This week, we picked up where we left off with the campaign-style adventure for the Alien RPG from Free League:

The characters, with the help of a pair of scientists and a synthetic (Stella 12) attached to the crew of Honest Mistake were investigating U.S.C.S.S. Cronus, a Weyland Corporation vessel missing for almost 80 years. This ship is the setting for the scenario Chariots of the Gods, which we played to test the system before attempting a campaign. They had learned the ship had put down on Luther Colony inthe GJ1256 system because of irreparable issues with the drive system, and that there was some kind of contagion aboard.

The characters moved aft from the bridge, having heard voices, and found the two hapless terraforming techs that had been dispatched from a nearby atmosphere processor, and another man (Cham, the roughneck from the scenario, and in our game, the undercover synthetic working for LaSalle Bionational. ) But not before they come face-to-face with the results of the denouement of our playthrough of Chariots: a bloodbath involving a woman who is terribly mutated, her head apparently mildly elongated, her eyes hazed over, and her limbs stretched and strange. She has been killed with a half dozen .45s to the torso and is clutching the helmet of the shooter, a redheaded woman going ripe who died when the helmet — torn from its suit — had cut her carotid artery. Another woman lies just inside the medbay, her skin turned slightly translucent, like the mutant outside, but nowhere near as turned.

The men have been searching the ship in compression suits and rebreathers. Cham, the last survivor of the U.S.C.S.S. Montero, has been trapped here for weeks. As for the contagion: the doctors of Cronus had come up with a vaccine to the disease that created the horror in the vehicle bay, but it wasn’t always effective, instead mutating the recipient, like Miller, his captain; and Clayton, the shot to Swiss cheese mutant and former corporate rep on Cronus. At that time, they get a warning from the bridge — the Weyland synthetic is active and has warned them about the rogue synth on the ship. they did very well on their observation tests and realized this was Cham, but not before he disarmed Max, breaking his trigger finger and nearly wrenching the helmet from his suit.

Wade, protecting his brother, gave chase and finally shot the android down with his Mateba 10mm. They then had to start piecing together the situation from Ava 6, the Weyland android, the notebooks of the scientists and a data core that had been gathered up by one of the Montero crew. They found two of these in a hidden EEV, still alive but in cryosleep. The ship had set down on 26 Draconis 𝛃 and had suffered some kind of infection from an archeological dig. The crew had taken aboard vials of some kind of fluid that seemed related to the disease and in an attempt to inoculate the crew ad cobbled together a vaccine that was only 90-95% effective. Stella and Ava, working with the scientists, Kumbe and Mignault, began working on an improved cure, while Wade, Jensen, and Pugh did a sweep of the ship for any more surprises. Jensen then began downloading what he could get out of the ship’s computer, while Wade and Pugh set the ship’s reactor to overload on a code typed in from any console. Honest mistake, meanwhile, buttoned up and waited — if things went awry they would take off and destroy the ship; otherwise, the landing party would set the ship to scuttle and get back aboard in time to get out of the blast radius.

Simple.

Except the spores, which Stella had surmised were some kind of nanotechnology, had infected one of the workers, Said. The two had been sequestered in the room with the medpods for the two or so hours the crew was doing their thing. While the characters were working, Said gave birth to a bloodburster, which killed Said’s partner, then escaped into the air vents. Stella burned the room to prevent any other issues, but with the creature loose, Wade went to get Jensen from the MU/TH/ER compartment on Deck A. The two men met at the forward junction, but before Jensen could climb down to B Deck, wade was grabbed by the juvenlie bloodburster, injured by its claws in the leg, but he was able to kick it off. Jensen opened fire on the critter and missed and the chase was on.

Max and Pugh were on their way to aid the screaming Wade when the alien attacked, knocking Pugh to the ground and doing the classic evil, slobbering grin schtick. Pugh tossed it off, Jensen had a clear shot by blew his stress roll and panicked, freezing up. Wade opened up on the thing, emptying his Mateba (this has become his thing, and it tied nicely with the Overkill talent he has). The creature was killed, but not before it did a tail stab on Max. I ignored the “automatic” head hit and had it impale him, instead. Slumping to the ground, Max was out of the fight. Wade’s shots sprayed acid all over the place and it melted Pugh’s foot, requiring Ava and Mignault to amputate, while Kumbe and Stella managed to save Max’s life.

While the scientists did emergency surgery on Max, Stella and Ava finished the vaccine for the 26 Draconis infection and gave it to the people exposed to the air — Wade and Pugh. We ended with Wade finding out Max would live. He, Pugh, and Jensen were all trying to rest — Jensen doing well with the drug addiction he’s picking up, and Wade from the alcoholism he’d already kind of had from play. Meanwhile, Pugh began to change as the vaccine turned him into an abomination. Wade had been dozing but realized something was wrong at the last minute…he was disappointed to find Pugh turning into one of the monstrosities, and turned on him.

With a “Aw, Pooch…” from Wade, we ended for the night.