August 1997 Story

"So I was looking for one last, big adventure before returning to my medical studies on New Pale," says Billy "Zane" Slayne to his Yazirian travel companion. "I figured this is it!" The Human slows down. "Are you okay?"

Urugg sur-Innesti's eyes dart rapidly from one corner of the space station corridor to another. Large drops of sweat slither down his whitened face. "Do you ever wonder if it'll run out of air?"

The Human responds with a confused look.

"This place. The space station. A hatch could blow, or a machine could break down, and thousands of people would suffocate."

Zane's beginning level empathy skills are at a loss to explain the Yazirian's disturbed manner.

Urugg, sensing the Human's concern, takes a deep breath and focuses his vision on a solitary tree, the only natural element in an entirely artificial world. "I'm okay," he breathes. "I've just been cramped up in that spaceship too long."

"Well, we've got one more flight ahead, but we can take some time to rest first."

"I wish I knew more about this place we're going to," says Urugg, much of the color returned to his face. "I couldn't find anything about it, except that it's in the FS 12 star system." His wide Yazirian lips curl into a smile. "I hope there's a lush planet there, with green forests and fresh lakes."

"That would be nice," replies Zane.

The Yazirian's smile fades. "Then again, this was the only job I could find, so I guess I can't have everything my way."

Urugg turns and notices a trivid news broadcast going on in the corridor. The hazy holographic image of a Yazirian anchor man recounts a dozen sound bytes at lightning speed.

". . .Star Law officials today made public the escape of convicted murderer and industrial saboteur, Dakka Syte. Dakka was being held in a maximum security detention unit on asteroid D-17 in the Dramune star system when he allegedly rewired the unit's computer and managed to disappear on a stolen space liner. The space liner was found 10 days later, adrift in the Cassidine system. Anyone seeing or hearing about Dakka should contact the local authorities. Dakka's facial image, fingerprints and retinal patterns can be downloaded from this terminal. Also in the news today, Bubba Kins, at the age of 204, broke a Frontier record when id sprouted off ids 76th offspring. Kins said that it kind of hurt, but after so many. . ."

"What are you doing?" asks Urugg.

Zane holds up his chronocom, pushing a few buttons. "There's enough free memory in here to store the fingerprints and retinal patterns. You never know when something like that will be useful."

"You may be looking forward to meeting the guy," says Urugg. "Me, I'd just as soon have him at the other edge of the Frontier. Come on."

The two travelers finally arrive at the passenger waiting lounge. Dozens of families fill the area to the point where there is almost no place to stand, let alone sit. A glowing overhead sign reads:

"Are these people all going where we're going?" wonders Urugg. He agiley steps around some Dralasite children, playing on the floor with a few flashing and squealing electronic toys. "I didn't know it was such a popular area."

"Look. There's a pile of info-pads." Zane steps over to a stack of flat plastic rectangles, each about the size of his palm. He picks one up and activates its viewscreen. "They talk about Metrosphere."

Urugg steps over a Vrusk child and begins reading.

[Click here to view the info-pad.]

"Seems pretty high-tech," says Zane.

Urugg does not look excited. "It's a sterile moon, with no atmosphere, and everyone lives in shielded buildings connected by airtubes. It all looks so small."

"How small is it?" The voice comes from a Dralasite behind them. "It's so small, all the Dralasites are hunchbacks!" The ameboid reshapes idself into a bent-over form with a bulge behind the shoulders.

On either side of the Dralasite are a Human female with curly brown hair and a Vrusk with a gold ring around his neck. The Vrusk constantly fidgets with some sort of hand-held puzzle, burning an endless supply of nervous energy.

"I'm Kare," says the Human. She points to the Dralasite, then the Vrusk. "This is Taanik, and this is Syzygy. We've been hired as the technical section of a special Streel task force on Metrosphere."

Zane smiles. "That's a coincidence! We're on our way to join the same task force. I'm Zane, and this is Urugg. We were hired for our biosocial skills."

The Human woman shakes her head. "It's no coincidence. We guessed who you were when we saw the stash of weapons and supplies you checked in through customs. I think this is the first time that any of us have gone to Metrosphere."

"Yeah," says Urugg. "I was just looking over this info-pa--"

"Rubbish!" Syzygy interrupts the Yazirian before he can finsish the sentence. His compound eyes pierce Urugg and Zane, making them more than a little uncomfortable. "That's all marketing hype! Never believe someone who's out to get your credits. You want some real information? Here. I did a little hacking and found this in a secured Streel data archive."

The Vrusk passes over a small info-pad with a file labeled "Metrosphere Final Report."

[To look at the report, click here.]

"We'd better hurry," says Kare. "The next starship for Metrosphere is about to launch."

[10 days later]

The team of five looks out the viewport of their starliner cabin. The orange gases of Gigus swirl and spit below.

A young Vrusk in Streel uniform enters the room and presents himself. His most distinguishing feature is a pair of mosaic-style vision correction goggles. "Let me see here. . .Kare, Syzygy, Taanik, Urugg, William. On behalf of Streel Megacorps, let me welcome you to Metrosphere. I'm Fle'xx Tredd, acting under the direct authority of Selson Streel. We're ready to disembark, if you are ready."

The six proceed out into a narrow starship corridor. The halls smell of dust, sweat and grease.

"I can't get off this ship soon enough," comments Syzygy, appearing not to care if the official escort hears him or not.

"But to what?" says Urugg. "An entire city that's as cramped and artificial and this place."

Fle'xx, either not hearing or completely ignoring the conversation behind him, begins to speak. "The Metrosphere starport is too small to harbor a ship of this size, so we'll be landing in a 6-seated shuttle."

With those words, he activates an airlock in the corridor and reveals the shuttle's interior. Once everyone has been seated, Fle'xx fires the small craft's engines and proceeds through blackest space to a rocky, planet-sized moon caught in orbit about Gigus.

Fle'xx activates the shuttle's miniature subspace radio. "Starport, this is shuttle Greenraker, requesting authorization to land. Over."

There is a minor delay. Then a response: "Negative, Greenraker. Unable to comply. Over."

The Vrusk rears back in surprise. He looks at his passengers, and then returns to the radio. "Copy, starport. What's going on down there?"

A moment of static precedes the reply. "The starport has been blockaded. Do not proceed. Repeat. Do not proceed. Over."

"Don't tell me the place is under construction again!"

"Negative. The starport has been blockaded by the Star's Arm. Repeat. Do not proceed."

"The Star's Arm?" says Kare. "What's that?"

Fle'xx lets out an exhale of disgust. "Demonstrators. Preservationists of some sort. They're on a protesting ego trip again."

This has picqued Urugg's interest. He thinks back on the protests that he, himself, participated in, at a certain time in his life. "There's nothing wrong with standing up for a cause. What are they protesting?"

"Administration. . .progress. . .I don't know. Something like that. I tell you one thing. They sure are annoying. Well, I'm not going to sit around and wait for this. I've got to get you to the surface in time for the meeting with Mr. Streel. Hope you all brought your spacesuits."

The shuttle spirals into the moon's gravity well at a gentle rate. Below, the group can see hundreds of kilometers of barren, gray rock--disturbed by occasional outcroppings of mountains.

Then they see it, near the horizon: a small cluster of light, like a phosphorescent bulb in the middle of the desert. Slowly, slowly, the light source comes into view. The shuttle's passengers can see its general shape now, an almost perfect grid. Glossy buildings of different shapes stand perfectly equidistant, connected by a network of transparent tubes.

"That's First Landing," explains Fle'xx. "The center of all activity."

The detail is finer now. A few flat, brown roads stretch away from the city, extending several kilometers to small metallic structures that glare in FS 12's harsh blue sunlight. Small vehicles seem to be traveling the roads.

"Those structures out there look like the mining facilities I grew up with," says Taanik.

"They are mining facilities," confirms Fle'xx. "More than 95% of First Landing was built with materials from the Metrosphere moon. The vehicles you see on the roads are robotically controlled, as are the mines. Neither the roads nor the mines are pressurized."

The shuttle manages a smooth touchdown near a part of First Landing that looks like an ore processing plant. [B6 on First Landing Surface Level Map]

The spacesuited forms of Fle'xx and his five passengers step out into the silent vacuum on the moon's surface. Each heavy spaceboot step meets solid stone, but makes no sound.

"The gravity is lighter than I expected," comments Zane. His voice transmits from his suit's built-in communicator to the earphones in the other suits. The solitary voice against immaculate silence carries an eerie sensation.

"We live under 0.8 gees here," confirms Fle'xx. "You get used to it rather quickly."

Taanik cannot resist the temptation to leap into the air. He reaches a height of 3 meters (10 feet) with relative ease.

[As a result of the lower gravity, everyone's carrying capacity is increased 10 kg. Everyone's encumbrance limit is increased 5 kg. Everyone can leap or vault one meter further than on a 1 gee planet. (The Alpha Dawn rules actually say 10 m, but that's so outrageous, I assume it to be a typo.) Everyone can jump down 2 meters further without getting hurt, for a total of 7 meters. Any damage sustained in falls is decreased by 4 points. Yazirians can glide a maximum of 50 m.]

Using his eight legs, Fle'xx hops to the outer wall of the ore processing plant. The entire plant seems to be encased in a thick shell of plastiglass.

"Most buildings in First Landing have airlocks allowing access from the outside," explains the Vrusk.

The group passes through the airlock and finds themselves in a glossy plastiglass cylinder, 50 meters in diameter.

Fle'xx continues his explanation. "You can take your suits off now if you wish. All of these airtubes are pressurized. The airtubes criss-cross evenly throughout the entire city, passing through all of the buildings. The simple grid-like layout of the tubes allows you to easily navigate from any point to any other point in the city. You could go through these doors in the side walls of the tube and enter the actual ore processing building, but we're almost late for our meeting with Mr. Streel, so we'd better not waste any time."

The interior of the tube is like nothing the five adventurers have seen before. A platform runs down the middle, consisting of 20 flat strips, most of which are 1 meter wide. Each strip seems to be moving at a different speed, and people are standing on them, traveling from one place to another.

"We're going to take the acceleration strips," says Fle'xx. "Follow me."

The group steps on the southernmost strip, which is moving east at a rate of 1.6 meters per second (10 meters/turn or 6 km/h). Some of the group almost lose their balance at first, but soon everyone has grown accustomed to the speed of the strip. They then pass over to the next strip to their left, which travels at 3.3 meters per second. They step onto the third strip and begin moving at 5 meters per second. This time it takes them only moments to adjust. Before long, the entire group is standing on one of the center strips and is crusing east at a rate of 16 meters per second (100 meters/turn or 60 km/h). The 60 km/h strip is much wider (5 m) and provides the added luxury of couches for sitting.

A thin plastiglass wall to the left prevents the group from going to the next strip--which is a good thing. The next strip over is moving 60 km/h in the opposite direction!

From the couches on the innermost strip, the group begins looking around. Every 200 meters, they pass through a perpendicular air tube. They can see similar acceleration strips below them in each tunnel, but these ones run north and south. A series of gradually rising or descending walkways allow pedestrians to cross from one side of a tube to the other, or the pass between east-west tubes and north-south tubes.

[The group is traveling east on the First Landing Surface Level Map from B6 to I6.]

"What's that up there?" asks Zane.

5 meters above the strips, up against the side of the air tube, is a long running ledge, about 8 meters wide. Occasional ramps provide access to the ledge.

"That's for official only," explains Fle'xx. "Law enforcement officers have the option of using hovercycles that they can ride up there to get from place to place at high speeds. Disaster recovery trucks and ambulances use the roadspace as well. Anyone who goes up on those ledges without authorization will get socked with a pretty stiff fine.

"Time to decelerate," continues Fle'xx. "We need to turn soon."

The group follows the same process in reverse, moving to the right from strip to strip, slowing down each time. Soon they are standing on a motionless part of the floor. It suddenly feels weird not to have the ground move beneath their feet. The five new employees follow Fle'xx down a descending walkway that leads them to a series of southgoing strips. [The group is now in square I6.]

A quick journey south brings them to the main government building [square I7]. The group steps off the acceleration strips and passes through a door in the side wall of the air tube. The group finds itself in an endless maze of hallways and offices.

"This building houses the government and law enforcement offices," says Fle'xx. "It actually extends all the way to the city's underground level. The life support buildings and the Central Computer Spire are the only other structures that do that. All the other buildings are either on the surface or below ground, but not both."

A small elevator takes the group down so far they expect to find a red being with pitchfork and horns. They exit into yet another hallway and finally reach their destination, a small debriefing room.

Standing in the room is a middle-aged Human male with thinning blond hair.

"Welcome to Metrosphere, my friends," he says, with the warmth of a politician. "I am Selson Streel, director of this project."

A male Yazirian and a female Vrusk, who were formerly seated, stand and greet the others. Both are laden with an arsenal of weaponry.

"These two arrived before you did," explains Mr. Streel. "Let me introduce Peter Tork and T'sk-T'sk Kd'Zr Brrsh T'Klkk, who will be serving as security on your task force."

Once greetings have been exchanged, the entire group of eight takes to the chairs.

"Now," says Mr. Streel, "let me tell you why I brought you here."

The Human gestures broadly with an arm. "We designed Metrosphere to be the perferct working and living environment. And for the most part, our attempt has succeeded. With our superb security equipment and law enforcement staff, we have kept crime to a minimum. But a few events recently have put some of us to great concern.

"A group of preservationists calling itself the Star's Arm has been slowly grouping, mainly in protest of the mining operations we have been performing. Of late, their efforts have developed to the point of riots and high visibility sabotage. They seem to be backed up by a sizable amount of equipment and funding, but we are unsure of the source. Some have even suggested that our competitor, the Pan-Galactic Corporation, may have something to do with it.

"But it is not these demonstrations that worry us most. Acts of anonymous destruction and theft have been occurring more and more, especially in the southern areas of First Landing. From what we can tell, much of this damage is being caused by hi-tech weaponry, such as lasers and tornadium D-19. But the nature of the attacks seems primitive and untrained.

"At my request, you have been gathered together as a special task force, with the purpose of investigating any clandestine criminal activity that may be occurring. You may coordinate your efforts with our law enforcement agents, but you are to report directly to me. I want to have a full account of your findings as soon as they occur.

"Your next five days will be spent in rigorous training, after which you will be free to patrol the city and perform any investigations you see fit. Should you need to contact me, use any communication panel in the city to connect to my personal office."

Selson Streel seems to tingle with energy. His body blurs, and then vanishes into nothing!

The task force gasps in surprise. Tork draws his automatic pistol with lightning reflexes and searches for an attacker. T'Klkk has already unsheathed a throwing knife from a bandolier on her chest.

"Where'd he go?!?" demands Tork.

"He was never really here," explains Fle'xx. "Every area of the city is equipped with holographic communication devices. You can have a holographic conversation with anyone, anywhere in the city."

T'Klkk replaces her knife. "Our apologies."

"Quite all right," says Fle'xx. "We've put a lot of work into making our hologram transmissions as realistic as possible. Your reaction is quite flattering."

Tork grinds his fangs and glares at the Vrusk tour-guide. He is not so easily appeased.

[The following morning]

Tork rolls and twists in his bed. Half awake, he groans about trying to sleep in a new place. His eyes open very slightly, and stare straight into a round gray face.

The Yazirian springs out of bed and confronts the Dralasite. It is Taanik.

"What the heck are you doing?"

The Dralasite smiles.

"I was getting bored by myself, so I decided to play around with the holographic transmitters. I'm really in my apartment right now. Look."

The ameboid vanishes, then reappears.

"Cool, huh?"

"Why you little. . ."

"Look," says the blob. "These ID cards they gave us keep track of how many credits we have available. Each day, the amount automatically increases by whatever our daily salary is. I'm 120 credits richer already."

"You have five seconds to get out of my sight, or I'll. . ."

"Gotta go," says the Dralasite. "By the way, you've got two hours left to sleep before training begins."

With that, ids three dimensional image fades into empty space.

"Ohhh," moans Urugg in a separate bed. "What was that?"

Tork's mouth twists into a savage, open-mouthed frown.

"A bad omen."

Referee's Comments

Urugg and Tork have been assigned to an apartment in square E11 on the First Landing Underground Level Map. T'Klkk and Kare share an apartment in O15, and Syzygy and Zane share an apartment in N10. Taanik has an apartment in I15 all to himself.

The training over the next five days is so intense that none of the characters get a chance to go out and explore the city. Since these five days are an extreme trial of intelligence and endurance, each character receives a number of XP equal to 1/10 his or her Logic (LOG) plus 1/10 his or her Stamina (STA). These points reflect the new skills learned or abilities enhanced during training. Now might be a good time to look at other characters in your PSA, and decide how you want your character to specialize. You can coordinate this with the other players if you wish.

For example, Albin, Ruben and Alan might get together to decide whose character will excel in Robotics, whose will excel in Computers and whose will have the highest Technician skill. Or you might decide instead to improve your character in combat, or increase a racial ability. They are, after all, your experience points.

Each character has received 5 days' pay. It is assumed that half of this was used for living expenses, and thus only half of this money shows up on the character sheets.

Training is over now, and you must decide how your character is going to start his or her investigation. Where will you go? What will you try to do? Try to be as detailed as possible, keeping in mind that the response you give must suffice for your character's actions for an entire month.

I strongly encourage that you communicate among yourselves, and that you group together to accomplish common tasks. With seven of you, you probably will not want to all go the same place at once, but--take my word--a character going solo in certain areas could be in for a few pretty rude surprises.

As part of your response, you can explain how you wish to spend any experience points.

You can also refer to the equipment list, which shows you what useful items are available at any commercial center in the underground level of First Landing. The monorail system on the map is operational, but normally not in use. Operating the monorail requires a character with at least level 1 Technician skill.

I am open to any questions, in case I have left any holes in the narrative I have provided. Don't worry about what you ask. I will decide whether or not I can give you the knowledge you seek.

That should do it for now. Talk among yourselves and ask questions all you want. Your character's official plan of action is due August 31st.

Shuttle pictures by Karl B. Heck.
Outpost dome picture by Molly Barr.