The Wreck
The Deepnight Revelation is at the system of Shoh, where they were talking to an old spacer about what he saw out in the wilderness. After wiping out traces of the Biologicals that had infected his ship, the crew get a copy of his sensor logs and head back to their ship to continue their journey Rimward.
They make the jump towards Ebes. During the jump, the XO Kirk notices several of the crew smirking when he is around, and apparently examining his “square jaw and steely gaze”. It turns out that some of the crew had taken to writing fiction involving some of the senior officers of the crew. Some of the crew also had a skill at providing art for this fiction.
All this came out of pre-game discussion about using AI to write reports in the style of Mills and Boon, so we tried getting it to write a Mills and Book style Traveller adventure. It actually wasn’t too bad, and it bled into the game.
The bridge officers decided to allow it since it seemed to be helping crew morale as long as it didn’t get abusive.
The ship came out of jump at Ebes, which had no gas giants, but a couple of worlds with plenty of surface water. There was a small settlement on one, based out of converted cargo containers. They exchange information, and head onwards.
Coming out of jump at Alpha Inise, the ship is immediately set upon by four attackers. A large 20,000t planetoid launches a salvo of 120 missiles at long range, whilst three smaller sub-1,000t vessels open up with particle beam bay weapons.
The Deepnight Revelation immediately goes to red alert, and the crew jump to their stations. The Captain and those running the Red Team observe to see how the simulated combat goes.
The Deepnight’s spinal mount takes out the planetoid with a single shot, then turns tail and flees. It can’t outrun the missiles, but the plan is to increase the time it takes for them to reach the ship to give more opportunities to use electronic warfare against them.
One of the smaller ships is destroyed, the other two take light damage. The Deepnight herself takes some damage, including a couple of criticals, but by the time the missiles reach her, most of them have expended their fuel and the last few stragglers are taken care of by the point defence.
The quality of the crew response is rated highly, though the damage control teams have some difficulty with the simulated repair problems they are set. I ran this with a simple space combat map, and partly narrated it, partly used the space combat rules. One thing that my FoundryVTT ruleset doesn’t do well yet is space combat for large ships.
After the training, the ship refuelled at the gas giant and then headed on to Onapo. As they approached the gas giant there, they detected a ship. This wasn’t a drill.
The ship was in orbit, and unpowered. Further scans showed that the ship had been bent almost in half, with a large hole where the jump drive would be. It’s estimated size was about 30,000t, and eventually identified as the remains of a Grand Republic battleship. There were bodies outside the hull, and a long arc of debris around the gas giant suggesting that the ship had been destroyed some time ago.
Amongst the wreckage were also bits of trees and plants. It appeared that the Grand Republic ship had been attacked and destroyed by a bioship of some type. There are signs of life deep within it, but mostly it appears to be dead.
The plan is to send in a team and try and retrieve the flight recorder from the bridge. Concerned that there may be Biologicals onboard, a small technical team is put together, along with a larger security detail to make sure they get in safely, and out again.
Since the players decide to send in a team of NPCs, I simply narrate what happens. They make a few checks, and get some good rolls on tactics, sensor ops and on their DEI (Department Effectiveness Index) check. They find signs of the Biologicals, but the threat is minimal – nothing that can’t be solved with some machetes and plasma jets. They find some dead biologicals of a different type to what they have seen before – these seem more suited to a vacuum environment. There are plenty of signs that the ship’s damage control parties were set upon by biologicals whilst trying to repair the damage.
The corpses of the human crew are found. Some have been slashed, others torn, and some shot with projectile weapons. Eventually the team reaches the bridge, finds a flight recorder, and heads back along with some samples.
It’s decided to put a team out on the hull of the Deepnight to sweep it for any Biological infections.
For the core of the wreck, it looks like it was hit by large tree-like projectiles that pierced the armoured hull then tore the ship apart from the inside. Going in through these holes finds a bit more resistance, but it is barely alive. Designed to work in a vacuum, but not survive long term. A few crew members get bruises when a still-living tentacle wraps around an arm or leg, but there are no casualties.
The second exploration reaches the computer room, grabs data cores, and returns safely with no losses due to another set of good rolls.
Next session they will have a chance to look at the data and try and determine exactly what it was that attacked and destroyed this ship. It is decided though that if there are ever in a fight with a bioship, damage control crews will be accompanied by security teams.
