Cold Place: Chapter 4: Side Trip
From SSDC, Inc.
BM’s note: After the party receives the map, paperwork and briefing about the job you may need to remind the players of two things:
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A better path the players may wish to take is to go south to Placerville (1086km) and then East. This will lengthen there journey by just under 700km but there is fuel and some local enforcement that may come to there aid, and is less likely to be jumped for all the hunting groups may figure the players will stock up on fuel and take the gauntlet.
If they take the gauntlet they will have five real threats:
- The road conditions/weather. Wheel piloting check lv8 (-80 rough) / Skimmer piloting check lv3 (-30 uneven).
The weather is high winds at times with poor visibility (1-4km rg), 20% of the time a piloting check maybe needed (20 - 70kph winds and drifting snow). Wheel piloting check lv6 (-60 gusts) / Skimmer piloting check lv8 (-80 gusts)
- Tundra-tunnel Worms, they are an export good for this world. They are a 3-5 meter worm that burrows through the icepack eating minerals – roads and structures are minerals to these critters. Watch for potholes or thin/missing roadway. (5% pothole 1m in size / 1% missing road / 3% for thin-wheeled only)
- Villain #1: Animal Activist (first 3rd of road only – 30% encounter)
- Villain #2: Black market Merc team (first 2/3rd of road – 40% encounter)
- Villain #3: Big game hunters (last 3rd only, plus they are the most likely to intercept if they take southern path – 75% main / 35% southern)
Cold Place: Chapter 2: The Threats
The Southern path, other then the extra mileage has a vast more towns and traffic so the party wont find anything to dangerous. There are plenty of places to stop and stay at, fuel and other need are easily found. There is only 3 hazardous areas to watch out for and the first is between Fit’s and Tanus, the second stretch is between Last Out and Bonners Pride, and the last area covering the distance from Bonners Pride to target delivery area.
BM's Note: There's only 3 hazardous areas to watch out for on the Southern path.
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Towns of note: Bonners Pride, population 1,540. They are mostly Orion and Humans, the town is a meat processing and culturing community. There is a large harvesting cold storehouse on the west side of town with metal critter pins covering about three acres of low tundra (30% are occupied by young tundra-tunnel worms). The party could easily park any number of vehicles within and no one would noticed, plus being out of harvest season only one old Orion caretaker with plenty of the “good old days” stories is there.
Town 2: Shanker Post, population 165. This town isn’t anything more then seven town structures built into five buildings surrounded by grain towers (30 silos). The main interest is Nero-grain harvesting, the settlement is the hub for many ground harvesting settlers living out on the lower tundra taking advantage of what soil that can be used. There are 31 Orion’s and 11 humans in town when the party travels through (north or south), if the party stops for snacks/fuel/or restroom they will note that the fuel/general store has a vast verity of new archaic tech3 weapons for sale (including M-75 grenades) – all at 20% less then book value. If the party shows any interest the local shop owner will inquire if the party has any one with demolitions experience, and that if they did something could be worked out if there willing to do a job with the township.
The job: If interested it will be explained that there are old arms & munitions bunkers scattered out across some areas of this world from when the Phentari once used this world as a slave mining colony. What weapons they are seeing in the store are the remnants of just one such cache and they are willing to cut them in on a full share per man if there still up to it.
(The job shouldn’t be done with Yeti’s in the truck)
The Job:
The party will be traveling with six skimmer trucks and 24 towns folk. After traveling 48km east/south east out in the wilderness the group drives up off of the grassy tundra onto the ice pack, and another 8km more traveled until they arrive at an ice cave roughly carved out of the ground at a 30 degree angle.
Following down the 2m diameter hole the party arrives at a open section (12 meters down) about 4m in size ending in a Durasteel vault door (starship hulling, 5m x 5m opening). They can see where the locals had tried many different approaches to enter the door besides the operations key panel located at the right side.
The locals will inform the party that they don't have the skills needed to bypass the panel, so they tried drilling,blasting (C4), acid, and even a tungsten tipped rocket sled in an attempt at punching a hole in the door. They ask the party if they have a way of getting into the vault without destroying everything inside for they know there is a booby-trapped only like Phent’s know how.
| BM's note: If they use a BIG blast to open a hole in the door - the icepack before the door will open as a ramp giving a larger exit. DOOR: Durasteel armored, 3HP THR, AI/AP: 400 (power disconnected from operations panel from the inside). To punch a hole in the door one needs to not exceed the 3HP by much and do only 40 AI or so in one shot. If more then 130pts of damage is done past the THR 3HP then the failsafe will fire off. FAILSAFE: Bunker is suspended from 8 anchoring rods (explosive bolted), they suspend the entire bunker over a shaft dropping 40m to a 2kton ships scuttling charge (lv23 demo to disarm) – 30HP damage. |
If the party and there friends do succeed in entering the bunker there are three ways to open the door from the inside. One is to have a Phentari lay a tentacle across the inside activation pad, this will allow limited lighting and the opening of the door. Second is to hack (lv15) the control pad while reading a Phentari Operations system (inside only). The third way is to reconnect (lv8 EDC) the power to the outside pad and hack (lv12) its security code.
(BM: any power connected or turned on will set the Failsafe timer for 40min “dead-man”, and then will give an audible 10sec final count down).
Inventory: all arms/armor (equivalents) are sizes 4-6 only (20% fit Phentari, rest fit bipods), and the vehicles are made for bipods – not Phentari. All writing found on equipment is in Orion.
| #' of units | Type | #' of units | Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 300 | M16-L | 50 | OLC-L Pistol | |
| 18 | PK Machine Gun | 240 | Beretta 9mm Pistol | |
| 500 | AK-74 | 280 | M-16A5 | |
| 500 | M-75 grenades | 40 | Remington M870 12g | |
| 89 | MP5 SMG | No Ammo | will be found for eny | |
| 400 | Street 1 Security Uniforms | 165 | Welch Armor (painted Red) | |
| 1 | Scorpion Skimmer Tank | no motor | or emitters mounted | |
| 1 | Skimmer-APC | no motor | or emitters mounted | |
| - | (BM notes: following are | traced | - Phentari following) | |
| 1 | 8 Wheeled APC (works) | 1 | Able Ore Juicer on S-APC | |
| 1 | Mini-Howitzer | no motor | or emitters mounted |
60% of the loot can be taken in the first 40min before the vault drops & booms.
The good old boys of Shanker Post will be driving skimmer pickups (6), but a skimmer doesn’t have the towing power to drag out a APC, little lone a Tank. It should be fairly easy to get the Wheeled APC running and it has the power to tow out the other APC or Howitzer (not both) – but not the Tank. Once they make the get away and head back to Shanker Post the party will find forty more townsmen to see that the party only gets 50% of what they were originally offered.
There still should be enough loot even with a 50% share, and with no amount of bartering will they let the party take a APC. Instead they will be rushed out of town with the share they granted.
BM Note:
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BM Note: once the failsafe is tripped a beckon will activate a second time (first time was a week ago when the townies tried to get in the first time) letting the Phentari Cruiser Blood-dancer know that yet another stash is being hit but this time it’s a marked cache. They intend to make a point of these grave robbers buy hitting them where they live. They will let them gather for six hours partying over there loot, then there going to drop a Bullseye missile from a two seat strike bomber in low orbit. From the blast compression and heat the 30 silos will level the township with a massive set of secondary explosions.
Go to: Cold Place: Chapter 2: The Threats
Back to: Cold Place: Chapter 3: Map
On to: Cold Place: Chapter 5: Wrap Up
Return to: Cold Place
