Beam Saber 1
[This is a transcript of a 4 player session of my weekly Beam Saber game, a Forged in the Dark game of constant mecha warfare heavily inspired by Gundam and other Mecha anime franchsies. I am playing the character of Timur. All other players and GM preferred to remain anonymous. Annil uses the Soldier palybook, Baizhi the Artifical, Timur the Scout and Zyre the Empath. The squad playbook is the Mech Cavalry. All Art has been taken off of the Beam Saber itch.io page and is used with permission by Avalyn Ramsay. You can get Beam Saber here, as well as on Drive Thru RPG as print on demand: https://austin-ramsay.itch.io/beamsaber]
On an alternate Earth in the far future, the concept of ethno-nationstates has made way for nations, factions and groups centred around ideologies. In the steppes and tundra of Asia these factions have been waging war for decades, even going so far as to embroil space itself in their warmongering. To date, not one of them has managed to establish supremacy.
In this madness of constant skirmishes and battles between militaries, corporate security forces and guerillas, the newly founded 13th Freelance Troubleshooting Team of the Lunar-based corporatocracy of Blackwell Industries gets ready for their first mission together. Consisting of Annil Tenn, a soldier from a logistics family with roots in the steppes, Baizhi, an artificial human of neutral Solaris (a faction collecting all of human knowledge, though her being artificial is unknown to the rest of the squad), Timur Yesun, a crippled ex-guerilla steppe nomad back in action thanks to Blackwell’s cybernetics and the ESPer Zyre, the fled and secret heir-apparent of New Lakonia, a fascist Empire settling the reaches of space, Blackwell is very eager to see what they can do.
The squad landed on Blackwell’s spaceport in the north-eastern steppes, getting briefed by Yuki Blackwell-Sato, the leader of Blackwell’s operation on Earth. Their mission is simple: Protect a truck transporting cargo through the steppes to the ocean, with its final destination the Giant’s Boneyard – a ruined industrial complex in Yora, former Northern Finland, that has been fought over for nearly twenty years now. Older routes were too close to strongholds of the Meritocracy of Makkam, with whom Blackwell is fighting over the Boneyard. Therefore, a new route has been chosen that stays clear of these strongholds, but would pass very close to the territories of the divided guerillas in Yora City. Technically Blackwell is not at war with Yora City, but is trespassing on their land, so the squad should expect trouble. After Zyre asked about the cargo, the squad is told it’s on a “Need to know basis” and they definitely don’t need to know. It’s only important to keep a low profile, avoid conflict as much as possible and if it is unavoidable, collateral damage should be kept to a minimum.
After being dismissed, the 13th moves over to the hangar, where the massive eight wheeled truck is waiting. The cab itself is the only part with windows, while the container its transporting is heavily armoured, locked, but completely unarmed. Leaning against it is Captain Volk, a European ex-military hired by Blackwell. Throwing away his cigarette, he briefs the squad about the details. His nervousness concerning the transport is obvious, but he only tells the group that he doesn’t know what he’s transporting either and that the chosen route is the best of the bad bunch they could be taking. There’s going to be very little cover for most of the route, since it’s going through the steppe, but the vehicle would struggle uphill. ETA to the ocean is going to be 18 hours, without taking any breaks. Expected resistance will be the Caspian Sea Wolves on their bikes and hovercraft, as well as the artillery of the Thunder of the Steppes, which would have free firing solutions in the open steppes.
Due to the time sensitivity of the mission, everybody mounts their ‘Mechs shortly after, while Volk will be driving the transport and the rover team that is attached to the 13th mounts their two APCs. It’s decided that the APCs will be driving in front and to the back of the transport, while the Mechs will be flanking the transport, two on each side. The first leg of the journey through the mountains passes without incident, and the convoy enters the steppes. First contact with hostile forces comes after six hours, in the form of the Caspian Sea Wolves. Their bikes, hovercraft and light mechs encircle the convoy from a safe distance. Captain Volk orders the squad not to engage, and after a short twenty minutes, the Caspian Sea Wolves distance themselves again, and the leader of the Sea Wolves, Sarangerel ‘Sara’ contacts the convoy: Either share a cargo manifest or pay a fee for the transport. Volk refuses and states that the convoy will not stop under any circumstances. Zyre and Timur take over the ‘negotiations’, first confirming Sara’s demands. Timur argues that they’re simply passing through and that nobody in the convoy knows what exactly they are transporting (and that Blackwell would be very unhappy if anybody found out). But he reassures Sara that they’re just passing through the steppes to the ocean and are not planning to engage in hostilities. Additionally, whatever is in the transport will only be used against the Meritocracy in the Boneyard, which are also the enemies of Yora City. Sara seems convinced, she might have recognized Timurs voice or pattern of speech due to his time as a steppe guerilla. She starts talking on comms with somebody else and shortly after patches this person through: Tsetseg Ganbataar, the young niece of the deceased founder of Yora City and leader of the Thunder of the Steppes. She refuses to let the squad pass this easily and threatens violence by engaging with her extreme long range artillery.
Quickly, the squad deliberates among themselves and comes to the solution that, despite the inherent dangers, handing over a faked cargo manifest would be the fastest, and probably quickest way of resolving the situation without engaging in hostilities. Luckily, Baizhi has prepared just such documents earlier during the trip and Annil takes these over to Sara, after leaving his weapons behind. Sara speeds off on her bike to deliver the documents to Tsetseg, in the meantime the convoy continues its way towards the ocean, constantly being watched by the forces of Yora city. A few hours later, Sara returns and luckily clears the convoy to continue unharried. She agrees that Tsetseg is too reckless in her need to prove herself as a possible heir to her uncle’s faction. The convoy continues on, but suddenly Captain Volk alerts the squad to a containment breech in the transports’ container. They should immediately use the tranquilizer equipment issued to them at the start of the journey. Confusion ensues – are they transporting something or someone alive? Baizhi takes a closer look at the back of the container, where the doors have been slightly forced opened, and can barely make out the silhouette of a single person. It looks and feels like it’s a grown person inside some kind of artificial womb and the person is thrashing around like an agitated baby, attacking the container through some kind of telekinesis, it seems like the cargo was an ESPer - a genetically modified human from New Lakonia – all along. Zyre is reacting quickly, but unexpectedly. He is extremely agitated and wants to free the ESPer immediately, refusing to subject another of his kind to the unethical and inhumane experiments they are forced to endure. The rest of the group tries to act strategically and Annil plans to tranquilize the ESPer to deal with the situation later. Baizhi steps in and tries to stop Zyre without actually hurting or damaging him and his ‘Mech. Zyre on the other hand doesn’t have these reservations and in his rage attacks Baizhi full on with his two beam sabers. Baizhi can barely block his attacks with her lance and her ‘Mech’s shoulder gets severely damaged. But she manages to disable Zyre’s mech with a successful hacking attempt, freeing the way for Timur to apply the tranquilizer syringe to the mechanism attached to the outside of the cargo trailer. Immediately the ESPer calms down. The squad gets contacted again by Sara, who has watched the exchange from a safe distance. She is extremely unhappy with Blackwell transporting an ESPer like this and the squad going along with it, and threatens that the next time they’ll try to pass this way, there’ll be consequences. Annil grabs Zyres lighter ‘Mech and carries it the rest of the way and finally the transport reaches the ocean and the cargo vessel waiting there without further incident. The 13th continues on to their Forward Operating Base near the neutral port city of New Caidiff. Zyre needs to be put under arrest at gunpoint and the mission ends with him angrily telling the squad that if any of them are better than the fascists from New Lakonia, they will not let this stand.
[Part 2 here: https://daydreamingmoose.bearblog.dev/beam-saber-2/]