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:
  1. The situation is as presented above.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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)
  5. 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.
  6. 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


Return to Top of Page