Fragments – Session 1 – Part 1: Getting to Guruphon Station

Session 1 happened Friday, August 19, 2011.

This campaign uses the Hero System, 5th Edition, with much Traveller material grafted on. I am making use of the Hero Traveller books published by ComStar Games. Sadly, these books went out of print when Mongoose Publishing purchased the rights to produce all things Traveller. They are doing good things, so no hate mail.

PCs:
The Company:
Maxwell Sloan (male human, communications and sensors specialist)
Cyrano Steel (male Lante, computer systems specialist)
Oscar Dougray (male human, salvage expert)
Ro Owen (female human, team security expert)
Nomen Fire-eyes male human hybrid, negotiator)
Braddock Grar, Lector (male Low Waldi, archivist)

NPCs:
The Crew:
Echo Salazar (female human, ship’s captain)
Ted Yahn (male human, ship’s navigator)
Albertha Trufin (female human, ship’s engineer)
Quinton Picknell, Doctor (male human, ship’s doctor)

Maresfield Trade Representative
Deadra Pagenkopf (female human, governmental trade liaison)


After securing and refitting the Just Lucky (once a gambling ship [based on the Traveller lab ship design]), the partners of the Phoenix Salvage received a list of critical materials necessary for the resumption of starship construction on Maresfield. [As opposed to salvage of abandoned ships in orbit.] Going over the list and a (dated) star chart of the sub-sector, the company folks decided to chart a course to the adjacent system of Guruphon, once a source of “red gold”, a substance necessary for high end electronics and a critical component of the McGuffin [the anti-VIRUS device]. The payoff would be good no matter how much red gold they found and the Just Lucky can carry enough fuel to jump there and back safely. Once supplies and all the crew (and Trade Representative Pagenkopf) were on board, Captain Salazar was given the order to make jump to Guruphon.

After the one week jump, the Just Lucky exited jumpspace on the edge of the Guruphon system. Ship’s sensors detected all the planets records indicated the system should have, but no navigational signals. The scanty astrogational records available indicated that Guruphon was a T-type moon in orbit around the gas giant Symbian (second planet out from the primary). Scanning the area around Symbian, Max was able to detect weak radio transmissions. Captain Salazar was directed to make for orbit around the planet Guruphon.

After an 11 hour flight in-system, the Just Lucky approached Guruphon. At this distance the company and crew could see the ruined starport in orbit, still surrounded by a small cloud of debris. The fuelling facilities had exploded sometime in the past, nearly severing themselves from the rest of the station. The freighter docking area was a jumble of metal, but the small craft hangar seemed to be in reasonably good condition. The administrative structure was obviously damaged, possibly from small boat impacts, and there were no electronic signals coming from the station at all. It was inert.

Tracking down the source of the radio transmissions, Max located them on the surface of Guruphon. He located three clusters of radio transmissions, all of which seemed to be surface transmissions only.

The company decided to scout the ruined station first. If they could find some red gold mined and purified prior to the Crash, they would secure it for return to Maresfield. After that, if they decided to make contact with the surface and things went bad, they could still return to Maresfield successful.

The company suited up and boarded Oscar’s tug, loving referred to as the Iron Pig. It was a sturdy ship’s boat and could push aside debris if the need arose. Oscar took the Pig into the small craft hangar and found a docking port that was not too damaged. The company exited the tug and floated over to the port, manually cycling the airlock. Unsurprisingly, they interior of the station was airless.

As Oscar was the only one with any experience moving in zero-G, the company activated their boot clamps so they could “walk” along the deck. Heading down to a central gate area for several of the dock, they found a body floating against the far wall and a ceiling-mounted weapon deployed and pointing at them!

*End of Part One*

[I ran out of time on my lunch. Part 2 will post tomorrow.]