Traveller #004: Playing Catch-up and Rescuing Aliens

Editor's Note: Apparently, I have missed a session of this Traveller campaign. Not sure how that happened, but it's a thing and the characters have launched the ship, taken off into the wild dark vastness of space, and I'm a bit behind the curve of the story.

The Journey Continues... see the note above. 

The crew for this session of Brett's ongoing Mongoose 2nd Edition Traveller game today consists of the following:

Jeff "Mega" Credit in the role of XO, as played by Mike
Will "Danger" Robinson engineer extraordinaire, as played by Brent
Ichobod Hoke our security, protection, and peace of mind, as played by Josh
Daryen "Lucky" Gavic the vagabond drifter and space rogue, as played by me (Ronn)

Waking up from a deep oblivion, Gavic, realized he was no longer planet side or even still at the space port, the Deepnight Revelation was in on the fringe of the Great Rift far from known sectors and familiar trade routes. His second realization, was that the bits he picked up portside were not jumpers, but probably some lab-concoction that was way more potent and decidedly less safe. Eh, whatever. Time to get back to whatever his role is on this trip into the void.

Two jumps into it the Deepnight was low on fuel and looking for a gas giant to refill the tanks. Dropping into a likely system, we'll be calling it Alpha, they found the fuel needed and picked up a repeating signal coming from an inner planet (id: DNSAQ406 Alpha 1). The signal was unrecognizable, not on expected or typical frequencies, and too short to translate. So, really only two things to throw out into space -- help or stay away. 50/50 chance of it being either. Let's go take a look.

Scans reveal the signal coming from a huge wreck. A ship of alien design that had been split in two by it's impact with it's terrestrial encounter. Our fearless explorers grabbed a shuttle and took it planet side for some salvage work, investigation, and possibly a rescue operation. It was determined that the drives were compromised and leaking, but not to a dangerous degree. Gavic had a feeling they were being watched the whole time they were there. Gotta trust your gut. It turns out he was right.

There was a sole survivor in the wreck and violence proved unnecessary. There was nothing here worth salvaging. The technology was subpar and mostly damaged beyond any worth, but the strange being was an opportunity to have a positive first-contact situation. A rare thing in these troubled times. The alien was an Alikaia named Akranika and was a "thinker" among his race, one of four castes: Worker, Warrior, Thinker, and Breeder. The thing looked like some sort of lizard-bug centaur mixed with a spider-snake. Definitely not great, where are all the sexy aliens the screens promised us. The crew arranged to return him to his people and make contact with this new species.

The Alikaia are a spacefaring race completely unknown in Charted Space. Their society seems to be broken into colonies, each led by a breeder. These colonies were excited to make first contact and meet the humans on the Deepnight Revelation. Yada, yada, yada. It was all very peaceful and mutually beneficial. Things were going great. Then some big bug and his crew decided to have a go at the newcomers.

Crashing the peace party was some bug named Idridzin and a couple other ambassadors from The 13 Colony, Kadiaz. Under guise of diplomacy they attempted to take control of the Deepnight and its advanced technology, but ran into some resistance in the form of Gavic and company. He ended up on the wrong end of a cutlass and his attempt to conquer the newcomers was met with failure and defeat. Probably, his group will continue to make trouble, but for now they've been spanked and sent off to their quarters to think about what they've done.

But the excitement wasn't over. As the fighting was wrapping up one of the alikaia space colony ships began to slip into the gravity well of the planet, having lost power and/or controls. Small ship rescue was in order and Gavic, surprisingly, was first to head for the shuttles. Probably, to show off his piloting, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. Panic stricken the aliens began to jump into space in an attempt to save themselves. idiots. Fortunately, Gavic and the other pilots were skilled and up to the task of rescue. The colony queen was saved along with many others, the Deepnight now being home to 100 alikaia refuges. What could go wrong. Only time will tell.

We were rewarded with a point of training, but being "Lucky" has it's draw backs... I failed my Education check and will need to wait another 8-weeks to try again.

Another Note: I dug the dice out of my Firefly Yahtzee game to bring a little spaciness to my rolls. They worked great, right up until I failed that Education check.