Star Frontiers Network

[OOC: the HS 2 ship is approximately 5m in diameter and the area around the hatch where the burrows are is approximately 3-4 meters. The burrows do not surround the ship, they are in the lee of the sand dune that accumulated from blowing sand. The ship is canted over a little from having settled some. The outer hatch stands open but the interior hatch is closed. The following is a quick charcoal sketch I did for visual reference though the ship is probably portrayed as too narrow in diameter. On the far side is opposite the hatch is the assault rocket magazine hatch that is standing open as it appears that the pirate off loaded the assault rockets.]

IC: Gideon locates a fist sized rock and tosses it at a burrow entrance and one of the lizard/snake creatures lunges out at it hissing but darts back for cover when it realizes its a rock.

"Vibrations..."Gideon mutters. "They react to vibrations. If we had a hovercraft, or possibly a sonic screen to dampen our footsteps*, we could at least approach the vessel. One thing's for sure, nobody will get near it without attracting those critters."

* after all sound is a vibration...

The tin can robot hovers.

Can it support the weight of a character? Barring that it can be used for recon.

Grekka thinks to herself "Why do they always send my robots to do the dangerous stuff?"

I ruled that since it was smaller than a standard robot which could carry 150 that it would be able to carry 100 kilos, Its always possible to over load something for a short period (minutes) though that carries a risk (assigned chance of something breaking). What is your character's wt plus his carried equipment?

EDIT: Its started out carrying 100 kg of water, minus 12L for the first day, minus 14 for the second day (kurabunga tag along) so you have 74L left for the robot to carry in various containers strapped together

Kriss reaches down to one of his pouches and pulls out the mostly expended ammunition clip used from the fight in the trees with the Pirates. He strips off the final two rounds from it and hands it over to Gideon. "This help?

Maybe we can try a different approach to the ship and climb up? There's no telling how deep those holes go with these creatures."

BTW: the Cut Scenes thread is for story telling of things that happen off camera that your PCs dont see but that you as a player can be privy too as it impacts the story.
you dont have to follow that thread but you might divine clues from it as a player if you do.

I've not been able to discover what Sam was planning when he started the campaign so I've been investing a lot of thought into what I want to do for background secrets as well as stringing the modules together in a logical fashion. I've ironed out a lot of stuff but not all the wrinkles, just enough to keep the volturnus story arc going and set things up for latter.

Note to Rattraveller I'm sending you an email that details some "cop' knowledge that Grekka has due to her police and vrusk background. you may feel free to use it in your posts and I'm open to you embellishing it though would like an email heads up for big embellishments that so that we dont end up with story in-continuities.

Off loading the water from the robot Grekka performed a quick maintenance check clearing sand from the hover fan of the robot. Her continued efforts in monitoring it was probably what had prevented any problems with using a robot designed fro ships and space stations in the wilderness and now the desert.

"I think the robot can handle carrying us one at a time. Who should go first?" she queried?

Kahn took this moment to dole out more water to everyone's personal water bladders (even the young kurabunga had skin bladder that almost held a full liter).

When Keeno understood what the team was looking to do he collected a pile of rocks and positioned himself to one side to toss rocks at the burrows and try to distract the snakes. It was exactly the activity that had gotten him sprayed with acid by the acid spitters that had required J.J. to rescue him but he seemed game for the activity.

Rigel strips down of all his non-essential gear. "I'll go if nobody else is volunteering."

Kriss hesitantly steps forward and trying not to make eye contact with Grekka, "I umm, may have a certain set of skills that may be of use here if the robot can get me up there."

Kriss and Rigel piggy back on the robot one at a time while JJ assists Keeno with taking pot shots at the burrows with rocks. The burrower creatures eventually become bewildered and hiss nastily from just inside burrower openings.

Kriss and Rigel examine the air lock [both have detective skill so they support each other in the examination]. They discover a pulley laser welded just inside the outer door and deduce it was used for lowering heavy items from the ship. Marks and dings in the air lock suggest that equipment was moved off ship as well.

"Look at this Kriss." Rigel gestures toward the loosened control panel. The panel is hanging by just one bolt and a power cell of some sort has been wired into the panel.

"It looks like they were using this to power the inner door I think. This power pack is a rechargeable back up used in ships and equipment for when main power goes offline these packs keep control systems powered so that they can be operated. Someone pull this one from inside a control consul to power this door but this pack is not dead. When you do this you pretty much ruin the power cell, same thing can be done with a 20 SEU clip as well."


"Can you see anything through the window in the door?"
Kriss scrubs at the dirty glass with his palm and tries to shine a flashlight but cant really tell what's beyond the inner air lock door, "Nah. there are no interior lights on."


OOC- ooops had to edit my post I missed that Kriss had technician skill- I've long thought of Dalmar as the team's technician.

OOC: Yeah Kriss is as well.

It's a little late but:
BIC:
Dalmar uses his laser pistol to cover the characters crossing over the pit field. If any thing attacks the characters at the ship, he'll fire at it.

Gideon graciously accepts the final two rounds from Kriss and snaps them into his auto rifle magazine, bringing his bullet count up to 16...enough for a pair of three round bursts and a full spray if need be. As such he will keep the rifle trained on the burrows as the 'bot ferries the team one by one to the hatch.

When it comes Gideon's turn to ferry across, he will be able to fit within the payload parameters with his full gear (carried gear that is)...although if push comes to shove he isn't comfortable leaving the survival supplies unattended while everyone noses around inside.

Grekka stands after cleaning the robot's hover fans and says, "One at a time we should be able to get across. I will check the robot after each trip and make sure we are not overloading the systems. I should point out I will not be able to go in this way to the ship. Since we Vrusk are as long as we are tall I can not balance on the robot. I will also keep a watch out for anything else that may come this way and give a warning."

Rigel asks Kriss, "Isn't there suppose to be a manual override on these doors or do we have to power it?"

"Yes there is a manual override but you're not suppose to be able to use it without first closing the outer door but perhaps the pirates already disabled it. As to powering it; you will work up a sweat especially in this heat. That's why the pirates pulled a console power pack so they could open and close the door without a lot of trouble. For us to power it we're going to have to ruin a 20 SEU clip and ammo is likely to be in short supply so perhaps we'll just muscle it open."

Rigel and Kriss fussed with the manual override and cranked the door open with it taking 20 minutes. The interior of the ship was cool however with the sun coming up it promised to heat the upper levels of the vessel for sure. There is a horrible horrible smell as well.

[Note that map I'll be using does have a few issues but I don't want to fuss with mapping software that has been a pain in my back side this year so lets just pretend there is a proper air lock on sub deck between decks 2-3 and that it accesses the elevator and ladder well this is where you enter the ship and its described below. I'll post deck maps as you venture there.]

Kriss and Rigel discovered a small room beyond the inner air lock door with two lockers for vacuum suits one stands open and the other is shut and locked. There were other lockers bolted to the wall but its obvious that they were removed.The door to the elevator shaft stands open as well as the door to the ladder well (both are jammed open with a wedge of metal). In the elevator shaft two lines of rope dangle. A wall panel stands open with a small crate sized recess in it. The smell is pretty bad.

OOC: Grekka has opted to guard the stuff; who else is going?

Kriss moves his head back quickly from the smell in the elevator shaft and looks to RIgel, "If me and you are going to be doing this, I'll take this one and you get the next smally hole we have to explore?

We should check out that other locker out too! I may be able to get into the locked one if I'm lucky!"

Kriss works on the lock for a few minutes before it pops open, "Yep, i just got lucky!"

Once the door opens they find one source of the stench, inside the locker is a body that first decomposed then partially mummified.

"Whoa," explaims Rigel, "if that's what you call luck I'll settle for bad luck."

Rigel passes Dalmar just entering the airlock and yells to the rest outside, "We need the Doc in here, there's a body for him to examine."

Kahn comes aboard and says, "That is decomp but not quite as bad as I expected."

Other's comment on it being bad enough but Kahn's quick examination of the corpse in place generates an initial report that he half mumbles to himself, "Partially dessicated human corpse, cause of death appears to be dehydration, fingers worn to the bone." A little louder he says, "It looks like they just locked him in the locker and left him in the dark. It probably took a few days to die. Absolutely cruel this was."

Gingerly, Kahn pats the pockets on the ragged ship jump suit. "Nothing." The interior of the locker is smeared with brown stains from dried blood. "Maybe best to just close the locker door for now and bury him later after we've cleared the ship."

EDIT: You also realize from poking your heads into the elevator shaft that the elevator is stopped at the top blocking access to deck 1 and the dangling rope is run through a pulley welded to the underside of the elevator. Deck 2 above you and deck 3 below you have their elevator doors propped open. The ladder well runs parallel to the elevator (its a backup method of accessing decks when the elevator is down). The doors in the ladder well are all propped open as well. Somebody notes that the elevator shaft lacks a recessed ladder in the side of the shaft that is usually standard in newer model ships, which indicated that this ship is probably an older model likely dating back to before the First Sathar War.

Again the airlock and the suit bay you are in is a subdeck between decks 3 and 2

"Well, since what is probably the bridge is blocked at the moment," Dalmar says after looking in the elevator shaft, "I say we start at the bottom and work our way up. We can haul the elevator down to a lower level once we get to that point."

Since Grekka has volunteered to stay behind with the survival goods Gideon will venture with the group...however he will position himself at the entry hatch and alternate between being inside the ship (to briefly escape the heat) and offering Grekka an eye in the sky so to speak.