BattleLords of the 23rd Century
An Old-Fashioned Bug Hunt

Scene Five: Waking Up Hatter

by John Wick

THE RUNDOWN

There is only one exit.

There is a large sign reading: DANGER! EXPLOSIVE MATERIALS on the door.

Damaging anything in Engineering will cause bad things to happen to the mercs.

There are spiders everywhere.

The door is stuck shut with webbing and has to be taken off with explosives.

Once the circuit breakers have been thrown, Hatter will come back on line, see that the mercs are out of their chambers and will try to kill them the best way he can.

THE SET-UP

The door the mercs need to open requires a key. This key is a credit card sized piece of plastic that has a magnetic strip, allowing them to unlock the door. Once that's done, they can remove the panel and use the manual controls. Opening the door will prove to be very difficult, however, because the entire door is stuck shut with webbing.

The only way to get through the door is to blow it off, cut it off, or use some other clever method to get the door removed from the doorway. The obvious choice is using explosives to blow the hatch. This has its consequences. If the door is blown off, there is a 100% chance that its going to damage something. There is an equal chance of the Engine Core, Fuel Supply, the Circuit Breaker or the Spider Nest getting damaged. The effects of each are listed in THE ACTION below.

THE ACTION

Roll percentile dice. 01-25 = Engine Core; 25-50 = Fuel Supply; 51-75 = Circuit Breaker; and 76-100 = Spider Nest.

If the Engine Core is damaged:

The ship's power center has been damaged and the mercs are in trouble. Once the power core has been damaged, a melt-down will begin. The mercs have exactly four minutes before the shielding in the core breaks down and the ship explodes. When it does explode, the ship and the area around it will be a radioactive hell for 10,000 years. Alice will inform them of the meltdown, but will be unable to tell them how much time they have (radiation leaks are so unstable!).

If the Fuel Supply is damaged:

The fuel the ship uses is a mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. When the door blows, shrapnel will puncture the liquid oxygen tank and the stuff will begin pouring out at hundreds of degrees below zero, freezing everything it touches. It will flow out slowly, giving the mercs ample time to do what they must. Allow about five minutes of action before the liquid reaches the metes.

However, keep in mind that anything the liquid touches is going to freeze, and while freezing the hull alone will not cause it to breach, causing any other damage to it once it is frozen certainly will (like, say, walking on it).

If the Circuit Breaker is damaged:

This option is deceptive at many levels. On the surface, it's a bad thing for the mercs because they cannot restore Hatter. But then, they really don't want to restore Hatter because the Al has orders to kill them. If they don't restore Hatter, they won't catch on to the fact that they weren't supposed to survive this mission. The answer to that riddle lies in the science bunker anyway. However, if the main computer can't be brought on line, they can't activate the doors that will allow them to drive the transports out to the bunker, forcing them to find another option.

If the Nest is damaged: There is a large nest in Engineering, located just above the power core.

If this nest is damaged, dozens of spiders will emerge, ready to defend the nest. These spiders are all of varying size, and the mercs have no way of dealing with them. Everything in Engineering is fragile. Throwing fragmentation grenades around will do much more harm than good and the mercs will be forced to retreat from the area without achieving their goal of bringing Hatter back on line. Shooting and missing in Engineering will doom them. Let them know this with all of the DANGER signs on the walls.

The Other Option: There is a very simple answer to this problem of the door.

In the Supply Bay, there is a cutting torch. With a little ingenuity (and a lot of patience), the mercs can cut through the door. The flames from the cutting torch will set fire to the webs inside of Engineering. This fire will spread for many minutes, burning webs and spiders alike. All the mercs have to do is wait and listen to the sounds and sniff the smells of burning spiders. Sooner or later they'll be able to enter the bay with the fire extinguishers located in the Supply Bay and hit the circuit breakers.

THE FOLLOW-UP

IF (and that's a mighty big "if") the mercs manage to hit the circuit breakers, Hatter will come back on line. It will take exactly twenty seconds for the computer to "awaken" and once it does, things will happen pretty quickly. It will act in the blink of an eye (Hatter thinks that fast, you know) and it will take the following actions : all of which will take place in under two seconds.

    1) Hatter will realize the mercs are out of their chambers and alive.

    2) Hatter will recognize Post-Operation Priority Two: Kill the mercs if they escape the cryochambers.

    3) Hatter will attempt to shut down Alice, but it will find that it cannot since the connecting circuits have been damaged (the reason that Alice couldn't turn Hatter back on).

    4) Hatter will activate the Emergency Defense System on the ship which will activate lasers and chemical weapons that will try to kill anything that moves on the ship.

Once this course of action has been taken, Alice will intervene. While Hatter has been programmed to kill the mercs, Alice's main programming dictates that she protect the mercs at any cost. This includes shutting Hatter back down.

Before she can act, however, the room will begin to fill with toxic gas. If the defense mechanism was working in perfect order, the mercs would be dead in moments. However, the webbing has jammed some of the gas jets, and Hatter cannot fill up the room as well as he usually is able to. By the way, the spiders are immune to the gas. All mercs must make a Constitution check at -20 immediately. Any mercs failing this save will fall to the floor, crying and puking. Every marine must make a CON save after that one (at -20) each 30 seconds. A second failure will knock the marine out and a third failure will begin to do damage. After their 3rd failed CON check, the marine will take a d 10 number of hits every second turn.

As soon as this occurs, Alice will get on the Emergency Klaxon and tell the mercs what is happening. She cannot override Hatter because of the damaged circuits and hitting the circuit breaker again will not shut him off. They've got to get back to the bridge to shut him down. Now, they have to really run.

BattleLords of the 23rd Century An Old-Fashioned Bug Hunt by John Wick, et. al.

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