Game 4 of the new Atomic Robo campaign went off well last Thursday, with the characters picking up from their San Francisco adventure on Wake island, where the United States had only a week or two ago defeated the Japanese. The characters have been on the move since the “Philadelphia Experiment” in night two, where they had to try and stop a Japanese agent and her Philly mooks from stealing the plans to some TeslaTech the Navy and the Strategic Science Division of the US Army Corps of Engineers were testing to hide ships from sight and radar. Apparently, the device did more than that — possibly displacing the vehicle from our time and space for five minutes. (One of the characters is convinced they’ve accidentally invented a “time machine.”)

The officers — a PC from the navy, his Army Air Corps pilot friend, and the SSD Captain Nolan (was supposed to have been a PC, but now an NPC) — meet with Admiral Nimitz and General Holland “Howlin’ Mad” Smith, USMC (the “father of amphibious assault”) and brief them on the Japanese agents that managed to escape by submarine with the plans. They figure themselves only a day or two ahead of the Japanese, having flown in legs from San Fran to Hawaii, then to wake in a PBY Catalina. They have the coordinates of the sub thanks to some good interrogation work in San Fran…but it’s 1500 miles behind the lines on one of the Bonin Islands, Koro Jima. It’s a small island with a small fishing village on it, and they have no current intelligence. Getting there in force is not an option: they can go by submarine or plane, but either way, it’ll be a small force of eight or ten.

The other PC, a WAVE aviation mechanic’s mate, modifies their Catalina, Shanghai Doll, for an asset of LONG RANGE, which should allow them to get to and from Koro Jima, and they put together the gear they’ll need to slip in and destroy the Japanese project (they hope…) There was some nice scene setting — palm trees and warm but not hot central Pacific weather.

The team flies west and is intercepted by a few A6M Zeros launched from a nearby ship. There was some hard flying and aspect throwing as the characters tried to gun down the Zeros (successfully), but not before the Catalina was hit for a moderate complication (engines down!) While the plane was fitfully heading for the drink, the WAVE, tied to a rope, crawls out onto the wing to fix the fuel lines, stepping back the damage enough to escape the combat scene and later fix the plane.

They get to the Japanese island a few hours ahead of an incoming storm, land the Catalina on beach near the island’s volcano (of course it has one!) and camouflage the craft. After some late night stealth, they find the sub is already here, and that the Japanese have set up a small landing field and some kind of bunker against the side of the volcano. The rim of the caldera is lined with the same kin of antennae that the Americans were using to pull power from the Earth’s magnetic field.

While doing recon, the navy officer was able to avoid capture, unlike the WAVE and the portion of the team that she was with. Taken into the bunker, which leads through a dead lava tube to an underground chamber, she sees the Japanese are well along in their project, but she also sees that they are still working with the Tesla plans to try and fix their equipment. While she is roughly interrogated, the navy PC links up with the other half of the team that has been disabling the antennas to stage a daring rescue…

This week should wrap the WWII period portion of the adventure and bounce us back to modern day, where the agents of the Office of Scientific Intelligence are approaching the island that suddenly appeared out of nowhere after 72 years!

Advertisement