Bay 12 Games Forum
Finally... => Forum Games and Roleplaying => Roll To Dodge => Topic started by: Veritas on November 04, 2015, 03:56:08 pm
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After reviewing this thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=140119) from last year and recalling that I dropped it out of laziness, I've decided to give this concept another shot. The rules of the thread are identical to the last one, but I'll copy them over for simplicity's sake.
The rules of this RTD are a little different to what you may be used to. While most RTDs work off a graduating scale of success, with 1 representing total failure and 6 constituting a success of potentially dangerous magnitude, this one operates on extremes.
At the beginning of each round, you (the players) will collectively control a single character present in a random scenario. You will then be asked to dictate this character's actions, the success of which will be decided by a dice roll. Rolling any number between 2 and 6 guarantees some kind of success, or at least the avoidance of failure - you might just avoid getting killed, or you may win the day then and there. Rolling a 1, however, means immediate and spectacular death, which in turn means transitioning to a new scenario and the beginning of a new round. Feel free to take risks when dictating actions for me to narrate - as long as the dice don't come up with a 1, no horrible consequences will ensue. I'll try and include as many player suggestions as possible in every update, but contradictory or particularly nonsensical suggestions will be cherry-picked at my discretion.
Scenario I
Pat C. McCarthy, Police Sergeant
Downtown Brooklyn, New York, USA
December 24th, 1928
You lurch forward slightly as your vehicle skids to a halt against the icy streets of Brookyln's seedy downtown districts. A gentle waft of freezing dusk air, tainted slightly by the car's lingering fumes, greets you as you push the passenger door open and plant your thick-soled boots on the snow-covered sidewalk. The driver's door slams shut not long after your own and you're quickly joined by your driver and trusted compatriot, Officer Morris.
"Nice night for it, eh, chief?" he mentions as he stops at your side, smiling patiently as you fumble in the pockets of your navy-blue police overcoat for a lighter - the cigarette you're planning to use it on is, of course, already nestled between your stubbly lips.
"Yeah, something like that," you retort flatly. "Let's just get moving." Morris' happy-go-lucky attitude had never quite managed to rub off on you, no matter how many patrols you walked with him.
The two of you begin making tracks in the snow, rounding the corner ahead and scanning the street before you for your destination. "Right there," you note after a few seconds, pulling your hand out of your pocket and pointing out a small residence across the snowy street. If it weren't for the wide windows illuminated by light from within, the place might've been hard to spot past the ever-thickening December snowfall. The sign above the door reads 'Mary's Café'. "Real suspicious that a place like that is open at this time of night, huh?" Morris pipes up again. You offer him a grunt in response and start crossing the silent road between you and the café, with your colleague following suit. You figure that you don't have to look both ways before crossing - with no bars or taverns to play host to Christmas merriment, most people these days stay off the roads and at home.
A small array of bells above the door is disturbed by your entrance, signaling your arrival to the establishment's inhabitants. Most of the tables are vacant, save for the occasional parties of patrons, most of whom try to avoid making eye contact with you as you stride over to the service counter. A good deal of them are nursing perfectly innocuous cups of coffee or glasses of water... although, obviously, you know that there's more to the story than that, or else you wouldn't have been sent here in the first place. Morris casts his gaze around curiously as a portly, moustached man emerges from the back of the café, meeting you at the counter. He looks extremely apprehensive, more so than you'd expect from an innocent man.
"Good evening, officers..!" he eventually manages to greet you, after swallowing the lump in his throat. "Come for, uh... some coffee? Something to make the late-night patrol a little more bet-- uh, bearable? Right?"
You're not here for coffee, and the clerk obviously knows it. Indeed, you're here to investigate a claim made by one of your informants that the proprietor of this establishment has gotten involved in a business that he shouldn't have - and judging by the tension that's rapidly filling the air between the two of you, you suspect that he knows your motives. How do you respond?
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Lean forward. Say "I don't want no trouble you hear"
Start wildly flailing our arms about screaming WOOLOOWOOLOO. This should scare the shit out of him, and make him tell us what he did. If he doesn't comply, release our bowels and start pissing everywhere. 99% of the time that works every time.
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Lean forward. Say "I don't want no trouble you hear"
Start wildly flailing our arms about screaming WOOLOOWOOLOO. This should scare the shit out of him, and make him tell us what he did. If he doesn't comply, release our bowels and start pissing everywhere. 99% of the time that works every time.
Roll = 3
You lean heavily on the counter and silence the cashier's stammering with a hundred-yard glare. He's almost surely not a career criminal, judging by how he's reacted so far, but you can never be sure with some of these types. "Now, listen," you intone quietly, locking eyes with him steadily. "I don't want to start no trouble, y'hear? But you know why me and my pal are here, and if you don't start playing ball..." You trail off very subtly, leaving nothing but silence and cigarette fumes lingering in the air for a few precious seconds. Then, very suddenly and with a ferocity that almost surprises you yourself, you throw your arms into the air and let out an inarticulate yell that sounds something like a police siren filtered through a howling wolf. This outburst surprises even Morris, who's still getting used to your habit of screaming like this during tense situations, and causes a few innocent patrons to almost leap out of their chairs with shock. The clerk you were trying to intimidate is practically cowering at this point, both confused and terrified. Just as well, too, or else you might have had to do something really extreme and disgusting.
"Okay, o-okay!" he yelps once you quiet down. "Come in here. Quick. And p-please don't do that again!" He retreats back into the door he entered through less than a minute ago, leaving it open for you - clearly, he expects you to follow him in. From what you can see behind the counter, it appears to be a fairly spacious storage room of sorts, with dimly-lit glimpses of shelves and packing boxes visible through the dusty air. You'd need to enter in order to get a proper look, though. Morris flashes you a weird look before you move on - either he's got a bad feeling about this, or he's just weirded out by what you just did. How do you proceed?
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Go through the doorway, but as soon as we enter, jump up and swing from the light on the ceiling until we know its safe.
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Slam the door shut and then kick it off it's hinges, scare 'em straight, and then follow up with
Go through the doorway, but as soon as we enter, jump up and swing from the light on the ceiling until we know its safe.
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Slam the door shut and then kick it off it's hinges, scare 'em straight, and then follow up with
Go through the doorway, but as soon as we enter, jump up and swing from the light on the ceiling until we know its safe.
+1
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Slam the door shut and then kick it off it's hinges, scare 'em straight, and then follow up with
Go through the doorway, but as soon as we enter, jump up and swing from the light on the ceiling until we know its safe.
+1
+1 keep telling him we want no trouble
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Slam the door shut and then kick it off it's hinges, scare 'em straight, and then follow up with
Go through the doorway, but as soon as we enter, jump up and swing from the light on the ceiling until we know its safe.
+1 keep telling him we want no trouble
Roll = 4
Unfortunately for the café owner, you're not done acting like a gorilla just yet. Pulling your considerable weight over the counter, you march up to the door and promptly yank it closed. After leaving it like that for a few short seconds, you bring up your trusty police shoe and boot the flimsy door open with a mighty kick, snapping one of the hinges and sending it flying open at a rather awkward angle. The clerk practically leaps out of his pants and barely manages to avoid falling over. "I don't want any trouble, alright?!" you belt out once again. You're not sure if anybody believes you at this point, but you really don't want any trouble - you just figure that the best way of preventing trouble is to cause some of your own. Morris follows you sheepishly, giving the terrified customers in the café an apologetic glance before disappearing into the doorway after you.
As soon as you're in the room, you put your next plan into action. With a powerful leap, you launch yourself ceiling-wards and clamp your large hands around the lightbulb, picking your legs up and swinging from it with surprising grace. From this vantage point, you can clearly see that you're not about to get ambushed. Your tactical advantage, however, is cut short as the aging plaster holding the light fixture in place crumbles under your weight, sending you crashing to the floor along with a few kilograms of splinters, plaster dust and wiring. Picking yourself up and spitting out a few flakes of old ceiling paint, you notice that the clerk who led you in here is nowhere to be seen. You can hardly blame him for making his escape during your ape-like display of agility. Before you can start searching for him, however, the light from doorway you barreled through is blocked out by a pair of sharp silhouettes.
"That's enough, copper!" one of them barks in a distinctly criminal accent. You spin around to see a pair of tall, well-dressed men, with fedoras shading their eyes and Thompson machine-guns clasped in their grubby criminal hands. "Just as well you trashed the place already - now nobody'll care that we're about to blow you away!" It seems that you've walked into an ambush after all, despite your careful surveillance. Morris is by your side, covered in plaster, with one hand hovering over his revolver's handle. What do yo do?
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Start spinning, launching shit from my anus. Before i do this, pull of my pants and underware
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Start spinning, launching shit from my anus. Before i do this, pull of my pants and underware
-1, too unrealistic.
Pull out our revolver, open fire, and immediately take cover again, backing up the stairs to create a choke point.
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Start spinning, launching shit from my anus. Before i do this, pull of my pants and underware
-1, too unrealistic.
Pull out our revolver, open fire, and immediately take cover again, backing up the stairs to create a choke point.
-1 not fun
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Start spinning, launching shit from my anus. Before i do this, pull of my pants and underware
-1, too lewd.
Grab the door, tear it off the last hinges, turn it down it's side and use it to joust the criminals.
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Start spinning, launching shit from my anus. Before i do this, pull of my pants and underware
-1, too lewd.
Grab the door, tear it off the last hinges, turn it down it's side and use it to joust the criminals.
While screaming about our lord and savoir Cthulu.
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Pull out our revolver, open fire, and immediately take cover again, backing up the stairs to create a choke point.
Grab the door, tear it off the last hinges, turn it down it's side and use it to joust the criminals.
Roll = 3
You consider doing something ridiculous with the door you almost managed to destroy on the way in, but your new enemies are directly in between you and the door. Just for the time being, you decide to go for the slightly more boring, but far safer option of an old-fashioned shoot-out.
Years of experience race into action as you whip out your sidearm like a seasoned cowboy, letting loose a shot at the leftmost of the two crooks before they can level their weapons at you. Your aim leaves nothing to be desired and the first of the two baddies stumbles back, blood springing from the new hole in his shoulder. The second of the gangsters attempts to put you down, but you're too quick even for bullets as you roll to safety behind a packing crate. You figure that it must contain something tough, since none of the bullets that the criminal has unloaded into it have gotten through to harm you yet. You spare a glance in Morris' direction, noting that he seems to have fared about as well as you, although he has yet to discharge his weapon. You toss a purposeful nod in the direction of the stairs leading to the second floor, and he seems to get the message.
As soon as your colleague rises out of cover, you launch yourself towards the stairs, aiming to get behind the railing and into some semblance of cover before you get shot. Morris lays down covering fire for your manoeuvre, forcing the gangsters to find cover of their own as the shots fly. Despite the wound you inflicted, both of your adversaries are still very much capable of putting you down, so you waste no time in barking an order to Morris as soon as you're at the stairs. One of the criminals pokes his head up in order to try and snap some shots off at Morris as he retreats in your direction, but you keep your foe cowering with some suppressive fire of your own. Before long, the two of you are safe at the top of the stairs, breathing heavily. The brief respite should give you time to reload and consider your next move before the baddies come charging after you.
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Yell. "Oh no! I'm out of bullets!"
Then shoot them when they take the bait.
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Yell. "Oh no! I'm out of bullets!"
Then shoot them when they take the bait.
Roll = 5
You can already hear your two opponents shuffling their way towards the stairs, quietly as they can manage. Morris is sat to one side, doing the sensible thing by shoving more rounds into his gun's chamber. You, meanwhile, have a better idea. "Oh, no!" you exclaim, in an exaggerated tone of despair, netting you an alarmed look from your ally. "I'm out of bullets!" Even as you speak, you're surreptitiously checking your own chamber for remaining rounds. There's two left - it's all you'll need, you tell yourself, as you hear the gangsters picking up their pace. You give Morris a wry wink and what you're doing seems to dawn on him. They've definitely taken your bait.
You're ready and waiting as soon as the first of your foes skids into place at the base of the stairs, SMG at the ready. You're already waiting for him, however, and a tug on the trigger sends hot lead flying straight through the centre of his chest. His buddy practically crashes into him as he drops, giving you ample time to line up the miscreant's snappy hat between your iron sights. Another shot sees the second and last of your foes defeated, sent down by a bullet to the brain. Now you're out of bullets.
"Nice one, chief!" Morris commends you as you jerk your revolver to one side and jiggle the spent casings out of the chamber with a smug smirk. Your methods might be unorthodox, but it can't be denied that you get results, especially when things get dicey. How do you proceed now?
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Reload. Remember why we were here.
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Look for evidence of government conspiracies in the gangster's pockets.
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Loot the SMGS off them to ensure we are still armed, checking how much ammo is left in them if we can. Also, wasn't there a third one we shot in the shoulder? Yeah, Chances are he has no other way out, but knows we are coming back. Proceed very cautiously, and stop to listen at the bottom before we show ourselves.
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Reload. Remember why we were here.
Loot the SMGS off them to ensure we are still armed, checking how much ammo is left in them if we can. Also, wasn't there a third one we shot in the shoulder? Yeah, Chances are he has no other way out, but knows we are coming back. Proceed very cautiously, and stop to listen at the bottom before we show ourselves.
Look for evidence of government conspiracies in the gangster's pockets.
Roll = 4
You shove a trusty speed-loader into your revolver's exposed chamber, discarding the plastic clip with a practiced flick. "Alright, let's not get ahead of ourselves," you mutter to Morris as you squeeze the chamber shut and give it a spin. "We've still gotta find the guy who ran off and ask him what the hell's going on here. First, let's grab those machine-guns." Your colleague gives you a dutiful nod in response and you both shuffle slowly down the stairs, keeping an eye and an ear out for any other assailants. Were there two baddies or three? Maybe more? You're pretty sure there were only two, but you've got a bad feeling about this...
You manage to reach the bodies of your downed foes unharmed. Going for their dropped Thompsons first, you unhook the cylindrical magazines and peer inside - looks like they didn't spend much ammo, which is great since they aren't carrying any replenishments. While you pat them down in search of those distinctly-shaped drums of ammunition, however, something else occurs to you. At first, you only intended to grab their guns and use them for both personal defence and evidence, but you feel like there's more to it as you rifle through their pockets... sure enough, you find something extremely incriminating. Pulling out a discreet black wallet from one of the crooks' pockets, you flick it open to find... an FBI badge? The identity card next to it has all the details scribbled out, but this is a real federal badge, no mistake. Your mind fills with questions instantly, but you keep them to yourself as you quietly pocket the wallet. The folks back at the station will have a lot to answer for once you make it back.
Even if things aren't as they seem, however, you have a mission to accomplish. How will you proceed?
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I no your in on this. Shoot my partner.
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Shove the paranoid thought out of your head and CONTINUE YOUR MISSION DAMIT! They were running an illegal business here. Start confiscating The illegal goods and report back to base.
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I no your in on this. Shoot my partner.
Shove the paranoid thought out of your head and CONTINUE YOUR MISSION DAMIT! They were running an illegal business here. Start confiscating The illegal goods and report back to base.
Roll = 1
You eye Morris suspiciously as you get to your feet. He doesn't seem like a suspicious sort - you've run hundreds of patrols with him and this isn't the first time you've had to cover each other's backs in a firefight, so surely if he was in on some sort of conspiracy that you were about to uncover, he would've taken you out a long time ago..? You push your worries to the edge of your thoughts as you turn to face the stairs, ready to ascend and continue your search. Suddenly, however, you feel something cold and tubular pressing against the base of your cranium insistently. It looks like paranoia isn't the only thing at the back of your mind now.
"I saw you snooping, chief," starts Morris flatly, in a voice quite unlike the chirpy, happy-go-lucky one you usually hear from him. "I've gotta admit, shooting those two guys wasn't part of the plan. We figured we'd be able to catch you off-guard in here, but... hey, looks like all's well that ends well, huh? For us, at least." You hear your supposed 'ally' priming his revolver, the rasp of the hammer echoing around your ears. Normally, you'd do something ridiculous, like spinning around and kicking the gun out of your foe's hand, but now, at the time of your greatest need, you feel paralysed. All of your luck seems to have left you. "Sorry 'bout this, chief, but we can't have a no-nonsense loose cannon like you screwing this up. Not when we're this close to bringing the government of the United States under our control. See you on the other side, pal." With that ominous closing statement, Morris releases the revolver's hammer, turning your grey matter to mush.
Scenario II
Aeliuski T. Venusov, Cosmonaut (3rd Class)
Novgorod-Class Battlecruiser "Pride of Lower Sol", somewhere in deep space
Standard Date 656-90 (15th Hour)
"Seven suns!" you curse, glaring at the table before you morosely. It's covered in datapads, holographic projections and all the paraphernalia of an average tabletop roleplaying game in its later stages. "You always screw me over like this!" You direct your protest at the seat occupied by Junior Cosmonaut Morrikov, who's currently grinning like a martian canine. He'd been sending datapad messages and whispering to the other players for the whole game, and it seems that whatever plan he'd been concocting has finally come to fruition with the death of your character at the hands of his.
"Sorry, chief!" he smarms. "You know how things go."
"I know that we were meant to be working together," you retort, more than a little upset that you'd been backstabbed at such a late stage of the game. "But yes, whatever, Morrikov. I've got better things to do than play around with predateli." With that, you jerk to your feet and march out of the rec room, leaving the other spacemen chuckling and clapping each other on the back over their apparent victory. You hate games about American history anyway.
You tap at your watch a couple of times as the automatic doors slide shut behind you. In seconds, a soft red hologram flickers into view, depicting the federal emblem of the Soviet Space Naval Command. It hangs in the air for a few moments before disappearing from view, having been replaced with your device's main menu functions. A few more waves of your gloved finger bring you to the 'Directives' screen. A flashing icon in the upper left of the interface indicates that you have a new directive - this time from your deck superintendent, Commissar Karelikov. A quick hand motion opens it up before you. It tells you that the secondary gun batteries of Deck Three - your deck - are to be made ready for action at once by all spacemen on-shift. No further details are given, but you're guessing that this isn't a drill. How do you proceed?
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Time to attack those American pigs ehh? Fire the guns into Washington DC!
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Sabotage the guns so that they explode when fired. Then we wire up a booby trap to explode afterwards.
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Sabotage the guns so that they explode when fired. Then we wire up a booby trap to explode afterwards.
-1 makes no sense
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We in deep space, DC is a loooong way away.
Does DC even still exist? Is earth still around?
Check the map and see if Earth is still around, then tell everyone to MAN THE CANNONS!
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Check the map and see if Earth is still around, then tell everyone to MAN THE CANNONS!
Sabotage the guns so that they explode when fired. Then we wire up a booby trap to explode afterwards.
Roll = 2
You close your watch-PDA with a grim frown. You don't need to be told why you're making the ship battle-ready - you already know. In less than one standard hour, the Pride of Lower Sol will engage its prototype FTL jamming system, forcing an oncoming United States Aerospace Command supply convoy out of FTL space. Trapped outside the FTL shipping lane, the convoy will almost certainly be destroyed down to the last barge by the Soviet battlecruiser's mighty guns - unless you, a covert sleeper agent operating deep undercover for the USAC, can prevent this course of events. Your rank and position within the Soviet space fleet is the product of years of covert work and pretense, and you know full well that you'll be shot if you're caught sabotaging the ship, but many more will surely die if that convoy doesn't make it to the besieged USAC colonies on Mars. If ever there was a time to risk breaking your cover, it's now.
As you march to your station for what might be the last time before you make your escape from the Soviets for good, you begin to think about the events that led you to become a spy for the Americans. Though you yourself are a Russian by birth, you can never forgive your country and countrymen for their actions in the opening stages of the Third World/Solar War. The destruction of Washington DC by orbital bombardment was unforgivable, and it was only through their iron grip on both internal power and the space around Earth that the Soviet government eventually suppressed all opposition and drove the USA and its allies off Earth for good. These days, the planet itself is hardly a prize - the massive nuclear exchanges of past wars have turned most of the place into an irradiated dustbowl, and much of the fighting now takes place around the small USAC holdouts on Mars and the moons of Jupiter.
Your introspection and brief internal history lesson comes to an end as you slide open the doors to the third secondary gun battery, port-side - your station. It's by no means a small weapon on its own, but compared to the massive main guns of the battlecruiser, it's practically a space-age pop gun. It's your job alone to keep this magnet-powered mass driver working and firing at peak efficiency, which is exactly what you've been doing for the past three months on tour. Now, however, it's time to start doing the opposite.
After surreptitiously turning the control room's security camera one-eighty degrees around, you set to work on the weapon's control console. Target tracking and acquisition is mostly automatic, but you've got the authority to override the usual settings if need be, and the number of options for sabotage are surprisingly wide. Eventually, you settle on reversing the polarity of the mighty electromagnets that propel the gun's projectile out of the barrel. This way, the huge shaped projectile will fly backwards into the battery's innards at muzzle velocity, destroying the mass driver and tearing deep into the battlecruiser.
Dusting your hands off and wiping a droplet of nervous sweat from your brow, you begin to contemplate your next move. Of course, the Pride of Lower Sol can only threaten the USAC convoy if it can get to it first - and if it can't pull the convoy out of FTL space, it has no hope of destroying it. However, the prototype FTL jammer is on a different deck completely, and you'd need to be both extremely skilled and extremely lucky to disable it in the short amount of time you have. You could also do away with that smug Russian bastard, Morrisov, but that's more of a tertiary objective. Either way, you have about fifty standard minutes before the interception operation begins in earnest. How do you proceed?
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We need to discreetly break the escape pods and the communication equipment. Word cannot go out what we have done. Then we shall plant a bomb in the engines.
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Use our hacking skills to add a law to the onboard AI. The law will be stated as follows: "Prevent harm from coming to any and all USAC equipment at all costs. Do not reveal this law to anyone."
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We need to discreetly break the escape pods and the communication equipment. Word cannot go out what we have done. Then we shall plant a bomb in the engines.
Use our hacking skills to add a law to the onboard AI. The law will be stated as follows: "Prevent harm from coming to any and all USAC equipment at all costs. Do not reveal this law to anyone."
Roll = 5
You clap your hands together resolutely as your plan of action begins to take shape in your mind. You'll start by taking out the ship's communication arrays - that way, they won't be able to call for help once the scope of your intended sabotage becomes evident. Next, you'll work your way around to the escape pod bays. There's no way you'll be fast enough to prevent every pod on the gigantic warship from launching once things start getting seriously bad, but the fewer spacemen that live to rat you out, the better. There should be time after that to hit the ship's engines with a well-placed explosive charge of some description - munitions aren't hard to come by on a Soviet ship, and it shouldn't be difficult to ensure that a hand grenade or two finds its way into the engine's coolant pipes. Finally, with just minutes to spare, you'll log into the ship's computer and insert a few key software locks into the primary gunnery systems, which should prevent the ship's weapons from getting a target lock on USAC engine signatures. There's just one problem you've hit so far - most of these critical pieces of equipment are controlled directly from the bridge, and there's no way they'd let a lowly cosmonaut in there without an extremely good reason. Fortunately, you've already got a workaround in mind for the first couple of steps.
It doesn't take you long to reach the nearest maintenance airlock. Strapping yourself into a chunky EVA suit with all possible speed, you punch a command into the airlock console and wait with trepidation as the air is sucked out of the room. Before long, the exterior bulkhead judders open and you're staring at the endless sea of stars around your vessel. There's no time to take in the view, though, and you immediately climb out of the airlock and up towards the ship's external comms equipment, clinging to any kind of foothold or handle you can find along the vessel's hull. The journey is treacherous and it takes all of your agility to avoid slipping into the vast void surrounding you, but before too much time has passed, you're in position, staring up at the array of communication masts and vanes that connects the Pride of Lower Sol to the rest of the Soviet battle fleet.
Wasting no time at all, you unhook some vital tools from your utility belt and set straight to work undoing all of the careful engineering that went into these delicate components. Most of the smaller vanes are dispatched by your welding tool and a little physical effort, while the larger masts have to be carefully unbolted and disconnected from the grid. The whole process of unscrewing, cutting, kicking and general sabotaging takes longer than you anticipated. Though it's getting hard to see through the condensation caused by your own sweat, your EVA helmet's heads-up display keeps you updated on the current time, and you figure that you've only got thirty minutes left until the USAC convoy gets within range. If you want to leave yourself enough time to sabotage the ship's computer and the primary drive engines, you'll have to leave the escape pods be. How do you proceed?
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Sabotage the computer, locking them out of the controls to the main drive engine spesifficly to take two birds with one stone. Then sabotage all but one escape pod, and when the time comes, use it to get the f*** out of here.
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Ptw
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Sabotage the computer, locking them out of the controls to the main drive engine spesifficly to take two birds with one stone. Then sabotage all but one escape pod, and when the time comes, use it to get the f*** out of here.
I disagree. They will still be able to fire on the USAC ship if we do that. Instead, hack the computer to disallow any of the guns from firing.
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Peradon, i thought we already sabotaged those by reversing their electromagnets, or at least the secondary ones. When/if those fire off, they could tear the ship apart.
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Sabotage the computer, locking them out of the controls to the main drive engine spesifficly to take two birds with one stone. Then sabotage all but one escape pod, and when the time comes, use it to get the f*** out of here.
I disagree. They will still be able to fire on the USAC ship if we do that. Instead, hack the computer to disallow any of the guns from firing.
Roll = 6
Satisfied with your work on the comms array, you crawl over to the nearest bulkhead with the agility of a spider. There's no external control panel for you to tap at, but your space-age watch is capable of interfacing with the airlock's controls, and it doesn't take you long to get back inside the ship. Once you're safely back within the battlecruiser's closed environment, you gratefully pull yourself out of the bulky EVA suit and discard it in the airlock as you leave.
Another glance at your trusty watch informs you that you've entered into a maintenance duct network on Deck 1. The bridge is quite a ways away, especially for someone of your rank, but you notice another way of gaining access to the ship's mainframe. The deck's data node room - a sort of computer substation responsible for the individual deck's subsystems - is less than two hundred metres of corridor away from your current position. If you can crack into that, you can upload data to the main core through it - and with the preparation and equipment you've been saving up for a moment like this, it shouldn't be a herculean task.
One short walk later, you're stood before the discreet entrance to the data node bank. The door is locked tight by internal security measures, but this is where your watch once again comes in handy. Navigating your way through the holographic interface to the device's storage drive, you pull up a sound byte of the deck's superintendent saying something unclear to a colleague. You're glad that you managed to record that little pinch of audio two months ago, as the door's oral lock beeps happily and slides open, allowing you access. A soft navy glow bathes the red-striped walls behind you as the data node, covered in blinking blue lights and dials, is revealed. You're not sure how long you have until someone passes by, so you immediately find your way to the node's primary input computer. Normally, you wouldn't be able to upload or download anything through this terminal, but the equipment you've smuggled on-board during your service will easily fix that problem. Fishing through your jumpsuit's pockets briefly, you shortly retrieve a tiny, rectangular device that resembles a 21st century microchip. Bending down, you gently press it against the underside of the computer's keyboard, where it sticks firmly. The display flashes briefly and shorts out, then a plain input window fades into view. You've got a few ideas about what you're going to type in already.
"Attention, all hands!" the deck's PA system blurts out. "General quarters! All hands, report to your stations!" You've spent the last fifteen minutes hammering feverishly at the keyboard, but it seems your time is almost up. Though you couldn't disable the main drive engines from your terminal, you managed to lock them at cruising speed, which should prevent the ship from maneuvering into a viable firing position. You also gained access to the targeting data banks, which allowed you to wipe all knowledge of USAC cargo barges from the ship's systems - without the specifications of the target ships on hand, it will be near-impossible for the ship's main batteries to get a viable lock on the USAC convoy. You might not have been able to prevent the interdiction completely, but the damage inflicted on your allies will surely be minimal.
If you're willing to risk a passing party of spacemen noticing you, you still have time to lock out the ship's escape pod controls. However, with the moment of truth so close at hand, it may be more prudent to start looking for a way off the Pride of Lower Sol before your trail of destruction can be traced back to you. How do you proceed?
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Wire an additional explosive in a trash can that will explode in 40 minutes and then get onto the pod.
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Wire an additional explosive in a trash can that will explode in 40 minutes and then get onto the pod.
Roll = 3
You scuttle out of the room and slide the door shut behind you, allowing it to lock into place firmly. Among the hosts of spacemen rushing to get to their assigned posts, it isn't difficult to worm you way over to the deck's armoury and liberate a couple of hand grenades from the improperly-secured storage area - whoever was last in here must have been in even more of a rush than you are. You figure that these devices would be best used as some sort of improvised time bomb, allowing you to cause even more destruction long after your departure. In order to engineer the device, though, you'll need to sacrifice a very important piece of equipment.
It doesn't take you long to wire your watch's internal timer to the systems of the two futuristic grenades, ensuring that they'll be primed in exactly forty standard minutes. With your newly-engineered bomb in hand, you start looking for a tactically relevant place to leave it until it explodes. After a moment's thought, you settle on just tossing it into the nearest trash can and making a run for it - with any luck, it'll cause a breach of some kind and shut down the corridor systems in the immediate vicinity, ensuring that travel around the deck will be severely throttled.
With your agenda of espionage now fully complete, you duck into the nearest escape pod bay. It doesn't take you long to seat yourself in one of the many pods available. Just as you're getting comfortable, the ship shakes briefly and the dulled sound of a distant explosion reaches your ears. You figure that your initial act of sabotage at your station over on Deck 3 must have finally paid off. The only thing left to do now is to make your escape by launching the pod. Normally, they're remotely controlled or set to a timed release at the captain's orders, but in the absence of either of those factors, it's possible to manually override the launch system if you have sufficient clearance. Unfortunately, since this isn't even your deck, you don't have access to the controls - and without your watch, hacking into them is also out of the question. What do you do?
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return to the deck we are supposed to be on, and get on the escape pods there.
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Turn on an intercom and state loudly that you need the Bridge to launch the pod you're in, and that it's a matter of live and death.