Kept you waiting, huh? Sorry about that - to be honest, I was burned out on this Quest for a while, but not enough to truly abandon it to the graveyard. I got interested in resuming it earlier this week, but decided to save actually updating until Christmas, for obvious reasons. For the future, I don't really have too many plans, but I may end up making this chapter shorter than I may have had planned, simply because I'm much more interested in what happens after it - that being said, the next chapter will possibly be even shorter than what has been done now.
[><] Plan: Holy Night
And so, you and Elias begin to plan, with Ethel, Abigail, and the Marines' CO, a lieutenant colonel by the name of Thomas Flynn, joining in as you work. The captain of the HMS Rodney is also on call, but he doesn't seem like he expects his own ship to arrive in time. You all take your time - partly because this is the first mission in a while, arguably ever, you specifically have had total control over how it played out, and partly because of the sheer strategic importance of Malta. Up to that point, with a handful of exceptions, most of your operations had been little more than sabotage hit-and-runs in situations where a more magical touch was needed. And none of those, besides said exceptions, required the entire team.
Over the hours, as you work and debate, your plans narrow down to two, and eventually, down to one. There had been a great deal of debate, which was mostly you, Abigail, and Elias against Ethel and Flynn, about what to ultimately do with the fortress. Ethel and the LC wanted to destroy it (though Flynn was a bit more ambivalent), and you, Abigail, and Elias wanted to at least try and save it, with Abigail (of course) being the most vocal about it.
Ultimately, your plan is a compromise - the goal overall is to control the base as long as possible to gain as much intel (and possible prisoners) as you can, with plan B being blowing it to Kingdom Come.
You, Indra, Simon, Doris, Marian, and Liselot will be Team Affirm. Team Baker will be Abigail, Arthur, Harbir, Roy, Weronika, and Emmanuelle. Ethel will work with the Marines and be Team Cast, though obviously a few hundred Marines is not a mere team.
Affirm and Baker will go through the sewers, taking separate routes of course, while Cast is to arrive near, but not at, the entrances. Obviously this means the plan will have to take place in the dead of night. Once inside, your team will head to the HQ, while Baker heads for the drydock where Abigail will try and figure out what's what. Once you capture what useful things - documents, materiel, or people - you can manage, Affirm and Baker will proceed to take out the guards to let in Cast, take the barracks and the armory, and hold out for the British to send in reinforcements should it be necessary - you're expecting Marines, though the chances of a proper troopship arriving in a timely manner are even lower than the Rodney doing so. Any other Royal Navy ships in the area will also remain on station once they arrive, to prevent any ships from escaping. Should it not be necessary, well, the captain of the Rodney says he'll send them anyway to expediate their arrival, and because if the base is successfully captured, it will be given to the Submarine Service.
If, however, any of the three teams were compromised, at too great a risk of compromise, before Cast can be let inside, Affirm and Baker would then instead plant explosives at the powerplant and the fuel silos before leaving. Should reinforcements not arrive in time...
[ ] The bombs would be planted all the same, with Cast assisting, and you would escape via...
- [ ] The sewers
- [ ] The underwater entrance
- [ ] The main entrance
- [ ] The top of the island
[ ] All three teams would retreat via (option) and the British Navy would bombard the base's entrance until it is blocked
- [ ] The sewers
- [ ] The underwater entrance
- [ ] The main entrance
- [ ] The top of the island
Ethel shakes her head. "I still don't like it, but..."
She meets your eyes.
[ ] It's our best option.
[ ] It's all we had time to come up with.
[ ] Other
Gonna need two rolls, one for the weather, and one for how much firepower the Royal Navy is able to bring.