Here is the review for the third session of my Star Wars campaign in which the squadron searches for a more permanent home to hide from the rising empire.
The episode opened with the party approaching a region of the Olafran system which contains a mine that has been abandoned since the beginning of the war, with the hopes that it will provide a good base for them to operate out of without attracting too much attention. A short ways out from their destination they detected a small asteroid base transmitting a signal advertising itself as the Cracked Rock Saloon. The party decided to stop here to get the lay of the land and find that this location serves not only as a meeting place for the independent miners of the region, but also as a sort of post-office and general store. Sylvie Tane, the proprietor, gets regular visits from couriers who transport news and supplies across the system, and can put in an order for any special equipment the miners may need.
From talking with Sylvie and other locals the party learned that the area is mostly home to a variety of small homesteads and mining claims, with occasional forays by the mining guild for untapped resources. The main mine of the area, known by the Bryne-Locke Corporation that ran it as BLM-12 but is generally known by locals as simple “The Mine”, was a successful rare minerals mine before the war, mostly producing materials used in the construction of vessels for the ultra rich. At the onset of the war a dip in the luxury ship market plus a series of unexplained cave-ins made the mine unprofitable and BL Corp closed it down a few months after hostilities began.
Having gleamed what they could from the locals the party set off for The Mine. The Mine is drilled into the side of one of the large alien mega-structures between layers of immense diamond plates made of a strange metal alloy native to the system. Upon arrival they found that the main hanger bay was sealed shut with large metal plates, but were able to find a smaller secondary bay farther along the structure. While leaving the avian members of the squadron to patrol the area, the rest of the party landed in what turned out to be an executive landing bay for corporate officials, that leads directly to the mine’s administrative wing. The party explored through several office areas, finding evidence of some form of infestation, before find the overseers office. They briefly attempted to gain more information from the office computers but found that the main power was off and continued on.
They arrived at the main hanger which was filled with discarded and damaged robots and equipment as well as a partially disassembled bulk freighter. Opposite the sealed hanger door were maintenance bays and utilities areas, as well as the primary entrance into the mine. In the generator room they found that one of the Mine’s two generators was running without its protective shielding causing it to electrify the floor of the chamber. By carefully jumping between various other pieces of equipment they were able to disable the generator and repair it. During the repairs they found more evidence of some form of creature having eaten through the generators safety mechanism.
With the power restored the party went about securing the immediate area and examining the equipment and records that were left behind. They were able to fully access the remaining logs of the mine and discovered that shortly before the mine was closed some form of insectoid creatures began spreading throughout the mine, damaging equipment and spreading some form of acid. From what remained of the security camera recordings the infestation appeared to come from a newly opened shaft on mine level 3. Logs also revealed that some of the miners may have had some kind of weapons cache on mine level 2.
Expecting to eventually be confronted with a potentially large number of unknown creatures the party sent a message from the Cracked Rock Saloon to a xenobiologist known to SHADE to get more information on these creatures. As they do not expect a response for about a week, the party set about securing the forward section of the mine from possible invasions, both of the military and insectoid kind. To assist with this they cannibalized parts from the various broken robots left in the maintenance areas to build a working heavy duty forklift bot, a repair bot, and several power bots. With the help of these new robots they were able to secure the external and internal entrances to this forward section of the mine and create an improvised door to the main hanger so that their ships could be safely stored without obvious traces.
That is all for this article. At the moment I’m planning on writing up some of the discoveries the party will make in-between sessions and hopefully create a map of the mine.
A Robot Hermit's Journal 