Arion 1-11: Chase

Hollis Highport Docks, 1105 Week 50

"Permission to speak freely, Major?" Arion asks, as they walk briskly towards the Dolphin's berth.

Sheng considers this for a heartbeat. If this were a war situation, Arion would hold the temporary rank of a naval lieutenant, but even then he would still be in a different service. Also, he is a friend and she has romantic designs on him.

"Certainly," she says. "Always."

"How much do you trust Karagoz?" he asks.

"My orders are to place myself at his disposal. As are yours."

"Not what I asked, and where did those orders come from?"

She is quiet for a moment, seeing where this is heading. Karagoz is certainly capable of forging her orders, and Arion's. And although neither of them has yet realised Cori is psionic and thus capable of manipulating Karagoz, even if he is acting in good faith, anyone in the chain of command above him could have forged or issued those orders on their own initiative.

"What's your point?" she asks.

"We have no real way of knowing whether this is a legitimate mission or not."

"So?"

"So we need to keep an eye on Karagoz and Ganzfeld, consider whether each order is legal or not. And we need to watch each others' backs."

"That's the problem with black ops, isn't it?" she sighs. "At our level, they're indistinguishable from rogue ops."

Hollis Highport Medbay, 1105 Week 50

Having decrypted the data Arion recovered from the surface, Karagoz suspects that both Ganzfeld and the Dolphin are at risk. He hasn't said why or how, but then the man seems constitutionally incapable of sharing. The rest of the crew are getting used to this, but the upshot is that Mr Osheen is guarding Cori while Sheng watches out for Arion; Osheen is the more dangerous fighter, and Cori is the more valuable - and vulnerable - asset.

Cori is taking advantage of this to grill Mr Osheen about Arion; asking Sheng herself for pointers on how best to cut her out of Arion's affections is problematic, at best.

"You spend a lot of time with him. He must say things," she argues.

"I am not sure if he talks to me about it, but he does talk about it sometimes. He did ask for my thoughts once, but I explained that my species has no genders as such. I find human females confusing, I told him. Me too, he said."

"Which of us has the best chance with him?"

Mr Osheen thinks for a moment. "I do not know how your species' romantic feelings operate. So I shall consider the situation as a negotiation. Major Sheng wants a child, and would accept him as the father; I was there when she implied as much to him. He seemed surprised, and perhaps a little frightened; that is wise, Major Sheng is extremely effective in hand-to-hand combat and to father her child he would necessarily have to close with her. Officer Muhammed offers him what I believe you call 'a good time with no strings attached'; I do not know what she wants in return, perhaps no more than the same. I know he thinks you are the prettiest, but that does not last long for your species. Beyond that, you offer him danger and sarcasm. I believe the other two have made more desirable offers."

Cori digests that for a moment. Mr Osheen continues.

"I have also noticed that while you and Major Sheng are manoeuvring to outflank each other, he is spending time with Officer Muhammed, who is ignoring both of you and focusing her attention on him. Perhaps you can come to some arrangement where the three of you share him?"

"Unacceptable."

"My orders include committing violence on behalf of yourself and Mr Karagoz. I could kill the other two women for you." Mr Osheen says this calmly, simply presenting another option. "Although I would be reluctant to kill Major Sheng, we have survived much combat together."

"Thank you, Mr Osheen, but that would be inappropriate."

"In that case, you must modify your approach. Officer Muhammed's strategy seems to be the most successful so far, but I do not know if simply duplicating it would be enough."

"I have an option the other two don't, though. I can get him alone, off the highport."

"Ah, you mean to invent a mission to take him away from the orbital station. That will certainly remove your competition. You may need something more positive to offer in addition, though."

Hollis Highport Docks, 1105 Week 50

As Arion and the Major enter the Dolphin's docking bay, they see a man in overalls with his arms deep inside a maintenance panel.

"Have you got any maintenance work scheduled?" Sheng asks.

"Hey you!" Arion calls. "What are you doing? Get away from my ship!"

The man immediately extricates himself and runs away, with never a backward glance. Arion and Sheng glance at each other, then take off in hot pursuit. Sheng dodges around a work team ambling into the bay, and shortens the man's head start. Arion thinks for a second about drawing his pistol and firing, but realises he is not a good enough marksman to hit a running target at fifty metres while simultaneously missing Sheng and all the innocent bystanders; he settles for running, the pistol slapping impotently at his hip. Their target is also running, but seems slower than Sheng.

Everyone keeps running, but Arion and the Major close in significantly when someone walks out of a door just as the saboteur runs past it; the two collide and go down, and though the quarry is up and moving again immediately, he is winded and slow. This gives Sheng the opportunity to tackle the escapee by grabbing his legs, but she only manages to catch one of them, and as they fall to the ground in a tangle of limbs he stamps viciously with his free leg. Arion hears the crack of bone and Sheng's involuntary cry. Torn between continuing the pursuit and helping Sheng, he opts for the latter. He calls for a medical team and kneels by her to check the damage.

"Get him!" she urges through clenched teeth.

"No," he says, trying to remember the first aid training from a decade ago. "There's always another thug. There's only one of you."

GM Notes

This seemed like a good opportunity to practice chases, which are a weak spot in my knowledge of SWADE. This is because I don't use them much, which in turn is because they are my least favourite part of the rules, growing more complex and less practical at the table in each edition. Normally I would use a Dramatic Task or a Quick Encounter instead. However, a big part of the reason for my solo campaigns is to practice the rules.

We begin by drawing nine cards and laying them out in a row; one of my gripes is that chases need a second card deck. This is a foot chase, so each card represents 5". There's no guidance on how far apart quarry and pursuer start, so I roll 1d6, get 5, and place the quarry on the 5th card. Arion has Athletics d4 but is a Wild Card, the others have Athletics d6. Let's use the meeples for this; Arion is red, Sheng is yellow, the quarry is purple. In a foot chase, everyone acts independently, so they each need their own cards.

Turn 1: Arion 3 of Diamonds, Sheng 6 of Clubs, quarry 4 of Diamonds. Sheng is up first and runs after the quarry. Her action card is a Club, so she faces a Complication, but what that is depends on the suit of the card her token is on, a Spade; she makes a free manoeuvring (Athletics) roll at no modifier and gets 21 with Aces, so she avoids the Complication. Mechanically, she selects Change Position as her action, so makes an Athletics roll at +2 to close in; she rolls a 17 - her dice are on fire tonight - so has at least one Raise and can therefore move two cards towards her quarry. The quarry takes the same Action and scores 5+2=7, meaning he moves one card. Arion considers shooting the perp, but the range is now 25" so he would be rolling d4-4, and even with a Wild Die his odds aren't good. He runs after the others, also scoring 7 thanks to an Ace on his Athletics die, and moves one card closer.

Turn 2: Arion KS, Sheng Joker, quarry 10S. Everyone continues running flat out; no-one is in a position to choose the Flee, Force or Ram actions, and as nobody is shooting there is no point taking Evade or Hold Steady. Sheng rolls 9 (5, +2 for her action, +2 for a Joker) and closes two cards; Arion rolls 5 for Athletics and closes in one card; the quarry rolls 7 thanks to an Ace, but still only advances one card. As Sheng drew a Joker, I reshuffle the action deck, but not the chase deck.

Turn 3: Arion JD, Sheng 2D, quarry 4D. Arion moves up two cards, Sheng's dice bless her with a 14 so she moves two, the quarry critically fails so I roll a die to see what happens to him; it's odd, so he suffers a point of Fatigue.

Turn 4: Arion KC, Sheng 7H, quarry 2H. Arion overcomes his complication (which would've Bumped him one card in a direction he didn't want) and closes one card. Sheng is on the same card as the quarry so selects the Ram manoeuvre, which requires an opposed Athletics roll. She rolls 5, the quarry rolls 3 (4, -1 for Fatigue); she succeeds and beats the opposing roll, so she is successful; each side inflicts 2d6 damage on the other (2d6 base, no modifiers for scale, raises, Toughness or speed). Sheng rolls a 4, which fails to beat the quarry's Toughness of 5; the quarry rolls 13 thanks to Aces, which would inflict two Wounds on Sheng except she is only an Extra, so she is Incapacitated and makes a Vigour roll; she gets an 11 thanks to an Ace - success with a Raise, so she suffers a temporary injury (2d6 = 4, so she's down an arm).

I call the chase over, as I think Arion would be more concerned about his friend than the escaping saboteur; she's in need, and he doesn't think things through, so both his Major Hindrances steer him that way. Depending on whether I follow SWADE p. 95 or p. 96, Sheng could roll to survive Incapacitation immediately on injury or in the aftermath of the encounter, but in this case those are effectively the same, so I don't need to make that call.

It's at this point I look at the VP guidelines in Interstellar Rebels and realise chasing one Basic Civilian isn't worth any VP. Bah. The score remains Arion 6, BBEG 2.

Still, that wasn't as bad as I expected; and as usual, although I struggled to motivate myself to start this episode, once I got going it quickly drew me in, and I enjoyed myself. The same is true when I GM group sessions; I always feel beforehand that it's not worthwhile and I should cancel the session, but if I can just start playing, things work out fine. I need to remember that when I feel like cancelling stuff.