are already on the scene, dismounted from their hover cart and brandishing their stun guns at the crowd.

"Security guards are coming," Steve says.

"I see them," says Doc.

"No, not the riot guards. I've got nine lethal weapons contacts: three behind us and six ahead of us."

Doc confirms this with his thermal sensors. The three behind them are approaching on foot and are two hundred feet away. The six ahead are on hover carts and are three hundred feet out.

"I guess yellow alert means they're not fucking around anymore."

2 comments:

ERR said...

Doc Incite riot 18(12+4+2) vs DC10, Success. Crowd +26, Total 89.

With the megaphone, you have some level of control. You can spend a move action either directing the crowd to move, attack, enrage, or loot; grow the crowd by inciting more people to riot, or disbanding them (which protects them but not you).
The crowd grows or shrinks a d100 at a time with the megaphone, d20 without it (maybe you can reach more people some other way?). The crowd attacks as a group towards the nearest targets (or those directed), up to 8 attacks per individual (total crowd size max. attacks) using average stats. Looting improves damage, defense, and specials. Enraging them increases attack and initiative temporarily.


Current crowd stats:
HP:356 Init:+0
Attack:+0 Def 10
Damage: 1d4 NL, 5% Stun c


Remeber, you can use two move actions or 1 move and 1 attack action every round. Let's try this one round by round

Round 1
Initiative: Time ops 23, Crowd 20, Pirates 3

Move order: Mark, Doc, TH, Steve

Doc said...

Find hard cover on either side of the street. Mark and Steve on one side and TH and I on the other. Use my glasses to connect me to the ships PA and incite the entire ship to attack. Use as much chi as it takes. I think that is two move actions for me, and a move and an attack for Steve, Mark, Thunderhorse.

That should be enough for one round.

Doc