Sean Parsons | Lost and Found Pharmacy

Posted on February 18, 2024April 26, 2024 by Sean Parsons

Story 53

A day at the Zhian Zoo

Your first officer starts a conversation, “When I was a kid and visited the zoo with my Dad, one of the things that stood out to me was the compactness of each animal’s habitat. At the time, I spent a majority of my time on a small scout ship out in the deep dark, so I reasoned that they probably adjusted to their confined space just like I did. But this,” says your first officer while motioning to the large sprawling exhibits, “makes me rethink that assessment.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. These animals seem so at ease in these large spaces with trees and open sky. It could take a couple of days to thoroughly check out all the exhibits.” You say this while taking another photo, tagging it and sharing it with the rest of your crew.

Meanwhile, you and your crew have been quite the interesting exhibit for many of the Zhians, as most of them have never seen a sentient being other than a Zhian in real life before. A couple of the more bold Zhians even asked if they could pose for a photo with you.

“Do you think we have enough photos yet?”, your first officer asks while looking at the newest picture you just sent.

“Probably, we should find a public dining area and try some local grub.”

“This is a zoo, it’s going to be this planet’s equivalent to fries and chicken nuggets.”

“I’m ok with that. I’m not sure I’m ready to be all that adventurous.”

“Says the mighty space explorer.”, your first officer quips.

– – – –

Upon finding a table at the zoo’s cafeteria, you send the geotagged photos to the small drone that you had carefully stashed behind some bushes when no one was near you. Your engineer had taken the time to mod it so it looked like the drones the zoo uses for giving the animals injections and drawing blood samples.

The drone goes about its mission without arousing too much suspicion. At the end of its circuit through the zoo it unloads the shaving cream canister and hides it in the same bushes where you had originally stashed the drone. As a final act, the drone flies out over an unpopulated area where it initiates a small explosion just large enough to destroy itself. The explosion was small enough that it didn’t attract any attention at all.

You recover the canister on your way back through. Once you return to the Space Zoo you will receive another ([d4]+2)x1,000 credits for the DNA samples that you gathered in addition to what you will have earned for the DNA gathered on the Aether Processing Station.

When you return to the Space Zoo if your crew is primarily human or Strayon, listen/read Story 54.

When you return to the Space Zoo if your crew is primarily Ilex, listen/read Story 70.

Posted on February 18, 2024April 26, 2024 by Sean Parsons

Story 52

These guys are cold blooded

After docking with the Aether Processing Station and going through decontamination, including eliminating any scents, you receive permission to transport your relic to the reliquary. You load it onto your grav-sled and make your way across the station. This is the perfect opportunity to test your engineer’s environmental systems hack.

Before arriving, you learned that the Zhian are a cold-blooded species and their space station is always warmer than others due to this fact. Their skin is not sensitive to temperature changes and they rely heavily on readouts. Your engineer has come up with a plan to override the environmental controls and lower the temperature in the reliquary to 9° Celsius, making any Zhian sluggish while making your crew just slightly cool. He activates the hack as you enter the Reliquary.

Upon entering this section of the station you are greeted by an older Zhian woman in a lab coat. “I don’t visit the Aether except a couple of times a stanyear, so it is quite fortuitous that it is during one of my visits that you brought a relic.” She gives you a toothy grin that you’re sure was supposed to be friendly, but all those long jagged teeth are a little unnerving.

“You don’t normally work here?”

“A lot of my people don’t care for the vacuum of space, including me. We have several different areas of expertise that come up here occasionally to collect research or check in on a project. Believe it or not, I’m actually a virologist so I usually sift through these relics looking for DNA and RNA strands from microscopic organisms when I come up here, but we have various biologists, botanists, and even archaeologists that come up here at times as well. I’ve really learned a lot of fascinating things by doing this.”

You offer her a lopsided grin of your own. “I was hoping we could get the two credit tour of the reliquary while we’re here.”

“I might not come here too often, but I think I can manage to explain this place. I doubt many of the other non-Zhians that have come here have ever asked for a tour. I approve of your scientific curiosity.”

There was a lot more to see in the reliquary than you expected and then there came a point where your tour guide suddenly shifted down a gear. She never stopped explaining things but she was definitely moving a lot slower. You glanced at your nav officer and he made his way back to the area in the reliquary where a lot of animal DNA was stored. As soon as the DNA was obtained your engineer started raising the temperature back to 25° Celsius. By the end of the tour the Zhian scientist was back to her animated self.

“I don’t know what happened to me back there. I must be getting hungry; I did work right through my lunch break giving the tour. Oh, let me ping your ship with a couple of tokens so you can visit our planet sometime or, if your vessel is small enough, use our gate.”

You receive the typical 1 fame point and 2 Zhian tokens for delivering a relic to the Aether processing station. Once you return to the Space Zoo you will receive ([d4]+2)x1,000 credits for the DNA samples that you gathered. Your next stop should be the Zhian Prime Zoo located at the mission point on Zhian Prime.

When you reach the mission point on Zhian Prime, listen/read Story 53.

Posted on February 18, 2024February 18, 2024 by Sean Parsons

Story 51

From a different solar system

You realized long before you arrived that another puppet show wasn’t going to be enough. You needed something completely different to appeal to the Ilex, hence your willingness to mislead them about some unique device you would be willing to sell them for the right price. You have told them that you have a means for them to slip through a specific planetary shield with no resistance. They have agreed to the meeting in their military science building, which is also the same building where they house a lab with the genetic materials of animals they considered particularly hostile.

To prepare for this excursion, you made your whole crew follow the same protocols as if they were preparing to visit with the Zhian. Special soaps and detergents were used to eliminate scents, special clothing was made on your ship’s fabricator utilizing odorless polymers, and everyone had to force down bland diets that wouldn’t permeate your pores or make you gassy. The Ilex do not require such things, but you were trying to minimize your scent trails and just pretend that you thought they were culturally sensitive to odors like the Zhian. You did, once again, make your navigator not shave for a couple of days just in case anyone questions why he has a can of shaving cream in with his scanners and various tools. You are ushered into the conference room

“So humans, our engineers are dubious of your claims. What type of demonstration have you prepared to convince us of such a notion?”, declares one of the Ilex sitting opposite of you at the conference table.

Your engineer speaks up, “It involves knowing that planet’s specific shield modulation and wrapping your ships in a specially engineered conductive mesh to cancel out the shield’s effect by being able to match the shield’s modulation. The complicated part…”

You raise your hand to slow your engineer down, “We figured you would have some questions about the veracity of our claims, why we would be willing to sell it to your people, and the actual cost for both the technology and the ability for you to manufacture it here on Ularos IX. Our engineer and I have a three point presentation along with computer simulations followed by a live demonstration using our own ship.”

As the lights begin to dim for the presentation, your navigator leans in close to one of the Ilex, “I’ve already seen this presentation, do you have a restroom I could use?”

The next forty five minutes passed with a very impressive looking, if scientifically suspect, presentation. Somewhere along the way, your navigator made it back alright despite what must have been an uncomfortable crawl through the ventilation system from the restroom to the cryolab.

“I know your team still has its doubts; that’s why we want to provide an actual demonstration. We are so confident in our work, we’re going to perform it in our own ship; after which I think we’ll be ready to negotiate price for this technology. Let me send you our ship’s transponder ID so you can easily track us.”

– – – –

As they monitor your ship, the Ilex see your transponder picking up a lot of velocity heading towards the gate while keeping your ship extremely close to the planetary shields and then they see your transponder make a sudden and rapid shift going back 180 back towards their military science building and suddenly there is an explosion against the shield that they can actually see with their own eyes. The one Ilex just looks at one of his senior officers and remarks, “I told you the science on that shield idea was bad.”

– – – –

“Luckily they monitor inbound traffic to the planet and don’t really worry about outbound traffic.”

Your first officer speaks up, “You have to admit that was pretty crazy hoping they would track the transponder ID and not notice that there was still a whole ship left back by the shield entrance.”

“I was flying close to the shields, making it very difficult to monitor us.”, your navigator responds.

“Besides,” your engineer jumps into the conversation, “it looks like this whole crazy scheme actually worked.”

You smile at everyone, “Well done, let’s get that canister back to the Space Zoo.”

The ship is just outside of the shield gate, and you had the wherewithal to fuel up the ship before taking off. When you return to the Space Zoo, listen/read Story 55.

Posted on February 18, 2024February 27, 2024 by Sean Parsons

Story 50

Exotic Exhibits, part Two

“If all things go as planned for the Strayons, many of these creatures will one day be allowed to populate New Strayos but in the meantime, we can start allowing them to re-emerge into the land of the living right here in this space zoo.”, states your white bearded benefactor as he hands you the money.

The money consists of ([1d4]+2)x1,000 credit for a human or Ilex crew or 5,000 credits and an energy rod for a Strayon crew.

“So you mentioned that this consisted of three jobs, what is the next job that you have in mind?”

“Wonderful! Wonderful! I’m so delighted that you’re willing to consider the next job. This one will be a little more challenging but the payout will be worth it. There are two places for the Zhian that I need you to visit. First, it’s been reported that their reliquary contains ancient DNA from the dead worlds. The second is a zoo on their planet. In both cases I need you to sneak a few samples of some of their more exotic species. On the Aether Processing Station, you may want to take them a relic so that you and your crew gain access to the Reliquary. After that they should hand you a Zhian token making it possible to visit Zhian Prime and visit one of their zoos. Once again, each of these canisters will be stable for three stands once activated.”

This time, the old white bearded man offers you two shaving cream canisters.

If you accept the job, read/listen to Story 52 once you’ve obtained a relic and docked with the Aether Processing Station.

Posted on February 13, 2024 by Sean Parsons

Story 26

Aeon

You’ve looked at a lot of star charts before and you’re a pretty good student of history. You are nearly positive that you’ve seen a picture of that planet before and it wasn’t anywhere near the Drift System. This planet is completely surrounded by a shield without an entrance and your scanners do not pick up any kind of industrialization other than a shield generator and a data beacon.

The space station orbiting this planet is of an unfamiliar design, but you have an incoming hail.

“This is Aeon Station orbiting Planet 0. We would like to invite you to dock so we can properly introduce ourselves to you. We could even tractor you into our docking bay if you would like.”

Do you accept the offer and dock with Aeon Station.

If you do, read/listen to Story 66.
If you don’t continue with the rest of your turn and never learn about their offer.

Posted on February 13, 2024April 1, 2024 by Sean Parsons

Story 65

Eep opp ork ah-ah

As you enter a lab, you notice a bookish looking man in a lab coat. He looks up and sees you carefully carrying the animal. “This must be the canine you told me about. I just finished looking over the brain scans that the auto-doc took and I think she is a perfect candidate. I think we should give this a try.”

“Try?”, you manage to ask as a one word question.

“This is the first round of animal testing, so I really can’t make any guarantees.”

Another person in the lab speaks up,”The procedure that Dr Truman proposed is brilliant and I’ve built in every safety precaution I can think of, but we asked for terminal animals just in case it doesn’t go like we expected.”

You recognize that they are simply trying to be honest and accurate. You glance at the ID badge on the other person’s lab coat and it reads Dr Nora Maxwell-Granger.

“Thank you doctors, I’ve just become very attached to her since she has been on board my ship.”

Dr. Truman speaks up, “Well, the good news is, that if this goes like we plan, she can go back out into space with you.”

“How’s that?”

“The crystal matrix is only one part of this project. We have several other members that have been tasked with the challenge of creating a robotic chassis that the crystal matrix can go in. A lot of their work and research has been in writing an interface between the crystal matrix and the physical hardware. They’ve spent the past stand modifying their work to function with your canine companion. Since she will still have her memories and has clearly bonded with you, we want to send her back out with you. Her chassis is programmed to do a large data dump every time you fly past a data beacon at any of the various Mission Points so we can get regular updates on her.”

“That sounds great Doc! Let’s try and save her”

– – – –

Quite a few hours pass as you nervously wait to find out how things are going. Doctor Maxwell-Granger finally emerges and is beaming. “Things went great! Far better than we expected. Dr Truman wants to introduce you to K-9.”

Dr. Truman and a robotic canine come out of the lab, and when the robot emerges it rushes up to you with its rear and its tail wagging back and forth in excitement.

Despite the mechanical form, you reach down and pet her.

K-9 does something you’ve never heard her do before, instead of barking she says, “Eep opp ork ah-ah.”

You look at her and repeat the sounds, “Eep opp ork ah-ah.”

Again K-9 says, “Eep opp ork ah-ah.”

Nora speaks up, “I think it means, ‘I love you’”

K-9 is now part of your crew and you have earned 1 fame point. She does not take up significant space on your ship, and if you get in a bind you could drain her internal energy cell similarly to an energy rod. Unfortunately, it would cause her to shut down until recharged either on a planet or from an energy rod. Recharging her on a planet is a free action during your status phase.

Posted on February 13, 2024April 1, 2024 by Sean Parsons

Story 64

It’s called a canine

As soon as you managed to dock with the mine the various miners and their families immediately queued up to start cramming themselves into your airlock. You find that they can come in six at a time this way. As the inner door of the airlock pops open, after the outer door has cycled shut again, you can smell the smoke that has permeated their clothes. The first group is mostly children, apparently they prioritized the kids. The children look a little frightened and you notice that one is carrying a small floppy eared animal that looks injured. You don’t have time to do anything other than herd them into the ship so you can start cycling the airlocks again. Soon you have 22 guests crammed onto your ship. You find someone that looks like they might nominally be in charge of the mining station.

“So what’s the plan from here?”

“The clearly tired and worn out man responds, “I’ve got an engineer and an able bodied boot third in there. They have the EV soft suits on so they can have a little more range of motion, even if soft suits contain less air than the hard suits. They’re going to shut off the O2 reserves so they can suffocate the fire finally and remove the damaged fuse actor. We have a smaller generator that they’re going to set-up and connect to a solar array that is on the surface of our mine. Also, once they can get to the equipment back behind the fuse actor they’ll flush out the carbon monoxide with nitrogen, then change out the air scrubber cartridges and water filters before turning the oxygen reserves back on.”

“How long will all that take?”

“They have it all planned out and expect they’ll need 5 hours. Because everything is always harder than you expect, I think we should give them 6 hours. In the meantime, all of us will be packed in here like cargo. I know this is hard on your ship’s air scrubbers but we are grateful. We all would have died if you hadn’t shown up soon. As is, we lost six people during the initial explosion. The watchstander was by the fuse actor and the family that was birthed in a section with an adjoining wall to the reactor were also caught in the explosion.”

“Is there anything we can help you with?”

“You are already doing so much, but If you can spare any part of your oxygen reserve and if you have a spare energy rod, it would go a long way in our recovery efforts till new supplies and replacement parts can be shipped in.”

You simply respond, “I’ll check our reserves and see what we can do.”

As you’re walking away to check on what supplies you can spare you see a man on one knee talking to the kid that is still carrying the injured animal.

“Son, you probably should have left it on the mine.”

“But Dad, she would have died when they shut off the oxygen. We already lost Uncle Jack, I don’t want to lose his pet too.”

“But son, it’s injured and isn’t likely to recover.”

You decide to join the discussion, “Maybe I can help. What kind of animal is it?”

The kid looks up hopefully, “It’s a canine, and it’s real smart. Uncle Jack was teaching it all kinds of tricks.” With that the kid hands you the animal to see. You carefully take her into your arms and she pushes her nuzzle into the crook of your elbow. Despite all the lacerations and what feels like broken ribs she sighs contentedly while being held by you.

The kid excitedly says, “She likes you.”

“It’s probably my animal magnetism.” Then you continue, “Maybe our auto-doc can help her, but it will probably take a lot more than 6 hours to heal her in one of those.”

“If you can save her, you can keep her. I would miss her but at least her tail would be wagging with excitement again.”

You can see the kid’s dad looks visibly relieved to have this resolved.

You decide to head to the auto-doc and set the canine in there before checking on how much supplies you can spare.

– – – –

A few hours later, you check in at the auto-doc and you see the readings are bad. You can probably keep this canine alive for a while, two maybe three stands, but her injuries are so bad that she can’t possibly recover. You have an idea, but you need to finish helping the mining crew first.

You gain 1 fame point for coming to the rescue of the mining colony, and if you have an energy rod that you choose to give them, gain an additional fame point. You now have an injured animal that is not likely to survive. You have to decide if you want to visit the Trans-Human Project. If you do choose to go that route, you need to be there at the end of three rounds from now. If you get there in time, read/listen to Story 65.

Posted on February 13, 2024April 1, 2024 by Sean Parsons

Story 25

Mining accident

The emergency function on every ships’ comm system clicks on, “Mayday, mayday, mayday. Our mining colony has just had a near catastrophic event with an unexpected explosion that has taken out our main fusion reactor and depleted much of our air. We are running on battery back-ups and due to damage, we don’t have a way of sealing off the fire from the explosion. We’re not sure what will kill us first, lack of oxygen, carbon monoxide poisoning, or the slow loss of temperature as our mine will eventually want to reach the ambient temperature of the space surrounding us. We estimate that we have about a stand till we will all die. If a ship can provide temporary refuge for our small crew we could correct a lot of problems very quickly, and buy ourselves some time till we get new supplies and equipment sent. Our mining operation does house families, so children are also in danger. Please help.”

Any ship that can reach the mission point for the affected mine within the next round could try to save these people.

Roll a d4 to determine the affected mine:

1-2 = Red Gulch [Asteroid]
3-4 = Outpost 338 [Asteroid]

If anyone arrives at the affected mining point on time, please read/listen to Story 64.

Posted on February 13, 2024 by Sean Parsons

Story 63

Did he survive?

Dr. Arken steps out of his bio lab looking exhausted while being escorted by two of his robot minions.

“So Doc, how did it go?”

“Your friend survived but to call it difficult would be an understatement. Your officer will likely be back to his pre-Volomin attitude in less than a stand. As soon as he wakes up in recovery my minions can help him board your ship.”

Gain 2 Fame Points for taking extreme measures to save one of your own crew members. You may take any actions you choose this round.

If you borrowed money for this procedure, keep track of how much you borrowed and after this round you will have three rounds to pay Merv Arken back, or there will be a bounty equivalent to what you borrowed and the Rep Omen will also try to obtain the bounty.