One of the things I make a point of doing any time I am reviewing a TTRPG is to play a couple of sessions of it in solo mode so that I can get a feel for how it plays at the table. If I am going to share a game with you, I want to make sure I am doing my best to have good information. It is not enough to describe the mechanics of a game; I want to have a sense of game play.
This unfortunately slows down my reviewing process - a lot. Recently, one of my kids has developed some pretty extreme issues related to the way his autism expresses itself. I have had to drop everything - including work - to take care of the little guy. Finding the time to sit down and take a trip into a dungeon or into outer space has been hard as of late. And when I do, it has been more for the joy of playing than for the purposes of the blog.
But I wanted to relate a cool story from a recent solo game. I decided to sit down and play a round of the 2022 Mongoose edition of Traveller so I could have a better basis of comparison to Cepheus Deluxe and Stars Without Number, which I want to finally review properly in the near future.
This is the first adventure of my home Traveller campaign; and I will present it in four parts to make it more digestible than last year's Death in Space story.
Bad Medicine
Lise rose quietly from the bed and made her way across the stateroom to the shower. Holden's breathing paused, skipping a single breath, but he didn't wake from where he lay tangled in the messy sheets.She took a moment to admire him in the light of Chava as her star rose up over the planet's side.
She could have stayed there forever; finally a free woman, after months of debriefing, or surgery, of physio... The Imperial Scout Service considered her duty done. And the first thing she had done as a free woman was make the hyper-jump to Chava to be with him. Shaking out her new-to-her ship could wait. Finding contract, passengers, freight... it could all wait. She wanted to spend a week in bed with the man she loved.
The light of the world below crept across the room and slid up her tanned legs. Illuminating her tanned, athletic frame. The shining patches of synthskin along her back and under her ribs shimmered in the light a neon map of where the shrapnel had torn through skin and bone. Her breasts framed by the wavy black hair she wore so long that ever scout quartermaster in the sector felt compelled to remind her how dangerous it could get in zero-gee. He moon-silver eyes took in the planetrise through her window as drew a halo over her lover, hooded in an expression of deep, blissful contentment.
Free. At home. Satisfied.
And then the pain lanced through her like a hot spear. She bit her lip to avoid crying out as she doubled over. Her fingernails cutting into her palms. The pain followed swiftly by burning, pins and needles, her extremities numbing. She braced on her desk as her knees buckled. A fresh sheen of sweat rising across her body. She lowered herself as gently as she could to the floor.
Breathe. Breathe slowly. Straighten your back. Let the pain pass...
The memory of a space suit helmet flooded with blood... The ghost of the chunk of bulkhead wedged through shattered ribs...
Gone now, Give it back to the void...
She let herself tumble through the Buddha-bodies. Reaching to no-mind. Forcing her ragged breaths back into a rhythm.
"Lise? Lise?! Are you okay?! Baby, talk to me!"
Holden was over her trying to pull her to her feet. The pain had subsided. She let him pick her up like a doll and set her back onto the bed. She managed to find her voice before he called for the paramedics.
"I'm okay! I'm okay..."
"The Hell you are! What just happened?"
"It's... neurological." She sighed and adjusted herself on the edge of the bed, pulling a blanket around her. It just happens once in awhile. She massaged her hands with her fingertips as the numbness faded, a habit that had crept in over the last hew months. "Does this have anything to do with your discharge?" |
Lise Soft STR 9 DEX 9* END 10 INT 9 EDU 6 SOC 8 *score reduced from 11 by injury. Athletics 1; Astrogation 0; Electronics (sensors); Engineering (J-drive) 1; Gun Combat 0; Mechanic 1 |
She nodded.
"I fell into a trap; some extremists out at Samarah had dragged a bunch of asteroids out near the equator of a local gas giant, right where they knew fuel scoopers would be passing through. Pained them with stealth coating. Massive hull beaches. I got hurt pretty bad... I managed to get into my suit in time, but when the gravity went out my blood just went everywhere. Into the valves. By the time I got my ship clear and headed for the station I was already suffering from some pretty severe brain damage."
Holden cursed softly and sat down next to her. Those intense eyes burned into her. She leaned into him, taking comfort in the heat and the smells.
"The service put me back together as best they could. Lots of cybernetics. Cognitively, I am back to 100%, but my reflexes are slowed down. I get problems with my balance some times. Numbness. Shaking. Spasms..."
"You can't do anything about it?"
"I could replace parts of my spinal cord. The 'ware exists. But the Service didn't have anything like it anywhere near Clod. And I don't have the thousands of credits it would cost."
She hated the look in Holden's face. Sadness, pity. She'd seen more than enough of that to last her a lifetime. "Let's not talk about it anymore, okay?"
"Lise, look, I have some savings, if you need the cyber..."
"You can't afford it. Trust me. I might want a lot of things from you, but your savings aren't one of them." Her smile was weak, put-in, but at least she managed to make him grin. The pain was nearly passed. She pulled herself to her feet. "Look, if you want to help, come scrub my back and play bad cop with me again..."
She got up and walked - gingerly - to the shower.
🪐
The pain was a distant memory in the galley as she took in the sensual overload of real coffee. Holden had brought it, complete with antique maker that spluttered and hissed, filling the ship with the beautiful aroma and warm, friendly sounds, as she tangled the shrink wrap - freshly torn from one of the guest seats - between her toes. The Scouts issued something they claimed was coffee to Solomani pilots - usually caffeine enriched chicory or Droyne chaki weed; she'd spent years not knowing any better. Holden had splurged on their fourth date, and she swore that if she hadn't already been in love with him, she would have fallen for him then and there.
As always he watcher her breathe in the vapour from her mug with a cheerfully smug grin across his pale, freckled Yrish face. He looked sharp in the imperial uniform. Even if it was marked for something as dull as customs.
"Credit for your thoughts?" he asked as he slid his empty plate to the side.
"What thoughts? I am one with the Universe."
"Good thing you found someone who will keep you in coffee."
"It was ordained by the gods." He chuckled at her joke. An old inside one. How else could you account for two people from the same planet meeting each other 42 Parsecs from Home?
Honestly, anything that reminded her of her homeworld was suspect. She was two sectors away for a reason. She wanted to hate him, even while he reminded her of the few things she cared about back there. The one date she had assented to was a nostalgia trip, like watching a bad movie you loved as a kid. But the chemistry had made it impossible not to come back for more.
"Seriously, though. Do you know what you are doing next?"
"Figuring out how to get a job, I guess" she said. "Maybe carry some mail and carry some freight. I am one week into a course on cooking and hospitality. I'm hoping I can take some passengers on, eventually." She waved her arms around her. "Eleven years of exemplary service with the Scouts go me this, but they aren't paying to keep her flying. That's my end. And if I keep scooping my own fuel, that's about seventeen kilocreds a month."
"You could settle down and live like a Party Administrator for that here."
"Life in the Well isn't for me and, no offence, if I wanted to settle on a planet, it wouldn't be a Commie shithole like Chava." "None taken. I avoid the planet and its government whenever I can. I don't want to get anywhere near it. I stick to the Station and good old Imperial soil... but I thought Scouts weren't supposed to talk like that about Imperial planets." "Not a Scout anymore. I can say what I like." "Fair, just don't say it within earshot of Starport security. The locals are... patriotic when that pays. And prone to bullying and blackmail when it doesn't" |
Chava  A583388B-6 Chava is an industrial world with a dense atmosphere an little water. it is ruled over by a techno-communist administration that keeps most of its citizens living at a 1950s level of technology working in factories to build parts for the massive Chava Combine shipyards. it is known for its corrupt system and brutally oppressive laws. |
Holden let out a long, muted sigh. "Which is the bullshit order of the day, unfortunately."
"Oh?"
"Customs is 100% Imperial. We are all ex-navy. I think Brass makes sure they get people with no ties to customs. But the terms of the Station's extrality mean we've got to let a lot of Chavans on in security. 'To look out for planetary interests.' Half of them are secret police. The other half are thugs with the local vory. And I drew the short straw to deal with complaints by visiting travellers about things going missing, labor delays, and a hell of a lot of shakedowns pretending to be fines."
The blissful expression on Lise's face finally dropped into a scowl.
"How'd you land that job?"
"I swapped shifts with Tyran Bewt so that I could be at the end of shift when you arrived. He gets to keep my comms station warm all week."
"I'm sorry."
His weary face lifted into a wicked grin. "You will just have to keep me warm all week."
"Deal."
Holden finished his coffee and check the time on his commpad.
"Gotta go soon."
"Hey, Holden..."
"Yeah?"
"Look, if you hear anything about jobs for a free agent with a ship..."
"Don't worry, I'll let you know."
She watched him gather his things as she sipped on her coffee, then saw him to the airlock. Finally alone and forced to face the great, terrible feeling of absolute freedom and a big maintenance bill that came with it. She brushed her fingertips along the bulkhead of her ship.
🪐
She hung up in disgust - again. In the Scouts, Lise never had to secure her own packages. These freight dealers... no wonder every free trader she'd ever dealt with was a pain in the ass. She surveyed the empty coffee cup, and considered making a second pot when her comm chimed.
She was consoled by Holden's face on the screen.
"Hey, baby, how's the shift going?"
"Lise, I have a question for you. How..." he paused to check over his shoulder, his voice dropping an octave, "How much risk are you willing to take on a job?"
The hair stood up on the back of her neck.
"Depends on the risk, but about as much as I would have done on a Scout mission."
"I might have blundered into a job for you. It's not shady, and depending on how you play it, it might not be too dangerous... but it stands to piss off some dangerous people. But if we play it right, we could do a lot of good."
"I trust you. What do I need to do?"
"You need to go to the Horizons Club on level eight, and meet with Dr. Hirschel Strom, the captain of the FSC St. Bernard as soon as you can manage. This is time sensitive."
Lise set down her coffee mug and changed into her best bar-hopping clothes. They were over a decade out of fashion, but people didn't pay as much attention to that sort of thing in spaceports. She grabbed a handful of Credit Chits and stuffed them in her jacket pocket and headed for the airlock, then, dashed back into her stateroom long enough to slip the Gauss pistol she kept under her mattress down her back. Just in case.
🪐
To be continued
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