This was inspired from the TTA "Great Space Battles". There's a bit of rail-roading here, so I ask forgiveness. I hope some of you find it entertaining or useful.
Regina, in the Regina Subsector, Spinward Marches
Starport Downport facility
Date; Hallow's Eve
You’ve taken on a small group of mid-passage passengers onto your Type-R, some mail and a smattering of assorted cargos headed for destinations beyond your offload point. None of the passengers are affiliated with one another and all seem ordinary citizens. You lift off from Regina without incident, your flight plan filed for some weeks before will take you across the subsector to Efate with stopovers along the way. Exchange of passengers, cargo, the usual stuff.
The transition to jump was after reaching safe distance was also routine. And jump itself was uneventful. It was exiting jump that things seemed odd. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it at first, but the familiar starfield had been replaced with a nebula that was highlighted at points by distant suns, but otherwise nearly black. And the central star for Roup wasn’t the expected yellow dwarf, but a spectacular red giant that seemed somewhat dim.
A misjump? You check the charts. The data shows a system called “Guardian”. Guardian? Where’s that? You attempt to correlate your last position with Guardian, but the Guardian on the charts is half way across the Imperium, and the names of the neighboring systems don’t match with anything you know nor ever heard of. Rubicon? Styx? Thasus? Dark Gate? Four Horsemen? The list of subsector names reads like a dark mythological list of places forbidden.
You try to read more data, but your ship’s computer returns “Update Required”. That’s when you approach a dim gray world with huge patches of dark gray clouds, some swirling over the spherical surface. EMF emissions are abundant, but for some reason you cannot contact anyone. There’s technology registering; beacons, navigational systems, and other municipal apparatus, much of it powered, but for all that the world seems exceptionally dark. As if no one turned on the lights.
That’s when the local ALS takes over, and your ship’s controls are locked out until you touch down. In the mean time you glide through some of the darkest skies ever. There is light everywhere, some of it even yellow or white, uncharacteristic from a red giant, but there it is. The shadows cast through the windows of the bridge and few other windows are harsh, black and sharp.
You check the ship’s communications suite. Again lots of RF and EMF emissions, but no traffic other than the data being exchanged between your ship’s computer and the starport of destination. You descend through dark thick white clouds, transcend through a darkening layer of gray to a dim visage of the world below. What sunlight reaches this elevation shows the dark grey nearly all black outline of a city. There’s a smattering of street lights, but nothing else.
Closer inspection as you descend further reveals shattered windows, deserted streets with the occasional hulk of a vehicle oddly parked onto the curb, some with windows smashed, others apparently crashed into poles or buildings.
Your resident hacker makes multiple attempts to regain control of the ship, but to no avail. Your Type-R eventually glides onto a runway, and taxis to a gate dimly lettered. The ship’s drives power down and refuse to re-ignite in spite of the powerplant working at full power. Both computer and engineer work in tandem to check relays and subsystems. Your computer expert says it’s obviously a Trojan screwing with the ship’s avionics and computer, but your engineering team says that it’s more probably a bad control card somewhere deep in the engineering section. They’ll need time to hunt it down.
Your pilot and navigator tell you that the transmitter and control point for the ship’s flight is located in the control tower some two miles across through the starport’s main corridor. Unwillingly you decide to divide the crew, half come with you to investigate the control tower, the other half stay here to trouble shoot the ship and keep the passengers calm. One passenger, a technologist of some renown (a kind of media celebrity) offers the his services and of his young assistant. You take them up on their offer, though somewhat reluctantly.
You take whatever gear you want or think you need, and enter the ship’s airlock anticipating something odd. The exterior door opens to a gantry that automatically locked onto your Type-R’s airlock port, and it lit only by the dim sunlight that’s made its way through the thick charcoal grey clouds. It’s like an abandoned building in an unused section of some forgotten city. No one. Some dust, a few scraps of paper, but you don’t recognize the strange lettering on wrapping for what might be candy or batteries or some other trivial product.
Further in you enter the mall like spacious main corridor of the starport which stretches left and right. Again, not black, but very dim. Your field computer says power is registering to your right, just over two miles, and some distance upwards in elevation. As you walk down the corridor you begin to notice gray body sized lumps here and there. They are in fact the bodies of the former occupants. Presumably human, though you’re not sure. If you want, you can take a moment or two to investigate, though to determine any cause of death will require more than your ship’s field medical kit.
Store fronts, ticket counters, lockers, unused people movers on one side with huge bay windows over looking the tarmac on the other. And that’s when it hits you, there aren’t any other starhips here. Your media personalities assistant briefly enters one of the dust covered stores. Mugs, postcards and other schlock adorn the racks and store shelves. You keep an eye on him, but then hear a piercing cry coming from outside … somewhere.
That’s when you hear another cry, this time very close by and very familiar and terrestrial. The expert calls for his assistant, runs into the store, looks around, sees nothing, then opens the door to the back room. The grim visage of the young man’s remains churns your stomach. And that’s when you see the clumps begin to stir. The skeletal remains push themselves to their feet and turn their empty socket gaze upon you. The shattering howl of a canine thunders through starport. You look off to your right, five-hundred meters tall some miles away you see the ghostly colossal form of a three-headed hound, each neck with a spiked collar. The middle head is tilted upwards baying at the sky with its horrible howl. The far right head bares its fangs and snarls. The head nearest barks, then with steely glowing red eyes glares at you and your party.
Actions?
Regina, in the Regina Subsector, Spinward Marches
Starport Downport facility
Date; Hallow's Eve
You’ve taken on a small group of mid-passage passengers onto your Type-R, some mail and a smattering of assorted cargos headed for destinations beyond your offload point. None of the passengers are affiliated with one another and all seem ordinary citizens. You lift off from Regina without incident, your flight plan filed for some weeks before will take you across the subsector to Efate with stopovers along the way. Exchange of passengers, cargo, the usual stuff.
The transition to jump was after reaching safe distance was also routine. And jump itself was uneventful. It was exiting jump that things seemed odd. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it at first, but the familiar starfield had been replaced with a nebula that was highlighted at points by distant suns, but otherwise nearly black. And the central star for Roup wasn’t the expected yellow dwarf, but a spectacular red giant that seemed somewhat dim.
A misjump? You check the charts. The data shows a system called “Guardian”. Guardian? Where’s that? You attempt to correlate your last position with Guardian, but the Guardian on the charts is half way across the Imperium, and the names of the neighboring systems don’t match with anything you know nor ever heard of. Rubicon? Styx? Thasus? Dark Gate? Four Horsemen? The list of subsector names reads like a dark mythological list of places forbidden.
You try to read more data, but your ship’s computer returns “Update Required”. That’s when you approach a dim gray world with huge patches of dark gray clouds, some swirling over the spherical surface. EMF emissions are abundant, but for some reason you cannot contact anyone. There’s technology registering; beacons, navigational systems, and other municipal apparatus, much of it powered, but for all that the world seems exceptionally dark. As if no one turned on the lights.
That’s when the local ALS takes over, and your ship’s controls are locked out until you touch down. In the mean time you glide through some of the darkest skies ever. There is light everywhere, some of it even yellow or white, uncharacteristic from a red giant, but there it is. The shadows cast through the windows of the bridge and few other windows are harsh, black and sharp.
You check the ship’s communications suite. Again lots of RF and EMF emissions, but no traffic other than the data being exchanged between your ship’s computer and the starport of destination. You descend through dark thick white clouds, transcend through a darkening layer of gray to a dim visage of the world below. What sunlight reaches this elevation shows the dark grey nearly all black outline of a city. There’s a smattering of street lights, but nothing else.
Closer inspection as you descend further reveals shattered windows, deserted streets with the occasional hulk of a vehicle oddly parked onto the curb, some with windows smashed, others apparently crashed into poles or buildings.
Your resident hacker makes multiple attempts to regain control of the ship, but to no avail. Your Type-R eventually glides onto a runway, and taxis to a gate dimly lettered. The ship’s drives power down and refuse to re-ignite in spite of the powerplant working at full power. Both computer and engineer work in tandem to check relays and subsystems. Your computer expert says it’s obviously a Trojan screwing with the ship’s avionics and computer, but your engineering team says that it’s more probably a bad control card somewhere deep in the engineering section. They’ll need time to hunt it down.
Your pilot and navigator tell you that the transmitter and control point for the ship’s flight is located in the control tower some two miles across through the starport’s main corridor. Unwillingly you decide to divide the crew, half come with you to investigate the control tower, the other half stay here to trouble shoot the ship and keep the passengers calm. One passenger, a technologist of some renown (a kind of media celebrity) offers the his services and of his young assistant. You take them up on their offer, though somewhat reluctantly.
You take whatever gear you want or think you need, and enter the ship’s airlock anticipating something odd. The exterior door opens to a gantry that automatically locked onto your Type-R’s airlock port, and it lit only by the dim sunlight that’s made its way through the thick charcoal grey clouds. It’s like an abandoned building in an unused section of some forgotten city. No one. Some dust, a few scraps of paper, but you don’t recognize the strange lettering on wrapping for what might be candy or batteries or some other trivial product.
Further in you enter the mall like spacious main corridor of the starport which stretches left and right. Again, not black, but very dim. Your field computer says power is registering to your right, just over two miles, and some distance upwards in elevation. As you walk down the corridor you begin to notice gray body sized lumps here and there. They are in fact the bodies of the former occupants. Presumably human, though you’re not sure. If you want, you can take a moment or two to investigate, though to determine any cause of death will require more than your ship’s field medical kit.
Store fronts, ticket counters, lockers, unused people movers on one side with huge bay windows over looking the tarmac on the other. And that’s when it hits you, there aren’t any other starhips here. Your media personalities assistant briefly enters one of the dust covered stores. Mugs, postcards and other schlock adorn the racks and store shelves. You keep an eye on him, but then hear a piercing cry coming from outside … somewhere.
That’s when you hear another cry, this time very close by and very familiar and terrestrial. The expert calls for his assistant, runs into the store, looks around, sees nothing, then opens the door to the back room. The grim visage of the young man’s remains churns your stomach. And that’s when you see the clumps begin to stir. The skeletal remains push themselves to their feet and turn their empty socket gaze upon you. The shattering howl of a canine thunders through starport. You look off to your right, five-hundred meters tall some miles away you see the ghostly colossal form of a three-headed hound, each neck with a spiked collar. The middle head is tilted upwards baying at the sky with its horrible howl. The far right head bares its fangs and snarls. The head nearest barks, then with steely glowing red eyes glares at you and your party.
Actions?
