Blood and Guts II: Blood Blizzard playtest

Episode I: Wednesday, October 2010 0300 Hours

"Fire in the Sky"

In the pre-dawn hours you sit in the back of your "battle taxi", the M-2 Bradley your group has been using in its mission to maintain the electronic frontier that helps guard the Iranian border.

The Iraqi fall is cool and dry, and especially with your missions occuring in the pre-dawn hours the last few weeks have been pleasant and for the most part boring.

The entire world seems to be holding its breath.

Then suddenly the quiet of the desert, which had been broken only by the monotonous rumble of your vehicle's engine is ripped apart by the sounds of jets overhead. Exact numbers are impossible to make out, but what you see without a doubt are several dozen fighters hurtling toward the Iranian border.

Just before the jets cross into Iranian airspace, approximately half peel off, remaining in Iraqi airspace. The rest continue on, and fire fills the sky as Iranian jets rise into the air, meeting the interlopers in fierce combat.

Like shooting stars planes on both sides fall one after another and the occasional telltale 'chute of an ejecting pilot is also visible in the brightening sky.

Finally, several large explosions are felt more than heard beyond the range of your eyes. Your experience and training identify this sound for you: bombs, no doubt dropped from the fighters.

Another round of dogfighting, and the surviving planes from the attacking force streak back overhead. Jets pursue just to the border and then pull back.

Padraic H. Pearse

Padraic was just completeing refueling a generator. To ward off a chill when he awoke, he put on his long sleeved ACU top. Even though the night was cool, the effort of moving around the Jerry fuel cans was taxing him. Using a sleeve to wipe the sweat from his forehead, he glanced around up at the night sky. "Beautiful, just beautiful!" he said aloud. Seeing that all seemed alright, he slide through the open hatch into the drivers seat. He envied the tankers with there laz-z boy recliners and after a final check of the gauges turned off the engine. Than climbing back out he went to his sleeping area to catch a fee ZZZZs before sun up.

Mark stirs at the roar of the engines overhead. Fast movers, he thinks absently, looking up into the night sky. Patrols interdicting the frontier were expected – but attack aircraft continuing across the border was something new.

“Anyone got a pair of binoculars?” he asks, not really paying attention to the answer, as air-to-air missiles arc across the starry sky and flares drop from jinking, twisting fighters. A missile finds its target with an orange flash, then another.

There were pilots in those planes. Mark searches for ‘chutes descending to the ground. Spot check (take 10): 21 – are any of the ejecting pilots coming down near our position?

The bass WHUMP of the distant explosions passes over and through the gathered men. “Somebody just bombed Iran,” the medic says quietly. He looks over to Kurtz. “Are we in radio contact with anyone? Did we get any orders?”

Scott watches the fireworks flash across the sky, reaching over and nudging Mark with the butt of his M4. "You can use my scope, if you want, kid."

Leaning against the Bradley, Bear leans down and tightens the laces on his boots, kicking the hull so get some of the sand out of the treads.

"Sgt. Jackson? Should we saddle up and prep to extract them pilots? Friendly or not. I'm sure Intel would love to have a chat with an Iranian fly-boy."

Sgt Jackson

Jackson watches the sky show and the mentally marks the rough bearing of the downed pilots.

"Do we have any radio chatter? I can't believe home base isn't dumping in it's drawers right now. Did any one ID the planes in our space? No one told me about a major initiative today."

The lanky red-head stares off in to space for a minute.

"Here's the deal. Some has gone down and we're pretty damn close to it. Chances are the Iranians are going flood the border with defenses if they haven't already. Unless contacted otherwise we stay on mission and keep servicing our picket line. If we see activity we report it."

"Yessir." Bear walks toward the back of the Bradley, reaching out to Mark to collect his rifle. "Eyes sharp, everyone. You heard the Sarge, might be some heavy activity on the border when the Iranians come to collect the scraps."

Climbing onto the top of the APC, he raises his rifle to his eye, using the low-powered scope to scan the horizon.

ooc: Spot +7

“Unless contacted otherwise we stay on mission and keep servicing our picket line. If we see activity we report it.”

Meadows nods. “Yes, sergeant.” The combat medic looks to his gear – the M4 and the patrol pack with his medical kit. The killer and the healer. The dichotomy never seemed so strong as it did in this moment.

To answer the questions so far:

Pilots near your position: Yes, at least one of the chutes went down less than an hour from your current position in Iranian territory.

Radio chatter: Oh yeah. The following information can be gleaned from radio traffic:

The fighters crossing the border are Israeli jets. This was known prior to their entry into Iraqi airspace because they also crossed through Saudi Arabian airspace.

The fighters were intercepted immediately by American jets and clearance to fire was repeatedly requested, but denied.

The fighters conducted in-flight refueling over Iraqi airspace, then continued onto their target.

"Damn odd. Israeli?"

Odie reaches for a map of the region. Noting their location and vector of the jets, he tries to determine just where the pilots may have landed, and what lies in the direction the bombs dropped.

What lies in that direction is well known, and marked on all your maps of the area: Iran's nuclear power plant.