One of These Mornings

## Summary

Night City Vice's investigation into the abduction of Queen Samaria and their operation against Calderone began to converge. They found dozens of missing teenage girls at the Red Chrome Legion Camps, and had some evidence that the Red Chromers were selling the girls to Calderone. They also had strong suspicions that Calderone was purchasing human slaves from Raffen Shiv and from a human trafficking cartel operating out of Mexico. Unfortunately, they hadn't been able to seize any of the shipping containers they suspected were carrying the human cargo in Night City; they were unloaded too quickly and too efficiently. So they decided to try and get evidence at their departure instead of their arrival. They hired the edgerunners to drive down to Ensanada, Mexico, find out where the shipping containers were departing, and find out if they were, indeed, full of human slaves.

The drive down would be extremely dangerous: almost five-hundred miles through Raffen Shiv infested badlands. Jenny Gong of the Surfers of Jah had an invitation to a party in Ensanada, and the edgerunners were to protect her and get her back to Night City safely while using the party to try and find out anything they could about the human trafficking cartel. Unfortunately, trying to make an 8 hour drive in only 2 hours at three-hundred miles an hour proved too challenging for Pedro, who clipped the edge of a landslide, tore out the right side of the Testarossa, and blew a tire. While he, Brigitte and Mr K raced to repair it, six Raffen Shiv appeared on motorcycles and attacked. The edgerunners killed four of them with pistols and double thick lead pipe, but not before the Raffen Shiv destroyed both Ferraris and the two survivors escaped into the night.

The edgerunners concluded that the Raffen Shiv were likely a scouting party for a larger group of marauders who would return to kill or capture them and steal the Ferraris. Jenny vowed not to let them have the cars, covered the Testarossa and the Spyder in Chooh, and ignited them with road flares. Then the group mounted the dead Raffen Shiv's bikes and tried to drive to a Nomad Waypoint that Jenny knew not too far from there.

Unfortunately the Raffen Shiv roadbikes didn't have enough Chooh to make it all the way to the waypoint. They found an old service station on the side of the road that they couldn't tell whether was abandoned or operational. Without many other options, they pulled into it hoping that it might have Chooh. After some investigation and the introduction to a huge pack of junkyard dogs behind the service station, they concluded that it must be inhabited, and coaxed the occupant to speak to them through the closed steel doors using a megaphone. For a 150 eddie bribe he agreed to let them fuel up but confessed that the windmill was broken so the pumps weren't getting power. The windmill was in the middle of the junkyard protected by the pack of dogs who, the owner claimed, he fed "Raffen Shiv".

The edgerunners decided to take a direct approach to the repair: Nitya ran in one direction, drawing as many of the dogs off as she could, while Mr. K ran straight for the windmill with Brigitte on his shoulders. Dogs managed to knock down Nitya and grab her leg in their teeth, slashing and biting at her, but Mr. K managed to fight them off and climb up the windmill. Nitya eventually escaped the dogs and climbed the wall of the service station. Brigitte successfully fixed the windmill and the edgerunners ran once more through the gauntlet of dogs to escape. They all made it, their clothes torn and their limbs somewhat bloody with bites, but all of them alive.

The owner of the service station was true to his word and switched on the power. The edgerunners fueled up and made it to the waypoint, where they were able to connect with the Aldecaldos and secure transport back to Night City. Night City Vice paid them for the attempt, knowing full well the dangers of such a long drive through the badlands and the random nature of violence on the California Highways.

## Loot/EXP

* Mr. K // 300 eb // 30 IP
* Nitya // 300 eb // 30 IP