Space Station Zero Mission Seven: Disused Bay

Can the four remaining Muppets survive this mission? Read on to find out!

The crew finds themselves in a large, dark room. Piles of junk and rubbish tower over them, and there are pools of viscous liquid on the floor.

"Can anyone see any mutants or robots?" asks Packman.

"Not yet, but I'm sure there's going to be something that'll try to kill us," replies Vashtal.

"Come on, let's get moving," says DeeDee. "We need to keep going."

As the new leader of the Muppets steps forward, an unearthly moan rises from the pools of sludge. Three ancient astronauts rise from the goo, their suits darkened with filth and their bones glowing from the effects of the toxic waste.

"Me and my big mouth," says Packman...

The sludge mutants, represented by my Necronauts, have 10 lives, can move 4" and have a combat stat of 5. They also have an ability called Consume: if they damage a crew member in combat, that member has to make a Reaction Challenge 4. If the member fails, the mutant gets to attack again. This goes on until either the crew member succeeds the challenge or is knocked out. So without further ado, let's get going with Turn One!

DeeDee immediately fires at the creature to her left, hitting it three times, and on its first saving roll it gets a critical failure! All of the pilot's rounds hit home, leaving it with 7 wounds. Vashtal moves up, takes aim at the same mutant and fires. Four balls of plasma slam into the mutant and it only saves one! 

But now it's the mutants' turn. The wounded one moves 8" towards Vashtal and the other two both manage to retain initiative, moving quickly through the pools of slime and getting way too close for comfort!

"These things are closing in fast!" shouts DeeDee. "Axon, see if you can draw one away, and if you could kill it that would be great!"

"On it!" replies the soldier.

Axon moves to his right and fires at the nearest mutant. He manages five hits, and rerolling two dice gives him another! Six shots strike the astronaut, and it saves three of them, taking it to seven wounds! Packman moves to the left and fires at the uninjured mutant in the centre. He gets a single hit and amazingly the creature fails all its saves, but it still has nine wounds left. We're into Turn 2 and things are not looking too good for the heroes!

DeeDee takes a few steps back and fires at the sludge mutant that's advancing towards her, wounding it twice. Vashtal moves further to the left of the room and raises his energy rifle. He aims at the most wounded mutant, hitting it six times. Three shots wound the shuffling spaceman and are enough to kill it! With a deep, almost mournful moan, the ancient creature collapses to the ground, sinking into a pool of sludge.

Vashtal lowers his rife.

"That one was for Globbo," he says to himself.

The mutants win initiative and the central one heads straight for DeeDee. Without uttering a sound, it slams its clubbing fists into her, but luckily only succeeds with two out of six hits. Even so, DeeDee only manages to save one, taking her to three wounds! Worse, she fails her Reaction Save, and the mutant hits her again! Two more violent punches land on the pilot, but she deflects them all and the mutant can't attack again. 

The second mutant makes a move towards Vashtal, its fists flying as it runs into combat with the blue-skinned alien soldier. It strikes him three times, and Vash can only save one! He has to make a Reaction Save, but as he needs four successes and only has a Reaction stat of 3, this is going to be interesting. He only gets two successes, so the mutant hits him again, and it's a critical success! Eight punches land, and Vashtal saves three but the other five go straight through and knock him down!

Axon attempts to save his new captain, firing his energy weapon at the mutant attacking her. In a spectacular roll he gets six hits including a critical success! Twelve fiery balls of plasma hit the mutant, it saves three but the other nine blast it into chunks of glowing flesh and bone!

Packman's up next. He moves away from the remaining rotting rocketeer and fires, scoring a pathetic one hit which the creature easily saves. And we're into Turn 3! 

Packman activates first and moves to DeeDee to attempt to render aid. It almost goes without saying that, needing a single 6+ from three dice, he fails. The mutant gains initiative and makes a beeline for the yellow-helmeted medic but only lands two out of six punches. Never fear, as Packman inevitably only saves one and then fails the Reaction Test, meaning the mutie gets to take another swing. Again it only manages to hit Packers twice, and again he only manages to save one, dropping to two wounds! 

Needing four successes but only having a Reaction stat of 3, Packman fails the test and the cadaverous cosmonaut takes another swing. I don't know what's going on with the dice but for the third time it fails four and can only hit the wounded medic twice. Thankfully, Packman saves both of them and because he's unharmed this time, the mutant stops whacking him.

Axon hopes he can repeat the amazing success he had earlier. Taking careful aim, he fires at the remaining gooey ghoul and manages another critical success! It's just a shame that all the other dice are failures. But he gets to reroll two dice! And fails both. Still, the double-12 means four hits on the mutant, and it only saves one, taking it to four wounds!

DeeDee moves to get a clear line of sight and opens fire. Another four shots slam into the mutant's body and it only manages to save two. It's somehow still alive with two wounds! Say hi to Turn 4!

Once again Packman activates first and legs it away from the last mutant before turning and opening fire. From six shots he gets ONE hit. Jesus. The mutant easily saves, and now DeeDee moves away from the creature and closer to Axon. She shoots, hitting the astronaut four times! It only saves two, the other two bullets smashing through its undead skull and toppling the foul being back into the slime.

With the final mutant dead, the Muppets can relax. Or can they? Vashtal is still out, and as yet his fate is unknown and depends on the roll of two D12s. The dice skitter across the tray and the result is 14... Vashtal makes a full recovery and will be back!

"Oww, my ribs hurt," says Packman. "Those sods could really punch."

DeeDee sweeps the room with her pistols, on the lookout for more danger.

"Is there anything else in here?" she says. "Any gas leaks, virus bombs or black holes? Robots? More mutants?"

The crew look around the empty room. Nothing is moving except some slow ripples across the surface of the liquid pools.

"I think we're safe," says Axon. "Where's the exit?"

"I can see two," says Vashtal. He heads towards one of the doors, his boots clanging on the metal floor. "Are you guys coming?"

The other three follow him to a broken elevator tube that leads down.

"Where does that go?" says Packman.

"Only one way to find out," says Vashtal, and leaps into the tube...

Next up: The Environmental Control Room!

Hands up who thought the Muppets were buggered? I certainly did, especially when Vashtal took a tumble. But he's OK, thankfully, and the foursome will continue their exploration/desperate battle for survival in the near future or once I've made the scenery, whichever happens sooner.

I have to admit that this mission was a bit of a drudge. There was plenty of tension as far as I was concerned as following last mission's slaughter I didn't want to lose any other Muppets. But I think the mission could have done with a secondary goal so it wasn't just a shooting gallery. 

The four rubbish piles were made by crumpling up sheets of aluminium foil and gluing them to 3" wooden discs. I stuck a bunch of random bits to them, then primed them with black spray before giving them a topcoat of aluminium spray and then a thorough slathering with Nuln Oil, thinned black craft paint and a bit of Agrax Earthshade.

The piles were supposed to have a bigger role in the game; if a crew member made a close-combat attack against a mutant within 3" of one of the piles and rolled a critical failure, the pile would collapse onto them. They and all crew members within 3" would have to make a Reaction Test 4, and if they failed the member who caused the collapse would be trapped under the rubble and the others would suffer a wound. Luckily for the Muppets, the idea of voluntarily trying to go mano a mano with an ancient astronaut was too stupid even for them so they stuck to shooting. Still, the piles look good and can be used again.

The slime pools were a spur-of-the-moment thing. I cut pool shapes out of cardboard and then used crumpled strips of foil as a raised border. They were covered in hot glue to smooth them out, and while that dried I superglued some googly eyes in the middle to act like bubbles. The pools were then filled with hot glue and everything was painted with black craft paint, then given a rough brushing with the same colour-shift paint I used on my Swarm Drones. The results aren't perfect but they worked.

I've also been trying to work out how to adapt the Space Station Zero rules to use in a zombie game. Stay tuned!