Olympus RPG Blog

Unconquerable, Part V

Of the Zhodani crew released from stasis, three volunteered to accompany the Crew to the bridge to help get the computer shut down—the two techs, and one other. Smith and Jones, both still unconscious from their earlier wounds, were placed on stretchers to be hauled along, rather then leave them behind. However, the stretchers would make crawling the service tunnels virtually impossible, so the Crew opted for the more open route, which would undoubtedly have them run afoul of the ship’s automated security forces; they prepared for the worst, entrusting the Zhodani volunteers with scavenged gauss rifles.

They made their way to the nearest elevator cluster that had not been sealed full of securitybots. As they approached, they could hear one of the cars activate, summoned back to the central ring, no doubt to pick up more armed androids; they all piled into an empty car, but waited for the other to reach its destination and begin its return before activating their own. At the “top,” after disembarking, Buck quickly moved to disable the elevator doors, as before. They determined the correct direction around the central collar to reach the shaft leading mid-ship, and began cautiously floating toward it, keeping an eye for trouble. A couple of securitybots were spotted at some distance around the curve, and the Crew and their company hasted to hide themselves behind whatever cover presented, pulling their stretcher-bound comrades aside; Haank reassured the Zhodani crewmen, quietly reminding them that the robots would not be trying to kill them, so they should hang back if a fight erupts. The “autonomous” androids spoke to each other, as would any other sapient being, referring to sabotage of elevators and such. Some tense moments elapsed as the robots approached the Crew’s hiding places, passing within hands reach of Buck, to the fore, but they didn’t spot anyone as they turned back the other way, having been summoned elsewhere. The Crew discreetly followed behind them to their intended passage, leaving the robots behind as they continued ’round another way.

Floating down the passage forward, the Crew felt a hum begin to reverberate through the ship’s structure; they identified this as the reactor being started up, and the Zhodani agreed. The crew of the other ship had clearly been working to get it online this whole time. Buck estimated it would be an hour or two before it would be fully warmed up.

They found the elevator-cluster that would take them to the sub-bridge level; they entered, and took it to the topmost cargo deck, Buck having sealed off the doors to the sub-bridge itself earlier. They found the hold there mostly empty. Haank asked one of the Zhodani where they might find access to the sub-bridge from here, and they pointed out the spot, in the next hold-chamber. When the bay door opened, though, they started as they saw rows and rows of securitybots, statue-like, in some sort of standby mode; the formation appeared to be missing a few, clearly having been dispatched to bring in the intruders. It was decided to take the chance of alerting them to get past to the access hatch, so they proceeded cautiously. There was no reaction at all from the androids, until the moment Haank and Buck started to remove the hatch cover; a number of robots suddenly activated…and moved out in a hurry for the elevators, completely ignoring the intruders amongst them, to the intruders’ surprise.

Continuing their mission, Buck was in the service tunnel as the Crew were deciding to remove Smith and Jones from their stretchers, when the ship’s artificial gravity suddenly engaged, dropping everyone heavily to the floor. Abe checked on his patients, and discovered the Smith had landed badly in the process, and was bleeding out badly. The Crew stopped everything to do what they could (as it was, little) to help Abe, as he frantically tried to save the still-unconscious Smith. Stripping him out of his vacc-suit, which was full of blood, he administered regeneratives and performed CPR as Smith nearly faded—he was still alive, but only barely, in desperate need of a blood transfusion to replace the significant loss. Ella might have torn her own arm open to provide it, but the Crew unanimously decided they would abandon their current mission to return him to the nearest medical station for proper treatment—which happened to be the same place they had left, earlier.

Now with full gravity, the return trip to the medical facility was much more difficult; they went back the same way they came. The stretchers had to be carried all the way back, and maneuvered into the elevators, taking care not to jostle them too much. Fortunately, they encountered no resistance whatsoever as they hurried back, and they arrived at the medical station in good time. Abe immediately sprang back to work, as Smith was fading fast. But he was too far gone, and the medical supplies available at the station were designed for Zhodani patients; Abe eventually had to be pulled away by the other Crew, having failed to save their fallen comrade.

Reeling from their loss, the Crew discussed their next move: the other crew had clearly gained an advantage, but the security forces seemed preoccupied with their activities rather than the Crew’s, which gave them time they didn’t have before. It was decided to start waking the other Zhodani crew to aid in taking back their ship, starting with whatever medical officers they could locate, who could then assist in waking the others. In a half hour or so, there were nearly thirty Zhodani crew up and about; the ranking officer among them was the Chief Engineer. Haank gathered those Zhodani that were awake and, matter-of-factly, tried to explain the situation: the war had ended in a truce, though the “ship” was not aware of it; the Crew was here for salvage until they discovered the crew still lived, at which point they were working to help them take it back from the other free-traders that had boarded, who were currently starting it up. Haank’s efforts were received coldly, though the Zhodani made no attempt to turn on their rescuers. Haank, translating for the others as needed, discussed their tactical options with the Chief Engineer, who insisted that the ship’s engineering section should be taken back ASAP, as they had less than an hour before it would be fully charged up, at which point the intruders would likely take full control. It was agreed that engineering was the most likely location of the other intruders, as the reactor would require some babysitting during the startup process, so they would be expecting resistance. There was an arms station nearby, and Buck was commissioned to bring his tools, and help get it opened, as the Zhodani crew were still locked out of the system (by the former crew of the Proud Mary); what arms and armor were available (not much, given that the ship was designed to be defended by the androids) were taken up by the Zhodani crew. As prepared as they could be, the Crew and a chosen handful of Zhodani, led by the Chief Engineer, set out to assault the engineering section.

Notes

• The securitybots stopped right in front of Buck in the hallway; the GM randomly rolled which direction they would turn as they about-faced to leave—lucky, that time
• After four sessions without it, gravity is finally returned, to our chagrin 😛
• Having to backtrack, we’re running afoul of our justifiable attempts to cover our six by sealing off the elevators
• The GM had the injured make a HT check when the gravity came back on, and Smith failed critically; then the GM made a Death Check for him, which failed by one (accounting for one level of Easy to Kill—without which he would have survived). If I’m not mistaken, Smith is the only “party” loss this group has experienced since I started playing. Though he was only an NPC, and originally a red-shirt, we had grown rather attached.
• The dice continued to be uncooperative at critical moments; once again, a much-needed Diplomacy attempt (with the waking Zhodani crew) was thwarted

Unconquerable, Part IV

…Continued. The Crew continued to resist the securitybots’ attempts to capture them, still cornered in the cryo-room, while Crewman Beqr cowered in the corner of the lab. The unidentified fog continued to fill the adjoined rooms, but dispersed out the open door, having little effect, as the Crew were in sealed vacc-suits.

Smith, in the lab, went for the stunned securitybot’s gauss rifle which he had previously knocked away and turned it on its former-owner, while Haank shifted to firing at the one still grabbing at Buck, who was backpedaling and trying to reload his gauss pistol. As Smith cleared the line of fire, Haank returned to firing on the robot in the lab; the two finally filled it with enough holes that it could no longer function. The Crew noticed that some of the cryo-tubes had been damaged by gunfire, resulting in some noticeable injuries to some of the occupants; Abe abandoned the fight and went to work trying to get to the injured to aid them, starting the process of waking them. Ella, almost panicked by the revelation, also abandoned the fight to help Abe, ordering the others to move the fight out into the lab, rather than risk the ship’s original crew any further. As Jones slipped through to the lab, he was caught by another securitybot coming in, and thrown out into the hall, where another pair were waiting for their opportunity to enter; he frantically tried to escape down the hall past them, gliding uncontrolled in freefall, barely escaping more gauss-fire. The robot in the lab turned to gun down Smith, who succumbed to his wounds after putting up an admirable fight; of the two androids in the hallway, one turned to pursue Jones, while the other followed into the lab. Buck spotted his captured gauss rifle floating nearby, and abandoned his pistol to reload the rifle instead; at the same time Haank’s pistol was emptied, and he began to reload. Sam had made his way to just beside the doorway, and pulled the floating “corpse” of one of the robots out of the doorway, covering himself from the incoming reinforcements; as one of the robots in the lab pressed through to the cryo room, Sam tossed the android-chassis at it, knocking it back. Haank was mid-reload when the other securitybot pressed past and grabbed him by the vacc-suit, to throw him out; he tried to finish, but for his being tossed about, ended up letting go of the magazine, and started trying to wriggle free. Sam saw Haank’s predicament and seized the opportunity of the android’s distraction to jump on its back, wrapping both arms around its head, (hopefully) blinding it. Meanwhile, Ella had spotted Smith floating away in the lab, and she pressed past the struggle in the cryo room to render first aid; the other securitybot ignored her as a non-combatant, continuing to press into the cryo room. He hung on for dear life as the robot tried to peel him off its head, while Haank slipped free and finished reloading, he and Buck firing into the thrashing android’s exposed flank. Some seconds later, the robot succeeded in dislodging Sam, and threw him through the doorway, and straight through the lab; Sam bounded off the ceiling and out into the hallway. With only Haank and Buck remaining in the fight, they concentrated fire on the remaining assailants until they finally succumbed.

With the fight over, and the fog mostly cleared, the Crew quickly collected themselves, knowing there would be more to come. They found Jones, unconscious and near-death, in an office down the hall; Haank did what he could on the spot, and guided him back to the lab. Ella finished her patch-job on Smith; he would live, but was in bad shape. Some minutes later, as Abe tended an opening cryo-tube, its occupant started awake with a scream, thrashing wildly about; the others observed Abe also scream, clutching his helmet, in some sort of reaction to his patient’s condition, before passing out. Haank quickly dove for a sedative hypo, and with Ella’s assistance in holding the injured crewman still, managed to administer it; the man settled down instantly, unconscious. Ella used some smelling-salts to awake Abe, who was then forced to dope himself with a powerful painkiller to combat a crippling headache.

Some minutes later, the endangered crew were tended to, and shaking off their long hypersleep; some had not survived. The Crew hurriedly discussed what to do next: they assumed there would be more security forces dispatched to their location at any time, which they would be hard-pressed to survive; they had to tend to their injured comrades, and now, those of the original crew that had been awakened; they still had no idea as to the whereabouts or disposition of the crew of the other free-trader that had docked; they still had no plan for the ship itself, except to move it to a new location. There was talk of cutting their losses and leaving (although Buck insisted they should keep the ship, until it was pointed out to him that since the original crew was aboard, and there was no ongoing war with the Zhodani, it would be considered an act of piracy to take it), but they were all in agreement that whatever their decision, they would not leave the original crewmen to fend for themselves against the securitybots, who were bent on following their last orders to place the crew in stasis. With Haank as the middleman, they discussed the situation with Crewman Beqr and his colleagues; they said the only way to take control of the ship was to disable the ship’s computers—it wouldn’t stop the autonomous security units, but it would allow them to control the ship itself, at which point they might be able to contain the security forces—two of the awakened crew were computer techs that could do the task.

Now resolved, the Crew knew the best place to attempt to disable the computer was from the bridge. They decided they would be better served by taking the maintenance crawl-ways back the way they had come, but they would have to get past the elevators, some still full of trapped androids. There was no choice but to press forward, so they all set out for the bridge.

Notes

• Sam’s player was out for the session, so I took him over; he didn’t die on me, despite my efforts 😉
• This session was mostly one big fight, especially considering it had started the previous session. No idea why it took so long, except that the androids were pretty damned tough, and refused to die, combined with our lack of preparation for this particular threat
• The dice were still being pretty uncooperative, but less so than last time; pretty sure Jones experienced a malfunction at one point during the shooting
• There was a lot of light grappling in this fight. Though Technical Grappling had been released already, we haven’t had the opportunity to wrap our heads around it, so we aren’t using it yet. Sam (ST10) was damned lucky to have held onto “the bull” for as long as he did
• We very nearly lost both red-shirts in this one; would have been sad to see Smith go
• Abe’s incident with the awakened crewman was planned between the GM and player, as an excuse to allow him to improve/reveal his latent psionic abilities
• This session coincided with the theatrical release of Gravity, which the GM had seen before the rest of us; it was already having an influence on the zero-gravity antics (I’m betting the robots’ tactic of tossing the intruders down the hall was a result), but perhaps moreso next time, when everyone else has (probably) seen it as well

Unconquerable, Part III

The medibot that surprised the Crew declared that they were not allowed in this area, and attempted to shoo them out the door. As waking up a crewman was their best shot at getting things working on the derelict warship, they were not willing to leave. The robot did not appear to be armed at all, except that it could undoubtedly call down more securitybots, the presence of which would force the Crew to hurry the process of waking the crewman, neverminding the obvious consequences of any exchange of fire. If they attacked it, they would have to disable it quickly before it could call for help. Without other obvious option, Haank tried to hide his rifle behind Buck as he raised it, hoping to surprise the medibot, and opened fire; Smith, growing impatient, also opened fire about the same time. The others followed suit. As the helpless medibot was riddled with needle-fire, debris flying off in all directions, it continued to politely insist it not be fired upon, lest the cryo-tubes be endangered, and informed the intruders that security had been dispatched to their location—they hadn’t been fast enough—before its power systems finally failed, and it hung, limp and lifeless, in freefall.

Abe immediately started the wake-up procedures for the chosen crewman, moving as quickly as he could—normally takes ten to fifteen minutes—as they expected a troop of securitybots to arrive at any minute. Meanwhile, everyone else surveyed their surroundings to determine their best defensive options. There were two entrances to this cryo room: to port, a long hallway lined with living quarters leading to one of three elevator clusters; to starboard, a medical office that opened into the rest of the medical area, a maze of offices and operating rooms that included another, closer elevator-cluster. Buck made for the starboard elevator-cluster, the closest, and began disabling the doors, as he had on the bridge, taking Smith with him for cover. Buck finished in time to hear the elevators activate, and the two hasted back to the cryo-room, where Haank and Ella were observing a handful of the up-armored securitybots exit the port elevator-cluster, advancing tactically down the corridor. Haank took careful aim with his gauss rifle at the lead robot, but when he pulled the trigger, nothing happened; he quickly cleared the electrical contacts and reseated the magazine, and lined up another shot. He fired again, and missed. Having been attacked, the securitybots sought nearby cover and hid there, calling out, in Zhdent, for the intruders to lay down arms and surrender.

Abe continued working; they figured they had another ten minutes to go, so they needed to delay. It occurred to Ella that the securitybots were likely attempting to avoid a firefight in the vicinity of the sleeping crew, lest they be caught in the crossfire, which gave the Crew a bit of leverage to negotiate. Ella requested the securitybots speak Galanglic—they complied, and repeated their demands—and (speciously) threatened to kill the defenseless crew if they didn’t back off, but they were unconvinced of her sincerity. As they continued, fruitlessly, to attempt to negotiate, another handful of securitybots exited the elevators to join the others, bounding tactically down the hall, closing in on the Crew’s position. Eventually, Ella gave up trying to talk her way out, and had Buck seal the door closed; they knew it wouldn’t prevent an assault, but might slow it down anyway. As Buck finished, they could hear the robots’ quickly advancing steps outside, eventually moving through the hallways to surround the block.

As Buck moved to the other door to seal it off as well, Abe announced that the crewman was waking. Crewman Beqr shook the long sleep out of his head, and surveyed his surroundings, to find he was alone in the company of “the enemy”; he was understandably confused and frightened. Haank tried to calm him down, speaking Zhdent, and explained the situation a little at a time (as it would undoubtedly be a bit of a shock): the War was over, the sides having agreed to a cease-fire ten years back, and his ship was derelict, left behind by those who had stolen it; Haank offered to allow him to view the ship’s logs. As the information settled in, Haank explained that the Crew was here to salvage the ship, but are running afoul of its automated security, and would appreciate some help in bypassing it; in exchange, he offered, on the Crew’s behalf, to help wake up the remaining crew, and help them get home, wherever that might be. As they helped Crewman Beqr to the starboard door, it became clear that the young crewman didn’t quite trust these Imperials, and had no idea how to properly proceed, to the point of near-panic. The Crew opened the door and called out to the securitybots, informing them they were sending someone to negotiate. The robots recognized Crewman Beqr and advised him to step aside and allow them to seize the intruders, while the Crew encouraged him to take charge (being the only legitimate crewman currently active) and demand security stand down. The Crew, via Haank, tried everything they could think of to negotiate an exit, but the ship’s computer, cut off from the outside world, had no idea the War was over. After some prodding, the robots stated that the intruders were to be held until the captain—who was deceased—returned to deal with them; also, Crewman Beqr would be placed back in cryo-stasis. Crewman Beqr was no help at all, mentally paralyzed, as he just couldn’t process what to do in this highly unusual situation; he ended up retreating to a corner of the office and curling up there, out of the way.

At that point, the securitybots charged through the lab in an attempt to execute their mission; the Crew opened fire. The robots pressed their way into the cryo room through a hail of gauss-needles, attempting to close and wrest away the Crew’s weapons. Some of the Crew took advantage of the lack of gravity to move to the ceiling, clearing lanes of fire. Smith emptied his gauss rifle into the assaulters’ chassis, slowing their advance. Haank’s gauss rifle misfired again, and he immediately transitioned to his pistol, unloading into one of the robots that was previously “stunned” by Smith. The robot in front failed to disarm Jones and moved on to Buck, turning its back to the others to its own peril—it fell—before another followed into the cryo room. Smith’s gauss rifle ran dry, so he charged into the lab to knock away the rifle of the still-recovering robot there. Abe, having determined his sonic stun pistol to be all-but-useless against the medbot, found a fire extinguisher, and was preparing to do…something with it, when the room began to fill with a fog billowing out of the ventilation system. To be continued…

Notes

• This was the second session done entirely in freefall; there was quite a bit of three-dimensional movement in the fighting, mostly just switching from floor to ceiling to get out of the line of fire
• The dice continued to refuse to cooperate this session; Haank ended up with concurrent 17s resulting in rifle malfunctions, and a 15 on the diplomacy attempt toward the end
• Smith, once again (played by Abe’s player), showed what a combat-monster he was, in spite of his actual stats to the contrary—he did a lot of damage. Also, he actually emptied the magazine on a gauss rifle—something not witnessed in quite some time (with 60 a shot magazine)
• A bit of a combat surprise: Haank’s ETC Heavy Pistol w/ APHD actually ended up doing equivalent damage, per shot, to the high-powered gauss rifles, versus the Unliving robots, thanks to the larger piercing type (pi instead of pi-) plus the same (5) armor divisor
• We ran into some weirdness fighting the robots this time, in that there is nothing in their stats to say they can’t be “Stunned” or suffer the usual head-blow effects; the GM ruled that since they weren’t specifically statted such that they were immune, then they weren’t—which is how GURPS 4e normally works
• Along a similar line as above, we ended up “negotiating” with robots, which feels weird for the same reasons. In this case, designated “autonomous”—having limited or full AI—and not being statted otherwise (that is, they didn’t have Indomitable or anything similar), they were ruled susceptible to manipulation
• Had to wrap mid-fight, to be continued next session

Unconquerable, Part II

Still in freefall, and darkness, the Crew forced the doors, and exited the elevator shaft. Across the hallway, there was a door that read “Bridge” in Zhodani; they all took up defensive positions as Buck worked on forcing it open. Once successful, the door opened to reveal a pair of up-armored-and-armed security androids on the other side; they raised gauss rifles and demanded the intruders’ surrender. The intruders opened fire, instead. The brief but frenetic engagement ended with both androids disabled, and Haank, Sam and Smith suffering significant, but non–life-threatening gauss-needle wounds. Abe patched up the wounded as best he could, given they were all in vacc suits.

The plan was to get the ship running, and attempt to move it to a new location, such that nobody would be able to find it, coordinates be damned; after that, however, they were still unsure how to capitalize on this bounty. Buck made immediately for the bridge’s forward console, finding a terminal suitable to continue his intrusion efforts. Knowing there was another crew aboard, undoubtedly looking to claim the ship as well, the rest took up watch positions while Buck worked. Upon review, Buck determined that gaining secure access would take a really long time, maybe even days—he was an inexperienced hacker (the source of which, again, he would not elaborate), and this system was well-fortified. Before he started, though, he went about breaking into what he easily could, and managed a few helpful items, among them a better deck map, the captain’s and other logs, and a cargo manifest. He passed off everything he found to the others, along with a copy of his Zhodani translation program (so they could actually read the stuff), so they started sorting through the available data. Buck was unable to get into the security system to find out where the other uninvited guests were, or to open any locked doors, or to operate any of the ship’s systems; predictably, anything remotely sensitive required identification and authentication. There was talk of stripping the “real” captain’s voice-print from the logs to forge identification, but it would remain useless without the authentication codes.

From the logs, the Crew was able to determine the overall purpose of the ship: an experimental, nearly fully-automated warship, prepared for planetary invasion during the War, which was stolen from the Zhodani by the crew of the Proud Mary, who left it behind in an out-of-the-way orbit to be salvaged later. Those logs left by the former-captain of the Proud Mary post-theft indicated that they planned to sell off the pieces for a hefty sum (selling the ship, whole, would be nearly impossible); also, he was unwilling to simply kill off the entire crew, instead remanding them to cryostasis—meaning a number of the original Zhodani crew were still aboard. Haank hit upon the idea of waking one of the frozen crewmen who might have sufficient security access to help get the ship moving. Buck dove back into the ship’s computer and managed to find the location of the occupied cryostasis tubes, in the aft habitation ring. After much discussion about the pros and cons of leaving the bridge unattended, it was decided to take the chance, and make for the cryo-tubes; if the Zhodani crewsicles would not cooperate, they would have to return and hunker down for the lengthy hacking process.

All together, they proceeded down to the sub-bridge level the same way they got up, and looked for a way down that didn’t involve the elevator-cluster full of armed securitybots, but they couldn’t find anything suitable. Buck sealed the lifts to the bridge, to hopefully frustrate the competition should they make their way here. They did manage to find a maintenance access, leading into the airducts, service tunnels and crawlspaces—extensive on a ship this size—and decided to take their chances with the duct-maze. As they floated along, they stopped briefly to hear the far-distant sounds of gauss fire striking bulkheads echoing through the tunnels, and presumed their competition was running afoul of the ship’s security—would probably only slow them down a bit. With a combination of inertial compasses and spacer experience, they managed to keep from getting lost, and ended up where they intended, dropping into the corridor in front of the habitation rings’ lift-cluster. Once again, Buck forced the doors open, cracked open the overhead service panel, and they ascended/descended out to the habitation ring. Fortunately, the elevator-shaft opened directly to the medical area they were looking for, and they quickly found their quarry, resting peacefully in their cryo-tubes (though not all of them had survived ten years of stasis). None of the Crew knew enough about Zhodani culture to accurately recognize ranks and such, though the coveralls were a dead giveaway for “maintenance” types; they were looking for a non-officer, as he would be far less likely to be psionically trained. As they identified a likely candidate, and started checking the displays for life-signs, they were all startled, turning to see what was obviously some sort of medical android, demanding to know their business here…

Notes

• This entire session, including the fight at the beginning, was under freefall conditions; we started to feel the pinch of the Free-Fall skill cap
• The dice were being particularly unkind to all this session, except for Smith (played by Abe’s player), who managed to do most of the robot-killing, full-auto all the way. Haank used the boost setting on his gauss rifle for the first time—a surprise to the other players who weren’t aware of it—doing quite a bit of damage to set up Smith for the kill-shot
• Reinforced our discovery from last session about how inefficient gauss weapons are versus machines
• Not sure why we didn’t think to break out the translation software last time—problem solved anyway (for now). Most of the PCs had a handheld computer available to make use of it