D20 Star*Drive

 

June 02, 2009

 

Pirate Attack at the Planet Surveys.

 

Diane calls Vincent to come in to her office, she has a job for him.

 

"Thank you for coming. Is it true that Archangel  can tow a ship through drive-space?"

"Depending on the size"

"The ship is only 80 feet  long as it is a modified shuttle with an enhanced sensor package. I have a group of people I need taken to the Meriden star system. You will have to protect them while they do some study there, and then getting them back. I have a contact number for them and also have some non-disclosure documents you will need to sign to accept the job. The job is  a rush project, I need it done in 12 hours"

Vincent signs the documents and contacts the person in charge of the expedition.

 

Vincent calls Gabriel and informs him of the new job.

"Can you be ready to go in 12 hours?" asks Vincent

"K'nigley, get the ship ready, we leave now." says Gabriel.

K'nigley grunts in response, and heads into the ship.

"Yes, we should be ready in four." answers Gabriel.

 

K'nigley is prepping the ship. He is so confident in his actions, that he totally misses a problem with the electrical system. He continues on the preparation without seeing the troublesome gauge. It eventually takes the full 12 hours for him to finish the task.

 

When the group shows up with their ship, they park next to the Archangel.  They connect up easily enough, and everything seems to go smoothly.

 

The group leaves the planet, moves away from it, and jumps into five days they will spend in Drive-space.

It's while in drive-space that the electrical problem K'nigley missed earlier suddenly shows up, as an alarm light begins to blink. K'nigley gets very nervous as he suddenly y starts working at one of the panels, not saying a word.

About 3 hours to star-rise Max realizes that although K'nigley is making ready to work on the ship..he hasn't actually done anything. Panels are open all over the ship with tools laying out, but he hasn't done anything.

K'nigley gives a list of items that he is working on. When asked when he is going to get started, he responds "I can't fix it now, I have to wait until we get into normal space."

 

K'nigley doesn't seem worried or bothered. Max is, as he goes and finds Gabriel and informs him of the situation. Gabriel seems just a little worried to Max, but he says he will go find K'nigley and ask him how it's going.

 

"So K'nigley," asks Gabriel to K'nighley, "What is going to happen when we hit star rise?"

"I am not certain. I missed some settings, and I do not know the outcomes."

"Well, what could be some outcomes?"

He lists a number of failures that could occur. The list is incomplete because he does not know the effect of that error, but he is preparing multiple systems because he does not know the complete outcome.

"It might make sense for the passengers and Max to hit star rise in their ship." says K'nigley to Gabriel, "There is not anything you can help me with until something actually breaks."

Captain Stone informs the passengers that they need to be in their ship from a liability standpoint. They agree, not questioning his request.

 

Max gets into his fighter and gets it up and ready. This is standard procedure before entering star-rise so he is where he would need to be in case of pirates. Normally, Vince would be with him, but Gabriel has Vince looking at the computers instead.

 

Vince, looking at the computers, thinks the ship's engines weren't tuned enough and upon Starrise are going to create multiple stress points on the ship. He tells K'nigley what the problem would be, but he only has 20 minutes and does not know exactly where the sheer's will be. K'nigley recognizes the 3 sheer points, but as he was trying to fix them, he actually makes it worse, and introduces a fourth point with some miscalculations about the gravity engines.

 

The ship makes Starrise. Vibrations start shaking the ships immediately. The fighter separates from Archangel and gracefully pull away. The forces hit the freighter all at once. The panels go red as systems start going offline. The weapons panel, star drive, the point defense system, and the fighter docking ring all go offline.

 

The pilot from the shuttle calls up "Is there a problem? We are getting some turbulence."

Before Captain Stone can even begin to answer, Vince jumps on the comms with some bull to calm the shuttle captain. He isn't completely convinced, but he asks no more questions.

 

2 EV suits:

Soft Esuit: only lasts for 30 minutes in vacuum ( a flight suit we get into before entering the ship)

Hard Esuit: full astronaut suit with pack, which can last up to six hours in space.

 

Captain Stone flies the twelve minutes needed to drop off the shuttle. The crew gets started fixing the freighter.

 

Vince performs a system sweep, and finds indication that a ship was in the area a few days ago because of an ion trail that he detected. Chances are, it isn't a ship from human system because humans use gravity induction. Since this is an ion engine, it must be alien race or species. The ship was closer in system, but they are not able to determine which of the three planets the alien ship went to.

 

The shuttle goes down to the nearest planet while the ships wait in orbit. Max continues monitoring the sensors while Vince puts on an EVA suit and goes to help with Archangel. Unable to help with repairs, Kahana put on an EVA ship and joined Max in the fighter.

 

K'nigley is able to get the main guns back online, but the point defense system is still offline.

 

As Vince gets the ships sensors online, he is able to detect the eight fighter ships that are incoming. He at first thinks it's a malfunction, but he has Max verify, and they warn the people on the planet.

 

Capt Stone, jams the enemy ships signals, moves forwards towards the enemy fighters, and fires the quantum cannons. Releasing 131 points of energy damage, it shreds into the first attacking alien vessel as parts fly off the sides and atmosphere leaks out of the ship.

 

Vince aims the particle beams and finishes off the wounded ship.

 

Beams of energy shoot out at the Archangel from the attackers, dealing 81 points before shielding. Then a missile flies out and explodes before hitting as an EMP pulse baths the ship. The targeting computer goes black, as it is the only system effected by the pulse.

 

Max moves the fighter up and unleashes with the Particle beam. It hits. Kahana unloads and hits twice, but the ship is still there.

 

A pirate moves up and shoot at the Horus fighter, hitting it with a beam of energy. The shields deflect the energy. The second hit for 17 points gets through as only part of the energy is deflected.

 

Too more energy beams shoot out at the Archangel, hitting it. A last shot at the fighter misses.

All the ships zoom past after the attacks.

 

Capt Stone turns the freighter using his skills honed from years of piloting to squeeze in behind an attacking vessel.

 

K'nigley repairs the targeting computer and also works on fixing some of the other damage on the ship.  He spends the rest of his turn trying to jam an attackers targeting system. He is so confident that he jammed the system , he thinks he may have fried it.

 

He fixed the targeting system ,but Capt Stone shoots without it. Even at point blank range, the shot begins to miss but he clutches at the control and pulls the shot into the ship. The beams cut through the ship separating it into two pieces as they float away in flames.

 

Vince attacks another ship that past. As the beams impact the ship it's shields become visible absorbing some of the damage. He tries to hit the weapons system, but it misses.

 

The ship with shields, and damaged targeting system, still manages to hit the freighter for 91 points damage from the first weapon, and 117 from the second one.

 

Kahana unleashes with two attacks, but the ship is still there. Max also unloads, and when both of his attacks hit, the ship is destroyed.

 

Two pirates fire at the freighter. The ships move in close for their attacks, Capt Stone doesn't even have to move his ship. He unloads with the particle weapons for 115 points damage.  He then spins his ship out from between the two pirates. Even so, he lines up perfectly for both ships.

 

Vince uses the particle beams to finish off the first ship, and then fires and hits the shielded ship.

 

One of the pirates jams the Archangel and the Horus, then flies off.

Max hits the turbo and goes in pursuit. He shoots with the particle beams and hits. Kahana shoots and misses on the first attack but hits on the second.

The second pirate moves up to attack the Horus but misses.

Not wanting to be left behind, Capt Stone kicks the freighter into full power and moves up and attacks the second pirate.

K'nigley works frantically to un-jam the targeting computer. After two attempts he tries one more time to fix the targeting computer, but fails all three times.  Capt Stone misses with his weapons. Vince aims and manages to hit not just once but twice. But that was enough to destroy the ship.

 

Max spins the Horus around and unloads on the last fighter, hitting him. Kahana then lets loose with both barrels, hitting it both times.

 

The last pirate ship, desperate and realizing he has no recourse, tries to ram Archangel. Not only does he fail, the impact is enough to cause his ship to explode. Archangel takes no damage.

 

As the group is working on repairs, Vince manages to get the sensors back online. He boosts them trying to sense the mother ship, and does detect it. Before he can do anything other than detecting it, the ship jumps to star*drive and disappears.

 

The group finishes up the rest of the repairs to the best of their abilities, and once they are finished doing that, K'nigley leaves going on a salvage expedition. As soon as K'nigley leaves the ship, Vince calls out "I'm going to work on the star*drive…..Does anyone know how to repair the star drive?"

Nobody answers, hopeful he was just joking. Ninety minutes later, he calls over the intercom "The star*drive is up and functional." What he doesn't say is that he has left half the screws out, not put any of the cables back where they belong, and basically leaves the entire area a mess.

 

K'nigley was successful in finding the shield generator the one pirate ship had. It's damaged, but he thinks he could repair it. He comes back to the ship and walks into the star*drive area. It's a good thing he's a quiet person as he spends the next two hours cleaning up the mess left behind by Vince.

 

The survey crew finishes their work on the first planet and is taken to their next planet. At that point, the surveyors say it will take 28 days to finish the full scanning of the system. The group figures the pirate vessel could return in 12 days.

 

K'nigley, spending all his time on the shield generator, figures the generator is fighter sized, so it would only be able to protect one side of the ship. Even so, K'nigley thinks it is something the ship could use, and Capt Stone agreed.

 

XP: 225

 

GM Notes

• I don't know if I have had a campaign start with a natural one before.  I am sure there have been bad rolls but I don't know about a one.  Fun stuff, which was what the sheer points were all about.  
• I was worried about going back to 3E (DND) style rules in d20 Modern (Future) but I think we are finding a lot of good ways to do it.  There are more skills but I hope we can deal with it before they have outrageous scores in them.  Also, not sure about the disparity of the numbers but time will tell with that.  
• The space battle went REALLY WELL!  It was cinematic to me in a way that d20 hasn't been in the past.  I don't know if it's the different rules for ships or what happened but it was a lot of fun!  I could see it happen and while it might not have been "real" it was dramatic and fun!  
• I am trying to decide if I want to write a cut scene or not.  I think having an unknown enemy, for a time, might be more worrying than seeing them now.  

 

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