Episode Seven- Asteroid Base in Peril - A solar travels post

 Captain James T Cook and the HMSS Endeavour - VSF 1770

“Space the new frontier.  These are the voyages of the Her Majesty’s Star Ship Endeavour.  Its five year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilisations; to boldly go where no Englishman has gone before.”- Captain James T Cook

Well, one or two of you may remember two years ago when Episode Six was recorded. 

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Finally Episode Seven is complete.

Captain’s Log: 15 July 1895 – The Asteroid Belt!

Cook on the Endeavour woke to the usual shouts from Cheerful Rodgers, "Orders from the Admiralty. A base has been over run by alien monsters and we have to go and save them!"

The Endeavour closed in on the asteroid base but there was no room to land, even for the shuttle craft. An away team of eight men was chosen from willing volunteers (aka - those who couldn't hide well enough from the Sargent and Cheerful Rodgers and would be led by Captain Cook and Science Officer Banks. Cheerful and the Sargent would be armed with portable Gatlings while the rest would have pistols.

They had to wear their EtherSuits to make the journey from the Endeavour's shuttle to the base. The base's shuttle bay was blocked.

The base has been over run by alien creatures. Skeletons litter the corridors while two survivors hide in the bathroom (bottom left)

Intrepid survivors

The away team move cautiously into the base, stopping at the first set of skeletons

An alien charges them and attacks!

The Sarge kills the first alien but two more attack the group entering the main passage way. Two other aliens are sneaking around behind!

More aliens come from the left killing one crew member. Cheerful Rodgers kills one and forces the other one back! But the aliens from behind have attacked and killed two crew members!

On the left a crew member is wounded and one alien killed, Cheerful Rodgers kills a second alien but runs out of ammo! On the right Science office Banks is wounded, but one alien is killed and the crew come to his rescue. "what about me" says Cheerful "I have run out of ammo!".

The final alien is killed top left and the crew start backing away. The intrepid survivors have made a run for it but some alien face huggers are on their tail!

Cook orders a withdrawal. This rock is uninhabitable. The crew are backing away. One survivor has made it, leaving his mate as meat for the face huggers! 

The face huggers are shot to bits by some of the crew as they cover the withdrawal. the intrepid survivor finds a nasty surprise in his shuttle. I don't think he is going to make it!

As the crew retreat the aliens let them go. The Queen is safe and has some fresh bodies to lay eggs in. Soon the colony will grow!

Captain James T Cook and his remaining crew make it back to the Endeavour exhausted.

Three crew dead, three wounded - including Science Officer Banks, a difficult mission. 

The Admiralty was informed that the base was no longer viable due to alien creature infestation. Only one thing to do, leak its position to the Prussians as a gold mine.

Another Episode that the Captain would like to forget but that will haunt his dreams. Cheerful Rodgers on the other hand had great fun, blasting away with his Gatling gun, smashing aliens!

What next for the crew. I wont say anything because it might take me another two years to sort out the terrain.

The asteroid base came from the Wargamesvault. I should have printed it out on thicker paper but in any event it worked well with the 2D map and some 3D scatter terrain to add some depth.

I used Galactic Heroes for the rules but with random activation using playing cards. It works well and gives some different twists as activations vary.