[TE] Tales of the Fearless Coward
Here is a quick rundown of my group's current Terran Empire adventure.
The Crew:
Janner “Cap” Marineris (Martian – Male) – Captain (Captain)
Kyrella “Ky” Purvree (Fex - Female) – Second in Command and Engineer (Commander)
Harmond “Hard” Burlle (Heavy - Male) – Security Specialist (Lt. Commander)
Nathan “Nate” DuMont (Human - Male) – Espionage Specialist (Lieutenant)
Gremlik “Rem” Ver’shara (Mon’dabi - Male) – Communications Specialist (Lieutenant)
Xerxesterus “Xerx” Yllarziz (Catavalan - Male) – Navigation Specialist (Ensign)
Public Identity:
The crew of the Fearless Coward are mercenary traders, and sometimes smugglers, who travel around the Frontier in a dilapidated, and modified-for-cargo, Gorgon-Class explorer in the year 2638. The Fearless Coward will also occasionally enter the Ackalian Neutral Zone and Vorsan Expanse in pursuit of the all-mighty credit. No job is too big, too small, or too illegal as long as credits can be made.
Secret Identity:
The crew of the Fearless Coward are actually hand-picked officers of the Imperial Navy. The Coward’s mission is to pose as mercenary/merchants and scout the Frontier, while all the time searching for dissidents and attempting to uncover and destroy plots which might threaten the Empire. The crew’s secondary goal is to expand the Empire’s knowledge-base regarding the planets and alien species within the Frontier, Ackalian Neutral Zone, and Vorsan Expanse.
Unknown to everyone except Captain Marineris, Lieutenant DuMont is a member of the Imperial Psionics Foundation, as well as being a member of the Terran Intelligence Command, and has a Psi-Gamma rating. Unknown even to Captain Marineris is that “Lieutenant” DuMont is actually Commander DuMont and was assigned to the ship to make sure the crew did not go renegade during their long undercover mission.
To add a slight twist to things, Commander Purvree is also under orders from the Terran Intelligence Command to keep an eye on Captain Marineris and “Lieutenant” DuMont, and to report anything unusual regarding those two officers to TIC Central immediately. It would seem that the TIC does not trust anyone, and even the watcher’s watcher gets a watcher.
The final secret is that which belongs to Ensign Yllarziz. Yllarziz was raised by Spacers who discovered him as a teenager aboard a destroyed Catavalan freighter. Yllarziz was actually planted on the derelict by the Velarian Confederation in the hope of eventually getting secret operatives within the Terran military and other branches of the Terran Government. In essence, Ensign Yllarziz is a Velarian spy, spying on the spies who are spying for the Terran Government.
Mission 7.1: “Intruder”
The Fearless Coward was in-route to Vinarcus after spending two weeks return-jumping from Kurnoris IV, deep within the former Mandarrian’s space. The mission was a success and the Mandarrian energy crystal, as well as some discovered scientific documents for the TIC, was in the crew’s possession. All Cap had to do now was convince Daber Mo’Ran, “king” of the Black Holes, that the Mandarrian crystal was a spacer’s tale and did not truly exist. Hopefully the Deveran borraxx within the ship’s hold would pacify the smuggler’s anger at the Fearless Coward’s failure. The crew had worked too hard getting into the Black Holes to jeopardize their relationship with Daber now, but as officers of the Empire there was no way they were going to turn over such a sophisticated piece of technology to a criminal.
One jump inside Terran space Rem detected an Ackalian Intruder-Class ship at the extreme edge of their sensor range. The crew knew the Fearless Coward was no match for the Ackalian warship but as members of the Imperial Navy it was their duty to learn why the Ackalian ship was in Terran space. Hopefully this could be done without physical confrontation, but everyone knew it was unlikely. Cap ordered the Coward in to investigate while Hard secretly prepared the ship’s final space nuke. If things turned sour the Coward would get one good shot in. Even if the missile did not destroy the Ackalain ship it would, with luck, disable them long enough for the Coward to get away. To be honest, everyone knew they had little choice. The Ackalian’s hyperdrive was substantially faster than the Coward’’s, and the crew knew they did not have four hours to plot a jump. A strategic first-strike was the only option available.
The Intruder and the Coward were similar in size but the Intruder’s armaments and shielding gave it a far greater tactical advantage. The Coward approached the Intruder from a lower-aft angle. Cap’s strategy was to attack the ship’s aft propulsion units if things turned sour. As the Coward approached Rem began broadcasting standard greetings on the normal merchant’s frequencies. The Intruder made no response; there were no signs of activity at all. If it were not for the slight glow of the Intruder’s hull force field, which allowed the Coward’s sensors to detect it in the first place, the ship would have appeared to be nothing but a lifeless derelict. Fearing a trap, Cap halted the Coward 5,000 km from the Intruder and powered the lasers. Ackalians were not know for being shy and, considering that they were just detected in Terran space, it seemed illogical that they would not make an attempt to destroy a much smaller and weaker ship to protect their treaty violation.
Unexpectedly, Hard, well know for his own aggressive tactics, advised an immediate retreat; he knew just how under-matched the Coward was to the Intruder. Cap had other ideas though and ordered the ship forward until the Coward was sitting completely underneath the Intruder, no more than 1,000 meters away! The Intruder did not respond in any fashion. It just continued sitting quietly, the reddish-glow of the Intruder’s force fields glowing brightly into the Coward’s external ports. Rem began a full sensor sweep but there was little that he could detect. The Intruder was fully powered – engines and shields were primed – but the weapon systems were not charged. The Coward’s computer decoded the Ackalian words printed on the ship’s hull. The Intruder was named the “Blood Brother.”
Cap ordered a more intense sensor sweep of the Blood Brother. If the Ackalians did not like it then too bad! Cap did not like being ignored, even when he was the clear underdog. Most of Rem’s scans were distilled by the Blood Brother’s force field but the few which did manage to penetrate showed a full complement aboard the ship. Surprisingly though, none of the crew aboard the Blood Brother were active or mobile. It was as though the entire crew was either sitting or standing in one place and did not, or could not, move. An Ackalian not moving when battle was near was as unlikely as a Baldarian Joy-Parrot not constantly squawking when someone entered the room. Something was wrong about the Blood Brother and the crew of the Coward was not sure if that was a good or bad thing.
Nate, ever the loyal Intelligence operative, decided the crew needed to board the Blood Brother and discern what was going on aboard the ship. While most of the crew, everyone except Xerx, thought this to be a foolish idea eventually Nate, with the help of Xerx, convinced his fellow officers that the Intel gained from such an expedition could prove priceless to the Empire. Nate also argued that some of the equipment and material aboard the Blood Brother could be used as a bargaining chip with Daber Mo’Ran. Cap, knowing that staying on the good side of Daber was important to their overall mission, finally agreed to Nate’s plan and gave orders to board the Blood Brother.
The crew’s first obstacle was to deactivate the Blood Brother’s hull force field. The second task would be to run a grav-tube between the two ships’ external docking portals. The next task would be to decode and open the Intruder’s door. The final task, should everything else go according to plan, would be to overpower the compliment of thirty Ackalians and four Shiseki the sensor scans indicated were aboard the Blood Brother, assuming they were not immobile as the sensor scans seemed to indicate. Six Terran officers against thirty-four beings of the Ackalian Empire. No one was too happy with the odds.
Deactivating the hull force field surrounding the docking portal went off without a hitch. Ky managed to whip-up a suppression buffer large enough to divert the force field around the portal. Of course suppression buffers had a tendency to frag-off from time to time, so everyone was hoping the SB would hold and that they would not be trapped aboard the Blood Brother should things go poorly.
The grav-tube was a bit of a problem. The stealth coating of the Intruder’s hull made it difficult to magnetize the tube to the Blood Brother’s hull. Fortunately Ky was able to spot-weld the final twenty inches of the grav-tube to the hull to make an environmental seal, but that meant either taking time to remove the weld or destroying the grav-tube if a quick get-away was needed. Neither option was preferable.
Surprisingly, Nate was able to pop the Intruder’s docking portal codes in only a few seconds. Espionage was Nate’s game, but everyone had to wonder just how many things Nate knew which he never bothered to tell anyone. The crew knew that trust was essential when on such a long-term and important undercover mission, but it was hard to trust people who never told you anything, and Nate was the most closed-lipped person any of the crew had ever know. By the time Nate reported that the portal was ready to be opened the rest of the crew was suited-up and properly armed. Hopefully the final task would go as smoothly as the first three.
Nate popped the portal and Cap and Hard were the first two through. Ky and Xerx were the second pair through and they were quickly followed by Nate and Rem. The Blood Brother’s internal lights gave off a dim purple glow. For the humans this made seeing anything in the small cargo hold they had entered difficult. Both Xerx and Ky seemed to have better luck in the dim light though, and so they took point. The pair led the squad across the room to the hold’s exit hatch. On the other side of the hatch would be a hallway leading to engineering and the crew’s quarters; and beyond that the armory and bridge. Those were the team’s two primary targets.
Ky hit the sensor pad on the door and it slowly opened with a hiss. Rem jumped through the door first and took up a crouching defensive posture. Rem informed the team that the corridor was clear. One by one the team entered the narrow hallway and took up defensive positions. Ky was the last to enter the corridor and the first to get hit with a long, sticky strand of string as the cargo bay door slowly hissed shut.
And thus ended mission 7.1!
Last edited by Monolith; Jun 5th, '03 at 12:14 PM.
Monolith, the Living Titan
"The HERO System is not designed to represent real life. The game is designed to represent heroic fiction as presented in comics, novels, television, and movies."
Reply With Quote
Coolness!
Excellent!
Bookmarks