soypunk
Rune Priest
OLYMPUS SYSTEM - CETILE, 3271-40
Mason watched as the body of a security guard slumped to the ground. Anton and Vincent, the two goons Steffen had paired him with for this job, were very good at physical violence.
“You’re up wiz.” Anton barked at Mason.
Mason took out his mobile computer, a highly customized model he had made for himself, and plugged the cable into the access port. He pulled out a keyboard from the back of the unit, unfolded it, and began probing for weakness in the security system. It was a sophisticated system but in mere moments Mason had disabled the surveillance components and replaced them with various pre-recored loops of audio & video signals from archives the security system had thankfully left within access of Mason’s fingertips.
“What are you doing? When’s that going to be unlocked?” Vincent snapped at him while pointing at a sturdy looking door which separated them from their target.
“Keeping us from being seen, unless you want your mom to see your face all over the news?”
Vincent frowned at this but let Mason return to his work.
For anyone else this might have been a tougher hacking assignment but the company which wrote the intrusion software for the local airport had been the same that provided solutions to most of the bulk merchant ships, like those Mason had shipped out on. A downside to the increasing corporate consolidation the system was seeing as a handful of megacorps squeezed profits out of their acquired subsidiaries. The other cheat-code he had were one-time keycodes given to him by Mr. Steffen; how those had been obtained Mason decided was none of his business. A few more keystrokes and the access light on the door went from orange to green.
Anton and Vincent resumed their ready stances while Mason put away his gear. Anton covered while Vincent breached the door. “Clear” he announced. Mason wasn’t sure if these two had military training or had just seen one too many space marine flicks.
Inside, they found the hangar empty of people and a Cruise Aerospace GJ-9 light transport dimly lit in the middle. Anton and Vincent discussed plans before telling Mason to get them access to the transport’s cockpit. Then Anton left the hangar with the aim of hiding the handful of bodies they’d left on their way into the facility.
Once again, Vincent stood watch while Mason worked his magic on the transport’s rear access door. Mason couldn’t recall ever flying in anything quite like the GJ-9, with it is two prominent rotating prop-fans. He had far more experience with small spacecraft such as landers and pinnaces that brought goods and personnel from the short haulers to the surface. The door opened to reveal a lavishly furnished interior. Vincent stormed inside and then motioned for Mason to follow him.
“Cockpit” Vincent grunted at Mason as if Mason had suddenly forgotten the plan they were executing at Mr. Steffen’s request: gain access to a private hangar facility on Celine and the personal transport of a local politician who had not voted the way Mr. Steffen had encouraged him to. Once on-board Mason was to plant a set of explosives in the cockpit and passenger areas that would be remotely set off once the GJ-9 was airborne with its VIP. What Mr. Steffen was calling a “gentle reminder” to the local elites that there were other constituencies besides the big corporates worth factoring into their policy making.
Mason planted both devices and activated the transponders. The left the hangar area and returned to meet Anton who was holding a few uniforms for them to change into. Unsurprisingly to no one Anton and Vincent took the roles of local security while Mason had been assigned to look like a runway operations worker. This last one was the riskiest proposition as there were generally only one or two humans on duty at any given time, as the bulk of the duties were assigned to various robots.
After a while the VIP arrived with their advisors and retinue. The VIP’s private security were not happy to see unfamiliar faces and put in a call to operations for confirmation of a shift change. Thankfully Mason had anticipated issues like this might arise and had such calls forwarded to him. After authenticating the credentials of the two fine men the party boarded the transport and a suite of robots went to work stowing luggage and readying the flight. Mason found it somewhat odd to watch a sort of slow motion ballet towards death as the various people performed their roles for what Mason assumed would be their very last time.
The GJ-9 was pulled out of the hangar and onto the tarmac. There the propfans did the work of lifting it gracefully into the air. Mason, who enjoyed feats of engineering as much as the next geek, was temporarily shaken up about the thought of the vertical take-off and landing components melting away than the humans inside but then caught himself and shook his head. This was all madness that Mason had been roped into and he would forever hold it against his father.
The craft reached a sufficient height and the prop-fans rotated into their forward motion position and it begin to move away from the airfield. Mason, pulled the detonator out of a side pouch and flipped the switch to activate it. The light failed to activate and Mason froze for a second before turning the box over and undoing the back panel. He checked the connections and found a loose wire which he hastily wrapped back around the connector to the circuit board. He flipped the back around and saw the light was now green. He pressed the button and watched the Gj-9’s explosion meld with the setting sun in the distance.
Session Notes
- The session’s job was created using the “Underworld (Or Black Ops) Job Generator” from Carsten’s Space Opera Solo Framework. Any Resources referenced can be found in my handy all-in-one Resources page.
- I randomly rolled to determine the difficulty of the security system and it had come back as Hard with a Conflict Pool of 15 and a Challenge Rating of 70%. Comae is a roll-under d100 percentage system and “conflict pools” are buckets of Hit Points derived from character stats or, in this case, static opposition. Comae is built around a concept borrowed and expanded upon from M-Space - Extended Conflicts. Extended Conflicts are a framework for modeling any type of conflict (combat, social… computer hacking.) The whole thing is delightfully efficient in a way that only d100 mechanics and Swedish folks could deliver on.
- Comae is full of interesting places to hang game play off of, like the Tags system which gave me a way to model Mason’s advanced computer. When it comes time to use it in the Extended Conflict system - it helps Mason deal more “damage” to the Conflict Point’s bag of hit points then the typical computer would while hacking. The default “damage” in Comae is 1d6 but there is an entire page of real-world weapons with damage dice as well as environmental damage dice suggestions, etc. Comae is not exactly a game with a lot of dense rules and gear lists but there’s very much a toolkit here for the crafty GM to play with. (This may start to remind you of “effort” from Index Card RPG? Same idea.)
- The Cruise Aerospace GJ-9 light transport is modeled after the “Houston Aerospace UV-7 ‘Howey’ Light Transport” from Mongoose’s 2300AD - Book 3: Vehicles And Spacecraft which I picked up in a Bundle of Holding deal a while back.
- It has taken a session or so but I feel like I’ve got a decent command of when to call for an extended conflict, skill check, or defer to the oracles after having switched the rules around. There’s always a period of adjustment when you swap out the systems as you try to work out the sphere of control the different solutions work best with.
- Kinda of a cloak-and-daggery session but that’s just the way TREY called it.
- The forwarded call to Mason had originally involved a failed skill roll but Mason had luck points to spend on “flipping the dice” (reversing the ones and tens position) which allowed him to succeed. I know Meta-currency like this can be controversial in RPGs but I’ve long since lost any guilt I have about things like “luck points” being used in solitaire play.
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