#MorningStar episode 2: Back to the Bridge
The situation
* An expedition led by INC-07 and Verity has found The Bridge. They have also found the army of Colony Defence drones surrounding it, and learned that there is a search & destroy team hunting for “boarders”. The MC and its Listener allies are now recognised as crew by Colony Defence, and will not be fired upon. The other inhabitants of The City are probably targets.
* An attempt by the Enforcers to seize territory in The Hole failed messily. Igor and the Hole Gang are causing more problems than usual.
While the others had been searching for the bridge, Major Petrova has been doing police work, working snitches, collecting deck plans (such as they are) and sensor readings, all to get a fix on Igor so the Enforcers can plan an assault to take him out. Now he’s killed a bunch of them, they need to hit back, and hit hard. But the return of the expedition puts her plans on hold.
The Families discuss the bridge, the drone army, and what to do next. Major Petrova is interested in Lt Elijah. Is he the only mind the MC found, or do they have more? The MC dissembles, hiding the real truth: they have a cache of mind backups, but Lt Elijah was the only one they had DNA for, and the viability of the others has not been tested. They insist that Elijah is under their protection. Meanwhile, scavs are bringing back tales of being fired on by combat drones in the near dark. The families need to solve this to prevent a panic. Fortunately, the Enforcers have dug up the old colony defence protocols, including the command channel and override codes. They rig up some broadcasters so they can attempt a shutdown if the drones get too close to the City, but the better option is to go to the bridge, and use the network there. The Enforcers, MC, and Keepers agree a plan to recall the drones to a central location, shut them down, and split the salvage. They tool up for the job and set about retracing their steps, marking the path as they go to find a safe and repeatable route.
Two thirds of the way there, somewhere near the environment plant, they realise that something is stalking them. INC-07’s bodyguard drones disperse, and try and herd whatever it is towards the group. They succeed, but too well – the next minute, there’s a flash of teeth, claws, and fur, and Lt Elijah is being dragged into the darkness. Major Petrova opens up with her stunner, dropping both Elijah and the beast, but is swiped by a second one rushing from the shadows. INC-07 rushes to Elijah’s rescue, and manages to scoop him up then ram the animal off Petrova before it too is stunned. Petrova quickly kills both stunned creatures before they wake up, then finally gets a good look at them: its a pair of black panthers. How are they roaming the decks? Because the Sleepers – who were the last of their species – were being transported with a representative sample of their surviving biome, including apex predators. what they have in the stasis tubes or wandering the ship is all there is of Earth…
A more practical question is “what have the panthers been eating”. At this stage, the group realises there’s an open door to a sleeper hold nearby. Inside, its a nightmare of smashed open stasis tubes, dried blood, and old bones. The panthers (or something) have been using it as a meat locker for some time, and there’s only a few active tubes still left. Verity identifies at as a habitable space which could be used by the City once cleaned out, though it is a long way from anywhere (though conveniently on the route to the bridge).
Heading closer to the bridge, they try a short cut, but stumble into an area where the decks are damaged and collapsing. Verity uses the thrusters on their suit to haul Major Petrova across the dangerous area without incident, but they’re clearly going to need to survey a slightly different path in future.
At the bridge, Verity again impersonates a colony defence officer, and is granted access. Lt Elijah lets them in, and Major Petrova successfully broadcasts the recall and shutdown command via the security network to get the drones to return to a nearby space. While they wait for them to show up, Major Petrova and Verity suggest (with the assistance of Verity’s recall of old ship regulations) that Lt Elijah should grant them permanent access to the bridge by deputising them as emergency flight crew. Elijah is persuaded, but only after the MC agrees (having been bought off with Treaty). Once that is done, the group takes a look at their new haul of battledroids. INC-07 uses a rootkit device to overwrite the programing of several and indoctrinate them into the MC’s network (gaining Surplus: Soldiers for a rainy day), but the effort ends when one goes crazy and and has to be disabled – destroying the rootkit in the process. The others plan how to use their haul of tech to start reactivating the bridge and gain some control over their lives…
Second session, a few more hazards, and a first test of character-level combat. The pick-lists slow things down compared to the freeform narrative style of Uncharted Worlds, but I’m hoping we’ll get used to it. The story flowed fairly naturally from the setup, and I didn’t need to throw any of the kickers I’d prepared into the mix. They’ll keep. Meanwhile I’m wondering: what’s the Hole Gang been getting up to while people are off traipsing around the ship? I think we’ll find out next week.
I gave away far too much Tech (5 points each, or 2 points and a surplus) for the drone army. OTOH, they got nothing last session, its a big score, and half of it has been invested straight into bridge control. Still, the characters are now feeling a bit better resourced, and have angles on a few more surpluses they can get.