Alastair Station - Battlefield: Jailbreak

Battlefield: Jailbreak (GM Information)
Alastair Station is currently the center of fleet operations in the sector. Were it not for the Hyperspace inhibiting effect of the pulsar, it would be a prime target for a Shohan counter strike. As it stands, the Shohan may be willing to nibble around the edges of the system, particularly if they are in hot pursuit of an enticing target, but will otherwise keep their distance. Unless, of course, they discover the prisoner of war camp.

There are several ways that the Shohan may become aware of the prisoner of war camp hosted on the station. One possibility is that they intercept a prisoner transfer by chance and are able to recover some of the Shohan prisoners. Alternately, if using the material from the Deployment Companion, it’s possible that the Shohan infiltration team presented there stumbles upon the information in the course of their own activities.

While the Shohan will urgently seek some way to free their compatriots from the terrible prison the Terran Sphere has created for them, Admiral Aydin is unlikely to get her wish of a pitched battle where the Shohan commit their forces to such an unfavorable battleground. Instead, the Shohan forces are more likely to focus on harrying ships moving into the system, paying special attention to transports that might be carrying more prisoners to the camp through the outlying stars. Once this becomes apparent, Terran Sphere forces will have two main avenues to respond. The first is to increase the escort strength protecting convoys, at the risk of upsetting the operational tempo of their offensive efforts, The other option is to route ships through deep space, either accepting the risk of manually countering their drives or diverting logistics support to establish a stop over point. Such a point would likely need to keep rotating its position in order to avoid detection by the Shohan who would surely attempt to destroy such a transport node.

Meanwhile, the Shohan will seek alternate means to win the release of the prisoners aboard the station. The Infiltration team described in the Deployment Companion may attempt to stage a jailbreak, using a captured Terran Sphere vessel that has been modified to incorporate Shohan style shielding. Getting access to an isolated fleet base like Alastair Station is quite difficult, but here they may be able to use Master Chief Montgomery’s indiscretions to their advantage; gaining the trust of her black market contacts before organizing a “supply run” for the Master Chief. Along similar lines, the Shohan may be willing to hire non-human mercenaries to assault the base in their name. Similar to the infiltration team, these mercenaries will have been paid with black-box Shohan style force field generators. For the Shohan, this has the added bonus of doing more damage to the Terran Sphere station and forces that have become a perennial thorn in their sides. Whether the Shohan are willing to let them keep their payment however, is an open-ended question.

Finally, and most surprisingly, the Shohan may be willing to talk. In this case, the Shohan may contact the Terran Sphere in one of the disputed systems to discuss a prisoner transfer. For Terran Sphere diplomats, the first chance to talk to the Shohan after years of silent violence is in itself amazing, but they may be disappointed by the limited scope of the negotiations with which the Shohan will agree. Their offer essentially boils down to: releasing X number of prisoners from occupied space in return for the release of all prisoners currently at Fort Alistair, and an agreement that no prisoners be housed there for Y years. From the Shohan perspective, releasing some prisoners now is only a stay of their ultimate fate; if it preserves some Shohan, so be it. Likewise, they are confident that in the specified timeframe, the issue of housing prisoners at the Station will be moot.

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