The Ace of Spades Campaign - Alien Base part 09

Tara's Secret
The further away from sub level two that Tara got, the better she felt. She was lying on one of the square power-sleds with Judith and Rebecca accompanying her. As the elevator reached the submarine pens on the uppermost level, she protested, "Really guys, I feel fine. I can walk from here."
"Are you sure?" Judith asked, not entirely convinced.
Tara immediately stood up and nimbly stepped off the power-sled. She spun round and spread her arms wide.
"See?" she beamed, "I'm fine."
"Hmm," Judith said dubiously, "I'm still going to give you a full medical examination."

They reached the submarine that they had arrived in, which Judith knew had a fully functioning sickbay on board. Now that they could understand the Npurth language, Judith felt confident of being able to operate the alien machines that filled the sickbay.
"It'll probably be better if you remove your spacesuit first," Judith advised Tara.
"Okay, if you insist," Tara replied resignedly.

She stripped off her spacesuit to reveal a blue and grey synthetic weave survey scouts' uniform. Judith instructed her to lie on the examination bed and proceeded to run a series of diagnostic scans on the Auroran humanoid.
"You're perfectly fine," she announced after a few minutes. "Physically, you're in excellent health. I don't know why you felt so weak and tired before. Is there anything you're not telling me?"
"There maybe one thing that might explain it," Tara admitted after a moment's hesitation. "Let me ask you a question."
"By all means," Judith agreed. "Go ahead."
 "Are any of your crew telepaths?" Tara asked.
"Sure," Rebecca replied. "Danica, our Venetian scout is a telepath."
"That explains it," Tara answered with a knowing nod.
"Explains what?" Judith wanted to know.

"I'm an Auroran," Tara said as she stood up and began her explanation. "It is a little known fact but all Aurorans are natural inertials. We have the ability to reflexively neutralise psionic powers, with no conscious effort or will. Although inertialling was not unknown before, we were the first race ever discovered that specialised in it, even to the extent of never producing psionic individuals, just anti-psionic inertials. Most Aurorans are anti-telepaths, as I am. Fully one half of our population are anti-telepaths, the rest can negate either clairsentience, clairvoyance, ergokinesis, telekinesis or teleportation. Each inertial can negate one psionic discipline and only one. However, no one can negate biopsionics or metapsionics, probably because our race never encountered any predator that used these disciplines. You see, many of our planet's wildlife are psionic and over time our race gradually developed inertialism as a defence mechanism against them."
"Fascinating," Rebecca interjected.
"It is," Judith agreed, "but why did you feel so tired and weak?"
"The act of inertialling is mentally draining," Tara explained. "The more time I spend next to a telepath, the more tired I become. I've never met any Venetians before and so I didn't know she was a telepath but I suspected that one of your crew must have been telepathic. I'm sorry, I should have said something sooner."
"That's okay," Judith said with understanding. "I imagine it's not something you feel comfortable talking about with strangers."
"That's very true," Tara admitted. "I'm rather shy and not nearly as outgoing or as boisterous as most of my race are."
"So what are we going to do now?" Rebecca asked.
"Tara and I will stay here," Judith replied. "I want to keep her and Danica away from one another as much as I can. You return to the others. We'll be fine in here. Give me a call if any of you need my help. Now go."
"I will," Rebecca said as she headed out of the room. "Take care."
Alien Base Sub Level 3

The elevator descended to sub level three of the alien base and Storm, Danica, Lynda and Smiley from The Ace of Spades stepped out, accompanied by engineer Johan Hensler of the DSX Timothy scout ship and Chembles, the Pnarm mollusc chemist. On three of the four walls in the elevator room was an open doorway, leading north, east and south. The floor was spotless, free from litter and debris and there were no gun turrets visible.
"We'll go north first," Danica said as she prepared to take point. Lynda sent Smiley scooting ahead of the Venetian. The short, well lit corridor ended in an empty foyer that showed a large double door, about eight yards wide taking up most of the length of the western wall.
The doors were not locked and opened to reveal a huge auditorium, even bigger than the zoo found on the level above. The entire room was strewn about with large pillows, six feet in length and three feet wide. The floor sloped up towards the west, as did the ceiling, thirty feet above them. The entire room felt like it had been tilted fifteen degrees from true. A computer terminal in the centre of the floor by the west wall was situated beneath a gigantic screen that practically covered the entire western wall. It was blank.
"I think we'll explore further," Storm announced. "If need be we can always return here later."
As they were about to leave, Lynda grabbed one of the pillows and added it to the power-sled.
"I'd like to analyse what it's made of when we get back to our ship," she explained.
Maybe the thought of  analysing the strange material of the pillows distracted Lynda or maybe she just got complacent in thinking the base was truly abandoned, but she forgot to send Smiley ahead to reconnoitre and instead, kept him with the party. Either way, it was a mistake. As they were about to enter the elevator room, two, metallic sounding voices cried out at them in the Npurth language.
"HALT! INTRUDER ALERT!"
"IDENTIFY YOURSELVES OR DIE!"

A pair of deadly-looking armed and armoured sentry robots faced them. Obviously the base was not fully abandoned or deserted.
"Oh, shit!" Storm murmured.

Androids 01

Let me start this post with a question - what is the difference between an android and a robot? It is the issue of free will. An android is self-aware and has rights - a robot does not. In RPG games such as N.E.W. and Starfinder, androids can be player characters. The first part of this post originally appeared on my Vampifan's World of the Undead blog, but I've updated it to include four new figures, who have not been seen before.

These five 28mm scale figures come from a variety of companies. At the far left is a very old figure produced by Grenadier Miniatures for Cyberpunk 2020 and/or Shadowrun. He is a cyborg cop, heavily influenced by Robo-cop from the films of the same name. In the few games where I have used him, I've always referred to him as "Robo-cop". I have no idea if this figure is still available for sale or not. I know a lot of old Grenadier figures are still available but I'm uncertain about this particular one.
Next in line is a figure I bought recently. She is Maria the female android produced by Reaper Miniatures as part of their Chronoscope range. She looks like a female version of C-3PO from Star Wars. However, her name is a dead giveaway on who she is really based on - Maria the Maschinenmensch (German for machine-person) or robot in Fritz Lang's 1927 film of Metropolis. The figure is a very good likeness of her and the sculpting of her is quite exquisite. You'll find her in the Reaper Chronoscope webstore as 50246: Maria - She-Bot where she is priced at £5.22.

In the centre of this group is Narindan, who is an android produced by Space Vixens From Mars. I have been buying quite a few figures from them to use in my The Ace of Spades Campaign. This figure is listed as SV36 and costs a very cheap £2.00. Note that he is slightly taller than most humans of the same scale.
Finally are two androids produced by Alternative Armies for their Ganesha Games sci-fi range. They bear a slight similarity to the B1 Battledroids seen in some of the Star Wars films but they are different. However, it is fair to say that my colour scheme for them was directly influenced by the B1 Battledroid. They are listed as PSY04 Combots and they cost £2.00 each.

Now we come to my new figures. The three androids to the left of my two photos above and below were produced by North Star Figures for their Rogue Stars range. At the far left is ROG113 - Big Bot, sculpted by Mike Owen. He is one big and intimidating android. If he was scaled up to life size he'd easily top eight feet, and possibly more. He is either an assassin droid or a combat droid. He costs £6.00, which isn't too bad for such a huge hunk of metal.
The next two android come as a pair - ROG103 - Gun Bots, and they were sculpted by Mark Copplestone. Again, these could be assassins or combat droids or even bounty hunters. The green droid has painted kill markings on the side of his rifle. Clearly, they are not to be taken lightly. The pair of these figures costs £6.00 from the North Star webstore.

Last in line is Jeeves the Clockwork Robot from Reaper Miniatures' Chronoscope range. Technically, he is not an android, but I'm including him here anyway because he could work as an android at a pinch. Once again, this is a very tall figure and to be honest, he is quite fragile. I superglued the wrist of his right hand to his thigh and reinforced the joints of his left arm with superglue. It isn't clear from my photos but his left "hand" is actually a circular saw. When I first saw him, I thought it was a tray. He costs £5.22 and he is listed as 50063: Jeeves, Clockwork Robot on the Reaper webstore. By the way, I order my Reaper figures from the Miniature Heroes webstore, who are based here in the UK. This saves me a fortune in postage and customs charges. You can find them here - http://miniature-heroes.co.uk/

Assorted Human Female Adventurers 01

I'm over half way through my Alien Base scenario, but I want to take a short break to show you some new figures (well, three of them are new). These four assorted female adventurers were all produced by different companies. Anyone who knows me well will know how much I like strong female characters. These four lovely looking females will most certainly feature at some point in my The Ace of Spades Campaign.

At the far left is Honey Ketchup, which is the name given to her by the team at Space Vixens from Mars, the company who produce her figure. Their website describe her as a "femme fatale" and a "woman of mystery - make of her what you will." I love this figure! She looks so sassy and so sexy. She is armed with a pair of energy pistols, maybe blaster pistols or maybe phaser pistols. The fact that they are silver-plated indicates that they are at the very least, high quality weapons, possibly even higher. She is SKU-SV58 Honey Ketchup in the Space Vixens from Mars webstore and she costs just £2.00.A bargain!
Next in line is Nina Chi, a very Mangaesque-looking figure who is produced by Shadowforge, and whom I bought from Grekwood Miniatures a few years ago. She is described as a security officer but I see her as a bounty hunter, and that is the role I aim to use her as in my WOIN games. She is armed with a Ding Exploration IG66 Zero Point Hunting Rifle and a Daystellar N23 Whitesteel Electro Autopistol. She is beautifully sculpted with a very peachy backside! Sadly, Grekwood Miniatures no longer sell her but you can buy her from Eureka Miniatures where she is listed in their Shadowforge characters range as C105 Ninna Chi - Astro Corps Security. She costs AU$6.00. Although Eureka are based in Australia, I have ordered from them in the past and never had any problems with them.

Third in line is Tomoko, a female adventurer produced by Hasslefree Miniatures and sculpted by Kevin White. Yet again, there is a certain Manga vibe about her. Her armour is not black but a very dark green. Her hair is black with purple highlights. I haven't yet decided on her profession but she is just too good a figure not to use. She is armed with a high quality New Prime XD074 Polaron Autocannon. She is listed as HFA069 Elite Tomoko on the Hasslefree webstore and she costs £5.00. Note that there are other versions of Tomoko available - HFA059 is the same figure with a smaller SMG-sized weapon (also £5.00) and if you're feeling really extravagant, you can get the SMG armed Tomoko cast in clear resin for a whopping £30.00!
Finally, is Halmia Katura, an incredibly rich dilettante and a psyker. I named her as I have big plans for her in an upcoming scenario in my The Ace of Spades Campaign. Halmia likes to gamble, so she will soon be crossing paths with Kimberley Wells. Clearly, she is unarmed but she's no pushover. She is produced by Alternatives Armies as part of their Ganesha Games sci-fi range. She is listed as PSY02 Techno Barbarian Pose 1 and she costs a mere £2.00. Another bargain!
This is a mighty fine array of human female adventurers from four different companies but they all look great and I'm pleased to have them in my collection.

The Ace of Spades Campaign - Alien Base part 08

Alien Base Sub Level 2 - the Bio-labs
The party left the alien zoo and headed up the T-junction corridor to the door situated at the northern end. It slid open easily to reveal a large room, roughly half the size of the zoo.

The large room was filled with equipment but it was a complete mess. Machinery was flung around with total disregard for property, cabinets pulled opened and contents tossed about. Total confusion reigned. There were two other exits from the room. One was an open passage in the north eastern corner and the other was a metal door identical to the one they had entered through and directly opposite it.

Rebecca, the cat burglar, checked out the passage which led to a rough, new extension to the existing base, indicating that the base was being expanded before it was abandoned. Nothing new was inside the room but four power sleds were parked on the floor. Wonder of wonders, all four were in perfect operating condition.

Evidence of a quick departure abounded. Clearly, this place was ransacked for useful items when the place was abandoned. Nothing seemed to be in order, but everything had one thing in common: it was useless. All had been broken or had parts missing. Whilst there appeared that there was nothing here of any use, Lynda discovered that there was data aplenty. She found dozens of "magazines" (looking more like scrolls read from left to right) and a number of other books stacked on shelves. In addition, she found several more scrolls, this time hand-written, which appeared to be lab notes. With such a discovery, she now had enough data to begin translating the alien language. As a research scientist, this discovery made her very happy. All five crew members of The Ace of Spades wore translation units, so Lynda was able to relay her findings to them all, allowing any of them to communicate with any of the aliens should they happen to meet one.

At the western end of the room, the others made a grisly discovery. A living male human being lay on an operating table. He had been flayed and his organs had been removed, to be placed in plastic carriers suspended above him to provide a living "exploded" view of the human anatomy. That he was still alive was a miracle, although he was unconscious.
"He is suffering from uraemic and chlorine poisoning," Judith announced after running her medical scanner over him, "and he hasn't got long to live. I'm afraid he's beyond medical help now. If I remove any of his plumbing it will cause fatal blood clotting."
"That's our Captain, Richard "Dingo" Denton," Johan exclaimed as he recognised the man.
"I can revive him, if you want," Judith said, "He may have some useful information to pass on."
"Do it," Johan ordered without hesitation.

As soon as Judith revived him, Denton noticed the familiar faces of Johan and Tara.
"Am I glad to see you," he said in a weak, whispery voice. "Listen carefully. I have a report I wish to make."
"Go ahead, sir," Johan urged. "These people are friends. They're here to help."
"We were attacked by an alien ship, which fired some sort of electronic paralysis beam at us. It left our ship without power, totally draining our engines and power supply. We were easy victims for them," he began.
"Who were they?" Storm asked.
"They call themselves the Npurth. They're an insectoid race and a slaver species, that somehow convert intelligent creatures to their side. I'm sure no brainwashing is involved and my science officer believed them to be completely non-psionic. I'm afraid he couldn't tell me anything else about them before he was vivisected."
Denton paused as he remembered the horrible fate of his good friend and colleague, Emerson Garvey.
No one told him that they had his body lying on a sled in the corridor just outside.
"I do know that the Npurth were euphoric over finding us humans," Denton continued. "They had decided to wind down their local project in favour of an all-out invasion of human space."
"What was their local project?" Danica asked.
"They were trying to breed a new intelligent species to enslave on this planet. The natives are called the Thonne but they are very primitive and not technologically advanced at all. They were also working on a race of chlorine breathing molluscs, known as the Pnarm. They are highly advanced but their chlorine breathing is a problem to the Npurth, as they are, like us, oxygen breathers."
"I'm curious," Storm said. " Why did the Npurth abandon this base in such a hurry?"
"I don't know the exact details," Denton replied, "but I understand they were responding to some kind of emergency at home."
"What can you tell us about this base?" Storm asked next. "So far we've explored level one and part of level two."
"There's a big zoo on this level where they keep animals and creatures in stasis," the Captain said as his voice grew notably weaker. "There is a bio-computer in the room adjacent to this one. You can gain access to it through the door in the north eastern corner. There is also a main computer down on level four. It is an information repository, so I guess it will hold the answers you seek. I don't know anything else."
His voice was barely audible. He sighed and closed his eyes one last time.
"He's gone," Judith spoke with sadness as she confirmed his death with her medical scanner.
"Probably for the best," Johan mournfully remarked.
"Absolutely," Judith agreed. "Poor soul. May he rest in piece."
"I didn't know him very well," Tara admitted, "But he didn't deserve to die like this."

Danica led Judith, Johan, Tara, Lynda and Storm into the room Denton had told them to enter to reach the bio-computer. Smiley also accompanied them. Storm stayed behind to stand guard over their power sleds and their cargo of a dead human, a dead Thonne, two dune runner cats in stasis and what they now knew to be a member of the Pnarm race - the large mollusc creature.
The room was filled with horizontal tubes running along the two long walls. Each tube was about a yard in diameter and two yards long. Many of them were filled with an odd bluish mass. Judith was able to identify them as cloning tanks. All of them were in use. All members of the crew of the DSX Timothy were represented, but none of the clones were past the foetus stage. The bluish colour found in more than half of them were from clones of Tara Seven, who was blue-skinned. Judith opened a few tubes at random and noted, "None of this batch of clones will ever make it. They're all dead."
"That's a relief," Tara said. "The thought of those aliens cloning me fills me with revulsion."
"I totally agree," Johan said as he repressed a shudder.

The door to the biocomputer was not locked. Danica pressed a button at one side of it and it slid open. Both she and Rebecca had their Phaser Pistols drawn.

A confused mess of circuitry greeted them. The biocomputer had been raided for parts and was quite helpless. It was apparent that this machine had been cannibalised. However, as Lynda and Tara both pointed out, some of its memory elements were still intact.
"I recommend we remove them and take them back to The Ace of Spades," Lynda suggested. "They can fetch a fortune."
"Oh, really!" Rebecca said, as her eyes lit up. "How much are they worth?"
"At a rough estimate," Lynda paused for a couple of seconds, deliberately making her colleague wait, "I'd say at least one hundred thousand credits each!"
"Get outta here!" Rebecca exclaimed, genuinely surprised. "No way! How many are they?"
"I count four," Tara replied, "Agreed?"
"Agreed," Lynda confirmed. "But be careful how you handle them. They are very fragile."
Lynda and Tara carefully removed the four memory modules, which were globular in shape and about six inches in diameter. They felt soft and squishy and they shone with some sort of luminescence.
They headed back to the bio-lab where Storm was waiting for them.

They returned to the elevator room. From there they had taken the door to the east. Having explored that part of the base fully, they moved to the exit in the west wall, a force field, which was easily deactivated. Inside was a processing room, almost identical to the one they had seen previously. This, too, was wrecked and abandoned in haste. Moving on, they passed through the pink glowing decontamination corridor, which Johan was able to identify. He unscrewed one of the lights from the ceiling to take back for further analysis. Upon leaving this corridor, Lynda warned them that she was picking up strong signs of chlorine gas. They closed their helmet visors and switched on their oxygen tanks.
They entered another bio-lab, which was a virtual mirror image of the one where they found Captain Denton. The two main differences were that this one was filled with chlorine gas and not oxygen and that the specimen on the operating table was a Pnarm. The entire creature had been taken apart and put back together, with spacers and retainers added. The creature had been expanded to three times its normal size, and all organs were visible and could be watched at work, for the Pnarm was still alive. It was a tremendously effective biological display, but it was obvious from the size of its brain that it was intelligent, and equally obvious from the open eyes that tracked them that it was conscious.

"Greetings," the creature said in a raspy voice that the crew's translation units were able to understand. "My name is Chembles. Who are you?"
"We're humans," Storm replied, "and we mean you no harm. How long have you been here?"
"Eight years."
"What do you know of this base?" Danica asked next.
"Your personality is different," Chembles said with surprise. "How odd. There is a zoo not far from here and an oxygen breathers' bio-lab nearby. On the lowest level are the main cloning tanks and computer."
"What do you know of the main computer?" Lynda enquired.
"It requires an access code to activate. I once heard one of the Npurth mention it. It is Qootpol Npuk Sorgnul Pnesh. I... I... I'm so... hungry... and... tired. I..."
His eyes closed and he spoke no more.
"He's dead," Judith announced. "Just like Captain Denton, the strain of talking must have been too much for him."
"I feel sorry for him," Lynda said with genuine sadness, "but he did give us one very useful piece of information."

Some of the crew checked out the adjacent room to the north of the bio-lab. It was another clone tank room but this time all of the tubes were empty.

When they returned to the bio-lab, they found Tara slumped against an overturned bed.
"She just suddenly collapsed," Storm informed them.
"Let me check her," Judith said as she ran a diagnostic scan of Tara with her medical scanner.
"Tara, what's the matter?" she asked. "Are you in any pain?"
"No," she replied weakly. "I'm just tired. I feel exhausted."
"Can you stand up?" Judith asked next.
"No, I don't think so," Tara replied, sounding panicked. "I feel so weak. I just want to lie down and rest."
"I need to get her out of here," Judith said, sounding concerned. "There was a sickbay on the submarine we came in. I'll take her back there."
"Rebecca, you go with her," Storm ordered. "We'll carry on exploring down here."

"Fine," Judith agreed, "but first I have another job I want to do. I want to revive that Pnarm we have on the sled. He must know stuff we don't."
"That's a good idea," Storm confirmed. "Do it, Judith."
They carried the comatose Pnarm into the bio-lab and Judith applied a mild electric shock to him, which brought him out of stasis.
"Oh, hello," he said. "My name is Chembles. Who are you?"
"You're called Chembles?" Judith asked with surprise. "Are all of your race called Chembles?"
"No, only me, as far as I know. Why do you ask?"
"We've just met another of your race who called himself Chembles," Judith replied.
"I assure you, I am the original Chembles. The one and only," he said with confidence, before adding after a brief pause, "Unless that other Pnarm was a clone. Did you ask him about his childhood, or his background?"
"No," Judith admitted. "Sadly we were unable to get much information out of him before he died."
"That's unfortunate," Chembles said sadly. "I would have liked to have met him. Well, no matter. I am who I say I am. All of my memories are intact and you can ask me anything you want."
"That's good," Judith said as she turned back to Tara, "but can we talk while we move on?"

Introductions were made whilst they returned to the elevator room. They acquired one of the circular sleds from the processing room to carry the corpses of Emerson Garvey and the Thonne native. Tara was placed on one of the power sleds, along with a crate containing the items they had found so far. Rebecca knelt down to operate the controls whilst Judith watched over Tara. They said their goodbyes and the party split up.