MISSION DIRECTOR'S AAR

Masumi Minogue, Operative Commanding

We were in receipt of an urgent request for military assistance to the civil power by the town of New Nero on Percentage. The offshore oil drilling rig Bagpipe Beta (part of the Bagpipe oil field) belonging to Xyonist megacorp Hat Yay Sirukit had been occupied by a terrorist group claiming to be DAFT. The 14 personnel on the rig were hostages and the group were demanding safe passage, 5 million credits in ransom and the release of 12 "political prisoners" held by the corporation on its Z156 colony.

Contacts with local authorities were not initially very promising. While they were happy to loan local police resources, as far as pay went their entire 'emergency contingency fund' for such activities amounted to only Cr 20,000. However, Hat Yay Sirukit were much more forthcoming. They were exceptionally keen to get the rig back into production again (losses were estimated in the tens of thousands of credits per day) without damage and, preferably, with the personnel uninjured. They were not willing to pay any kind of ransom. I was able to negotiate a fee of Cr 275,000 with a bonus of Cr 45,000 provided that no "significant" damage was done to the rig or its crew. Timescale was to be "as soon as possible", and preferably within 24 hours. HYS were keen for PR reasons that the terrorists were taken alive if possible, but agreed that this should not compromise the recovery operation.

Available forces were limited by who was on-planet. This amounted to myself and Frank Buck from IFU management, and Bod/Jason, Octo Brock and Samantha Beckmann from permanent staff, plus two new ex-Marine recruits, Trey Johnson III (MAFC) and Carlos O'Brian (UoX). A forward recon team was sent in one shuttle consisting of Bod (pilot), Frank, Octo and Trey to make contact with local police and recce the rig via shuttle/camera drone. Six hostiles were found, with LTA and SCA weaponry, but a SAM unit had been placed on the top of the rig which prevented the shuttle from closing to within 5km.

Meanwhile, we tried ringing around people on-planet, and managed to rustle up another 6 IFU staff, including Mike Angel, Harlan Dunham, Doc Garside, Tammy Kay, Manuel Light and Pilar Winfield. We got these aboard a second shuttle, polited by Bod's robot, and headed out to join the site team.

The site team had been dealing with local cops, who had placed eight of their "best" people at our disposal. Trey asessed them and found that two appeared to be fairly competent veterans, five were adequate, and one was found not suited for difficult operations.
Carlos initiated some negotiation with the DAFT leader, 'Wolfie', on behalf of our Principals, and was able to persuade them to display the hostages to a camera drone to give proof of life. It was discovered that six of them, including all senior staff, had been apparently wired with explosives. Helpfully we were able to see where the hostages were being held - 6 in the Kitchen/canteen area, 6 in the rec room, and the two security people in the control room.
Meanwhile some background research by police had managed to find 17 people who had come from Z156 in the past couple of weeks - far more than would normally be expected. Six could be located, but 11 could not, and several of these had rented a flyer and purchased weapons and explosives in the past few days. The rented flyer was the same as the one idenfitied by our camera drone as being on the rig helipad.

Various approach options were considered, but eventually I ordered an approach using three fire teams of 4 IFU personnel, deployed using the two shuttles, which would approach under water and then 'pop up' for the attack. Fire team 1 (led by Frank) would secure the control room and disable the SAM launcher (both at the top of the rig). Fire team 2 (led by myself) would enter the canteen and secure the hostages there, Fire team 3 (led by Samantha) would enter the rec room. We had just three (!) stun grenades at our disposal courtesy of local police (MEMO - we need to buy some more for this kind of thing!). I took one and gave Samantha the other two. All teams used LTA (for mobility) and SLA2s.

The approach proceeded without incident. Insertion was made at 3am - roughly 24 hours after the rig had been seized. Resistance was quickly overcome. There were only 8 hostiles - 7 terrorists plus one of the rig security guards, who had been a DAFT 'inside man'. Two were taken unhurt, the rest were downed by weapons fire. Of these, two were killed outright, one survived badly wounded, the others lightly wounded (Roll: 2,2,3,5,5,6). In the confusion, the other security guard was also fired upon by IFU forces and unfortunately killed (roll: 2). Some bullet damage was done to the control room by automatic weapons fire, which will be deducted from our bonus, but otherwise damage to the rig was cosmetic only.

Overall: a successful mission improvised at short notice. Congratulations to our new recruits on surviving their 'baptism of fire'.

Remuneration to IFU in the Cr 335,000 region is expected. I'll work out how much it cost us later, but basically not a lot as we were using stuff from stores and personnel already on retainer. A 'mission bonus' to IFU staff might be appropriate.

Masumi