Plague on the Dice Gods

It's been a phenomenom throught my gaming career that the Dice Gods hate me. If there is any form of necessity in me making a roll then I'll roll a critical fail. I'm well known for it. Last night the Dice Gods had it in for everyone. Pretty much everyone failed any roll that cold help them out, and if I hadn't discarded a Natural 20 at one point then it would have been campaign over.

From the player perspective it started in almost the best possible manner with Three stunning Wendy despite her +45% save vs stun when I, as GM, rolled 94.

At this point Three decided to empty both magazines of the Stunner into Wendy's head. Two's almost critical failure on her "Andoid Knowledge" skill roll (Yes you seem to know quite a bit about Androids Two, at least in terms of their generic capabilities and how they operate) the set the scene for the rest of the evening. Even when Two asked about how to shut an Android down, when she did make her skill roll, didn't result in them connecting the 'flash' from the Android as Three destroyed her Neural Core, with my answer of "an Electrical Overload would do it, such as from a high capacity battery or similar discharge", and then the clarification "yes a stunner can do it". Five at this point was also noisly stating that they "needed the Andoid's head intact".. so not fried and completely useless.

At this point I had to attempt to try and workout how they could regain control of the ship since cracking Wendy's encryption, assuming they could manage it would take hours to days, and they didn't have the luxuary of that amount of time.... slightly more than they thought, until they shut the reactor down....

Five had indicated at the end of the last session 2 weeks ago that she was going to shut the reactor down, so I had already worked out what would happen and more importantly what they would need to do inorder to restart the reactor, which was probably the more important aspect. Five at this point did make a decent IQ check. Normally the reactor would only be shutdown at a Space Station where they had access to a power supply to be able to restart it. It was possible that the 'fuel storage' (read stored power) on the Marauder would be enough, but they would need to couple the Marauder to the Reactor Input Power Coupling, for which they would need a cable. I had assumed that they'd check that had the materials to make such a cable and make it before they shut the reactor down.. I was incorrect in my assumption.

With Wendy effectively now dead and out of the picture, Five moved to shut the reactor down, discovering that there is a system level interlock that prevents the reactor from being shutdown whilst the FTL drive is active (uncontrolled exits from FTL can lead to complications). However, there was an Emergency Shutdown procedure, but this required authority from 2 'flag' officers. Given she'd already given herself such permissions when she hacked the system when they first awoke, she only needed one other person. Two provided the Authority, and the shutdown initiated.

At T-20 the reator begins venting its reaction plasma. At T-15 the FTL/Nav system issues a warning "Unexpected Anomaly detected in FTL envelope" (effectively the venting plasma modifying the envelope). At T-5 venting completes and the system counts down the remaining 5 seconds to full shutdown, dropping the Razza back into normal space. All the ship systems, including all the artificial gravity shutsdown, and the emergency life support comes online.

It is at this point they consider how they are going to possibly couple the Marauder to the Reactor Power Coupling (all the power couplings, along with most of the cooling are concentrated on the Upper Hull Deck in the 'trench'. They work out they are going to need a cable and remember that the ship has 2 engineering bays, the 'control bay' (as it were) where the Androids cradle is, and the 'maintenance bay', where there us a 'nanite manufacturing tank' which given the right materials as a base can fabricate items to a set of plans. Diverting some power from Life Support they power the tanks and discern the materials need to produce the heavy duty power coupling cable they need. They then set about fetching all the materials needed, most of which are distributed between the containers of 'Assorted Scrap Metals' and the "Assorted Mixed Recycling' with a few containers of powdered compounds from their own stores. It takes them about 20 minutes to gather the materials.

Whist the cable is being fabricated, attention turns to how to get the Marauder out of its shuttle bay, given the hanger doors are no longer powered (Note with all the doors on 'Manual' you could have opened then from the console on the Marauder whilst in FTL. They 'retract' so don't disrupt the FTL envelope.). The added complication is that the Shuttle bay is not normally presurised, and the Marauder docks with it's rear (and only) door against the airlock thereby providing the necessary seal. Note that the 'room' between the lift and the door to the Marauder can under 'normal' circumstances (ie when the ship has power) act as a large airlock if necessary. With no power the doors will have to be cranked open manually, which can only be done from inside the hanger bay. Six, Three, and Seven board the Marauder, Six as pilot, and Three and Seven as 'labour' to open the doors. Six undocks the Marauder and moves it forward to provide clearance for Three and Seven to exit into the hanger bay. They begin cranking the doors open.

The cable takes 25 minutes to manufacture but draws 45 minutes worth of power from Life Support. They have 30 minutes remaining.. (slightly more than I thought during the session as I suffered a maths failure). Opening the hanger doors reveals exactly how dangerously close to the sun they are, especially as all the ionization and hull temperature gauges on the Marauder begin to climb up into the red. Three and Seven reboard the Marauder, and Six make a somewhat bumpy undock, before docking deftly to the top of the Razza.

Meanwhile Two, aided by One and Four, maneuvers the cable into the upper hull air lock (note what I forgot at the time is that you were all operating in Zero-G, so whilst the cable had 'Mass' if didn't have 'Weight', although Two was still the most suitable person to maneuvre the cable about).

As Seven, being punished by the 'Dice Gods' drifts into space, Two and Three maneuver the cable into position to connect it to the Reactor Power Input Couple (which Two succeeds in correctly identifying). Whilst Two connects the reactor end Three attempts to connect the other end to the Marauder, and is punished harshly by the Dice Gods (at least he was both tethered and 'inside' so couldn't go anywhere, and with the Reactor off I couldn't electricut him either).

With the reactor end coupled Two moves to couple the other end to the Marauder. As life support fails and with the cable connected Five issues the command to restart the Reactor. The Marauder goes offline as it's power is exhausted, and the reactor splutters into life, albeit at significantly reduced power initially.

Three manages to retrieve Seven from where he's being toasted by the radiation stream from the Sun, although by yet another quirk of the Dice Gods he takes significantly more damage than Seven does for his efforts. Six exits the Marauder and lauches himself  on the wrong trajectory to get to the airlock. Eventually he is persudaed to reel himself back to the Marauder (yes he bothered to secure his techer first) before succeeding on his second attempt.

Meanwhile, down in Engineering Emily(Five) has been battling the Ships AI to gain access via the back door to Navigation and Helm Control, eventually succeeding (and yes this was the Natural 20 I discarded). With a minimal level of control secured, at least enough to fire up the engines and reverse course, the Razza slows and then eventually pulls away from the sun, gaining speed as the output of the reactor ramps to a nominally 'normal' level (actually its only operating at 80%.. a lot of the ship systems have taken damage during the close encounter with the sun!).

My problem now is what to do if the Dice Gods sanction Five next week and she doesn't make her roll to break Wendy's encryption..

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