Five Parsecs from Home: Turn 19 - Vigilante tussle.

Character event: Estelle Phillips argued with crew and did no task during this campaign turn.

Campaign event: LOCKDOWN! No leaving Deon B for two turns. Crazy that I rolled this again. I can't think of a narrative reason for the UCS and Collective to be fighting over Deon B. The Lockdown will remain in effect, but it is from the unknown enemy. 

The displays aboard The Pelican came to life. A serious looking newsreader announced: "This is now the third civilian craft brought down above the planet. Anyone trying to leave would be advised to remain grounded until further notice. We are not sure what or who is behind this".

Scans from the surface would prove less than useful. There was, however, a deep space scanning outpost in the northern hemisphere. It was worth a try. A number of other now-stranded ship crews pooled some credits as an incentive for anyone to go and get the scan data. Sara from Leyte Logistics knew the place well and warned the crew that a group of vigilantes used it as their base of operations and defended it fiercely. 

The crew advanced from the south, in two teams to cover each other. This place looked like a good place to use as a base of operations. It just needed some agricultural areas and would be great. 

Seizing the initiative the crew took cover around a building at the top of a crest. EARL fired off a grenade, the blast immediately killing one of the vigilantes. 

The remaining vigilantes advanced to cover, firing their military grade lasers, sizzling the sand around Phillips and Holmes. Luckily no shots were close enough to cause damage.

Phillips took cover behind some logs while Holmes fired off some bursts, taking down another vigilante. Mao and the others took cover behind some containers. 

Phillips took more fire, hunkering down behind the logs. 

EARL sent another grenade over, Phillips jumped the logs and opened fire, Mao flanked the vigilantes, firing and Holmes took more long range fire...all of which was effective and accurate. The threat was gone. All in a day's work for some. It was always nice when everything went to plan with neither a close call nor a near miss.

Accessing the scanning information was simple enough to EARL. The craft were clearly non-military, but had been retrofitted for extra-atmospheric combat. There were no markings and the ident-codes were not stored on any of EARL's databases. Perhaps they would be recognised by The Pelican's computer. Phillips ripped the data onto her tab to take back to port. One step closer to knowing the truth.