As you maybe have noticed (or maybe not), I was recently thinking about Aliens. It remains one of my favourite movies, and another recent viewing has done nothing to shake my admiration and adoration. So one might expect that a one-pager based on Aliens would be a bug hunt—tragic or otherwise—similar to the situation on LV-426. The thing, is, I’ve already kind of done that in the Ideas and Hooks section in Starship Commandos. But I do like the idea of space marines (I mean . . . Starship Commandos), so I definitely want to do a seed based on that concept.
Instead of xenomorphs, this story is about the marines taking control of a vessel possibly smuggling nuclear weapons. The Marines can be part of any geopolitical structure that will fit in your campaign. For my campaign, I made them part of the United Systems Interstellar Command (USIC), leaving the exact nature of the United Systems undefined so that it could be expanded later if necessary with input from the players
Story
The PCs are part of 121 Marine Special Armour and Tactics (MARSAT) squad, attached to the 71st Fleet Special Purpose Force and stationed on the Command Support Vessel MARLOW. The fleet is involved in a counter-piracy operation and MARSAT must undertake a non-compliant boarding when a vessel triggers the radiological alarm. Someone is transporting atomics, and that’s just not cricket. The radiation is messing with the ship’s sensors, so unfortunately, the MARSAT won’t know exactly what they are facing.
Places
The Airlock: MARSAT doesn’t technically need to use the airlock—they could cut a hole in the hull elsewhere—but this is the only safe way to access the vessel. Otherwise, they risk killing any crew, and that’s not allowed. Unfortunately, the airlock is a choke point and the crew have an ambush in place.
The Helm: MARSAT needs to reach the C&C in order to access the vessel’s navigation systems and bring it to a stationary position to allow for more extensive search and containment by the Joint Incident Response Unit.
People
The Crew: Yeah, these are all bad people, and bad people with weapons who will stupidly use them against MARSAT. Rules of engagement are do not fire unless fired upon, and these idiots will definitely fire upon.
The Cargo: In the hold are the cargo for this vessel: people. Technically, these people are indentured, and they have volunteered for indentured ‘employment opportunities.’ The truth of the matter is that these people, some of them families with small children, are being transported to worlds that lack United Systems’ legal protections. The so-called “Corporate Worlds” are de facto private territory without workers’ rights. These people will never end their indentured status
Events
The Nukes: There are atomics on board, but they are not the ones throwing off all the radiation that is messing with the MARLOW’s sensors. The vessel – known by her crew as the TYPHOID MARY – has heavily shielded crew and cargo sections, but the engines are leaking like crazy, and that’s the radiation. These are old ion drives, never the cleanest running engines, even back when they were top of the line. Now, ancient and ill-serviced, the engines do their job, but they are dirty.
The Defences: The onboard atomics are small devices—EMP safeguards at the helm and engineering. These are relatively short-range devices, but very strong. Should the crew be on the verge of losing control of the TYPHOID MARY, they can disable her systems, and then reboot from protected backups stored in the captain’s quarters. While the EMPs were not devised as weapons against powered armour, they will shutdown a harness. It’s pretty extreme, but these are pretty extreme characters.