Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ladybird" data-source="post: 2067173" data-attributes="member: 10689">Previously, on The Cheyenne Mountain Irregulars(The first few posts will be "prequels," in which we introduce the characters before the official campaign begins.)May 23, 2008With a whoosh of sound and light, the Stargate sprang to life on P2X-305, throwing a wormhole out into the desolate, rocky landscape, then sucking it back again into a shimmering vertical pool.Nine people stepped through it, all clad in almost identical khaki jumpsuits and tall laced-up boots, lugging behind them a wheeled cart full of equipment.  As soon as they were all out and standing on the dusty road, the wormhole disappeared, evaporating to leave only the empty ring of the Stargate.Two of the larger and burlier men – Marines – immediately broke away from the group, weapons raising as they trotted off to survey the perimeter. The others clustered into two smaller groups: one around Major Robert Farr, the commander of SG-22, also of the Marines, a tall man with a gray crew cut barely visible around the edges of his cap; the other around Captain Kathleen Fitzgerald, several inches shorter but still fairly tall for a woman, with bright blue eyes, short dark curly hair, and Air Force insignia on her jumpsuit. Major Farr already had one hand on his gun, too; Captain Fitzgerald clutched a laptop computer tightly under one arm.“All secure?” Farr called out as the scouts returned. “All clear in the immediate vicinity, sir,” one of them reported. “Greenberg thinks that he saw smoke coming from the east, though.” “Yes, I did, sir,” agreed the other Marine. “Right over there, sir.” He gestured towards a distant patch of scrubby evergreen forest near the base of some hazy mountains. “Should we check it out?”“Negative, Corporal,” said Farr.  “Stay here for now – we’re going to do a regular reconnaissance in the course of the mission.” Kathleen shot Major Farr a skeptical sideways glance, and her mouth turned down in a small frown, but she said nothing to contradict the superior officer’s orders. “Excuse me, sir,” piped up a tall blonde bespectacled woman, who seemed less at ease in her jumpsuit and combat boots than the others. “The initial MALP telemetry indicated that this planet might be seismically active. That’s why I came. The smoke could be an indication of that – volcanoes, hot springs, so forth. With your permission, sir, I’d like to look at it a little more closely, and sooner rather than later.”“Fine, Dr. Powers,” Farr sighed. “Stay with my group, and we’ll send someone out with you.  Now, let’s get this thing started. Chen and Smith, you came with Captain Fitzgerald, so you stay with her and get your thing set up.” He waved a vague hand at the cart full of wires and receivers and computers, barely giving it a second look. “Stanley, you stay here too and keep an eye on them. Make sure they don’t wander off where they’re not supposed to. Greenberg, you go with Dr. Powers to check out her volcanoes. The rest of you, you’re with me. Standard recon mission: figure out what’s what and what’s where. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem, since there haven’t been any Goa’ulds here for ages, just a group of those rogue Jaffa.” Greenberg opened his mouth, about to object, but Farr barely paused for breath. “We’re not expecting anything to get in our way. We’re going to get in and get out and leave this useless planet alone. Captain – you can get your people set up over there.”“Actually, sir, I wonder if we could move a bit further off the main path?” Kathleen asked. “Even though I’m sure there isn’t any danger, of course, sir,” she added quickly, with a smile that was just a fraction too ready and accommodating for complete sincerity. “I just think that, well, all that dust we’ve been kicking up might affect the equipment.”Farr frowned, narrowing his eyes at her expression. “How many off-world missions have you been on, Captain?”Kathleen straightened her shoulders, erasing any trace of a smile from her face. “This is my second one, sir.” “Right,” said Farr shortly.“With all due respect, sir,” Kathleen tried again, “I’m concerned about the equipment. We don’t have enough time to get replacements if anything happens to it.”Farr rolled his eyes. “Fine, Captain. Set up wherever you want. Keep your equipment happy. Hey, weren’t you supposed to meet a friend here?”“Ked’rec, my Jaffa contact,” Captain Fitzgerald replied, her tone too polite to be actually correcting him, but with the implication there all the same. “And yes, I thought he was going to be here, but I haven’t heard from him in a while. I hope he shows up while we’re still here. I hope he’s all right.” Kathleen’s eyes flickered towards the east.“Right,” said Farr absently. “All right, men! Lee, Freeman – you’re with me…”Kathleen turned her back to Farr’s back, exchanging glances with Corporal Greenberg and Dr. Powers as she turned away. She raised her voice a bit, to be heard over Farr’s impatient orders to his crew and the tramping of booted feet over the hard ground. “All right, people.  This is going to be the newest information drop site on the Jaffa underground railroad. You know the routine – we need to get the coordinates encrypted and deposited in safe locations, and we need to get receivers and transmitters set up in the right positions.” She perched her laptop on a free corner of the cart, and flipped it open. “You know what to do – let’s get to it.”Airmen Chen and Smith started hurriedly unloading equipment from the cart, while Roberts took up a position a few yards away, pacing around the perimeter, and Farr’s men started to fan out along the paths and into the rocky surrounding area. As soon as the major was out of earshot, Chen paused, arms full of cables, and asked softly, “Ma’am? Do you think your contact might have been compromised?”“I hope not,” Kathleen replied, equally quietly. “A couple of his messages were a little worrying, but I’m pretty sure he can be trusted. We’ve dealt with free-agent Jaffa before, but each group is different, so it's hard to say what these ones will be like.” Kathleen’s fingers skipped deftly over the keyboard, chattering in a quiet counterpoint to her words as she scrolled through pages of diagrams and formulas. “But Nuada was more hands-off than a lot of other System Lords, so his Jaffa weren’t tied as tightly in to begin with. Plus, they’ve stayed free agents for a while now, so it seems more likely that they can be trusted to think independently. Smith, how are you doing with that transmitter?”“Almost done, ma’am. Ready for the encryption when you are.”“Good work.” Kathleen unhooked a small thin device, about the size of a finger, from one side of the computer. “Here you go. Now we just need to do that three more times and – uh-oh.”A puff of smoke rose from behind the trees, followed an instant later by the sound of an explosion. Everyone froze.“What the - ” said Captain Fitzgerald, instantly turning towards the noise. “Stanley, go-““I’m on it, ma’am,” said Private Stanley, heading off down the path towards the trees.Kathleen reached for her radio. “Major Farr, it’s Captain Fitzgerald,” she said into it. Only crackling static replied. “Major Farr, do you copy?”“Should we keep setting up, ma’am?” asked Chen.“For now, yes,” Kathleen replied warily. “I don’t want to call the mission off on account of hot springs.”  She tried to laugh casually, and almost succeeded. The others bent to continue their work. “Smith, I’ve got the next encryption key for you when you’re ready,” she said over her shoulder, then spoke into the radio again. “Major Farr? SG-22? This is Captain Fitzgerald at the gate. Please respond.”A moment later, another explosion sounded, a bit closer this time. “Nobody’s here. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Yeah, right,” Kathleen muttered, then lifted her voice. “All right, folks. Pack up. I think we’re – “ And another explosion, and a few smaller blasts: staff weapons, and automatic gunfire. The group froze, alert and on edge. Corporal Greenberg and Private Stanley came pounding down the path towards the gate, with Dr. Powers staggering breathlessly behind. Hard on their trail were two Jaffa, both in full armor with Nuada’s silver-hand symbol tattooed on their foreheads, and with staff weapons raised. From behind them came the sound of shouting, and more explosions. “Open the gate!” yelled Greenberg. “Open the gate! There’s a hundred of them!”</blockquote>

Verification