Last night's Traveller session started
off with a quick rules investigation in order to find the cost of
refuelling their starship at the last port of call. Turns out it was
10,000 creds. I decided to start tracking the team's money as they
are currently wallowing in a bundle of 45 million and with that kind
of money in the bank I feared they might lack motivation. As it turns
out I don't think I need have worried.
They emerged from jump into the Gefar
system (A325489-E) and immediately had to take evasive action as a
huge ship by the name of "The Pacific Princess" came
tumbling towards them, apparently out of control. As the ship passed
they picked up the transmission of a hand held radio. The man calling
identified himself as a body guard for Shadalla Tie, he and his
fellow guards were defending her but were backed into corridor. Then
the signal faded as the ship roll on by.
After a rules clarification about the
standard Imperial policy towards salvage the PCs decided to close on
the ship, board it, and go about saving poor Shadalla.
I should point that the players each
have two PCs on board ship. One as part of the home team (bridge
crew), and one part of the away-team. Thus after a nifty bit of
piloting to get the ships locked together and an air-lock across, we
had an amusing moment one player had a conversation with himself,
having to convince himself to go on board the other ship.
The away team stood bemused outside the
Princess' airlock as it failed to open. An engineer was called who
took apart the lock and sadly only managed to leave it in smoking
ruin. Pry bars were used to no avail and eventually the PCs gave up.
They decided to move the ship to a different air lock. A piloting
roll failed and a minor collision with the Princess stove in the PCs
observation deck. A second attempt went better and soon they were
standing at the new airlock.
Once again they failed to open it, but
decided to fall back on a different type of brute strength. They
donned the Aslan-Robot-Control-Helmet (ARCH) and brought up one of
the highly advanced Aslan robots they had captured. The robot started
pulling fist sized lumps out of the door until a hole big enough to
crawl through had been made. The away team ducked through and had the
robot climb into the hole and lock itself into position thereby
blocking the exit.
In the airlock they spotted an angry
bearded man on the other side of the door. Threatening him with a
laser sent him on his way. They opened the lock and emerged in a
corridor. The beardy, was at the far end of the corridor and sent a
hail of lead ineffectually towards them before disappearing round a
corner.
They followed him up but found that he
was beyond the corner with a buddy, laser beams and lead stopped them
from making progress. Rather than just stand around looking cool they
opted to raid a stateroom and found to their joy a small table. As an
experiment this was lobbed around the corner and immediately shot to
pieces!
They were wishing they had grenades
when lo and behold another angry beardy gentleman appeared behind
them...with grenades! He ineffectually threw one, and was shot for
his trouble, but now the good guys had the grenades. They threw one
around the corner and heard a lot of screaming when it exploded.
Popping round the corner they found the had taken out two bad guys
and one civilian (the Pacific Princess being a cruise-liner after
all). There was a crowd of civvies here, all cowed by the bad men and
now rather scared by the good guys turning up. One of the crowd
emerged and claimed to be an Ambassador, and promptly tried to force
the PCs to get him to safety. They eventually drew a cutlass and he
backed down. A volunteer was found amongst the crowd to take the bad
guys weapons and defend the civvies.
Now it was time to find the people who
had called them on board. They called him up and he reported himself
and his friends as being trapped in a corridor on deck B behind the
casino. A ship map was ripped from the wall and PCs headed down that
way.
As they descended the plush staircase
into the casino they spotted a bad guy patrolling behind the slot
machines. They both took aim and one of them got a hit, knocking him
down. Noise and smoke identified the corridor where their target was
to be found, so they crossed the casino. The shot that had missed the
bad guy happened to have cracked open a slot machine so of course one
PC helped himself. :)
At the corridor they could make out a
bunch of bad guys half way along it but beyond that there was too
much smoke. Bullets were flying to and fro through the smoke. In
went a grenade, knocking three fellows to the ground. Then shots were
exchanged with both of the PCs taking multiple hits. At that moment
they spotted the beardy bloke they had sniped at from the stairs,
climbing to his feet behind them. It seemed like a good time to bail,
so they ran for the cashiers desk and took cover. Bullets started
punching through their cover and things were looking grim when they
remembered the robot and donned the ARCH.
Minutes passed with the PCs playing
dead, or at least remaining very quiet. A beardy bad guy crept up to
the counter and was just peering over when the robot came crashing
down the stairs. A PC tried to shoot the bad guy in the back of the
head (rather unsportsman-like) but found his rifle cumbersome and
missed.
The robot didn't have the same problem.
The bad guys shot at the robot but missed, or hit, but didn't do any
damage. The robot hefted a slot machine as it charged across the
casino. It threw the machine at the bad guy, crushing him underneath
but not killing him. He lay there choking as the coins poured out and
into his face. (Death by money!)
Thus we ended the session. Who are the
angry beardy bad guys? Why have they taken control of the Pacific
Princess ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075529/
) ? Who is Shadalla? Will they be forced to skewer that upperty
ambassador? Tune in two weeks from now for the next exciting episode
of ..."The Bastards ran away from my campaign and it still
burns."
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