Red Sparrow Down

Hasimoto Taichi is a top ranking Japanese Diplomat living and working in the USA. There have been some rumours that he has Yakuza connections but there is no hard evidence and the US needs all the friends she can get nowadays, so there have been no significant investigations into his activities.

Hasimoto likes fast cars and fast women, but best of all he likes fast helicopters and is on a flight across the Mohave Desert in his latest plaything the Red Sparrow with a couple of bodyguards and his latest fast woman Amori Mizuke. The engine temperature started rising, going from normal into the red - very red - very quickly.

He sees a small town in the middle of nowhere, he's over the Mohave Desert so it can't be nowhere.

There appears to be no one around and so he decides to put down immediately and lands quickly on top of one of the building roofs.

Due to the updraft from the hot desert floor he misjudges the landing and buckles the undercarriage. No taking off with that damage, so he puts out a call on the radio, the acknowledgement is swift. “You are in a restricted area, there is a security force not far away. They will be with you shortly, stay with the helicopter and everything will be OK”.

That doesn’t sound too reassuring - does it!

They all climb out of Red Sparrow and look around, there's no one to be seen. Hasimoto leads them through a trap door in the roof leaving Okumura Katashi guarding the helicopter.

The noise of the helicopter has attracted unwelcome visitors, but Katashi doesn’t see them.

Zombies are unseen over by the gun store.

Some strange **REDACTED** figures come rollicking down the road.

I'm sorry to say that the US Security Services have censored this document. I'm not at liberty to divulge the full story of Red Sparrow.

They seem to be doing some sort of ritual maypole dance.

Before moving over to the Deli, followed by the zombies. At this point Katashi and the **REDACTED** see each other but both fail activation and just stare at each other moronically, that is if **REDACTED** can be moronic? Katashi obviously can.

At this point the 3rd and final PEF is resolved as Alexander Lorne and 5 of her sidekicks. She is an A list International Criminal, you probably thought she had been arrested and jailed after the fiasco of the Uranium Handoff but that didn't happen. She knew of Hasimoto’s plan to fly over the small town in the desert and had acquired a jamming device that she used to override the engine electronics causing them to malfunction and forcing him down.

She is being paid handsomely to kidnap him and turn him over to his business rivals. There is a mob of zombies between her and her money. I wouldn’t want to be in the zombies shoes.

A better picture of them, the 6th member of the crew is just behind the Area Control Building.

A shot of Hasimoto and his bodyguards searching for a way out of the wired compound, round the back of the Deli.

At the same time in the distance you can see the Security Force, 4 men strong just at the end of the alleyway. It’s all getting busy around here at the moment.

The Security Team had to roll on 2 dice to determine when they arrived. Starting on I think the 7th move they had to roll 12 on 2D6’s, then 8th move 11, then 9th move 10 and so on, until they finally arrived on the 13th turn, is that an omen?

Katashi on the roof finally gets a shot off and kills a zombie, but he runs out of ammo, this was to be a regular event for him.

When I said 4 man strong Security Force I did in fact mean 2 men 2 women as I hope you can see in this closer shot of them with Danielle Steel on Point and Jethroe behind her in command, following him is Tiny Malone with the GMPG and watching the back door is Stephanie Kowalski. They were re-assigned to desert duty following the 1st attempted Uranium Handoff.

No one gets between Alexander Lorne and money, the crew step out and shoot down half the riff raff who were trying to break in to the Deli.

The next turn they take down the other half. Pretty good shooting but they are natural born killers, every last one of them.

As you would expect the shooting brought more zombies, but they are far enough away at this point.

Kowalski is cutting the wire so that the Japanese can get out, 1/2D6 to do this and she threw a 6 so 3 active turns to cut the wire!! Hasimoto seems to have forgotten all about poor Katachi who is still on the roof.

This was the crucial point of the action. Alexander knows that Hasimoto has joined up with the security forces, she knows they just outnumber her, she knows that there are zeds to the left and to the right, so if she goes forward they will cut off her retreat back to the vehicles.

Under these circumstances I think I would have pulled out but I rolled a die and she failed her brains test and then passed her guts test so the logical thing was to move forward towards the prize.

She makes the decision, sends Eric and Ray into the Deli on her right (our left) to outflank the security forces, she and Mad Dog Maguire rush forward, and Kurt and Toby Jung hang back to finish reloading their weapons.

She’s not daft enough to run up the alley but instead runs in to the junk yard, keeping 7’ high concrete wall between her and the Security force. Her plan is for Eric and Ray to come out the back door of the Deli and she and her 3 men will scale the wall catching the security forces by surprise. We’ll all be surprised if that works.

There is a young girl off to her left (our right).

Mad Dog shoots the little girl, hitting her twice even though he is running, good shooting but no moral fibre.
Stephanie cuts the wire. Eric and Ray break down the door into the Deli, Katachi is on the roof of the Deli loading again.

An overview shot, the wall is too high for anyone to see over it, even Tiny. Hasimoto failed to activate so still hasn’t come through the wire.

Kurt and Toby are given a leg up and see over the wall, strangely enough everyone was surprised!!

Jethroe reacted first (he’s the one with the Mohican hair style) and panicked shooting at Kurt (with the striped tie) but narrowly missed Tiny who was between the two of them. Kurt returned fire and did hit Tiny and he went down OOF. (The bigger they are etc) Jethroe returns fire and this time hits Kurt who drops down stunned but not hurt. Stephanie nearest to us and out of focus fires but hits Hasimoto who is immediately in front of her, he goes down OOF (friendly fire?). Toby fires and misses Stephanie, she returns the fire and also misses, he returns the fire and she is OOF, Jethroe fires at Toby and hits him – he is OOF. 21 shots were fired and 5 people hit, but this also generated 9 zombies.

A long range shot which doesn’t show the carnage well. Amori (The girlfriend, green hair) takes control of the Yakuza, shouting to Katachi to "get down here now - we are pulling out". You can see him still up by the helicopter. Alexander’s crew are all down behind the wall but in quite good shape – only Toby is OOF, and she has the outflanking force coming round to – well outflank.

The Security forces are pulling back and aiming to take their wounded with them. Jethroe is trying to lift Tiny but he is too heavy, Hasimoto is too heavy for Amori and Tomori to lift, they do get him up but Amori drops her end of him. Ouch!! Danielle can not pick up Stephanie – again she is not strong enough.

Alexander gives Mad Dog a leg up to see over the wall, he and Jethroe react as one, and both of them get shot, Jethroe OOF and Mad Dog dead, this shot shows the carnage better.

Katachi kept failing to activate and is still on the roof. Close to us, Amori and Tomori have managed to pick up Hasimoto and are moving slowly to our right (out of sight). Danielle Street failed again to lift Stephanie, she is just not strong enough, she has to make the decision – does she pull back and leave her team or stay with them. They are all wounded - no one is dead yet.

What would you do?

She passes her guts test and is ambivalent on her brains test so decides to stay and protect her team, calling for backup. Bet you would have run away!! I think I would have.
Anyway – at that point Eric and Ray come out of the back door of the Deli (Just under the helicopter). Eric and Danielle both fire simultaneously, Eric is killed and she is wounded and OOF, sinking slowly to the floor. She should have run, but we all knew that.

Raymond runs forward, shouting to Alexandria that everyone is down. You can see Tomori and Amori struggling to carry Hasimoto to the right of the picture.

Alexandria looks round and all she can see is a tide of zombies coming her way.

It’s a poor shot but these are some of the zombies attracted by all the shooting, they come round the corner and catch Ray by surprise he kills them all, well done Ray.

Amori (green hair) is stopped by a zombie approaching her, she puts down her end of Hasimoto and draws her Katana. This is going to be easy.

The horde of zombies gets closer to Alexandria and Kurt. He is trying to give her a lift over the wall but they are struggling. Panic and a horde of zombies will do that.

Katachi comes out of the back door of the Deli – sees Ray and shoots him in the back and Ray is dead. Boo hiss.

Alexandria is finally over the wall, in the alley, just waiting for Kurt to follow, and Amori is still facing off with the zombie, neither activated.

Just a close up of Alex over the wall and that back shooter Katachi. Another Boo Hiss. Yet again he is out of ammo and Alex doesn’t waste a bullet on him. She knows sound draws zeds like flies to a dung heap and that's the last thing she wants now..

You can just see Kurt with his hand up grasping for the top of the wall.

And this is why he’s grasping for the top of the wall.

Sorry I just like the guy on the right so I had to include him in the group shot.

Well I don’t suppose anyone thought Alexander would stick around and she didn’t, one final zed stands in her way and she quickly takes him out.

Kurt never made it over the wall, a bit too high and he was not quite strong enough to pull himself up.

Katachi has zeds all over him but it’s amazing what a sawn off pump action shotgun will achieve at close quarters and he kills them all. This was probably the only time he didn't run out of ammo, and a good job or he would have been dead.

Amori finally activates and charges into the zed facing her. She has a Katana and in my version of the rules rolls 6D6 to the zombies 1D6 and she losses and is killed. How did that happen?

Alexandria in the distance makes her way back to the transport. A Bad Day at Black Rock as they say.

Tomori shoots the Zed that has just killed Amori and ……. "HE’S BEHIND YOU TOMORI".

You could make up your own ending here, but it’s my game.

Tamori was attacked in the back but beat the zed, killing it dead – again. He has a last go at picking up his boss but is exhausted and can’t do it. He leaves Amori behind without a 2nd glance, he never liked her anyway.

Katashi also managed to make it out on foot, and was picked up by the back up team called for by Danielle. His whereabouts are **REDACTED**. Wonder if we'll ever see him again?

5 Gangsters, 4 Green Berets and 2 Yakuza eaten by the zombies. There were some bloated zeds wandering about the place after this.

If, as appears, the US Security Forces know about the mutations living here, why have they not eradicated the problem?

To be continued ..........

Well if you are still here - thanks for reading and if, after that mammoth read you have any time to spare let me know what you thought, or maybe just get a beer.