The Lucky Devil Pirates are well and truly crippled with all their ships impounded and in Space Fleet or militia hands. Very few members of the band have escaped incarceration although some managed to scatter into dark crevasses around the Frontier. A small group of them have come together bent on vengeance with the help of a crime lord on Outer Reach.

They have arranged for a shipment of robots and equipment destined for Dramune system. These pirates have smuggled themselves into cleverly disguised cryo containers within a shipping container. Their plan is to come out of cryo after void transit, begin activating the combat robots, and then overwhelm the Venture’s crew. They believe that they can begin to rebuild the Lucky Devil pirates with the Venture as the band’s new flagship.

In addition, they’ve arranged with an Outer Reach crime lord to have a pirate controlled assault scout meet them at about the same time and support the taking of the Venture. The crime lord intends for this handful of luckless pirates to take the blame for the capture of the Venture but he will quietly fence the ship while arranging the untimely death of the remaining Lucky Devil pirates.

If any named non-player character from parts 1 or 2 has managed to survive those adventures and established themselves as a major adversary with the crew of the Venture, then add that NPC to the four presented here. This will be a final showdown between the crew of the Venture and these mooks without number.

Player’s Setup

The player characters have their personal equipment stored in their quarters. They start out wearing coveralls or plain clothes. Anyone hyper suspicious can be packing a pistol and one clip but it must be a “ship safe” pistol like a beam weapon or a needler. The armory has been restocked with the same equipment it held at the beginning of part 1 (see sidebar below).

Play begins with the group meal by everyone on deck 5. Kleevor leaves the intercom to the bridge open to listen for any of the programed alarms. Amidst the jovial banter of the social occasion, an engineering alarm goes off and Kleevor instructs everyone to continue eating. He will pop down two decks and check out the engineering computer.

A minute later Kleevor will com the PCs with an excited voice, “We’ve been boarded by Lucky D…” His voice is cut off with the popping sound of a tangler grenade and sonic weapons. His com is still open and the PCs hear a voice shouting, “Get the robots up into the rest of the ship, go, go, GO!”  Then another voice says, “Shoot, his com was open,” and the com goes dead.

This encounter is set in Alpha Dawn action. The Venture has been boarded by hostiles, the Captain is taken out, and the PCs must repel the pirates or face their tender mercies.

Pirate Setup, Plans, and Objectives

Once all of the pirates have come out of cryo, they begin activating their twelve combat robots (see sidebar below). Anxious to be about their mission, they do not activate them all before venturing up to engineering and attempting to defeat security on the engineering controls. This triggered the alarm that Kleevor investigated.  El Capitan, Skixx, Raven, and 3 activated combat robots begin in engineering.

In the first five turns after the players realize a problem, El Capitan, Raven and the currently activated robots will move forward from deck 7 to the hatch at deck 6. Kleevor brought the elevator to deck 7 so it will take them 2 turns to get to deck 6. They all move at half speed departing the elevator and the robots will be sent up the ladder one at a time unless the PCs have closed the floor hatch on deck 5.

If the PCs have already closed the deck 5 hatch or close it at any time, El Capitan will use his laser rifle and Raven her laser pistol at full power shots to burn through the hatch. Hatches and pressure doors take 200+d100 structural points to destroy and a laser does 5 structural points per SEU. Thus it will take 40-60 SEU to burn through this hatch in about 4 turns with reloading of clips.

Note: The pirates will always send a robot ahead of them if one is available and let it soak up fire from the PCs. The pirates wish to capture the ship but are not above blowing holes in bulkheads to try to surprise or get at the ship’s crew. Interior walls take 50+2d10 structural points while regular doors take 25+1d10 structural points.

Skixx will manage to shut down power to the forward hull section at 2+1d10 turns after the PCs become aware of the pirates. When this happens, the elevator will be frozen at the deck it’s on.  At this point the only way to travel from deck to deck would be to open the manual emergency hatches in the roof and floor of the elevator as well as the elevator doors on the decks and climb up the elevator shaft via the recessed ladder in the sides of the shaft. A technician can spend 2 turns and disengage the elevator’s brakes from inside the shaft (on top of the elevator) and if the ship is under thrust is will crash to the bottom of the shaft at deck 5 for the forward elevator and deck 10 for the aft elevator. Anyone beneath the elevator when this happens is killed.

If the PCs are proving difficult, the pirates will shut down the drives putting the ship into zero gravity. They will then open the air vent and Raven will stealthily propel herself to deck 1 and begin opening the access panels to get out on deck 1. A few turns behind her, a robot will begin ascending the air vent trunk. Robots in the air vent trunk make enough noise to be heard by people on the deck they are passing through. Treat movement in air vent as 1 deck per turn for both Raven and the robots. Once Raven is on deck 1 with one or more robots, she will begin sweeping the deck and moving down deck by deck to meet up with the rest of the pirates who will resume attacking from below.

Big John remains in the cargo hold unpacking and activating robots.  He will activate a fourth robot in the same turn that the PCs discover the pirates and another one every 10 turns thereafter until the last 8 are activated. As each robot is activated, it is sent up to join the other pirates on the upper levels of the ship.  If any of the Venture’s crew enters the cargo hold by any means, he will attack with his personal weapons and if he wins he will return to activating robots. Once all the robots are activated, he will move forward and support the rest of the pirates as best he can.

These are general guidelines for tactics the pirates will employ but the old adage, “No plan survives contact with the enemy,” is probably going to be the rule for this encounter. Referees should have the pirates make intelligent decisions and respond to the developing situation in reasonable ways.

On-going Responses

The players have a variety of ways to bring the fight to the pirates:  either down the hatch at decks 5&6, down the air vent trunk, or by EVA.  The EVA option requires exiting the main air lock on deck 3 and entering the aft section either through the air lock on deck 10 (the shuttle was stowed in the cargo hold since the cargo was so small), or through the bay for the ship’s launch on deck 9. The pirates did not bring space suits but can use one of the PC's suits designed for the same species.  However, it will take 10 turns to get into it and not the 5 specified by the rules for a character with a DEX of 45. (They'll need to adjust internal straps and such to properly fit them.)

The turn after shutting down power to the forward section, Skixx will begin working on cutting the power feed to the cargo doors to prevent the PCs from going EVA and opening them from outside. It will take him 5+1d10 turns to accomplish this. What this means in game turns is that if the PCs do go EVA and attempt to open the cargo doors there will be no power to open them but the seal can be broken. Once the seal is broken, the deck will decompress in 3 minutes (30 turns). If Big John is still unpacking and activating robots, he will finish the one he’s working on and retreat with it to deck 10. If the PCs blow a hole in the hull for deck 11, then Big John will retreat immediately to deck 10 as he only has one minute before full decompression.  If a PC attempts to open the cargo doors from the bridge while there is still power to the forward section, it will take a computer skill roll to get past the safety overrides preventing this from happening when the deck is occupied. If the PC is successful, any unpacked robot and Big John will be blown out the back of the ship.

The PCs may use the intercom from the bridge to monitor the pirates’ activity. The pirates are well aware that this is an option and will get around to shooting out the intercoms on decks where they are operating after the initial rush for deck 5 fails or bogs down.  However, Big John will forget to do this and blissfully keep on unpacking and activating robots. A PC listening at a time when he manages to activate one will hear him say something to himself about it and they may figure out that one per minute is being activated.

Experience Points

Award 1-3 encounter EXP per PC based on performance.

Award 1 bonus EXP per robot that Big John is not able to activate if attributable to player actions.

Note: If the players respond to the situation fast and it takes Skixx a long time to kill the power to the forward section and to lock down the controls to the cargo hold hatch, the players may just be able to open the cargo bay hatch early enough to space Big John and the robot he's working on. This would result in a high number of bonus points for all the unactivated robots. Award these bonus points anyway even though a fair amount of luck went into them being able to do this.  Living through a lucky circumstance is an experience and they should benefit from it. On the other had if they manage to do this it will greatly shorten the encounter and they should not earn the full amount of the encounter EXP.

One Last Visitor

The lucky devil pirates arranged for support by pirates tied to the Malthar. The Lucky Devil pirates came out of their secret cryo chambers early and began trying to take the ship. The pirate assault scout will show up after the fight on the Venture is concluded. The referee can determine exactly when but it shouldn't be more than a few hours later.

The Malthar pirates expect to dock with the Venture and kill the 4 Lucky Devil pirates (or anyone else still alive) and send the Venture to their fence. They don’t want it because the CFM is known for having an extreme response when its members are killed. If the Venture is completely under the PCs control then it’s entirely likely that these pirates can be talked into leaving.  They are not really looking for a stand up battle.

The pirate assault scout will show up after Captain Kleevor has been released from the tangler threads and revived from the stun attack. He will not endorse any plan that allows the assault scout to dock with the ship after this encounter where he potentially could have lost his ship. If a space battle breaks out and the Venture shows herself to be whole and well-handled then the pirate ship will be quick to break off.

It is always an option to run a KHs battle between the Venture and an assault scout as a finale to this adventure. There is also an upcoming Abstract Knight Hawks Combat article with details on running a star ship combat without the Knight Hawks board game and this final encounter could be run with that article.

In the Event of Capture

Should the Venture's crew capture any of the pirates they can be turned over to the militia at Inner Reach or to Star Law. Star Law considers the book closed on the Lucky Devil pirate band after its dismantling due to information provided by the Venture's crew at Lacco. Therefore there is no reward for turning them over to Star Law. The Inner Reach militia, however, is constantly dealing with the depredations of pirates and has even fought wars with the pirate supported naval force of Outer Reach.  Thus they have a standing bounty of 2000 Cr for pirates taken in the act of piracy. The reward is good whether dead or alive.

If the referee desires to continue the adventure and give the players a chance to pursue the Malthar pirates as well, the referee could allow any captured Lucky Devil pirates to know the name and/or where to find their Malthar contact on Inner Reach, thus providing them with a lead.

Payday?

The delivery the Venture’s crew is expecting to make is faked and there will be no payday here in the Dramune system for their cargo.  The only profit from the delivery will be in the form of equipment captured from the pirates and any robots captured.

Captain Kleevor is alive and well though embarrassed. The pirates hit him with a tangler grenade and then stunned him to prevent him from talking more on his chronocom. Once he realizes that the delivery contract was faked and there is no deliver he will decline to take a cut the bounty on the pirates, grateful to the crew for preserving his life and ship.

The following pages contain the suppliment material for the adventure such as NPC Stats, Maps, and the various listings from the adventure.