Someone was asleep at the wheel.
-Judge Korvanova, LAW Memphis-
Debriefing MISSION TRO-003
Jhat BELLADONNA
Judge Benevol (KIA)
Dean Bishop (at HQM for debriefing)
Grissom Card (at HQM for debriefing)
Makmande (MIA)
José Guanicontez (presumed in Troy)
Luci (MIA)
The following debriefing is based on the testimonials of Dean Bishop, who served as the jhat’s driver and mechanic, and Grissom Card, a soldier, both in the service of LAW for many years. Dean Bishop’s diary served to rectify certain dates.
For a precise mission statement, please refer to MISSION TRO-003 – in summary, a request for military support reached the Tribunal on xx.xx.xxxx from Troy. Although the relationship between this city-state and LAW has been strained for a variety of reasons (see e.g. MISSION TRO-001 and HOU-007), Troy’s rich source of crude oil and its working refinery make it one of the important communities on the Vever. On the other hand, the nature of the threat and the source of the request were very vague. Thus, a small jhat was sent to Troy, not as a direct support force, but rather as an attempt to find out the nature of the threat and to gauge the LBM’s willingness to cut a deal with LAW for their protection. The choice of soldiers was not only based on the nature of this region, but also on the fearsome reputation of two of its members, Luci and Makmande – Judge Benevol wanted to be able to show off some of our finest warriors to underpin his negotiations with Troy’s famously contrary council. José Guanicontez was added to the jhat as a designated sniper/fail-safe.
The voyage towards Troy was without incident, until the jhat – employing one lightly armored sedan and two motorcycles – was ambushed about forty clicks from Troy. The assailants were later identified as ferales known as Moonbrothers, and used a highly sophisticated ambush techniques, although most of their armaments were decidedly lotek. It was here that Judge Benevol was killed by a rifleman, and Grissom Card received a grievous wound in the left leg. Although outnumbered, the rest of the jhat was able to drive off the attackers and make their way towards Troy. There – contrary to earlier experiences – they were admitted and even asked to remain in the city as mercenaries by Glosster, one of three members of the ruling council.
The remaining members of the jhat decided to stay in Troy at least until Grissom Card’s leg was healed up, if only to learn more about the city and the ferales threatening it. According to Grissom Card and Dean Bishop, Troy was well defended, boasting a concrete wall, searchlights, and about eighty well-trained shooters, as well as a couple of heavy weapons for wall defense, but had lost all its scouts to the Moonbrothers and was suffering from a water shortage, as the main source of fresh water was removed from the city, about five clicks west. It also became clear that the request for help had not been issued by the council, but by a Merle Purple, a local trader, who voiced bitter disappointment at our response and asked the jhat to keep her involvement a secret, as her actions would have been judged defeatist by the council, leading to her exile, or worse.
After two days in Troy, the jhat had learned much about the council (this knowledge now, sadly, completely useless), but was not able to find out more about the Moonbrothers. The citizens of Troy feared a massive assault by these ferales – basically, the Moonbrothers seemed to be bent on destroying Troy completely, having started their siege about four months earlier. Apart from their tactics and preferred weapons – a steel spear, or dart, flung with the help of a throwing lever – the inhabitants knew next to nothing about their enemies, only that they had brought travel from and to Troy to a complete standstill, that they killed every scout the council had sent out, and that they seemed to mass somewhere in the vicinity of Troy.
On day three of their stay, the fit members of the jhat were asked to escort a larger expedition to Troy’s water source. About thirty members of the city-states defenders, led by one Bene van Klyng were sent out to replenish the city’s depleted cisterns with two large tankers. The Moonbrothers seemed to have anticipated such a move, and attacked the party in force. Troy’s defenders suffered heavy losses, including Bene van Klyng, who – according to Dean Bishop – seemed to have been singled out. In this ambush, Dean Bishop was also severely wounded, putting him out of action for several days. The other three members of the jhat appear to have had a devastating effect on the attackers. Regrettably, this left only Grissom Card as a witness for this debriefing, who, in my opinion, is far less observant than Dean Bishop.
While the attack on the water convoy did replenish Troy’s water reserves for the medium term, many of its defenders were now dead or wounded, and their leader had to be replaced by one Frater Lamb. According to Dean Bishop, Frater Lamb seemed to have been more cautious than his predecessor, and more approachable, although less of warrior. Ammunition for the defenders’ firearms also became a problem. Relations between the jhat and Hartheart and Dellon, the other two council members, remained cool – both Dean Bishop and Grissom Card put the blame for this straight on Hartheart, who appears to have been a singularly stubborn and inflexible ruler.
By now, it seemed obvious that the Moonbrothers had amassed an atypically large army and were showing an equally atypical strategic and tactical acumen. But there siege around the city was not total, as a group of a dozen or so Yaddaheads, under the command of one Terata (see MISSION – PTT 021), was able to slip into the city. While the Yaddaheads claimed to have been ambushed as well, the larger part of their group was unharmed. Terata, while on his way to Five Rules and Little Rock to trade medical supplies, drugs and alcohol, was persuaded by Glosster to stay on as mercenaries to bolster the city’s defenses. While there was some initial friction between the more warlike members of the jhat and the Yaddaheads, relations remained positive, even amiable during the whole stay. Makmande, José Guanicontez and Luci traded extensively with the Yaddaheads.
About two days later – regrettably, Grissom Card was vague about this – the Moonbrothers staged a massive night assault on the city itself. The assault was preceded by a heavy explosion in Troy’s so-called Stash, the repository of refined fuels, which demolished a length of the protective wall and killed the defenders stationed there. The cause of the explosion remains unknown, although the jhat suspected sabotage: Troy seems to use slave labor in then Stash and the oil well, and a number of these slaves were missing after the attack. Right after the explosion, a large group of Moonbrothers attacked the breach, while their few riflemen shot at the searchlights and the defenders on the wall. According to Grissom Card, the martial qualities of the jhat shined again, with Luci making a fearsome appearance in the breach. The Moonbrothers seemed to retreat after sustaining heavy casualties by all defenders, and Makmande, José Guanicontez and Luci made an on-the-spur decision to pursue the attackers, to either find the Moonbrothers’ camp or – in Grissom Card’s words - “to put the fear of god in them”. While they were able to wipe out a group of Moonbrothers via an impromptu ambush and take a prisoner, they were attacked on their way back to the city: Makmande sustained many injuries, and only staid operative due to the massive use of Aesculapin. Nonetheless, the jhat’s training and weapons prevailed once again.
At this point, things looked up for Troy: While the attack had left some more defenders dead or wounded, losses were less than expected for such an attack, and while a part of the wall was destroyed, heavy weaponry from the city’s gate was relocated to the breach. Interrogation of captive Moonbrothers also revealed the location of the ferales’ main camp, and the name of their leader. A woman named Hecate had, as the jhat found out later, united three of the regions fractious feral tribes – Dengue, Fishbone and Brownroots. Boasting “supernatural” powers, she had basically taken over the tribes from their regular chiefs and had, over the course of some years, shaped them into an army bent on destroying Troy. The captive ferales were convinced she was a goddess “coming from darkness, leaving in darkness”, that never slept and could kill with a touch. Regrettably, we have no clue, at the time being, who this individual is, and whether she is still alive and/ or operating in the region around Troy.
Regrettably, it became obvious that the night assault had been only a diversion for a much more dangerous attack on Troy. About half of the citizens fell ill with cholera in the following days, the freshly filled cisterns being the source of the epidemic. As the water was tested thoroughly after being brought from the source, someone seemed to have contaminated the cisterns during the night assault. Troy’s doctor, already working beyond endurance with the many wounded, could only help a fraction of the infected.
The death toll from cholera amongst the normal citizenry and the further weakening of the city’s defensive capabilities seems to have lead Hartheart, the only councilor to remain healthy, to a fateful decision: a massive attack on the Moonbrothers’ camp with all available men and weapons. He announced this “strike to end the Moonbrothers forever” about a week after the night assault, giving his remaining men only 12 hours to prepare. What happened next points to a deep rift between the council and various citizens of Troy – something already noticeable in Merle Purple’s behavior. Frater Lamb, very unsure of the attack’s chances in view of the Moonbrothers’ numbers, their atypical tactics and high discipline, met the jhat in secret to arrange something that amounted to mutiny. The jhat, which by now had a reputation as exceptional fighters among Troy’s inhabitants, were to be paid to make an assassination attempt on Hecate, before the city’s defenders were on their way. Frater Lamb hoped that the Moonbrothers would dissolve as an army with their leader gone, and he was willing to bet the city’s arsenal on the attempt. He made it clear to the jhat that they had all weapons and ammo of Troy at their disposal, if they used them to infiltrate the camp of the Moonbrothers. While Dean Bishop and Grissom Card were less than sure about this endeavor, the other three reacted “enthusiastically” to this proposal. Subjecting Troy’s armory to what Dean Bishop called “wholesale plunder” and even spiriting away the one remaining LMG from its position in the breach, they denuded the city’s defenses even further – something that might have influenced later events noticeably. After gearing up, the jhat drove to the camp the same night Hearthart declared his intentions.
According to Dean Bishop, the first attempt on Hecate’s life was a “grand, glorious and dismal failure”. He and Grissom Card remained about five clicks from the camp in the armored sedan, now enhanced by the hastily bolted on LMG. Makmande, José Guanicontez and Luci entered the camp on Dirtbikes, hoping to make out the leader’s tent, kill her and to escape in the confusion. Regrettably, the camp was not only well organized, but it was populated only by warriors, numbering 300-400 ferales, with no women or children in sight, and large parts of it were situated in caves impervious to prior observation. The attack became bogged down very fast, and the three fighters escaped only through quick thinking and the application of superior firepower. José Guanicontez was shot in the leg during the escape, taking another fighter from the jhat. A further foray towards the camp in the early morning, using the sedan and the LMG as a decoy or to force Hecate into the open and neutralize her, was repelled by accurate rifle fire. The jhat retreated to Troy’s water source to discuss their options. At this time, the men were unsure how to proceed further: The Moonbrothers, while having sustained heavy casualties, were not even close to being destroyed as an army, and their tactical discipline made further attacks on their camp suicidal, while the jhat’s combat capabilities eroded steadily.
At this point they became witness to Troy’s attempt to wipe out the Moonbrothers. They noticed two trucks and a jeep, all carrying armed men, leaving Troy at high speed, going towards the ferales’ camp. Deciding to follow the remaining healthy defenders, the jhat was forced to travel slower than the convoy. Thus, they arrived in a position to observe the fighting only after the battle had started. Hartheart seems to have opted for a full-bore assault, relying on the speed of the trucks and his men’s firearms to deal with the masses of ferales awaiting them. According to both witnesses it was a woefully one-sided affair. While Troy’s defenders brought massed rifles and vehicles to the fight, they had no intelligence about the camp’s set-up and its defenses, and Hecate seems to have implemented certain tactics to deal with just such an attack with the means available to her. The jhat became witness to the complete annihilation of Troy’s force – a dearly paid reminder of the dangers of underestimating any highly motivated, highly disciplined opponent because of his inferior gear.
After that, there was not much to do but to warn the city of its imminent destruction, and to evacuate. On its way there, the jhat noticed that the Yaddaheads under Terata’s command had left Troy and made camp about a click from the city. According to Terata, they were waiting to see how the end of the city would play out. Hartheart had ordered the Yaddaheads to accompany his troops on their ill-fated attack, but Terata had refused. After that, Hartheart had them thrown of the city. At the time, it appeared that Terata’s group was waiting for the Moonbrothers’ attack, or for the desperate citizens of Troy to barter for protection. It was after talking to Terata, that Makmande and Luci decided to have a third attempt at killing Hecate: Dean Bishop and Grissom Card were both not sure what drove the men to this course of action, but both characterize Luci as obsessed with personal glory, while Makmande seemed to have been duty-bound to make the attempt.
After bartering with the Yaddaheads for certain performance-enhancing drugs, the jhat left for the camp once again. Luci and Makmande planned to infiltrate the caves, silently this time, and hopefully while the Moonbrothers were celebrating their victory. Even so, the attempt appears suicidal. They had radios on them, and their last transmissions confirmed that the Moonbrothers were indeed feasting, and that Luci and Makmande made good progress. Then, as they rappelled into the caves, their signal vanished. This was the last the remaining three heard of them.
After waiting for a day at the rendezvous point, Dean Bishop, Grissom Card and José Guanicontez returned to Troy, the death of Luci and Makmande being as good as confirmed. In their absence, Terata had been able to talk the citizens of Troy, and a recuperating Glosster, into rehiring them as protectors. The much-reduced jhat decided to stay in Troy for another 48 hours before starting their voyage back to Memphis, as José Guanicontez’ leg was still hurt. In any event, everyone waited for the final attack of the Moonbrothers. The citizens’ appeared desperate or apathetic, while the Yaddaheads seemed to relish the thought of the coming destruction. If someone bore the jhat ill-will because of their solo attack on the Moonbrothers they kept it to themselves.
As the jhat prepared their sedan for a possibly very dangerous drive, a large number of vehicles and bikes was spotted in the west. As soon as this mass was identified as a host of Yaddaheads, Dean Bishop decided to leave Troy as fast as possible. Grissom Card agreed, while José Guanicontez decided to stay, although his motives remained unclear. While he claimed to remain behind for Luci and Makmande, it is quite possible that he worked for the Yaddaheads the whole time. As the sedan pulled away from Troy, Dean Bishop and Grissom Card both heard shooting from within the walls. Apparently, Terata decided to strike as soon as he was sure that enough of his accomplices were present.
The latest reports by our spies and the railers have confirmed that Troy was taken over by the Yaddaheads. It is suggested that jhat BELLADONNA is broken up, with the survivors receiving recommendation marks. Concerning the protection of Troy, MISSION TRO – 003 was a complete loss, on the other hand, we were able to collect valuable intelligence (see app. 1-4). In conclusion: The jhat performed admirably, if futilely, in the defense of Troy, and the composition of its members made it difficult to attain mission success after the death of Judge Benevol. The debacle of Troy being in the hands of the Yaddaheads is, in the end, the Tribunal’s fault: The buck does stop here. Concerning the Yaddaheads, we recommend an intensified effort concerning deep intelligence, even if this was an opportunistic strike, and not a coup planned well in advance.
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