Dark Century Campaign - Section 2

Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 19:24:40 GMT
From: "Brendan O'Donovan" <Brendan@odonovan.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Dark Century Campaign - Section 2

Flu and work both conspired to hold this up, but its finished more or less now.
Even if you don't run this, you might find some useful ideas in it.
 
Overview: In part one, the characters were framed with involvement in the theft 
of a prototype Reformation Coalition starship. Escaping from the shipyard where 
the head of security was involved in framing the characters, the adventure 
opens in some docks on Aubaine.

The characters are wanted by the police, and until the end of this section they 
are likely to be hassled at various points by the police. These first two 
encounters can be added into this section as appropriate.

The safe house.
The characters will require accommodation while they pursue their inquiries 
into the ship theft. Any character who has criminal contacts can arrange 
somewhere to stay. Alternatively, the characters can be approached by a 
stranger after a close escape from a police patrol. The characters will be 
offered 'safe' accommodation for Cr25 each per night.
'The place wasn't in a part of town you knew, come to that, it wasn't even in a 
part of town you knew existed. The building looked like it had been burnt out 
in the past, but plants grew in colourful swathes from the windows, and the 
doors and windows looked new. Still, rebuilding was nothing new to you, and the 
building blended in with those around it well enough'

After a day or two, the police will set a trap in the building, having either 
been tipped off by the owner in return for a reward, or after the police 
followed and arrested the character's contact.
Formidable:Observation - 'As you return to the place you're renting nothing 
seems out of place, but in a street that has constantly surprised you, with 
impromptu performances by artists and violent arguments by neighbours, this in 
itself is strange. A man stands by one of the streetlights reading a newsheet, 
you can't be sure, but it seems like he's watching you.'
If the players look around before going inside, they will find a police air 
raft at the rear of the house, with a single law enforcement officer. This 
gives the players an opportunity to steal a getaway vehicle and escape. If they 
try to leave on foot then they will encounter the police, just the same as if 
they go inside, but of course, they will have a better chance to escape.
If the players go inside, they will be confronted by the police who are waiting 
inside their apartment. There are 4 more police than characters and allied 
NPCs, and they will attempt to subdue the characters, as the Coalition needs to 
question them.

Law Enforcer Template NPC
Level: Experienced, Combat Assets:Armed Martial Arts (Small Blade), Slug 
Pistol,   Other Assets:Pilot (IF/Grav) 9,  Observation 10, Persuasion 10
Equipment:10mm AutoSnub (1D6 1-4Tranq 5-6HEAP), BW vest (AV1 Chest/Ab), Blade

Police Sweep
Ten police officers are conducting a sweep of the area looking for the players. 
Each character must roll Average:Stealth to slip by. If anyone fails, they get 
past on Impossible:Act Bluff. 
If a successful Forgery (false ID) or Disguise roll has been made earlier, then 
they receive a -1 diff mod for each, or -2 for a critical success (and possibly 
-1 for superb roleplaying if they hadn't done either)
This situation could be complicated by the appearance of a drunken acquaintance 
of one of the character's.
If the players fail to slip past, they will have to defend themselves against 
the police long enough to escape into the crowd. This will be helped by the 
fact the police are on foot.

Research
Some leads which were mentioned in the previous section might now be followed 
up. 

Difficult:Streetwise or Research (-1 diff level if any character has media 
contacts)
The death of Farlos was investigated for Coalition News Services by a Schalli 
journalist. He was unable to find any witnesses to the death, and schalli who 
were in the area of Farlos' disappearance remember the weather as stormy, but 
not unusually so. More significantly, none of them actually saw Farlos' boat in 
the area on the night he disappeared.
Formidable:Research, (average:admin to enable, -1 diff level for a medical 
contact)
There was a survivor from the air raft crash which killed the crew of Farlos' 
original ship. He was resuscitated at a local hospital, but then disappeared a 
few days later. Staff on duty report that he went to the bathroom and never 
came out. An open window from the room looked out over a side alley.

Formidable:Computer - Remotely access the shipyard computers. From here the 
following information can be obtained if the players ask for it:
-Motion Video or stills of the video which incriminates the characters
-Personnel files for the head of security, showing his arrival on planet on the 
same ship as some of the mercenaries. This is not in itself incriminating, 
other civilians from both Coalition worlds and the wilds arrived on the same 
ship, but it is interesting. 
-Work schedules for the construction of the RCS Dark Century. Average:Admin to 
notice that the chief technician in charge of the project actually left to go 
on holiday shortly before the Dark Century was completed. 
-Account numbers used for paying wages which will assist the players in 
obtaining information from bank computers.

This information is important, so if the characters are not skilled enough with 
computers they will need to locate someone who is. Average:Streetwise to locate 
a cybercafe where an infamous hacker hangs out.
'The bar is dark, illuminated principally by the rows of vid screens along the 
walls. A wide variety of people sit at the terminals, businessmen in suits, 
mothers with their children pointing to the screen and more. The lighting in 
the room is not unpleasant, the light from the screens being cast through sepia 
coloured filters, creating a warm atmosphere reinforced by the smell of 
steaming cups of sharp but sweet smelling Chakka and fresh baked doughnuts'
If the players ask the owner of the shop they will be directed to a young woman 
in a business suit sitting in one corner. The lady is Jan Coley, an 
accomplished computer expert, with an amateur interest in computer intrusion 
which nonetheless leaves most full time hackers speechless. She will break into 
the shipyard computers for Cr1000, (Difficult:Bargaining to bring down to 
Cr600, or C300 on exceptional success) and may even suggest retrieving some of 
the above information if the players don't think about it. Unfortunately for 
the players, she is unknowingly under investigation by a group of bounty 
hunters, who heard of her reputation, and have been observing her through bugs 
in the cafe terminals to watch for shady dealings. When they realise that she 
may be acting on behalf of the characters, they decide to step in, encouraged 
on the kCr250 reward for the capture of the characters.
Fortunately, the bounty hunters working on Aubaine are far less competent than 
their counterparts in the wilds. The bounty hunters will enter the cafe just as 
Jan finishes retrieving the information the players need. They enter through 
the front door and start firing immediately. The civilians present dive for 
cover and players would be quite justified in fighting back.
There is one more bounty hunter present than the number of players in the 
group.

Bounty Hunter, Experienced, Combat assets:Energy pistol, Unarmed Martial Arts, 
Slug Pistol. Other assets:Observation 10, Tracking 10, Streetwise 10. Armed 
with 10mm AutoSnub-8 (HE), leader carries a TL9 laser pistol. They are wearing 
combat environment suits under casual clothes.

Jan Coley, Experienced, Combat assets:Slug pistol. Other assets:Computer:16, 
Observation:10, Research:10. Carries a gauss pistol (dart)

Cafe owner, Veteran Combat assets:Slug rifle, Unarmed martial arts. Other 
assets: Service:14, Computer:12, Electronics:10. Has a pump action shotgun 
under the counter (slugs)

The police and emergency services will arrive in three minutes. Players gain 
much karma for attending to the wounded civilians until the ambulances arrive 
instead of fleeing straight away. 

Difficult:Computer (-2 diff levels if the players have account number from 
payroll files at the shipyard)
Obtain account information on people that the players suspect of involvement
The head of security has no suspicious payments on file. 
The chief technician had a Cr1,500,000 deposit made about four months ago. A 
large withdrawal was made a few weeks ago to pay for a holiday on a well-known 
resort near the equator on Aubaine. In the past couple of weeks numerous small 
withdrawals have been made in shops on the resort island.

Formidable:Streetwise (-1 diff level if any character has criminal contacts, -1 
diff if anyone has military contacts) - Players trace some of the mercenaries 
who appear in the security camera pictures to a mercenary unit which arrived 
onworld ten years ago. No record of them exists prior to this date. The members 
had obtained one or two minor contracts for various commercial concerns, but 
nine years ago the group split up, and the members obtained a variety of 
civilian jobs, principally in security and law enforcement, but some entered 
more mundane careers as accountants and administrators. No details of the 
mercenary missions they carried out have been released. Recently, the band 
began to reform, hired by a mysterious businessman, who paid in cash.

Impossible:Streetwise (-1 diff level if the Medical research above was done)
The survivor of the air raft crash is now working as a technician for the 
Aubani communications company. He has changed his name, and is living under 
cover. He will not be happy about talking to the characters about the crash, 
and will only reluctantly agree to see them.  He will explain that he is 
fearful for his safety, suspecting someone wants him dead, and telling the 
characters that the air raft crash was no accident. He offers to meet the 
characters in a local park to explain further. When the characters turn up for 
the rendezvous, they will find him sitting on a park bench, staring into space 
in from of him. When the players try to talk to him, they realise that he is 
dead. Any post mortem would reveal he died of poisoning delivered by a fragment 
of ceramic found in his neck, as if it had been shot there. Most likely the 
characters won't have the opportunity for any close investigation, and if they 
did, it would not provide any information as to the killer's identity.

Whatever else the players find out, the significant pieces of information are 
those relating to the chief technician. The players should decide to 
investigate him. Investigation will determine that he has let the rent lapse on 
his flat, and appears to have moved out to the resort permanently.

Reaching the island is not likely to be easy as the police are hounding the 
players. I'll outline four possibilities for reaching the island:

1/Passenger ship
2/Chartered ship
3/Stolen ship
4/Charter flight

Buying the tickets
The tickets will need to be purchased for 1, 2 & 4 above. This could be done by 
a character, suitably disguised (opposing an observation asset of 7). 
Alternatively a trusted contact could do it, but this could cause some problems 
for players - How much do you trust your contact? Does he still blame you for 
the death of X? Can you trust your journalist friend to keep his mouth shut? 
The tickets cost:

Passenger ship Cr200 each
Chartered ship Cr1500 total
Chartered flight Cr2000 total

Security checks
The characters will be checked as they enter the harbour or airport complex. 
Security has been tightened due to the increasing tensions in Coalition space. 
The security still seems friendly rather than intimidating, but there is an 
atmosphere of polite caution. Players attempting to get prohibited weapons 
(automatics and high-energy weapons) through security will be arrested if 
discovered. Players with criminal or merchant contacts can arrange for the 
weapons to be smuggled to the resort. This costs Cr100 to Cr 500 per weapon. 
The chance of it getting through safely is equal to 60% + 5% for each Cr50 over 
the original Cr100. Passengers will be asked to check weapons into secure 
lockers for the duration of their flight/cruise. It is Formidable:Stealth to 
avoid any concealed weapons being found (-1 difficulty level for pistols), or 
it is Difficult:Intrusion to obtain them once on board.

Passenger ship.
'The ship sits easily in harbour, a faint trail of steam reaching up from one 
end. The hydrofoil underneath the water has a modified HEPlaR drive mounted on 
it, which takes water in from in front of the ship, heating it to steam and 
then venting it behind the ship. The efficiency of the propulsion, combined 
with a fusion plant make it possible to achieve extremely high speeds with very 
little cost. The tourists around you all look excited, they jostle and crowd 
around the boarding gates, and the people who were originally checking people's 
papers  give up and get out of the way.'
The voyage takes about twelve hours, and while the characters will encounter no 
trouble getting off again, it's not all plain sailing....
' "Hey! You!" the shout comes from behind you. Turning, you find yourself face 
to face with a short angry looking man. You recognise him from the briefing as 
one of the would-be officers from the briefing at the shipyard. His shouting is 
beginning to attract the attention of the other passengers around you'
Lots of Act/Bluff, Persuasion, and clever ideas will be needed to shut him up. 
He will harangue the characters, although he won't get violent. If he is 
allowed to get away, then he will call the port authorities
using the ships laser relay. The characters could try to disable the 
communicator, either by taking over the comms room, or by sabotaging the 
antenna. If they don't they will be ambushed by the police (see below) as they 
disembark.

Charter Vessel and Flight.
The characters will not be immediately apprehended if they fail to sneak past 
security while boarding, but the police will be waiting at the port/airport 
when the characters arrive, and will try to arrest them (see below). The 
characters may plan to use parachutes or scuba to get past these problems, and 
these are possible, depending on character skills.
To pass through security 
Formidable:Stealth (the corridors are designed to prevent this)
Formidable:Act/Bluff ('...no, you want my second cousin, he looks just like 
me')
Difficult:Disguise
Difficult:Forgery 


Stealing a ship.
In the port there is a small HEPlaR propelled water skimmer. A fat man in a 
loud shirt sits on deck, drinking and soaking up the sun. He is a novice NPC 
and has the keys for the yacht in his pocket. The characters can easily 
intimidate him into starting the engine, or piloting the ship. As the 
characters leave the port, they will be pursued by his bodyguard, who has 
borrowed a speedboat to chase them. The characters can outrun him easily if 
they choose to. If they do, they will be reported by the bodyguard, and tracked 
by the police. The police will be waiting for them when they arrive. If 
however, they allow the bodyguard to catch up and they subdue him, then nobody 
will raise the alarm, and the characters will be able to land uninterrupted by 
the police on the island. The bodyguard is an Experienced NPC, armed with a 
gauss pistol and unarmoured.

Police ambush 
If the characters get noticed from travel above, they will be ambushed by a 
group of police in a fitting location (customs, a small harbour, as they get 
out from their grav vehicle and walk across the grasphalt to the terminal 
building). There are twice as many police as there are characters. Use the law 
enforcer template above.

The holiday home. 
The Chief technician (Steffan Gray) 's house is set in considerable grounds. 
The grounds are surrounded by a wire fence, with surveillance cameras set every 
hundred meters along their length. A narrow road leads from the main road to 
the house.  The grounds are patrolled by trios of security guards, all in 
combat environment suits and carrying TL10 ACRs with HE ammunition. At night 
they use light intensifier goggles, and they have headset radios for 
communication.
Technician's security. Experienced NPC. Combat assets: Slug Rifle. Other 
assets:Observation 12, Stealth 10, Tactics 8.
Most of the estate is covered in dense forest, but reaching in a circle about 
50m in radius from the house are landscaped gardens these include four 
spectacular 'holographic' fountains, where projection onto a spray of opaque 
white liquid gives the impressions of a fountain of fire, of pebbles and rocks, 
of clouds and of water, all four fountains changing theme in rotation. There is 
a second road leading from the house to a private beach. 
Draw maps if you want, or alternatively handle it in a more descriptive 
fashion.

Some suggested complications for various approaches.
Entry through the woods - 
Poisonous wildlife
Dry leaves underfoot attracting guards

Entry through the private beach - 
Wildlife
Toxin laced netting covering the cove. Intended to keep unfriendly wildlife 
outside the swimming area it is laced with a slime containing a contact poison. 
Although intended to discourage small fish only, the sting is uncomfortable, 
and one randomly selected member of the party could suffer an allergic reaction 
to it (fever, halved assets, needs medical attention within an hour).
Rip currents

Entry over the fence (for all but beach approaches)
The wire fence is made of superdense, and requires specialised cutting 
equipment. Digging under the fence could produce an entry, but there is a 30% 
chance of uncovering a small antipersonnel mine. This is primed when the 
unfortunate lays his hand on it, but won't go off until he reduces the pressure 
on it. The others can try to disarm it, while the unfortunate who discovered it 
rolls lots of willpower tests to not scratch his nose. Climbing over the fence 
is possible, but the razor wire on the top will do 2D6 damage each limb. 
Easy:Acrobatics to prevent damage to one limb, Average for two limbs, Difficult 
to save three limbs, and Impossible to vault over without damage (roll and see 
which if any task would be successful).
Then there are those video cameras.....

Entry along paths through the woods/along a road
Guard patrols are common, and the players are likely to encounter them.
There are several automated weapons which are deactivated by radio 
transmissions from security tags which the people living in the house use. 
These can be obtained from defeated guards. Using a radio jammer doesn't 
deactivate the weapons, but it will cause them to fire indiscriminately.

In the house the players will find copies of the Dark Century's blueprints, 
annotated to highlight security weaknesses, ways door locks can be over ridden, 
means of defeating the anti hijack program. They will also find parameters for 
a planned jump to Lancer, with risk assessments for the untested jump drives. 
There is no RC authorisation stamp on any of these documents. There is also 
correspondence from the Head of security who framed the characters, assuring 
Steffan that the characters will be caught and convicted by the police on the 
evidence that he has created. 

The characters hear a sudden roar and see a large flash out through the 
windows. A fusion small arms shot has ignited much of the top floor of the 
house. Steffan will die in the blaze unless a courageous character chooses to 
go up to save him. He will be found severely burnt from a grazing shot, 
unconscious and will have to be dragged from the building. He will remain in a 
coma for several weeks, but will eventually make a full recovery. Unfortunately 
he knows little else about the ship theft, as his involvement was entirely 
through Trefin (who will have disappeared off planet by the time the characters 
reach the authorities with the evidence.
The characters can try to pursue the cloaked gunman responsible, but he will 
have gone by the time they get outside, and they will find him impossible to 
track. They will see a craft take off from the beach and climb up on an orbital 
trajectory. The government tracking agencies will deny having seen anything 
(they really didn't, but let the players get paranoid about government cover 
ups).
The police will arrive within a few minutes, and with the evidence gathered, 
the players should be able to prove their innocence. The authorities are able 
to determine the planned path of the Century and a mission to return the ship 
to the Coalition is organised. Naturally, the players are offered command 
positions to chase after the people who framed them....

..To be continued in about a fortnight...

-- 
Brendan