Soldiers of God often have to work out their own
security arrangements. Celestials usually don't need
to encode messages (often, they don't even need to
write them down), but their servants do, for strictly
corporeal activities. As Soldiers usually don't have
a budget, the latest high-tech toys are effectively
unavailable, unless they're lucky enough to work for
Jean, Litheroy, Marc or Zadkiel.
It would seem that one particular group of Soldiers of
Laurence have gone back to the old standard of one
time pads for their most secret information. One-time
pads, for those who don't know, are essentially a
one-time encryption method: the message is enciphered
normally, then further encrypted with a random code
key (previously handed off to the person getting and
the person receiving the message). Someone who wishes
to decode the message would need the key - and, as
each code key would (theoretically) only be used once,
there would be no way to gather enough of a sample to
do so. Besides, even deciphering one message wouldn't
help decipher the others.
All that's assuming that the keys are a), only used
once, and b), truly random. It would seem that
neither is true, in this case. The Soldiers have
gotten sloppy and reused pads (always a problem with
this form of encryption): worse, they haven't
destroyed them. Careful gleaning of the area (read:
"dumpster diving") has revealed just enough of the
sheets to make decoding practical - and, better and
better, the idiots weren't using truly random
groupings. They were using the names of Saints on the
Catholic calendar, coupled with enough null letters to
make the code groups come out to ten characters (ex:
'ONESIMUSX').
In other words, the forces of Hell are now able to
read these guys' mail, and what an interesting bit of
reading it is, indeed. Among other things, it would
seem that they've got a safe house that's used for
hiding out Renegades that want to Redeem: in fact,
three days from now they're supposed to get a couple
of demons who are on one of Asmodeus little lists.
Properly done, this should be easy - and, of course, a
slaughter.
The PCs should be coming in at this point: it's
unlikely that they've got any experience in
cryptography (if one of them does, by all means,
involve him or her), so they get to play muscle. Let
them have all the shotguns, hand grenades, and/or body
armor that they want. The safe house is actually an
old, semi-abandoned military bunker, so actually
getting in might be a hassle: the best bet would be to
wait until the transfer is taking place, then sweep
through and blow the place up. It's out in the desert
/ plains / tundra / whatever, so you can be loud. The
PCs even get to bring along a few Calabim bruisers to
add muscle. This is almost too easy.
Well, yeah.
Did I mention that the Soldiers of Laurence were all
career military, and that their commander (both of
them and of the military base) had a whole bunch of
munitions that were approaching the end of their
useful date? Or that it's fairly stupid to think that
even humans would go through the trouble of creating a
one-time pad, and then make the entire thing moot by
using a non-random code key? Or that, just because
you believe in the ideals of the Sword, that you have
to be a damned fool about it?
At any rate, the PCs will need all the help that they
can get, because the second that they get within
range, the entire 'transfer area' will immediately
become practically drenched with .30 machine-gun fire.
They'll be detected long before they get within
range, of course: the Soldiers have been running this
operation for about six weeks now, and the celestial
detectors (borrowed from Jean) will give the humans
plenty of warning. If the PCs make it through the
killing ground, well, that's when the minefields (if
they're retreating) or the flame-thrower squads (if
advancing) get activated. If they get through that,
well, there's a few grinning Malakim of the Sword and
War waiting in the inner sanctum ... and no Renegades.
Oops.
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EDG <edg@sjgames.com>
In Nomine Collection Curator