Rama launches one last blast with the flamethrower, piercing the tank’s engine as it bursts alight. He then collapses to the ground in exhaustion.
Kobeck moves to quickly shoot one of the remaining gangers, but misses. Rez steps back towards Rama, before firing again at the ganger she is locked into combat with. Gunhead launches another shot with his assault rifle towards another ganger, shooting up a table, which pierces through the ganger’s body. The last remaining ganger attempts to flee, and begins to start a neighbouring car on the street. Rama spends his movement moving away from the remains of the tank, which continues to burn. Both Kobeck and Rez start moving forward to reach Rama. Fennec takes over the gun controls, and aims at the ganger preparing to escape. The missile launches, bursting the entire car into flames.
As they exit combat, Rez gets to Rama and pulls him away from the burning remains of the tank. She performs a paramedic check on his injury, carefully extracting the tank tread which lodged into his abdomen. Afterwards, she injects a Speedheal stim, which immediately kick starts Rama’s healing process, helping him to recover some health. As Kobeck approaches, Fennec lands the helicopter carrying himself, Gunhead and Nathan safely. Everyone regroups and discusses the events. Rez calls in her Trauma Team contacts to help assess everyone and review the situation.
While they arrive, Gunhead radios Trent, the de-facto commander of the Bakersfield militia force. As he accepts the call and provides an update, Trent passes the call over to a familiar voice. They quickly realise the voice is from Vera, an Oildale ganger captain who they captured previously. She indicates she has a friend who has a proposal, and wants to meet with them. Ending the call, the crew agree to travel to where Vera and her friend, located somewhere closer to downtown.
A short time later, Fennec parks the CH-53 helicopter outside the downtown city centre. As they approach the location they were told about, they occasionally meet a few of the militia forces Gunhead banded together. They come across Trent waiting outside a bar, who welcomes him. Trent informs the group these people seem… different, and aren’t actively helping or hindering the Oildale ganger operations. He informs them that Vera is waiting just outside a bar upstairs. The crew move to speak with Vera, who agrees to let past circumstances between her and the group be forgotten. She indicates a man named Solomon is waiting inside to discuss the future of the Oildale gangers. As they walk into the bar, they see a small group of armed men and women lingering, but keeping an eye on the crew. They walk up to the back, where a man in a military vest is smoking and playing cards. In one hand he appears to have a trigger which he clenches tightly. Rez approaches the man, who introduces himself as Solomon. While his approach and mannerisms are polite, it’s clear he has some discomfort towards the crew, as he engages in light conversation. Rez notices a tattoo on his neck, and enquires about it. Solomon informs her that it’s his nomadic tattoo, tying him to the Raffen Shiv for life. Hearing this, Fennec exits the bar in disgust and waits outside. They move on to discussing the Oildale gangers. Solomon informs them that Vera, after escaping during the tank attack on the University, tracked down the Raffen Shiv operatives in town and spoke with him about the push the Southern Californian government is making to restore the city. He indicates that the Raffen Shiv have a contract with the leader of the Oildale gangers, Rayze. They had agreed on future financial incentives based on the successful operation and output of the refinery project Rayze had initiated, but due to the efforts of the crew it doesn’t look to be viable anymore. Solomon says that the Raffen Shiv have elected to cash out their investment in Bakersfield, and makes them an offer: Deal with Rayze, the leader of the Oildale gangers, and in return all standing members of the Raffen Shiv involved in Bakersfield will leave, and he won’t activate the remote explosives he has prepared around the city.
The crew regroup outside to discuss the offer, and Rez enquires on Fennec’s history with the Raffen Shiv. Coming from a local nomadic family, Fennec says that the Raffen Shiv are crooks, thieves and thugs, and wants little to do with them. Fennec enquires on Vera’s history, to which she indicates she was formerly with the Oildale gangers, but shifted allegiance to the Raffen Shiv. Fennec pushes Gunhead to check on this further, so Gunhead attempts to hack into Vera’s agent while “smooth-talking” her. Making a successful Electronics-Security check, he slowly connects an interface jack into the agent in her pocket. It takes a few seconds to begin transferring data and files, so Gunhead continues to stammer through the conversation to buy some time. After the copy finishes, he leaves the conversation and uses his AR goggles to review the files. Inspecting the data, he determines the agent belongs to one of the Raffen Shiv members, but she has been using it as her new communicator. Some recent outbound communication includes correspondence between her and Rayze, who replied with chaotic, psychotic responses.
Fennec ultimately decides that the Oildale gangers are continuing to escalate matters, so they need to take out Rayze, and, if it looks like the Raffen Shiv will betray them, deal with them as well afterwards. Speaking with H.U.G.O, Gunhead determines that with the agent clone, that he should be able to intercept any messages sent to this agent using the same CitiNET identifier. While deciding what to do next, Gunhead thinks they can rely on Trent to help make a push to the refinery, along with their friends and allies.