"Anye impietie may lawfully be committed in love, which is lawlesse." - John Lyly, Euphues
Hollis Highport, 1105 Week 46
"Hey, Karen, it's me... I need to get the ship decontaminated, who are the best guys for that... Plant spores from the surface... no, I'm okay, so's my gunner, but Cori's in medbay for a while, got bitten by a sandworm... Coffee? Sure, I'll be right over."
Officer Muhammed has quickly identified Ganzfeld and Sheng as rivals for Arion's affections, and is secretly delighted that Ganzfeld is laid up in the station medbay recovering from her sandworm bite. It reduces the competition. However, Major Sheng is still in play, and doing her best to divert Arion's attention. Fortunately, there are hours every day when she is either looking in on Ganzfeld or working with that Karagoz person. In those hours, Arion is hers, at least when she can pry him away from his beloved ship; and introducing him to her favourite decontamination team is a good way to do that, especially when she can help arrange the work - which is, after all, part of her job - as part of a coffee date.
Coffee turns into a longer conversation involving pastries and arrangements for dinner, which is interrupted by Karagoz in a scout uniform with what Arion suspects are variable-geometry rank badges.
"Enough fraternising," Karagoz says, unsympathetically, frustrating both of them. "New plan. Get the ship turned round stat, I have an insystem mission for you. Come on, I'll brief you."
When he and Arion are outside, Karagoz continues.
"I want you to check out the other end of that transmission."
"I thought we were going back to the surface?"
"Too risky. You were on the surface less than an hour and now 25% of the team is incapacitated. Whatever's receiving those signals is probably less dangerous, or at least easier to cope with."
"Can't you get the base to send someone downstairs?"
"In theory, yes. In practice, they have some convincing reasons not to go." Arion glances sideways at the set of Karagoz's mouth.
"They laughed at you, didn't they."
"They did."
Meanwhile, Major Sheng drops by the medbay to check in on Ganzfeld. If she has adjusted the tissue regenerator to its most conservative setting, who can blame her? She takes a malicious pleasure in informing Ganzfeld that she and Arion have an appointment later for hand-to-hand combat training, unaware that Arion will have to cancel it.
"Today, grappling practice," she says, just to rub salt in the wound.
Ganzfeld consoles herself that in addition to the usual feminine wiles, she can adjust his attitude psionically. A thought strikes her: Is that cheating? Even if it isn't, is natural affection more valid, or at least more valuable, than feelings she has manipulated?
Time enough to worry about that once she's got him, she decides. Another thought strikes her: Suppose instead of adjusting his opinions, she adjusts those of other two women? Come to think of it, why does it have to be one or the other?
Hollis System Transfer Orbit, 1105 Week 47
"What I want to know," Arion asks, "Is why the plumbing always fails while we're in space." He pulls out a lump of Hollis plant tissue which grows visibly as he looks at it and stuffs it in a sample container, then peels off his disposable gloves and throws them in after it, spraying the pipework enthusiastically with potent herbicide. "I thought they decontaminated this?"
He hands the sample container back to Mr Osheen without looking. "Here, throw this out the airlock, and don't get that stuff on anything." He shines a torch into the pipes, and uses a handheld scanner to check for more spores.
"It's always fine while we're in port," he muses. "It passes all the preflight tests. Then as soon as we're in space, bam! It..." He hears a slurping noise, and glances over at Mr Osheen suspiciously. "What are you doing?"
"Consuming bodily fluids. For nourishment."
"Well, stop it. It's disgusting. When you said bodily fluids, I assumed you meant blood and stuff."
"That, too."
Arion steps up the level of hygiene for the rest of the trip. For multiple reasons.
Hollis Outer System, 1105 Week 47
After an unusually thorough check of their spacesuits, Arion and Mr Osheen have put them on and depressurised the ship, partly in case of combat, and partly to keep the pernicious moulds under control.
Arion is forced to resort to active sensors to find the target; a one-off bearing and signal strength from several weeks ago give him a direction and a distance he can estimate from the fact that it hasn't been detected yet; one point in a sheaf of potential orbits, not a lot to go on. However, luck is with him, and at length he discovers a small automated satellite, orbiting a moon which itself orbits one of the system's gas giants.
"Now," he muses aloud, "Do we gain more by interfering with it, or by leaving it alone?"
"Ask Karagoz," Mr Osheen replies, having mistaken this for a question. Arion considers this. He is used to operating alone, far from any support or authority; but as Karagoz is only a few tens of light-minutes away, he might as well ask. He prepares and encrypts a message, then sends it to Karagoz via tight beam. An hour or two later, he has a response.
"Leave it," Karagoz says. "Watch it for a while and get a solid set of orbital parameters so we can find it again later, then come back."
Arion sends a terse acknowledgement and settles in to his revised task. Working up an orbit is something he knows how to do.
GM Notes
Behind the GM screen... here's the core gameplay loop for Interstellar Rebels:
- Envisage the next scene: Arion and Mr Osheen go back to the surface and finish checking out the abandoned hut.
- Curveball check: 44 - doubles, so we get a curveball, in this case "describe a new place", and roll another d6 for what happens: 4 again, relates to the primary subplot. That was the robot's head icon. What is it with these dice? Not long ago it was three 5s, now it's three 4s.
- Scene challenge: I decided last time this would be a Quick Encounter, since we haven't had one of those yet.
And there's "contending with a change of plan" emerging organically from the dice rolls. I had been wondering how I was going to handle that, but if you trust the process, it works. Since I changed over to Interstellar Rebels as the solo engine, the game is flowing much more easily and fluently, so that was a good choice.
Opening up Classic Traveller Starter Edition, which is handy for this sort of thing, I see that a typical gas giant is 4-5 days away at 2G, so let's say it takes them a week or so to reach and deal with the signal recipient, and they head back the following week, so they return to Hollis sometime in week 48.
The yes/no oracle in IR works by you setting a target number based on how likely you think the outcome is; rolling at least that is a yes, anything else is a no. If you feel like it you can roll a second die to add "and", "but", or neither. I had two main questions:
- Is the Quick Encounter Dangerous? (Maybe, 4+): 1, no. I try the second die and get 6, "and". Not dangerous and not that hard either, so I won't make it a Staged encounter.
- Who is behind this? Zhodani? (Maybe, 4+): 2, no. Second die: 1, "but", suggesting it's somehow linked to them. Pirates? (4+): 1, no. No second die this time as I don't think it would add anything. This could go on forever so I decide the Ine Givar are responsible, I haven't used them in ages. Arion doesn't know this yet, but it helps me frame what he finds; it would be just as valid to ask a complex question.
Enough dice for now, so I decide the transmission is being received by a distant unmanned satellite (the robot). I decide the Quick Encounter is an Electronics roll for Arion to scan it with sensors; 3 on the skill die, 6 then 5 on the wild die - 11 total, success and a raise, so he finds it more by luck than skill. Karagoz's reaction roll to the idea of leaving the satellite in place is a 9, so that is what they do.
Current status: Arion 2 VP, BBEG 2 VP.
- Envisage the next scene: The only lead left is the abandoned hut, so I guess we need to revisit that.
- Curveball check: 34 - no curveball.
- Scene challenge: Let's call investigating the hut a complex dramatic task, haven't done one of those yet and they're worth a juicy 4 VP.
Next time: Back to the hut.
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