Amber Zone: Starport Official (Patron)
Last Updated
23 December
2004.
By: Brendan
From: traveller@mpgn.com [Digest 453]
Dated: Wed, 25 Sep 1996
Subject: Another patron encounter
[brendan's comments, 453]
Here's another patron encounter:
Starport Official
Suitable for any size group of characters
Required skills: Demolitions or Engineering/Electronics
Required equipment: Any spacecraft
Players Information
While on a world with a class D spaceport, the
characters are offered a job by the starport authorities. An old
mothballed space station's orbit is beginning to decay, and there is
considerable danger that the wreckage could hit a populated area when
it finally comes down. The starport authorities offer the characters
Cr50,000 to dispose of the station. They supply an orbital
demolitions kit composed of a number of demolitions charges, and a
large foam shield, which is deployed over the station before
demolition to capture any debris which is thrown upwards. The shield
and the small fragments should then burn up in the atmosphere.
Referee's Information
Roll 1D:
- The situation is as presented above.
- When entering the station to place the demolitions charges the
players discover that the station was being used by a group of
smugglers as a drop off point for narcotics. The smugglers on the
planet will be notified by proximity sensors when any ship
approaches the station, and will send three fighters to investigate,
which will arrive within ten minutes.
- As in 2. but there are smugglers actually on the space station
when the players arrive. They will try to ambush the players and
drive them off.
- The space station which the players approach looks nothing like
the one in the technical information they have been given. A number
of large hydroponics gardens fan out from a enlarged residential
area. The station has been taken over by a community of squatters. Of
course, the station's orbit is still decaying, and the players will
have to either persuade the station community to organise an
evacuation, or try to tow the station into a stable orbit (dangerous
as the structural strength of the station may have been compromised
by the settler's additions)
- When opened up, the station is found to contain hundreds of large
purple drums with hazard markings on them. The authorities have no
idea how they got there. They can eventually be traced to a small
company/government on the planet. The players will need to find out
if they have to be removed before the destruction of the station
(nerve gas which would dissipate in the upper atmosphere is not a
problem, radioactive waste might be). If any players try opening a
container to find out what is inside, then perhaps a biological agent
might be released, which would make tracking down the people who
dumped the barrels in the station even more time sensitive.
- Instead of demolishing the station, the authorities request that
the characters tow it into a higher graveyard orbit, among several
dozen other rotting hulks of stations and SDBs. In reality, the
starport officials are part of a group of privateers, who will try to
capture the players' ship, ambushing them in the graveyard.
Now that I've finally got T4, I'm working on some slightly longer
adventures, which should appear in a week or so.
Brendan
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