Alien Menace, Session 4

What happened to Session 3? I missed it. You can see Doug's writeup here.


We started out on Earth.

Long story short, one of the scout teams the company sent out found an alien structure. Instead of avoiding it and calling in a strike team, they went in. They didn't come out.

So we went to a) pick up the car from the airport (aka retrieve the scout craft) and b) to find out what happened to the scout crew.

We landed near the scout craft and moved in - nothing. So we spent a good number of hours checking the craft, checking the sensors, running analysis, etc., especially since we saw nothing but the structure and the craft.

Once the craft was secure, we checked out the structure. It looked grown, not built. So, naturally, we put a burst into its sphincter-like door with the landing craft's 25mm automatic cannon. They blew right through and nothing responded.

We headed in. We explored a twisted, and clearly emptied, structure. Eventually we found one of the scouts - well, we found a boot sole and some dust. After careful examination, we decided the dust was the scout. We also found what seemed like a slug trail. So the watchword was, "'ware slugs!"

All I could think of was that iconic smoking boot picture from Paranoia.



We proceeded along, until we came to another smoking dust pile that used to be a human, and then into a large room. A.B. was the doorkicker by dint of having the heaviest armor (10d worth, hardened!). 20 yards away he saw a huge slug. BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM. Full auto burst from the hip, not even looking down the reflex sight. The +2 for 12 rounds canceled little of the -7 for range, but still two rounds hit for 21 and 23 damage. It exploded in a cloud of green stuff. Expanding green stuff.

I yelled, "Run!" and we did. We sealed that door and retreated past the next door and waited.

Eventually, the more science-oriented team members gathered up some samples of the green cloud once it settled, but it cost us a suit of armor. We explored the whole complex, and found it had been stripped. We took samples and headed back.

On the way to the jump point, our scientist spotted a destroyed-sized craft. Luckily we caught it on passive scans, and it didn't hassle or chase us. It was heading to some planet A.B. didn't care about so he stopped listening. We went our separate ways and returned to earth.

Phase 2 of the mission was in Peru, where a village/town was depopulated in what looked to be a similar attack to the green gas/eater swarm we'd run into on Planet B. We headed there and had a preliminary flyover done, as we got ready to go investigate.

That's when the session ended.

***

Overall, I had fun, although I'm more generally interested in shooting than investigating. We did make lots of Ghostbusters jokes, of course.

The lack of a ping feature on the FG system was annoying. The customized "Alien Menace" layout was cool, though, and much appreciated.

The only question now is, do we use our hunters to investigate or do we get more scout-like guys for the scouting missions? It's an open question at this point.