Daring Devil Drop

Faction
 Destabilized Areas

**Daring Devil Drop** is the first mission in IronClaw's **Just Cause X: Global eXchange**.

"*Now listen, Rico. We've seen a lot of nasty stuff in our lifetime, but this hellhole is a completely different story. Forget Panau, forget Medici - that was a cakewalk. This time shit's gonna hit the fan. Hard*" - Sheldon as a part of briefing.

## Introduction

After the fall of General Di Ravello's regime in Medici, any further developments on Bavarium extraction and refining, as well as any commercial operations with the mineral were considered illegal by the newly created Provisional Government. As expected, its global market price drastically skyrocketed, creating a wide, international smuggling circle that secured Bavarium sell deals from Medici to global powers and corporations willing to cough up enough money. Still fighting a war against severely crippled remnants of Di Ravello's forces, Medician police and state security services were unable to effectively fight, let alone prevent small-scale Bavarium extraction and smuggling operations.

At the same time, the Agency investigated reports of the shady "Global Change" project, which was secretly funded by a vast, international corporate consortium, as well as some major geopolitical power players. As part of the investigation, the Agency tracked down major Bavarium shipments with a little "inside help" of Sheldon and Rico's "mutual friend". It leads to a small archipelago in the Caspian Sea suffering severe drainage in the recent years, akin to the Aral one. It is a part of Nova Kyungastan, a rogue state unrecognized by international laws, with heavy Russian and Iranian influence and outright military support of various militant groups. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it was locked in a continuous civil war, with various factions claiming "victory" over the last decades, before once again descending into chaos. In 2020, it's controlled by a rather "neutral" figure, a puppet dictator Karim Gazibagandov, who managed to satisfy both Russia and Iran with a careful diplomatic game. He however strongly suppressed any liberal opposition, that tried to bring Kyungastan back to a democratic bloc like Georgia and Armenia, which are NATO members by 2020.

## Walkthrough

The player gains control of Rico when Looch's plane lands at Artemovsk airfield, supposedly controlled by the rebel forces. He quickly finds out that the rebels are slaughtered by the military, and that a group of soldiers prepared a trap for the "foreign invaders". Rico must fight his way through a dozen soldiers wielding rifles and machine guns, then paragliding to meet Sheldon with a few other UDO survivors. He's chased by Kyungastani Tricksters and militia forces on the ground.

Once getting to Sheldon, you have to gain control of the TechMach Belka and provide covering fire for the retreating rebel forces. After dealing with a few militia and military detachments, Rico has to abandon the IFV and get out of the area before the artillery barrage wrecks the rebel checkpoint he was defending so far.

Sheldon picks you up with the Agency's Shoshone, and drops him at the Artemovsk town center, where you have to pick up a RPG or a sniper rifle and provide him enough time so he can evacuate the last surviving rebel leaders from the town's hall. After that, you have to scramble again as the Kyungstani military bombards the area with its jet fighters.

Finally, Rico gets to protect the Armadillo MV with some civilian Agency contractors/spies that worked in Artemovsk to the nearest safehouse, Agency SF01.

The following cutscene shows Sheldon infuriated about the situation, telling Rico that the UDO is no match to Kyungastani forces even after a few years of heavy U.S. backing. Even as they were provided with vehicles, weapons and money, they are constantly falling back, and the cities they manage to capture are prone to be reclaimed by the government forces. He also admits that the Kyungastani military is very competent in comparison to Di Ravello's forces, and points out they are at least on par with the San Esperito army in terms of training and tactics, but are even better supplied. Sheldon tells Rico that if he's gonna ever make a progress here, he must think strategically,and uploads a few possible leads to his PDA to star with.

## Trivia

* It's name is a reference to the original mission, Devil Drop Zone.
* It combines elements of the mission mentioned above (meeting with Sheldon, fighting off an enemy pursuit) and Welcome Home (military defeating rebel forces, constant falling back)
* The mission shows new gameplay elements such as long range artillery strikes and aerial bombardment, as well as threat level of the Kyungstani army which is far more dangerous then the Panauan or Medician Armed Forces.