Gray Matters
XCOM:_Gray_Dawn#Recaps
Previous ... Next
When we last left off...
Game #8 5/25/14
Day 7
The moral debate among members of our group is far from over. Concerns about mob rule and might making right fill the air. Before the team moves forward, some members want to have a sense of legitimacy. The decision is made to do nothing to rescue Jules Saint for now, much to the consternation of Sergeant Carville.
To this end, they redouble their efforts to find the retired colonel they had sent feelers out for days prior. After a bit of hunting around, they locate him. His name is Harlan Ruger, a retired Marine colonel with a background in law. After leaving the military, he became a superior court judge in Grays Harbor County. Since the request to step in and help restore order to Elma was made, Ruger made his rounds of the local area, recruiting his own posse of men he could trust and moved them and their families into the area. His return doesn't occur a moment too soon--they whisk him off to City Hall to meet with the mayor.
Declaring martial law is ordinarily a pretty big deal, and something normally put into effect by people with more clout and authority than a small-town mayor and a retired military officer. Given the circumstances (being cut off from any higher authority, direction or support), Ruger makes the argument that declaring martial law could be a justified and legally defensible action. The mayor makes the call and transfers authority to Ruger.
Doug is back on his feet after recuperating from his torture-related injuries. Marie is keeping an eye on him and trying to fill him in on recent happenings, but seeing the depths of Doug's suspicion toward anything alien-related, she fears if she tells him her own recently-discovered alien influence, he will drop her like a hot rock, so he is only getting half the story from Marie.
At this point, the power goes out in Elma. The problem is traced back to the geothermal steam plant near the Satsop Development Park which is supplying most of the local electricity. The system has been tapped into and the electricity is being diverted to Olympia, then to the WSP academy at Shelton. AJ gets a call from his wife. She tells him a WSP Trooper came looking for him. She last heard AJ was going to city hall, so she sent the trooper to look for him there.
Meanwhile, Doug tries to use ham radio to contact governmental civil defense personnel to try and find the "official" word behind the power outage. The person on the other end of the radio is completely unsympathetic and cannot be reasoned with. He signs off by telling "Elma Civil Defense" (Doug) that they are following the governor's (?!) orders and that the people of Elma are on their own.
This is cause enough for the team to want to override Olympia's control at the power plant, but they want to get approval from Harlan Ruger and Mayor Osgood, first. They also want to get to city hall, and fast, to see why a WSP Trooper is looking for AJ. When they get into town, they hear a gun battle underway! Approaching the scene cautiously, they find a Trooper unloading his shotgun into the front entrance from behind the cover of his cruiser parked across the street. AJ and Brock flank him and take him down, but not before AJ gets winged in the leg. Fayth sprints around the building to approach the downed Trooper from a position of cover; there are at least two more Troopers across the street. She stumbles across another Trooper skulking through the pharmacy to sneak up on Brock. She ambushes him and Brock spins around to finish him off. Meanwhile, a crossfire from Carville and AJ keep the other Troopers pinned behind the corner of City Hall. One of them is injured and flees while the other stays to suppress AJ, who is closest.
The fleeing Trooper jumps in his nearby cruiser and guns the engine, hurtling down the street toward AJ. A hail of gunfire from AJ, Fayth, Brock and Carville incapacitates the driver and blows out a tire, sending the car swerving to miss AJ by mere inches...only to plow directly toward Fayth!
The medic is run down by the errant vehicle, bouncing across the hood. Luckily, she rolls with the hit and is not seriously hurt. She is able to make it to the first downed Trooper and start life-saving efforts; they want one of these damned Troopers captive.
The team makes entry to City Hall and find that both Mayor Osgood and Harlan Ruger have been attacked by the WSP Troopers. Ruger is not seriously wounded and is trying to help the mayor, who is critically injured. Fayth dives in and stabilizes the Mayor.
In light of what has gone on, Ruger quickly agrees that the WSP should have their power yanked. At Doug's request, AJ drives one of the operable police cruisers back to Doug's barn, where he and Marie go over it with a fine-tooth comb. They pull the GPS logs from the car to find out how it got into Elma. According to the on-board navigation, it came in on the Cloquallum road which, last anyone knew, had been cut off by a meteor strike during the Sweeps. Doug sends out a drone and sees the WSP has a fortified position there and have spanned the broken road with a military bridge-layer. The team gets approval from Ruger to harrass their position. AJ and Brock serve as gunners for the Skyranger as they fly by and hose them down with machine gun fire. Doug tosses a shot from an assault drone for good measure before returning to base.
The Elma Resistance now has official license to kick ass and take names. Will they exercise this prerogative, or will they only use it in self defense? Will they go on the offensive against hostile parties that are racking up faster than the sun is setting, or will they wait until the battle comes to their doorstep?
