Summary
We managed to confirm a sighting report of another dinosaur fossil before operations kicked off. The suits were also informed by Ali from Ali’s Oil that he had been paid to refuel a truck, suspiciously similar to the one he sold to us. Not wanting to get himself in trouble, he suggested that we setup roadblocks to re-capture the truck when it departed.
The archaeologist contracted for the previous dinosaur skeleton retrieval was staying in a hotel in nearby Deraz, and the new one was nearby to hostile town Maku. We planned to escort them and pull security while they worked. One squad set up a defense while two squads worked their way into Deraz.
Deraz wasn’t overtly hostile, though we didn’t see all that many locals either. We managed to get access to the hotel, being allowed onto the grounds though not into the hotel itself until we disarmed. The hotel staff were pleased to take a room booking from us for the honeymoon suite for two nights, which seemed to loosen their lips regarding another Westerner staying in the hotel; our archaeologist.
Just as we determined that they were in fact staying at the hotel, the front desk received a call that the archaeologist had gotten himself into some sort of trouble in Musakhan. The hotel being ill-equipped nor manned to deal with the trouble, the front desk suggested that we might want to head over to introduce ourselves. Meanwhile, the defense force saw several passers-by at the dig, conspicuously paying attention to our squads in both civilian and armed militia attire, though not forcing an engagement.
On arriving at Musakhan, we located a couple of armed militia next to a murdered taxi driver and a prominently placed wanted poster of a moustached XXXXXXXX with the tagline “Fuck I’m out of Cigarettes”; it was believed the driver has been murdered because he looked like the wanted individual.
At the dig site we came under increasing scrutiny from militia forces. We for a brief moment saw our fuel truck believed to be traveling from Ali’s Oil to Maku, driven by heavily armed guards, pass us at the dig site. We came under very heavy assault, predominantly from the south, and presumably from the Maku Commander’s forces. We were just about able to hold onto the dig site despite a couple of casualties, when XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Returning from the dig site to regroup and rearm, the suits agreed to fly in an archaeologist and suggested we stay away
from the dig for now. We decided to recce Maku to see if we could locate our fuel truck, but immediately upon entering
the vicinity came under heavy attack. Whilst preparing to tactically withdraw, a local who was discovered to be reviving one of our downed operators (while also apparently arming himself) made off with one of our vehicles. We chased him down where we found he’d started dumping most of the vehicle contents onto the ground, at which point he attempted to make off in another vehicle and was XXXXXXXX . Another local driving past witnessed this and drove away in the direction of Landay.