This is not a game centered on torture, extreme sex, snuff, that sort of thing.  It's a game that tells the story of what could happen if somebody looked at Earth and decided "Nice Place.  We'll take it."  Mass death and destruction are in the cards.<br/><br/>Interest thread lin:  http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=113409.0 (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=113409.0)<br/><br/>For interested lurkers if you have not read the first post, doing so now will help you get a grip on what is going on<br/><br/><br/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong><br/>Beware the Ides of January</strong></span><br/><br/>14 January 1968  Noon  T-minus 24 hours.<br/><br/><br/><br/>Between Lang Vei and Khe Sanh<br/><br/>Agent Mackenzie, Sergeant Fields, Corporal Blacke<br/><br/>Charlie has gone to ground.  It really does seem to be as simple as that.  After weeks of steadily escalating pressure against the base, the NVA has effectively conceded the field it seems.  Not for lack of force, if anything scuttlebutt has it that flow of North Vietnamese troops into supplies into Laos has if anything doubled and redoubled over the last four days.  Still plenty of booby traps, the usual left-behind nasty little presents.  But the positions near Khe Sanh have been abandoned.<br/><br/><br/>This observation post more recently than most.  Technically it is still occupied in a way by the bodies of those who had manned it.  Fields is impressed. These guys were good, the Americans had no idea this post was here untill the place was lit up by a firefight just before dawn.  The bodies are NVA regulars: signals intelligence and spotters by the looks of the gear and documents. all of which had been left behind undisturbed where it had lain or fallen during the fight.  The bodies... they were disturbed and are disturbing.  In addition to the usual injuries inherent in combat deaths the heads are missing.  Every single one.  The decapitation had been as clean and precise as if done by a freshly-bladed guillotine.<br/><br/>Corporal Blacke in particular notes the lack of brain matter near the bodies.  None of them were killed by headshots.  Blacke's spotter gives the impression that he is professionally offended by this.<br/><br/>Agent Mackenzie is thinking hard about the fact  that the equipment and documentation were left behind.<br/><br/><br/>Khe Sanh<br/><br/>1Lt Browers<br/><br/>It just isn't natural. Browers has never flown this low and slow without getting shot at in Nam.  Tet cease fire or not, somebody should be taking a crack at Him.  He start to believe that Charlie really has abandoned the siege.  He is in his favorite UH-1 gunship, his co-pilot and door gunners are looking pleasantly bored.  There was a report of a brief firefight near Lang Vei before dawn,  With nothing better to do, you widen your patrol circuit just enough to pass over the site.  He  spots some Americans prowling over the site of what was a well concealed bunker. And something else catches his eye:  Discolored grass, a big rectangular patch of it.  Browers  doubts it could be noticed from the ground, but from the air, well, you are trained to notice such things.  There might be another bunker under there, and you do have a radio channel to talk to the men on the ground.<br/><br/><br/><br/>Saigon  Military Assistance Command Vietnam Headquarters.<br/><br/>Special Attache Michelle Rawlinson<br/><br/>The meeting with General Westmoreland has not been going well.  The man is unfailingly courteous as always, but one thing he shares with President Johnson is a passion for keeping secrets.  The General and his staff uniformly deny that the United States received the same ultimatum as the North Vietnamese.  Rawlinson has reason to think otherwise.  The morning diplomatic bag delivered to the Australian embassy had a tersely written note from her "contact" in the USN:  "The big guy got the memo."  Is all it says.  As Westmoreland's staff continued to brief the Australian Ambassador to South Vietnam and yourself, She begins to develop a suspicion that the briefers are telling the truth as they know it.  By the end of the meeting sheare certain that Westmoreland doesn't know either.  She reflects briefly that this White House passion for secrecy will get a President in trouble one of these days.  Brigadier Donald Dunstan, a senior Australian army officer in Nam assures her the Allies have made absolutely no preparations for an invasion of Laos.<br/><br/>The ambassador departs the MACV compound in ill-humor.  "Miss. Rawlinson, I hope your getaway bag is packed.'  He smiles at her thinly. "How does an overnight to Vientiane sound?  I'd like you to hand-carry the Diplomatic bag to our people there today.  A bit beneath you, I know, but i also want you to take a look around, get the pulse.  A meeting with the Laotian Foreign ministry is scheduled for late evening.  You will be returning on an early morning flight.  No worries about being caught in the middle of this mess, if there is anything to it.  You will be landing in Saigon well before noon."  Despite his light tone, he is clearly worried that there might just be something to "this mess" as he calls it.<br/><br/><br/><br/>Outskirts of Vientiane, the Laotian capitol<br/><br/>Etienne Gervais  SDECE Liason<br/><br/>When the ultimatum became common knowledge the French government wasted little time.  Gervais arrived in the capitol the evening before for a quick briefing at the French Embassy.  He has been pleasantly surprised to learn that many of his old contacts are still alive, some are even still in the covert ops game to varying degrees.  The local mood is tense to put it mildly.  The North Vietnamese had been on the verge of a full invasion when the ultimatum threw them off stride.  With the countdown ticking the city has the feel of an unexploded bomb.  More and more NVA units are crossing the border, but are orienting more to fact the Americans and defend the Ho Chi Minh trail than to go after Vientiane.  But that could change any time of course.<br/><br/>Gervais is currently meeting with an old veteran from the hill country and he has an interesting tale to tell:  Stories of strange figures glimpsed in the night, always the night never by day, and always near bridges, tunnels, crossroads.  Demons, they are reputed to be.  Descriptions vary but they certainly don't seem human.  Oddly shaped aircraft, very quiet, only seen when landing or taking off.  Choppers, perhaps, but the witnesses, the old vet assures you. are unanimous in their reports that these aircraft were very quiet.  A random thought strikes him:  Out of the way locations, brief glimpses, the reports would sound a great deal like UFO sightings were it not for the fact that the vehicles - if such they are - emphatically do not glow in the dark and the occupants appear to have zero interest in giving rides to random countryfolk.  Obviously somebody is scouting the area, but who?<br/><br/>Another thought strikes him.  Small teams getting close looks at transportation choke points.  That sounds alarmingly like what the resistance was doing shortly before D-day in France.  Possibly, just possibly, were these persons unknown doing more than just looking?