World War II - The Vanguard Issue #3 - Operation Dynamo!

The Vanguard
Anyman
Mist Maiden
Garland
Void (Deceased)
SpiderWeb (Deceased)
Lionheart and Silver Sentinel teams

Frostbots voice rang out "I need confirmation that all of you require lifting out of there please Anyman, sir. There seems to be excessive resistance from Garland. Shall I increase the power?"

=========

On board the ship a new alarm blared.

A much larger vessel, bigger even than the one in which they travelled, had been picked up on the long range scope!

A Skrall technician tapped Lionheart on the hip and pointed at a flashing panel. In no uncertain terms the alien was saying "it's time to go! Now!".

Admin


"Garland's body need to be in contact with the earth in order to heal," Anyman called out. "SO unless you can scoop up a couple of tons of soil and trees and plants, move her to a nearby copse of woods and lets hope she can hide and heal there."

The Vanguard
Anyman
Mist Maiden
Garland
Void (Deceased)
SpiderWeb (Deceased)
Lionheart and Silver Sentinel teams

DavidMcMahon wrote:"Garland's body need to be in contact with the earth in order to heal," Anyman called out. "SO unless you can scoop up a couple of tons of soil and trees and plants, move her to a nearby copse of woods and lets hope she can hide and heal there."

Lionheart turned to the Frostbot, "Can we do it? But we need to do it fast, we've got to get out of here?"

<Awaits answer>

"Ok and second can we shake if we head out into space, make a vertical climb, stop, let the earth spin and re-enter where we need to join with the others?"

OOC:

Don't know if you read Alpha Flight in the original John Byrne series, but Vindicator had this ability whereby he could stop himself relative to the earth it would continue to spin but he'd hold his position appearing to be somewhere else moments later. I'm wondering if the ship can do that by either remaining where we are, in relation to the space, let the earth spin past or go up into the atmosphere and then do it and come down again where we need to be.

Sj

The Vanguard
Anyman
Mist Maiden
Garland
Void (Deceased)
SpiderWeb (Deceased)
Lionheart and Silver Sentinel teams

OOC looked up the Guardian thing. I was a fan of everything John Byrne did 'back in the day' (though I never much liked Next Men) and Alpha Flight was near the top of my list until issue 12 (where Guardian was blown up). As usual with deaths in comics nothing is set in stone and when the artist changed, I lost interest in the series, not bothering to see where, when and how Guardian would turn up again. Turns out he's been killed a few times since then... Anyway. At the line of the equator stopping yourself whilst the Earth rotated is the same as travelling 1038 miles per hour, so every second that passes would see the 'locked' object appear 464 metres away. Not that fast, but I suppose it's one way to get round? The ship would travel faster than that. Simply to escape the pull of gravity a space vessel needs to travel at 25,950 miles an hour! Or 7 miles/second. The ship can eventually reach that speed, but takes time to get up to it in Gravity (minutes). I knew some of this, the rest courtesy of t'internet

There was a 'pause on the line' as Frostbot considered the request to 'scoop up' the soil around Garland. "Unfortunately, because the ground is not a solid object, but rather a vast collection of objects, the computers cannot easily separate what needs to be picked up and what cannot. As a result, this unit cannot assure the Vanguard that all of Garland would be picked up. Picking up only part of her would be... unfortunate."

The jet packers continued to race around, blasting and tossing grenades at the ship.

They were spilling forth from the city now though. And word was spreading. One of the Jetpackers hovered, taking aim at Anyman, seeing the chance to attain glory by slaying the hated enemy! He was blasted from the air by a rail gun, and fell tumbling to crash into the floor!

By now Garlands body was covered in vines and flowers, and the grass all about the forest floor was knee high! The forest appeared to be claiming back one of it's own! Like Silver Sentinel before her, Garlands true potential seemingly lay far beyond her initial power set, but she would need to live long enough to realise it first!

=========

An alarm blared out on the bridge...

A Skrall technician tapped Frostbot on the leg and pointed. Calmly the robot intoned "It appears we are the target of a tactical nuclear strike. Low yield warhead, but sufficient to completely destroy the ship! Incoming in ... 20 seconds... 19... 18..."

Lionheart sped across to the console and his heart sunk. The incoming Alien vessel was several times larger than their own, and unlike theirs was a war machine instead of a science vessel! The nuke was incoming from space, and punching through the atmosphere on its course to destroy the ship! "Laser tracking." muttered the man from the future.

Spartan moved alongside him. "That means it will be computer guided, hard to shake off. Should we prepare for evacuation?"

Guillotine laughed "Hard, but not impossible!" she called out, and started work at a console, trying to rejig the tractor beam to somehow interfere with the missile! She cursed, and shouted to Lionheart "Can you use your TK to deflect it somehow?"

OOC You don't have long to decide whether to take Garland. Being superhumans, you have all sorts of options to deflect an incoming missile, but you don't have long! Are Anyman and Mist Maiden getting on board?

The Vanguard
Anyman
Mist Maiden
Garland
Void (Deceased)
SpiderWeb (Deceased)
Lionheart and Silver Sentinel teams

Admin wrote:Guillotine laughed "Hard, but not impossible!" she called out, and started work at a console, trying to rejig the tractor beam to somehow interfere with the missile! She cursed, and shouted to Lionheart "Can you use your TK to deflect it somehow?"

"Get them onboard and leave Garland" Lionheart almost spat the words out as he seated himself and concentrated with all his might. He was greateful for all Anyman had done. But now it was looking like it was going to end up as one big mess and he wasn't waiting for their answer.

"Let me see what I can do!" Lionheart reach out with his mind, not so much seeking to deflect the missile, but to rejigg its internal wiring guidance of other mechanisms, to it might fall harmlessly to one side.

OOC:

Roll time Oh great I got a critical miss, a 1 now was all I needed. 1d20+18=19. I'll action point it and add five points to make this work in fact I want it to hit the big ship thats just arrived - after all waste not want not etc. Assuming that actions points can work to offset a critical miss?

Sj

The Vanguard
Anyman
Mist Maiden
Garland
Void (Deceased)
SpiderWeb (Deceased)
Lionheart and Silver Sentinel teams

"I assume a nuclear missle is bad," Anyman said to Mist Maiden as he waved for the ship to pick the two of them up. "We better get out of here fast and hope the missle doesn't hit Garland!"

OOC: Get on board ship, hope Garland can get away and not wind up being captured and used against us in the future. If everyone else fails, he will try stretching out and grabbing the missle and use its own momentum to slingshot it out and away from us as far as he can. Use hero points, if I have any, to do so. Also need to get to sickbay ASAP before I die of radiation burns.

"Damn it if we only had more time" sentinel said looking at his fist and wondering if he could of flew towards it melted it before any impact or even died trying ether way he would of saved his friends and redeemed himself.

'Why feel guilty about obtaining the greatest power in all the know universes and using it to CRUSH all who stand in your way for the .........greater good obviously, stop punishing your self and save your friends' the echoing voice goeded him

The Vanguard
Anyman
Mist Maiden
Garland
Void (Deceased)
SpiderWeb (Deceased)
Lionheart and Silver Sentinel teams

OOC Will interpret your actions/move you along/fill in the blanks where required now that I have the gist of what you all tried to do. Lionheart had his shot - a 1 will make his head go fuzzy for a couple of rounds, seeing as he has much more power in there than he used to have. That said, he is still useful...

Lionheart reached out with his mind. After his recent efforts he was sure that... "Arrrgggh!" he cried, with the mother of all migraines nearly making his eyes pop out! Clutching his head, he stumbled and Guillotine moved over to steady him. Blinking back waves of pain, he tried concentrating but was too dizzy, with spots of light flashing in front of his eyes. He would recover - but not in time to stop the missile!

=========

Back on board ship Anyman, looking rather like he'd spent weeks in the sun without sun cream, looked about.

He saw Lionheart with his head in his hands, and the countdown on the screen. Hotshot called out "Anyone with a blasting power better get up on the roof and try to deflect that thing!"

As the seconds ticked away Boudicea sped over. "I have an idea! Sentinel! Anyman! In the lift!"

As the trio got into the lift the ship sped off and upwards, still trailed by Jetpackers but now with the deadly missile on their tail! They were too slow and cumbersome to avoid it, and it would follow, home in, and explode near them - the blast radius would be enough to destroy their vessel!

Lionheart squinted, looking at the screen. "I ... think... I can... see.. again... OWwww!" he called out, and Guillotine looked at the display. 10... 9... 8...

"Lionheart!" squawked the radio. "Get down to the loading bay and ready to catch Silver Sentinel!"

Lionheart gaped. "Eh?"

=========

The Lift opened up, onto the roof of the vessel after Frostbot entered an authority code.

"Anyman!" screamed the PSI Agent as she stepped onto the roof, glancing at her watch. "Slingshot Sentinel towards the missile! Sentinel! Use your power to make the metal turn to liquid! It's our only hope!"

Anyman stretched out, grabbing an end of the ship first with one hand, then the other, and Sentinel, looking worried, moved back with Anyman as he streeetttcccchhheddddd

Boudicea shouted "Dive!" on the comm. There was a momentary delay, and all those on the roof, wind howling past them, saw the missile burst through the clouds now!

It got closer... and closer...

"The missile is about to explode." the Frostbot reminded.

"Wait..." shouted Boudicea. "NOW!"

Sentinel was launched like a bullet, superhuman strength and elastic limbs making him faster than his flight could ever manage!

"Ahhhhhhh!!!!" he cried, using his power...

His suit turned into liquid and fell away from him, leaving him shooting through the air in his underpants! "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" he screamed, realising now that he would plummet to his doom!

He looked up. "Come on dammit!" he spat, wind ripping at his face as he squinted at the oncoming missile. If Anyman missed, it would pass beyond his area of influence and he would fall, watching as the missile destroyed the ship and killed his friends! "NOOOO!" he screamed, as he realised his arcing path might bring him up short! He thrust out a hand, willing the missile to liquify!

OOC Anyman used 2 Hero points. Roll to hit was... 17... 20 (free roll!) 6 and 13... Target was 35 to beat (so 36 or more) something that would normally require a superhuman effort (roll 20 plus roll of 16 or more) or hero points to pull off ...

Sentinel ground his teeth as he started to fall, watching the missile blast past him and... start to tumble, as the back half liquefied, turning into a lump of slag and sending the missile crashing into the trees below! It would remain armed, and dangerous, but unable to follow its prey thanks to the loss of its propulsion system!

Sentinel laughed out loud, then comically started flapping his arms as he tumbled head first towards the ground! It shot up to meet him, and he pulled his arms across his face to spare himself the impact that would dash his head across the rocks!

Any second now... any ...

He opened his eyes.

The rock was inches from his face. He reached out, gingerly, to touch it. Laughing near hysterically, he looked about, then up. Floating (upside down to him) was Lionheart having caught him by the ankle. "I considered catching you by the pants, but realise that a near 200mph wedgie wouldn't be the most glorious way to go... I wonder if they've invented aspirin yet..." he groaned, setting Sentinel down gently.

=========

The enemy vessel started to enter the atmosphere.

OOC translated from alien tongue.

"Sir! The Missile missed!"

The commander whirled. "Impossible! It doesn't 'miss'! It has the finest guidance and propulsion systems going! hitting a lump like that should have been child's play!"

He marched over to a console, causing the technicians there to shrink back in fear! Growling, he backhanded the nearest technicians head clean off, splattering those nearby with brains! "Get us out of the damn gravity well. Track them!" The Commander studied the scan. "The Emperor might want to know about these specimens. Perhaps it's a good job we didn't destroy them. The humans aren't being entirely honest with us..."

"Sir! Skrall ship hailing us! They want to know why we are firing on their stolen vessel, as they want it back!"

The Commander paused. "They want it back. They have dozens of the things orbiting the 6th planet of this system, and they want that one back?" He looked at the screen again. "Track that ship! Don't lose it!"

=========

Back on board Anyman was helped from the lift into sickbay.

With a groan he was eased into a large glass tube, and watched, alarmed, as it started to fill with glowing green liquid! He started to speak, doubting what the liquid did... until its touch instantly soothed his skin and started to heal him! The process would be slow though.

His body was riddled with radiation, literally flicking the scanners off the end of the scale! Across the ship Skrall Technicians swept everywhere Anyman had been since boarding with small handheld devices, making it safe.

Despite being battered, Mist Maiden went to a room to curl up and cry, the horrors of war finally hammering home their grim message.

Sentinel gathered more of the alien metal to himself, then formed a new suit around him. Lionheart, with his headache gone, collapsed into the Captains chair. "Back to the front."

"When the engines have been fixed sir." said the Frostbot. "Our outrunning of the Nazi forces has burnt out a number of inhibitor coils. I have calculated a new route to take us through countries where the Nazis do not yet have a major presence, but the going will be slow until repairs are made."

OOC Which means we can wrap this day up and head neatly over to the Dunkirk Group Thread

The Vanguard
Anyman
Mist Maiden
Garland
Void (Deceased)
SpiderWeb (Deceased)
Lionheart and Silver Sentinel teams

Admin wrote:"Back to the front."

"When the engines have been fixed sir." said the Frostbot. "Our outrunning of the Nazi forces has burnt out a number of inhibitor coils. I have calculated a new route to take us through countries where the Nazis do not yet have a major presence, but the going will be slow until repairs are made."

"Always with the scenic route, this group never gets the straight road to anything." Lionheart said it in mock disappointment, grateful that they'd done something to dent the previously undimmed arrogance of the Nazi's. Also grateful that his head was clearer now and for the chance to start to recover his wits as contemplated what their next move might be.

Sj