The Lucky Devil pirates have taken a hit because of the Venture’s crew and they will bear a grudge. Unfortunately for the Venture’s crew, Laco is their base of operation. While the crew is going about their business in Point Glass, the pirates will learn of their arrival and lay plans to get even. The Lucky Devil pirates have decided to steal the Venture’s shuttle, Capitol, while it’s on the ground.
Ramirez, if he survived part 1, has been discredited and has escaped death at the hands of his compatriots. He is living in fear when not living inside a bottle of alcohol. He hates the Venture and its crew but is not a real threat. As the PC’s have encounters with the Lucky Devil pirates, he made be found and induced to give up information about his erstwhile compatriots.
Captain Scarlet Rose, a.k.a. Scarlet Terror, has always hated Ramirez and is glad his days are numbered. She plans to increase her standing with the pirate band by stealing the Venture’s shuttle and crew it with people loyal to her. With Ramirez on the outs, there is an opening for a new captain to begin running a ship within the band. If it is someone of her choosing, her power base will be expanded. She does not plan to take orders from “El Capitan” forever.
To steal the shuttle, Capitol, she needs to obtain a baton key from one of the Venture’s crew. She will begin simply, by using feminine wiles and escalate to full on violence if necessary. A referee may have to fly by the seat of his pants depending on the precautions the players take against trouble. The following approaches might be used or the referee may invent one. The pirates will attempt non-lethal action with subdual weapons as a mugging is much less likely to draw official attention then a murder. The last thing they want is for Star Law to be looking into a murder of a crewmember of a ship they are in the process of stealing. Muggings are common enough that they don’t usually get logged into the database.
Scarlet will single out 1 or possibly 2 PCs on the street and ask to speak to them more privately. Her body language will suggest she is in fear. She is wearing a pheromone perfume [see new equipment appendix] that conveys a +20 bonus in her favor to all ability checks made by a human male character. In other words if the players try to use INT or PER to gain information or influence her the ability check either fails automatically with the character thinking it succeeded or the final result is moved 20 points in her favor.
Her goal is to get them into a bar close at hand with upstairs rooms and subdue the PC or PCs. Crew from her ship have effectively taken over the bar and are the only ones present except for the bar tender who is sweating bullets. If there are two PCs Scarlet will opt to do the subdual in the bar room with her crew present but if there is only one PC, she will make like she wants to go upstairs to her room [any excuse- because her child is there, or something of value is there, or if the promise of sex will work then that]. As they go to the stairs a stealthy member of the crew will quietly step up behind the PC and stab him with doze dagger [see the new equipment appendix] and Scarlet will spin and shoot with an electro-stunner. PC’s are at -20 to avoid surprise at the sudden attack if they are human males due to the pheromone perfume.
Scarlet Terror: (RW 60, M 40, PS 3, IM 5, RS 50, STA 45) skein suit, electro stunner, albedo screen, holo screen , belt pack 50 SEU
3 pirates: (RW 35, M 35, PS 3, IM 4, RS 40, STA 40) skein suit, doze daggers
3 pirates: (RW 35, M 35, PS 3, IM 4, RS 40, STA 40) skein suit, 3 tangler grenades
3 pirates: (RW 35, M 35, PS 3, IM 4, RS 40, STA 40) skein suit, electro stunners, 1 20 SEU clip
If successful the pirates will take the baton key(s) for the shuttle and leave for the “To Jack a Shuttle” encounter. The stun effects from an electro stunner or a doze dagger last d100 six second turns and tangler grenades incapacitate for 30 minutes. Scarlet and her pirates will be springing their shuttle jacking about the time the stun, doze, or tangler effects wear off.
Scarlet will feign fleeing from scum bags who are actually her crew and cling to a human male counting on her pheromone perfume to help cover her pick pocket attempt. The pirate toughs will distract the PCs with threats and bluster for a few seconds before dispersing. Scarlet will seek to get away from the PCs (to return to her child or any other excuse) but if the PCs insist on escorting her she will lead them into a trap in an alley where they will have no cover nor room to maneuver. Use the pirate stats above and rearm the pirates with doze daggers with sonic stunners.
Scarlet and her crew will move onto the “To Jack a Shuttle” encounter leaving the PC or PCs incapacitated in that alley. If she gets away clean then she will leave them to shop or run whatever errands, counting on the distance to the shuttle to delay them long enough.
If all else fails, she will use the direct approach and simply way lay a group in the street and perform subdual attacks. A referee should increase the number of attackers as needed and probably re-arm the pirates with doze daggers with sonic stunners.
Regardless of the approach used, the goal of the pirates is to get one of the PC's baton keys. By the end of their time on planet, at least one of the keys should be lost at some point.
Once Scarlet has a baton key, she will move quickly to make off with the shuttle. In all likelihood one or more of the PCs have been subdued and there may not even be someone watching the shuttle. If there is no one watching the shuttle, Scarlet will begin the process of hacking its lockout program while a pirate with engineering skills preps the engines for take-off. A large number of pirates have cordoned off the area around the shuttle to intercept the PCs if they return. Some of the Lucky Devil pirates will have exchanged their subdual weapons for the more lethal variety.
If there is someone watching the shuttle then Scarlet will use a holo screen (20% chance to see through the deception) and approach the shuttle in the guise of a port authority customs inspector accompanied by a technician carrying a bio-scanner. Their story is that there have been reports of dangerous invasive species arriving with agricultural goods and records show that this shuttle is one of five to off-load ag goods in the past week. The shuttle will need to be inspected and if the PC does not comply then the shuttle will be quarantined automatically. They will instruct the PC to wait with the disguised Scarlet while the tech sweeps the ship. Within a minute the tech will com Scarlet and announce the shuttle is hot. Scarlet will regretfully inform the PC that the shuttle must be quarantined and wave over members of the pirate band from the beat up hover truck. The PC should begin to feel something is wrong at this point, if he has not already, but Scarlet will use her electro stunner on him with surprise. If this happens they will dump the unconscious body in a crate outside the fence.
The “real” encounter will begin once the whole party knows (or even suspects) that the pirates are trying to steal the shuttle. This will happen once the stun or tangler effects wear off of the PCs that had the baton key stolen (its assumed that their first response is to com everyone but Scarlet and her team will already be at the shuttle). Roll 1d5+7 turns to determine how long the encounter will go. This time period is the length of time Scarlet still needs to hack the shuttle’s lockout program and get it moving once the PCs, as a group, are aware there is a problem. If the PCs have done anything to slow up the pirates in some way the referee can add a few turns to this time.
If the PCs are not together as a group, they will arrive from basically the same direction (the right side of the map) but staggered time wise. Begin rolling for each PC or group of PCs to arrive at the shuttle location at the beginning of the “real” encounter. Each PC or group of PCs gains 15% chance of arriving for each turn of the “To Jack a Shuttle” encounter. On turn one they must roll 15% or less to arrive on the edge of the encounter map. If they do not succeed in arriving on the first turn they increase their chance by 15% each turn till they do arrive. The ramp will be closed in 10 turns after the encounter begins.
Only one or two of the pirates will leave on the shuttle. The rest will hold off the PCs until Scarlet fires the shuttle’s engines. At that point they will pile into a beat up looking hover truck and race for their ship 1 km away. Both ships will perform sub-orbital maneuvers and land at the pirates’ secret base 100 km from Mo’s Easy.
This area of the Point Glass star port is like many industrial warehousing parks across the Frontier. It’s zoned for industrial and warehousing and most people found here are working. The 10 meter high fencing in the area is battered but serviceable and can take 25 structural points of damage per 1m x 1m section. Scale 1 square-2 meters.
Scarlet Terror aka Scarlet Rose: (RW 60, M 40, PS 3, IM 5, RS 50, STA 45) skein suit, electro stunner, albedo screen, holo screen , belt pack 50 SEU
Pirate Engineer: (RW 60, M 40, PS 3, IM 5, RS 50, STA 45) skein suit, laser pistol, albedo screen, belt pack 50 SEU
3 pirates: (RW 35, M 35, PS 3, IM 4, RS 40, STA 40) skein suit, laser rifles, 3 power clips
3 pirates: (RW 35, M 35, PS 3, IM 4, RS 40, STA 40) skein suit, auto rifles, 3 ammo clips
3 pirates: (RW 35, M 35, PS 3, IM 4, RS 40, STA 40) skein suit, gryrojet rifles, 3 ammo clips
3 pirates: (RW 35, M 35, PS 3, IM 4, RS 40, STA 40) skein suit, sonic stunners, 3 power clips
Several things will happen after the shuttle leaves the area:
Should the PCs stop the heist of the shuttle this complicates things as the mission to strike back at the pirates was predicated on the need to recover the shuttle. All is not lost should this occur. Have the shuttle severely damaged in the process such that it’s taken out of action for a few days. The CFM is notorious for getting even with individuals and organizations that attack its ships, crews, and captains. The policy of making anyone and everyone rue the day they struck at the CFM is bed rock to the organization’s standard operational procedures and Kleevor will be quite fed up with the Lucky Devil pirates.
Allow of the PCs to discover the location of the secret base but Kleevor will require on-the-ground confirmation before he shoots anything from space. Even when he does employ the ship’s laser battery from orbit he will only target legitimate military targets like pirate ships and vehicles, mindful of UPF prohibitions against orbital bombardment. Thus the PCs will need to actually clear the outpost the hard way. The primary targets will be the pirate’s “hanger” and its vehicles. Kleevor, however, will want to not only cripple the pirate band but also send a message to prevent them from ever coming against the Venture and its crew again.
If at all possible, Scarlet should escape by any means to be present at the climax.
Award 1-3 EXP based on performance. Give higher experience for the PCs capturing pirates and generating clues to their hideout. Award 4 EXP if they prevent the theft of the shuttle.
Links
[1] http://www.frontierexplorer.org/content/scarlet-rose
[2] http://www.frontierexplorer.org/content/dralasite-tough
[3] http://www.frontierexplorer.org/content/shuttle-landing-area
