The Evil NPCs of Alien Base

In my last post I showcased the three good guy NPCs of the Alien Base scenario. This time, I'm turning the spotlight on the bad guys - the Npurth insectoids.

The Npurth themselves are relatively young as a space-faring species, only just beginning their galactic expansion phase. The Npurth have a pressing need to build an empire, to expand, since they are a slaver species, dependent on the labours of subject races. To date they have subjugated just two planets - Thonne (the planet featured in Alien Base) and the home planet of the Pnarmin which share their home star. This driving need is a result of the Npurth reproduction cycle.
Physically, Npurth are large insectoid beings generally running to ten to twelve feet in length. They have eight triple-jointed legs and four chelae. Unlike many of the creatures on their home planet, Npurth have only one head with a combined esophagus/ windpipe like Earth animals, although their brain (in keeping with the norm of the Npurth world) is housed in the chest.
Internally, Npurth are like mammals. They have a sophisticated internal boney skeleton, a closed circulatory system and lungs. Reproduction is accomplished through eggs. This means of reproduction tends to be incompatible with either intelligence or mammal habits, but the Npurth have developed a unique means of bypassing these difficulties. Eyes are high-resolution and capable of discerning much the same spectrum as humans. They can also be independently controlled, like the Terran chameleon. Hearing is not as acute, and there is but one auricle, so ranging via sound is not possible.

Npurth reproduce by extending their ovipositor tail into position and inserting an egg into a host creature, nowadays usually a Pnarm. The larva then grows into an auxiliary nervous system, gradually taking over the host and destroying the host's personality, which, of course, objects to the process. This procedure leaves the host's brain intact and the Npurth larvae will access the information stored there. In this manner, the larvae spends its entire juvenile period, usually about five years. It is during this period that the larva will grow to emotional maturity, reaching effective adulthood whilst still immature physically. Thus, the Npurth larva, fuelled by the knowledge gleaned from its host, leaps to independence in the matter of food and care within weeks, and with the data and attitude of its host as a springboard, can reach the equivalent of a human age of 40 in one eighth the time.
When the larva has completed its development, it turns on the host body, eating it out from the inside to provide the nourishment needed for the larva's metamorphosis into adulthood. One would think this process painful for the host, but by this time the host is a mental vegetable and cannot sense the pain, its entire mental functioning has been subsumed by the larva now abandoning the body for adulthood. Finally, the new adult rips its way free of the old host body and emerges. The old host is dead and in its place is a full adult Npurth, no schooling, training or maturing of any kind needed. All this was accomplished while the larva controlled the host, living an entire life by proxy before beginning its own. Over the next few months, the Npurth grows in size, until it is fully developed physically.
It is clear then that Npurth must have other species in order to reproduce. In fact, they must be intelligent species or the developing larva will have no culture, no intelligence, no data other than the basic animal level dog-eat-dog information of a mindless beast. Clearly this is not suitable. Universed in the arts of schooling as they are, Npurth require a steady supply of sapient hosts.

Npurth are carbon-based oxygen breathers. They are able to reproduce using Pnarmin, who are carbon-based chlorine breathers, only by use of drugs and a special strain of chlorine-tolerant Npurth. The original strain is still around, but much restricted due to over-harvesting of the original Npurth hosts. The local Thonne, being oxygen breathers of some intelligence, were being developed for reproduction. This experiment was showing some success when humans showed up. Humans, regrettably, are ideal hosts for Npurth. Carbon-based, oxygen breathing, intelligent and technologically advanced, quick of reproduction and, most importantly, numerous humans are viewed by Npurth as God's gift to the Npurth. Npurth don't even need drugs to mature in humans. Thus the discovery of humans through the skyjacking of the DSX Timothy was a boon to the Npurth. They cancelled operations and began to pull back preparatory to launching a series of raids against human colony worlds in the area. At the time The Ace of Spades arrived on the scene the base had been largely abandoned and shut down. Only a skeleton crew of robots and three Npurth held in stasis remained, along with several larva-inhabited clones of the DSX Timothy's crew. The Npurth planned to return to the base and refurbish it for raiding.

The figures of the Npurth are conversions of an Impact Miniatures Giant Scorpion from their range of Chibi Adventurers and Monsters - CA-SCRP priced at £5.94. Here I'm showing the actual Giant Scorpion figure alongside my conversion.

From this angle you can see it is quite long, about 60mm in length. There was no mention of the Npurth's colour scheme in the scenario book, so I looked at pictures of scorpions on Google Images and found this colour scheme that really appealed to me. I also found a suitable colour scheme for the Giant Scorpion there as well. Looking at pictures of real life creatures can provide you with great inspiration. I was amazed at just how many colours scorpions come in.

I cut off the two pincer arms and the stinger part of its tail. I remodelled the ovipositor/stinger with Milliput. The stinger can also be used to paralyse the Npurth's victims, which is what happened to Tara Seven when she was captured. Oh, and just to be clear, the original Tara and original Johan were not impregnated.

I know that a lot of companies make figures of Giant Scorpions but it was this Chibi version that best matched the illustration of the Npurth in the scenario book. The head in particular was a great match. All in all, it was a simple conversion. As you can see, I made five Npurth, even though I only needed three.

I worked out the stats for an Npurth with the N.E.W. rules and they came out very tough. One of them would have been a challenge for any two of my player characters. The person who would have been the greatest threat to the Npurth would have been Danica. She is a telepath with Psi Blast and the Npurth have very poor mental defences. Although the Npurth have a high SOAK score with their chitinous armour, psionic attacks ignore SOAK, so that wouldn't have helped them at all. It would have been interesting to see how a fight between The Ace of Spades party of five and three Npurth would have went. It's a tough one to call for me. I reckon it would all come down to who rolls best with the dice.

The Good NPCs of Alien Base

Here I take a closer look at the three NPCs, Johan Hensler, Tara Seven and Chembles, whom the crew of The Ace of Spades found in my recently completed Alien Base scenario. Although they didn't play a big part in the scenario, two of them were important enough to warrant me creating fully developed NPC character sheets for them. I lacked the information to fully develop Chembles' character.

Johan Hensler is a Grade 8 human engineer, making him the highest Grade NPC who has appeared in my campaign so far. He is 47 years old and was born on Sol 6vii (Titan), a moon of Saturn. His life path began as an Everyman (16 years), followed  by 4 years at university where he attained a Bachelor (Hons) degree in engineering. He then spent five years as a craftsman, learning how to fix and repair mechanical devices. The lure of space and exploration led him to serve two tours of duty, lasting eight years, as a space jockey, where he mainly worked in the ship's engine rooms. Qualifying as a fully certified engineer he enlisted with the Survey Scouts and spent three tours of duty, each lasting four years, with them, leading to his present position of chief engineer aboard the DSX Timothy. Johan is a hale and hearty character who enjoys good quality whiskey, but only when off duty.
Johan was present mainly as a tool for the games master to use to keep the game moving apace. Any time the players showed evidence of bogging down, or had gotten themselves into a fatal situation, the games master could use Johan to keep the game going. However, my party was so skilled and competent that Johan was barely needed at all. The figure of Johan is from the Denizen Miniatures range of 25mm scale sci-fi crew members and he is SF26 male crew member/guard, priced at £1.45.

Tara Seven is a lowly Grade 4 Auroran space jockey, who is very secretive about her anti-psionic inertial powers. Born on the ice planet, Aurora 4, Tara spent her childhood learning about computers and became a competent hacker. At age 13, she left home and travelled to Achamandra where she enrolled at university, studying computers and attained a Bachelor (Hons) degree and a Masters degree. She enlisted as a space jockey on the DSX Timothy as a Survey Scout. She is 22 years old and was the youngest crew member on board the DSX Timothy when it was attacked by the Npurth insectoids. Like all Aurorans, Tara has light sky blue skin and white hair, however, her eyes are blue, in contrast to the normal hazel or green. As a culture, Aurorans are outgoing, and at least among themselves, boisterous. They are fond of food, drink and parties. Tara, in contrast to the norm, is more withdrawn. She is also more used to strangers and machinery, still a rarity on Aurora. Also, somewhat in contrast to the "norm," if such a concept can be applied to large numbers of the wildly variable human animal, she is somewhat stuffy about sex.
Tara is a polite young lady that will not usually volunteer information. She is aware of her inertial abilities, but really never thinks of them. She will not inform anyone of her inertial powers unless it is obvious that a player is attempting to use psionics. If they are hiding their psionics, as Danica did, she will be unaware of the havoc she is wreaking. She will just begin to get tired and will eventually need to rest. The debilitating effects of the constant need to neutralise local powers will be obvious, although Tara is not normally a whiner, she will begin complaining of tiredness. The players should pick up on that clue themselves. Tara, herself, will put it down to nervous tension in a hostile environment. Tara served no immediate purpose in this scenario other than for the introduction of psionic inertials. Her main part would have been in the sequel, Derelict. If running Alien Base as a stand alone adventure and you didn't wish to introduce inertials into your universe then Tara could safely be eliminated altogether from the adventure as a needless complication. I disagreed with this and very much wanted to include her.
The figure of Tara was sculpted by me, and so is unique.

Chembles is a Grade 7 Pnarm scientist, specialising in chemistry and has a deep distrust of robots, computers or other cyber-intelligences. Full rules for creating and running Pnarm characters were to be presented in part three of this campaign set, Slaveworld, which sadly, never appeared. What little information about Pnarms that was available is presented here. Pnarms are intelligent molluscs and have light blue or greenish colouring, sometimes trimmed with red. Internally, Pnarms are organised rather like terrestrial nautiluses, the spiral shell is chambered and the body occupies only the last chamber. In normal Pnarms, the first seven chambers of the shell (starting from the smallest) house the air-maker and chlorine under pressure. The air-maker is connected by hoses to the Pnarm gills. Thus, the Pnarm is independent of the atmosphere, so long as his chlorine holds out. The remaining chambers are used for storage, like a built-in backpack, and hatches are cut into the shell at appropriate places to facilitate this use. Pnarms normally move at one third the normal human walking pace. They are equipped with 24 tentacles. Pnarms are trained for one particular discipline as they enter adulthood. These include chemistry, electronics, mathematics, etc. These skills are intuitive, i.e. the Pnarm will never be able to explain just why he does something in just that way, or even duplicate it perfectly. In this way they are somewhat like great chefs.
Chembles was meant to serve several purposes in the scenario. One was to provide hints about the slavers and their base, i.e. he was the local "rumour mill". Another purpose was to help. Some of the locations of the base were very deadly. Chembles was provided with considerable skill in chemistry, and whilst chemistry is not often considered a combat skill, Chembles is very good at whipping up weird formulas on request. He could, for example, use human saliva, blood, sweat, bits of  a fingernail, ear wax, hair, food, drink, paint off a wall, dust, in short, any weird substance the games master could imagine.
Suffice to say, I had to sculpt the figure of Chembles myself. Both Chembles and Tara were sculpted earlier this year, the first figures I've sculpted for a long time.

The Ace of Spades Campaign - Alien Base part 12

Epilogue

Gunnery Officer Jeanette Grey took The Jack of Spades space shuttle down to the surface of the planet and picked up her crew mates and passengers. Danica and Tara Seven were purposefully kept apart to prevent Tara from suffering more headaches by being in the presence of a telepath.
As soon as everyone was safely on board The Ace of Spades, Kimberley set course to return to Fabergé in the Saga starsector. The journey back lasted just over two days and once in system Kimberley contacted Captain Devon Renton of the Survey Scouts to inform him of the good news of a successful mission. Naturally, he was delighted to hear that the DSX Timothy had been located and that some of its crew safely returned. More worrying, however, was the revelation of the Npurth slavers. He told Kimberley that he would have to notify the UFP Starfleet and that she and her crew would have to be debriefed by them. Kimberley expected as much and was only too happy to comply.

A few days later, a UFP Class XIV Fleet Cruiser, the Valarion, arrived in system. The UFP Fleet Cruiser was sometimes described as a "pocket battleship", for it mounted very heavy armaments and battlestarship class screens and armour. As usual, the ships exhibited the classic Terran compromise between speed and powerful guns and defences. In fleet actions, these powerful capital ships were given the mission of engaging and driving off enemy light forces and of finishing off crippled ships of the line.
Both crews of The Ace of Spades and DSX Timothy were debriefed by officials from the UFP Starfleet and their military intelligence arm, the Bureau of Intelligence, aka BRINT. The crews were seen as groups and then individually. Unsurprisingly, their stories tallied with one another. Lynda was able to show the whole mission via a video camera that had been fitted to Smiley. From this footage, Sharuna had been able to construct a precise map of the alien base, which Lynda passed on to the Starfleet. In addition, the crew also had three specimens of the Npurth insectoids, kept in stasis, which they were glad to transfer to the authorities.
As an aside, when Jeanette was seen alone by BRINT officers, she revealed to them that she was an undercover BRINT agent and she passed on a separate report she had made all about the mysterious android, Celeste. She asked for more time to monitor her target and this was granted.
The crew of The Ace of Spades were thanked for all they had done and that the UFP would handle matters from now on. They were allowed to keep any loot they had found in the alien base. Most of it was of little value but Rebecca had found a large industrial diamond that was worth 10,000 credits and Lynda had removed four memory cores from the biocomputer which were worth at least 100,000 credits each. Kimberley decided to sell them on Achamandra, the capital planet of the UFP in the Phoenix starsector, which they had visited before, prior to their adventure with the Sterling Agricultural Colony. Kimberley was able to sell the four memory cores to the University of Achamandra for the sum of 500,000 credits and the industrial diamond to the Matsai Corporation for 15,000 credits, thus making a tidy profit. A big chunk of that profit went towards paying off the mortgage for The Ace of Spades but everyone received a substantial bonus in their pay packets for that month.

Conclusion
This scenario was originally written by Larry Smith for FGU's Space Opera RPG and was published in 1981. It was intended to be the first part of a five part campaign package, with the sequels being titled, Derelict, Slaveworld, Scoutship and Starmother. Sadly, none of the sequels were ever published. Some clues were given in Alien Base as to what happened next, but not enough to form well detailed follow ups without a lot of work on behalf of the games master. So, I played this as a stand alone adventure.
I always knew that this would be the second adventure of my The Ace of Spades Campaign that I'd run. It was very different to the first scenario, being more about exploration than combat. Although some of them are very good in combat, the crew of The Ace of Spades are classed as independent explorers, and so this mission was right up their street, being their regular bread and butter work.
Playing any scenario as both games master and player gives me an unfair advantage in that I know the plot but I mitigate this by playing fair with my characters. Because the crew of The Ace of Spades has such a good cross section of character professions, skills and attributes, they were able to cope with almost any situation with a fair degree of success. Obviously, I still made dice rolls for them and most times they succeeded, but sometimes they failed and they did miss a few clues. In this scenario, because they acted cautiously throughout their exploration of the alien base the threat of serious danger was kept to a minimum. If they had gone in with all guns blazing, things would have turned out very differently. There was only one instance where they shot the two security robots that could have turned nasty for them. The computer was in the process of activating more robots to investigate, but that took time and before they could be sent out the party had overridden the main computer. Unbeknownst to them, the clock was ticking against them but they acted promptly and thus prevented further confrontation. In addition to the robots, the base computer could also have activated the many human clones it had on sub-level four as well as removing the three Npurth insectoids from their stasis chambers. A battle against just a single Npurth would have been a tough fight. Against three of them, the odds greatly favoured the Npurth.
I played to the strengths of the crew and played in character with each one, which is the best way to play. All of the five crew members who took part in the exploration of the alien base did exceedingly well but for me, Lynda in particular, was my "woman of the match". Her science and engineering background proved to be a real asset. 
Of the three NPCs, Chembles, Johan and Tara, they were meant to provide help in certain circumstance if the players hit a brick wall and were unsure of how to proceed further. Chembles is a chemist par excellence and has his own in-built chemistry lab inside his shell. He could provide the party with just about any chemical substance they requested, providing they asked for it. However, he would never offer a solution unless asked first. Johan was meant to be the fount of all knowledge. He was the most experienced character in the scenario and his role was to fill in any gaps in the skills and knowledge of the player characters. As it happened, my crew were so good, he was hardly needed at all. Tara was destined to shine in the later scenarios of this campaign, and as such, for this scenario, could be safely ignored. By including Danica in my party, I was able to reveal her secret about her inertial psionic powers. 
I very much enjoyed playing this scenario as it allowed me to shine the spotlight on some of the crew, such as Lynda and Judith, who took very little part in my first scenario. The scenario I played was pretty much as written but I did make a few minor changes. 
When I began this scenario, Captain Denton told Kimberley that he could not pay her for completing the mission but that he would put in a good word for her and her crew. So I gave each character a +1 bonus to their Rep Attributes. Reputation is one of the hardest attributes to increase. So this meant that Danica went up to Rep:3, Celeste, Jeanette, Katja, Kyran and Rebecca went up to Rep:4, Gwendoline went up to Rep:5, Judith, Julia, Kimberley and Sharuna went up to Rep:6, Lynda went up to Rep:7 and Storm went up to Rep:8. In addition, Danica, Jeanette, Judith, Lynda, Rebecca and Storm received 6XP for completing a Medium difficulty encounter. For the others, they received 0XP as this was considered a Trivial difficulty encounter. Danica, Judith and Lynda also received 6XP for completing major storyline milestones in the story. Finally, Jeanette, Judith, Lynda, Rebecca and Storm received 6XP for their Explorer exploit. So to recap, Danica, Jeanette, Rebecca and Storm received 12XP, whilst Judith and Lynda received 18XP.
The adventures of Kimberley and her crew will continue, most likely in a scenario of my my own creation. I fancy sending them to a pleasure planet next to spend some of their bonus credits and for some of them, the chance to earn even more.

The Ace of Spades Campaign - Alien Base part 11

Alien Base Sub Level 3
Rebecca rejoined her colleagues on Sub-Level 3 just as they were about to explore the rest of the corridor that led east from the elevator room. She reassured them that Tara Seven was fine and informed them about Tara's inertialism powers. Danica was sorry she had been the cause of Tara's woes, but as Rebecca pointed out, it was just an unfortunate co-incidence and Tara should have mentioned it earlier.

In this part of the base there were two rooms that they hadn't explored yet. Both were heavily protected by multiple forcefields and gun turrets, which were now inactive, allowing for easy access. The first room was the android and robot control room. The rectangular-shaped room contained a great bank of switches, dials and microphones on its long eastern wall. A number of low desks, of two different designs, were scattered about. One desk was crescent-shaped, the others were rectangular. Forms and papers with hand-written notes covered all but the crescent desk, which was clean. The explorers took all of the papers with them.
At the far end of the corridor was the android and robot repair and fabrication centre. On a low slung table were a number of androids, being built to look like Thonne natives. This was further proof that the Npurth were capable of building androids of considerable sophistication. In addition, there were a number of security and maintenance robots in various stages of repair filling up the rest of the room.
The party left and moved on to explore what lay in the corridor leading south from the elevator room. This section of the base contained rooms dedicated to recreation and combat. Five long greenhouses situated in a line were full of insects and animals which adult Npurth were fond of hunting. They were given only cursory inspections from their entrances and none of the party entered any of these rooms. The other two rooms were swimming pools, one small and the other much larger. Again, they were only given cursory inspections but it was clear that unknown aquatic creatures occupied both pools.

Alien Base Sub Level 4
Descending to Sub Level 4, the lowest level of the base, the elevator opened onto a square room with a single door in each of its four walls. The door to the north led to a huge room that was filled with a number of blank, seemingly useless walls, arranged in four columns and five rows. It was Johan who recognised them as accumulators and that this room controlled all the power for the base. Controls at the base of each wall could be adjusted but the party decided not to tamper with them.
In the north-east corner of the room was a narrow access tunnel that led to a circular room. They sent Smiley in to investigate. She was assailed with an almost intolerable heat that came from a deep shaft filled with a yellow glow in the centre of the floor. Pipes ran down (or up) but it was impossible to see how far down they went. This was an "earth-tap" and the shaft went through the planet's crust into its mantle. The working fluid was boiled by this heat just as in a conventional reactor.

To the east of the elevator was a large room divided into many cubicles arranged side by side in four rows of twenty cubicles. This was were the Npurth barracked but now it was completely empty. Each cubicle was two yards square and contained a soft, silky mattress and a small locker at the back.

The door to the west of the elevator led to a long corridor bristling with gun turrets, forcefields and sliding doors. Clearly, it led to somewhere special. A room, twelve yards square, with a heavy blast door in the centre of its north wall lay open to them. It was full of equipment, all of it operating. A number of screens were visible, some of which were biological displays, others tactical, and one that was unmistakably showing The Ace of Spades' orbital track. That one had cross-hairs on it. In actual fact, that screen meant little, since the weaponry it required was in the submarine pen on one of the cargo modules. Some analysis of the equipment quickly revealed turret and robot overrides, as well as identifying all programmed clone tanks, which were located south of the elevator room.
The blast door opened easily to the main computer room. This room was filled with one yard diameter tubes rising from floor to ceiling. A small bank of controls was located in the centre of the room. The room was quite dark. Lynda discovered that the control panel could entirely override the main computer and, through it, everything in the base. This put her in complete control and ensured that they would have no more problems in the base and that their escape was assured.
Interrogating the computer, Lynda learned the location of the Npurth homeworld, which was in uncharted space. The computer knew that the homeworld was under attack, but did not know by whom or why. The computer's tentative track of the menace indicated that it would pass very near, or even through, human occupied space. Finally, the computer had a distress message from the last Npurth ship to leave this planet. It reported that it was being attacked by a totally alien ship. It did not have a description of the aliens manning the ship nor did it know if they were in any way connected to the trouble at home.

They completed their exploration without any complications and with considerable ease. South of the elevator room were the clone tanks, containing many clones of the humans from the DSX Timothy, Pnarms like Chembles, as well as eggs for clones of the insectoid-like Npurth. They also found three adult Npurth being held in stasis fields. They decided to take all three back with them so that they could be examined by UFP xenobiologists and research staff. Naturally, they did not bring them out of stasis.
They also found a couple of rooms used for storing personality crystals. These little crystals were about an inch in diameter. Human crystals were a dull red, and Pnarm crystals were canary yellow. The crystal was actually crystallised protein and if placed under the skin (not eaten, as digestive juices simply broke it up) would dissolve and leave the personality in the brain fully functional. Normally, they were used to give a blank clone a complete education prior to the insertion of the Npurth larva. The crystals were not especially pretty and had no intrinsic value, but the party gathered all that they could find to take back with them.
At this point, the explorers returned to the submarine and departed the base. Once back on the surface of the planet, Storm contacted Kimberley to inform her that they were ready to leave and that their mission was a complete success.

The Ace of Spades Campaign - Alien Base part 10

Alien Base Sub Level 3
The two alien security robots pointed and aimed their weapons at the intruders, briefly awaiting their request to identify who they were. It was a tense moment.

Danica reacted with incredible speed and deadly precision. She fired her Phaser Pistol twice on Kill setting, penetrating the security robot's armour with ease.

 The first shot severely damaged the robot and the second killed it. It toppled backwards and lay still.

Storm Galloway was a fraction of a second slower than Danica, but just as accurate and deadly with her shooting.

She also struck twice with her Phaser Pistol on Kill setting, fatally damaging the alien robot.
"Okay, I was not expecting that," she said as she breathed a sigh of relief.
"Those were the robots that attacked me on the DSX Timothy," Johan observed, "or at least ones that looked similar. I don't know how many the Npurth have."
"I should have known this base wouldn't be totally abandoned," Danica remarked. "It makes sense that they left someone to watch over it. We almost got caught off guard once. Let's make sure it doesn't happen again. Stay alert, people."

They moved into the corridor that led east. There were three exits visible in the wide corridor, a hatchway to the north, a forcefield directly opposite and a sliding door at the end of the corridor on the south wall. Danica opened the hatchway to the north, which was not locked.

They entered a T-shaped corridor that held a gun turret at the corner of the junction leading to the east. That corridor contained three hatchways in the north-facing wall. The rest of the main corridor led to another hatchway north of them. It was to this exit that they approached.

Occupying the square-shaped room was a large globe, half sunk into the floor. It was approximately six yards in diameter and it depicted this planet. On it were clearly marked this base, a large number of Thonne villages and the atomic waste dump, south east of the base. Lynda examined a control panel on the eastern wall and after a few seconds discovered that it could be used to manipulate the globe to rotate back and forth, turn over to show the southern hemisphere and caused strange patterns to go marching across the surface, bending around natural features of the landscape and converging on the Thonne villages.
"This seems to be a tactical display," she surmised, "but for what purpose I can't say."
"Okay, let's move on," Storm commanded.

A forcefield in the corner of the eastern wall was deactivated by the press of a button in the side of the opening to reveal another square-shaped room. This room consisted entirely of banks of monitors. each one showed a scene of life amongst the native Thonne. Activity was going on in all of them, hunting, cleaning kills, fishing, some farming, and many other features of native life on this world. No controls of any kind were visible. Nor were they. This was a display only bank. The controls were located in another room on this level that they hadn't examined yet.

They exited the monitor room and globe room to check out the three hatches in the corridor that led eastwards. The first room was lit with a soft, pinkish glow that was rather hard on the eyes. A large screen was visible on its northern wall, but it was blank. On a low table under the screen was a speaker grille, a microphone pick-up and a two position switch in the "up" position. There was no sign of damage and no loose articles lying about. Lynda recognised the set-up as being identical to the computer access panel on the submarine. One additional switch was visible and she found that when turned to the "down" position it switched the terminal from the broken biocomputer on the second level to the main computer on the fourth level.
Acting on a hunch and using her translator device, Lynda spoke the following phrase into the microphone, "Qootpol Npuk Sorgnul Pnesh"
This was the computer override phrase that the dissected clone of Chembles had given her before he died.
The computer responded instantly and spoke in Npurth, "Access granted. What are your instructions?"
Lynda turned to the others and pumped the air with both fists.
"Yes!" she exclaimed, "I'm in."
"Computer, enter passive mode," she instructed. "Command all robots and any sentient beings in the base to ignore any strangers. Shut down all defences and unlock all doors and hatches, and turn off all forcefields."
"Confirmed," the computer replied.
Lynda turned back to face her colleagues, grinning from ear to ear.
"This should make the rest of our exploration a cakewalk," she beamed.
"Way to go, Lynda!" Storm congratulated the research scientist.

The other two rooms further down the corridor were identical in every respect to the first one. Storm suggested they explore the rest of this level, feeling confident that no more nasty surprises awaited them.