Author: J.Bland

I am a Decider.

J.Bland
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Into the Void Ref’s Notes Session 34

This adventure is taking way more session than I expected! That’s fine. We’re only playing for two hours at a time, and we usually spend about 10 minutes catching up before we play. I’m enjoying these sessions a lot, and I hope the players are too. It is great to not feel like we are rushing through an adventure “just to get it done.”

One challenge I had in last night’s session was keeping the one character who stayed on the ship (to make sure someone was there at the ready) engaged. William is a great player. He often is the one who goes up to the balcony to keep an eye on things, lags behind to make sure no one is following them, etc. Sometimes, as in these last few sessions, it means his character, Barney, isn’t  in the middle of the action.

However, over the last seven years of playing Traveller he understands how to keep his character busy, and find productive things to do, in this case supporting the away team. I can’t believe we’ve been playing this campaign for over seven years now, but we have, and all the guys are seasoned Traveller players. Well, Todd is new, but he’s an experienced gamer and it’s like he’s been with us the whole time.

I had a good time with last night’s session. I made a random table to determine how the alien ship they are on might malfunction. Gravity going in and out, information videos suddenly playing, lights on and off, maneuvering/attitude thrusters suddenly firing. It was also fun to have the PCs in vac suits – an added level of danger, as well as some zero-g antics.

When I review my own performance as Ref after these games, I continue to be dissatisfied with the descriptions I give of things. Like the interior of the ship. I feel like I’m paying a lot of attention to the big things in a session, but could spend more time thinking of atmospheric details. I will work on that.

Going on vacation for a week. More Traveller after that.

 

 

J.Bland
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ITV Session 34: Zero Gravity

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Aboard alien disc ship
Continuing from previous game

SAFCO and Caliban Tisk continue to explore the alien craft. Barney and Fardt are aboard the Rambler-II. Lucky explores one of the outer hallways.

As they explore the ship, they find more hibernating fur balls.  Roger kills one that is blocking his way.

The temperature in the ship has risen to -40 C.

The ship contains many curving corridors, which lead to chambers with what look like sleeping couches for some kind of alien physique.

The power and systems in the ship “hiccup”. On board the Rambler-II, Barney uses the sensors and can read the power fluctuations. In the alien ship, artificial gravity goes out. The team and the fur balls are now in zero-g.

Barney uses sensors to study the alien ship, determining that the engineering section is on the bulging section on the presumed “bottom”.

The boarding party uses Vacc Suit and Zero-G Combat skills to maneuver around the ship.  There’s another hiccup. Lights go out and the ship seems to move. Barney sees a couple of maneuvering thrusters on the disk ship fire, and the ship begins to tumble again, this time with the mining pod attached to it. The cargo door is now flipping around. Inside the alien ship, the boarding party is now relying on the headlamps from their vac suits for light, as the ship very slowly tumbles. The fur balls are bouncing around.

Caliban checks his suit readouts. Interior temp of the ship is approaching 0 C.

There’s another power fluctuation. Around the ship, panels slide open on the walls, revealing video screens. A recording begins to play. The face of a crustacean-like alien appears and speaks in an alien language. An animation starts as he speaks, depicting their ship landing on an idyllic planet. Crab-like aliens exit the ship. The do not look like the bugs. It shows equipment compartments opening on the outside of the ship, crab-beings setting up camps, and one alien going up a central shaft in the ship to a compartment on top and accessing a computer.

SAFCO discusses what they think has happened on this ship. The mystery continues.

The ship has warmed above freezing now. Two fur balls unfold into bugs. They are all in zero-g. The bugs try to get to the humans to attack but fail. Various gunshots fail to kill the bugs.

On board the Rambler-II, Fardt manages a lucky shot with the pulse lasers and fries the alien ship’s maneuvering thrusters.

There’s another power fluctuation. Gravity comes back on. The bugs and humans land back on the floor. Many shots fail to damage the bugs. Finally, Caliban manages a great and lucky shot, and one bug explodes in a burst of acid and dies.

The other bug leaps on Lucky and bites him, then continues grasping him. Lucky is still up. Flint shoots it in the back but it doesn’t die. He then realized that was a bad move – the acid would have gotten on Lucky.  More shots. Lucky pries himself free, but not before it spits some acid on him. Flint blasts the bug and kills it.

Caliban quickly patches the Lucky’s vac suit, but it still has acid on it that continues eating through it. The ship continues to tumble.

End of Session.
Still IY6026.306
Elapsed time: 413 game days

 

J.Bland
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Into the Void Ref’s Notes Session 33

A few notes.

Playing approximately once a week, online, for two hours, seems to be working out. It seems easier for the whole group to find two hours and not have to travel at all than to find travel time, then two hours or more, then more travel time. And it’s easier than finding three or four hours for online play. We’re having a good time with it, and it feels like the campaign is regaining its momentum.

In last night’s game I had decided that each time I went through the entire party, asking them what they are doing and then having them do it, would equal 10 minutes in the game, and that each of those 10 minutes would raise the interior temperature of the alien ship by 10 degrees C. The team, however, was very cautious. The time scale ended up not making any sense. I stuck to it, but it was obvious that it was all out of sync with what was actually happening. I told my players that obviously I had messed it up, but we were sticking with it rather than me retconning the session. What I should have done was either make each time through the lineup 5 minutes, or just dropped the time period all together and tied each full trip through the rotation to a temperature raise, and then GM’ed it .

Lesson learned.

As I wrote up last night’s game, I realized that as a GM, writing up the sessions in this way might be my best GM practice. It is a great tool for remembering what happened, obviously, but also keeps us kind of enthusiastic about the campaign. It is cool to look back and see all the stuff the team has done.

I have been physically kind of exhausted lately. Allergies are bad this time of year, and work has been busy. Last night I was not sure I was ready in terms of prep or just physically, but we played and my players gave me the energy to do a good job. Good players make the game.

 

J.Bland
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ITV Session 33: Fur Balls

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SAFCO and Caliban Tisk still in orbit of planet Chamax.

Lucky, Flint, and Caliban, in vacc suits, are standing inside the alien disk ship, just inside the cargo door. Atmosphere is still escaping that ship. Roger uses the mining pods claws to grab the edge of that door, as he has noticed the escaping air is thrusting the ship away slightly. He exits the pod and joins the others. Barney and Fardt remain about the ramble, Barney at the pilots seat and Fardt in the bottom turret.

Lucky closes the door of the disk ship. As it closes, the ships interior lights activate. They notices the sound of “a ship returning to life” as the vessel’s systems come back online. Their vacc suits indicate the temperature inside is -100 C.

Looking ahead, there is a central ramp that leads up. On either side is a ramp that leads down apparently to a lower deck. Just inside there is a 1 meter by 1 meter hatch on the walls of each of the side ramps.

Looking down the left down ramp, no lit up, Lucky sees about 10 meters away one of the meter-diameter fur balls they found on the planet that are apparently hibernating creatures.

Going up the central ramp, Roger gets to the end and finds a curving corridor to the left and right. Down to the right he sees a fur ball.

The fur balls are not moving. Lucky uses binoculars to look at his. There are no apparent eyes or other sensory organs focused on him. It is just a fur ball.

Rogers check his suit. They have been in the ship a while now, and it is warming as the systems come back online. Up to -90 C now.

Lucky looks at the square hatch in the right side ramp walls It is 1×1 meter square. He makes and Engineering roll. He recognizes that it is a fairly low-tech hatch. A simple mechanical latch. He estimates based on that they are dealing with a lower than Imperial average tech level.

Caliban and Flint are on the left side ramp. They open that hatch. Caliban stoops and looks through. He sees a curving corridor, and about 10 meters in is another fur all.

Flint advocated simply kicking the frozen/hibernation fur balls into space. Caliban, experienced in alien first contact, thinks they may be dealing with an intelligent species. He further mentions to SAFCO that if they can make a positive first contact they might be able to benefit financially from any contracts they can make with them. He asks Barney, aboard the Rambler-II, to broadcast some of the strange radio signals they found on the planet.

Barney moves to the communications panel and does just that, and notices that the alien ship is now broadcasting radio signals. He records them and send them through the ships computer (makes COMP roll) and successfully analyzes them. They match similar patterns of what might be S-O-S or “Hailing Frequencies Open” or “We are here” kinds of simple signals. Caliban records them.

The alien ship continues to warm. Flint suggests they reopen the cargo door to cool the ship back down. He is concerned about waking up the creatures.

Caliban uses his radio, up close, to broadcast the alien signals right at the fur ball in front of him. He’s not listening to the other’s conversation. Flint re-tethers himself to Lucky and braces himself against the small square portal opening. Lucky moves to the cargo door control and uses his Elec-3 skill to try to use the alien controls to only raise the door a little bit to bleed off some of the warming atmosphere.

Caliban sees his fur ball beginning to quiver. He is determined for a successful first contact.

He manages to raise it only 1 meter, but that’s a lot. The air begins whooshing out. Flint easily braces himself and is not sucked out. Lucky misses his roll and is sucked out into space, tethered to Flint. On the upper deck, a fur ball is sucked past Roger, who makes a DEX save to avoid it smashing into him. He then fails his STR save and is blown down the corridors. He tumbles past the dangling Lucky.

Lucky makes a DEX save and manages to grab Roger by the ankle as he tumble by.

Inside, Flint manages to partially shut his small square hatch. The fur ball smashes into his back, as does Caliban. Using his great strength (he makes a STR save) Flint pulls Lucky and Roger back into the ship. Lucky shuts the cargo door. The lights and life support are still on.

In the side corridor, the fur ball begins to unfold into an adult Chamax. It attacks Flint but misses. He hits it twice with his sword, but it doesn’t die. Caliban fires with his auto pistol but misses. Lucky spots the thing through the hatch and shoots it with his auto rifle. He penetrates the creatures  body and ruptures its acid sack. No one is at Close range. The beast erupts in acid, and dies.

The team is still aboard the alien ship, which continues to warm…

End of session
Still IY6026.306
Elapsed time: 413 game days

J.Bland
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Into the Void Ref’s Notes Session 31 and 32

I have been running a modified version of the classic Traveller adventure “the Chamax Horde” for the last few sessions. I say “modified”, which means I used a lot of the structure of the adventures but made it fit into our campaign a bit better. This is the second time in the history of our campaign that I’ve used someone else’s adventure, the first being the Energy Leech adventure which came from Michael Brown’s 1-page adventure Energy Transfer.

It has taken a long time to do this particular adventure due simply to not playing very often. It’s hard for players to remember important details which might help them if you wait too long between sessions.

Now that we are playing online again that may change. Last night I proposed weekly or bi-weekly sessions, Tuesday nights from 7pm – 9pm. For in-person games I always feel like two hours is not enough. Everyone has made time to go to the game location, and then you only play for two hours? That doesn’t seem right. But playing online it feels different. No one has to travel. It is more convenient. And spending two hours a week online for the campaign is not too massive a time requirement. I think it may work. We’re going to try it. Everyone wants to play more. I’d like to as well. And it is easier to prep for two-hour sessions. It’s also easier to keep the Referee-Mind sharp and on-task for shorter sessions. I think that will benefit everyone.

Last night’s game was another zero combat session. Lots of exploration, planning, problem solving. I was very happy with the way all the players were active and engaged. I didn’t have to “find stuff” for each character to do. They just got in there and made it all happen. Before the game I asked them to all review the previous few sessions for important loose ends and details. One player in particular really took that seriously and was on-point with it. I have great players, and I appreciate it!

J.Bland
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ITV Session 32: Chamax Revisited

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SAFCO is in orbit of Planet Chamax, having narrowly escaped the aggressive hordes of crustacean-like creatures on the planet’s surface. They have rescued Caliban Tisk from a rocky island in the middle of a large lake.

On the bridge of the Rambler-II they discuss options. Caliban, who wrote his original crew’s contract with InStarSpec, has told them that whoever completes the survey of the planet will get paid. SAFCO seems up for doing this. Roger is in favor of getting back to Mylor and reporting on the events on Desolis, including the black energy leeching substance and the plans of Doctor Falke.

The team completes the survey, most of which Caliban had on his hand computer.

Lucky brings up the idea of returning do the air space above the ruins on Chamax and using the drone to further investigate the huge dome. They vote. Barney isn’t super happy about the idea, but they decide to attempt it, to gather more information.

Caliban inquires about SAFCO’s insurance situation. Is the ship insured? Etc.

Roger pilots the ship back down. Flint and Lucky take the air raft down and hover about 50 feet above the dome. Lucky sends the drone down. There are still a few of the creatures below, wandering aimlessly around the ruins. Using the drone, and broadcasting the video and sensor feed back to the ship, Lucky discovers that the dome is hollow, but there are 8′ diameter holes in the ground inside the dome, in no particular pattern. Taking the drone lower they see more of the organic furry balls on the ground in the dome.

As the team observes things, they discuss the apparent sensitivity of the creatures to radio signals. They notice after a few minutes of drone use that the furry balls begin to “quiver.” On board the Rambler-II Roger and Barney scan radio frequencies with the scanners. They identify the telemetry/control signals for the drone as well as other non-random signals. Analog signals.

Barney attempts to use the computer to find any patterns or info in those mysterious signals, but is unable.

As the observation continues, finally the furry balls in the dome become more agitated and begin to unfold, revealing themselves to actually be the creatures. They are awakening. Seeing nothing else of interest in the dome, and having had enough of the creatures, Flint signals to the Rambler-II for pickup. The ship returns and retrieves the air raft, Flint, and Lucky, and returns to orbit.

Back in the ship, Caliban saves recordings from the sensors to his tablet. The team decides that perhaps their hacker back on Mylor, Tahm Slykk, might have better luck decoding the signals.

They leave orbit.

As they are leaving Chamax, Lucky monitors the sensor for any potential trouble. Pirates or whatever. He makes a great Comp roll, and discovers a large metal object in very high orbit of the planet.

They investigate, and and find a flat, disk-like ship slowing tumbling but in a stable orbit. As Roger brings the Rambler closer, they see an inactive drive unit on bottom, and a 10′ high 30′ wide cargo door along flat circumference, but otherwise no features. Sensor detect that it does have power. They see ice on the surface.They use the sensors,  which indicate the ship’s surface is cold. Colder than one would expect for a metal object in space.

Caliban begins filling out salvage forms on his hand-computer.

SAFCO comes up with a plan. There is no docking ring. There is nothing on this strange ship for the docking clamp to grab. Flint, Lucky, and Caliban suit up in vacc suits. Barney takes control of the Rambler, Roger having established excellent station-keeping with the other ship. They need to stop it’s tumble. Roger takes the mining pod out. Roger is able to use his massive pilot skill to use the pod’s grabbing arms and thrusters to halt the tumble of the other ship, then returns to the cargo bay.  The three in vacc suits hold on to the outside of the pod, hitching a ride over to the cargo door of the other ship. Caliban has suggested they tether to each other, as he is new to vacc suit use.  Roger gets them close.

On board the Rambler-II, Barney gets the auto-turret ready in case of trouble, and Fardt goes to the other turret (he has no gunnery skill!).

Lucky, then Flint, then Caliban move over to the other ship, to the 3 foot deep ledge where the cargo door is recessed into the vessel.

Lucky finds a control panel on the side of the entryway. It’s a alien panel, but he makes a HUGE electronics roll and successfully opens it.

A massive blast of air comes out. Each must roll STR or less on 2d6 to manage to grab the edge of the door grooves or be blown out. Lucky and Flint make their rolls. Caliban fails and it blasted off the ledge. Flint is next on the tether, and is able to make another STF roll and yanks Caliban back to the ledge without being pulled out himself.

From the bridge of the Rambler-II and the turret, Barney and Fardt witness this, as does Roger from the mining pod.

Everyone also sees one of the furry balls ejected from the alien ship and go flying into space.

End of session.
IY6026.306
Elapsed time: 413 game days

J.Bland
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ITV Session 31: Chamax

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Elapsed time: 412 game days

SAFCO begins where we left off, with the Rambler II landed on top of a plateau and the team looking down on the landing site of the InstarSpec Subsidized Merchant ship.

Elsewhere on the plant, in the crashed Launch of the Sub Merchant, Caliban Tisk awaits rescue. He’s down to few days rations now, but a least on this rocky island in the middle of a lake the creatures can’t get to him. He turns on the Launch’s radio for his daily scan for anyone who might help him. A retired administrator from the Imperium, he took this job to help facilitate any claims expecting it to be an easy job. Now he’s barely escaped the attack on his crew by figuring out to how fly the damaged Launch and finding this “safe” spot. He’s heard occasional non-random and very weak transmissions, but no rescue.

Back at the Rambler II, the team uses the drone to examine the downed ship. Lucky pilots it down, taking his time and doing a good inspection. He flies it into one of the holes in the ship and finds burn marks on the floor plates and two half-meter furry balls in that compartment. The balls are not moving. Roger takes over the drone and examines the temporary shelter as Lucky goes up into the top turret of the ship. Barney decides they might want someone in the pilot’s chair and goes back to the ships bridge and moves it to give Lucky a good view of the site below from the turret. He sees nothing else as Roger pilots the drone.

Caliban Tisk, at the Launch’s radio, hears what sound like telemetry signals. Knowing what will happen, he decides anyway to try to radio any rescue mission that might have arrived.

On the Rambler, the ships comm system picks up a transmission from someone on the planet. Barney communicates with him. The person says to be careful of the giant spider-like creatures, and asks if they are there from InStarSpec to rescue him. About that time the shit hits the fan. Insect-like creatures the size of large dogs begin coming out of holes in the side of the cliff and climbing toward the Rambler II. The team starts hearing the sound of the creatures and see that they are approaching them and under the ship.

Luckily the team is all near the ship, but there are creatures between them on the cargo ramp, which is facing them. They run for the ship but are blocked by some creatures. Roger shoots one with his autopistol and the creature erupts in an explosion of acid. He runs onboard the ramp.

From the bridge Barney can see the things coming from all directions. He turns on the auto-turret and  it begins blasting the creatures. There are acid explosions all over the place. The dead creatures, their own bodies being eaten by their acid, litter the ground, but the creatures just keep coming.

Back at the launch, understanding that the creatures seem drawn to radio signals but knowing they can’t get to him, Caliban Tisk attempts to supercharge the Launch’s radio to draw the creatures away from his would-be rescuers. (Rolls JOT/Electronics – fails). A good idea anyway.

Fardt makes a run for the ramp and avoids an attack. Lucky does the same, shooting a creature but seeming to do no damage. Flint opens up with his submachine gun and has no effect. Lucky and Flint are both grasped and bitten by the creatures. They manage to break free but not before the creatures have secreted acid on them, which starts burning through their armor.  They get loose and make it to the ship, yelling for Barney to take off.

As they stand on the cargo ramp, 20 feet off the ground, there is one creature on the ramp with them. It grasps and bites Roger, who manages to get free. In close quarters they are afraid to shoot the creature for fear of acid. Flint grabs a strap attached to the ramp and does a flying kick, trying to knock the creature off. He connects, but the monster grabs the ramp and remains onboard. Roger then tries kicking it off, succeeding.

The team enters the ship and closes the ramp, being careful for any more creatures, removing their ruined armor. Barney flies them up into orbit.

They check the exterior of the ship as best they can, finding no creatures there or on the landing gear.

Roger takes over the pilot position.

They make contact with the survivor. They find him on a tiny rocky island in the middle of a lake. His use of the radio has apparently attracked many creatures who are at the edge of the water, frustrated they can’t get to him. Flint and Lucky rescue him in the air raft. He introduces himself to the crew as Caliban Tisk, working for InStarSpec as a Claims Facilitator. He tells them that he wrote his old crew’s contract with the company, and the contract says that whoever finishes the survey of the planet will get paid. SAFCO seems interested in completing the work — FROM ORBIT.

End of Session.
IY6026.305
Elapsed time: 412 game days

 

J.Bland
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Into the Void Ref’s Notes Session 30

It took almost a year to get back to the campaign, but I never end a campaign. Ever.

Session 30 was really fun, and was a reminder why I love this group so much. Since William moved to San Antonio last year we are taking the game back to Roll20 rather than in-person. I’ve not run or played a game on Roll20 since the pandemic lockdown, though I’ve kept my account  and all the stuff in there. The biggest issue I’ve had with it is that putting things online is an added layer of preparation. I really like doing everything in a small notebook and using that with my small ring binder that has all the campaign materials and playing in-person. I spend a lot of time on the computer already. BUT — I have made some progress on Roll20.

I got an iPad Mini for Christmas 2024, and recently added and Apple Pencil and the application Procreate to it, and it makes creation of maps for the online game much easier. I no longer want to go jump in front of a bus every time I start working on one. I can sit in my chair, in the front room with my family, and work on the iPad. The pencil works really well too, and the application does exactly what I need it to do.

Now, while I haven’t been running this campaign for nearly a year, I have been running a D&D campaign for three players for about 8 months, so I’ve been getting a lot of GM practice. So jumping back into the Traveller game was not that hard. I was very pleased with the roleplaying done by the group. They give me so many things to riff off of during the game. I had no intention of introducing an NPC computer hacker, but they wanted to find one, so I whipped one up. The things they did that I wasn’t expecting, which was nearly everything, gave me so many options as the referee. It is kinda funny that now, at 60 years of age, I am finally understanding that if you LISTEN to your players and ride that wave the game will be a lot better, and a lot easier to run.

Classic Traveller is a great system for this kind of play. There are enough rules to get the job done, but not so many to make the game oppressive and hard to create and adjust on the fly. Cepheus Engine is the same way.

After the game we started a discussion about the Cepheus Engine, and possibly converting the campaign to the CE System Reference Document. I have already ported a lot of CE mechanics to this Classic Traveller game. I think making it official might help the players, as they’d have all the rules I’m using easily available. So I asked them, if they have the time, to fiddle around with character creation using the online version.

I do, however, ask myself how much this would improve our game. Would it improve it at all? Is it necessary? The honest answer is probably not. Classic Traveller has served us well for many years now. I really enjoy saying I run Classic Traveller. That means a lot to me.

 

J.Bland
·

ITV Session 30: A Planet Found

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Elapsed time: 396 game days

SAFCO starts from where we left off, onboard the Rambler II, attached by docking clamp to a doomed freetrader hurtling into the sun. They have the mentally-broken survivor of that craft onboard as well. Roger releases the docking clamp and gets the Rambler to safety with plenty of time to spare. On the trip back to Mylor, Barney attempts to break the corporate encryption on the optical storage wafer containing the doomed ship’s log. He succeeds only in breaking into some image files – pics of alien artifacts and antiquities presumably found on one of that ship’s missions. At skill level of Computer-1 he is unable to break the more difficult encryption. They keep the rescued man sedated. They consult the ship computer’s library program to find that InStarSpec does have an office on Mylor. Removing the vacc suit from the man, they find and InStarSpec ID saying “Igor Ravensky: planetologist”

Returning to Mylor, they turn the man over to the Scout service, who in turn put him in a local hospital.

The team debates what to do. They ask Fardt (who has Streetwise-1) if he knows a hacker who might help with the encryption. Fardt makes his roll. They meet a tall man in a leather overcoat, high hair, and small hipster glasses with circular lenses at the Happy Gluck — Tahm Slykk. Tahm has his portable gear with him. They get Vern to find them a private room, explain the situation. Tahm agrees to help them for an even share of whatever profit they make off this “caper”. They agree. At Comp-4, Tahm easily breaks the encryption and makes them a copy of the ships log. He of course has a copy on his rig as well. He agrees not to step on their toes, and Flint gives him 2000 cr as an advance on payment and goodwill gesture.

Back onboard the Rambler, at the space port, they evaluate the data. They see that the other ship was a typical Type-A Freetrader that had been modified for exploration, with various labs and gear. They see that right before the incident the ship had been two parsecs away, just coreward of the Zerix system (where they have been before). According to the time stamps, the ship was gone less than 3 weeks – enough time for the Jump-2 back and forth and just a little time in that parsec. They also know that there are no planets charted in that system, so obviously InStarSpec has found a new system.

They decide to go attempt to question Igor. Arriving at the hospital they are told he is being kept sedated, that whenever he starts coming around he starts getting agitated and violent. As they discuss next steps, and man in a nice business suit arrives and questions the desk clerk, who points to SAFCO. He introduces himself as Sevor Halin , manager of the local InStarSpec office. He thanks them, asks them what kind of ship Igor was on, and asks them to come to his office the next day.

The three former scouts in SAFCO are familiar enough with InStarSpec to know they are essentially for-profit explorers. They look for new resources, make a claim, then sell rights to other companies that might be able to exploit them. They have hired scouts out of the service, and the Scout Service tends to look down on them as profiteers, which they are, but then again in this universe who isn’t?

SAFCO meets with Halin, and agree to travel to the new system, named Chamax, to find out what’s going on, as they actually sent a two-ship expedition. The other ship is a 400-ton Subsidized Merchant, also retrofitted for exploration. They agree on payment, and Halin urges them to leave quickly.

SAFCO launches the next day, traveling first to the Zerix system, refueling at the gas giant there, and then jumping to the Chamax system.

Unknown to Halin, they have the ships log from the freetrader so they know exactly where to look. From orbit they use the ship’s sensor array and can see the Sub. Merchant still sitting there next to a plateau. They see no movement. Roger lands the ship stealthily on the top of the plateau. Flint and Roger creep up to the edge with Fardt with binoculars. Lucky mans one of the laser turrets on the ship and Barney gets in the pilot’s position.

Looking down, Flint, Roger, and Fardt see the Sub Merchant leaning to one side into the sand. They see a portable temporary shelter and an ATV near the ship as well as the location where the other ship was probably landed. Nearby there are a bunch of stone domes – ruins. One is bigger and has been opened up. They also see holes in the side of the ship with the same kind of scorch marks they saw onboard the doomed freetrader.

End of session:
IY6026.305
Elapsed time: 412 game days