Olympus RPG Blog

Duty Roster:

Ella Stanbridge (Melissa)
Ertrane “Buck” Buckner (Herodian)
Henri Haank Makruus (Gigermann)
Ibrahim “Abe” Nouri-Abbood (Rigil Kent)
Sam Turner (Winston)
Sae Rraetheg (CommJunkee)

Fallout Shelter

There was no freight or passengers bound for their next destination of Pirema—a population of less than a hundred—and no more information to be gathered regarding their quarry, the missing Valerie Vaskor. So, with their business on Kkirka concluded, the Spinward Star broke orbit and headed for Kkirka V, the nearest gas giant, to refuel; a trip of three days, cut down a few hours by some masterful navigation-plotting by Sam. Refueling operation completed, they immediately jumped outbound for Pirema. The week in jumpspace passed without incident, and they used the time to get in some Judo training in the empty hold.

They arrived and entered orbit around Pirema II on schedule. There was a bit of a delay before ground control responded to their request for landing clearance, to no one’s surprise—the pad was just a clear spot on the ground, and monitoring of traffic for a colony this small would not usually be a high priority, for obvious reasons.

Elijah Patterson

As they exited the airlock, the Crew was welcomed at the site by the Port director, Elijah Patterson, accompanied by his two grandchildren, all wearing sealed environment suits to protect them from the heat, and the radioactive dust that clouded the otherwise breathable atmosphere. The older girl, Kaylii, was fascinated by the ship, and asked many questions, hinting at some actual familiarity. The younger boy, Owin, was fascinated with the Vargr, having never met a non-human before—Sae answered his questions matter-of-factly, as if he expected this sort of thing. Elijah was very friendly, and invited the Crew back to their facility, a half-mile drive away, to take their ease and get something to eat—he indicated that the food here was particularly good. Buck and Jones remained behind at the ship to keep watch and do regular ground maintenance, as the others took up their host’s offer.

At the colony, their suits had to be decontaminated before entering. Inside, the facility was functional and well-kept, but definitely not designed for aesthetics. They followed their host to the mess hall, and were treated to a fine meal, as advertised; pictures were taken and sent back to the ship to taunt those who remained behind—Jones took off on foot across the half-mile of desert to join them. As they were finishing eating, when shown the last-known image of Valerie Vaskor, said he had indeed encountered her, as she had spent nearly a month at the colony, helping the local doctor and otherwise making herself useful while the Black Star was under repair, but he did not know the current status of the Black Star—though he could find out.

They were interrupted as Elijah received some news that obviously caused him concern. The Crew expressed their willingness to help with whatever-it-was, and he reluctantly admitted that the colony had occasional problems with “outlaws” raiding supplies, sometimes doing damage to the facility or causing minor injuries, though there had been at least one death at their hands, recently. The Crew offered their assistance.

Chas Ducote

Elijah gathered up the Crew and drove them out to the old “city,” Ifogi, the center of population when they had some to speak of, which remains the center of the colony’s tiny, yet overly-officious government. As they traveled, the Crew called back to the ship to have Buck gather up their combat gear from the arms locker and bring it to the city in the air/raft, in case they needed to get to it in a hurry. At the near “ghost town” of Ifogi, they were escorted to Government Tower, where they were introduced to the colony’s President/Mayor/Minister of Defense/General of the Army/Chief of Police/Lead Detective, Chas Ducote, who went into more detail regarding the raids—perpetrated by a mix of off-worlders and former colonists/employees believed to be hiding out in one of the abandoned mine complexes that littered the nearby environs, the specifics of which the colony had been unable to determine thus far. Ducote then produced a standard Imperial mercenary ticket form—Haank was very familiar with these from his mercenary days, but Buck sorted through it all with ease that suggested some familiarity of his own—and the documents were reviewed, conditions agreed upon (outlaws were to be brought in alive to face local justice, for 150,000 credits), signatures made, and hands shaken. With that settled, the Crew went back to the Spinward Star.

The ship was taken up as high as they could go while still able to see well enough through the dusty atmosphere. They scanned the abandoned facilities indicated by Ducote as possible bases; one mining complex in particular showed hot on thermal scans, indicating it was probably in use—that would be the one. Sam guided the ship in a stealthy approach to the facility, hugging the terrain, and as he crested over the nearby mountain, stuck the landing like a prize-winning Olympic gymnast. Jones remained aboard to man the ship’s laser turret and monitor the security cameras, as the rest exited the ship to approach.

The Crew stood on open desert ground between the ship and the dilapidated structure that presumably housed the mine shaft and observed for a moment. Haank spotted a glint in the shadows under the structure, but couldn’t make out what it was. Ella called out to whomever it was to surrender themselves, as the others flanked her and kept watch on the nearby rocks for an ambush. A voice on a PA system responded that they would not, and had the Crew surrounded, and demanded they lay down their arms. Ella demanded to see with whom it was she was dealing, and the PA-man stepped out of an upper platform door to the structure; he did not appear “military” at all, just a thug to their reckoning. Sam spotted another outlaw behind them, creeping into position. Ella continued to threaten force, but the PA-man continued to refuse to capitulate, offering no excuse or mitigation—he claimed that the reported “murder” was the fault of the victim, who attempted to resist. Ella had mostly run out of solutions and patience, and Sam had started to fall back to the ship’s airlock, when the itch in Sae’s trigger-finger was about to get the better of him, and his muscles tensed in preparation to realign his weapon toward the PA-man. To be continued…

Notes

• The search for Valerie Vaskor began here
• Our trip in this case was from a world-population of ~1000 to one of ~80—BTN 2.5—so potential commerce was zero. We did discuss buying a few cases of beer, at least, which we later discussed as a possibility for the future, to keep a few pallets of something like beer/cigarettes for sale on backwaters we might come across
• Local gravity on Pirema is (according to some online sources) .66G; -2 DX, as appropriate, for most of us. The GM was mostly equating the environment to a “hot” Mars, plus the radiation danger
• Sae’s player is the father of two (currently) small children, so he was playing out the questioning between his Vargr and the young boy in chat in a very “lifelike” fashion
• The GM did check the Star Mercs book for details on the mercenary ticket
• The GM decided the landing spot would be tricky and called for a pilot roll; Sam’s player rolled a 3
• Sae’s player has been studying up on the Vargr psychology in general, and has been making some adjustments to how he’s played. In this instance, though he’s super loyal to Ella and the rest of the Crew, he won’t hesitate to take charge of a situation. After the mess that was 1Shot.02b, though, he’s trying to hold back a little before going off half-cocked. We wrapped on a cliffhanger just as the player decided to pull the trigger

Duty Roster:

Ella Stanbridge (Melissa)
Ertrane “Buck” Buckner (Herodian)
Henri Haank Makruus (Gigermann)
Ibrahim “Abe” Nouri-Abbood
Sam Turner (Winston)
Sae Rraetheg

Missing Persons

The Crew did not stay long on Yori V. They spent a day dropping off the company men they had rescued or recovered, turning over the surviving insurgents they had captured, making official statements, signing non-disclosure agreements, and destroying recordings of their “visit” to the now-destroyed Ancients site on Yori IIn. Once paid for their delivery (which didn’t quite occur) and officially exonerated of any wrongdoing, the ship was fueled, and the Spinward Star soon jumped out for Regina, leaving Yori and the unpleasant business thereat behind them.

The Spinward Star arrived insystem at Regina without incident, and was met there with large amounts of vessel traffic of all shapes and sizes, civilian and military, as befitted the sector’s capital. Haank, in particular, had been looking forward to the arrival here, as Regina was his homeworld; he made contact with his family as soon as they were within range. The ship was cleared for approach to the Regina downport, and set down at Bay A312 after another hour or so navigating traffic patterns. Once cleared for entry by customs officials, Ella officially released the Crew for a week of liberty, after which they would decide where to go next.

• Ella spent the week going to live poetry readings, and otherwise trying to forget the ship, and her experiences on it of late
• Sam went on a week-long pub-crawl; he got merrily smashed, and met many interesting folk that were soon forgotten in an alcohol-induced blur
• Buck spent the week doing post-jump engine maintenance at a leisurely pace
• Haank went home to his family farm and spent the week with his mother and father there, and ran a few errands (like applying for a brokers’ license for Regina)

A couple of days into their liberty, Haank’s mother had invited an old family friend of theirs to visit, Richard Vaskor. As they had the opportunity to talk, Richard revealed to Haank that he was searching for his missing daughter, Valerie (whom Haank had babysitted for in his youth before he had gone hitchhiking). She had dropped out of medical school to go hitchhiking the sector, taking working-passage on tramp freighters here and there, and had been communicating regularly until eight months ago, after which there had been no word. Her last communication was from Echiste: she had been picked up by a free trader, the Black Star, as their medical officer, and they were headed rimward down the Spinward Mains. Richard had reported her missing to the authorities, but they had given up for lack of any usable leads. Haank spoke to Ella, then the others, and they agreed to look for the missing girl, or news of what had become of her. Richard offered to pay for the Crew’s services; Haank initially refused, but at Richard’s insistence, Ella agreed to the offer. Haank took copies of all the communications Richard had with Valerie since she had left, and the Crew started researching.

Valerie Vaskor; last-known image

The Crew’s research revealed that there wasn’t much information to be had. The Black Star was an old Beowulf-class free trader with a sad history of rotten luck with its former owners, the parents of the current captain, Adric Mason. That curse continued under Adric’s command in the form of a couple of deaths, both low-berth failures—no wrongdoing was ever alleged. Besides that, Adric had a bit of a “revolving door” with regard to his crew, Valerie being among his latest hires, picked up at Rech, where she had been stranded after her previous venture. The jump-1 drives on the Black Star restricted it to the Mains, which left only a couple of possible destinations from Valerie’s last transmission on Echiste, and meant that the Spinward Star should be easily able to catch her up. The Crew plotted the quickest route to Pirema, the most-likely choice, and Haank found some freight and a passenger bound for Kkirka, which would be their first stop on the way.

At the end of their shore-leave, the Spinward Star was fueled up, loaded up, and ready to go. They broke orbit, and jumped out immediately for Wypoc, an Amber Zone, so they wouldn’t be staying longer than they had to—they refueled at a gas giant and continued on to Kkirka without delay.

The Spinward Star arrived in the Kkirka system, and they set down at the mainworld’s downport. With a population of only 1200, they didn’t expect much. Sam made straight for the local pub and started schmoozing with locals and transients alike, backed up by Buck, and joined hours later by Haank, after he finished offloading their freight. A local human woman, who worked at the port, took a shine to Sam, and invited him to spend the night with her—he accepted. The next morning, Sam returned to the ship with a smile on his face, and some new information: a year past (a couple of months before the hiring of Valerie), the Black Star was here on Kkirka advertising for a new crew position, which was odd, in that the candidate eventually chosen was the least experienced among the applicants, a woman, of no obvious attributes that would suggest a reason for the decision.

Notes

• This was a fill-in one-shot game, due to some absences; Sae and Abe were playerless for this session
• Back when we purchased the ship, we had no real plan where to go from there, so we decided to head for Regina—not too far, Haank’s homeworld, and a wealthy stop. Now that we’d arrived, we needed a new plan—we didn’t exactly come up with one, except that it will now obviously include chasing down the Black Star
• Our short-term plan is to get to Pirema, find out whatever we can, and circle back to Regina, picking up freight jobs where we can along the way. We’re pretty flush with cash right now, but we’ve been bleeding it out with each jump where we haven’t taken on cargo. Of course, whatever information we find on Pirema could lead us elsewhere…
• Sam is beginning to settle into his new role as “getter of information”—though he’ll still have to compete with Abe for “ship’s tomcat”

Duty Roster:

Ella Stanbridge (Melissa)
Ertrane “Buck” Buckner (Herodian)
Henri Haank Makruus (Gigermann)
Ibrahim “Abe” Nouri-Abbood (Rigil Kent)
Sam Turner (Winston)
Sae Rraetheg (CommJunkee)

Human Shields

At the base of the Ancients’ tower, the Crew’s quick search of the fallen possible-terrorist revealed few clues other than the suggestion, via tattoo, of his connection to the Ine Gavar insurgent group. Ella took up the dead man’s comm and began listening in, to be rewarded later with an overheard call for the man (presumably) to check in. Haank and Buck produced their bioscanners, while Sae borrowed Abe’s, and they began scanning the area for a human chemical trace. They soon succeeded in finding a trail leading past the tower and down the street through a complex of buildings not unlike a small city or military base, all featuring materials and architecture similar to the tower. Some distance down the street, Ella overheard a new voice on the dead man’s comm declaring that “intruders” were in sight moving straight for “us,” and requesting permission to “take the shot”; she passed the news along, and the Crew decided to casually move into a nearby alley, hopefully out of the line-of-fire, pretending to have seen something of interest there. The first voice, a female, from before, told the “sniper” to let the intruders pass unless they tried to enter “their” building, and declared they would need to take a few of the prisoners along; again, Ella passed on the information to the others. They deliberated over how to proceed, while Haank switched his hand-held sensor pack to radar mode to scan for movement, and Sae, looking “lost,” wandered back into the street to see if he could work out the most-likely vantage point for their otherwise-invisible assailant. Eventually, they decided to continue down the street as before, Ella listening for further communications to alert them to when they had gotten close. As intended, a short time later, Ella overheard the sniper call back to his boss again to inform her that the intruders were very close, and again, requested clearance to fire; this left the Crew to deduce that their quarry was in one of two buildings before them. The female leader again encouraged the sniper to not reveal their position, but to fire if he must, and that they were “just about finished here.” The Crew flipped a figurative coin and settled on the multi-level, industrial-looking building to the left, and approached tactically, just as the enemy shot-caller ordered everyone “upstairs,” to make for the “emitter”—presumably, the tower. The Crew diverted down a side-access to try to find a back entrance to the building, when Sae spotted a large air/raft overhead, departing the building’s roof, bearing a handful of armed insurgents and three, bound station employees; it circled wide over the complex, obviously trying to disguise the fact that it was indeed headed for the tower.

The Crew quickly forced their way into the building, and inside discovered some sort of large, multi-level reactor; on the level below were around thirty station employees—nearly the lot of them, according to the company passenger/tag-alongs—all bound and helpless; around the reactor were a number of armed limpet mines. As the prisoners were freed, Buck analyzed the placement of the mines and determined that the intent must have been to weaken the heat exchangers and cause a meltdown, confirmed by one of the freed researchers familiar with the project. Meanwhile, Sae examined the mines for some idea how to disarm them—though his expertise only covered placing them—and decided it would take too long. With no clue regarding the countdown, and insurgents about the only way out of the cavern, the Crew decided there was nothing more they could do but get everyone out.

The now-freed station employees were led through the street back toward the tower as quickly as they could. As they reached the cleared area around the tower and elevator, the Crew spotted the insurgents’ air/raft near a couple of small tower outbuildings. At the same time, arcs of electricity accompanied a hum from the tower—it was powering up; one of the researchers warned that the explosion from the reactor meltdown combined with a fully-charged emitter would be catastrophic enough to obliterate the entire moon, or worse. The Crew told the civilians to take cover where they were while they approached the outbuildings, hoping to catch the insurgents and force them to disable the bombs and/or emitter. Over the enemy’s comms, Ella overheard that the group had been spotted, and heard their leader order one of the other insurgents to run back to the reactor and ensure the bombs were still in place; Ella relayed this to the others and they agreed that the runner should be taken alive, as he might know how to disarm the mines. They could also see that the space-elevator, the only way out of the cavern, was 10 meters or so up from ground-level, presumably with someone inside to operate it.

The Crew began to tactically bound forward in teams across the open space, when Buck was hit by a sniper—presumably the sniper—the shot coming from the roof of the nearer of the outbuildings; the Crew took what cover they could and opened fire on the roof while Abe scrambled over to Buck to provide medical aid—Buck was hit pretty badly, but was in no immediate danger. The sniper ducked out of sight, and the Crew sprinted to close the distance, while Haank and Buck covered them in place. Sam saw the runner emerge from behind the outbuilding, and sprinted after him on his own. The sniper popped up at a different point on the roof and shot Sae, the closest target, nearly killing him outright; his vacc-suit trauma maintenance function kicked in and stabilized him, as Abe sprinted forward to help. Meanwhile, Haank and Buck laid down fire on the sniper, hitting him such that he slid down below sight on the roof. At the same time, Sam, now out of sight of the others, made a lucky turn and tackled the runner, and the two struggled as Sam tried to subdue him while preventing the runner from bringing his weapon to bear; Sam eventually won out, pinning the runner beneath him, though the man continued to struggle. The sniper neutralized, the Crew stacked up on the nearer outbuilding and quickly deliberated how they might gain entry into the other, assuming the controls to the emitter to be there, and believing hostages to be present with the insurgents.

Then it all came to a screeching halt.

As the Crew prepared to move in, on a gantry at the second-level (only) entrance to the other outbuilding, one of the insurgents emerged holding one of the station employees in front of him, a gauss pistol to his hostage’s head, and a gauss rifle in his other hand pointed in the general direction of the Crew—leaving little un-shielded save for his head. The hostage-taker called out to the intruders demanding to know who in hell they were, and insisting they lay down their arms for the sake of the hostage. Ella began trying to negotiate, refusing to lay down arms. Sae continued to aim carefully at the hostage-taker’s eye—a shot he’s made many times in the past—and as he saw the briefest of opportunities, he pulled the trigger; the insurgent was somehow alerted to Sae’s trigger-pull and simultaneously fired his pistol into the hostage’s temple, while ducking down behind his human shield, narrowly avoiding Sae’s otherwise-accurate shot. The hostage was obviously dead; the hostage-taker dove back into the outbuilding, avoiding follow-up shots from the rest; Ella was furious—at Sae, at the insurgents, at herself. The other hostages within the building could be heard wailing at the loss of their fellow.

Having had enough, Ella called over the insurgents’ comms to demand the release of the hostages; the insurgents now understood the intruders’ apparent prescience. Their female leader, Lara, agreed to parley once more, with lowered weapons, at least, and emerged from the entrance, empty-handed, and was met on the gantry by Ella. The Crew remained in place, weapons lowered, as the two leaders began negotiating—or more accurately, just short of arguing. Lara explained that there was no way to stop the destruction of the Ancients site at this point; that the power it contained (the ability to cut off a star system from jump-space) was too great for anyone to possess, much less the Empire; and since she now assumed the lives of the hostages meant nothing to the Crew, but knew the insurgents would be outnumbered by the civilians and easily overpowered if they all packed into the space-elevator to escape, she needed a new hostage, “one they cared about”—one of the Crew. Of course, they promised to let their hostage go once they reached the station—not that anyone believed that. There were some volunteers, but Ella insisted on being the hostage against her crew’s objections, though her past experience in similar situations (specifically, with Lt. Richards on Kegena) left her highly suspicious of the insurgents’ intentions. As such, Ella continued to argue Lara’s terms until the insurgent leader finally gave up, resigned to futile combat, and turned back into the outbuilding to prepare for the inevitable assault.

Ella shot Lara in the back, and she fell at the threshold, unconscious. Combat was resumed.

There were two insurgents visible within; both opened fire, as Ella took cover beside the doorway and returned fire. Haank and Buck circled ’round and up the stair to the gantry. Haank’s laser detector sounded an alarm, and he turned to see the insurgent in the elevator fire a gauss burst at him; his armor stopped the rounds that hit, and he and Sae (from below) both effectively returned fire, and saw the body fall from the elevator. At the same time, Buck maneuvered to help Ella, and together they dropped one of the insurgents within and wounded another. One of them, the hostage-taker who shot the civilian, emerged with hands upraised in surrender; Buck told him, “You don’t get to walk away,” and shot him in the face with his laser rifle.

The fight now over, Sam brought up his prisoner to join the rest, having held his own the whole time to the amazement of all. The fallen insurgents were collected, living and otherwise, and the civilians were gathered up and ushered into the space-elevator, in a hurry, as they still had no real idea how much time they had to make good their escape. The somber mood in the elevator made the fifteen minutes seem an eternity. At the top again, the Crew ushered everyone into the upper hold of the Spinward Star; Jones was elated at their return, having been fighting minor fires in the contragravity plating all over the ship since the emitter started up. The ship was undocked and they broke orbit in record time, Buck pushing the ship’s engines to their maximum limit; they put as much distance as they could between themselves and the fourteenth moon of Yori II, and watched behind them, aghast, as a massive chunk of the moon exploded in a brilliant blue flash.

Notes

• Sae has points spent in Targeted Attack (Guns (Pistol)/Eyes) (among others) and Overconfidence, and was well able to make the shot; in the rush and confusion of the initial contact there, he took the unauthorized shot, which would have succeeded if not for the GM’s unusually lucky die-rolls that night (consistently rolling 6 or less). Afterward, there was much discussion about the game-mechanics that governed that situation and whether or not the hostage-taker should have been able to dodge; as it happened: Sae fired, insurgent dodged, insurgent fired—though I ultimately cleaned it up a little in the narrative so it, as “simultaneous” made more sense
• Both of our Traveller campaigns, and a handful of others, have featured occasional hostage negotiations; though this is the only one I recall where we lost a hostage, they do generally end in frustration to some degree—this certainly being no exception
• Ella’s player had been lamenting her position as “captain,” having to be responsible for these kinds of decisions and speaking for the group; this session really didn’t make it any better for her. We’re expecting some changes in the future of this campaign, including a refactoring of the character
• Ella’s prior experience as a hostage four-and-a-half months (game-time) prior, early in the campaign, was that the hostage-takers intended to kill them all and bury them in a subterranean ruin—combined with the insurgents treatment of their hostages, this did not encourage her to trust their word
• This session went really long, and as a one-shot, needed to be wrapped up, so the GM opted to have the players dictate the ending—fortunately, we were pretty close to the end anyway (as we were storming the outbuilding after negotiations had failed), so there wasn’t much left to make up for

Duty Roster:

Ella Stanbridge (Melissa)
Ertrane “Buck” Buckner (Herodian)
Henri Haank Makruus (Gigermann)
Ibrahim “Abe” Nouri-Abbood (Rigil Kent)
Sam Turner
Sae Rraetheg (CommJunkee)

Strict Confidence

At port on Yori Prime, the Crew set about to take their liberty when a text-mail message was received at the ship: the local Imperial representative was impressed by their heroism in the rescue of the Lancelot survivors and wished to offer them a charter opportunity. Haank cleared it with Ella, and replied that they were willing to meet on the matter, which was arranged for an hour or so later.

Ella, Haank and Abe arrived at the government offices at the arranged time and met the representative, who gave them the details of the job: a one-time freight transport of 18 tons of miscellaneous research and living supplies bound in-system for a moon of Yori II, and the Imperial Research Station Beta located there, as their usual transport was down due to technical issues. It was an ASAP job—already overdue—and typical of government bureaucracy, they weren’t terribly bothered about the expense; Haank checked the local rates and decided on 900 credits per dT. There were no special handling requirements, but the rep said that, due to the sensitive scientific equipment aboard, they were not to activate any contragravity drives near the station—Haank and Abe both felt as if the rep was withholding some details, but given the need-to-know nature of the job—the station’s existence wasn’t so much a secret, though their operations there clearly were—it was not unexpected, so they let it slide. Ella decided the deal sounded reasonable, and accepted with the usual handshaking, then left Haank to work out the details of when and where the cargo was to be delivered. The Crew planned to leave immediately once the cargo was loaded, and to take the opportunity to fuel up at Yori II, a gas giant, to save some money.

Some time later, the cargo was dropped off at the quay as arranged, and Haank and Sae started loading it onto the ship. Mid-operation, a couple of guys showed up at the ramp saying they were a last-minute addition to the charter, though they weren’t exactly thrilled at the assignment, and were perfectly fine if it turned out there wasn’t room for them. Just to be safe, Haank called up the rep and made certain he had sent them—he had—while Abe chatted them up about whatever-it-was they might be doing at the station. They were a little disappointed when Haank returned and had Abe show them to their cabins.

It was a five-day trip to Yori II, and the Crew took the opportunity to talk to their passengers about the station. They were maintenance crew for the station, on a regular rotation, and had nothing to do with whatever research was being done there behind closed doors, and expected to be bored-out-of-their-minds for the duration. Haank recalled from local business news reports that there had been reported a rash of unexplained misjumps into the Yori system, causing some difficulties with local trade, and suspected the station’s research mission might be related.

Five days later, the Spinward Star entered orbit around Yori IIn, a smallish iceball with no atmosphere to speak of. They attempted to contact the station, but could get no response at all. They approached cautiously, continuing fruitlessly to raise them on comms, and an external inspection of the station revealed no clues. Sam docked the ship, manually due to the lack of auto-docking support, and the Crew boarded the station, kitted out for a potential fight, leaving Sam and Jones behind to stand watch. No one was home. At all. They headed straight for the station’s operations center to see if there was some kind of log to explain the absence, and found that there was no security protecting the computer systems at all, and that there were no logs of any kind available, apparently wiped from about eight hours ago to the present, when another ship had apparently arrived and docked with the station. Buck suspected a virus, and Haank suggested the ship undock immediately, lest there be some “infection.” Abe, Buck and one of the station crew went to the other end of the station to see if there were any sign of the other ship, while Haank and Ella continued to dig through the computer system, and Sam maneuvered the Spinward Star around the station for a closer inspection of the hull. Though no sign of the other ship was found, Abe did spot what appeared to be a single hole, most likely made by a 4mm gauss round, in the inner station wall. As they continued to search for clues, suddenly, there was a burst of blue energy from below, appearing to emanate from the moon itself, that briefly interrupted electronic devices, though there was no permanent damage to speak of—clearly there was something amiss below, and the Crew were now fully suspicious of the information they had been given, and that the prohibition on contragravity use was a ruse to prevent anyone landing on the moon’s surface where they might discover whatever-it-was. The space-elevator connecting the station to the moon’s surface was “down,” suggesting that the occupants might have gone below—the only thing left to check—so the elevator was recalled and they all boarded for the surface (including the station crewmen—better to keep them in plain view, in the event they are somehow involved).

The elevator took around fifteen minutes to reach the surface, but to the surprise of all, including the crewmen who worked there, it halted only briefly and continued below the surface buildings, below the icy outer crust of the moon, for some time further until it opened into a massive cavern dominated by a tall tower of unknown construction. Haank recalled his archaeology instruction with Kella (on their trip out of Kegena), and decided the tower must have been constructed by the Ancients. Sae and Abe both set about recording the awesome sight.

The elevator finally reached the bottom of the cavern and stopped, and the Crew exited the car ready for trouble. And trouble found them, in the form of a hidden shooter firing at Ella, who was struck in the torso, to no effect thanks to her space armor. A number of the Crew had near-miss indicators installed on their suits, and were able to trace the source of the shot; everyone dove for what cover was available. Haank and Sae started ’round to flank the shooter while Ella and Buck returned suppressive fire on the position. Ella was struck in the face, her helmet’s faceplate shattered, though she was mostly just scratched; Abe did what he could to help, but she was more angry than wounded. Buck hit the shooter several times with his laser, causing him to retreat behind the rocks and containers strewn about the floor of the cavern in front of the tower. Haank and Sae arrived at the shooter’s position just as he was about to move, and they surprised each other; Haank and Sae were quicker on the trigger, though, and the shooter was riddled with fire, quite dead. Upon closer inspection of the shooter’s body, they noticed some distinctive tattoos, that they deduced, after a moment of retrospection, to indicate the shooter belonged to the terrorist group, Ine Gavar.

Notes

• Due to expected sporadic absences around the end-of-year holidays, we decided to stick with one-shots for the remainder of the year; this led to that, and we ended up going with a bit more Traveller (obviously), which should wrap up next session
• Sam’s player ended up being the only one absent (not expected), though Ella’s and Buck’s were quite late (expected)
• I think PCs in an RPG tend to be more paranoid than normal folk—for obvious meta reasons—so it’s no surprise we wanted to vett the new passengers before allowing them aboard; it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had someone aboard who meant us some degree of harm
• Haank’s picking up of the Archaeology skill in the early days of the first run actually paid off 😛
• Ella ended up taking 1 HP of damage through her helmet—lucky, lucky

Duty Roster:

Ella Stanbridge (Melissa)
Ertrane “Buck” Buckner (Herodian)
Henri Haank Makruus (Gigermann)
Ibrahim “Abe” Nouri-Abbood
Sam Turner (Winston)
Sae Rraetheg (CommJunkee)

Space Madness

The Spinward Star entered the Kinorb system, and made way for its mainworld starport. The death of Crewman Smith was reported to the authorities there (after the necessary details of the story had been scrubbed), and as he had no family to speak of, his mortal shell was committed to the deep before they jumped outbound. A week later, the Spinward Star arrived at Treece, a world whose primary export is mercenaries (and little else).

A customs officer at the Treece starport came aboard for a routine inspection the instant the cargo ramp hit the tarmac. Haank showed him the only cargo in their hold, the three containers of Frontier War-era weapons and war-gear recovered in the Gileden system. The officer took particular notice of the Zhodani container, and asked if they had a buyer for it yet, as he knew a guy that would likely be interested in purchasing it; Haank accepted the officer’s hastily-scribbled contact number on a paper note, and promised to wave him when they got the chance. After the post-flight checklists were completed everyone headed into the startown, stopping at the first public terminal to contact the officer’s buyer; he was definitely interested in the Zhodani gear, and arranged for a couple of guys to meet back at the ship later to look it over.

The Treece startown was a melting-pot of alien races, a wretched hive of scum and villainy dirty hive of mercs and commercialism. The Crew were not at all aware they were being shadowed by a Vargr “spy,” as they found themselves a low-key pub where they could have a drink or two, and peruse the local network for potential replacements for Smith, whose loss was beginning to be felt more than emotionally—though Jones would rather have a bunk to himself. They found a handful of potential interviews, but only one stood out to them: a Vargr, an experienced spacer and war-veteran looking for an entry-level crewman position headed anywhere-but-here. (As it turns out, it was the same Vargr that had been shadowing them, looking to see what manner of folk they were.) Ella was less than excited about the prospect of a Vargr crewman, having fought against them so often in the past, but she set aside her concerns and okayed an interview at the ship, scheduled a couple of hours hence.

Sae Rraetheg

Later, the Crew returned to the ship. Their interview arrived on time; his name was Sae Rraetheg, and seemed friendly enough. In the crew lounge, they barraged Sae with the usual questions regarding his work-history and experience; his answers seemed sufficient for their purposes (though Jones was disappointed at bunking with a “dog-man”). But before the potential new hire could officially be accepted, there was one more interview needed: Sae was left in the captain’s office with the ship’s cat, Mia, for her approval—Mia showed no sign of fear or suspicion, accepting the Vargr without reservation. With that, Sae was officially added to the crew roster at a half-share, and shown around the ship while discussing his new duties.

Later, as arranged, the buyer’s men arrived at the ship, along with the same customs officer from before. Haank showed them the container manifest, and allowed them to inspect the contents directly. The buyer’s men gave the Zhodani gear a thorough examination, piece by piece, and after a discreet wave back to the buyer for a quote, they made an offer on his behalf; Haank made a token effort to increase the amount, but Ella ultimately accepted the buyer’s price as-is, which was wired to their account immediately, and arrangements were made to pick up the cargo at a later time.

At the end of the usual five-to-seven days dirtside, having found no cargo to ship, the Spinward Star made for the 100-diameter limit and jumped outbound for Yori. They exited jumpspace a week later, without incident, at the Yori system, with about six hours to reach orbit. Halfway there, they detected another ship exiting jumpspace along the same trajectory, a 200dT Type-A merchant identified as the Lancelot. Sam hailed the inbound freighter to exchange the usual pleasantries, but Ella noticed a very weak comm signal originating from the same ship, a coded SOS. Informing the crew, she struggled to clean up the signal, and decided to respond in code that the message had been received, offering assistance and asking for more information. After a seemingly-long silence, they received a broken voice message from a young girl, in hiding aboard, indicating that everyone aboard had been killed by “him”—she couldn’t speak long enough to elaborate further for fear of discovery. The Crew’s first conclusion was “pirate hijacking,” or perhaps, a case of “space madness,” as they discussed how they might render aid; they assumed the girl to be transmitting from an air/raft or other vehicle aboard (the Crew had done the same aboard the crashing Titanic some months ago). The time came to begin their deceleration burn, and it was decided to slow a bit more than required to allow the Lancelot to catch up to them, so they could get a better look and cleaner signal. As they did so, it became apparent that the Lancelot was not slowing at all, on course for a catastrophic planetary re-entry. Ella commed the Lancelot to alert them to their dangerous course but there was no further response. She then contacted Orbital Traffic Control and they said the same thing—no response; she informed OTC about the SOS, and her intentions to provide assistance. Then she ordered Sam to maneuver the Spinward Star into position to dock with the Lancelot and prepare to board her.

Ella commed the Lancelot once more to inform them of her intent to board, and was met with an angry/confused tirade; their captain believed this to be a pirate attack, and refused to surrender his ship, leaving the impression that it was indeed “space madness” after all. The Lancelot launched one missile, then another, leaving the Crew scrambling for battle stations as Sam narrowly dodged the first, before Haank could shoot down the second; the Lancelot then fired a sandcaster burst at them before going silent—most likely out of ammunition. Sam fought to get in close and match velocity and rotation as the Lancelot bucked against them; ultimately they were forced to fire to disable the Lancelot’s maneuver drives to allow docking—but this would leave them unable to alter their course. The Spinward Star finally docked with the Lancelot’s port airlock, and the boarding party—Ella, Haank, Sae, Buck, and Jones—made their way over, bearing some non-lethal options in case they found an opportunity to take the guy down non-permanently. Sae forced the airlock to cycle and open, and the boarding party entered the crippled ship; meanwhile, Sam guided the Spinward Star to gently push the Lancelot off its dangerous course.

The Crew entered the common room from the airlock; they found the ship without gravity and trace atmosphere—normal preparations for battle—and a not-long-dead corpse, one of the crew, shot multiple times at close range. Ella and Haank went forward into the bridge, and found it empty, then returned. The others progressed slowly aft, clearing room-to-room, encountering a couple more bullet-riddled corpses, but nothing else. The low berths in the aft quarter were still active, but on low battery power, they wouldn’t last. The Crew rallied at engineering, where they encountered another body, another crewman (presumably the engineer), this one a female Vargr in a rescue-ball; it turned out she was still alive, though bleeding and fading—they couldn’t risk removing her from the ball, but had Jones float her back to the airlock where Abe could meet them and render aid. As the Crew prepared to descend into the cargo hold, Jones was stopped at the common room by the appearance of the captain, heavily armed, from the bridge (he had been hiding in the avionics crawlspace), who opened fire with a gauss pistol. Jones shoved himself and the Vargr-ball out of the line of fire, was struck in the process (the hit stopped by his armored vacc suit), and scrambled to regain control of himself in microgravity. Haank and Sae leapt up the hallway, sighting in to fire as they glided forward; Ella followed. Meanwhile, Buck opened the hatch to the hold instead, and ducked down, intending to flank the captain, but thought better of it when he spotted a six-legged, horned, tiger-like creature—dangerous-looking, in spite of its flailing uselessly about in microgravity—next to a couple of wheeled ATVs (wherein he expected he might find the hiding girl). After a burst from Sae’s UMP, the captain ducked back into the bridge around the starboard side of the iris; he ducked under Haank’s gauss rifle shot (which holed the windshield) when he switched to the port side to get a line-of-sight on Jones, who had finally regained control and was maneuvering into a more helpful position. The Crew gathered at the hallway into the common room and took aim at the captain, intending to shoot through the inner wall he was covered behind. Ella called out to him to try to get him talking—first threatening, then coaxing him to tell his version of events. The captain started to open up, speaking, almost as if no on were listening, about his financial troubles, potential loss of the ship, his wife’s demand for a divorce, and suspicions of an affair—he had let his guard down just enough for Sae to maneuver into view and pump three memory-baton shotgun rounds into his gut, knocking him out.

Afterward, the cleanup: the captain was placed in a low-berth aboard the Spinward Star for delivery to local authorities; the spider-tiger-thing, which had been released by the girl to ward off the captain, was subdued (at range) and locked back in its cage; the girl, daughter of one of the passengers who was now dead, hiding as expected in one of the ATVs, was helped into a rescue-ball and taken to the other ship; the Vargr engineer, patched up by Abe and expected to recover, confirmed and elaborated upon the captain’s story, detailing how he’d snapped after the divorce demand, and started killing everyone; the dead were secured in place; and the authorities, already en route, were informed of the trajectory of the now-abandoned ship for rescue of the low-berth passengers and recovery of the vessel. It was later revealed that the Lancelot’s original crash-trajectory would have resulted in numerous deaths and much property damage, and as such, the Crew of the Spinward Star were recognized as “heroes”; as a side benefit, the company in ownership of the Lancelot offered a reward of 100k for the vessel’s successful recovery.

Notes

• This session was a one-shot fill-in due to some absences. Unlike most one-shots we’ve done, this one actually finished in one session (if a bit late)
• Abe’s player was one of the absences, so he wasn’t featured (though he did end up getting some use, in the background)
• This was CommJunkee’s first session in the Traveller campaign, and the introduction of his character, Sae. I suspect his character might have been given a bit more scrutiny during the interview process normally, but he “seemed trustworthy.” Since he had been shadowing the group to the bar (nobody spotted him), we kept joking that he was actually sitting in the next booth behind the Crew, listening, and making on-the-fly adjustments to his ad profile based on what he overheard
• The payoff for the Zhodani gear came to around 675k credits, which kinda made up for the fact that we left the Unconquerable more-or-less empty-handed
• We actually ended this mission without killing anyone—it does occasionally occur

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

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