Five Parsecs From Home

Aryn accompanied the crew back to the Enlightenment. On the way, a cagey exchange of information turned into a much more open conversation when Aryn revealed that she could introduce Jaryk to a local Sector Government official, who occasionally hired trusted mercenaries to carry out specific ‘off the record’ tasks, and she would do so if Jaryk explained who they were and what they were doing on Nacia’s Landing. So he did, and she did, and the following day Jaryk took Aryn and Leela to meet the official in question, Mela Rosson, who did indeed have work for the crew. The pay was ‘negotiable’ but Mela was a far more skilled negotiator than Jaryk, and he came away feeling at though he would have preferred a fixed price.

The job was urgent, requiring completion before sundown, so the crew quickly assembled at the Enlightenment and set about preparing their gear for the job. Sadly for Jaryk, those preparations were interrupted by the presence of a number of gangers who were clearly assembling in a circle around the crew’s landing pad. Jeff and Jim’s scanners alerted to the threat early, and they recognised the gang as the very same that they ran into in the markets when they first arrived. It seemed a minor fracas at the time, but it could be no coincidence. Brat Gangs often sought out the opportunity to induce trouble, in order to get into a decent scrap under the guise of ‘revenge’. That way, if it went wrong, their rich parents could work the system to prevent and formal action against them.

The bots alerted Jaryk to the threat, and he signed to each of his crew (with the exception of Aryn who was exploring the ship’s hold and out of Jaryk’s eyeline). As one, the crew drew their weapons and made a move into cover. [Successful seize the initiative roll]. The Brats were almost as quick to react and were the first to open fire. They landed some hits on the crew, but failed to do any significant harm. The worst being K’Vani who was pushed out of cover and into the open. Jase’s trusty shotgun put one of the Brats down. The Brat Leader’s Gene Dog charged into the stunned K’Vani and gnashed with its teeth and scraped with its claws, but K’Vani was just about able to gather herself, draw her blade, and put an end to the beast before it shredded her.

Aryn emerged from the ship’s hold, wielding the enormous rattle gun that was stored within.

” You know how to use that thing?”, enquired Jaryk
” Sure, child’s play”, Aryn responded, and she proceeded to spray bullets in the direction of two Brats taking cover behind the landing pad wall. [The Rattle Gun has been in the hold for a little while now, and with 3 shots I’ve been waiting for a suitable model with a heavy weapon to use it!]. None of the shots found a target, but the hail of fire did serve to reduce the incoming fire and provide some cover.

Weathering the initial storm allowed the ensuing gunfight to become more tactical, which played into the crew’s hands. The balance was tipped when K’Vani charged into the Brat leader and carved him up with her Glare Sword [the weapon’s “Elegant” trait allowing the re-roll that won the fight – it would have gone very differently otherwise!] and Aryn, continuing her hail of bullets, managed to dig a brat out of cover and put him down. Once the crew had the advantage of numbers, they systematically destroyed the rest of the gang with minimal risk to themselves.

The crew re-assembled and took a breath. Jaryk sent Jeff and Jim out on patrol in case any more of the local scum decided to have a go. This return to the Patrol Bots’ factory programmed duties raised the hackles of Aryn, but Jaryk assured her that they did this willingly, and the bots had ‘agreed’. But had they been programmed to agree? It was enough to satisfy Aryn for now anyway and she seemed happy enough to service the rattle gun which was still smoking from the punishment it had just dealt.

Sadly, whilst the fight wasn’t a long one, it meant that there was no time to complete the job for Mela Rosson. Aryn reluctantly offered to go to Mela to explain, but said not to hold out much hope of any more job offers in the near future.

Jaryk returned to his ruminations about crates, military weapons, and personal trinkets….

[I had deliberately set up this encounter to be more of a challenge i.e. having the Brats encircle the unsuspecting crew rather than start at the opposite end of the battlefield. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have allowed the crew to seize the initiative and therefore get immediate cover. I think that undid a lot of the risk in the setup. Oh well, we move onto Campaign Turn 8 next, and I can now use the Escalation Rules and the Elite Enemies from the “Trailblazer Toolkit” PDF expansion for the game. This is all designed to make the game harder for an established crew. And the enemies do look at lot tougher, so watch out crew, things are escalating!] 

So, I am going to need a model for Aryn Mire and a model for the gene dog. Once again I’ll turn to Fallout Wasteland Warfare for the models as they’ll fit the bill perfectly (and I’ve got a large backlog to get through and every little helps!)

For Aryn, the model will be Desdemona from the Railroad faction (see what I did there?!).

For the gene dog, I’ll go with the armoured version of Dogmeat. I do have the unarmoured version already painted, but the armoured version will be more appropriate for the description I reckon!

The style will be grimier than might be normal in a space opera, but I want these for Fallout too, so I will paint them in my Fallout style. I am also currently mostly on backwater desert worlds so I think it works fine.

The steps are:

1. Spray Prime (usually brown but I’ve run out so it’s Chaotic Red instead!)

2. Drybrush Mournfang Brown

3. Drybrush Ushabti Bone

4. Drybrush white

(These drybrush steps create the under painting for the ‘slap chop’ style that I’m partially employing here)

5. Contrast paints to block in the main colours, using the under painting to create the shadows and highlights. I don’t have many colours at the moment, so I mix them with no specific recipe, but most are shown in the picture.

6. Enamel wash (brown)

7. Light drybrush of Ushabti Bone

8. Weathering pigments

9. Done!

For what seemed like an eternity, but must have only been moments, Jaryk stared at the bound woman, with his jaw dropped wide open. The woman stared blankly back, seemingly impassive but more likely well aware she was unable to move or speak, and didn’t see the point in trying either.

“Boss?” Jase interrupted the silence at last.
“Er, yes, er, wow, er..” mumbled Jaryk
“Shall we untie her then?”

Jaryk nodded and Jase squeezed past him into the container and used his knife to free the woman from her binds and removed the gag from her mouth. The latter action making very little difference to the situation because there followed a prolonged period of silence from her as Jaryk asked a variety of questions in an attempt to find out who she was, who was responsible for capturing her, and why.

Eventually Jaryk threatened to re-bind her and leave her here, which actually prised a chuckle out of the woman. Wondering what was so funny, Jaryk followed her gaze to Jase who was still holding what remained of the rope that he sliced apart to free her. Re-bind indeed!

“Jim, get in here”, ordered Jaryk as he and Jase moved for the door. “We might not be able to tie you, but you won’t be getting past Jim here. Let’s leave you to have a think about your future shall we? It won’t be long before whoever is responsible for this discovers his thugs have been shredded, and sends in a more capable force to retake the facility. Stay or come with us. Your choice. ”

PB23-GIM appeared in the doorway and the woman let out an audible gasp. “Oh my..”

Jaryk and Jase spun back to face the woman, and it appeared she was finally ready to speak…

[At the end of the previous Campaign Turn, I rolled the Campaign Event “Chance Meeting” which allowed the rolling up of a new character to join the crew. So for the first time since the start of the campaign I got to roll on the character generation tables to see who we had just met.

The character is human, and I named her Aryn Mire. Her Background is ‘religious cult’ and she comes with one Patron and one Military Weapon (boarding saber). Her Motivation is ‘Glory’ and gains +1 Combat. Her Class is ‘Starship Crew’ and gains +1 Savvy.

The narrative I created for her, to join those features together, is that she is part of a religious cult called ‘The Galactic Highway’ who believe that all animate objects have souls, and those souls can only reach heaven if they are free souls. In the early days of the cult that belief was focussed mostly on fighting human and alien slavery (and in the main, the human slavery of aliens!), but more latterly their attention turned to bots. They believe that bots have souls, and to enslave them after their creation is abhorrent. So she was part of a starship crew of her cult fellows, who travelled from world to world ‘freeing’ every bot they could find, so that they could find their place in heaven when their time came.

This explains why the appearance of PB23-GIM, affectionately named “Jim”, and seemingly working with Jaryk through ‘choice’, caused her to open up to Jaryk and subsequently agreed to leave with them.

I have a model in mind (in fact the model helped inspire the background story), and we’ll get her painted before the next turn.

The crew debriefed and rested back at the Enlightenment, and considered their next steps. The mission, whilst successful, hadn’t given them any solid leads about what to do next. They were clearly on a trail of some kind, but for now it seemed to have gone cold. The down time was put to good use however. The crew made themselves useful around the spaceport and were able to earn enough credits to pay off the debt for the ship. This was a key part of Jaryk’s overall plan. One less tie back to anyone who could pin him down. One less thread for his father to pull at. He felt free at last. Little did he know that his father was very well aware of where he was. Leela had seen to that. High Admiral Jervis Tarff continued to allow his errant son to pursue his foolhardy endeavours…for now.

The bots had managed to repair the Glare Sword. It was an elegant weapon, for a more civilised time, and K’Vani was allowed to replace her basic blade with it. It wasn’t quite as good as the sacred weapons of her homeworld, from which she was banished, but it would pierce armour and draw the blood she so craved to spill. Despite their best efforts, the Blast Pistol seemed beyond repair.

One day, K’Vani returned from the markets with some news. An overheard conversation, a cornering of an informant in a dark alley, and the sharp end of a newly refurbished Glare Sword later and it was revealed that a local punk gang had been hired to guard an old supply dump on the southern fringe of the port. The job had clearly been instigated quickly, a bunch of punks would be no long term solution, but it was the sign the crew were looking for.

They made their preparations…

The crew got the jump on the punks. They were sitting around, smoking and drinking, and doing a really poor job of doing anything that remotely resembled guarding. It wasn’t clear which of the containers was supposed to be being looked after. They quickly jumped to attention though as the crew moved in, and drew an assortment of decrepit-looking weapons.

[The mission objective was “Search”, which involves placing an objective marker on each piece of terrain, and the crew being able to trade a combat action for a search action. On a 5 or 6 they find the loot. If they fail then that terrain piece is empty. It is therefore possible for them all to be empty and the mission to fail. There was also a marker for “Shiny Bits” worth 1 credit, placed 2D6+2″ in a random direction from the centre which can be picked up for an action. Punks won’t move into combat with an enemy with a higher Combat Skill than them, and only hit shooting on a natural 6, so i decided to modify their AI a little and have their strategy to be to move in but shoot from cover]

The battle started as a cagey affair, with each side taking pot shots from behind cover as they slowly met in the centre of the compound. The crew were clearly the more competent soldiers, and better armed, but the punks had the advantage of numbers and therefore not to be taken lightly. The superior shooting skill gradually took its toll, and the punks started to go down.

Remarkably, at some point during the battle, K’Vani disappeared. Jaryk feared she had been downed by a lucky shot from one of the punks, but they were to find her later outside of the compound having gotten ‘lost’ with no memory of how it happened. Very strange indeed…

The other main drama was when patrol bot Jeff charged into a punk who, in a surprising display of skill, feigned a swing of a tire iron before slamming a hidden knife into the bot’s torso three times, severing internal circuitry. [Punk rolled a 6, Jeff rolled a 1, that’s three hits!] Jeff hit the floor in a shower of sparks. That damage was going to take some repairing..

Jase’s shotgun took his revenge on the punk that downed Jeff, and quickly only the enemy leader was left. Jaryk shouted an offer to spare him if he fled, but the leader yelled back a string of abuse by way of a refusal, and came in for an unwinnable fight. One blast from Jaryk’s hand cannon and the lead punk was reduced to a pile of bone and viscera that even the Sand Runners may turn their noses up at when they came scavenging later.

The crew searched the battle field, and found what they thought was the prize the punks were employed to guard. But the crate was full of scrap that, whilst it might fetch a few credits in the markets, was not what they were looking for at all. Thankfully, Jaryk made the crew search every last container, and in the last one they made a very interesting find indeed. There was a person inside, bound and gagged, and looking very much the worse for wear!

[And, my friends, we will introduce you to her before the next round!]

After a silly amount of time being distracted by other things, I am coming back to this project for more action, and the next part of the story. Almost finished with the 9 (count them, NINE!!) enemies for the next game!

Jaryk was almost expecting it now. On their return to camp, once again, Petev was there waiting for them. Larger entourage this time. In addition to the bodyguards, there were a couple of normal looking people carrying tool cases.

“Jaryk, welcome back, let my engineers repair that droid for you.”

Clearly Petev’s field agent had already called in the result of the mission as there was no debrief, and the engineers were brought along specifically to repair Jim. While they worked on the stricken patrol bot, and the crew settled in to eat around the fire, Jaryk and Petev took a walk to discuss business.

Petev was delighted at the result of the mission and, as promised, handed over the credits. He also went on to explain that as far as his sources could tell him, the invasion threat had subsided for now. The elimination of the enemy cell setting back the Converted’s plans by several months. That would buy enough time for the authorities to prepare proper defences. Jaryk nodded in approval, but had more pressing concerns. “You promised me information”, Jaryk reminded Petev.

“Ah yes, of course. I am a man of my word, and you have earned it. That crate you found, out in the wastes. I ran a check on the government inventories and the results were most interesting indeed. The crate is one of a number of consignments, headed for different destinations, but originating from one source. I am not sure exactly where, and I do not yet know who, but I do know that they were all destined for various prominent but retired senior Unity military personnel. The contents of that crate were pretty high tech stuff, yes? So the rest remains a mystery, why is advanced experimental tech being sent to retired officers? I do not know, but I do also know the last known location of another crate, also lost from its convoy.”

Jaryk’s eyes widened. “Where?”

“Ah, well. This is where we need to make another deal, yes? I have given you information as promised. There is a little more, so just a little price aha.”

“And what, pray, is this LITTLE price?”

“I need you to return, and work for me again. I know you must leave for now. Outrun the authorities and hide from your father, yes? I am mindful of this. But I will contact you and I will need you to come. I promise it won’t be for at least six months, but you must come and come immediately.”

At this point, Jaryk was clear that he would not underestimate Petev. He was far too well informed, and too well connected to take lightly. Jaryk was relatively green in the world of the mercenary. He hoped that getting in with Petev was not a grave mistake. But he had no choice. He also drooled at the thought of acquiring another crate like the last one. If this kept up he could build an advanced armoury and to hell with Petev. He chose to play along, for now, until he had a more advantageous position.

The conversation continued for a while. Petev disclosed that the location of the other crate was on a planet called Nacia’s Landing which was not a very long distance away. So the destination was set, and they would leave in the morning.

[I paid the 5 credits in fuel costs to travel to a new world and rolled up the world traits. The trait rolled was “Expensive Education” which means +3 credits to enrol in advanced training. I hadn’t yet felt the need to enrol the crew in any advanced training, and it doesn’t look like it will be happening here!]

The Enlightenment set down after an uneventful two days travel. It was a desert planet with only a few settlements. Nacia’s Landing was originally just the name for the planet’s spaceport, but over time it became the moniker for the entire world. It’s original designation being far too complex a string of alphanumericals for the average person to remember. It was never intended to be a core populated world, but by all accounts it was doing fairly well for itself, particularly around the spaceport. It had a space flight academy, which was very expensive to enrol in, and therefore there was some wealth in the area and a decent trade. On the approach, however, it was clear that the desert regions were an unrelenting hellscape. Petev’s coordinates showed the potential location of the missing consignment to be a few miles outside of the spaceport, but it was not possible to land anywhere other the port itself. To attempt otherwise would have been too risky.

[The new world routines were performed as per the rulebook. The “Starship Travel Event” was uneventful and resulted in +1XP for Jaryk. No rivals followed the crew from the previous world, but the patrol bots, while exploring, did immediately aggravate a local Brat Gang, creating a new rival. Jase and Leela went out to look for a Patron to see if they could find work, but no luck. Noone was hiring – so we will immediately continue with the quest and look for that crate. The pre-battle routines resulted in an “Acquire” mission, with the enemies being Sand Runners (see previous post).]

The crew travelled overnight as usual, ready to make their approach to the target site at first light. Once again, the main threat appeared to be the local wildlife. In this case the residents of choice appeared to be starving, emaciated wolf like creatures who, in the absence of any meaningful prey, were whiling away the hours fighting and taking lumps out of each other. They looked well past their physical peaks, but highly dangerous.

[The location of the objective crate was the centre of the board as usual. There was also a “notable interest” of “shiny bits” worth 1 extra credit, placed 2D6+2″ randomly from the centre. Right in the Sand Runners deployment area! There was no way I would outrun these foe to the objective so the plan was a more cautious approach this time to try to get as many shots off before the inevitable melee. With only Toughness 3, and only 4 enemy, this has the potential to be a bit too easy, so I painted up an extra 2 enemy to balance things up if needed – two more Sand Runners in reserve! Their fang attacks look deadly though, so if the shooting isn’t accurate this could still end badly. Seize the Initiative failed, so no getting the jump on the enemy]

The crew crept into range and then opened fire. It couldn’t have gotten off to a better start – Jeff aimed and fired his heavy arc rifle, killing a Sand Runner before it had the chance to react. Bloodlust got the better of K’Vani this time, and she immediately charged in the direction of the enemy Alpha, which was equally keen to make a beeline for her. It would take a few moments for them to come together, but in the meantime her path was blocking any chance the others had of loosing a shot in the Alpha’s direction. K’Vani would have to take her chances. Jase waited for the nearest Runner to come towards him before moving into shotgun range and downing the beast with a well-aimed blast. Jaryk and Leela, in cover, waited for the battle to develop. Going for the objective at this stage would have been suicide.

K’Vani closed in on her prey, firing a wild shot from her handgun, but without any real conviction. It was melee she wanted. The beast pounced and they collided in a fierce exchange of blade and claws. K’Vani saw her change and plunged her blade at the chest of the Alpha. But disaster! The blade broke at the hilt! Without missing a beat, the Alpha pounced and knocked K’Vani to the floor.

[This was incredibly unfortunate for K’Vani! She had the advantage in this attack. The blade gives +2 to the combat roll and K’Erin can roll two dice and choose the highest. However, K’Vani rolled snake eyes! Two ones! The Alpha rolled a 6! This meant three hits on K’Vani – one for winning the roll off, one for the Alpha’s natural 6, and one for K’Vani’s natural 1. It couldn’t have been any worse! Only one of the three hits wounded, but that was enough to put K’Vani down. In the post battle sequence, K’Vani would escape lasting injury but would suffer one random broken item. Of course it was the blade! Hence the broken blade narrative as part of this encounter. This game really writes itself!]

The crew were stunned as they watched K’Vani fall. Her blade broken, and bleeding, she tried to roll away from her assailant. Jase was the first to react, and levelled his shotgun at the Alpha before it could rip K’Vani in two. His aim was true and he destroyed the beast. K’Vani would live but she would take no further part in this battle. Jeff aimed and fired the heavy arc rifle and once again downed a beast. The last one…or was it?

Jaryk and Leela hopped over the wall they were hiding behind and made for the crate, thinking the danger had passed. Not so. With the Alpha’s dying cry, two more Sand Runners appeared from inside the buildings. [Those two extra models came in handy! Despite K’Vani’s at this point unknown fate, the battle overall had been quite easy, so a final challenge for the crew!]. Jaryk hadn’t noticed the beast that had appeared behind him. Thankfully Leela was alert to the danger, wheeled around Jaryk’s position and fired at the beast. It went down. The other beast lurched into a full run, leapt over a wall and barrelled into Jase. He was caught off guard, but again Leela to the rescue – she brought her blade round in an arc and plunged it into the monster. Together they brought it down.

With more caution this time, the crew made their way to the crate and the secondary objective and carefully removed them from the area.

…..

Back at camp, Jaryk prised open the crate, eager to see what high tech gadgetry lay in wait this time. Much to his dismay, all he could see was two broken weapons. A blast pistol and a glare sword. The sword looked as though it was a decent weapon in its time, but the blast pistol was junk. There was however something else in the crate, under the broken weapon parts, a personal trinket of some kind. It looked remarkably similar to an item they picked up on New Pallas and was currently stored in the ship’s hold. That was two. Two was a pattern. And so the plot thickened…

[The personal trinket was all the work of the random dice rolls. Two on two planets. That has to be part of the story now!]

The pre-battle sequence for Campaign Turn 5 has determined that the enemies will be “Sand Runners” which are described as:

Firstly, this will help me choose the setting for the new world which the crew are travelling to. Sand. Sounds like a desert planet to me! Secondly, we’ll need some models as I don’t already have anything that fits the description.
I thought about scorpions but they don’t have fangs really, more stingers and claws. So in the end I decided on wolves. They have fangs, can run on sand, and can leap into a fight. These seemed to fit the bill:

Time for a super quick paint job. Making use of Stynylrez light flesh primer which will do a lot of the heavy lifting for the scheme then some simple shading and washes. It took 3-4 hours to paint the 6 models. The steps were:

1. Very solid prime of Stynylrez light flesh primer

2. Airbrush Army Painter Werewolf Fur on the, er, fur..

3. Airbrush some magenta ink into the wounded areas

4. Burnt Umber oil wash all over the wolves, removed from surfaces with a makeup sponge

5. Diluted flesh wash on the bases

6. Drybrush Rakarth Flesh

7. Final details such as yellow eyes, Carrisbourg Crimson to redden the wounds, black snouts etc and black base rims

Done!