Operation Nostromo II: Return to the Isle de Isabel

The government of Costaguana left a small CDF garrison squad on the Isle de Isabel at the conclusion of Operation Nostromo I, to prevent the island from being used by smugglers as a rendezvous spot in the future. CDF command on the mainland has lost contact with this garrison squad, and the rumor has reached the mainland that a Cordillerista nighttime raid overwhelmed them. The CDF believes that their garrison squad is now being held captive on the island by a Cordillerista unit of unknown strength and purpose, and have dispatched an elite CDF Search & Rescue unit to find and liberate the surviving CDF POWs. It is rumored that the Cordilleristas are using these CDF captives to complete their own secret mission on the island….

Can the CDF find and free their captive comrades? What mysterious secret does the Isle de Isabel conceal that could have drawn the Cordilleristas back? Find out on November 5, 2006, at Operation Nostromo II: Return to the Isle de Isabel.

Operation Nostromo II Report and Results:

Costaguana can be a devious place, and the tiny Isle de Isabel just off
the coast is no exception. When a CDF Search & Rescue Team waded ashore
on the morning of 5 November 2006, they expected to face heavy
resistance from a Cordillerista garrison holding Government POWs on the island
(Oh, and they did. Both of the Nostromo amphibious landing firefights
arre among the most intense I’ve ever seen in a scenario game.) What the
Government forces did not expect was a sizeable civilian presence,
since the Costaguanan government itself had forcibly evacuated all
inhabitants from the island in the 1930s.

Who were these civilians, and what were they doing on Isabel? Two of
them were unsuspecting young Isa tribeswomen out on a daytrip to their
ancestral home island in their family’s old ARGO; one was a Professor of
Archeology from the University of Costaguana, tasked with discreetly
recovering ancient Isa artifacts; one was a smuggler disguised as a CDF
soldier with a fake ID, carrying $4,000 with which he was to attempt to
secretly buy the artifacts for his wealthy art collecting client – or
steal them if all else failed; and the others were civilian mercenaries,
a few of them illegal aliens with fake IDs.

The Isle de Isabel has a forgotten past that had drawn them all, rebel,
military, and civilian. The Isa once ruled a mighty empire, but were
conquered and subjugated by the Aztec many hundreds of years ago. The Isa
Empire had made its last stand on the sacred island of Isa-Bekl, site
of their Great Temple and burial ground of the kings and queens of the
Isa ruling dynasty. Their last queen, Kakapotal the Warrior Maiden, died
in battle defending the remaining remnant of her once-mighty people.
She was 17 years old when she fell. Much later, the Aztec empire itself
fell before the invading Spanish. A Conquistador exploring party was
sent to the island they thought the natives called “Isabelle,” where they
discovered a curious fact: an Isa king or queen was always buried with
a realistic replica of a human skull carved out of solid white stone.
The Spaniards carried away one of these Stone Skulls as a curiosity in
1598, but the other six remained buried in the rubble of the destroyed
Isa temple. Eventually, this same Stone Skull – the Stone Skull of
Kakapotal herself - ended up in a glass case in a forgotten corner of the
Costaguana National Museum, until a theft attempt alerted the museum to
its potential value on the black market. Archeologists had long
complained that both the Costaguanan government and the Cordillerista rebels
were confiscating and selling any ancient artifacts they could seize, in
order to fund their war efforts against each other. The thought of the
last known Isa artifacts falling into the hands of black marketers was
too much for the academic community to bear. Since the government could
not be entirely trusted to be free of smugglers, they organized a
clandestine expedition to the Isle de Isabel to retrieve the six remaining
Isa Stone Skulls before it was too late.

This expedition set out not a moment too soon, for the Cordilleristas
were already on the island looking for the Stone Skulls when the
archeological team arrived – mere minutes ahead of the CDF force. The original
rebel plan was to use POW labor to locate the Skulls, and then lie in
wait for the archeologists. In order to be valuable to an art collector,
an artifact must be properly identified and tagged by a trained
archeologist who can confirm the artifact’s authenticity. The rebels knew
this, and planned on shaking down the archeological team for bribes if
possible or, if that failed, killing the team and stealing the tagged
artifacts. The rebels stumbled upon the startled local Isa girls as they
were picnicking, and paid them $50 to reveal the locations of all six
Stone Skulls. Rebel soldiers later robbed these two of $15 of this money.
The over-eager rebel troopers unearthed the Skulls and stashed the heavy
artifacts in their packs, not knowing that the Skulls themselves were
worthless without archeological tags.

The government POWs, meanwhile, had plans of their own. Unbeknownst to
their rebel captors, the resourceful CDF captives had fashioned small
but deadly blowguns. As a fierce firefight raged on the beach and in the
valley, one POW managed to kill his guards with deadly efficiency and
escape less than a half-hour after CDF forces landed, earning points
with CDF Command. While CDF forces methodically pushed the rebels back
into the woods, sustaining heavy casualties in the process and depleting
CDF cash reserves, the second POW bided her time. She seized her moment
in style when the opportunity arose to kill the Cordillerista commander
himself, steal a loaded pistol, kill the Cordillerista quartermaster
and loot the Cordillerista cashbox. She was, unfortunately for the CDF,
spotted by an alert rebel sentry who shot and wounded her while she was
in the no-man’s land between the two forces. The CDF medic was unable
to reach her, and CDF Command was unwilling to pay the $2,000 ransom
demanded by the rebels for her release, so she was executed with a
sniper’s bullet where she laid.

(the saga continues, with lunch)

After a brief and fruitless ceasefire (no fruit, but there were Sloppy
Joes, chips, homemade brownies, and cookies) the combatants again
manned the battle lines. CDF Command had alerted the CDF field commander to
the likely presence of an operative among the ranks, but the smuggler
laid low and remained undetected. By now, the CDF commander on the
ground had discovered the existence and the great value of the six Stone
Skulls, but was uncertain as to their whereabouts. The CDF therefore
concentrated on rounding up and energetically interrogating civilians,
hoping to obtain more information. The Isa girls were arrested, their ammo
clips were confiscated, and the hapless young ladies were forced to use
themselves and their ARGO as human shields for CDF assault troops
attempting to gain the heights on the northern edge of the island. The
younger of the two Isa girls was killed by rebel fire during this operation.
A television reporter from an independent station in Minnesota, USA, is
said to have recorded this event and filed a formal protest with the
UN. The government of Costaguana has promised a full investigation into
the alleged atrocity.

Meanwhile, the wily archeological team had managed to locate the
somewhat ill-informed rebel squad lugging around 60 pounds’ worth of Stone
Skulls. These footsore Cordillerista troops were eager to sell the
artifacts at a bargain price. The archeological team purchased every one of
the six Stone Skulls for less than one-twentieth of their tagged value
on the black market. Not only that, but the Professor managed to talk
the rebel squad into assaulting the CDF guard outpost in the valley, so
the archeological team could avoid any government entanglements on the
way to their boat on the beach.

With the bulk of the CDF forces committed to a search for civilians
and/or Skull artifacts on the ridge, with the CDF quartermaster again out
of funds to pay reinforcements, the squad left to guard the beach
fought valiantly in a vicious close-quarters engagement among the trenches
but were eventually overwhelmed. The archeological team loaded their
boat with the six tagged and bagged Stone Skull artifacts, and slipped
quietly out to sea before either the CDF commander or the smuggler had
time to react.

When word reached CDF Command that the Skulls were in the possession of
armed National Museum personnel, the remaining CDF forces on the island
were ordered to delay a Cordillerista breakout until CDF reinforcements
could arrive. The rebels, perhaps sensing a tightening noose, rushed to
their boats before the CDF unit on the ridge could regroup on the beach
defenses. With the artifacts and the rebels gone, CDF Command ordered
the evacuation of the battered CDF survivors.

The CDF finished the game with 0 points. They had gained 100 points by
recovering one POW alive, but lost the same amount of points by
requiring an additional $100 advance from CDF Command in order to continue
operations. No fake IDs were found or confiscated. The CDF forces on the
island fought hard and well, but the negative publicity generated by the
treatment of the Isa civilians is likely to haunt the government for
some time to come. The field commander and a number of his men are facing
inquiries, while the ethnic Isa community is demanding reparations, and
the UN is said to be considering sending a peacekeeping force into
Costaguana to end the civil war.

The smuggler finished with 0 points. He remained undetected throughout
the game, but he also failed to obtain even a single Stone Skull
artifact for his demanding and unforgiving clients. He, and the $4,000 in his
clients’ cash he was carrying, has disappeared without a trace. His
whereabouts are unknown.

The Cordillerista rebels finished with 625 points for the money in
their cashbox. The Glorious Leader of the Cordillerista Revolutionary
Council was said to be enraged that $14,000’s worth of artifacts had been
traded for a mere $600, and is rumored to have called for the
Cordillerista commander’s execution, until an aide pointed out how the incident
with the Isa girls could be exploited to strengthen their hand at least
as much as the money would have. The Glorious Leader agreed, and instead
ordered the former Cordillerista field commander to go underground and
form a Cordillerista rebel cell among the ethnic Isa villages on the
Costaguanan coast.

The Archeological Team were the clear winners, with 6,000 points for
the six tagged Stone Skull artifacts safely recovered from the island and
around $1,500 remaining in their expedition fund at the end of the
game. Scholars from around the world are clamoring to be allowed to examine
them. Overnight, the Professor has become an international celebrity
within the archeological community, and calls have gone up for him to
head additional digs among the ruins on the Isle de Isabel. The National
Geographic Society is rumored to be planning a documentary film about
the Isa people and their history.

Meanwhile, in a squalid hut on the poverty-stricken Costaguanan coast,
Kiella, a 17-year-old Isa girl contemplates the loss of her younger
sister for the gain of $35. Having been brutalized by government forces
and robbed at gunpoint by rebel soldiers, she begins to think that this
event was no accident in her life, that it was actually a symbol of the
fate of her people. A call, even, a call from her ancestors to RISE AND
FIGHT. Too long have the Isa been trampled and ignored. Her people have
a legend that says that, if the peaceful rest of the Seven King and
Queens of the Isa is ever disturbed, the Ancestor Ghost will rise up in
wrath and wreak terrible vengeance on those who dared to desecrate the
holy ground of Isa-Bekl. She hears the Ancestors whispering to her now
whenever she is alone, and she has visions of the screaming white Skull
of Kakapotal the Warrior Maiden in a glass box filled with blood. She no
longer fears these visitations, for she begins to see what they must
mean. Even though it was her sister who died, this young woman is coming
to believe that she, Kiella, may BE the Ancestor Ghost sent to avenge
the wrongs done to her people….

Gryphon/posted by Armsdealer