My adventures with Core Space continue this week with Mission 6 of the Perseus Arm Campaign from the main Core Space rulebook.
In the previous thrilling episode, the crews of the good ships Saucy Sue and Black Maria had joined forces to rescue Callen Butler, the CEO of the Tau Cross Corporation, from the clutches of the Proletarian Viscounts cult. This mission was largely carried out without any major snags, though Jace, the captain of the Black Maria, was forced to undergo a week of intense and expensive re-hab to get over his overdose of med-stims during the mission.
In retrospect, it might have been a better idea to ransom the ungrateful Butler back to Tau Cross, as the reward was pitiful and only just covered Jace’s re-hab bill. However, the loot was plentiful, as were the experience points. Roykirk in particular, having killed the most dangerous of the Purge; a ‘Live One’ through the medium of the Saucy Sue‘s airlock defence-cannon, accrued an additional XP, which now allows him to field an extra purple Skill peg. With five successful missions now under the belt, both crews are now pretty well-armed and equipped, with decent firearms and melee weapons, as well as a few other useful bits of kit and armour or personal shields. Before heading out they stuff any remaining empty pockets with med-stims in case of emergencies, but which can also be dropped in favour of valuable items of loot.
With Jace having finally returned from re-hab, both crews decide to celebrate their success by getting wrecked at one of their favourite dive-bars in a particularly wretched hive of scum and villainy; the spaceport of Bahcall’s Belt.
However, before they’ve even downed their first pint of synth-ale, the whole station lurches alarmingly as a Purge vessel slams into the docking bay! The station lighting immediately fails, but before anyone can panic and to everyone’s relief, the dim emergency lighting immediately kicks in. However, other systems have failed all over the station and much to Renton’s disappointment, this includes the bar’s beverage-dispensers.
Lars’ wrist-comm immediately starts beeping frantically. “Shit, the Maria’s computer is telling me that the docking-clamp control unit has blown its backup cells!”
Roykirk also frowns as he reads the urgent message from the Saucy Sue‘s computer. “Same here, Boss. We won’t be able to undock until we find some replacement cells, install them in the station’s docking control unit and then re-boot the system!”
Arianna, the captain of the Saucy Sue and former fleet officer, immediately takes control, “Okay, we know what we need to do. Gak, Roykirk, defend the Docking Control. The rest of us need to search this station FAST!” She looks at Jace, “Are we on the same page, here?”
“Sure thing. You heard her, boys; what she said!”
Above: Six of the eight crew-members start in the pub. However, Tirgarde from the Saucy Sue is on business in the north-east corner of the station, while Beck had gone back to the Black Maria and is now half-way between the docking bay and the pub.
Equipment crates are marked in green. These will need to be searched for ship parts and when found, they will need to be taken back to the Docking Control Room, where they will need to be installed and the system re-booted. Only then will they be able to escape. In addition, the central room of the station functions as an armoury and therefore holds a large stash of ammo, which might come in handy.
In the meantime, the Purge will of course be boarding the station. The six potential entry-points are marked with red arrows; most are of course in the docking bay, but there is also the possibility of Purge appearing at an access-point on the southern edge, near the pub, and in the north-western corner, near the Docking Control.
Above: Arianna, Roykirk, Gak, Jace, Renton and Lars quickly down their drinks before sprinting out of the pub. Priorities…
Above: Tirgarde finds himself alone, but in a sector where there is no immediate Purge threat. There are a few equipment crates in that part of the station, but he will need to search them quickly.
Above: Beck meanwhile, is close to the Docking Bay and to the greatest threat. There are however, a couple of equipment crates in the Docking Bay that need searching. He judges that he can dash in, search a crate and dash out again before any Purge Harvester has time to react.
Above: However, it’s not always the Purge you have to worry about… The panicked barman suddenly grabs a weapon from under the bar and opens fire! Gak takes a volley in the back, but his personal shield thankfully prevents any damage. Before Gak can return fire, the barman screams in fear, dives out of a window and is gone.
Above: Just as Beck reaches the first crate, a skeletal Purge Harvester appears and lurches towards him! Harvesters aren’t the fastest movers, so Beck judges that he can still take a quick look inside the crate and grab what’s there before dashing out again, one step ahead of the Harvester. The automated airlock defence-cannons immediately spring to life, but are fairly inaccurate on Automatic Targeting Mode and fail to hit the Harvester.
Above: Renton meanwhile, has barely stepped out of the pub when he’s set upon by another Harvester! The Harvester immediately attacks him, but Renton’s fancy shielded jacket shrugs off the attack.
Above: While Renton grapples with the Harvester, Roykirk spots a frightened civilian girl at the far end of the room. However, in Roykirk’s experience, first contact with civilians invariably involves gunfire…
Above: Over in the Docking Bay, both Beck and the Harvester are most surprised when a civilian hurtles through the door, wielding a hydro-spanner double-handed, screaming “DIE MUTHAFLUFFA!!!” He charges straight at the Harvester and hits it straight between the eyes with a resounding clang! The surprised Harvester goes briefly cross-eyed, but then re-focusses on the civilian with murderous intent.
Above: “AAAAAARGHHH!!!” The ‘Surprise Attacker’ runs screaming back the way he came…
Above: Speaking of surprises; Roykirk is pleasantly surprised and relieved when the civilian girl, instead of opening fire, offers to help the crew! Roykirk immediately tells her what they need and she runs off to search crates for ship parts.
Above: Having put down the Harvester, Renton follows the girl to search for ship parts. Roykirk meanwhile searches the room and finds a credit-stick, but with more valuable items already filling his pockets he leaves it for someone else to pick up later.
Above: Arianna has reached the equipment crate at the north end of the Docking Bay. Expecting disappointment, she opens the lid and to her astonishment, immediately finds ship parts! Over the comm she hears another whoop of elation as Tirgarde finds some more ship parts! They now both need to get them back to the Docking Control and make their repairs before the Purge become too much to handle.
Above: However… The Purge suddenly get unexpected reinforcements and a boost to their enthusiasm [see the ‘Surge’ section of the card above]! However, a synchronised pair of electronic voices are suddenly heard from the airlocks of the Saucy Sue and Black Maria.
“Unexpected items in docking area!”
There is a sudden blaze of interlocking rotary cannon-fire and the Docking Bay is soon strewn with shattered and smoking biomechanical body-parts.
“Thank you for choosing Acme Automatic Airlock Defences for your home defence needs. Have a pleasant Standard Planetary Rotational Cycle.”
Above: However, Beck realises that he isn’t going to be able to out-run this Harvester, so dives behind cover, spins around and blows his pursuer apart.
Above: Back at the pub, Arianna sprints past with the priceless ship-parts. The others run to take cover, ready to defend the Docking Control Room while the repairs are being carried out.
Above: Back at the Docking Bay, yet more Purge have appeared in the form of yet another Harvester and a pair of Devastators.
Above: One of the Devastators spots Beck making his escape and opens up with a blistering volley of plasma-bolts!
Above: [In game terms, the Devastator’s first shot of two is a perfect score of four hits!] Beck’s shield-belt takes two of the hits before fritzing out and the cover afforded by a trading console takes another hit, but the fourth hit wounds Beck. With his shields gone, Beck won’t survive another volley like that! However, his luck holds and the Devastator’s second burst only hits the console.
As luck would have it, the other Devastator doesn’t have a line of sight on Beck. Beck also found a repair kit in the recently-searched equipment crate. He now just needs to find someone with the necessary tech skills to make the repair to his shield-belt.
Above: At the Docking Control Room, Tirgarde and Arianna both arrive with the required spare parts. The parts are quickly installed and Arianna flips the switch to re-boot the docking control system. “Here goes nothing…”
In the room outside there’s suddenly a roar of gunfire as a curious Harvester is obliterated by Gak, Renton, Roykirk and Jace.
Above: Beck dives through a doorway, pursued by one of the Devastators and yet another Harvester. He calls on the comm, “Lars! Where are you? Can you help? I need a shield-repair, but I’ve got the Purge on my tail!”
“No worries, I’m in the armoury. Come to me. I’ll deal with Big Red.”
Lars quickly taps a few icons on his wrist-comm and points a small directional antenna roughly in the direction of the Devastator. The crimson beast suddenly staggers to a halt and stands as if frozen.
“That’s stopped it for now, but it’ll soon recover. Come to us and we’ll arrange a proper reception for it!”
Above: Beck breathes a sigh of relief and leans against the bulkhead as he stabs a med-stim into his thigh.
In the distance, Beck can hear more cheerful invitations to have a nice day, along with occasional requests to fill in the product registration, as the airlock defence guns obliterate yet more Purge raiders.
Above: As the boys set up their ambush for the roaming Devastator, Treva the civilian technician suddenly unloads a panicked volley of rivets at Renton from his rivet gun.
“Oi, f***nugget! What the actual f*** are you doing?! What the f*** is wrong with you?! You could have f***in’ had my f***in’ eye out!”
Above: Roykirk as always, tries to placate the panicked Treva, who is now bawling his eyes out. “Oh God, I’m so sorry. I thought you were a ‘Live One’! Please help me get off this station! Please!”
Renton remains deeply f***in’ unimpressed and treats everyone to another soldierly linguistic lesson, but Roykirk calms the situation and tells Treva to calm down and come with them. Jace then spots some loot lying on the floor,
“Hey, isn’t that a jet-pack?! I’ve always wanted a jet-pack! Ah bollocks, I’m already carrying too much stuff… Roykirk, haven’t you always wanted a jet-pack?”
“No mate, and I’m not carrying it for you.”
“What the hell is wrong with you? What sort of psycho wouldn’t want their own jet-pack?! Hey mate! You, tech-bloke! If you want to come with us, you’ll have to carry my jet-pack. Good man…”
Above: Back at the pub, the barman reappears and starts cleaning up. “Thank the Maker those oiks have gone… Oh those unutterable bastards have only gone and nicked the glasses! That really gets on my suckling-podules, that does!”
Above: In the distance, the unmistakable “Unexpected item in the docking area!” is heard once again, as the airlock defences take down the Devastator and some more of its friends. However, the Harvester that had been trailing Beck now appears from around the corner. Lars meanwhile, fixes Beck’s shield-belt in short order.
Above: Gak and Beck watch the thing approach. “Shouldn’t we shoot it?”
“Nah mate, that’ll just attract more. I’ve got a big sword. I’ll just twat it when it gets here.”
Above: Arianna and Tirgarde suddenly burst out of the Docking Control Room, “Right, it’s fixed! Everybody back to the Docking Bay and lets get the f*** out of here!”
Above: Jace, Roykirk and Treva are already on their way to the Docking Bay, but are faced with yet more Harvesters. The Black Maria‘s airlock defences take one down, but another keeps coming. “Have a nice day and please do call again…”
However, yet another Harvester suddenly drops out of the corridor ceiling, right in the middle of the group!
Above: Meanwhile, Gak draws his sword and prepares to twat the approaching Harvester…
Above: Suddenly, there’s a loud crack and a blinding flash of light as the civilian girl shoots the Harvester in the side of the head… “I was bored waiting.”
Above: In the other corridor, Jace, Beck, Roykirk and Treva vie with each other for the honour of receiving the Steven Seagal Memorial Prize for the Most Pathetic Public Display of Hand-to-Hand Combat… Having completely failed to land any hits on the Harvester in their midst, the Harvester then tears a lump out of Roykirk.
Above: At last, Jace manages to land a killing blow on the thing and then spins around to blast the second Harvester. Beck and Roykirk are suitably impressed, but Treva’s courage snaps and he runs off screaming “I can’t take any more of this!”, taking Jace’s prized jet-pack with him.
Above: Before Jace can run after Treva and his jet-pack, yet another Devastator appears in the Docking Bay and spotting Jace perfectly outlined in the doorway, lets him have it with both barrels!
Above: Jace’s armour absorbs some of the damage, but the energy-bolt adds yet another scar to his growing collection.
As the airlock-defences obliterate yet another wave of Purge, the crew finally step into the Docking Bay and stare open-mouthed at the scene of devastation. The whole area is strewn with smoking bio-mechanical body-parts, some still twitching, sparking and oozing unmentionable fluids…
Above: Meanwhile, back at the pub, the barman leaves it a little too late to call Last Orders.
Above: With the coast finally clear, Jace and his lads sprint across the Docking Bay to the safety of the Black Maria‘s airlock.
Above: The crew of the Saucy Sue are a little way behind and find yet more Purge waiting for them. However, as the automatic defences lay down covering fire, Arianna and her lads also make a sprint for the airlock.
Above: Arianna and the boys make it safely to the ship. However, the civilian girl has disappeared, presumably fancying her chances on the station with the Purge rather than leaving on a rickety old rust-bucket.
Above: The crew of the Black Maria (top row) didn’t manage to find much in the way of cash or tradeable goods, but they have managed to find some excellent weaponry that’s a considerable improvement on what they had before. Some of these weapons are however, rather large and bulky, which means less room in the inventory and harder choices on the next mission.
The crew of the Saucy Sue (bottom row) have also managed to find some new weapons, including an interesting combination gun/fist-thing. They’ve also managed to find quite a lot of cash, so will have no problems in keeping the Saucy Sue flying.
So with luck and a considerable amount of help from the fully-upgraded automatic airlock defences (which was money VERY well spent), both crews manage to escape the station with only minor scratches and before any serious opposition shows up. However, as the manoeuvring thrusters fire to push the ships away from the station, the fuel-warning lights on both ships start to blink…
Out of the frying pan…
Anyway, that’s me for now and I’m off to Bella Italia for a week. Lots more Core-Spacing soon, as well as plenty of Tricorning when I get back…
