Jerome pilots the boarding skiff from the patrol ship to the freighter, telling Lowry to keep radio contact up. All they need to do is locate Navarro and make sure she’s safe from herself and not harming anyone else. Jerome will search the freighter to see if he can find what Navarro is desperate to get. He reckons it can be used to get her to comply with questioning. Also, will you remember to feed Princess for me in two hours? Kent says they will do it.
Jerome boards the freighter through the airlock on the command side.
(We’ll be using Dark Planet’s mapping tables to build our freighter as we explore it. This involves rolling a bunch of d6s, arranging them as your rooms. Then as you explore you role a d10 and match it with the number facing up on the die. That tells you the room and its contents which can also include combat encounters. At the bottom, I am sharing the map as we have discovered it so far.)
Scene 1 – Life Support Systems – Chaos Factor: 6
Oracle: Neatly Messy
Jerome checks the life support systems onboard the Banquo. Everything is functional, but he can’t help but feel that something happened and has been covered up. Something about the condition of the systems and some stray computer-generated logs feels off to him.
(Intellect check – 52 vs. 16 – Success)
Jerome sees that life support had been rebooted after the Banquo left the mining site. Could that explain what happened to the rest of the crew? Navarro had gone into cryosleep…early? But where would the bodies be? There’d be no one else to dispose of them.
(Sanity save – 21 vs. 34, Gain 1 Stress, Total: 4)
Jerome isn’t feeling good about this. The only logical answer would be there is another hiding somewhere onboard the freighter, but that person should show up on the scans.
Scene 2 – Cargo Hold- Chaos Factor: 6
(Four shipping containers filled with cosmetics)
Jerome enters one of the cargo decks, finding four large containers inside. He unlocks them using his corporate override access key. All four are filled with cosmetics – powders, lotions, mascara, nail polishes, and more. Why would a mining vessel be transporting cosmetics? Some crew member running a scheme on the side? These weren’t hidden, so the rest of the crew was likely aware.
Fate Question: Does Jerome find anything incriminating hidden inside these crates? Odds: 50/50. Answer: Yes
Oracle: Foolishly Military
Hidden among the cosmetics is a smaller container that won’t open when Jerome scans his corporate access card. He discovers a serial number and runs it through his datapad. This is military. Terran Government. Jerome makes a note on his way back to the skiff to return, grab this container, and bring it to the patrol ship.
Scene 3 – Engine- Chaos Factor: 6
(6 units of Fuel)
Like Life Support, this portion of the engine seems fine. No signs of damage. When they boarded the ship initially, Jerome made sure to shut things down to minimal systems.
Oracle: Defiantly Simple
Nothing about the situation here seems strange. Jerome radios the patrol ship to make sure things are okay.
Fate Question: Is everything going okay on the patrol ship? Odds: Unlikely. Answer: Extreme No
The comms sound like there’s even more distortion. The nebula hasn’t emitted any particles that might be doing that. Lowry comes over them, his voice cutting in and out. He sounds panicked. Jerome hears the sound of crashing. Then the comms cut off. He has to get back.
(Panic save – 80 vs. 28 – Success)
Jerome stays calm; all problems have a solution. It just has to be determined.
Scene 4 – Cryochamber- Chaos Factor: 7
(8 cryopods in fine condition)
Jerome swings by one last room, a nearby cryopod chamber. They had only found Navarro through scans, but the android wants to check for himself and see that they are empty.
Fate Question: Is there someone in a cryopod? Odds: 50/50. Answer: Yes
Oracle: Free Intellect
Jerome cannot make sense of what he sees. Navarro is inside of a cryopod in the chamber. He reviews the footage he recorded through his optics when they entered the ship and found her. That was Navarro but on an entirely other deck. This is impossible. The readout on the life signs panel displays her name.
(Sanity save – 21 vs. 25 – Failure. Take 1 Stress)
Everything becomes hazy. Jerome can feel his logic processors overwhelmed, trying to make sense of the impossibility. Clones. That has to be it. Some sort of cloning experiments going on? The military crate in the cargo hold holds the key. It must. The android rushes back to grab it and head for the boarding skiff.
Scene 5 – Cargo Hold – Chaos Factor: 8
Oracle: Softly Comforting
Jerome is carrying the locked crate back towards the airlock when he stops suddenly. Walking past him down the hallway of this derelict is his mini-pig Princess. Did she somehow sneak onto the boarding skiff without Jerome noticing? That seems highly unlikely. He can’t ask the crew back on the patrol ship as it sounded like things were going poorly there.
(Sanity Save – 21 vs. 47 – Failure. Take 1 Stress)
He decides to put the crate down, follow Princess, see if he can pick her up, and take her back to the patrol ship. His logic centers are telling him not to do this, but he can’t let his precious girl stay in this horrible place. Jerome wanders deeper into the derelict, the locked crate left behind in the hall.
Scene 6 – Keyed Scene: Cargo Hold 2 – Chaos Factor: 8
(Four shipping containers filled with tea)
Jerome finds himself in another of the many cargo holds on a mining freighter. He switches his optic feed to trace heat signatures but finds no trace of Princess anywhere. There are crates overturned here. Jerome kneels to inspect the spilled-out contents. Boxes of Atlas Pearce English Black Tea. Again, this is not what you expect to find in the cargo of a mining freighter.
Jerome smells something pungent, rotten. He stands up from inspecting the cargo crates. He casts the beam of his flashlight across the room, and it stops at a horrific sight. It hangs from chains attached to the ceiling, flayed like a science class dissection, a member of the crew. Its insides are on display, butterfly wing flesh peeled back and held with hooks connected to the chains. Jerome thinks of Lowry and Kent back on the patrol ship. He has to save them.
(Fear Save – 80 vs. 19 – Success)
Jerome maintains a level head; something far more sinister happened on this ship. He’s heading back to force a confession out of Navarro.
Scene 7 – Computer – Chaos Factor: 8
(Computer: Contains an intact map of a random sector)
Fate Question: Does Jerome encounter a hostile entity? Odds: 50/50. Answer: (16) Yes
Jerome finds a computer-linked room, one of many control centers spread throughout the freighter. He quickly realizes this is a surveying console that hasn’t been entirely wiped clean. Within is a detailed map of the Krushka Sector, one of the regions first discovered by the Eastern Empire before the Corporate Wars collapsed all standing governments. The Banquo had been mining known deposits of crucial ores and surveying new sites for future endeavors, but there was still no explanation for why they had an archaeologist on board.
Jerome searches through the map and accompanying information to find a link between where The Banquo went and what happened.
(Intellect Check – 52 vs. 72 – Failure. Take 1 Stress)
There is corruption in the files that blocks out the most helpful information. Intentional? Jerome seems to think so. Navarro’s handiwork to keep anyone who found the freighter in the dark?
Something is watching him through the computer console. Jerome can’t quite explain how he picked up on this, but an entity is observing him. If he was human, he might feel intense unease. As an android, he becomes even more curious.
Scene 8 – Command – Chaos Factor: 8
(Scarred by gunfire)
Jerome finds the adjacent room is a command node, but what immediately stands out are the scorch marks from gunfire across the damaged consoles. After a quick analysis of the room, he can see an exchange of blasts between two parties. He attempts to decipher more from the evidence left behind.
(Intellect Check – 52 vs. 64 – Failure. Take 1 Stress)
It’s all chaos. The gunfire was happening without any aim. Panic. Jerome senses something off about the room and tries to determine why he’s feeling so strange about its architecture.
(Intellect Check – 52 vs. 45 – Success)
The android finds a damaged portion of the wall that reveals a hidden space. It takes a moment, but he can climb over the damaged portion of the console and finds himself in a new room.
Scene 9 – Cargo Hold – Chaos Factor: 8
(nine containers full of cremains)
Nine shipping containers are stacked up in this hidden cargo hold. Jerome isn’t all that surprised to find it. Many of the freighters passing through will have hidden areas to carry contraband. A quick check of the walls reveals the scrambler plating that keeps its contents hidden from patrol ship scans. Upon opening the containers, he’s met heaping piles of ashes. Something in him knows before he uses his pad to read their molecular breakdown; these are human remains, incinerated into dust—the missing crew.
The fire that raged. The shootout in the command room. The flayed, displayed corpse. And now human remains. Navarro may be doing something similar on the patrol ship right now. Yet, there was something Navarro wanted on The Banquo.
Jerome searches this hidden room for any other secrets.
(Intellect Check 52 vs. 64 – Failure)
Scene 10 – Cryochamber – Chaos Factor: 8
(Filled with corpses)
Jerome exits the hidden cargo hold and goes further into the ship. He comes across a darkened cryochamber and gets the lights working. He’s met with a gory tableau, the glass lid of the cryopods shattered, some bodies hanging out of them, and others strewn across the floor, all in various states of slaughter, missing limbs.
(Panic Save – 9 vs. 1 – Failed)
(Condition: Adrenaline Rush – advantage on all rolls for the next 21 minutes. Reduce Stress by 1.)
(Because I’m playing solo and not tracking time in the same you would with a GM-led game, I will read 21 minutes as two scenes)
Jerome’s protocols dealing with high-stress situations kick in. From a small vial installed in his cybercortex comes a flood of chemicals, nicknamed androideline. He has to defend his crewmates from this. Why weren’t these corpses incinerated like the ashes he found in the hidden cargo room? What about the other Navarro in the previous cryochamber? The entity he felt while on the computer must be the thing that links this horror and chaos.
Scene 11 – Keyed Scene: Engines – Chaos Factor: 8
(Strange creature infestation)
Fate question: Is the infestation manifesting physically? Odds: 50/50. Answer: (31) Yes
Oracle: Decrease Interior
Alien Species Descriptors: Carapace, Levitating, Threatening
The entity is feasting on part of the reactor. It floats in the air, covered in a jagged, spiny carapace. Like a giant metal flea, limbs hang down while mandibles tear away. It crunches away. Jerome can detect the radiation leaking from the reactor and knows this cannot continue much longer, or the whole ship will go up.
(Panic check – 8 vs. 16 – Success)
Jerome keeps his cool and reaches for his stun baton. The creature turns and lunges at him.
To be continued…
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