Author: Sean Parsons

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Story 51

From a different solar system

You realized long before you arrived that another puppet show wasn’t going to be enough. You needed something completely different to appeal to the Ilex, hence your willingness to mislead them about some unique device you would be willing to sell them for the right price. You have told them that you have a means for them to slip through a specific planetary shield with no resistance. They have agreed to the meeting in their military science building, which is also the same building where they house a lab with the genetic materials of animals they considered particularly hostile.

To prepare for this excursion, you made your whole crew follow the same protocols as if they were preparing to visit with the Zhian. Special soaps and detergents were used to eliminate scents, special clothing was made on your ship’s fabricator utilizing odorless polymers, and everyone had to force down bland diets that wouldn’t permeate your pores or make you gassy. The Ilex do not require such things, but you were trying to minimize your scent trails and just pretend that you thought they were culturally sensitive to odors like the Zhian. You did, once again, make your navigator not shave for a couple of days just in case anyone questions why he has a can of shaving cream in with his scanners and various tools. You are ushered into the conference room 

“So humans, our engineers are dubious of your claims. What type of demonstration have you prepared to convince us of such a notion?”, declares one of the Ilex sitting opposite of you at the conference table.

Your engineer speaks up, “It involves knowing that planet’s specific shield modulation and wrapping your ships in a specially engineered conductive mesh to cancel out the shield’s effect by being able to match the shield’s modulation. The complicated part…”

You raise your hand to slow your engineer down, “We figured you would have some questions about the veracity of our claims, why we would be willing to sell it to your people, and the actual cost for both the technology and the ability for you to manufacture it here on Ularos IX. Our engineer and I have a three point presentation along with computer simulations followed by a live demonstration using our own ship.”

As the lights begin to dim for the presentation, your navigator leans in close to one of the Ilex, “I’ve already seen this presentation, do you have a restroom I could use?”

The next forty five minutes passed with a very impressive looking, if scientifically suspect, presentation. Somewhere along the way, your navigator made it back alright despite what must have been an uncomfortable crawl through the ventilation system from the restroom to the cryolab.

“I know your team still has its doubts; that’s why we want to provide an actual demonstration. We are so confident in our work, we’re going to perform it in our own ship; after which I think we’ll be ready to negotiate price for this technology. Let me send you our ship’s transponder ID so you can easily track us.”

– – – –

As they monitor your ship, the Ilex see your transponder picking up a lot of velocity heading towards the gate while keeping your ship extremely close to the planetary shields and then they see your transponder make a sudden and rapid shift going back 180 back towards their military science building and suddenly there is an explosion against the shield that they can actually see with their own eyes. The one Ilex just looks at one of his senior officers and remarks, “I told you the science on that shield idea was bad.”

– – – –

“Luckily they monitor inbound traffic to the planet and don’t really worry about outbound traffic.”

Your first officer speaks up, “You have to admit that was pretty crazy hoping they would track the transponder ID and not notice that there was still a whole ship left back by the shield entrance.”

“I was flying close to the shields, making it very difficult to monitor us.”, your navigator responds.

“Besides,” your engineer jumps into the conversation, “it looks like this whole crazy scheme actually worked.”

You smile at everyone, “Well done, let’s get that canister back to the Space Zoo.”

The ship is just outside of the shield gate, and you had the wherewithal to fuel up the ship before taking off. When you return to the Space Zoo, listen/read Story 55.

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Story 50

Exotic Exhibits, part Two

“If all things go as planned for the Strayons, many of these creatures will one day be allowed to populate New Strayos but in the meantime, we can start allowing them to re-emerge into the land of the living right here in this space zoo.”, states your white bearded benefactor as he hands you the money.

The money consists of ([1d4]+2)x1,000 credit for a human or Ilex crew or 5,000 credits and an energy rod for a Strayon crew.

“So you mentioned that this consisted of three jobs, what is the next job that you have in mind?”

“Wonderful! Wonderful! I’m so delighted that you’re willing to consider the next job. This one will be a little more challenging but the payout will be worth it. There are two places for the Zhian that I need you to visit. First, it’s been reported that their reliquary contains ancient DNA from the dead worlds. The second is a zoo on their planet. In both cases I need you to sneak a few samples of some of their more exotic species. On the Aether Processing Station, you may want to take them a relic so that you and your crew gain access to the Reliquary. After that they should hand you a Zhian token making it possible to visit Zhian Prime and visit one of their zoos. Once again, each of these canisters will be stable for three stands once activated.”

This time, the old white bearded man offers you two shaving cream canisters.

If you accept the job, read/listen to Story 52 once you’ve obtained a relic and docked with the Aether Processing Station.

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So I recently met a dragon while camping.

 

We ended up having a fireside chat. After awhile I had to admit to him that the one thing more amazing than a talking dragon is a spelling bee. He gave me a smouldering look, but eventually he cooled off. He told me that he was so hungry this morning but had to wait to eat because of a dental appointment. I asked him what he ate afterwards and he told me, “the Dentist.”

Continue reading So I recently met a dragon while camping.

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Story 26

Aeon

You’ve looked at a lot of star charts before and you’re a pretty good student of history. You are nearly positive that you’ve seen a picture of that planet before and it wasn’t anywhere near the Drift System. This planet is completely surrounded by a shield without an entrance and your scanners do not pick up any kind of industrialization other than a shield generator and a data beacon.

The space station orbiting this planet is of an unfamiliar design, but you have an incoming hail.

“This is Aeon Station orbiting Planet 0. We would like to invite you to dock so we can properly introduce ourselves to you. We could even tractor you into our docking bay if you would like.”

Do you accept the offer and dock with Aeon Station.

  • If you do, read/listen to Story 66.
  • If you don’t continue with the rest of your turn and never learn about their offer.
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Story 65

Eep opp ork ah-ah

As you enter a lab, you notice a bookish looking man in a lab coat. He looks up and sees you carefully carrying the animal. “This must be the canine you told me about. I just finished looking over the brain scans that the auto-doc took and I think she is a perfect candidate. I think we should give this a try.”

“Try?”, you manage to ask as a one word question.

“This is the first round of animal testing, so I really can’t make any guarantees.”

Another person in the lab speaks up,”The procedure that Dr Truman proposed is brilliant and I’ve built in every safety precaution I can think of, but we asked for terminal animals just in case it doesn’t go like we expected.”

You recognize that they are simply trying to be honest and accurate. You glance at the ID badge on the other person’s lab coat and it reads Dr Nora Maxwell-Granger.

“Thank you doctors, I’ve just become very attached to her since she has been on board my ship.”

Dr. Truman speaks up, “Well, the good news is, that if this goes like we plan, she can go back out into space with you.”

“How’s that?”

“The crystal matrix is only one part of this project. We have several other members that have been tasked with the challenge of creating a robotic chassis that the crystal matrix can go in. A lot of their work and research has been in writing an interface between the crystal matrix and the physical hardware. They’ve spent the past stand modifying their work to function with your canine companion. Since she will still have her memories and has clearly bonded with you, we want to send her back out with you. Her chassis is programmed to do a large data dump every time you fly past a data beacon at any of the various Mission Points so we can get regular updates on her.”

“That sounds great Doc! Let’s try and save her”

– – – –

Quite a few hours pass as you nervously wait to find out how things are going. Doctor Maxwell-Granger finally emerges and is beaming. “Things went great! Far better than we expected. Dr Truman wants to introduce you to K-9.”

Dr. Truman and a robotic canine come out of the lab, and when the robot emerges it rushes up to you with its rear and its tail wagging back and forth in excitement.

Despite the mechanical form, you reach down and pet her.

K-9 does something you’ve never heard her do before, instead of barking she says, “Eep opp ork ah-ah.”

You look at her and repeat the sounds, “Eep opp ork ah-ah.”

Again K-9 says, “Eep opp ork ah-ah.”

Nora speaks up, “I think it means, ‘I love you’”

K-9 is now part of your crew and you have earned 1 fame point. She does not take up significant space on your ship, and if you get in a bind you could drain her internal energy cell similarly to an energy rod. Unfortunately, it would cause her to shut down until recharged either on a planet or from an energy rod. Recharging her on a planet is a free action during your status phase.

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Story 64

It’s called a canine

As soon as you managed to dock with the mine the various miners and their families immediately queued up to start cramming themselves into your airlock. You find that they can come in six at a time this way. As the inner door of the airlock pops open, after the outer door has cycled shut again, you can smell the smoke that has permeated their clothes. The first group is mostly children, apparently they prioritized the kids. The children look a little frightened and you notice that one is carrying a small floppy eared animal that looks injured. You don’t have time to do anything other than herd them into the ship so you can start cycling the airlocks again. Soon you have 22 guests crammed onto your ship. You find someone that looks like they might nominally be in charge of the mining station.

“So what’s the plan from here?”

“The clearly tired and worn out man responds, “I’ve got an engineer and an able bodied boot third in there. They have the EV soft suits on so they can have a little more range of motion, even if soft suits contain less air than the hard suits. They’re going to shut off the O2 reserves so they can suffocate the fire finally and remove the damaged fuse actor. We have a smaller generator that they’re going to set-up and connect to a solar array that is on the surface of our mine. Also, once they can get to the equipment back behind the fuse actor they’ll flush out the carbon monoxide with nitrogen, then change out the air scrubber cartridges and water filters before turning the oxygen reserves back on.”

“How long will all that take?”

“They have it all planned out and expect they’ll need 5 hours. Because everything is always harder than you expect, I think we should give them 6 hours. In the meantime, all of us will be packed in here like cargo. I know this is hard on your ship’s air scrubbers but we are grateful. We all would have died if you hadn’t shown up soon. As is, we lost six people during the initial explosion. The watchstander was by the fuse actor and the family that was birthed in a section with an adjoining wall to the reactor were also caught in the explosion.”

“Is there anything we can help you with?”

“You are already doing so much, but If you can spare any part of your oxygen reserve and if you have a spare energy rod, it would go a long way in our recovery efforts till new supplies and replacement parts can be shipped in.”

You simply respond, “I’ll check our reserves and see what we can do.”

As you’re walking away to check on what supplies you can spare you see a man on one knee talking to the kid that is still carrying the injured animal.

“Son, you probably should have left it on the mine.”

“But Dad, she would have died when they shut off the oxygen. We already lost Uncle Jack, I don’t want to lose his pet too.”

“But son, it’s injured and isn’t likely to recover.”

You decide to join the discussion, “Maybe I can help. What kind of animal is it?”

The kid looks up hopefully, “It’s a canine, and it’s real smart. Uncle Jack was teaching it all kinds of tricks.” With that the kid hands you the animal to see. You carefully take her into your arms and she pushes her nuzzle into the crook of your elbow. Despite all the lacerations and what feels like broken ribs she sighs contentedly while being held by you.

The kid excitedly says, “She likes you.”

“It’s probably my animal magnetism.” Then you continue, “Maybe our auto-doc can help her, but it will probably take a lot more than 6 hours to heal her in one of those.”

“If you can save her, you can keep her. I would miss her but at least her tail would be wagging with excitement again.”

You can see the kid’s dad looks visibly relieved to have this resolved.

You decide to head to the auto-doc and set the canine in there before checking on how much supplies you can spare.

– – – –

A few hours later, you check in at the auto-doc and you see the readings are bad. You can probably keep this canine alive for a while, two maybe three stands, but her injuries are so bad that she can’t possibly recover. You have an idea, but you need to finish helping the mining crew first.

You gain 1 fame point for coming to the rescue of the mining colony, and if you have an energy rod that you choose to give them, gain an additional fame point. You now have an injured animal that is not likely to survive. You have to decide if you want to visit the Trans-Human Project. If you do choose to go that route, you need to be there at the end of three rounds from now. If you get there in time, read/listen to Story 65.

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Story 25

Mining accident

The emergency function on every ships’ comm system clicks on, “Mayday, mayday, mayday. Our mining colony has just had a near catastrophic event with an unexpected explosion that has taken out our main fusion reactor and depleted much of our air. We are running on battery back-ups and due to damage, we don’t have a way of sealing off the fire from the explosion. We’re not sure what will kill us first, lack of oxygen, carbon monoxide poisoning, or the slow loss of temperature as our mine will eventually want to reach the ambient temperature of the space surrounding us. We estimate that we have about a stand till we will all die. If a ship can provide temporary refuge for our small crew we could correct a lot of problems very quickly, and buy ourselves some time till we get new supplies and equipment sent. Our mining operation does house families, so children are also in danger. Please help.”

Any ship that can reach the mission point for the affected mine within the next round could try to save these people.

Roll a d4 to determine the affected mine:

1-2 = Red Gulch [Asteroid]
3-4 = Outpost 338 [Asteroid]

If anyone arrives at the affected mining point on time, please read/listen to Story 64.

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Story 63

Did he survive?

Dr. Arken steps out of his bio lab looking exhausted while being escorted by two of his robot minions.

“So Doc, how did it go?”

“Your friend survived but to call it difficult would be an understatement. Your officer will likely be back to his pre-Volomin attitude in less than a stand. As soon as he wakes up in recovery my minions can help him board your ship.”

Gain 2 Fame Points for taking extreme measures to save one of your own crew members. You may take any actions you choose this round. 

If you borrowed money for this procedure, keep track of how much you borrowed and after this round you will have three rounds to pay Merv Arken back, or there will be a bounty equivalent to what you borrowed and the Rep Omen will also try to obtain the bounty.

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Story 62

Experimental Surgery

As you approach the space lab, you send Dr Arken a hail. When he accepts, you give him the rundown of what your comm officer’s situation is. He invites you to dock and lets you know that some of his robot minions will escort you to his bio lab.

After you dock and disembark from the ship, the crew, accompanied by Merv Arken’s robot minions, wend their way to the bio lab. The air nearly hums with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Dr. Arken stands at the entrance, wearing a white lab coat stained with unidentifiable substances. His third eye in the middle of his forehead is moving back and forth rapidly as if reading something, and the viscous liquid in the dome containing his electrobrain is churning more rapidly then even when you hailed him. He greets the crew with a crooked smile and gestures for them to enter.

The bio lab is a maze of advanced medical equipment, surrounded by screens displaying complex data and diagrams. Dr. Arken takes a seat at his workstation, typing furiously on the keyboard while muttering to himself.

“So let me get this straight. You want me to create a procedure for removing highly specialized nanobots that can regularly cross the blood brain barrier, and because there are no available animal subjects, the first time I attempt this will be on a sentient being.”

You blink a couple of times, “Well, when you put it like that, it does sound ridiculous, but,” you continue, “desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“As long as you recognize this for the long shot that it is, then I’ll do it, but I’m asking for 10,000 credits, regardless of the final outcome.”

You long blink at him. There are space vessels that cost less, but you know this is the best course of action.

Dr Arken continues, “If you don’t have the full sum immediately available, I can give you three stands after the procedure to finish procuring the funds. If, however, you don’t manage to pay me back, I’ll put a bounty on your collective heads so large that even the bald man might set the Rep Omen on you.

What do you do?

  • Do you decide the cost is too great and just walk your comm officer out an airlock (Story 59)?
  • Do you try to get either black market drugs (Story 60) or counterfeit drugs (Story 61)?
  • Do you decide to follow through with this experimental procedure? , wait till the beginning of next round, then read/listen to Story 63?
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Story 61

Counterfeiters

Upon landing on Kei, it hardly takes any time to find a group selling counterfeit Volomin. Soon you and your Comm officer find yourselves in a conference room. Sitting across from you is a salesman in nice business attire. 

“We always knew that the guys we had performing corporate espionage at STARKe pharmaceuticals would pay off. They gave us detailed information on how STARKe created their various nanoparticles and now we use a very similar means for creating them here. We are set to be a long term supplier of Volomin; however, it will always have a limited market as there are no new Volomin patients. We are set to sell you enough drug that every two stands costs 1,000 credits or a full stanyear for 5,000 credits.”

You speak up, “That seems a little higher than I expected.”

“This is a high end market, the only counter offer I would be allowed to provide is that you have your comm officer come work for us. These guys on Volomin are always happy and we build it into their contract that as long as they work as our employees part of their pay is specifically used to provide them with Volomin.”

If you buy some Volomin, keep track of how much time you have till your comm officer runs out of Volomin. This does not preclude you from making a one time purchase at Smuggler’s Den (Story 60), future purchases here, or eventual surgery with Merv Arken (Story 62).

If you choose to let your comm officer become an employee of this drug cartel, you may choose to do so and this story arc ends here.