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The Company
Time: Thursday, May 10, 2012.
Place: Muay thai training camp, Thailand.
Last Event: Training.
Toward dusk on Thursday, May 10, there's a phone call for Anabel at the camp office. It's Chaturvedi, who wants to keep things short and cryptic on the unsecure line. He asks that the group be at the airport tomorrow, to catch their flight home. Anabel is less-than-thrilled that the designated time is early morning, which means setting out before dawn, but she acknowledges the appointment, hangs up, and informs the others. Everybody packs for an early departure.
On Friday morning, the Agents are up early (if not so bright) and ready to leave. The rickety bus miraculously fails to crash or fall apart, and even gets the group to the airport with time to spare. There, they find Chaturvedi waiting in person, sporting the ill-fitting uniform of a chauffeur, or maybe a pilot – it's hard to tell. He's bearing a sign with the name "Smythe" on it, and when he catches sight of Anabel, he nods toward an airport bar and wanders off.
The team meets with Chaturvedi in the bar, which is relatively empty at this hour. He explains that the plan is to fly the Agents to Kolkata, which will serve as their next base of operations. Their cover for the trip is as members of the West Bengal Muay Thai Association, and Chaturvedi distributes falsified identity documents consistent with this plan. These include pilot's papers for Vinnie, who will be flying the group out on a small jet. This surprises everyone – athletes rarely rate private planes – but Chaturvedi simply says, "We can afford it."
Formalities at the airport go without incident. Everybody's ID checks out, Vinnie's flight plan is accepted, and before long the team is sitting in a private jet, waiting for takeoff clearance. Eventually, Vinnie gets the nod, and starts the flight with a smooth takeoff. After that, there's nothing to do but fly.
It's Anabel who sees the missile: It streaks in from out of nowhere, and before she can alert Vinnie, the starboard wing is shredded and burning. Vinnie responds reflexively, doing his best to keep the plane from plunging to the ground in an uncontrolled spiral. The damage is too severe, though – the cabin is holed and the aircraft is on the verge of breaking up. Vinnie realizes that the best he's going to do is kill airspeed and look for a soft place to crash. He doesn't need to tell his associates to buckle up and take crash positions.
Despite the jet's irregular, juddering descent, Wen risks going forward to assist Vinnie in the cockpit. She makes it in one piece, and starts looking for a landing spot. Neither she nor Vinnie sees much but jungle, though. Wen does glimpse what looks suspiciously like a SAM emplacement, and suspects that the plane is over Myanmar. She keeps this to herself for the moment so that Vinnie can focus on saving lives.
Vinnie manages to use the aircraft's surviving control surfaces and engine to line up the plane with a long, swampy looking valley, and then kills as much speed as he deems safe. Yelling for everyone to brace for impact, he tries every trick in the book to make the crash a soft one. All things considered, he does a good job. The plane whizzes through light jungle, but nobody is speared by a tree or decapitated by flying debris. The flight ends with a belly flop onto a mucky hillside.
Chaturvedi, Hamid, Paul, and Qoqa are badly hurt but able to struggle out of the wreckage. Lev's leg is too messed-up for him to crawl free, but Zhang – who's relatively unscathed – helps him escape. Vinnie, who's amazingly just bruised, fears that fire will spread and lead to an explosion; he stays with the aircraft, and manages to release some of the fuel downhill, away from the remains of the cabin. The other four are in sufficiently good shape to do a quick check for anything useful before fleeing. Anabel and Jili find nothing, but Klas manages to grab the emergency medical gear while Wen rescues the plane's stash of food.
Once everybody is well clear of the wreck – which is now burning vigorously despite Vinnie's efforts – Anabel gibbers something about seeing a missile, Wen reveals that she caught sight of a SAM base, and Vinnie warns that the last fix he got off the instruments would place the team in Myanmar. Given the group's profession and the region's politics, nobody is prepared to bank on this being an accident. It seems all too likely that one of the Company's enemies bribed some faction or other to shoot down the plane. And that means somebody may come to finish the job, which makes getting away from the crash site a priority.
Treating the injured is an even higher priority, however: Lev's left leg needs attention, and so does Qoqa's left hand. Chaturvedi and Paul have passed out from their wounds. And while Vinnie and Zhang seem no worse than scratched, everybody else is sufficiently badly hurt that they need a lot more than an Aspirin and a Band-Aid. Thus, Klas breaks open the medical gear and everybody who has first-aid training gets to work.
At the top of Klas' list is patching up Qoqa, who's by far the team's best medic, even one-handed. The other Agents focus on their most seriously wounded allies, with Jili and Wen – neither of whom is so badly hurt that they can't help others – tending to Paul and Chaturvedi. Despite the busted-up leg, Lev drags himself over to Hamid and stoically treats his injuries. Binding Qoqa's hand and reviving Chaturvedi gets two more first-aiders into action. Qoqa wants to deal with Lev's leg, but Lev insists that he's fine for now, so Qoqa proceeds to look after Klas and Wen, Lev tapes Anabel's broken rib, and Chaturvedi and Jili see to Zhang and Vinnie's bruises. Once all this is done, Lev lets Qoqa splint the leg, while Chaturvedi fixes up Jili.
These efforts put a serious dent in the medical supplies, but prove worthwhile. Anabel, Hamid, Jili, Klas, Vinnie, Wen, and Zhang are completely mobile, as is Qoqa, despite her injured hand. Chaturvedi can at least walk, if slowly, and Lev can stagger, though the two will need to lean on others to go any distance. Only Paul is sufficiently hurt to require a stretcher. The Agents pack their gear – such as it is – and get moving, just in case hostiles are on the way. Wen does her best to hide the trail.
After limping away from the crash site for about an hour, everybody feels that it's safe to take a break and discuss options. Vinnie and Wen remind the rest of the crew that there's a hostile SAM battery in the area, work out its rough direction, and recommend hiking away from it. Wen adds that she has heard scuttlebutt that Myanmar built one or more such facilities with North Korean assistance, which in her (not unbiased) opinion means that the only thing to be found there is corrupt military personnel or unfriendly ideologues – probably both. Of course, hoofing it means surviving in the jungle, possibly while avoiding enemies. Only Klas and Lev know much about evasion and survival, and while they're confident that they can look after the others, they stress that there's little point in moving out without a destination in mind.
With the missile emplacement to the north and lots more Myanmar to the south, the only sensible options are either west to the ocean or east back into Thailand. After some debate, consensus is that Thailand would be the safer bet. Based on Vinnie's calculations and the state of the team's health, Klas estimates a 10- to 12-day trek through jungle and over hills. Given that the group is fit, and has food and medical supplies, this isn't impossible – but it won't be easy. Klas notes that surviving the hike means keeping an eye out for water and forage, even at the cost of some time.
Without further ado, the Agents get ready to move. The plan is for Klas to take point and keep an eye out for enemies, safe water, fruit, and small game. Wen will bring up the rear, hiding the trail and watching for trackers. In the middle, Vinnie and Zhang will carry Paul on the stretcher Klas dragged out of the plane, while Qoqa will walk alongside and monitor Paul's condition. Chaturvedi and Lev will stump along as best they can, with Anabel, Hamid, and Jili taking turns helping them walk. This works well enough for the remaining daylight hours, and dusk finds everybody still alive, nobody blistered or feverish, and Paul awake enough to ask where he is and what's going on.
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Not that there was no "Hey, I haven't tried this yet!" to the adventure idea, but a shot at the Company was overdue. I just decided that it would be more interesting to have it happen in wilderness, since all the PCs' adventures so far have been basically urban.
On the other hand