Freelance Traveller

Ordnance

by Michael Brown

This article originally appeared in the January/Feburary 2017 issue.

Synopsis:

The heroes face danger from an unexploded mine.

Location:

Any system that saw action during a previous conflict (such as the Fifth Frontier War, for example.)

Requirements:

A starship. At least one of the PCs must be ex-Navy. Demolitions skill would be useful.

Players’ Information

Soon after the adventurers’ ship exits jumpspace insystem, the proximity alert suddenly sounds, and the ship suffers a hard jolt. There is (luckily) no breach, but an examination of the ship’s exterior shows that a large metallic object is attached to the ship’s hull. The group’s ex-Spacer recognizes it as a mine of a particularly nasty design, doubtless left over from a previous battle, and which has ever since waited for an opportunity to complete its lethal mission.

Referee’s Information

The mine is designed to attach itself to the hull of a passing ship (use the Starship Combat Hit Location chart in Book 2: Starships to determine where), but delay detonation until it detects other ships nearby, thus doing as much damage to multiple ships as possible. The simple answer would seem to be stay away from other ships, but the mine also has a timer, counting down to detonation regardless in 10(1D+3) minutes (A scan of the device detects this.) It’s shielded enough, however, that the team can’t simply press a few buttons and get rid of the thing. Disabling it means an extravehicular excursion and gaining access to its interior. The heroes defuse the mine on an 11+ (DMs: Demolition skill; Electronics skill, +1; bulky vacc suit gloves, -2), taking 10(1D+1) minutes to do so. Any critical failure instantly detonates the mine. Once defused, it is easily removed.