Olympus RPG Blog

Unconquerable, Part VII

As the crew gazed out the port into the hangar bay at their competitors’ ship, the Aegis, Ella thought better of trying to take her. Buck, disappointed, offered to do some mischief to her instead, and the captain agreed, hoping to impede any effort to give chase. There was some discussion about what to do with Trois, their prisoner, as they had no further use for him; he insisted he should be let go, as there was no harm he could do to them before they could leave, but they decided to have Abe sedate him, and, unconscious in his vacc-suit, stand him out of the way for his compatriots to find later, as they leave (should they get past the 300 or so waking Zhodani crew and myriad securitybots). The Crew took their turns cycling through the airlock into the hangar bay, bringing the stretcher-bound Jones in his patched-up vacc-suit, and Smith’s lifeless body. Haank and Buck split off and sidled up to the enemy ship, Buck with his toolbox, intent on welding shut the ship’s outer hatches, while the others floated over to the Spinward Star, to get it started up for takeoff.

In no rush and attempting to minimize any telltale vibration on the hull, Buck saw to the welding, starting with the only personnel airlock they could find on the unfamiliar model, while Haank provided security. They then sneaked around to seal off the dorsal shuttle-bay, followed by the cargo hatch to the rear. Most of the way through sealing the cargo hatch, Sam called over from the Spinward Star to inform them that the persons they were observing on the bridge of the enemy ship had left; the announcement preceded the arrival of an unfamiliar, angry face, apparently shouting at the two through a window from inside the ship’s cargo bay. As he finished, Buck facetiously demanded of the stranger in the window that he “sign off on the work order.” A heartbeat later, Buck and Haank felt a jolt from inside the ship, as the cargo-hatch motors strained at the weld in an unsuccessful attempt to break open. Laughing, the two started toward the Spinward Star, when Sam alerted them to the fact that the ship’s dorsal turret was sweeping for them. Buck and Haank, out of the weapons’ fire arc for the moment, briefly discussed how they might disable them; Buck decided that taking a hammer to the lasers’ optics would be too slow, before Haank offered to risk personal vaporization to shoot it dead with his under-barrel–mounted gauss shotgun pistol (loaded with HEMP rounds—certainly capable of penetrating the ship’s armor). Buck agreed to draw their attention while Haank got into position behind the turret. Once in position, Haank nearly emptied the shotgun’s magazine into the turret, desperately leaping out of the line of fire as it quickly turned around to fire at him…and fizzled, no longer functional. Haank’s jump clear left him drifting, but he expertly caught himself at the next opportunity and made his way back to the Spinward Star, to join the rest of the Crew.

With all aboard, Sam set the ship moving toward the exit; Haank took up position at the gunners’ station, just in case. The Aegis also took off a heartbeat later, in mad pursuit, being essentially unarmed; she jerked upward from below, attempting to slam the Spinward Star into the ceiling of the hangar bay. Sam tried to maneuver the ship out of the way, but ended up scraping deeply into the structure (the damage would turn out to be mostly cosmetic). He recovered from the impact to find the Aegis backing off for another go; Sam pressed hard for the exit, trying to position the ship such that Haank could fire from the ventral turret. As the enemy ship jerked upward again, this time, Sam rolled the Spinward Star just out of the way, at the same time that Haank got off a lucky shot at the ship’s bridge, both resulting in the Aegis crashing itself into the structure hard enough to wedge it in, stopped dead and stuck fast. Not only was the pursuit ended, but the crew of the Aegis were now unlikely to be able to escape the Zhodani vessel at all.

The Spinward Star left the Unconquerable behind, having lost a crewmember and gained nothing in return—except a few containers of 10-year-old military weapons and vehicles. There was plenty of time to contemplate their next move in the day or two it took to get to the nearest gas giant in the system to refuel. Once fueled, they jumped-out for Kinorb, without incident.

Notes

• We were missing Abe’s player this week, again, but it was just as well, as he really wouldn’t have had much to do
• Buck really wanted to break the laser optics with a hammer or something, but the rules aren’t quite geared for that sort of thing. It probably should have been possible, but by RAW, he would have to break through 10dDR with a blunt instrument, or 5dDR if considered a “targeted attack”—still a lot of non-ablative DR. On the other hand, it should be able to withstand a micrometeorite hit, so maybe it’s right?
• First time using Haank’s shotgun pistol w/ HEMP; turns out he could literally shoot down a starship with it, at 6d×3 (5)—had been avoiding using it in close quarters due to fragmentation, but it would have vaporized those androids
• The GM had us make a Reaction check for the Aegis crew as we left, to see how they would handle the “mischief”; rolled a 7—“not well,” apparently
• This session was the end of this run, so it was a bit short; good stopping point. Time to rotate to another campaign. This one has gone reasonably well, and will likely return in the near-future

Unconquerable, Part VI

With Jones, and Smith’s body, placed in cryo-stasis, the Crew set out for the ship’s reactors, along with the original Zhodani crew’s Chief Engineer and three others he picked from among those that had been awakened. Everyone was prepared for the worst, expecting a fight. It was a relatively short trip aft of the habitation rings, and they arrived at the main corridor connecting the two reactor sections without incident. On a figurative coin-toss, they headed first for the starboard reactor; at a distance, ’round the corner, they spotted several securitybots apparently engaged in a firefight with an unknown (but easily guessed) foe. The Crew stopped briefly to decide how to proceed when someone spotted a head briefly poking around the port-side end of the corridor—no firefight over there, so they decided to check it out, hoping to catch their competition off-guard.

Haank cautiously eased his rifle around the corner, using the HUD-link to remotely spy out what was waiting there; there were two armed spacers covering the approach with storm carbines, and they appeared to have spotted the rifle. Unsure of the other crew’s disposition or purpose, but unwilling to simply go in shooting without cause, the Crew decided to give diplomacy a chance. Buck, wearing space armor, stepped around the corner in as non-threatening a manner as he could, announcing their non-hostile intent to approach, citing the nearby presence of the ship’s automated security forces as good cause to be quick; the rest followed just behind Buck, though the other intruders demanded they keep their distance. Abe called out to see if any among them had been injured, and offered to help; as it happened, one of the three had been shot by robots earlier, and the leader nervously accepted the offer of aid, allowing the lot of them into the reactor room. One of the intruders kept watch on the corridor, and was joined by Haank at the other side of the entry. Another spoke for the group, and kept a rifle trained on the strangers as he pointed Abe to the injured man; Abe got right to work patching him up, directing him to remove his vacc-suit top. Buck tried to keep himself interposed between the rifle and Abe, and politely quizzed the man about their situation while explaining his own. The Zhodani crewmen stood to the side and kept out of the way. Haank sized up the opposition, and decided they looked somewhat inexperienced. Ella joined Buck in his attempts to learn more about the others; the leader wasn’t interested in chatting, treating the Crew as a potential threat (for good reason), but they were able to get a few facts out of him: there were around nine more of them, and they had no interest in giving up their prize. Buck discreetly wandered over to the nearby terminal to see how the reactor’s progress was going, but the leader bristled when he attempted to sit at the console and start typing; Buck backed off.

After determining the competition was entirely unbothered by the legal issues involved in taking the ship from its surviving crew—that is, an act of piracy—and might resort to less savory means to keep it, Haank left his post at the entryway and explained the matter to the Zhodani in their language. Buck noticed the leader was listening to the conversation in Zhdent, though he would not admit to speaking the language; the man’s demeanor had shifted to one of concern, as Haank told the Zhodani they may have to retake the ship by force, and he insisted his injured comrade get his suit back on, nervously pointing his storm carbine at anyone that moved. Ella demanded he lower his weapon, joined by Buck, as the situation escalated to shouting. At a movement by the leader that Sam interpreted as “hostile,” he raised his looted gauss rifle to fire on the one guarding the corridor, but the leader reacted quickly and fired, crippling Sam’s weapon arm. In an instant, the entire Crew started leapt into action: Haank swung around and shot the corridor-guard in the ribs, just before Sam finished him off, and began advancing toward the leader in an intimidating manner; as Buck was raising his weapon, the leader shot him in the chest-plate, the heavy slugs stopped entirely by his space-armor, after which, Buck unloaded his own weapon into the man, killing him. The fight was over in a matter of a few seconds, with the leader dead, the corridor-guard grievously wounded and unconscious, and the previously-injured pirate surrendered.

Haank informed the Zhodani that the situation was now under control. Buck sat down at the terminal and started poking around; he discovered that the intruders appeared to have isolated the terminal from the ship’s computer network, allowing them to take control of the reactor systems—since turning it on was what they wanted anyway, the operation was allowed to continue. Haank informed the Zhodani Chief Engineer that they were handing over the reactor system to him, and would be moving out to retake the starboard reactor; the Zhodani crew elected to remain in place to babysit the operation, but agreed to call back to the rest of the waking crew for backup. The Crew decided to take with them the surviving, wounded pirate, who said his name was Tony Trois, to help convince the others of their capabilities and intentions.

The Crew moved out to the corridor and followed it to starboard, finding numerous “corpses” of fallen androids strewn about the corner. As before, Haank spied around the corner with his rifle, spotting numerous enemy troops there, well-armed and dug in for a fight. Ella nudged their captive around the corner to announce the Crew’s desire to parley; he complied. Ella was allowed to step around the corner unarmed. She still had her pistol on her hip as she did so; the opposition demanded it be taken and slid forward on the floor toward them, but she instead reached for it—drawing some alarm—before slowly pulling it free with two fingers and handing it back around the corner to Haank. She demanded to speak to their captain, also a former Navy officer, but he would not leave the reactor room to talk in the open, demanding instead that Ella come into the reactor room to speak—she refused, choosing to shout back to him instead. After a bit of Navy-related small-talk establishing each others’ former credentials, she informed the opposing captain that the original crew was awakening from stasis, around 300-strong, and would be taking back the ship; the opposing captain was unconvinced, and completely uninterested in giving up his prize. Thinking back on the loss of Smith, and the numerous injuries the rest of the Crew were still suffering from, Ella decided the Zhodani really didn’t need any further assistance, and turned back down the corridor to leave, pulling their captive back with her.

The Crew marched back to the medical station in the habitation rings, captive in tow, and collected Smith and Jones. As they made their way back to the hangar deck, Ella revealed that she had in mind to take the intruders’ ship as a prize, as it would likely be unmanned, or at least, under-manned. When they arrived at the hangar, they saw the other ship, the Aegis, alongside the Spinward Star; an unknown hull-class at around 200-tons. However, someone spotted movement inside—it looked like they would have to fight for it.

Notes

• Ella’s player was absent; she was played by Buck’s player instead, which was an interesting dichotomy, as the two characters are completely opposite
• The dice finally cut us a break this week, for the most part; no catastrophes to speak of

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