OZNAZ ‘03 The Cambridge Raid

A Report by Guy Wilson

The President’s Bed – Guy packs essentials

Prologue

We’d been setting it up for weeks, and preparing for months. Our agent had been in place, feeding us intel since the beginning of the year. Things were looking fairly good, despite a few good people being unable to join our attack. It was the afternoon of Friday the 14th Feb, 2003 and Advance Team Delta had arrived at the station to head down to Cambridge. Little did they know that there was about to be the initial set-back that would set the tone for the weekend – everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

Delta decided to contact Alpha, the secret team from UDSC Assassins, who were supposed to be providing the transport in the form of a minibus, for the main team the next morning. It was at this point that they decided to inform us that they were no longer coming, meaning we had not only lost their entire team, but the transport as well. Delta decided it was time to decamp to the pub (where off-duty assassins naturally seem to gravitate to) and try to work things out. We spent the next few hours attempting to find transport – our gratitude must go to Crazy Dave for working hard and eventually finding transport. We drafted in Andy Kurowski who, to our eternal gratitude, agreed to drive the team down the next morning. The mission was back on, however with severely reduced numbers – not only had we lost Alpha Team, but we had much less transport space and had to drop some of our agents – we had gone from 16 to 9 in a single stroke. Iskander was transferred to Delta team and set off, although much later than intended… Personnel Delta Team Delta Lead: Guy Wilson – El Presidente Delta Two: ‘Crazy’ David Griffith – Finch Op. & insane, bomb-obsessed lunatic Delta Three: Alex ‘Iskander’ Newsham – Treasurer, stats-monkey & incompetent Delta Four: Nicola ‘Edain’ Boak – Reigning Best Inquisitor Delta Five: Chris Lee a.k.a. Grey Shadow – Michelmas game finalist Omega Team

Omega One: Alexis Smith – Michelmas Game Winner Omega Two: Graham Wadie a.k.a. Gradie –keen inquisitor & receiver of abuse Omega Three: Andy Kurowski – last minute drafty & transport specialist Control David ‘Gimby’ James a.k.a. Mr. Penn – El Vice-Presidente Deep Cover Agent Jennifer Curtis – El Ex-Presidente, mole in Cambridge Guild of Assassins Jen can possibly be best described by this recent description from a test she took: “Mistress of disguise and deception, poisoner, traitor, you always make sure you're on the winning side. Being gorgeous and female helps you soften up your foes for the kill. Meow!” Chapter I – Advance mission

We stepped carefully off the train in Cambridge at 12.30. After checking there was no one observing us, we began the walk towards Agent Curtis’s house, where we would be bunking down for the weekend. Jen had, some weeks ago, become the girl-friend of Matt ‘Felix’ Johnson, Cambridge Game Umpire. She had kindly offered to betray him (and the entire society for that matter) for us, proving beyond a doubt her loyalty and honour.

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to carve a name into a bullet on a moving train with a pair of nail scissors?”

- Iskander

An SMS let her know we were outside the house, although it was not of course us, it was Jen’s house-mate who had forgotten their key. Once inside we set-up shop in the living room. The next few hours were our danger period – if Felix were to come into the living room for some reason our cover would most likely be blown, the ambush would not work and we would most likely be slaughtered by Cambridge Gattling-gun. We were some-what nervous, to say the least. 10 am was our go time - we could not make any kills until then. As we nervously waited in the living room Jen informed us that Felix was sitting in the adjoining kitchen loading the Gattling-gun. We gathered around the door to the kitchen, enjoying listening to the conversation in the kitchen as Felix discussed the tactics he would use against us when we attacked the front of the house. At approximately five past ten we decided we had let him live long enough. Sitting at the kitchen table loading the gun, Felix took shots to the chest from Edain’s Rapid-fire (as did a random civilian who was doing nothing more than cooking – Crazy Dave beginning as he intended to go on). With his dying breath, his final words escaped – “I’m impressed”. With one of the Umpires dead and the gattling-gun captured things were looking good. Unfortunately things did not carry on as they had begun.

Agent Curtis had told James ‘Snapdragon’ Osbourne (Cambridge Chief of Police) that Felix had food-poisoning, so couldn’t defend her house. Snapdragon offered to bring his team round to help – we were to once again use the kitchen ambush tactics which had already worked for us. Unfortunately we hadn’t counted on the necromantic powers of the Cambridge Guild – Felix managed to send a message from beyond the grave warning Snapdragon we were there. Instead of wandering heedlessly into the house, he set up a siege around the house.

Chapter II – Everybody’s dead Dave…

At this point it was all over for us. With Delta trapped in the house and the reinforcement team woe-fully inadequate in size (not to mention the fact that Pete the Beast, the original Omega Lead and the man who might have been able to get us out,

The Bloody Corpse of Felix

was lying hung-over in bed!) we didn’t stand a chance. The captured gattling-gun was used but it was found to be “The lamest most lame thing that was ever created” and so it was abandoned.

The house was soon surrounded by vast numbers of Cambridge assassins carrying heavy weaponry. Guy and Crazy Dave tried to secure the alley behind the house, but Guy was gunned down and Dave was forced to retreat. Jen had the side of her skull removed by a sniper shot from Snapdragon as she let some civilians into the house.

This left Crazy Dave in charge. A manic gleam came into his eyes – “where did we put the explosives?”, as he rushed off to find them, almost jumping up and down with glee. Dave’s experimentation, far from being the saving grace he had hoped for, only managed to blow up 6 civilians and Iskander. Dave himself later fell prey to a Cambridge bomb which had initially seemed to be a dud.

Meanwhile the ‘reinforcements’ arrived, though against such huge odds they stood little chance and were soon dispatched. Those remaining alive in the house tried to shoot their way out but were mercilessly cut down.

Chapter III – The Party We arrived at the designated party area, with plenty of booze, long before the Cambridgites. We waited. And waited. And drank.

Eventually some Cambridge people began appearing, but we soon discovered that they had less drinking ability than little girls. Sick little girls at that.

The party was generally fun though, with such events as ‘Torment Gradie with garlic bread and barrages of sausage rolls’ and ‘Mafioso’ (in which Guy was betrayed by some of his own people – revenge is coming soon).

Unfortunately we had to leave earlier than planned as one of our number, who shall remain nameless (lets just call him Andy K. – wait no, that’s too obvious, we’ll just call him A. Kurowski), drank a leetle too much, and another member of our team seemed to be going into a diabetic coma. Fun, none the less.

Chapter IV – Breakfast mission We had agreed to have a second game on Sunday, in an attempt to salvage our dignity, however come morning things were looking grimmer still. Alexis had left the night before, Penn had been struck down with sickness (unrelated to alcohol) and the rest of us were generally hungover. The game was once again to begin at 10. We

staggered off into town at about 9.45 to search for breakfast. As we wandered around we noticed a worrying trend – all the places to eat were shut. The crack Durham team were failing at even this simple mission. We began to wonder whether Cambridge had shut down all the eateries just to spite us. At this point we spotted Tom Garnett, a Cambridge assassin. Guy stepped up behind him and shot him in the back, covering his leather trench coat in blood. His last words of “I didn’t even know we were playing” were cruelly laughed over.

Meanwhile Iskander had located somewhere we could get a fry-up. For this he received the field promotion to Captain. We mused on how things were

looking up as we enjoyed a lovely cooked breakfast. Chapter V – Hunting We re-grouped back at Jen’s house to work out our plan for the day. We split into two teams. The newly promoted Cpt. Newsham’s team, consisting of Crazy Dave, Gradie and Edain, were to attack Ed ‘Banichi’ Allcott and then Snapdragon, whilst Guy’s team – Jen, Andy and Chris – were to take a route towards the game wardens’s corridor, killing others en route. Guy’s team took all the explosives, Crazy Dave no longer being trusted with them.

The first stop for Guy’s team was Ric Bradenbury, a key Mafioso. We waited outside his house for some time, knocking and ringing the bell. Eventually someone came to the door and looked through the spy-hole. It appeared to be his girl- friend,

Scary. Vaguely scary.

also an assassins. This was looking good, we’d get two kills for the price of one. Unfortunately both were too chicken to leave the house. Our next stop was John Hogg. His flat-mate obligingly let us in, but there was no sign of him. We would later discover where he had been.

Next stop was Jenny “Pavanne” Chase. We weren’t expecting her to come out, which is why we had the explosives (apparently she gets bombed fairly often and opens her door with string from a safe distance, so we had planned to have a fake ‘dud’ bomb on the door, hoping she wouldn’t notice the real one attached to a trip wire). As we were about to enter her corridor a call came over the coms – Iskander’s team was under siege in Snapdragon’s corridor and needed re-enforcements. We decided to call on Pavanne anyway, but she refused to come out. At this point we made a mistake – we didn’t set the bomb as we wanted to get to the siege at Jesus ASAP.

As we left the college we were ambushed by Banichi, Mike ‘Scotsman’ Cripps (the other game warden) and someone known only as ‘Adam’. Banichi, Guy and Chris went down early. Jen and Andy fought on, but eventually ran out of ammo and went down. The living rushed off to help at the siege, and the dead decided to follow to watch. Chapter VI – Isky’s last stand Arriving at the siege the dead were astounded to find that only one more Durham assassin had joined their ranks (Edain), and even more surprised to find that 4 Cambridgites were also dead. There had also been several woundings, most notable Snapdragon who had lost an arm and a leg. The rest were still alive inside Jesus college, though low on ammo. Captain Newsham occasionally came to a high window to shout things like “You suck Cambridge” and “We wish to discuss terms of surrender – are you ready to give up yet?”.

Snapdragon hops along, having lost a leg and an arm.

The siege continued. Crazy Dave was killed, but blew off Snapdragon’s other arm as he died. Eventually the remaining two team members decided to blast their way out. They charged past the Cambridge assassins who weren’t paying attention. Once they were noticed many gave pursuit and caught up to Gradie with ease, as he had been wounded in the leg. Gradie turned and sprayed with the Rapid-fire taking down at least two (though we maintain 3) and wounding others, but was gunned down himself. This sacrifice allowed Iskander to retreat (read ‘run away’) until he reached a locked gate. Surrounded, with only one revolver left, he fought valiantly, but it was a

loosing battle and he was eventually taken down. However for his valiant efforts he was awarded a posthumous second field promotion to ‘Generalissimo’. Chapter VII – The Exectution With everyone dead the Cambridgites decided it was time to execute the ‘traitor’ that had been in their midst. They went and found Jen’s corpse, took it from where it lay, blindfolded it and nailed it up against a wall. A huge firing squad was assembled and they emptied the entire contents of their water weapons into her corpse until all that remained was a fine red mist hanging in the air. Do not view these images if you are of a sensitive nature.

Epilogue

Having salvaged some of our dignity we went off home happy. Some went back by train (the fools, they had to wait for 3 and a half hours due to train delays – something else that went wrong!), whilst four of us stayed for some fun Laserquesting with the Cambridgites in the evening. Awards given The Sean Connery Award for Smoothest Kill – The Advance Team and Jennifer Curtis for the kill of Felix The Linford Christie Award for Biggest Weapon – Cambridge, The Gattling-gun The Genghis Khan Award for Most Innocents Killed – Crazy Dave The Dudley Bowen Award For Running Away – Alex Newsham New awards created because of OZNAZ: The Iskander Award for Most Surprising Display of Skill in the Face of One’s Own Incompetence – Alex Newsham, for Isky’s Last Stand

The Wile E. Coyote Award for Unadvised Messing with High Explosives – Crazy Dave Aleistir Crowley award for Necromancy - Felix and Snapdragon for cheating scurrilous Knaves Some other random photos