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[S&V] [IC] The exploits of the Stardancer and her daring crew
feeddannow
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Episode 1: "Once in a Blue Moon"
The crew of the Stardancer was hired by the reclusive info-broker, Citani, to deliver a small, well-sealed box to the moon of Warren for a *very* particular client who desired to remain anonymous. All you had to do was pick up the box from it's current owner and bring it to the contact at their place on Warren. 6 Cred, paid in full on delivery - no questions asked.
Simple.
The Blue Moon was just another dirty dive, in a city that crawled with dirty dive bars. The only thing that set this one apart from the four others within easy view is it's Neon-lit sign that buzzes and flickers in glass letters "Blu Moo " as some of the letters had given up the ghost long ago.
The air outside the bar is thick with smog, and entering into the bar doesn't do much to improve the atmosphere. Loud music plays from speakers hidden along the walls, clouds of smoke hang over crowded tables of patrons - slowly killing themselves with their vices of choice.
On the way in, someone recognizes the crew and points you all towards a private booth - its privacy curtain drawn closed. This is where your contact will be waiting.
Sitting down to conclude the deal, you see that your contact is dead, covered in fresh blood. Taking a quick look around the bar, the situation gets even more dire: what are those House Malklaith guards doing, drinking at the bar? And on what about those people at the table near the door? They're too well-geared, and haven't touched their drinks at all. They're eyeballing the booth.
This is not an ideal place to pick a fight - and you have the feeling that you'll be cornered in a few moments.
How will you escape? Will you try to talk your way out of this? Slip out the back? Perhaps steal a few getaway vehicles from some tough-looking hoverbike riders parked outside? The choice is up to you - the clock starts now.
10-Segment Clock: "The Getaway"
Current Progress: - - - - - - - - - - (0/10)
On completion: The crew escape their pursuers and live long enough to figure out who set them up.
Current Progress: - - - - - - - - - - (0/10)
On completion: The crew escape their pursuers and live long enough to figure out who set them up.
feeddannow on
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Despite the crew of the Stardancer not being entirely welcome in Malklaith territories, the one good thing about the urban sprawl of Aleph's moon was that there were always people willing to let you park - for a price or a favor. Bogh's Docks were not necessarily ideal for this mission, as they were some ways away from the intended drop-off location
"Is good - far away, no-one suspecting you go there!"
nor was it the most reputable place in Warren for the safekeeping of a vessel
"What? You think I run day-care for ships? Security cost extra, friend!"
it did have one redeeming feature - it's owner despised Governor Malklaith for some past slights against him.
"That slimy worm! Try to steal my livelihood, force me out - install some nitwit nothing nephew here!"
expectorated the small blue Xeno dock-owner, "Well, no worries to you - if they want me to report illegal ships entering here, they ought to give me back what's mine first!"
And so, Taggart and the crew of the Stardancer were invited to dock their vessel - and with a knowing wink of all of its eyes, Bogh greeted them as delivery team disembarked.
One hour later...
The Stardancer's engines still plinked and whirred, cooling from its exploits of the day while the remaining crew busied theirselves with the care and maintenance of the vessel. Time passed by slowly for them as they went through checklists and routines, it had been a few weeks since they last made a real dock to go over the beautiful star-yacht-turned-cargo-runner.
Quietly, a red light started flashing on the dash-panel of the pilot's console. Proximity alert. Someone was outside the ship. An exterior-mounted camera flickered onscreen at the pilot's command: two figures, one male and one female - both wearing gear that sets them apart from the random ruffians and goons that you might normally encounter in the slums of Warren - these are professionals. The female silently gestures directly towards the camera, and within a moment the camera goes dead. Switching to another, the team gets only a split second before it too goes down.
What do you do? Do you try to hail the intruders? Or do you try to spring a trap on them if they try to board? Do you risk taking off with the Stardancer - despite the attention it might draw for an unauthorized launch? The choices are limitless, but time is not!
Current Progress: - - - - - - - - (0/8)
If the clock reaches completion, local authorities will arrive on scene to complicate matters.
When the camera feeds to the exterior of the ship began to go out, Alecksi leaned forward and shared a look with Taggart, the ship's pilot. This might be a simple case of mistaken identity, but in any case it wasn't a good idea to let some door-knockers bang around on the outside of the ship without at least trying to warn them off.
Alecksi dusts off a good-natured public-interface subroutine in its memory banks and switches open an audio channel to the comm panel at the main hatch, presumably where the two are still standing.
"Pawdon me, gento-sentients, but we couldn't hewp but notice you messing awound out dewo. Pohaps you'd cawe to expwain yosewves befow we take this up wif the yawd authowity-woeities?"
Alecksi still had its vocal settings saved from the last time it used this module, in a pediatrics ward. Whoops.
The two well geared people outside the ship break out some nasty looking weapons.
Aleksi shakes its head and reinitializes its vocal processes. That apparently came out all wrong, and things are getting worse. The bot reaches deep into the long-unused portions of its training materials for the HR sections on how to talk down weapon-toting threats in the workplace. Though, from the way things have been going, it would have to start putting those files in a more readily available cache...
"All right, let's not start doing anything we're all going to regret. Put the toys back in their boxes and we can talk this over like civilized minds."
Success, a 6! +1 Gambit for the crew. (Current total, including Juju's shenanigans: 4)
The two heavily geared people open a channel to the ship's comms - how they got access so quickly to that, you're uncertain - the male voice cuts in - "Nothing personal, but this ship has something that someone wants badly enough to hire us to get it. We're coming in there - and it'd be a great day for everyone if I didn't have to clean your crew's blood off of my nicest boots." The voice is distinctly bland - you think there's some software at work, masking it of too many identifying features. Professionals. But hey, they're talking!
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
She saunters into the booth and plops herself right next to their contact, takes in the situation and comes to two conclusions:
a) The bastard ate the cake.
b) They're probably in trouble.
Following that, she promptly and descreetly cases the body for id, credsticks, valuables, cool gadgets and candy.
The contact's pockets are mostly devoid of interesting things - he had a wallet and some identification papers, which are obviously bad forgeries. He was wearing a ring - it's sitting nicely in your own pockets now, because it was shiny. The ring may or may not have beeped when you took it off of his dead finger. Unfortunately, prying the ring from the finger shifted the weight of the corpse that was precariously perched to begin with and the contact's dead body slumped heavily forward, the head contacting the table. The noise is startling.
The body of the contact is now slumped unfortunately face-first on the table. But Juju got an *interesting* ring out of it.
Entering the Blue Moon, Juju immediately noticed a bunch of armed Malklaith stooges at the bar. Although this seemed in no way relevant to their mission, Juju would just hate to miss an opportunity to mess with the authorities. And so she used Lenny's balk and his tendency to command all attention to slip outside of their field of vision and all sneaky like lace their drinks while they stared at the armored alien. Good thing she brought those next gen Turner Society #hallucinogenics, in case she had to pay for the cake...
Lacing the drinks seems to work really well... so well in fact that two of the guards start giggling and flapping their arms around - which does have the unfortunate side effect of slapping a tray out of a waitress' hands... ruining some cake. It must have been someone's birthday? The hijinks of the Malklaith guards attract attention away from the private booth - for the moment. Who'd have thunk that'd pay off? Oh, but the cake! The delicious cake is on the floor!
Taggart reflexively grips the handle of the blaster ensconced in his leg holster. Its familiar contours seemingly propel him into action, and he rolls out of his chair and down the corridor, towards the boarding hatch. As he does, he pulls his communicator out of his pocket.
“Charlie! I need you to get up to the cockpit and start pre-flight. Don’t power up the drive - I don’t want our energy signature to give us away, but I want to be ready to burn atmo’ if needs be.”
A staccato series of whirrs and beeps sounds out from the other end of the comm.
“In the meantime, I think I should make any forced entry as hard as possible on these bastards as possible.”
Upon arriving at the hatch, Taggart pulls out his fine mechanic’s kit and gets to work disabling the servos power the door.
“First we slow them down, then we prepare a little welcoming gift…”
The Stardancer's internal workings are a labyrinthine thing - these old luxury yachts seemed like they were made to be difficult to tinker with and charge their owners extraordinary prices for refits and repairs - still, you didn't spend all that time in pilot-school to be thwarted by a bunch of dumb wires and fail-safes. Just cut here and ... you hear the doors locking tight. What's that flashing light on the panel, though? Engine light? What?
Mere moments after the light appears, a cacophony of beeps sounds out over the comm.
“Hey, you watch your mouth, Charlie! I see the warning light, too! Just-just...do the best you can!”
Taking a moment to address his crewmate, Sierra states the obvious.
"You know we're in trouble, right?
Do we want to handle this the quiet way, loudly?
Sierra pauses a beat.
That was a joke. You know damned well I don't do quiet. You may want to duck back until things get loud.
Rising to his feet, Sierra artlessly sends the exo suit bumbling across the floor, "accidentally" nudging bar patrons into one another, bumping tables and spilling drinks on unsuspecting revelers. Keeping just half a step ahead of the spreading wave of chaos behind him, Sierra slams into one of the Malklaiths, aiming for the one who looks most influenced by the doctored drink.
Like, really badly. Rolling 6 dice, I got 11. Four ones, a three and a four.
I'm not sure exactly what that translates too in this system, but I'm betting things are about to get interesting for team delivery.
Aware that he was being watched, Locke bowed for his onlookers. Addressing Juju and Sierra , "Friends, now may be a good time for us to say our farewells." he said before running through the hole he just made.
#flashback
Alan wipes some cytotic oil off his hands with a twist and sends the used rag on a graceful arc across the engine bay where it hits the edge of the trash receptacle and bounces out. With a grimace of disgust, the ship's mechanic walks all the way over to his errant trash, talking to himself. "Seriously ... Well, okay, that covers the post-flight inspection, I've got the engines in standby, and the away team ... is away. Not much else to do but re ..." He pauses, holds a single finger up, and spins, his eyes searching the room. Suddenly, he locks on to his target, scrambles across to the ducts access port, and palms it open. Reaching inside, he pulls out a small, wheeled drone, tucking it under his arm and moving with purpose to the ship's main hatch. Stepping briefly outside, Alan places the drone on the ground and presses several buttons - first on the drone, and then on his datapad. The drone quickly cycles on, runs its diagnostics, and peels out into landing bay - a few moments later, all is quiet. Alan examines his datapad briefly, then pumps his fist triumphantly before heading back into the ship's bowels.
Meanwhile, back at Team Valet ...
The insistent warning beep of a cat2 error code catches Alan off-guard, and he scrambles out from under the port lateral adjuster, rushing over to the console. He pulls on his ship's comms headset, and presses the General Suppress button on the console, mercifully silencing the alarm. He quickly scans the schematic readout, and identifies the source of the error. "Wait, what? Taggart, how did you ... ? What kind of idiot designer would even route ... ? Okay, okay, we can fix this ... But first, I've got some extra eyes outside. Lemme patch that in to the ship's video feed ..." Alan grabs a data cable and hooks his datapad into the ship's camera system. In a moment, the view from his drone's camera is available, and the automated search protocol that Alan had loaded up earlier was about to bear fruit, when ...
CRACK! There's a loud sound and a reverberant echo shortly after. The drone's camera feed cuts out - though it continues to broadcast the occasional bit of location data, indicating ... Yeah, it had gone into hostile avoidance mode, and was now hiding somewhere under the ship. And it was going to need a manual reset to get it to start looking again ... "Okay, well, sorry for that, I guess I don't have eyes outside because someone seems to have shot them. Big gun. I guess they don't care if anyone hears them knocking on our door or not. And also our friends at the door have sniper coverage, so that's lovely."
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Seeing the thugs briefly occupied by Lenny's blessed antics, Trublz zooms in on the miraculously untrampled cake. Trapped under a table, right in the middle of the scuffle, its siren's call plays a sweet counterpoint to the general mayhem and fear of horrible laser death.
Suddenly she bolts like a demon, inexplicably into the room, pupils dialated, running on all fours at a breakneck speed. Dodging legs and bodies, she slides under the table, deftly yet surprisingly gently, grabs the cake box with her tail and bursts from the other side. Hitting the wall there, she runs, as if posessed, around the bar, until she reaches the booth and, without stopping, cackling madly, triumphantly dives over the mystic's head through the newly made hole in the wall. The cake trails her into the darkness, mocking all comprehension or common sense.
In the Blue Moon, after taking a space tazer to the back...
With a faint grind of servos and whine of charging capacitors, Sierra staggers back to his suits feet. Arms raised amicably, calling for peace, Sierra takes a couple steps back towards the booth, trying to maneuver in such a way as to keep the well equipped force in front, but trying not to make it look obvious.
"I'm sure we can handle this like civilized sophonts, without call for further violence. Why don't we have a seat and get a drink? You must be thirsty, you've hardly touched what you ordered. You can tell us what you want, and maybe make an offer if it's something we have available? Then we all leave as friends."
A small plume of smoke and a jet of sparks is produced as another overloaded capacitor bursts.
Juju bolts for the cake, then for freedom, causing a moment of confusion for the delivery crew to exploit
Taking advantage of the brief moment of confusion resulting Juju's mad cake scramble, Sierra darts out the newly added opening in the wall, leaving a trail of sparks cascading into the darkness.
"I'll owe you that drink... Rain check?"
"Looks like you've thought ahead, so you clearly have more functioning brain cells than most on this rock. I'm not going to insult your intelligence by suggesting that you'd believe me if I said we don't have whatever it is you're looking for. Still, there's the off chance that we do have it, and we might be willing to just hand it over to avoid ruining those fine boots you mentioned. Why don't you at least tell us what you're ready to get into a heap of trouble over, and maybe we can settle this without any unnecessary bloodshed?"
A brief pause, and then, "And, just to cover our bets, how much might it take to convince you to go back to your client and tell them you couldn't find us?"
Alecksi turns off the mic to the outside speaker and thumbs to comm to the away team. "Heads up, but we have a situation brewing on the doorstep, including at least one lookout who's not afraid to put a bullet in us the moment we pop our heads out. Please tell me your part was uneventful, and we can truthfully tell these people to go knocking on someone else's greasy door."
Further comms are likely to have no effectt, unless you can produce the Aleph Key. You're not sure what that is - unless it's the package your crewmembers were meant to deliver.
To The Mechanic and The Pilot: "They say they want something called an Aleph Key. Is that worth what's about to go down, or is this fight going to be another 'principle of the thing' moments?"
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
"This wall is the back of the Blue Moon, if things go sideways, and when something sounds this good it's likely things aren't going to stop at just 'sideways', we go through this wall, and get home."
A meaningful glance towards the Mystic "You can get through that wall, right? I've seen you do some crazy things with that blade of yours..."
An affirmative from the Mystic.
"Good. Now, keep watch for me for a moment, if we have to come out this way, we should have a surprise waiting for them. If we don't have to come this way, we should have enough time to collect my little toy."
Sierra walks to the wall and follows it a short way down the alley towards the bay and the ship, and affixes a small but powerful shaped charge to a nearby wall near the ground, then shifts a pile of rubbish to hide it from curious eyes, and a handful of heavier chunks of rubble to add some additional shrapnel to the chaos. A few minor adjustments to synchronize the frequency for the remote detonator and arm the device and Sierra stands back upright and addresses his companions...
"If we come this way, get past this point before you think about slowing down. Don't look back, don't wait for me, and, most importantly, don't fall behind. I'll be bringing up the rear, and when I pass this point, it goes boom."
"Being fragile most my life, and then piloting a heap like this encourages one to think ahead. Don't think that I'm dumb just because I'm clumsy and tend to take my time."
Roll of four for a success with complications.
As they leave the alleyway, Sierra looks back at the explosive. That indicator was supposed to be amber, right? Of course it was. It's always supposed to be amber...
Now ...Now...
The Kitty dashes into the darkness, light on her feet, the only sound a triumphant howl as she flashes past the explosive before Sierra fully clears the impromptu exit from the Blue Moon. A solid push in the Mystics back sends him rushing forward. "Remember what I said, go, run! I'm right behind you."
The heavy suit lumbers down the alleyway behind the mystic. No grace now, no carefully dodging around the stacked piles of refuse and detritus. An unstoppable juggernaut crashing through the darkness pursued by crimson darts of energy.
There! The familiar stack of rubble.
A handful of steps further, another one, that should be clear enough of the blast radius.
I press the trigger on the detonator and a thunderous explosion fills the alleyway with light, sound and shrapnel, then screams and body parts.
"This should do the trick..."
He gets to work splicing the cabling directly onto the underside of the deck plating. As he frantically readies...whatever this is, the sound of metal on metal can be heard coming from the loading hatch. Spurred to ever greater heights of speed and safety violations, Taggart finishes integrating the power cables with the deck plates.
"Hmm, this will probably give them one helluva dead leg, but I don't think there's enough juice flowing through here to take them out..."
Taggart quickly follows the cabling back to the junction box and opens it up to assess the lines running through the hub.
"That won't work, that'll kill us, that'll kill us...ah! Here we go!"
His soliloquy is punctuated by an ear-splitting shriek. The gunmen have apparently attached some sort of device to the door and are forcing it open, locked servos be damned.
With a flick of his knife, Taggart cuts away the protective coating on the wires leading to the integrated cargo handler. He then fishes out a length of wire from his kit and ties it into both sets of cabling.
"That outta do it...though there's no way this system is rated for this kind of load."
Taggart glances back at the hatch. Daylight streams through the ever-widening crack in the door as their machine's spreader claws work their way into the crevice.
"Oh, shit, time to run!"
Taggart rushes for the exit just as the door finally gives up the ghost and springs open. The two gunmen hurry inside, firing at the Pilot.
With a cry just a shade too high-pitched to be considered heroic, Taggart leaps into the corridor, mashing the remote entry button in his hand as he does.
Normally, this would cause power to course into the servos that open and close the docking bay door. Now, however, that power is tied into the deck plating, which sends the energy straight into the pair of gunmen. Then, it's just a matter of flipping a second switch in the corridor that would normally turn on the integrated cargo handler.
Unfortunately, Taggart was just a shade too slow to catch both gunmen. The mercenary captain clambered atop a crate just as he activated the second switch. The first gunman, though, was less situationally aware, and quickly succumbed to the flood of electricity coursing through his body.
The explosion causes Sierra to stumble a bit, going to one knee most of the blast and debris scatters around the hulking frame. They're too well geared and equipped to stop pursuing us without some additional convincing. Sierra turns to engage, and charges towards the nearest standing thug.
Generally, when most people think of the martial arts, they picture graceful maneuvers and measured, controlled blows. A veritable symphony of sinew, bones and flesh coming together to form a perfect strike then block, counter and strike again. A delicate, yet brutal dance between the opponents, each maneuvering for the precise, perfect moment.
That... is not what happens here.
There is no artistry, no grace, in this attack. Just an absolute mastery of the application of overwhelming power. Power designed to haul heavy equipment and bore through solid stone. Power intended to move tons of earth, ore and minerals miles along underground tracks. Power now applied to flesh, bones and sinew.
A reinforced durasteel leg twists high, catching the first pursuer in the chest. She folds around the leg like a ragdoll, the kick completes, sending her cascading into a brick wall she bounces, then slackly collapses into a heap of rubble.
A quick look assures that she won't be rising any time soon, if ever. Sierra starts to ponderously turn his frame towards the remaining pursuer, bracing to make another attack as Juju's leap takes her off one alley wall, over Sierra, pausing for a moment on the reinforced exoframe to reassess the angle of her attack before leaping into the face of the pursuer behind Sierra, claws extended...
Bonus die for for "fine" martial arts, Wrecking crew, pushing myself
(4+3+2+5+1)
"Wat the fff..." She turns around to see Lenny's exo plowing with a graceless, but brutal kick into one of the dazed thugs.
"Leave sum for meeeeeow!" She screams, as she gently puts down the cake, leaps into the air, pushes of a wall and lands on the thug left standing, just as he takes aim at SierraEcho's back...
Group scrap roll risky/standard 2d6, -1 gambit, partial success
After the blast passed, he turned to see how his allies were faring; only to see them in the middle of a skirmish. Pocketing the odd box he found, he again produced a katar-like blade from his right arm sleeve. Ignoring Lenny's "plea" for them not to turn back after the bomb went off, the mystic bolted back to his compatriots.
Finding Juju wrangling with a thug and Sierra ready to pounce as soon as an opening presented himself. Locke slid by them, using his blade to cut the thug's Achilles tendon - bringing him to the ground. Locke then quickly stood up and slashed at the thug's blaster wielding arm disarming him. He then proceeded to punch the thug in the face with his off-hand.
"All according to plan, right?
He said with a smirk as he glanced over to the thug Lenny had drop kicked.
Scrap Roll (2, + 1 gambit, +1 fine blade, + 1 push)= 2,6,2,6,6
"Hey Boss-man! The drop-off went really far south-like. Contact'z dead and we had sum seeeeerious lookin' thug-peeplz n'local popo on our tailz. You might wanna warm dem enginez up, yes? We comin' in soon."
Sierra whispers to Juju "Don't tell them about the bomb. You know how antsy the Captain gets when I'm making explosives... one little mistake and they never let you live it down..."
"Wat explosion?" the Kitty replies, while lazily picking bits of flesh out of her fur.
After palming the thug's communicator and finding nothing else of worth, there was nothing left to do, but to make their way back to the Stardancer. After walking for a while, the ground team hailed a cab, lamenting again that their friggin starship did not have a shuttle. Juju used her fake IDs and made some googly eyes at the driver, to get him to take a circuitous route. It wouldn't be professional to just lead anyone who might be interested straight to the freighter. Might have worked better if they bothered to wipe Lenny's exo down from all the gore... or if Juju remembered to hide the communicator, sporting the emblem of the Scarlet Wolves. He's all sympathetic as he goes "I'd love to help more - but I also love living." Was there a glint of avarice in his eye? Juju remains suspicious for a few more moments, until she realises that the bastard drove off with her cake! After all she went through, that evil genius will have her cake and eat it too! Was he a part of some clandestine organisation of cake thieves? A Foodie in holographic disguise? Was the attack just a diversion? Well played villain. Well. Played. Juju does a slow clap and soon notices that Lenny and Shroud have already started the slog back to the docks. She hurries to catch up, vowing that she will have her revenge...
Taggart's voice crackles over the radio, very obviously out of breath.
"Dead....great. No, it's fine. Everything's fine. We're having some goon trouble ourselves. Managed to take one of them out, but I missed the crazy bint in charge."
The line goes silent for moment, then he comes back on.
"Was that loud-ass explosion you guys?"
SierraEchoYesterday at 10:27 PM
Sierra cuts in his com line. "Might have been. A city this size, there could have been any number of explosions. Who knows if the one you heard was.... wait, no. That couldn't have been us. You know I'm not allowed to play with explosives anymore, Juju never showed the interest in things that go boom, not when there's anything that can be eaten nearby. And Locke... well, he does a lot of stuff, but BOOM doesn't really seem to fit his MO, right? So, that explosion might have occurred near us, but it certainly wasn't me, er... us. I'd like that noted in the log... We're keeping a ship's log, right?
"But let's talk about your goon troubles... They were outside the ship, right? You just spin the engines up to full and roast them real good?
Skalding_SkaldYesterday at 10:46 PM
"Funny thing, the well-trained mercs actually didn't stand behind thing marked 'WARNING: Standing Behind Engine During Operation Could Result in Death'. And, even if they had been that dumb, spooling up a ship's engine ain't exactly like cranking up a hover-bike. It takes time, and it's real obvious what you're doing. Not to mention the sniper probably would've started putting holes in our ship real quick if we'd tried. ...By the way, watch out for the sniper."
SierraEchoYesterday at 10:55 PM
"Some day we'll attract the attention of stupid mercs. And that's going to be a real interesting day.
Speaking of interesting things, something interesting about the ones chasing us: they all had similar tattoos, red dogs or wolves or something. Don't suppose that rings any bells for you?
Mercs, even smart, literate mercs that know to avoid the back blast areas, love to talk about themselves. Maybe letting them know about the pile of body parts with tattoos that mysteriously appeared near the Blue Moon might give them something to think about... assuming it's the same crew.