The Spinward Main

Tales of the Astral Veil
By Jerry Mapes

And made possible by my long time friends that are playing the game.

This adventure recap was taken from our on going Classic Traveller campaign. The adventures are from the Marischal Folio Adventure Series written by the Keith brothers and modified to fit our campaign.

THIS CONTAINS HEAVY SPOILERS SO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

The primary players and characters are,

Scott G. - Bran Faren, Sr. Captain Trade Pioneers Corp, Merchant (Ret.) current Captain and acting Steward of the Free Trader Astral Veil

Doug S. - Gunter Thorson, Brig. Gen Imp Marines (Ret.), Gunner & Community Relations

Jim S. - Jackson Flagg, 2nd Lt. Imp Navy (Ret.), Engineer

John P. - Harrison Mudd, Captain, Merchant, Employee of Caledon Ventures

Shawn N. - David Deitreke, Scientist, Employee of Caledon Ventures

Jon G. - Vrit-Tlas a.k.a. Doc, Zhodani, Medical, Captain, Consulate Navy (Ret.), Doctor

NPC 1 - Varndow Stravic, Scientist, Employee of Caledon Ventures

Part I. Flare Star

It had taken two long months to get there. It would take the same two long months to get home again. Most of that time spent in Jump Space with only a few short days in between jumps to refuel, retune, and break the monotony. But once at their destination they had a job to do. A well paying job that would increase the payout and opportunities the more work they completed. The ultimate payoff would come if they could do what was believed to be the impossible, opening up trade with the new territory and its inhabitants, a race of aliens never before encountered by the Imperium. To make matters worse, once at their drop off point, they would be on their own with no support. They also didn’t even know if the aliens even still existed or if they were still in nearby space - let alone what world they may be found on. It would test the Scientists on board that were supposed to be specialists in alien anthropology to be able to find them - and it all had to be done in three months time. That is when the next long haul cargo ship would be there to meet them at the drop point for the two month long journey home where they would report just how the mission went.

Once the small Free Trader was maneuvered out of old launch bay, which was now part launch bay, part cargo bay in the old converted Atlantic Class Heavy Cruiser, the Captain and pilot of the Astral Veil busied themselves getting the computer up to speed with the jump coordinates of their first jump. The Engineer was busy in the engineering section, where he had been for the better part of the past week, making sure everything was tweaked to perfection. The Gunner was finishing up running simulations at the fire control console, making sure that if these aliens wanted to play instead of trade, he would be more than ready to show them just how a former Marine Brigadier General likes to play. Deep down he hoped that the fanciful trade notions where a bust, even though that meant losing a lot of money. He much preferred the idea of blowing as many aliens as possible into chunky salsa. To say he hated aliens was far beyond an understatement. The rest of the crew and scientists could be found in their cabins, putting away the last of their personal belongings that had been in use in their staterooms onboard the Cruiser. The Doctor, who was first on board the Astral Veil when he heard the announcement that they were ready to begin preparations to depart, was where he usually liked to stay, the Med Bay. Only there he felt the most comfortable. Even after more than a year of being on this crew, he still felt uncomfortable around all of them. Being Zhodani had much to do with it, even though they all knew and accepted that since he was a good doctor. But in all that time he never let it slip that much of his medical and healing ability didn’t come from his mastery of medicine but his mastery of Psionics. He had to be that much more careful these past two months aboard the cruiser surrounded by more strangers than not. His crewmates had been careful not to let slip his true identity, and for that he was grateful. For now he had at least a few months to relax a bit, then two more months of being a recluse, hopefully a huge payoff, then it would be time to move on, maybe even go back home.

The first jump went smooth. The derelict was exactly where the scouts for Trade Pioneers had reported it to be. It had been Caledon Ventures, a major corporation in the Imperium that had first been alerted to old alien ship. Their subsidiary, Trade Pioneers, had been sending scouts out into the undeveloped areas of Reaver’s Deep in hopes of finding new potential trade partners and new potential resources to tap. Coming across the ship was purely accidental. Now it was up to Capt. Faren and his crew to ferry a two man team from Caledon to study the ship and do what was necessary to make contact and open trade.

From the first moment on the ship it was obvious to everyone that this ship was built by a race that was for more alien and far less technological than them. For starters there were no chairs or tables. All of the controls were push-pull, no touch screens or even pressure keys. The lighting was harsh ultra-violet. No computers could be found and after inspection the ship could only be non-jump capable. Its sublight grav drive was the most primitive drive that the engineer had ever seen, what he could see of it. Main engineering was still sealed and looked to remain that way for some time. The power problems and the thickness of the door and bulkheads that protected the engineering section proved to be too much for any force available short of going back to retrieve explosives or a plasma cutter. After some hard calculations the Engineer determined that the ship at best could do .02 light and it could carry 100,000 tons of fuel with a 100:1 fuel/mass ratio.

What was most disturbing was what was found of the crew. Only two intact bodies were found. The rest was in bits and pieces, frozen and floating through out the ship. The two species varied greatly and it was not sure if they belonged together. Had one group boarded and attacked the other? The one species, a violet tinged, 4 or 5 foot across disc shape creature with 12 appendages that the crew called the Purple Starfish seemed to be the crew and there should have been at least eight of them based on the number of small round padded indentations in the floor of what was believed to be the bridge. There were more than enough body parts for the other seven.

The other species were nothing like the purple starfish. The Giant Stick Bugs were about four feet tall with tubular bodies that were topped by a gapping maw with very many very sharp teeth, four stout legs, eight grasping appendages and two stalked eyes. A number of these were also found to be in bits and chunks. A major fight had taken place. Many doors of the ship were found to be jammed shut and locked with more of these giant stick bugs inside. It was almost as if the giant stick bugs had not only killed the purple starfish but they also had turned on each other. In some of the locked rooms only the remains of the giant stick bugs were found. Something else was found as well in the rooms. Strange silvery boards with purplish alien notations written on them. The notations could be easily erased and writing devices were found.

Trying to put all the clues together came to an abrupt halt when the computer on the Free Trader alerted the Captain of the impending danger fast approaching. The twin star system where the alien vessel made its final orbit was not a safe place to be. The fire-fall between the two stars produces a large hydrogen gas cloud and that cloud was soon to reach the photosphere of the nearer star. The investigation team would have only a couple hours to finish up and get back aboard the Trader. After the light of the flare had reached them a wave of particulate radiation would soon follow. The Alien ship was all but unshielded.

Getting back to the ship wasn’t as easy as thought. All systems except the backup lighting system now was without power since the last of the batteries were used to cycle the air lock when the crew of the Astral Veil entered and main engineering where the primary power controls waited untouched had still not been breeched due to the thickness of the door and the lack of power to control the doors, there was no way to reengage the air lock to return to the Trader. If something could not be rigged soon, everyone except the captain who remained on the Trader would die. Only the Trader had enough shielding to protect against the oncoming radiation.

With minutes remaining Mr. Flagg the Engineer was finally able to reroute enough power from the emergency lighting to get the air lock to cycle one time. Everyone was able to get off the ship, with the two alien bodies in tow, and back to the Trader. Only Mr. Black was unhappy with the outcome. In his rush to vacate the death trap, he left his tool box sitting on the deck inside the ship. With the airlock no longer functioning, to retrieve it would mean having to breech the ship with explosives or a plasma cutter - and there simply wasn’t time.

Once safely back aboard the Trader, everyone was able to relax. The scientists gathered their notes and performed autopsies on the aliens. That evening they and the rest of the crew gathered in the commons to eat and review all the findings. What were the aliens? What is the connection, if any, between the two species? And more importantly, where did they come from and was it near by?

So many more questions were asked a little in the way of answers came. But a few key ideas surfaced. The radiation could be one reason the ship was stranded here if the boarding hijack option was wrong. The alien ship was on a very eccentric orbit. If it had come to close to the star and got caught in the flare it could have caused the damage to the heat radiators and crippled the ship. The ship being sublight, meant that they had came from somewhere nearby. A few parsecs at most if they were extremely long lived. Based on their lighting system and the color of all the controls it was likely that they came from a system that had an A0 Star. Whether or not the two species were related or if the Giant Stick Bugs were raiders or hijackers could not be determined, that would have to wait. But a quick check of the navigational computer showed that there was an AO star two parsecs deeper into the Great Rift - it had never been visited. Not surprising since it is very rare to find a planet, let alone a habitable one, in an A0 system. If this was the home of the purple starfish, then one question could be answered. That would mean that this sublight ship had been traveling at least 325 years. A final question was asked. Why no computers? It was theorized that maybe the silvery boards and the notations were how the purple starfish calculated the mathematics to operate the ship. What if they were super fast in their brains, which were shown to be very large in the autopsies, and they normally didn’t use computers. At this point, Mr. Mudd, the trade representative from Caledon started running numbers on how much could be made by supplying computers to a whole world of potential buyers. Now all he had to do was find the aliens and show them how convenient computers would be for them - and make a fortune in the process.

End of Part I.