>Last time on Freelance Ghost Quest: You introduced Lisa and Murphy to Quartus and sextus, and showed Lisa her patients. After helping a bit (or rather, failing to do much), you left her to her devices and talked to quartus about his future. At that point, Weissdammer suddenly announced through the intercom that he had taken over the ship.

“Ahem. Good day, crew members of the Omega.” You don’t recognise the voice, and suspicion strikes you. “I am Otto Arthur Reichenbach Weissdammer the Third, and I am commandeering this vessel as spoils of war after an unlawful attack on my property. I order you all to lay down your arms and come to Hangar IV where my men will process you. Resist and you will be terminated. I am in control of the ship systems, so if you try to hide, I will find you.”

You want to activate your cloak while he’s still talking, but remember you’re still in the military uniform you borrowed. The suit is still in your room. You look behind you and see the forms of Quartus and Sextus glimmer out of existence.

“Quartus, Sextus, I need my suit, and we need to get the girls out of danger.”

As a response, you hear some faint footsteps go past you and through the door. For a moment, you’re bewildered, but then a distorted voice behind you starts talking. “I sent Sextus to fetch your suit. You go get your loud lady-friend, I’ll go after the mechanic woman. We’ll meet at the mess. It’s the easiest place to get around, and from what I can tell from his message he doesn’t have the manpower for a full sweep.”

You confirm that. From what you saw on the planet and of his ship, he’d have maybe two dozen marines with him at maximum. You warn Quartus about the presumably psychic bodyguard, and you split up. Luckily you do have your hand cannon and revolvers on you.

You run through the corridors as fast as caution allows you to. Carefully sweeping the corridors ahead of you might take a bit of extra time, but you’d prefer not to run into anyone while you’re still in clothing that wasn’t meant to see close combat.

As you enter the infirmary, you see a big object flying towards you. Only your inhumanly fast reflexes let you dodge the thing, and sprawled on the floor you see that some of the bulky medical gear had been rigged up to crash into the door opening and crush whoever appeared. A woman appears over you and is about to smash another heavy object into you when she recognises you.

“Shit, Artemis, sorry. I thought it was one of Weissdammer’s goons.”

>Response?
>1. We gotta get out of here quickly. Follow me, we’re gathering in the mess.
>2. You look holed up in here pretty fine. Just stay here. (option of giving her a revolver?)
>3. Write in.

>>32800569
>3
You'd really think I wouldn't get to you before them? (with a dissapointed voice)
>2 and ask nicely if she'd like a revolver to kill baddies instead of random medical gear

>>32800569
>2. You look holed up in here pretty fine. Just stay here. (option of giving her a revolver?)

>>32800569
>>32800664
after some consideration...
>1
instead of >2
But still offer her the revolver, you never know

>>32800569
>>1. We gotta get out of here quickly. Follow me, we’re gathering in the mess.
give her the revolver anyway

>>32800668
>>32800792
>>32800822
So, take her along and hand her a revolver. Writing.

>>32800792
>>32800822

You guys do realize we can't cloak her, right? She's going to be taking hits if we meet resistance.

On the other hand if Weisdammer took over life support control, there's no safe place aboard the ship outside of our Wraith... we should get her and Murphy some spacesuits or equivalent.

“No problem. Nice trap. We gotta get out of here quickly though. Follow me, we’re gathering in the mess.” She extends a hand and you take it, pulling yourself up. “And while we’re at it, take this.” You hand her one of your revolvers. “I think that might do a bit more than bludgeoning people with… whatever that is.”

She takes the revolver and nods. You’re both aware that it still won’t exactly puncture a CMC suit, but it’ll be better than nothing. You lead her through the corridors, and narrowly avoid bumping into a group of the crew going towards the hangar. Nr. 4 it was, the same one you parked your wraith and Lisa’s ship. That means if things go south, a quick escape is probably out of the question too.

You reach the hall without further incident, and find it empty. “Ah, you’re here.” The distorted voice of Quartus sounds from slightly in front of you. He decloaks along with Sextus a bit further ahead. Sextus gives a short knock on the shutters separating the mess from the kitchens and the shutters open, revealing both Murphy and your new black ghost suit.

“Murphy, you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, though the gentleman in black there isn’t exactly verbose when it comes to explaining things. I thought he was trying to get me to go to Weissdammer until I hit him in the head with my wrench.”

Across the room, Quartus interjects. “I blocked it. And excuse me for being curt when the situation calls for it.”

You head to the suit and start undressing, noticing Lisa quickly glancing away. Murphy doesn’t “So, what do we do now?” Asks Lisa.

>1. We fight. Take down Weissdammer and his goons will be a lot less eager to take us on.
>2. We should see if he won’t try to see reason. Might get him out of under our skin with minimum bloodshed.
>3. Write in.

>>32801095
>>2. We should see if he won’t try to see reason. Might get him out of under our skin with minimum bloodshed.
but don't actually face him in person, hack into the ship systems and communicate that way, all while we are ready and prepared to start hunting his goons and him if things go south

>>32801095
>>1. We fight. Take down Weissdammer and his goons will be a lot less eager to take us on.

>>32801095
>1. We fight. Take down Weissdammer and his goons will be a lot less eager to take us on.

>>32801095
He has his eyes on the prize, I don't think reasoning with him will make him give up a battlecruiser.
If we can get the systems back, we can take control of the defence systems of this vessel, trapping Weisdammer and his goons...
After that it's just threatening, capturing or even killing a few of them untill they surrender

>>32801095

He might be inclined to give us free pass planetside - or might be if he didn't believe himself at absolute advantage. So the question is if we want to try and keep him from appropriating the battlecruiser (and the crew).

To be honest I would be inclined to trying to reason with him and see his willingness to get the brainwashed crews treatment (chances of which being nil), and taking him out if (when) he refuses.

Otherwise we could bargain for being allowed free pass in exchange for not making his life miserable, but he'd be unwilling to right now.

He's definitely not gonna let us go scot free.

>>32801130
>>32801144
>>32801148
>>32801173
>>32801212
Clarification: It's not yet the actual battle plan, more like what line of thought you're gonna be thinking in with your allies.

Anyway, writing.

>>32801095
We should use force, but attempt a diplomatic agreement of sorts.

“I doubt talking will do us much good. We could try, but the way I see things, we’d be best with preparing for the worst. I don’t think he’ll be walking out of here alive.”

“Are you serious?” The objection comes from Murphy. “He literally owns the planet. All things considered he’s legally in the right here. Plus, if he dies, what will happen to the people here?”

“I reckon nothing specific.” Lisa intervenes. “His board of directors has some meetings, appoint a new CEO and they file his disappearance under a tragic hunting accident.”

By that time you’re finished donning the suit. You look around and see most of your allies thinking. “In any case, we can’t just hand him the ship.” You say. “I’d rather not have someone who already has stockpiles of military weapons get a battlecruiser on top. Now, he’s told us his troops will be centred in hangar 4, but to have control of the systems, he needs to be on the bridge.”

Quartus nods. “Most likely he’ll be on the bridge himself. He can keep an eye on most things and take over all of the systems. Will probably have his bodyguard in there with him, and say… 6 marines? Won’t fit much more in there and still have room to manoeuvre if they’re expecting combat.”

“That leaves about 18 marines in the hangar.” You glance at the rough map hanging on the wall for directions. “It’s far enough that if there’s fighting in any of the two places, the other group won’t be there in time before it’s over. At least if we hit them hard and fast enough. But we might be able to talk to him first. Maybe just to keep him occupied.”

>>32801634

>So, battle-plan time.
>1. You, Quartus and Sextus head for the bridge, take Weisdammer out. You’ll see if the other group of marines will surrender then and deal with them appropriately.
>2. Split up. You take the bridge and Quartus and Sextus take down the marines in the hangar. That way you won’t risk the battle being drawn out and reinforcements coming in.
>3. Same as 2, but different spread (specify)
>4. A previous plan, but take along Murphy and/or Lisa.

>5. Try to talk to Weissdammer first, see if you can’t reach an agreement without fighting.
>6. Try to talk to Weisdammer to keep him occupied, go with one of the previous battle-plans in the middle of talking.
>7. Try to take over the systems while keeping Weisdammer occupied with talking.

>8. Write in.

>>32801658
>1

>>32801658

>1. Head to the bridge, do not split up.
>4. Take the ladies with us so they don't get accosted by some roving marine, but don't bring them to confrontation proper. Maybe leave Sextus to guard them when we reason with Weisdammer?
>5. Try to talk him out of taking the battlecruiser. We already took out the commander who issued the threats and saved his private planet after all... if he's not willing to see reason, neutralize his pet ghost first, then knock him out and preferably convince him to order his men to stand down.

>>32801658
>7. Take over the systems *remotely*
That remotely I missed there was a very important word missing.

>>32801837
hmmm since we can do it remotely...
>>32801809
Good idea of taking the ladies with us but we will need sextus in the coming fight (if there is one... and the odds are quite in favour of a small fight before weisdammer will actually give up a battlecruiser) consider hiding them somewhere? or maybe Murphy could do that attemptive system take-over while we talk

>>32801837

Add this to my list of suggestion >>32801809, but then we'll doubly need to leave one of the bros with her, because some marines are liable to take out the meddler once they find out.

>>32801837
Could we mind control a crewman and have him act like the captain? Make him say he's the highest ranking officer left?

Could be a useful distraction

>>32802041
You could try that yeah. You don't know how credible it would be though. There's no doubt that he's already come in contact with the "brain-dead" crew if he's on the bridge, so one of them suddenly speaking up might make him suspicious.

>>32801809
>>32802000
If no one objects I'll basically go along with this then?

>>32802224
I guess but it's risky...
Does it matter where we attempt the take-over, I mean: can Murphy hack into those systems in the hallway just outside the bridge? In that case, Sextus could get to us in seconds if we need him

>>32802275
It'd be through some master consoles scattered around the ship, or if that doesn't work, going straight to the system and try to hardwire them and cut them off from the bridge. Murphy wouldn't do much good on the first one, but someone's adjutant could, while Murphy could probably do better at the second part than anyone else presently here.

>>32802355
>All that info I should be putting in my normal post anyway.
Meh, guess it's not one of my best days.

>>32802355
right, follow anon's plan but look for a console in the proximity of the bridge. Sextus has an adjutant right? the second part would only be possible without a big risk if we can seize the bridge first.

>>32802432
>>32802275
>>32802000
>>32801809
Seems like this will be the plan, writing.

“I’d prefer if we stick together. I’d hate to have one of us stay behind and picked up by a stray marine.” You glance at the two women in the room. “Can we try and cut off their access to the systems?” You ask Quartus.

“Might be possible with our adjutants doing the work on a master control terminal. There’s a few scattered around the ship, though the master codes died along with the previous captain. If that doesn’t work we could always try to hard-wire the systems themselves.”

“I was thinking of one of us sticking with the girls and that group trying to take control away from Weissdammer, while the remaining two of us go attack him. What’s the closest of those terminals?”

“Probably the forward armoury. It’s also a pretty good place to bunker up in. I hope they didn’t loot it already, there’s plenty of things there to keep other people out.” Quartus falls silent for a moment and then continues. “I’ll go with the civvies. If we need to fall back to the life support and the engines, I’d be the best choice since I know the ship best. They’re quite far out into the ship, so I doubt we’d encounter many resistance along the way.”

You nod. “Meanwhile, I’ll take Sextus along to the bridge. I’ll try talking him out of it.” Quartus is about to interrupt you, and even Lisa looks at you funny, but you quickly continue. “Even if it doesn’t work, it’ll buy you some extra time to wrangle the controls out of his hands.”

He nods. “Very well. I just hope your idealism won’t be the death of us.”

You depart, everyone holding their weapons. You have your hand cannon out, Quartus has a modified C-10 with a scope, Sextus a C-10 with an underslung grenade launcher. Lisa has your revolver, and Murphy seems to have a submachine gun of her own. After a few minutes you reach the armoury and drop off Quartus with Lisa and Murphy. Sextus and you continue towards the bridge, taking only a few more minutes.

A few corridors away, still well out of sight, you activate your cloak and mentally probe the bridge, careful not to give yourself away. There’s 5 marines there, the bodyguard and What must be weisdammer himself, radiating an aura of self-assured arrogance. There’s plenty of crew around too, doing their regular duties.

>How do you go about talking to him.
>1. Use the intercom.
>2. Try to talk to him mentally. He might have a psi-screen blocking that though.
>3. Hijack one of the crew, talk to him directly.
>4. Hijack one of the crew, pose as highest ranking officer alive.
>5. Write in.

>What do you say to him?
>A. The original threat is gone. Primus was killed by you (‘a ghost’ if posing as “captain”), and he was much stronger than any of his men.
>B. Ask him about his motives. Try to persuade him to let the crew and you go.
>C. Threaten to sabotage the whole thing, maybe go as far as to blow the whole thing up.
>D. Write in.

>>32802953
>>3. Hijack one of the crew, talk to him directly.
>>C. Threaten to sabotage the whole thing, maybe go as far as to blow the whole thing up.

>>32802953
>1C
Hello, I would like to be very clear to you about your situation.
You might not have noticed, but the original powerfull crew of this vessel was killed by something more powerfull.
Something, that is standing in front of the door of your bridge right now.
Now, if you consider your life worth more than a battlecruiser, and noting your aura of self-assured arrogance in the middle of the room just before the centre console (or wherever he is) you probably do... I suggest you alter your plan and leave this vessel or some harm might be delivered to the pretty psionic bodyguard and your five other buddie's...
Just saying

>>32802953
>>3. Hijack one of the crew, talk to him directly.
>A. The original threat is gone. Primus was killed by you (‘a ghost’ if posing as “captain”), and he was much stronger than any of his men.

>>32802953

>1. Use the intercom
No point in revealing our stack to Weisdammer just yet

>A. The original threat is gone
>B. Ask him about his motives. Perhaps discuss the state of the crew with him. Request, politely, that he stand down. Promise him he will be allowed to leave peacefully and in return his colony will not be troubled again. Perhaps we could even come to some sort of agreement if he requires services of our ship (we might leave this open even after we have him at disadvantage, gotta earn our living somehow eh?) - after needs of the crew have been met.

>>32803096
this should actually be 1A

>>32803009
>>32803096
>>32803129
>>32803150
>>32803174
A clearly won, but it's a tie between hijacking and intercom. Will be rolling if there's no tie-breaker within 3 minutes.

Rolled 1

>>32803245
Rolling.
1=1
2=3

>>32803308
Intercom it is, writing.

You find the nearest wall console and open up the intercom towards the bridge, attaching your adjutant to route it through others so they can’t simply trace it back to the console you’re using.

“Hello mister Weisdammer. You may or may not have noticed that the original owner of this ship, namely the one issuing the threats to the planet, has met an untimely death at the ands of one of his betters. Someone who is not very far from your own location right now.”

You take a deep breath and continue. The distortion of your voice through the mask helps to make it sound more ominous, you think. “Please reconsider your position. I suppose you value your life higher than the ownership over a battlecruiser. Please stand down and discontinue your current actions. I’ll allow you to return peacefully to the planet and I assure you that your colony won’t be troubled again.”

It takes some time before you get a response. When it comes, it’s On the global intercom channel. “You know what? Here’s my counter-proposition to you then. Take your wraith and get the hell away from my planet and my battlecruiser, ‘Artemis’. Don’t think I haven’t run any checks on you. You’re a bit too mysterious for your own good. And if you did what you claim, that only confirms my suspicions. I’m well equipped to neutralise ghosts. If you take off your fancy suit and walk into the hangar unarmed and with your hands in the air, I’ll let you go. The same goes for Miss Fringers and Mrs Jones.”

>Your reaction?
>1. Agree with him, surrender and go away.
>2. Continue negotiating (specify how and with what)
>3. Rush in with Sextus and take him by surprise.
>4. Write in.

>>32803673
oooooh, equiped to take out ghosts?
We might wanna ask an update from Quartus first, if he is ready, we can move in with the three of us (consider that Weisdammer might simply be waiting untill we "give ourselves up" we might need a few minutes to get to the hangar in his mind

>>32803673
>3. Rush in with Sextus and take him by surprise.

>>32803673
>>3. Rush in with Sextus and take him by surprise.

>>32803673

>2. Stall
He's well informed about what goes on planetside, but for one, why should we trust him to uphold his end of the bargain? He can't need to have people familiar with what has entered his possession now, nor possible rogue agents. The only rational course of action would be to cut us down, or shoot us down as we leave. We should also pretend to be nervous regarding his 'ghost neutralization' which is probably tied to some control over standard issue ghost implants (which could put Sextus out of commission) or having a ghost of his own (which we need to take out first order of business - can we detect cloaked ghost psionically?). He might also have some detection hardware of his own... on top of whatever Primus had installed on the bridge. Let's hope Murphy can take control while we keep him talking.

Oh, ask him what he wants to do with the ship and offer him perhaps our services. None of us wants a needless loss of life, right?

>>32803792
>>32803834
For attacking

>>32803775
>>32803857
For stalling

Comes down to a tie. Will be needing tiebreaker within the next 3 minutes or I'll be rolling.

Rolled 2

>>32803950
Rolling.
1 = stalling
2 = attacking.

>>32804028
Well, that's attacking then. Writing.

Last post for the day too. Sadly I'm stuck with the internet shutting down at 12 for now.

Rolled 7

>>32804028

Guess it's showtime.

Let's try and not blow up too many crew members. And geek the mage first. I mean, the ghost.

>>32804056
Actually, roll me some d20s first. best of first 3.

Rolled 14

>>32804082
yeah, prioritise the ghost, try killing him before anyone can react

>>32804082
>>32804079

Sorry about that. Guess that was not my lucky moment.

>>32804110
You're lucky, not counting that one yet as I actually forgot to ask for rolls in that post. Feel free to roll again and hope for something better.

>>32804102

Should we try merely knocking him out or is that gimping ourselves too much?

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217 KB JPG

Rolled 6

>>32804133

You know what they say about tempting fate.

Rolled 19

>>32804082

>>32804138
I would kill him, it's easier and it will greatly improve our position

>>32804167
>>32804160
>>32804102
Upper DC met, lucky last roll, the rest didn't even get the lower. Writing for real now.

>>32804167
And you saved the day!!!
>>32804160
Clearly, they are right about tempting fate

File: 1348740764386.png (250 KB, 935x648)

250 KB PNG

>>32804160

You know what, I'm not even surprised. In fact I'm happy it wasn't a 1.

File: 1390759296284.png (41 KB, 300x410)

41 KB PNG

>>32804253

You figure you won’t get much more out of him. You gave him a chance, but he didn’t take it. You gesture to Sextus, and you head towards the entrance of the bridge. Both of you are cloaked, but after having synced up your adjutants you can still faintly see each other.

You barge in through the door, and try to take in as much of the room as you can at that glance. It’s the only reason you hear a faint beep coming from your left, right next to the doorway.

You throw yourself to the right, and in that wild movement see that Sextus apparently does the same. A bright flash washes over the room and you feel an EMP burst washing over you. The damn bastards had an EMP grenade stuck to the side of the entrance. Thanks to your timely reaction, you avoided almost all of the blast, but it seems your cloak has been disrupted for now. It also took most of the momentum behind your charge.

You take in the room as fast as you can, fully aware that a moments delay could mean receiving a c-14 round between your eyes. The marines are sitting prone behind some crates, 3 on the left and 2 on the right where you are, most of them covering their eyes from the blast now. Weisdammer is standing at the far side of the bridge with a Hand cannon in his left hand and wearing some form of light CMC, while his bodyguard stands in front of him and slightly to the right. You don’t see any weapons on him in that instant, but you know looks can deceive. The crew seems to be ignoring everything and still working on their consoles, aside from those displaced by the marines. You don’t immediately see where those went.

The good news is that thanks to your dodge, you’ve positioned yourself next to one of the crates supplying the marines with cover, and thus forcing the three marines on the other side to reposition themselves or risk shooting their buddies.

The bad news is that in an instant, the marine two metres away from you will regain his senses and start pumping rounds into you, and you don’t know or have the time to check on how well Sextus fared with the EMP.

>The Marines block your approach to Weisdammer and his bodyguard, who are about fifteen metres away at the far end of the bridge.
>There’s two marines respectively two and three metres in front of you, and three about five metres to your left in front of you behind their own cover.
>Unlike revolvers or other lighter weaponry, hand cannons are meant against armoured targets and are effective against CMC armour.

>Psi points: 6/6
>Your cloak has been disabled for three turns.

>1. Attack the guard (specify hand cannon or which psi attack)
>2. Try to rush past the marines and attack the bodyguard (specify hand cannon or which psi attack)
>3. Write in.

>This is the last post for tonight, I’ll archive in a minute.
>Next thread will be somewhere mid-week. Tuesday or Wednesday probably.

>>32804653
Archived: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Freelance%20Ghost

Thanks everyone for sticking around. I wish I could go on for a bit longer, but I'm reduced to internet on my phone now, so that's kind of impractical to write on.

Rolled 16

>>32804689
Thanks for the thread OP

>>32804653
>>2. Try to rush past the marines and attack the bodyguard psi attack)

>>32804653
Sextus can provide covering fire while we sprint to a flanking position towards the three marines and unleash kinetic wave?

Thx for the thread, supervisor
Looking forward to the next one

>>32804653

Shockwave the shit out of them to keep them off balance, then shoot at the ghost in sequence.

>>32804689

Cheers for the thread OP! Was a good one.

fuck protoss

>>32804689
OP, try to look up tethering internet. You can tether your computer to your phone for shitty but usable net. I use it for quite a few things (it also seems like certain games such as league, and a few things like skype avoid certain bandwidth limitations).

>>32804653
>1. Attack the guard using Matter Bomb on both Marines.
(Matter Bomb is 2 points for Massive damage in a 2 metre radius). We also should support Sextus if possible.