Episode 3:
The players will have to act fast if they wnat to save their (probably) fallen commrade. The other door in the hangar is open now; that is how the ASPs got in. The door is open, and a spiraling-square staircase leads both up and down. There is nothing below, and the path is hopelessly blocked anyhow, so the only option is up.
Read aloud:
As you reach the top of the stairs, you see one main portal. Peering through the portal, you see a long hallway, at the end of which is door with red cross emblazened on the front of it: it must be the medbay. You also see two other doors on either side of the hallway, one of which is marked “CREW QUARTERS,” the other is marked “ARMORY.” The door to the med bay is open, but the other doors appear to be closed and locked.
(For GM information, the armory is empty because Fiver looted it to arm the ASPs. You could skip to the CREW QUARTERS encounter if that’s how the players want to proceed, but if one of them is badly injured, the best course of action is to go to the med bay.)
ENCOUNTER: THE MED BAY
The med bay is in pretty good condition considering the state of the rest of the station so far encountered, but within there are signs of a struggle; a med cart turned over, one of the bacta tanks is smashed, and so on. Emphasize the layer of dust on everything here: it really adds to the spookiness of the whole thing. Inside the bay, there are medpacs aplenty, a working bacta tank, and a 2-1B medical droid. The droid is somewhat dillapidated, and on an Easy droid repair roll, an examining character can see that the droids motivator has been ripped out. This is easy enough to install, but the trick is finding a spare part.
If the characters travel with a droid (or if one of them is a droid), the motivator from that droid could be temporarily transplanted into the 2-1B (although any self-respecting droid will be a little apprehensive, if not openley objectionalbe to loaning itself out as spare parts!) Conversley, a motivator could be scavenged from one of the fallen ASPs, assuming they weren’t completely decimated (ideally, someone might have used a DEMP gun on one of them, but if not, surely ONE of them has an intact motivator.) If all else fails, let the characters find a droid repair kit or something while they’re spellunking for a motivator. Be sure one of them thinks to stabilize the wounded character with a medpack before going on the search, or they may find him dead when they get back. Once the motivator is installed, read aloud:
“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!” The droid screams and throws its arms over its head and cowers, as if terrified of an aggressor.
“GET AWAY FROM ME! IT IS NOT MY FAULT! PLEASE! DO NOT LET THEM DEACTIVATE ME! NOOOOOOOO-”
All the lights on the droid go out, and it falls silent.
The players will need to make another Easy droid repair roll to reactivate the droid.
The droid whirrs back to life, significantly calmer.
“What-what-what has hapened? Who are you? Where-where-where is master Tourin?”
The players (probably) have no answers answeres to give 2-1B, but if they explain their situation, and the ailment of their friend, 2-1B’s programming takes over, and he fills the bacta tank. “Place him in the tank, masters, and let the medicine work.”
If the players ask 2-1B about their circumstances, read aloud:
“The last thing I remember are the master’s ASPs coming in here and ripping out my motivator. Then, you showed up with your injured friend. Of course, all this has happened after everyone left.”
This will probably pique the interest of the players, but 2-1B won’t say anything else about it due to his absorbtion in his work. A Very Difficult persuasion roll would get him to tell the tale, but otherwise the players will have to find out what happened by going though the crew quarters. “Please, I really must turn my attentions to my patient...”
ENCOUNTER: THE CREW QUARTERS
Read aloud:
You see a large room, with double-bunks lining both walls. Many spacer’s chests sit next to or on th bunks, some opened, but most still closed. You can tell that whoever left did so in a hurry.
There’s nothing in the room, but the characters do see another door at thefar end of the room.
This room is much nicer than the main hall. It has only two beds, and some tastefull decoration. One of the beds is rumpled, with various items scattered around it. The other has been made quite nicely, and shows no signs of untidiness.
The rumpled has a chest sitting on it, opened and rifled. There is a datapad sitting on the pillow, and it is on standby. The player will have to find a power source for it (a blaster powerpack or something) to get it up and running. This requires an Easy Technical roll if you want to bother. Once it is activated, read aloud:
The datapad flicksto life. You see a list of what appear to be journal entries. You scroll the list to the bottom and press “PLAYBACK.” An image of a man appears, and he begins to speak.
“Well, so much for the dreams of a few disconcerted Imperial citizens, eh? Tip came in today that the Impies found our little hideout herein the Soonda-Hav Asteriod belt. Too bad, because we had a nice litttle supply cache going here. I’ll have to remind myself to log these coordinates, so we get to these supplies again. If Senator Organa’s and Mon Mothma’s plans go forward, some Rebel Alliance base will need tese supplies.
“We’ll also need the Force.” You see the man pause. he strokes his dark beard, and his light-blue eyes look thoughtfull. In the background, you ghear shouthing and someone saying: “C’mon Tourin! Last transport is leaving now!”
“Guess I’ll leave this here. Master Arkanian will probably be angry, but these things just aren’t that safe to have on your body, what with Palpatine’s New Order and all. Besides, I know that someday, I’ll be back. I’ll be stronger then, and it’ll be waiting for me.” You see him put something out of the field of the lens.
“Mendi is crazy. He’s decided to stay here and keep watch for Impies and such, and to protect the supply cache. Fiver is staying to keep him company, and he’s got plenty of food and suppleis to last him. He’s also got enough ASP droids to care of maintenence. Still, the only human on a station full of droids in the middle of nowhere...gives me the creeps.
“Oh, well. That’s the end of Alliance Supply Depot Soonda-Hav. Down with the Empire, death to Palpatine, long live the Alliance, and may the Force be with us!”
With that, the recording shuts off.
If the player makes a Moderate search roll on the chest, he discovers a false bottom. Inside is a working lightsaber.
ENCOUNTER: ASPs!
After this encounter, proceed directly to ASP attack. There are two ASPs per character, but no more than five. The charactes may destroy them all, or they may leave one standing to interrogate it. If the characters make an Easy droid programming roll, they recall that ASP droids can only respond with “affirmative” and “negative,” so all questions have to be in yes/no form (this is a really funny scene for players who have forgotten this little tidbit!) Any character who activates the lightsaber stops the ASPs dead in their tracks. See the side bar “Tourin’s Lightsaber.”
Tourin’s Lightsaber
Jav Tourin was a minor Jedi who studied under master Darrin Arkanian (see GG9: Fragments from the Rim), a Sullustan Jedi Master. Tourin, along with Bukus Mendi, were in charge of the Soonda-Hav Rebel supply cache. This was early in the Rebellion, so the crew of the station relied heavliy on droids for labor. Mainly, ASPs were used in conjunction with various power droids and whatnot. While Tourin and Mendi, were pretty close, Mendi’s best friend was an R5 unit he called Fiver. Tourin was always a little suspicious of Mendi’s sanity (“I mean, he hangs out with droids!”), and so he made sure that all the droids had a healthy respect for his lightsaber (Tourin always had some negative tendencies, and these eventually led him to be consumed by the dark side of the Force.) This tactic worked particularly well against the low-intelligence units (like the ASPs and power droids), but Fiver was unimpressed by the limited skills the novice Jedi possesed. However, the ASPs remember Tourin’s energy blade, and they don’t cross it unless whoever’s controlling them makes a Very Difficult command roll.
Episode 4:
By now, the other player character should be healed enough to continue with the adventure. The other players should bring their comrade up to speed (as GM, you might have the injured character’s player run to the local convenience store for munchies. This keeps the player from learning what has happened, keeps up the realism flow, and brings a fresh stock of Doritos and Dr. Pepper!)
Now 2-1B will be more open to questions since his patient is healed. 2-1B knows all of the history in the sidebar (he also believed Tourin to be insane), he knows who is at the controlls of the station, he knows what happened to all the stations occupants, and once the characters tell him the date, he’ll know how long the place has been dormant (this depends upon what time frame you’re running the adventure in; it would work both in a Classic-era or New Republic-era campaign. For my characters (Syndicate: A.S.K.), it was the Classic-era, and the station had been dormant for about 10 years. In a NR-campaign, it could be as old as 40.) At any rate, be sure to have 2-1B give the characters a course of action (get to the command center, shut down Fiver, yadda yadda) if they don’t figure it out themselves.
(I wrote a script for this scene, but it was fairly lengthy, and I didn’t want to type it all. If anyone wants to see it, I’ll post it, someday, maybe.)
ENCOUNTER: MORE ASPS
Fiver has been listening (he has the entire compound wired) and has brought all of his defenses on line. First he throws another wave of ASPs at the characters. The ASPs pin them in the main corridor, and the two at the very end of the hall are crewing an E-WEB. There are 10 ASPs in all, and this group has been ordered by Fiver to ignore the lightsaber, so that trick won’t work again. The ASPs fight untill they can’t.
The ASPs are positoined so as to prevent access to the turbolift that leads to the control room. Once the ASPs are dealt with, the players can attempt to use the turbolift to reach Fiver. Fiver was prepared for this course of action, and stops the turbolift one floor beneath him.
Read aloud:
Suddenly, the lift shudders to a halt. The lights flicker and you hear a distant crashing. You can’t tell if the sound came from above or below you, but you don’t wnant to wait and find out.
As the last person steps out, read aloud:
As you step out, the lift lurches and the cables above it break. You better jump for it or you’ll be sliced in two!
The character needs to make a Moderate jumping roll. Don’t let the character die, but a good injury would sure make “choosing the lamb” for the enclision grid easier.
OPTIONAL ENCOUNTER: ZERO-G MINE FIELD
If the players have been making it throght pretty easily, you as the GM are feeling pissy, or you just have a burning desire to know how your players would handle this situation, alter the map of the compound so the characters must cross a dormant reactor to reach the room with the enclision grid. This reactor was used to extract space gasses and minerals from the surrounding area as an auxillary fuel source, so it is open to space. The players can cross the reactor using thier swimming (half-move) or rocket pack operation skills. The terrain is Easy, but hitting a mine increasesthe difficulty to Moderate for the rest of the round. Failure means that the player has stumbled onto a concussion mine layed by the ASPs. The mines do 4D damage to anyone at Point Blank (stumbling) range, and other characters must make Moderate Dexterity checks to avoid being knocked out into space or inot the path of anothe mine. The closer a player is to the bottom of the shaft, the more difficult it is to keep from being knocked out into space.
If you feel really mean, give a couple ASPs rocket packs; after all, THEY don’t have to worry about ruptured suits...
ENCOUNTER: THE ENCLISION GRID
(Okay, I stole this idea straight out of Children of the Jedi by Barbara Hambely, but anyone paying attention should start to notice that with the exception of Callista, some Gammoreans, and of course Luke Skywalker, this IS Children of the Jedi, albeit a shortened version. I had just finished reading that book when I wrote this, and I thought, “Wow! What a cool idea! An abandoned asteroid full of dangerous shit! I wonder how Syndicate: A.S.K. would handle this...” You’re reading the end result of my musings.)
Once the characters have entered the room with the grid, either from the turbolift or from the zero-g mine field, read aloud:
As you step inside the room, you see that it is well lit...and occupied. A lone ASP turns from whatever it was doing and levels its blaster rifle at you!
The characters will undoubtedly shoot it. (Duh.) Read aloud:
The blaster bolts slam into the ASP’s chest, and it back-peddles into what looks like a long, upward-sloping maintenence shaft. As you peer inside, you see that ASP struggling to stand, but then a blinding flash of light fills the corridor. You can make out several blue-white lightning bolts arcing through the corridor, and you can feel the electricity making the hair on your arms stand up. When the blast is over, and your eyes clear from the flash-blinding, there is nothing left of the ASP, and all you smell is something like burnt ozone.
The control room lies beyond the enclision grid, but getting through it is no small feat. One character will have to divert power from the grid, requiring an opposed computer programming/repair roll against Fiver, who will actively try to shut them out of the system. The characters don’t know why the controls are fighting them (for sure, but they could take a wild guess.)
A new check must be made every round a player wishes the grid to be offline. Needless to say, now is the time for Character and Force points.
The tunnel is very long, and it is Moderate terrain due to it being cluttered with wires, cables, conduits and components. A good sized human could still stand upright in it, though. At All-Out speed, it will take 4 rounds to cross. The player in the grid will be fne unless the player operating the grid fails a check. then the grid activates in the next round doing 10D damage to anything inside. The master control is on the other side, right next to the entrance. An Easy computer programming/repair roll, or a blaster shot, will shut down the grid from here. Fiver cannot override a master control command, as he never envisioned anyone making it this far into his sancutary.
Assuming the characters survive the encounter, read aloud:
As your hand reaches for the controls to the grid, your hear a metallic click behind you. You turn your head to see an ASP droid with its blaster rifle leveled at you.
“Don’t move, right?” you ask.
“Affirmative.”
The player is still directly infront of the tunnel, so both he and the ASP are in the line of sight of the other characters. A skilled marksmen could try to sniper the ASP, but failure might mean that other character was shot (Long Range, Very Difficult (30)). Another approach would be for the character at the end of the grid to somehow get the ASP into the grid. ASPs are stupid automatons, and a good persuasion or con roll could talk the ASP down the tube. For more finesse, the character could move fast and toss the ASP down the tube, but this would be Difficult brawling total, then a Moderate Dexterity total to keep from going down the tube with him.
Episode 5:
Now for the final showdown. Three battle-hardended bounty hunters against...an insane astromech droid. Sound insane? Well, yeah, I agree, but I had the idea at 3:00 am, so I wrote it down before I could forget it.
Read aloud:
As the last man emerges from the tunnel, you scan the room. You see display monitors flashing, and switching images back and forth do different parts of the compound. You see the main hangar, with your ship sitting and waiting, you see the medbay with 2-1B fretting about, the corridor with mangled forms of Killer ASPs. You see the enclision grid, and a room with 3 humanoid forms in spacesuits, looking at monitors...
And another ASP is stalking up behind them!
As the players whirl around and bring tier weapons to bear, they see 10 ASPs flankiing another, modified ASP. This ASP has a faded brown leather jacket on, and is brandishing a blaster pistol instead of a rifle. Also, his face has some kind of DimSim plate affixed to it, and a human face is starring out.
Read aloud:
A voice seems to boom out from everywhere. “I, Mendi, master of darkness, have conquered death! I live on in this mechanical suit of armor! I am the greatest Jedi Master there has ever been! Ha, ha, haaaaaaah!”
As the characters prepare for the ensuing battle, ask for Perception checks. Keep asking for the checks throughout combat, untill one player has generated a Moderate (13) total. This total will let the character notice a chord leading back to a utility closet, and from under the door, two little, stubby legs are visible. The perceptive character could ask another character to create a distraction while he blasts at the closet, or they might come up with another plan (a Wizard of Oz type ending is not advisable, and actually is stupid.) When Fiver is deactivated (one way or another), the ASPs break off the attack and go into standby mode.
*Fiver’s stats are stock (pg. 71 Cynabar’s Fantastic Technology: Droids, with the addition of whatever Technical skills you as GM see fit (since he probably won’t get to use them, just adjust his computer programming/repair to be close to that of the character operating the enclision grid. Just don’t make him stronger than a blaster bolt.
**If the players are itchin’ for another fight, you could send the Killer ASPs inot a frenzy when Fiver deactivates. You could also send them up against some other nasty traps on the way back to their ship. Or not. Hey you’re the GM, and it’s probably about 2:30am by now anyway. (I don’t know how anyone can stretch an adventure over two nights. I try to do cliffhangers, but they piss me off as a GM just as much as the players get hacked, BECAUSE DAMMIT, I WANT TO KNOW WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN, TOO!!)
***For an added challenge, you could have the station go onto self-destruct mode, and give the characters 10 minutes (real or game, your choice) to either escape or deactivate. This is especially usefull if you want to run the scenario, but don’t want to give the players EVERYTHING IN THE COMPOUND. Or if you’ve got really smart players with really skilled players, this could test their mettle, since they’ll have to find some way into that basement that was blocked on the staircase...
ADVENTURE REWARDS
Aside from all their eyes can behold, give each player 1-3 character points per episode, with usual bonuses for anything that struck you as cool.
Killer ASPs
Type: Modified ASP-7 Labor Droid
DEXTERITY 2D
Blaster 5D, dodge 5D, missle weapons 3D
KNOWLEDGE 1D
MECHANICAL 1D
PERCEPTION 1D
Search 4D, sneak 3D
STRENGTH 2D
Lifting 4D
TECHNICAL 1D
Droid repair: ASP-7 5D
Equipped With:
- Humaniod body (2 arms, 2 legs, head, torso)
- Ocular/audio sensor package (+1D search in quiet or dark conditions)
- Holo-recorder/transmitter
- Body armor (+2D physical and energy, torso and head only)
- Blaster rifle (5D, attached to right arm)
- Grenade launcher (4D/3D/2D, ammo 10, left shoulder, retractable)
Move: 8
(Special thanks to Barbara Hambley for the inspiration from Children of the Jedi, and to Jens-Aurthur Lierbakk, and his wonderfull adventures at his site. I hope no one sees this as a cheap takeoff on The Rogue Planetoid. I know it is similar in premise, but I honestly didn’t realize how much they have in common untill I’d finished it. Sorry!)
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Email: jazzbone@feist.com