Session date: 2025-06-29
January 7, 3025
Max and Axel climb a mountain to try to get a direct signal to base. They begin the hours-long process of building a transceiver strong enough to penetrate the storm.
Nathaniel and Cosmo search the shipping containers and catalog the contents: gold bars, jewels and jewelry, fine art, and 20th-century antiquities. Nathaniel decides to try to claim the treasure as military salvage.
Joanna interrogates the prisoners, who report that they were hired by a smuggling outfit from Dieron to guard the cache between dropoff and pickup. They offer to turn king’s witness for protection. Nathaniel hides the cargo containers a few kilometers away in an old logging mill, hoping the buyer will not find it.
Max establishes patchy contact with the local broadcast towers, which are saying things like “death toll has risen” and “yet claimed responsibility.” Castle Caliburn’s lines are all busy, but a repeating message calls for all units to fall back and establish Defense Protocol C. This means mechwarriors forming a dragnet and searching civilian road traffic.
Nathaniel and Max each pocket some gems; if caught with them, they will claim that the jewels are evidence of the urgency of securing the trove. Joanna confronts Nathaniel about the looting, but agrees to look the other way.
When the Second returns to the city, they finally get through to base. Their damaged mechs and injured warriors are ordered to return for repair and medical attention. As they approach the main bridge into the city, an assault-class silhouette becomes visible: Major Lawson’s Victor. He belays their return to base and orders them into the streets to assist with Protocol C.
The Second tunes in to news broadcasts as they work. They learn that the crisis was sparked by a bombing at the Grand Hotel Sayama that killed a Davion officer and many civilians.
As the hours pass, Lawson’s patience snaps, and he orders the traffic stops to become more and more brutal. Nathaniel privately orders Max to turn his looted gems over to Macathasaigh at the first opportunity. Lennox Gibson’s militia force is assisting with the dragnet, but becomes restive as Davion infantry begins to randomly drag people from their groundcars, beat them, and/or send them to overnight detention.
As night falls, the Second has been in the cockpit for 10 hours. Macathasaigh shows up in his Enforcer and takes command, relaying Lawson’s new orders: the Second is to support Jamero’s infantry as the search expands to local warehouses, first by the railroad, then by the river. The Second covers the industrialmech-sized doors, but they do not find any military equipment. After midnight, the search expands to factory floors; Lawson becomes more and more agitated as they continue to find nothing.
At 0300, Lawson orders house-to-house searches. Gibson’s militia freezes and them forms a casual line facing Lawson’s VTR. Joanna secretly radios one of them, Giragos Sahakian; he says that they are debating whether to simply walk off or to take a stand against the Davion forces. Cognizant that in his condition Lawson will probably construe the act as mutiny, the Second forms a wall between Lawson and the militia. As the militia walks away, Lawson screams that they (the militia) are disobeying his orders.
Joanna talks Lawson down by appealing to his sense of duty to the planet’s new Federated Suns citizens. He turns his weapons from them and punches the closest wall, which causes the southwest quarter of a factory to collapse. Then he cancels Protocol C and all the searches, and he walks back to base.
The next morning, Joanna files a salvage claim for the treasure while Max and Nathaniel turn their gems in to Macathasaigh. Max receives a box of chocolates from Philip, and discovers that one contains an SD card. It holds a single file, titled thevideocomstardoesntwantyoutosee.
The video shows a group of white-clad militants who call themselves the Golden Sun taking credit for the bombing.
Max gathers the group in the chapel and shows them the video. The consensus is that Max should destroy the tape.
At lunch, the news is that Major Lawson has taken ill and Macathasaigh has taken command of the Davion forces. Joanna meets with him. Macathasaigh says that Lawson tried to resign his commission after receiving the casualty report for the bombing. It confirmed Lawson’s assumption that the young Jonathan Scott died in a car bombing meant for the Major.
Joanna reports the video, and Macathasaigh asks if she has seen the first one. It was the file that was deleted off his computer while he was sleeping, and all that is left is his handwritten transcript. It was a beheading video, showing the execution of Nathaniel’s lancemates with a chainsaw.
Joanna reports the first video to the Second, consoling Nathaniel.
Joanna decides to make contact with the local militia. She contacts Giragos, who agrees to set up a meet.
