Joe & Jay's greatest mission ever!

Tuesday has become Game Night with my boys. We're going back and forth between Traveller and Lord of the Rings. For Traveller, my two boys have picked up two old characters, Joe Blasterson and Jay Maverick again. Read about their earlier adventures here. 

Most recently they have been on Kemasiik, in Holtzmann's Corridor. After finishing a job, they were contacted by an Imperial Embassy staffer, Sir Tolbert, with an offer of two High Passage vouchers off-world in return for a 'job'. The Empire would like to see Kemasiik shake off the influence of VanGoff's World (VGW), which has economic control of the planet. A famine decades ago had forced Kemasiik to mortgage a lot of territory to VGW to stay afloat.

Sir Tolbert explained that their job was to prevent a VanGoff businessman, Mr. VanHoffen, from making it to a meeting. VanHoffen was a big-wig who owned a lot of the local real estate. They could not kill him or directly attack him (as this would call for a legal inquiry and reschedule the meeting), he had to miss the meeting by 'accident'. Simple, right?

This man is hosed six ways from Sunday. He just doesn't know it yet.

The boys set to work concocting a list of ways to mess up VanHoffen's morning schedule. It included:

1. Disable his contra-grav car
2. Change his clocks to read the wrong time
3. Kill power to his house
4. slip him a Mickey to make him over-sleep
5. turn off his wake-up alarm
6. block local traffic with vehicles
7. cause traffic jams by manipulating traffic lights
8. jam the garage door so the car can't get out
9. as a last resort, kidnap him

Late in the evening, Jay hacked into the house telecom network and got busy. The house intercom system was addled so calls went to the wrong rooms, interior doors would close and lock at random. Each little trick ate up more of the morning, and soon VanHoffen was rushing about trying to get ready for his meeting. The boys sat back and laughed as the poor mark got more and more frustrated. The target's driver tried to start the car, and couldn't. Even after finding spare parts for a temporary repair, they couldn't get out of the garage after Joe had sabotaged it. VanHoffen's valet called for a hire car, with five minutes before the meeting was supposed to begin.

 Jay intercepted the call, and dispatched Joe to pick up VanHoffen. He drove very carefully, until Jay transmitted a jump scare while VanHoffen was on the phone. His reaction was so strong I called for a driving throw from Joe to avoid a mishap.

Which he failed. With snake-eyes. 

So Joe rear-ends the car ahead of him, and causes a traffic jam. He managed to wriggle free from that, and two blocks away (the wrong way) Joe gets into another jam, because Jay forced a malfunction in the next intersection's traffic light. 

At this point the mark bolted from the car, and tried to run across town to make the meeting. Jay tracked him by his hand comm, to witness VanHoffen almost make it to the building he was heading for, as the noontime bell rang, and the meeting was over.

Later the guys met with their patron who explained what happened because VanHoffen missed the meeting. The guys took their high passages and boarded the next subsidized liner for Stavanger, leaving behind a new contact in Sir Tolbert, and a new Enemy in VanHoffen (if he ever figures out who hosed him).