Who Chose This Place?

 

 Present:

• Anastasia "Stasi" Tepes. Zhodani Soldier from Querion – Shane
• Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
• "Riley" O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
• Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
• MARMALADING: Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
• MARMALADING: Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
• Gnostic Hands. Solomani Scientist from Entrope – Jamie
• Belle Ende. Sword-Worlder Medic from Winston - Steven
• Split "Penny" Ende. Sword-Worlder Minstrel from Winston - Jason
• NPC: Scurry. Drone Gunner from Winston
• NPC: Finn Cyborg from Querion

by Richard

We are in the system Plaven and near its main planet Plaven and are some six double jumps from Entrope, where we are endeavouring to return.

"We are a floating tin can!" an exasperated Riley exclaims wiping marmalade from his mouth. "Why did we fight them"?"

He was right, we had no jump drive, life support, manoeuvre drive and damaged fuel tanks.

And to top it off our best engineer Spanner, has just collapsed with marmalade everywhere [ Jeff is away ].

"It's up you now!" said Split pointing at Emerse. "You are our only remaining engineer"

"I'm pretty good too," said Riley. "I will give it a crack"

"No!" everyone exclaimed knowing Riley would give most things a crack irrespective of his skill.

Riley was in a bad mood. The marmalade had given him a nasty taste in his mouth, he hadn’t had a drink for a while and his precious ship was damaged.

Emerse, whose hair was strangely ruffled and carrying a 5 o'clock shadow, was also not himself since being brutally raped [ fed upon ] by the Zhodani. Riley had tried to point out that women can't rape you but that hadn't seemed to cheer Emerse up. Even Riley was worried.

Emerse quietly started work on the life support and within an hour had it up and running. Taking our vacc suits off, he then began working on the manoeuvre engines.

Whilst working away a radio signal comes in.

"Identify yourselves – this is Corvette Denpasar Ligature" 

"This is Lost Crown. What are your intentions?" responds Gnostic

"Stand-by for Boarding"

"Ahh negative" jumps in Riley. "There is no way pirates are boarding this ship" he says looking at the others.

"I will call the space station," advises Gnostic.

"Plaven space station control, this is Lost Crown. We are damaged and being approached by Corvette Denpasar Ligature who wish to board. We need repairs, what are your instructions?"

"Cede to their demands," is the response.

 "No fucking way" Riley says to the team.

By this time the manoeuvre engines are fixed and Emerse has moved onto the fuel tanks.

Corvette Denpasar Ligature

"They are getting closer" calls out Anton.

"Get the jump drives fixed, Emerse" calls Split

"I can't. They are buggered and need replacing" responds Emerse.

The Corvette approaches – "prepare for boarding"

As it nears, Riley suddenly flips the Lost Crown to be above the Corvette and rudely gives them the bird. A single missile is launched, but Anton intercepts it with the cannons.

"Lost Crown, cede to our demands and prepare to be boarded"

This time Riley waits until they are within a 100 or so metres and pulls the same trick, rolling upside down and hovering above them. Of course, what he didn’t expect and what everyone else was concerned about was what happened. The Corvette opened fire and this time caused considerable damage to The Lost Crown's engines, fuel tanks and life support; redamaging everything Emerse has repaired. Everyone stared at Riley.

"I don't like these bastards," he replied defensively. "In fact, I don’t really like anyone at the moment."

"Lost Crown prepare to be boarded!"

This time we complied, and a boarding party of humans entered the hold. 

"Who is your pilot?" they demanded.

"That's me you ugly bastards" Riley defiantly proclaimed just before he was shot a few times, stunning him. 

The boarding party enter The Lost Crown and we are all gathered in the bridge. 

"Is anyone missing?" Lieutenant Wayne Broachcask asks.

"Ah, where is Emerse?" asks Anton of Stasi.

Stasi shrugs her shoulders and two of the boarding party head off, and soon drag back a squealing Emerse, who had been looking at the life support, onto the bridge.

With our ship docked to them we move our way to the space station.

As we near, the lieutenant asks who is our representative. 

"I am" steps forward Anton in his x-boat uniform.

"You are X-boat? Oh, that’s good." 

"Yes, we are and we have a mochila to deliver."

"Here?"

"Well, no, we mis-jumped"

"You and one other come with me," the lieutenant points at Anton. 

Split quickly agrees to go, and Anton and Split follow the lieutenant and two guards into the Corvette.

The sergeant and his men left on the Lost Crown quickly, in their lieutenant's absence, cause havoc.

"Why do you have a Zhodani whore with you?"

"Are you referring to me" questions Stasi

"Yes, you, you ugly whore."

Riley recovers a bit from being shot earlier. "Don’t talk to her like that, arsehole."

The sergeant looks to strike Riley with the butt of her weapon but Riley moves and lands a good blow of his own. He is quickly overwhelmed and held to the ground. 

"Fond of her, are you?" the sergeant smiles and with that stretches Riley's left hand out and clubs it several times breaking most of its bones. Riley screams, and he quietly remembers every detail of his attacker. 

We are then ushered into a small room on the Corvette, comfortable with several bunks, a table and a few chairs.

The men leave, locking the door behind them. Belle attends to Riley's hand and using her medical skills starts to mend the damage bones and restores hit points. The hand is bandaged and Riley insists that his knuckle-dusters must be imbedded in the bandage.

Meanwhile. Anton and Penny have been taken to the heart of the Corvette into what looks like a throne room. There is a wild looking man man sitting on the throne with two naked Zhodani women in chains standing behind. There are 10-12 armed men in the room. They all look like something from Mad Max, an ancient but iconic movie.

Wotan Skullcrusher

The man is introduced as Wotan Skullcrusher and with his raspy voice states: "You destroyed two of my ships!" 

"Ah, yes they attacked us" responds Anton nervously.

"Good – I like that" Wotan laughs. "My men tell me you are an x-boat, is that correct? 

"Yes, that's true," says Anton, pointing at his uniform. "We mis-jumped and ended here."

"And why do you travel with a Zhodani whore?"

"She's an ambassador" states Penny.

"Even better" Wotan laughs "bring the whore here"

"Your eminence – you should probably remove the two chained Zhodani" recommends Anton.

"Yes of course" and they are dragged from the room.

Stasi is escorted in, and questioned by Wotan.

Eventually he states "I want diplomatic relations with the Zhodani and I want the x-boat corporation to start delivering to this system. In return for this I will fix your ship and jump drive. You should accept this offer or die. But before I do you need to deal with one problem I have. There are some trouble-makers on Plavia, the moon of Plaven, and I need their leader, Roger Coalpark, killed. Do that are you can go and fulfil my demands" 

"I'm sure we can make that happen, your eminence," says Anton. "But we will need weapons, and perhaps our ship's missile systems upgraded." 

"Of course," responds Wotan and with that dismisses Anton, Penny and Stasi.

Back in our room, Penny and Stasi debrief us. It will take several days for our ship to be sufficiently repaired and we use that time usefully:

• Riley and Emerse get drunk,
• Stasi gets several male volunteers to feed off,
• Anton manages to get himself a private room and several of Wotan's women/prostitutes to service him.

The more sensible of us, Gnostic, Penny and Belle, debate whether we should fulfil the task and kill Roger or whether we shouldn't trust Wotan and rather get Roger and his rebels to help us attack Wotan and restore our jump drive.

This debate goes on for some time with Riley chipping in between drinks and Anton between whores. Riley is firmly in the camp of killing Wotan whilst Stasi and Anton are firmly in the camp of killing Roger.

The more sensible ones don’t trust Wotan, and therefore it is decided to try and get the rebels onside.

A few days pass and we are all taken before Wotan again and briefed.

There is a prison on Plavia and Roger and his merry band of "woke tree hugging hippies" (to use Wotan's terms) live in the forest on the moon. We are provided coordinates.

We sensibly ask why Wotan and his men can't destroy the rebels themselves. It becomes clear that he wants to test us.

We learn a number of key things through talking to Wotan, and later through Emerse's Tamagotchi and Galactopedia.

• Wotan has ten remaining ships plus the Corvette
• The Corvette can fit two companies, some 200-odd troops, but we haven’t seen nearly that many.
• Plaven was populated 210 years ago and the moon 50 years ago,
• The moon is half the size of Plaven, has 1.1g gravity, has an atmosphere that will support life, and is forested. It is inhabited by "Wotan's prison" and its escapees – in fact it is a prison moon but has a population larger than Plaven.

So, the plan is set (albeit without consensus) – we will take our air-raft across to Plavia, and land at the GPS coordinates and hopefully find Roger. We will then spin a line that we are a mis-jumped x-boat and have escaped Wotan Skullcrusher and need their help to get our craft back.

Plavia

And that’s what we do. We land and quickly are approached by armed men in the forest. We spin our yarn and are taken to a large tree with an opening that goes into underground caves. There we meet Roger who seems very excited that we are there to rescue them.  

We endeavour to lay out our plan and seek their help against the "fascists", to use Roger's term, but initially seem to be getting little comfort. We question our plan while Anton and Stasi look at us with "I told you so looks"

Will we convince Roger and co to join us in assaulting Plaven and killing Wotan Skullcrusher?

Can we capture the Corvette?

Should we just kill Roger and take our chances with Wotan ?

We will see next time.

A long way from home!

 Present:

• Anastasia "Stasi" Tepes. Zhodani Soldier from Querion – Shane
• Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
• MARMALADING: "Riley" O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
• Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
• Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
• MARMALADING: Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
• Gnostic Hands. Solomani Scientist from Entrope – Jamie
• Belle Ende. Sword-Worlder Medic from Winston - Steven
• Split "Penny" Ende. Sword-Worlder Minstrel from Winston - Jason
• NPC: Scurry. Drone Gunner from Winston
• NPC: Finn Cyborg from Querion

by Jeff

The profoundly unsettling view of featureless grey nothingness outside the viewports suddenly transitioned to the more traditional star-specked black of normal space.

The Lost Crown's alarms immediately began to blare around the bridge.

"WARNING. MIS-JUMP DETECTED. DESTINATION INVALID" boomed the system.

Gnostic looked over at Riley who was slumped in the pilot's chair, marmalade dribbling from his mouth and nose.

"Oh bugger" he whispered to himself, "The coordinates were wrong!"

Rushing over to the viewport, Gnostic peered out.

The viewport revealed the sparse stellar landscape of the frontier, where distant suns glowed like dying embers scattered across an ocean of black velvet. A few faint stars marked the local neighbourhood - the systems of Indo and Enlas-du visible as pinpricks of light that offered the promise of civilization, however rough and lawless it might be. We had wound up in the Cronor subsector of the Spinward Marches!

[A successful Navigation roll allowed Gnostic to identify our location. The mis-jump had taken us nineteen parsecs rather than the one parsec to Entrope that was planned. Entrope was now eighteen parsecs away! And our Jump drive was only the two-jump version. A long and potentially hazardous journey back awaits us]

This was the edge of charted space, where the comforting density of core worlds gave way to isolated outposts and forgotten colonies. The darkness between stars stretched for parsecs, broken only by the occasional flicker of navigation beacons and the cold gleam of distant gas giants. Here at the coreward fringe of the Spinward Marches, space felt hollow and watchful, as if pirates and worse things lurked in the shadows between jump points, waiting for unwary travellers to emerge from hyperspace. The ship drifted in this frontier void, far from the warm glow of Imperial space, with only those few scattered lights to remind us that we weren't completely alone - though in this lawless region, that wasn't necessarily a comfort.

[You can obviously see that I have deployed AI assistance to tart up some descriptive passages throughout]

Spanner and Emerse ran a full diagnostic on the Lost Crown's systems, which showed all systems at 100%.

The fiery gas giant

By a stroke of luck [Successful Luck roll] there was a large gas giant not too far from our emergence point. Riley was briefly roused from his marmalading slumber, and he took the Lost Crown swooping over to the gas giant, dipping down into its outer atmosphere in a classic refuelling manoeuvre.

The Lost Crown banked gracefully toward the gas giant's roiling atmosphere, its sleek hull gleaming against the backdrop of swirling hydrogen clouds. The ship's sophisticated Zhodani sensors mapped the atmospheric layers with precision, identifying the optimal depth for fuel intake - deep enough to reach the pure hydrogen, but not so deep as to stress the hull against crushing pressures.

As the Lost Crown began its descent, the viewports filled with an alien landscape of churning gases in bands of amber, crimson, and deep purple. The fuel scoops deployed with mechanical precision, their intake ports opening like hungry mouths. The hull began to vibrate gently as atmospheric friction built, while the inertial compensators worked to keep us all comfortable during the controlled dive. Except for Emerse of course, he cowered on his bunk, behind his token privacy screen, not at all comfortable, and rapidly brushed his hair as the hull creaked and groaned.

Streams of raw hydrogen rushed into the collection tanks, the Lost Crown's purification systems already working to separate the fuel from atmospheric contaminants. The Lost Crown's superior Zhodani engineering was evident in how smoothly the process ran - their advanced computer systems automatically adjusting the ship's attitude and depth to maintain optimal collection rates while monitoring structural stress.

After what felt like an eternity to Emerse, but was really only minutes, the Lost Crown pulled away from the gas giant's embrace, fuel tanks topped off and ready for our next jump back toward Entrope. The great red planet fell away behind us, its storms continuing their eternal dance, indifferent to our small ship that had briefly sipped from its vast reserves.

Riley slumped back down in his pilot seat, his skills no longer required, as Gnostic calculated the two-parsec jump directly rimward to Nerewhon, checked his calculations, checked them again, then initiated the jump. The twinkle of distant stars blinked out, and once again featureless grey nothingness filled the viewports. No one looked though!

[Staring out into the void of jumpspace leads to a Psyche roll. Humans (all humanoid races) just aren't meant to consider their presence outside of normal space, its unnatural and unnerving and can lead to insanity]

The week in jumpspace passed uneventfully. Emerse tinkered with his drone project, trying to improve its functionality with additional attachments. Riley continued his marmalade induced sleep, slouched uncomfortably in his pilot's chair, although we had strapped him in just in case of trouble. Penny inventoried her wardrobe and made a list of possible purchases in case we had a shopping opportunity in one of our stops on the way back to Entrope. Anton considered the mochila in the cargo hold and worried that Sydney may once again need to indulge in a jug of his own urine for the cameras. Stasi mostly slept but was occasionally spotted sharpening her sword blade with a pair of oilstones and disassembling and cleaning her collection of guns. Spanner kept a watch on the computer systems and listed possible modifications she could make in the future to further improve the Lost Crown's efficiency. Belle kept at her genetic research of the spider eggs, and Gnostic berated himself repeatedly on his troubling jump navigation error that led to the mis-jump, and did a little research on Nerewhon.

One week later the Lost Crown emerged back into normal space, powered across to the local space station, and docked. We had decided that a brief sojourn down on the planet would provide some much-needed relief from the disturbing oddity of jumpspace travel so after arranging refuelling, we all took the planetary air-raft down to the surface. 

Nerewhon was a native human planet located in neutral space, although being located adjacent to Zhodani controlled sectors they were strongly pro-Zhodani. With a 1970's technological level, the planet was governed under a benevolent dictatorship, with one Rothman Staves at the helm. Tens of thousands of people inhabited the 50% of the surface not covered by ocean, and the local ground station was in a major trading city with a bustling shopping district.

Penny rejoiced!

Anton led us to the local x-boat headquarters where he reported our mis-jump, completed the multiple copies of the incident report documentation, and arranged an x-boat message to be sent off to Sydney on Entrope as soon as possible.

Then we went shopping.

Just for Riley

Penny was keen to purchase exotic local products that could be on-sold back in Entrope for a decent profit; Retro! We stocked up on retrograde clothing fashion including stockings and bras, tobacco products including cigarettes and cigars, and barrels of cheap whiskey. 

Emerse even bought a case of top-quality whisky just for Riley, who was still slumped in the Lost Crown's pilot chair back at the space station.

We stayed overnight in a luxury hotel. Anton and Stasi slipped out to visit some of the local Zhodani brothels, Anton to offer blood and sate his sexual urges, and Stasi to obtain a decent blood feed. 

The next day we returned to the space station via air-raft shuttle, checked that the refuelling had been completed, woke Riley, disengaged from the docking bay, powered out to the jump departure zone, and executed our next jump. Another two-parsec jump across to the Zhodani system Narval, a technology level 7 system.

[In Traveller, Technology Levels (TL) range from 0 to 15+ and represent the general technological sophistication of a world or piece of equipment:

TL 0-3: Stone Age through Renaissance - primitive tools, basic agriculture, sailing ships, gunpowder weapons

TL 4-6: Industrial Age through early 20th century - steam power, internal combustion, early electronics, aircraft, basic computers

TL 7-8: Modern to near-future - nuclear power, early space flight, advanced electronics, lasers

TL 9-11: Early interstellar - jump drives appear at TL 9, grav technology, advanced materials, fusion power becomes common

TL 12-14: Standard Imperial technology - most Imperial worlds operate around TL 10-12, with TL 15 representing the theoretical maximum for most Third Imperium technology

TL 15+: Advanced Ancient technology and theoretical limits - some Ancient artifacts and the most advanced research exceed normal Imperial capabilities

Most inhabited worlds in the Third Imperium fall between TL 7-12, with TL 15 being considered the practical upper limit for Imperial technology. The Zhodani and other major powers generally operate at similar levels, though they may have different specializations.]

... another week of jumpspace boredom ...

 Almost immediately we emerged from jumpspace, we were hailed over the radio.

"Zhodani scout ship Lost Crown, please manoeuvre to docking bay 5" 

"Zhodani scout ship Lost Crown, please confirm your reason for visiting"

"Zhodani scout ship Lost Crown, please confirm any non-Zhodani on board"

We handed the comms to Stasi and let her respond.

Emerse was feeling quite nervous, given his repeated heated racial discussions with Stasi, and decided again that discretion was the better part of valour and took off to the bowels of the ship "to make needed repairs". Or translating, "to hide from any nasty argumentative Zhodani who just won't like me"

And sure enough, they didn't.

"Zhodani scout ship Lost Crown, please hold for Inspection"

Once we had docked, four huge armoured, and armed, Zhodani Intendants stomped on board and proceeded to search the ship. They went through all the staterooms and the cargo hold quite thoroughly and summoned all the crew to the bridge for Inspection.

[Intendants: The Zhodani military/warrior class responsible for defence, security, and military operations. They serve as soldiers, officers, and military specialists]

"Are you subservient?" they queried Stasi.

"No" replied Stasi, "These are my crew" she said, gesturing at the rest of us.

"That is my feeder" she stated, pointing at Anton, who grinned mischievously.

"Where is that one?" the lead Intendant asked, pointing at Emerse's image, which Gnostic had displayed on the bridge screens, "as a joke" he later commented.

"Oh, that's Emerse" replied Gnostic, "He is down in the bilge conducting necessary repairs"

"He is Daryen, bring him here" the lead Intendant commanded.

Brandishing their weapons, the Intendants lined all the males up, and studied them.

"You are very ugly" they stated, pointing at Emerse, "Bare your neck"

"Not bloody likely" countered Emerse, stepping back.

"THUD"

Emerse was overpowered and carried off into the airlock where he was fed on by some of the Intendants. We all stood aside and watched, fearful of nasty consequences if we intervened. 

Eventually, Emerse was tossed back into the bridge, looking roughed up and anemic, the wounds on his neck trickling blood. [Two points of damage inflicted by the Zhodani Intendants' feeding]

"Take care of your business here, then leave!" the lead Intendant instructed before they left.

"You bastard" yelled Emerse at Gnostic, "They raped me"

"No" replied Gnostic, "Strictly speaking, they didn't actually rape you"

"Well, none of you even tried to help" Emerse accused us all.

"They had big guns" muttered Penny.

Anton and Gnostic left the ship and reported in at the local x-boat office on the Narval space station, while the rest of the crew stayed on board and tried to placate Emerse, who had sulked off to his room and was vigorously brushing his hair.

The x-boat staff in the office hailed Anton as somewhat of a hero. Apparently, our mis-jump was the longest recorded in the last ten years and had made the x-boat "dishonour" roll. When Anton mentioned that our next jump was to Plaven, they warned him that there had been pirate activity reported from that sector recently.

"Don't worry though" they said, "Only five ships have gone missing over the last two months!"

"FIVE SHIPS" yelled Anton, "Now I'm definitely worried"

Once Anton returned to the ship, a strategy discussion was held.

"Is there anywhere else we can jump to?" asked Emerse.

"Sure" replied Gnostic, "But it would make for a longer trip back"

"We can handle a few scum pirates!" declared Stasi.

"I can man the ship guns" noted Anton.

"And we can set our emergence zone at a greater distance from the planet" suggested Gnostic.

"That way, there should be no one lurking in wait. Surely, they would be at the normal 100 diameter zone"

And that concluded the strategy discussion.

Gnostic calculated the jump coordinates for emergence at 200 diameters from the planet, and well below the ecliptic, to minimise the risk that anyone would be waiting there, and Anton would man the guns at emergence. 

Riley took the ship out to the jump zone, and off we went.

... jumpspace boredom for another week ...

The Lost Crown emerged into normal space exactly as planned, 200 diameters from the planet and well below the system ecliptic. Anton was suited up and strapped into the gun turret, just in case, and ready for anything. 

And just as well!

Two unknown ships were waiting

By some unlucky quirk of fate [in fact a bad dice roll on a D12] we emerged into normal space just beside two ships waiting in the middle of nowhere, exactly at our emergence zone! The alarms immediately blared to life.

"WARNING: UNKNOWN CRAFT IN IMMEDIATE PROXIMITY. WARNING"

"Zhodani scout ship Lost Crown, this is the Plaven Inspection ship Belly"

"Please shut down engines, heave to, and prepare for Plaven planetary bio-inspection"

"Negative Belly" replied Gnostic, "Lost Crown proceeding to space port docking bay"

"WARNING: MULTIPLE MISSILE LOCK DETECTED. WARNING" 

"Zhodani scout ship Lost Crown, heave to or we will fire. This is your only warning"

"Negative Belly" replied Gnostic, "Move aside or WE will fire"

Riley made an unsuccessful attempt to speed off towards the distant space station, but after a very short burst of acceleration the engines spluttered and died, and we were suddenly a sitting duck.

[Our ship, the Lost Crown, has a set of four missile launch tubes, each one independently targetable, with an automatic reload system that would activate after firing, reloading the tubes in ten "rounds". In addition to the missile system, the Lost Crown sported a 50-calibre projectile cannon loaded with armour piercing proximity explosive rounds, capable of firing 1500 rounds per minute. Both systems were under Anton's control from the turret]

Exchange 1

"Fuck 'em" yelled Anton and launched all four missiles, two at the Belly and two at the other ship, the Wigwam.

"WARNING: MULTIPLE MISSILE LAUNCH DETECTED. WARNING" 

It appeared that both Belly and Wigwam also had four missile launch tubes, as eight missiles were now incoming!

Anton switched to the 50-calibre guns and attempted to destroy the incoming missiles before they arrived. The high frequency shudder of the guns firing could be felt in the bridge, and the streaking path of the shells could be seen through the viewport as one after another, each of the incoming missiles exploded well away from our ship.

Our four missiles also exploded, before reaching their targets, as the projectile weapons on the Belly and Wigwam also opened fire. No doubt their gunners would be targeting us too shortly!

Exchange 2

"Yee ha" screamed Anton, as he switched his targeting to the Belly, and the 50-calibre shells tore across the dark void between our ships and mercilessly pounded Belly. Anton's first round of fire ripped through the Belly's gun turret, disabling their guns, but not before Belly's return fire tore into the Lost Crown's Manoeuvring Engines, rendering us temporarily dead in space. Not good! Did I already mention sitting duck?

And then Wigwam's shells also hit, slicing across the Jump Drive housing and disabling our Jump capability.

[Spaceship combat is carried out in combat rounds, similar to the DnD combat system you will be familiar with.
In our current spaceship combat, the gunner (Anton) rolls against his Gunnery skill to determine if he hits the target. Anton has a Gunnery skill of 16, so is quite proficient. If successful, a D10 was rolled to determine what part of the target ship was struck, with possible targets of:

1. Cargo Hold: Less critical but can destroy cargo or equipment stored aboard.
2. Engines: Hits to the fusion reactor or power distribution systems, reducing power for all ship systems.
3. Shields: Damage to the ships shielding systems leaving it vulnerable to ongoing attacks.
4. Computer: Damage to the ship's computer systems, affecting targeting, navigation, and automated systems.
5. Manoeuvre Drive: Damage to the reaction drive system, reducing the ship's ability to accelerate and manoeuvre in normal space, and during combat.
6. Life Support: Damage that affects atmospheric systems, artificial gravity, or environmental controls.
7. Weapons: Individual weapon systems can be knocked out, reducing the ship's offensive capability.
8. Communications: Knocks out long range radio communication capacity.
9. Jump Drive: Critical damage to the jump drive components, potentially stranding the ship in-system.
10. Fuel: Hits to fuel tanks can cause fuel leaks, reducing jump range and endurance.

(Note that this differs slightly from the official Traveller targeting table, which is based on a 2D6 roll, due to the DM having to generate this system on the fly that night)

A reroll is made if the ship doesn't have the system. If the same system is hit twice, nothing further happens unless it's a Drive, Shield, or Fuel system. Drives drop their capacity with each hit: e.g. Jump 2 would go to Jump 1, etc.

If Fuel or Drives (when on 0) are hit a second time, roll LUCK (best in the party). If this fails, the ship explodes!

NPC opponents do not have LUCK, so they explode immediately.

See the descriptions below for what happened to the Lost Crown during our space battle]

At this point, we became really concerned that we hadn't climbed into our vacuum suits before emerging into normal space. Well, Anton had, before strapping himself into the gunnery turret, but the rest of us hadn't even thought about it. We had figured that the possibility of finding a pirate ship at our random jump emergence zone was practically zero, so there would be no point in donning the vacuum suits.

Emerse's suit just hung on the wall

Since there was nothing else to do while we relied on Anton's excellent gunnery targeting and prayed enthusiastically for the pirates to miss, everyone ran to their vacuum suits and began to put them on. The process generally takes a while, so we were all a bit frantic. 

Poor old Emerse still hadn't mastered his vacuum suit drills (Vacuum Suit skill of -2, with a cross-unable to use) so he just strapped himself into one of the chairs and blubbered.

Exchange 3

With the Belly losing its guns in the previous exchange of fire, Anton swung the 50-calibre barrels towards Wigwam and let loose a devastating burst, knocking out the Wigwam's Manoeuvre Drive. They wouldn't be closing anytime soon, but their guns were still firing, and the return shots thudded through our Life Support system, taking out the CO2 scrubbers and the heating circuits. Red warning lights were flashing all over the control board, and a number of different pitched alarms were screaming throughout the bridge. It was chaos.

Exchange 4

"Take this you bastards" yelled Anton as he fired another barrage of projectiles at the Wigwam, cleaning their radio antennae off the hull and rendering their communications defunct. The Wigwam's return fire struck the hull, damaging the cargo bay doors and breaching the cargo bay door pressure seals.

"WARNING: HULL BREACH. CARGO BAY LOSS OF ATMOSPHERE. WARNING" 

"WARNING: CARGO BAY EMERGENCY BULKHEAD CLOSING. WARNING" 

"WARNING: PROXIMITY ALERT - DOCKING BAY OUTER HATCH. PROXIMITY WARNING" 

The Belly, not able to fire, had manoeuvred herself over towards the Lost Crown's docking bay hatch and was likely sending a boarding crew to cut into our ship. Having got her vacuum suit on, Spanner rushed across to the viewport nearest the docking bay and watched in horror as a boarding tube stretched itself out from the Belly's outer hatch, heading towards ours.

"The Belly" yelled Spanner at Anton, "Target the Belly"

Exchange 5

Anton's targeting display flashed green as his shot found their mark on the Belly's starboard quarter. The projectiles punched through the pirate ship's hull plating with a brilliant flash, and almost immediately a crystalline spray of unrefined hydrogen began venting into space like a deadly fountain. The fuel line rupture sent shimmering streams of propellant spiralling away from the Belly in graceful, lethal arcs that caught the distant starlight.

The Belly's hull was now marked by a ragged puncture wound weeping precious fuel, each droplet that escaped reducing their jump range and operational endurance. The captain of the Belly faced an immediate tactical dilemma - continue the fight and risk running dry or attempt emergency repairs while under fire.

Through the Lost Crown's sensors, Anton watched the pirate ship's manoeuvring becoming more erratic as they tried to minimize the fuel loss by adjusting their attitude, but the damage was done. The steady stream of hydrogen continued to vent, leaving a glittering trail behind the Belly like the tail of a comet, marking their position and advertising their vulnerability to anyone watching the battle unfold. 

But despite their diminished manoeuvring capacity, somehow the Belly managed to get its boarding tube to attach around our own outer hatch with a magnetic clang, immediately followed by a huge boom. A sharp vibration shuddered through the Lost Crown as our outer hatch was blown open. The docking bay was now open to the pirates, with just the inner airlock doors providing a fragile barrier between us and the murderous borderers.

Spanner watched through the viewport as four shadowy shapes rapidly charged down the plasti-glass boarding tube and disappeared through the hull into the Lost Crown's docking bay.

"Stand by to repel boarders" yelled Spanner, retreating to the far side of the bridge, away from the inner airlock doors that lead to the docking bay.

Fortunately, the Wigwam decided to hold fire during this exchange, likely so as to not accidentally hit their comrades from the Belly. A bitter-sweet moment of relief in the desperate ongoing battle.

Exchange 6

As ominous clunks and bangs echoed through the doors from the docking bay, Spanner looked around the bridge. Anton had launched himself down from the gun turret and was brandishing a grenade in each hand, floating in front of the airlock doors. Stasi and Penny were arrayed just behind and to each side of Anton, their handguns raised in the firing position and targeting the closed door, their legs braced to the floor behind them. Riley was still slumped in the pilot's chair, an emergency oxygen mask strapped around his face. Emerse was crouched down behind the bridge control with another emergency oxygen mask loosely strapped across his face. Gnostic was standing at the bridge control panel, his vacuum suit only partially on, the helmet still clutched in his hand, and Belle was in a similar state on the other side of the room, vacuum suit only partially on and not yet sealed.

"Open the airlock door" yelled Anton, "We've got this!"

Anton's grenade dropped into the airlock

Gnostic hit the airlock door controls and the inner airlock door hissed open with a pop. Four figures inside the airlock looked up in surprise as Anton's grenade landed between them and bounced slowly to the feet of one of the figures.

"BOOM"

The boarder right next to the grenade was blown backward, tumbling end over end out of the airlock, back into the boarding tube and out of sight. The other three also staggered away from the blast, shrapnel wounds peppering their bodies and droplets of weightless blood spinning out across the room. They hadn't expected that!

Then Penny and Stasi fired their weapons past Anton, the bullets smashing into two of the boarders, silencing them forever. But they managed to fire back before being killed, one of the shots passing harmlessly over Anton's shoulder but the other striking him in the shoulder, spinning him around and knocking him back.

"WARNING: BRIDGEHULL BREACH. AUTO SEAL ACTIVATED. WARNING" 

The bullet may have missed Anton, but it punctured through the hull wall and our breathable atmosphere began hissing out through the hole. Automatic protective systems activated, slowly sealing the puncture, but the icy cold of space also began sucking the heat from the room. 

Exchange 7

Anton recovered his balance and flipped his second grenade through the airlock door, the last boarder in there stumbling back in fright.

"BOOM"

The boarder literally shredded in front of our eyes, blood and gore plastering the airlock walls.

But he got his rifle shot off before the explosion, hitting Anton in the chest, penetrating his vacuum suit armour and puncturing through his lung. Anton collapsed in a crumpled heap, leaving the door clear for any other attackers.

Exchange 8

The fourth attacker charged back out of the boarding tube, ignoring the total annihilation of his three comrades, and firing his rifle at Penny, but Penny and Stasi got their own shots off too. The attacker took the two rounds through the head and chest and was propelled backward, dead before he even hit the floor.

Penny took the rifle round in the chest and would likely have been killed if not for a stroke of luck. [Jason spent 3 LUCK and reduced Penny's damage by D6, rolling a 6] The shot hit the hardened vacuum suit plating mounted just over the heart, specifically provided to prevent kill shots, and the damage was reduced to a severe bruising and a few cracked ribs.

"Oww" Penny screamed.

Exchange 9

The four boarders had all been killed, but Anton was down. We needed our gunner, or we would be targeted by the Wigwam as soon as the Belly withdrew from our proximity. Or the Belly could send another boarding party down the boarding tube and into our open airlock. 

Spanner closed the inner airlock door, sealing the breached airlock off and preventing the full loss of the bridge atmosphere if and when the Belly detached the boarding tube and withdrew. 

Gnostic and Belle finally clicked their vacuum suit helmets on over their heads and the seals locked in place.

Penny [spending all of her remaining LUCK] performed a successful First Aid on Anton, preventing any further bleeding [and the associated CON roll or death every round]. But Anton was still unconscious, with a Major Wound [and the associated penalties to all his rolls until Cured]

Exchange 10

The Belly activated their manoeuvring engines and started pulling back from the Lost Crown, the boarding tube popping off the side of our ship as the magnetic clamps let go and withdrawing back into the Belly's own docking bay. The Wigwam, still with their manoeuvring engines offline, hung some distance away, gun barrels pointing towards us, but obviously waiting for the Belly to clear the target zone, i.e. the Lost Crown.

Belle applied First Aid and Healing touch (her Talent) to Anton, granting him a total of 6 hit-points and bringing him round.

He sat up against the hull and looked around.  [Anton's Major Wound was not fixed by Belle's Healing Touch, so all rolls he makes are at Penalty.]

"We're still alive" he grunted.

"Sure are" replied Belle, "And you are needed up there in the gun turret"

Anton dazedly scrambled up into the gun turret, settled into the seat, and gripped the fire controls. It had been almost 10 rounds since the first missiles had been fired, and the tubes would be reloaded and ready to fire shortly. The Belly's guns were still out of action, so Anton targeted all the missiles at the Wigwam.

Everyone waited for the missiles to come online ....

Exchange 11

"MISSILE TUBES ONE-FOUR LOADED" declared the fire computer.

"You dead, sucker" yelled Anton, launching all four missiles at the Wigwam.

Almost simultaneously, the Wigwam launched.

"WARNING: MULTIPLE MISSILE LAUNCH DETECTED. WARNING" 

Two of the incoming missiles were off target, their gunner failing his Gunnery roll, but two were heading directly towards us. Anton gently squeezed the 50-calibre fire control and twin lines of tracer darted across the gap towards the Wigwam, intercepting the two missiles heading our way. They both exploded!

Anton watched carefully as his four missiles tracked towards the Wigwam; all successfully aimed directly at critical ship components. Their gunner desperately fired his weapons at our missiles. First one exploded, far from the Wigwam, but the next two continued on unimpeded.

Two missiles continued on

The twin missiles streaked across the void toward the Wigwam like vengeful stars, their drive flames creating brief points of brilliant light against the darkness. The first missile punched through the pirate ship's weakened armour plating near the engineering section with a brilliant white flash, the explosion sending fragments of hull metal spinning away in glittering clouds. Before the crew of the Wigwam can even process what had happened, the second missile struck amidships with devastating precision.

The combined detonations triggered a catastrophic chain reaction as the ship's power plant containment failed. The Wigwam's fusion reactor went critical in a blinding sphere of nuclear fire that expanded outward like a miniature sun. For a brief moment, the explosion illuminated the surrounding space in harsh, unforgiving light, casting stark shadows across the Lost Crown's hull.

The pirate vessel simply ceased to exist - vaporized in the fusion blast with only expanding clouds of superheated plasma and scattered debris marking where it once floated. The shockwave rippled outward, buffeting the Lost Crown with electromagnetic interference that caused the sensors to flicker momentarily. When the brilliant afterimage faded from the viewports, nothing remained of the Wigwam but a slowly dispersing nebula of metallic vapor and the fading glow of ionized gases, another reminder of how quickly space combat can turn lethal.

Exchange 12

As Anton's eyes readjusted to the darkness of local space, he swivelled the 50-calibre gun barrels across to the Belly which was slowly accelerating way and attempting to flee.

Raking streams of 50-calibre proximity explosives across the Belly again and again as it receded, he scored successful hits on the Life Support, Cargo Hold, and Jump Drive systems. 

One less pirate ship to worry about

Their luck had run out, and the Belly exploded.

Two nil to us.

Aftermath 

The Lost Crown had been severely damaged with multiple systems disabled including the Manoeuvre and Jump drives, Life Support, the Cargo Hold, and the outer Docking Bay doors.

The space station and our necessary refuelling stop was two hundred planetary diameters away.

And who knew how many other encounters we might befall before arriving there!

Spanner gathered up her toolbox and headed off to the engine room.

That's not the way !

  Present:

• Anastasia "Stasi" Tepes. Zhodani Soldier from Querion – Shane
• Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
• "Riley" O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
• Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
• Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
• MARMALADING: Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
• Gnostic Hands. Solomani Scientist from Entrope – Jamie
• Belle Ende. Sword-Worlder Medic from Winston - Steven
• Split "Penny" Ende. Sword-Worlder Minstrel from Winston - Jason
• NPC: Scurry. Drone Gunner from Winston
• NPC: Finn Cyborg from Querion

by Richard

We make our way toward the penitentiary on one of the islands on the Olha Island chain to deliver cantina 6 to Anya Monoslava, a Zhodani guard.  

With a further hour to go on our trip a radio signal comes in.

"Air-raft, identify yourself – this is Olha Penitentiary"

"This is air-raft 24601 of x-boat corporation – we are approaching to deliver a cantina to Anya Monoslava." replied Riley.

 "Very well" comes the static-filled reply. "Land on Heli-pad four – that's the one with a 4 painted on it"

"Roger" replied Riley – smiling.

As we approached we could see a number of small islands with a large one at the far end of the chain, with a cross shaped building on it. It was surrounded in high meshed-fencing and outside of that was a landing spot with a "4" painted on it and near that an old run-down shed. The landing pad appeared to be made of concrete but it was cracked and uneven and with weeds growing through it.

"Ah – control tower – number 4 looks a little unused and unsafe" radioed Riley. "Permission to use 1,2 or 3"

"Negative air-raft – land at 4"

Helipad 4

Riley momentarily thought about disobeying the order, however noticed the mounted guns around the other pads and decided, for once, that discretion was the better part of valour.

The landing on helipad 4 was a little rough [ Riley had to use 2 luck ].

Anton and Gnostic exit the air-raft and there is a Zhodani woman there to greet them, who introduces herself as Anya. 

She motions them into the nearby old corrugated-iron shed, where the cantina was opened by Anton and inspected. 

"All seems in order" thanked Anya before removing the contents and striding off toward the perimeter fence.

Anton and Gnostic re-enter the x-boat.

"Not much we can do here" said Gnostic. "The perimeter is well secured and they are armed to the eye balls – we aren’t."

"Yeah let's go" replied Riley and with that they launch back toward Kingston.

Speculation now runs rife and the intellects of the group debate the geo-political ramifications of the suspected spider trafficking and whether we (the royal we) should take a stand and try and resolve this issue – if indeed it is an issue at all.

The more balanced of us – Stasi, Riley and Split – remind everyone who our employer is and that we are here to earn a dollar and explore and not try and solve potential geo-political concerns.

Anton, who is thoroughly enjoying his new status within x-boat and of course the uniform, bless his simple soul, only wants to do what Sydney Walsh wants.

The debate continues as we arrive at Kingston.

We debrief to Sydney but advise him that there are no living things in the cantina. He seems satisfied that there is no more investigation to do.

Of course, we feel there is and hire a laboratory adjacent to x-boat central, to undertake some tests on the web sample that we have captured.

Gnostic and Belle head off to the lab to undertake the tests. Emerse is checking out the various addresses for linkages while Stasi and Riley go out drinking and find a fight club to entertain themselves. Anton, Spanner and Split wait patiently.

The testing shows that there are four eggs and that the DNA indicates terrestrial spiders, weasel and something else but unknown. The spider DNA is the same as they have identified before.

Emerse has no luck finding connections.

Stasi and Riley win fight night and return battered, bruised, drunk and happy.

The new DNA findings opens the debate again. We largely focus on whether we should interfere in geo-political and local planetary affairs and what our ethical and legal obligations are. This of course leads us nowhere.

 "Why don’t we tell Sydney that we in fact think that there were living creatures in the cantina's, show him the evidence and then see what he wants us to do" suggests Anton still happily wearing his x-boat uniform.

Anton may not be the smartest man but that sure was the best recommendation so far.

"Ah, how do we tell him we lied" asks Gnostic

"Let's just tell him we didn’t want to raise any concerns until we knew" added Spanner and with that we find Sydney and fully brief him on our findings.

"Well that paints a different picture" responds Sydney to our news. "You must investigate further – go to Rogue Island (where the lighthouse is) and find out what is going on. Oh, and don’t tell the authorities – this is an x-boat problem."

"Ahh, we need some weapons" asks Riley. 

"We can't go with plan A" stutter's Emerse. "they are well-guarded".

"Why don’t we message them on that frequency they gave me" says Riley. "Then we can do a job for them and deliver whatever they want. That way we can build their trust, earn some money on the side and maybe learn what's going on?"

We agree that is the best course of action and Riley messages them.

"Lighthouse on Rogue – available for work – any deliveries required?"

Moments later: "Acknowledged – travel to Torment. Use frequency 7.235 GHz to seek further orders from them - over."

"Roger – what will payment be?"

"$100,000 imperial credits – over"

"$150,000?"

"No $100,000 – first job – over and out"

"Well that’s good pay," says Riley. "This way we can have multiple jobs at once – lets just make sure our ethics don’t get in the way," he says looking at Emerse.

So, Torment it is. This happens to be Emerse's home system and a military system owned by the Daryens as a buffer to the militaristic Sword-Worlders and now, the Zhodani.

We advise Sydney we need to travel to Torment to follow a lead and with his permission.

Gnostic sets the coordinates and we jump. 

A week's uneventful travel (except for Belle's constant vomiting) and we materialize.

"Come in, Lost Crown" 

"Roger – The Lost Crown representing X-Boat Corporation delivering a mochila to Torment – X-boat identification 24601"

"Thank you, x-boat, – dock at space pad 432 and await inspection"

"Roger – out"

We proceed to the space dock await inspection. As we open the ship's airlock, four large Daryen soldiers come on board.

"Tell the Zhodani bitch to kneel on the floor," they demand when they see Stasi

She reluctantly obeys. 

But Stasi can't help herself and she back-talks to the storm troopers. They use the butt of their rifles to knock her to the ground, cuff her and two of them drag her out.

Stasi and the Daryen stormtroopers

"What are your arseholes doing?" – demanded Riley protectively (he likes Stasi).

"Bugger off – she's Zhodani and they aren’t well-liked here"

"She's part of our crew, you ugly bastard." 

The guard whacks Riley across the face and there is a drawing of breath across the crew. Riley smiles and for the second time in the night decides discretion is the better part of valour as he watches Stasi being dragged away.

The remaining two guards undertake inspection and then advise the mochila needs to undergo Targeted Alpha Purging (also known as TAP) before it can be delivered to the x-boat distribution centre.

Anton retrieves the air-trolley and uplifts the mochila and goes with the guards.

Emerse had family on Torment, so he, Spanner and Anton travelled down to the surface on the orbital freight elevator.

In their absence, Riley messages frequency 7.235 GHz.

"Awaiting orders"

"Uplift package from coordinates d45d0a0b-ca4f-44df-8adb-67fd721fc8d0 – over"

"Roger"

Gnostic quickly looks up the coordinates, smugly thinking to himself what a wonderful navigator he is. That’s way out in space, behind this asteroid he points out.

After thirty or so minutes, Stasi is dragged back in, unconscious. She had had a good Daryen beating. Belle immediately took her to the sick bay, and administers initially First-aid and then then applied her medical skills.

Anton returns in another thirty minutes.

"Ready to go" says Spanner

"You talk to them Split" says Emerse, "you are better with words than Riley and Gnostic"

"Space station….. permission to jump from coordinates 0721-d45d0a0b-ca4f-44df-8adb-67fd721fc8d0."

"Ahh why?"

"This ship can be a little unstable on jump and we need plenty of room" Split advises "please." [ Split had the best Persuade skill. ]

Clearly politeness worked and we were given permission to go to the new coordinates. On arrival we saw the package we were due to pick up – a large wooden box, floating in space.

"They will just be testing us," volunteered Gnostic.

Riley manoeuvred the Lost Crown into position, opened the hold doors, and delicately and successfully backed the ship onto the package, allowing it to float effortlessly into the hold, where Spanner and Anton, in vacc-suits, landed and secured the crate.

Riley was very pleased with himself – everything was going swimmingly – what could go wrong?.

With package secured and everyone ready, Gnostic worked his navigational miracles and punched in the coordinates into the hex pad on the jump computer. Riley as usual watched him carefully

0720-efd9b459-ea0f-4366-9e5a-1ba9b3ff50ac declared Gnostic as he punched in the coordinates in.

We were off.

"You punched in the wrong numbers" a worried Riley stated.

"No, I didn't" argued Gnostic.

Riley has eidetic memory as his talent.

"You said it ended with 3ff50ac and you punched 7ff50ac – your fingers slipped"

"No, they didn’t" a defensive Gnostic retorted. 

"Yes, you did" responded a worried Riley "I think we are mis-jumping" 

"Well, the Hamming-Shannon checksum will have corrected it, anyway. Those 128 bit coordinate guids have heaps of error bits."

[ To misjump, you need to fumble (20) a Navigation roll. Jamie has a 16 on his Navigation skill and his talent gives him two rolls (take the best), but he rolled two 20s – a 1 in 400 chance of a fumble. We have mis-jumped and know it. 

In the game-world, characters do not know that they have mis-jumped. For all intents and purposes, all is normal: the fuel burns to charge the jump capacitors, the jump engines power up, the capacitors discharge, the ship slides into jump-space and coasts as normal, and the trip still takes a week (usually). It is only when the ship emerges back in Normal space that the dreadful situation is revealed. ]

Where will we land? – inside an asteroid like the last x-boat? – we will need to wait and see.