Space Station Zero Mission Six: The Science Lab

When we left the Muppets last time they'd survived a virus bomb, mutants and two huge gun turrets only to have the floor collapse under them, sending the crew plummeting into the Science Lab!

The lab is full of broken machinery and has the air of a room that hasn't been used in decades. Three disc-shaped machines straddle it across the middle, and some crates and barrels are the only other objects present. This is a long mission report, so strap in!

Betty picks herself up off the floor and brushes dust from her uniform.

"Everyone OK?" she says, looking around at the debris that's fallen from the roof.

"Yeah, I'm fine," replies Globrick, "somehow all this crap missed us. Where are we?"

The rest of the crew looks around. Packman breaks the silence.

"Looks like some kind of science lab," he says. "How do we get out of here?"

DeeDee throws the medic a look.

"I think you mean to say, what's going to try to kill us while we try to get out of here?"

"I'll go take a look," replies Packman...

Packman moves 4" up the board and our intrepid Muppets immediately lose initiative!

"What's that skittering noise?" says Axon. "It's coming from the other end of the lab. And it's getting closer."

"Sfighr I am detecting lifeforms," says Misloi as a grey-skinned, hunched mutant runs into view...

There are two mutants in the lab, represented by the ghouls I painted for last year's Monster May(hem). Both are bastards, to use a technical term; they can move up to 8", they have 12(!) wounds, a combat stat of 4 and can projectile vomit corrosive acid! Not only that, but on activation they can roll a dice, and a 5+ means they get two wounds back. Oh yeah, any crew members within 2" of the vomit's target suffers a wound thanks to it splashing everywhere. They also have long claws that give them +3 to close attacks. This is going to be fun.

The mutant spews a stream of yellowish-green liquid towards Packman, but thanks to an appalling roll of 9, 3, 1 and 7 it misses entirely! The second mutant moves 8" into the centre of the room but can't do anything yet. Happily for the Muppets, both mutants activating means the crew can now shoot them at their leisure. 

Vashtal's not having any of this. He moves up to stand next to Packman and raises his rifle. Misloi ups his weapon by one dice and nine balls of white-hot energy shoot towards the closest mutant. Four of them hit their target, but the mutie rolls a double-12 and is unscathed! Vashtal fires again, causing three wounds, and the creature saves two.

Axon moves 4" and Globrick increases his weapon's power. Six of the nine plasma rounds smash into the mutant and it only saves one, taking it to 6 wounds! He fires his second shot, getting three hits, and the mutant saves two.

Betty moves next to the black-clad soldier and takes a shot, causing another wound. Globrick stays where he is and takes a shot, hitting the mutant three times, of which it saves two. 

DeeDee activates her jetpack and flies up onto one of the ancient machines. Only two of her shots hit the creature, and it suffers no damage. Finally, Misloi aims her pistol and fires. She causes two wounds, leaving the hideous grey monster with just one left! And we're into Turn 2!

A low hum fills the room. The disc-shaped machine on the left side of the lab powers up, blue plasma visible through the vents in its sides. Its black face dissolves into a view of infinite stars and galaxies.

"Er... and this is?" asks Axon.

"Njrgng I am detecting high levels of sndhign, I mean gravity," says Misloi. "I believe the machine is a black hole generator and our shooting has somehow activated it."

"So we have a localised black hole in the room with us," says Betty. "Wonderful. Is there any way to shut it down?"

"I'll have to have a think," says Globrick.

"Think fast, little one," says Vashtal.

I rolled a D3 to determine which of the generators powered up. Whenever a crew member activates, they must make a Movement Save roll equal to or greater than the current turn number. If they fail, they're pulled 6" towards the black hole. If they get within half an inch of its base, they suffer an automatic 5 damage and are sucked into the vacuum of space and killed. As all of them have four wounds, it means instant death with no saving roll. And for the cherry on the cake, if they fail but are too far from the black hole to be killed, they can't move away from it that turn.

Vashtal is determined to take out the injured mutant, whose wound dice is for some reason still at the top of the table. He passes his Movement Save, fires at the creature and gets a critical success! Bits of the mutant spatter across the room as it's blasted to pieces. The Muppets hold on to initiative and it's Axon's turn. He also passes the save, takes aim at the second mutant and rolls double-one! Critical failure!

The remaining mutant lopes closer to Vashtal. Acid shoots from its open jaws towards the blue-skinned soldier and hits him. Luckily the corrosive liquid does zero damage to his armour. The team regains initiative and Betty fails her test and is dragged across the room! Luckily she's too far to from the machine to be pulled into space. She fires at the mutant but can only manage one wound. Packman passes his test and then scores four wounds but the creature saves two.

Misloi fails her test and is dragged across the lab. She fires at the mutant but totally fails to damage it. DeeDee also fails and is pulled towards the machine, but then she fires. In an amazing roll, she gets six even numbers including a critical success! All her dice are doubled, meaning she inflicts 12 wounds on the mutant. It only saves 3, the other nine reducing it to gobbets of steaming meat!

Axon looks over at DeeDee, who's blowing imaginary smoke from the barrel of her pistol.

"Good shooting," he says.

"Thanks, Ax," DeeDee replies. "I couldn't do that again if my life depended on it."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Bettys says. "Globbo, Misloi, any ideas on how to shut off the black hole?"

The two engineers have been conferring and seem to have come to an agreement.

"I think if we can get to one of the other generators, we could use it to make a containment field that'll protect us," says Globrick.

Welcome to Turn 3!

Building the containment field requires a 6 (8+) Intelligence Test. In other words, there's six switches on the machine and only rolls of eight or more will flip them. As he's closest, Axon's going to try first. He rolls his Movement Save, needing three successes but only gets two and is pulled across the room by the gravity. DeeDee passes her test, moves up to the central machine and rolls a 10. One switch down!

Betty easily passes her test, joins DeeDee and manages to flip a switch. Globrick fails his movement test and is dragged across the floor. Misloi also fails, and with a blurt of static from her damaged translator she's sucked into the black hole and out into the freezing emptiness of space.

Packman passes his test and legs it up to where DeeDee and Betty are staring in horror at where Misloi was standing. Despite having an Intelligence stat of 6, he only manages to turn on two more switches, leaving two to go.

Vashtal rolls for his test, knowing that he's close enough to the generator to suffer Misloi's fate if he fails. Thankfully he passes and immediately legs it over to the centre of the room to try to get the containment field started. He only gets one success.

Globrick goes next. He is close enough that a failure means instant death in the emptiness of space. With a roll of 7, 1 and 6, he is dragged screaming through the black portal to his doom.

We're into Turn 4 and two Muppets are dead. Bloody hell.

Betty totally fails her Movement Save, getting nothing but odd numbers. Clawing at the floor and crying out in terror, the Muppets' leader is dragged out into the unforgiving universe. Brian, I'm so sorry for your loss.

DeeDee also fails but luckily ends up far enough away to remain on this side of the galaxy. Packman rolls a critical success and is OK for now. He attempts to switch on the containment field and with a 12 gets it. The rest of the crew is safe, but three of them — their leader and both engineers — are now frozen corpses, floating forever in the infinite darkness of the cosmos.

Vashtal and Axon are silent in shock. Packman is punching the central machine and DeeDee slumps sobbing to the floor. 

"What do we do now?" asks Axon.

"We move on," says Vashtal. "We can't go back, so we must go forward."

Packman walks over to DeeDee.

"Come on," he says gently. "We have to get out of here. They're gone and there's nothing we can do about it. We have to survive, if only for them."

DeeDee takes his offered hand and Packman pulls her to her feet. Wiping away her tears, the pilot assumes command of the group.

"I need to get the hell out of here. Where's the exit?" she says.

"There appear to be three," replies Axon. 

"Just pick one and let's go," says DeeDee.

Next up: The Disused Bay!

I had to go for a cig and a coffee at the end of this mission. I didn't think all the Muppets would survive, but it never crossed my mind that I'd lose three of them, including their leader. It was a bit of a shock and adds a much darker element to the game knowing that Misloi, Betty and Globrick are gone for good. And with only four crew members left, how long will they last?

It's also kind of ironic that none of them suffered any wounds from the mutants, which was the total opposite of what I thought would happen given the creatures' acid vomit and close-combat skills. One thing I didn't like was that, thanks to both mutants activating one after the other in the first turn, they ended up just standing there while the crew shot the crap out of them. Still, that's the way the rules work, but I had to post a question on the Space Station Zero Facebook page to check I was right.

This mission is one that had the most changes made to it in the Errata PDF. Originally the movement save after the generator powered up was the turn number plus one, meaning by Turn 4 all my crew except Betty would have automatically failed. The gravity's range was reduced to 2" from 3", and the black hole itself is a 1mm dot in the centre of the machine which I represented by scratching off a spot of paint. Even with those changes it's still a bugger, and a character losing two movement saves in a row is basically dead. 

I made the black hole generators from these packs of Hubba Bubba Bubbletape, which is — I shit you not — a six-foot roll of bubblegum. The gum itself was thrown in the bin because that's the only thing to do with it, and after using hot water, soap and WD40 to get the labels off, the packs were glued back together and then stuck on small cubes of XPS foam.

I glued those to 3" wooden discs and added some bits of pipe made from shelf pegs that were being thrown out at work. Everything was sprayed with white primer and then three of the models were given a coat of Black over their "screens" and Black Templar contrast paint in the side indents. The operating one was painted the same way but with Aethermatic Blue contrast paint in the indents to simulate it being powered up. I loaded a paintbrush with thinned white, blue, purple and orange paint and flicked it onto the black "screen" to make it look like a starfield. I did try painting a black hole design on it first, but it was crap.

I have some scenery to make for the next mission, so once that's done the remaining Muppets will be back for more!

Fall is falling

Our little corner of Vermont is beautiful at the moment, with gold, red, orange and yellow leaves wherever you look. Of course this means we're in for snow in a couple of weeks, but for now we're just enjoying the beauty of autumn before stick season makes its annual appearance.