Date: Fri, 29 Sep 1995 16:13:39 -0400 From: CyHiggin@aol.com Subject: "Put it someplace Delicate but Important..." [ Introduction: this is one of the more, er, extraordinary incidents that came out of the first Traveller campaign I ever played in. It was Classic Trav, started before Spinward Marches Campaign came out , thus the references to non-Imperial empires. It made for a good story, and it could fit in a pocket TNE empire just fine. Hope this starts a thread. The Original Incident was, well, incidental to playing the old "Traveller Adventure 1:Kinunir" module...] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So you want to know the truth behind the accident that destroyed the Confederation's capital city, eh?" Bianca Mordell takes a drag from the Terran cigarette you gave her. "Immunity from prosecution, of course, and get me off this damn prison planet!" You nod, saying you'll do what you can. You're pretty sure you can get her sentence commuted; she was convicted of illegal psionics use, and the political climate has changed considerably since then. "We were hired to get some information on some piece of military hardware mounted on the then-obsolete Kinuir class warship used by the Confederation. In those days, we were citizens of the Fourteen Worlds -- this was before the 3rd Imperium moved in and "assimilated" us -- and the Nebular Planetary Confederation were our closest neighbors and enemies. Okay, I admit it, we were hired as freelance spies... "We being myself, recently resigned from the 14 Worlds Navy, my brother, former Army Sgt. Brian Mordell, and ex-Marine, ex-Commando Sgt. Sherman Bolo Lee -- deadly in a fight, a complete sociopath, and dumb as a post. Not that my late brother was all that smart, either. And then there was that fool whose name I forget who caused the whole mess. Former Scout Service puke, if I remember correctly; I believe it was his ship we used for our trip to Regina. Lord knows, when it came to brains, he made Sherman look brilliant. "It's a matter of public record now that Sherman is wanted for assorted murders as well as illegal psionics, so I suppose I can admit that he was also a telepath. Remember in those days just being a psi was a capital offense in some places, so those of us who were kept our own kind of 'Masquerade', so to speak. Why did I, a loyal officer of the 14 Worlds Navy, get psi training? I never was brain- washed into blind prejudice, and I wanted an edge when I went freelance." She takes another drag from the cigarette. "Before the Impy Navy moved in, Regina was the capital of our local opposition, the Confederation. It had the usual facilities: starport, shipyards, navy bases, etc. In one of those shipyards was the hull of a scrapped Kinunir. Our plan was we would get pictures, etc from that hulk. We figured on bypassing the yard's security systems with the help of a "minor diversion". "Sherman, former demolitions expert among other things , whipped a nasty little time-bomb and gave it to our moron Scout friend, telling him, "We need a diversion; put it someplace delicate but important." Off went the moron on his part of the mission, and off the rest of us went on our part of the mission; Sherman played bodyguard while I actually took the measurements and pictures of the military hardware -- okay, I'll admit it, the Black Globe mount, which I know something about and had the experience to analyze -- and Brian played "high cover" from a nearby rooftop overlooking the scrapyard. "Infilitration of the scrapyard and the old starship hulk went just fine, until our diversion went into effect... "Moron, with bomb, finds someplace he thinks is "delicate but important" ... the starport's super-refined hydrogen tank farm. Moron plants bomb at base of hydrogen tank. Moron doesn't seem to know that liquid hydrogen is explosive. Moron has never heard of the concept of "sympathetic detonation". Time bomb explodes. Tank explodes. Tanks, plural, explode. Starport disappears in not-quite-nuclear fireball. Nasty firestorm. Blast levels buildings for blocks (many blocks) around. The mess is just starting. "I did mention there was a Navy base and starport there, didn't I? There were several ships sitting around on launch pads, in various stages of launch readiness. Several of them had pilots who tried desperately to escape the expanding fireball... One ship's soon-to-be dead Navy pilot in sheer desperation punches in full fusion rockets IN ATMOSPHERE! He almost made it, too. Unfortunately for everyone else, the fusion rockets obliterate what's left of the starport and burns a nice trench through half the city as Navy ship crashes from explosion damage anyway. A large warship, fully loaded with armament, tries to get off the pad on normal takeoff jets, and doesn't even it make away from the starport; when it explodes, radioactive debris from all of its nuclear missile warheads is sprayed across the city... Another ship trying to take off loses control and crashed into the continental rectenna grid for the solar power sats, knocking out all power for the city and the continent. "As for us, well, the multi-thousand-ton armored hull of the Kinunir lurched about four feet to the left, but protected our hides (that's Sherman and I). We pick ourself up with a few bruises, and wonder what the hell happened. Brian, who was on top of the building does not fare so well as half the building falls out from under him, and the other half falls on top of him. Moron is never seen again, presumed vaporized. "I did say the two of us were telepaths, weren't we? That was how we found Brian in time. He was literally on his next-to-last breath when we dug him out and got him some medical help. He was eventually put back together, but he was on the critical list for a long time afterward." She looks grim. "And if he had died there, Sherman would not have murdered him later, but that's a different story." "We brought the scoutship down from orbit and helped with relief operations (it was the least we could do, after all). Everyone in the city, including us, was in such a state of shock, that no one noticed for days that we were flying around in an air/raft brightly painted with the "Fourteen Worlds Scout Service" logo! (Remember, we're in the capital city of our main enemy nation, which has just blown up) We eventually noticed, went "ohmygod!" and carefully draped a couple of army blankets over the logo. Somebody always remained with the air/raft to make sure the blankets didn't slip... "And that, my friend, is the true story of how the capital of the Nebular Planetary Confederation was blown up." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------- A postscrypt: Dennis Matheson, our Traveller Referee, told us that he recounted the story of this incident to Mark Miller at a con once. I hear that Mark was suitably appalled....