A relaxing little journey
SF SCENARIO
by S.D. Anderson
The PCs are on the planet Lacitara, a slightly out of the way planet
known for minimal enforcement of almost non-existant shipping
regulations. In short, it's ideal for shipping lines wishing to avoid
maintenence standards, and independent traders flying outdated hulks that
should have been scrapped in the last century. Smugglers love it too,
since little attention is given to what arrives and leaves.
While they are there, the case of Dr. Galatea Shafton is brought to
their attention. Dr. Shafton was ship's surgeon on a recently drydocked
cargo ship, the "Mason's Jar". The fire that destroyed the ship's ftl
drive released radioactive smoke into the living quarters. She's been
out of work since the ship set down for repairs.
(Successful investigation will reveal that Shafton is too good
a physician to stay out of work. Shafton is very talented, and able
to work under extreme conditions, and deperate enough to work for the
sort of pay the Captain of the Mason Jar would pay. Other ships
should have made serious efforts to hire her. None have. What's
occured is that she's been illegally blacklisted by the insurance
cartel and can't get a ship to hire her. It seems that one passenger
on the Mason Jar was allegic to the only anti-rad medicine the ship
had. Shafton jury rigged her scanning equipment to replicate a DNA
repairing technique used for radiation exposure up until 80 years
ago. It's drawback is that it tends to damage memory RNA in the
process. Her patient lived. The insurer had to pay for very
expensive memory restoration therapy instead simpler death benefits.
Someone in the company made the decision to see Dr. Shafton was made
an example for other physicians.)
Shafton has been working at a clinic near the largest of the
planet's seven spaceports, barely meeting ends. She vanished 2 days
ago.
No one has seen her since she closed up the clinic at 23:00.
People looking for her have established that she never reached her
apartment. A review of the clinic's security cameras showed she
left the clinic at 23:13 without any sign of anything being amiss.
A couple of people did see a pair of BIG Ahsarites lurking near
the clinic at 22:45, and again at 23:02 (To answer the player who will
inevitably ask, there is a large clock on the building.) The two were
not seen by people passing by at 23:16 or at any later time. Ahsarites
are an alien species, Silicon based. Relatively stupid, and with a racial
tendency towards stubborness, but equally obedient to anyone they accept
as their leader(s), they have a hide that is as flexible as thick leather
but harder than jade, and as such are perfect thugs. The normal
Ahsarite is quite strong enough to crush human bone. The ones described
sound tough enough to crush Ahsarite bones.
A background check of Shafton will reveal she was once the doctor
for a mercenary company known as Haydn's Raiders. The Raiders were a
small but respectable merc outfit last hired to protect an oil refinery
on the colony world of Cathode. Cathode had rebelled against the mother
world and had splintered into countless minor governments. The Raiders
job was to keep the refinery under control of the corporation that
owned it, GrahaMAX limited.
They probably could have too, except that GrahaMAX sent
it's own troubleshooter, Terrence Haentridge along and put him in
charge. The man was experienced in terroist/extortion negotiations,
but in small operations, ie hit a specific room in a specific building
and liberate the hostages, but had a commanding presence. Haentridge
talked the talk very well indeed but walked the walk a little less
surely.
He fell for a diversion and the local militia sent in to
nationalize the refinery were victorious.
The local government had the survivors "tried" as war criminals.
The mercs were executed, except for Shafton, who as a physician,
was "convicted" of slightly lesser "crimes". She was assigned some
politically correct euphemism for "Slave of the State", and put to
work in a local hospital.
A union of the local government with a couple of neighbors into a
federation 18 months later led to a general pardon of political
prisoners, including Galatea Shafton. She wasted little time getting
out of the new federation's borders and off planet, taking a contract
with the Mason's Jar.
POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS:
1) The federation realized she shouldn't have been pardoned after
she went off planet, and sent a team to bring her back. (Reality
check: Shafton isn't worth it to the government. If anything, they'd
like to forget they ever held her. However, two PCs who went through
this adventure stuck to this idea like they were super glued to it.)
2) The Raiders weren't really executed. Some sort of deal was
worked out and the Raiders are now doing dirty deeds for some covert
operations agency. Somewhere along the way, they lost the medic they'd
been using and someone asked the agency if they could get Shafton back.
The agency is recruiting her in it's own manner: They've
"disappeared" her.
3) Somebody wanted by the authorities is in need of medical aid.
Shafton was grabbed because she was available.
When the PCs go through Shafton's apartment, the phone will
ring, and a sales call will be recorded on her message center.
Anyone checking the phone will see another message was picked up since
a friend of Shafton checked the place yesterday. It's a text message
rather than a vocal one. It's purportedly from Shafton. It was
recorded at 13:28 yesterday afternoon.
"Time of message composition: 11:41 date: 13/42/3654 Time of
message transmission: Unknown."
"Exact location unknown, ship preparing for launch, so no one's
watching me now. I have to send this via a carrier wave on the ship
position telemetry. Until the ship actually lifts, there will be no
transmision. I will not be able to use the equipment at that time,
so this message is my only hope. This message will travel through
the system controler's network until the intrusion program I wrote
can connect with the communication's line. I'd have contacted the
police directly except I can't do a normal accessing from this point
and have to use the 60 digit trace code, and the only one of those
I have is on my phone card."
"If this message did get through, it'd arrive on my message
center no later than 4 hours after it was transmitted, which is
how often System Control's computers purge themselves. I have to hope
someone tied into via a direct comm between the time it's sent and
the next purge."
"An Ahsarite came up to me when I left work 13/39. I was grabbed
and told to be quiet or I'd have my arm ripped off. A limo-skimmer
pulled up. I was told to enter. I was kept in holographic blackness
while inside. We drove for a little more than half an hour as far as
I can guess. The skimmer drove into what sounded like a cargo copter.
If the sounds and movements weren't contrived, we flew for another 2
hours minutes. I was forced to wear a helmet that kept me blinded
while we left the skimmer and entered this starship."
"They need me to help a wounded patient who is somewhere off
planet. I believe I will be killed as soon as they no longer need
me. Please HELP."
PCs with electronics and/or computer skills should be impressed
or skeptical about this method of communication. It's possible, but
would take quite an expert. If the PCs check her computer and access
her resume (easy task: her computer is cheap, outdated, slow and not
particularly well protected against hacking - she has nothing she needs
to hide) they'll discover she has that expertise. (Optionally she could
have rigged up some sophisticated defenses in her computer if you want
to make things difficult for the PCs.)
If they accept the message as accurate, the PCs have 2 options:
Try and find the Ahsarites, and/or figure out which ship she left in
based on the data she gave.
If the PCs can access police files, give them a streetwise skill
check with fairly large bonuses to locate the Ahsarites. A normal
streetwise check without Police help.
Zhthreen is an Ahsarite with a habit of yanking off limbs of foes
in fights. "He" matches the general description given, and a police
picture or similar means of identifying "him" will allow the witnesses
to positively state "he" was one of the two waiting near the clinic.
Zhtreen will be rather obstinate about answering questions. Even
a decent bribe will only net an unmodified reaction roll. Beating the
answer out of him may take a lot of effort (and probably cost a PC or
two their lives before "he" is overpowered). At that, the information he
gives isn't much. "He" and "his" partner were hired by some human at the
Hotel Orion bar. The human didn't give his name, and they didn't ask.
The PCs will get one bit of luck at the bar. A fire broke out
there shortly after the Ahsarites were hired. Pure coincidence, but
it's been shut down since. (If a PC or PCs have Luck, let the players
think the advantage they bought let them get this break.) In the dirty
dishes section, two large mugs with Ahsarite fingerprints sit next to a
cocktail glass with a set of human ones. The prints lead to Jose Burgett,
an "arranger" who has a fairly long criminal record.
With sufficient persuasion (force or bribe), he'll name the ship
Dr. Shafton "signed on" with. Attempting to tie him to a kidnapping
will likely fail, and likely drag out the amount of time it takes to
find out where she's going. "It's a dangerous neighborhood. The
Asharites were only to make sure she safely entered her employer's
vehicle when it arrived."
If the PCs take up the other lead, records will show one copter
was airborne both the right length of time, at the right time. It took
off from a point about 20 minutes driving time from the clinic and
landed at a smaller starport to the southeast.
There have been numerous departures of ships from that starport
between the time the copter landed and the time the message appeared
on Shafton's phone. A check with the control system's computer people
will allow them to find out when the most recent purge was done before
the message was recieved. There was only a 1 hour window between purge
and phone call. Only 4 flights lifted off in that time frame. 2
ships belong to large commercial carriers and each ship would have
been surrounded by hundreds of technicians at the time she would have
been walking in a visionless helmet.
One of the two remaining ships is a junk heap. Barely able to
get off planet on it's own power. Hardly the sort of ship someone who
needs a doctor would use. The last one took off from a hangar that is
conveniently isolated from most of the starport. It's also a fast
ship relatively speaking.
Either lead should bring the PCs here.
The company that rents the ship has a fairly elaborate computer.
If it can be cracked, the PCs can learn their ship is heading to a
small rogue planet half a day's travel by FTL. There is enough
evidence in the computer to indicate the planet is a smuggler base.
Their ship was to drop off it's cargo there then make it's regular run.
It's up to the PCs to get to the planet. If they have their own
ship, this is not a problem. If not, you'll have to provide some
convenient transport.
(Option: Shafton isn't quite the helpless hostage and is able
to help things along for the PCs. What follows presumes her to be
"very competent". Disregard or limit her effectiveness in the
following paragraphs if the PCs don't need help.)
Dr. Shafton has had some time to mess with the smuggler's base.
It has only a radio comm center. Half a day's travel by FTL is a
long distance for radio to travel. Even if the transmitter were
powerful enough to reach Lacitara (it isn't) it'd take too long for
a signal to reach the friendly ears. A ship parked in orbit has the
only FTL comm, and she's cut off from that.
If the PCs arrive, they will be detected, barring a ridiculously
well stealthed ship. Shafton has established a program that will give
her control over several base systems, including communications, IF she
types a command word from a specific console in the base.
The detection of the PC ship will sound the alarm that gives her
the chance to act. Working with mercs has given her some decent
martial skills as the three smugglers near that console found out.
She will contact the ship. If the PCs answer, she'll transmit
schematics of the base, showing the best points to attack it, shut
down the defenses around those weak points (however, the gunners can
and will switch to manual control as soon as they've misfired) and
send out a general order to abandon the base. This being standard
procedure in case of a visit by the Sector Navy, most smugglers will
immediately bug out.
At this point, a smuggler will arrive and drop Shafton with
a blaster shot through her right pelvis. It has incapacitated her,
but neither looks, nor is, lethal. It missed bone cauterized the
wound. Aside from basic shock, Shafton should be reasonably healthy
at this point unless the PCs do something that could kill or hurt
her worse.
The PCs should be in position to make their strike at this
point, making the bug out truly necessary. The PCs should be able
to penetrate into the base, deal with some opposition and locate
the Doctor.
Loose ends: Shafton's patient. Depending on how you want
this scenario to go, the person Shafton was taken to help is a
major criminal with a bounty out on him/her/it, wounded in a firefight,
or a valuable prisoner of these criminals.
Options for the latter are: A) The son or daughter of a Merchant
Prince from the planet Deteskeau who contracted Indigo Fever,
B) A Lt. Commander from the Sector Navy, wounded in the battle that
made him/her a captive. He/she has information on a major arms transfer,
and the smugglers want to be able to interrogate their prisoner.
C) or a hostage: The smugglers and pirate rivals have made peace
by exchanging hostages. The health of the hostages keeps the truce
in effect, and their hostage was nearly killed in a fall.
In "competent" mode, Shafton didn't lose consciousness, though she
is badly injured. One of the smugglers is lying nearby, dead. (Shafton
crushed his wind pipe when she struck him.) She will insist on the
PCs rescuing her patient unless the patient is in league with her
kidnappers. She'll have to do some soul searching about rescuing an
"enemy" patient.
Rewards: Loot can be limited by having a self destruct
mechanism activated by the smuggler leader after the bug out begins.
The players may just have time to rescue Shafton and her patient and
leave before taking off (no loot) to having enough time to take some
of the smugglers loot that lies near the PC's ship (random rolled with
a penalty against expensive items (the smugglers would have gotten
those first!) On the other hand, if your game can handle the PCs
getting a decent amount of wealth, there are a lot of valuable goods
and one, maybe two ships the PCs can recover, in addition to any
rewards for taking out the smuggler's base. Admittedly, the
expensive, combat ideal ships the smugglers used escaped, but the
one(s) the PCs get can be worked on.
Dr. Galatea Shafton: 5'6" 127 pounds, eyes: GM's discretion,
hair: GM's discretion, Age: 34 years old, attractive appearance.
Marital Status: Divorced. Legal Status: Pardoned Political
Prisoner from the People's Free State of Burkhardton, Planet of
Cathode, in the Anode system.
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