Space Derelicts

I. Introduction

"This place gives me the creeps," Menkovich muttered to himself. The gray floors, the gray ceiling, the sickly-blue walls, and above all, the silence of the dead freighter weighed on him.

"Shut up and keep the channel clear!" Sergeant Osaka was a stickler for radio discipline. He was also born and raised in the wide-open spaces of the New Frisco colony; he hated this environment even more than Menkovich did.

But orders were orders. Menkovich's team had the task of securing the engine room, making sure everything was shut down and safe. Easy work for any trained StarMarine. Not so easy when a party of unknown aliens was sneaking around in the same ship, presumably looking for loot. Singh's PARM squad had already exchanged shots with them in the darkened cargo bay. They'd surely try for the engine room sooner or later; the easiest way to loot a deserted spaceship is to make off with the whole ship.

They crept down the deserted hallway as quietly as they could, weapons at the ready. Now and then, the ancient ship's air blowers would grate over a stuck bearing, and the sudden noise would make everyone jump. O'Day had already wasted a few shots on imaginary aliens. You'd expect that of Rojas, the new guy. O'Day should know better.

They cautiously rounded a bend in the hallway and found the door to the engine room. By hand signals, Menkovich ordered Steinberger to cover the doorway with him, and Rojas to work the door controls as soon as the others were ready. He nodded. The door slid open.

The engine room was empty, quiet, and dark aside from the emergency lights near the floor. Indicators and controls shone brightly in the darkness. O'Day was the expert here. Without needing orders, he stepped to the main console and began pressing buttons.

A huge shadow stepped out of the auxiliary access passage and fired something. O'Day fell, wounded by the point-blank shot. His comrades returned fire in a well-trained reflex that mowed down the alien in a shower of gauss-rifle bullets. Several back-up indicators winked out, shattered by a stray shot.

They heard another alien step back and disappear into the access passage. They'd have to go in after him. Great, just great. Menkovich motioned for Rojas to cover the other end of the passage while he approached the near entrance and Steinberger attended to O'Day. As he neared the passage entrance, he got his first good look at the dead alien.

"Norx," Menkovich muttered. "I hate Norx."

Outer space is vast, inconceivably vast. If a spaceship meets with misfortune in the interstellar vacuum and doesn't get off a distress call, the odds of anyone finding that ship aren't even worth calculating. But now and then, such a ship does get found, either due to an automatic beacon, some other still-functioning system, or (most likely) pure luck. And when a derelict ship is found, it usually triggers a sort of feeding frenzy among all the nearby races. After all, the rule for abandoned ships and their cargo is "finders keepers."

But finding and keeping are two very different things. Unlike battlefields in open terrain, the silent corridors of a dead ship keep your soldiers from knowing where their enemies are. Every corner, every door may become an ambush. Tactics vary according to the situation. Sometimes you'll just send in your troops to find a particular item of cargo, grab it, and go. Sometimes you'll have to take over the ship's bridge or engineering spaces, to bring the ship home or to keep another race from making off with it. And sometimes your mission is simple extermination.

This rule book is an optional supplement to StarMarines. It is meant to be used with the special M8 maps for spaceship interiors (maps #89-99), but you can try other ship-interior maps if you want.

II. The Maps

89. Bridge is a ship's control center. If one soldier spends an entire turn in the captain's chair in the center, and another soldier spends a turn in any other chair, neither moving nor attacking, they can do one of the following once per turn (roll a die to see which one):
    1. Turn the ship's gravity on or off.
    2. Engage navigation and set a course for the ship. The ship must already be moving.
    3. Start the ship moving.
    4. Turn the ship's interior lights on or off.
    5. Open or close one door.
    6. Turn on one security camera for a moment. The other player must identify one of his question-markers, either the type of soldier, or the fact that the marker is a dummy.
90. Cargo Hold has a suspended catwalk running above a sunken floor. It takes 2 move units (3 for power-armored soldiers) to go up or down one of the two staircases. Set into the floor is a large air lock which serves as a cargo loading hatch. Soldiers can pass under the catwalk. A soldier on the floor is at -1 to-hit shooting up at the catwalk. Close-combat weapons can't hit from floor to catwalk or vice-versa.

    Included on this map sheet are many cargo items, used on this map and any other map with cargo space.

91. Officers' Quarters has two cabins for the captain and first officer, a access shaft to the the below-decks area, and a recreation area. This rec deck is often used for zero-gravity exercises. The control panel in hex #0600 can turn the gravity in the enclosed rectangular area on or off, independently of gravity in the rest of the ship. A rest room and a closet for game equipment are also next to this area.

92. Crew Quarters has five cabins, a bathroom, and a lounge with simple galley.

93. Life-Support Area includes the air-purification machinery (two devices with fans) and the artificial-gravity equipment (lots of black squares and colored lights). A soldier can turn either of these devices on or off in one turn. You will also find two cryogenic sleep cells, a ladder up to the auxiliary control room, and a small cargo bay here. Only Leaders and Heroes can operate the cryo sleep-cell controls.

    This map also includes one matter-transporter booth. Each turn, one soldier can enter this booth and instantly move to the other booth in map #094, or vice-versa. The booths can transport one cargo container per turn if they don't move a soldier. They won't work if a soldier or cargo container remains in a booth after transporting.

    The Auxiliary Control Room is an emergency bridge. A soldier who spends an entire turn in one of the chairs can block any of the die-roll functions of the bridge if he rolls a 4-6.

94. Escape-Pod Area has the other matter-transporter booth and six emergency escape pods for crew and passengers.

95. Passenger Area has two luxury staterooms for paying passengers, a service area that includes kitchen and laundry facilities, and a linen-closet area.

96. Power Generators provide the energy to run the ship's systems. There are two of them, and they are solid enough to resist any weapons. This area has two belowdecks passages (each made from sections of safety-tread hexes). The coolers at the end of these passages can be turned on or off by any soldier. Once both are off, the ship will eventually lose power. At the start of each turn with both coolers off, roll two dice; a 2 or 12 means the generators have overheated and ship's power has failed. See map 091 for rules about belowdecks movement.

97. Ship's Stores holds row after darkened row of cabinets and compartments for freeze-dried food, extra clothing, spare parts, and everything else a ship and crew might need on a long voyage.

98. Sickbay is an automated medical facility with two beds. If a soldier brings a wounded friend to a sick-bay bed, for each turn that soldier is in the bed there, roll a die; a 5-6 means the "auto-doc" has patched the soldier up and he is no longer wounded. Carrying a wounded soldier means you can move 1 hex/turn, regardless. This area also has six escape pods.

99. Engine Room has the controls for the main engines. If one soldier spends an uninterrupted turn at the central console and another at any other control panel, they can shut down the engines in one turn and keep the ship from moving, or turn them on again in two turns if an enemy has shut them off. This map sheet also includes all the air locks you're likely to need for the other maps.

II-a. Cargo Containers

• Crates (brown boxes) hold dry, non-fragile cargo of various kinds -- seeds, machinery, ore samples, or hand tools, for example. They are heavy. It takes a soldier two extra move-units, or two soldiers (on opposite sides of the crate) one extra move-unit each, to move a crate one hex. It takes two soldiers two extra move-units each to move them into or out of a stairs hex. Crates provide light cover for a soldier.
• Pods (orange lozenges) are sealed airtight to protect their contents. These are the most common freight container. They typically hold food, electronics, papers, personal belongings, or anything else that must be protected from the elements. One man can move one pod one hex at a cost of one extra move-unit, or two extra move-units to take it onto or off of a stairway hex. They provide light cover for a soldier if he does not wear powered armor.
• Drums (dark gray circles) hold lubricants, paints, herbicides, and similar liquids at room temperature. They are big and heavy; rules for moving them and for cover are the same as for crates.
• Toolboxes (gray striped boxes) aren't cargo, but contain straps, pry bars, and other tools for cargo handling. Big boxes are movable just like crates, while small boxes use pod rules for movement. Both kinds are too small to provide cover for a soldier.
• Fragile Boxes (black-and-white squares) usually hold computer equipment. A soldier can move one just like a pod. They provide light cover for a soldier.
• E-boxes (gray with green grids) maintain a precise environment for their contents -- air pressure, atmosphere gases, temperature, gravity, radiation, light, and anything else that a sensitive item might need for protection. Such cargoes might include medicines, archaeological artifacts, or exotic animals. An e-box is heavy in spite of its small size, and is moved like a crate. It provides no cover for a soldier.

A soldier can climb onto or over a cargo container at no movement penalty. In zero gravity, one soldier can move one cargo container at no move penalty beyond the normal no-gravity penalty, but he can't do so and attack in the same turn.

II-b. Ship Systems

• Air Purification cleans the air in the ship. Once turned off, the ship will become uninhabitable in 20 turns, and all on board will die.
• Artificial Gravity keeps people on the decks. If turned off, all movement costs in the ship are doubled, except for powered armor -- they can use magnetic boots and walk normally. Zero gravity also affects soldiers' ability to carry cargo containers; see the above section.
• Ship's Power runs everything. If it fails, it turns off the lights, gravity, and air purification.
• Interior Lights allow you to see. Without them, you don't exchange question markers for soldier counters unless the markers are directly adjacent. Ranged weapons fire is at -2 to hit in the dark.

III. Setting Up for a Derelict-Spaceship Battle

1. Every ship must have a bridge and an engine room.
2. You must have at least one air lock for every three map modules. The large cargo-bay lock counts as one air lock.
3. Any hall that ends at the edge of the ship becomes an air lock.
4. All doors (yellow-and-black lines along a hex edge) are closed at the start of the game, with DOOR markers on them.
5. All ship's systems are turned on and working normally. The ship is not moving.

The normal complement for boarding a spaceship is an augmented level-2 formation. Such formations follow the various races' rules for level-2 groups, with the following changes:

• No vehicles and no heavy weapons are allowed.
• You use 30 points to buy soldiers and weapons instead of 25 if more than six map sections are used.
• You can use airborne soldiers, but they cannot fly.
• You may add a fourth level-1 formation.
• You may add any or all of the following: unlimited low leaders, one medium leader, one Medic, one Hero.
• Colonial Seals lose their usual hard-to-hit advantage. Instead, an enemy must subtract 1 from his to-hit roll when shooting at a Seal.
• N'Kakk can use any soldier-type units except the Heavy-Weapon Carrier.
• Pelgari Death Dervishes can attack only one opponent per turn. Near Skippers can jump through walls.
• Saurs can use any soldier-type Saur.
• Swarm Hoppers cannot hop. They are allowed to use Spitters.
• StarMarine Scouts are in the same situation as Colonial Seals.
• Victor Sappers cannot create or remove cover. Sledders can move only 2 hexes per turn.
• Zrutes cannot use UltraSuits or QuadSuits. Bounding Suits cannot jump.

IV. Movement in a Spaceship

The derelict-spaceship rules address these problems with a hidden-movement system. Every soldier is represented on the map, not by his counter, but by a special marker called a question marker. These markers are numbered, and each number corresponds to a number on a soldiers' track sheet, which you should keep the other player from seeing. You can look at a marker, check the track sheet, and know which soldier is really there. But your opponent won't know. Choose which color, blue or yellow, will represent your soldiers. Each player gets one track sheet.

To add to the fog of war, you get more question markers than you'll ever need. You use these extras on the map as dummies, to represent places where your soldiers might be, to keep the enemy guessing. You can put these on the map at any time, in any place where an enemy soldier can't see them, or take them off at will. You can move them as if they were soldiers, or leave them on "guard duty," or do anything else a soldier could do, to confuse the other player. For instance, you can put one question marker on top of another, move one, and leave the other. Which one is the soldier and which is the dummy? You know; the other guy doesn't. Maybe they're both dummies. If a hallway forks, you can send equal-strength patrols down both branches, and only you know which "patrol" is real.

When soldiers are in sight of each other, the question markers come off and get replaced by the real soldier counters. If one of the "soldiers" is really a dummy, take it off the map. It may happen that a dummy marker meets an enemy dummy marker. In that case, remove them both.

After an encounter ends, replace the soldiers with question markers again. It's smart to replace them with different-numbered markers, so the other player can't make a mental note that (for example) marker #11 is your Sergeant.

All doors are closed at the start of the battle. Soldiers cannot enter a hex through a DOOR marker; they must open the door first. It takes one move unit to open a door, or to close it again, from an adjacent hex.

It takes one extra move unit to enter a hex with a blue chair (these are usually next to control consoles).

There are ladders in some of the spaceship maps. It takes 2 move units for a soldier to go up or down a ladder. Soldiers in heavy armor, powered or otherwise, cannot use ladders. Neither can soldiers who don't normally move on two legs, like Saur Styros or most Swarm things.

Ladders that go below main deck level lead to small, cramped access passages. No soldier can move more than 1 hex/turn in such passages. Ranged weapons are at -1 to-hit here, and close-combat weapons are at -1 damage. Spaces above main deck level have normal rules for movement and combat.

Any corridor that ends at the edge of the map becomes an air lock; place an air lock from map #099 next to that hex. The rules for air locks are as follows:

1. An air lock can hold two soldiers for each hex it contains.
2. One soldier can leave an air-lock hex and enter an adjacent map hex each turn; this takes one move unit.
3. After an air lock empties, it takes one turn to restore air pressure and take in more soldiers.
4. Thus, a standard one-hex air lock can hold two soldiers, and works as follows:
   • on the first turn, one soldier leaves the lock.
   • on the second turn, the other soldier leaves.
   • on the third turn, two more soldiers enter the lock.
5. The big cargo lock in map #090 works the same way, but in triples -- it holds six men, and three can leave at a time. In this case, leaving the air lock means standing on the lock, not in an adjacent hex.

V. Combat on a Spaceship

A soldier who fails his morale check on a spaceship will run straight away from the last enemy he saw. There is no map edge, no way off the ship, so he will keep running until he hits a dead end (in which case he stops) or finds another enemy (in which case he turns and runs the other way). A broken soldier who cannot move will freeze.

VI. Scenarios