[Richard Hands, aka Chu-sa Minogue]

Dave 'Doc' Garside: "Ladies and Gentlemen. Told you so!"

Doc, you told us a lot of things, including that we should try to
infiltrate 69 personnel via a cramped sewer tunnel that wouldn't have
allowed us to use GF armour, and that we should have pushed four dustbins
full of plastique into the middle of a road that turns out to be swept by
two multicannons. Now if you're done, why not be a team player here and
take a look at my leg?

Owww! Allright, go easy, doc, I've lost a lot of blood here!

Okay, so, where was I... yeah... er.. IFU Mission 1, Lakshmi, part of local
Operation Fumigate, Masumi Minogue operative - for my sins - commanding. Or
I was until I got tagged. Owwww! For cryin' out loud, doc!

Focus. Right, during our approach to the planet, we were in contact with
Doc Garside, an independent contractor who's been attached to us. He didn't
trust the local military, but didn't mind dealing with us. He was full of
ideas, one of whcih was that we needed to recon this place before we went
in - which we all agreed with emphatically - and since we wouldn't have
time once we reached planetside, since General Watney is all geared up to
go as soon as we arrive - Doc agreed to do the recon himself.

So he was pretty handy - discovered that one problem is that there's a
checkpoint a mile out that the train has to go to, and taking that down
could well alert the opposition at our destination.
Watney's estimate of a dozen bad guys at the terminus turns out to be
pretty close to the mark - there are eight in four sandbagged emplacements
around the platform areas, and a guard room to one side with presumably a
similar number inside - except Doc obviously can't get access to that.
OpFor is mostly armed with standard auto rifles. They are evidently not the
'old men and boys' Watney told us to expect, but fully fledged adults, but
still - not apparently too competent.
One gem Doc does come up with is that the hotel building directly over the
road from the terminus is the new HQ of the big gang boss. He's worth
50,000 credits and for a while there's some excited talk and potential
mission creep, but I rein that in and say we'll do what we're being paid
for, and if we get a chance to take a pop at the big boss man, that will be
icing on the cake. There's a general vote not to tell General Watney about
this intel since we don't trust his staff not to leak like a sieve, and in
any case he won't be able to change his plans at this late stage.
On balance, we agreed with Doc - are you listening Doc? - we AGREED with
him that taking the train in without proper site preparation is a risky
business. So the idea is that the IFU staff will approach the checkpoint
and take out those within by sniping, then head for the station and do the
same for the guys in the emplacements, and only then will the train come
in, everyone debuses while we cover the guardhouse (which only has one
exit, straight onto the platform), and we storm it once we're assembled.
That's the plan...

First part goes very smoothly. We take out the checkpoint gantry - three of
the four go out sniping. The last is hidden but some heroics by Tony S
neutralises him before he can raise the alarm (we're jamming the guy's
mobile phone anyway). Same thing happens to the guys on the platform,
although the thudding noise of exploding heads evidently wakes up the
guards in the guardroom. So as we're racing down the platform to get into
position, Tony S and Smith Smithson wander into the gunsights of two guys
with Marine armour and SCA2s. Which is most certainly not what we were
expecting, but they are lucky and take down the Marines without loss.
Myself, Frank Buck and Leon MacDuff are trying to flank the guardroom by
coming through the wall of the neighbouring warehouse. Here's where we hit
trouble. Leon opens the hole, blazes away and hits precisely nothing, and
gets dropped. There are half a dozen guys in light tac armour beyond, and
they are throwing grenades around with gay abandon. I drop two of them, but
then a grenade goes off at my feet and in spite of my nice shiny GF armour
a nasty bit of shrapnel goes in my leg. Doc, who is trying to do cas-evac
on Leon at the time, is also tagged. Fortunately, Frank at least can shoot
straight and those that he doesn't kill surrender. Leon and Doc turn out to
be just suit kills, thankfully, but typically, I've got an injury.

Control passes to Tony S, who is controlling our squad of trained troopers
and trying to follow through on Doc's bright idea of pushing these
aforesaid dustbins of plastique into the main road (the one overlooked by
the big bad guy's HQ...). However, there's a flanking attack through a side
entrance, and two of his troopers are downed before our side clear out half
a dozen opposition and the rest of the bad guys run for it. Finally Tony
gets to the front entrance to the station to discover two Technicals across
the road with mulitcannons outside the HQ building. Front of our building
dissolves in a hail of fire. Miraculously Tony and his men get back to
safety, but Smithson is down, goddammit.

So, here we are. We've secured the building, but we're pinned on all sides
by fire from surrounding buildings. We're half an hour into the mission and
expect to wait at least 90 minutes for reinforcements to arrive. We're
holding our own, but we can expect some kind of counterattack pretty soon,
I reckon.

Tony - if you're listening in, I suggest the following:

- Make sure we've located the sewer entrance inside the station and get
some men down there to make sure they don't come in that way. Best tactic -
get the tubs of plastique in there, into the main drain under the main
road. They will make a very satisfactory landmine if they attack that way.
Yes doc, it will mean that we can't escape that way, but as well as heading
to the main drain under the main road, the sewer tunnel under the station
also heads back to the train turning point a mile back outside the city,
and we can always go that way if we need to.
- Make sure Watney is appraised of the situation.
- See what you can get from the prisoners.
- Make sure our suit kills (and me!) get tactical armour off the prisoners.
It's better that nothing.

Reasons to be cheerful:
We've only lost a handful of people and taken the objective, killing or
capturing 30 or so of the enemy, including two Marines.
We have a good defensible position and help is on the way.

Reasons to be less cheerful:
Outside is big boss man with 800 gang members, and maybe more Marine
friends?
That 'Help' is General Watney, and it's at least an hour and a half away.

I can't believe they're only paying us 26,000 for this. Tony - you're
supposed to be a combat negotiator - can't you see what you can do about
that?

Masumi Minogue, Chu-Sa (retd)
Director, IFU.