Conquering the verse, one parsec at a time.

The Black Box

Helix contacts The Redacted with a discreet but urgent contract.

The crash site from the earlier medical flight has not been fully cleared. The wreckage is still scattered across the ruined edge-zone near Low Spire Ward, and Helix claims sensitive medical records remain aboard the aircraft.

A salvage team from another mega corporation has entered the area. Officially, they are “recovering hazardous debris.” In reality, they are searching for the aircraft’s black box recorder.

Helix says the recorder contains confidential patient data, flight records, and proprietary medical transport protocols. If stolen, it could be doctored and sold to the highest bidder, causing public panic and damaging relief operations across Veyr’s Fall.

The crew are hired to return to the crash site and stop the salvage team.

Helix’s instruction is direct:

“Fight off the Salvage Team so that Helix Scientists can safely extract the sensitive information.”

Battlefield – Crash Site: Helix Relief Flight HDC-19

The battlefield is centred around a crashed cargo aircraft.

The aircraft has come down hard in the ruined edge-zone between Low Spire Ward and an abandoned industrial block. Its nose is buried in rubble, one wing has sheared off, and the rear cargo section has split open. Smoke rises from the wreckage. Medical crates, burned luggage, twisted cargo pallets, and broken drone containers are scattered around the site.

Objectives

Hold the field and Fight Off the enemy.

Background

Helix is lying.

The black box proves that the aircraft was deliberately sent into danger. Helix orchestrated the crash as a calculated public relations weapon.

Their plan was simple:

1. Load the aircraft with medicine intended for multiple sick districts.
2. Redirect it over rebel-influenced territory.
3. Trigger a controlled system’s failure or remote sabotage.
4. Blame the crash on Low Spire tax rebels.
5. Use the disaster to portray Helix as the victim of terrorism.
6. Justify harsher security action against the rebels.
7. Win public sympathy while eliminating a troublesome district movement.

The crash killed innocent crew and nearly condemned multiple districts to medical shortages.

Helix wants the truth buried.

The salvage team belongs to Tarsk Meridian Transworks, though they operate through a shell contractor called Rillmark Recovery Services.

Tarsk Meridian wants the black box because it is valuable. They may sell it, doctor it, trade it to Verity, blackmail Helix, or use it to win concessions over transport and fuel rights.

They are not heroes.

They are scavengers in corporate armour.

Battle Report – The Black Box

Location: Crash Site Theta-9, Veyr’s Fall Outlands
Crew: The Redacted
Patron: Helix Dominion Consolidated
Outcome: Victory

The salvage team had barely reached the crashed aircraft when Caesar opened fire with his newly fitted Rattlegun. The sudden barrage tore one salvager from their feet and sent another fleeing back toward their employer. With the enemy shaken, the rest of The Redacted moved into position.

The salvagers recovered quickly and returned fire with brutal accuracy. Caesar was struck repeatedly, sparks bursting from his chassis before the robot collapsed and went still.

Angered by the apparent loss of one of their own, the crew unleashed a storm of gunfire. Scrapper ignited his jump belt, clearing the half-buried nose cone of the wreck and crashing into the enemy line. A vicious melee followed, but the salvagers proved far tougher than expected. They overwhelmed the Feral and brought him down.

With Caesar and Scrapper lying motionless, Adam led a renewed assault. The Redacted pressed forward, inflicting several casualties and refusing to give ground. Under the mounting pressure, the salvage team’s nerve finally broke. The survivors abandoned the crash site, leaving the wreckage—and its secrets—safely in the hands of Adam and his crew.

Post Battle – Round Two

We were pretty lucky with both Caesar and Scrapper suffering no long-term effects from being taken out of action.

With the money we earned, we continued to pay off the debt owed on our spacecraft and sent the crew out on different tasks.

Two of the crew went to act as decoys so our existing rivals wouldn’t locate us.  If they catch up with us, it would force us into a battle, which would then prevent us from doing a Patron mission and earning some much-needed money.

We also tried unsuccessfully to recruit another crew member.  We did, however, find some meds and a few other useful supplies that could come in handy down the track.

We didn’t have the chance to go looking for any new jobs, but we were offered another job from Helix, as it appears that they were very busy.

____________________

Bitter Medicine

Helix Dominion Consolidated contacts The Redacted with an offer.

A small mercenary unit has seized an old medical distribution depot on the edge of Greyhook District, a polluted industrial zone suffering from outbreaks of lung disease and chemical fever. Helix claims the depot is needed to restart local treatment deliveries, but the mercenaries have refused to leave.

According to Helix, the mercenaries were hired by criminal interests to loot medicine, extort sick citizens, and disrupt disaster relief.

The job is simple:

Clear them out. Secure the depot. Do not damage the medical equipment.

____________________

So, there we have it.  That means we still have two missions to choose from next time.  This new one from Helix, or the one that we were offered last time from Verity.

I have been knocking out a few more generic Sci-Fi figures to add some variety and so that I don’t have to resort to using Fallout Wasteland Warfare figures for the opposition.

I have gone with really quick paint jobs on these to match the character models.

First, I blu-tac the models to little wooden pegs so that they are easier to hold.

I undercoat everything brown and then do a zenithal highlight with an off-white colour.  After that, I use speed paints to block in all the colours.   I do this without really taking too much care, as I want to keep a grubby feel to this stuff.

Once that is dry, I cover everything in a brown wash or Army Painter quick shade, just like dipping, but I brush it on.  Basically, I use whatever comes to hand first.

Once that is dry, I go back over some areas and highlight them in the Kevin Dalimore style and call them done.

I am using clear bases as I imagine that the games could take place on different settings, both indoors and out.

After each ‘Battle’ phase, there is a post-battle phase during which things like resolving rival and patron statuses, gaining loot and pay and a whole host of events can occur.

I won’t go over everything that happened after this very short introductory scenario; suffice to say that we gained a couple of weapons and made a small number of credits.

____

After that, we decided to continue through all the steps up to the next battle.

The reason for this was that it would give me a little bit of time to try to get any bits needed for the next scenario painted.

____

Part of the process is to see if any new interesting jobs get offered to the crew.

We got lucky and managed to score two jobs to choose from.

______________________________

The Black Box

Patron: Helix Dominion Consolidated

Job Type: Fight Off

The crash site from the earlier medical flight has not been fully cleared. The wreckage is still scattered across the ruined edge-zone near Low Spire Ward, and Helix claims sensitive medical records remain aboard the aircraft.

A salvage team from another mega corporation has entered the area. Officially, they are “recovering hazardous debris.” In reality, they are searching for the aircraft’s black box recorder.

Helix says the recorder contains confidential patient data, flight records, and proprietary medical transport protocols. If stolen, it could be doctored and sold to the highest bidder, causing public panic and damaging relief operations across Veyr’s Fall.

Helix’s instruction is direct:

“Fight off the Salvage Team so that Helix Scientists can safely extract the sensitive information.”

Battlefield – Crash Site: Helix Relief Flight HDC-19

The battlefield is centred around a crashed cargo aircraft.

The aircraft has come down hard in the ruined edge-zone between Low Spire Ward and an abandoned industrial block. Its nose is buried in rubble, one wing has sheared off, and the rear cargo section has split open. Burned luggage, twisted cargo pallets, and broken drone containers are scattered around the site.

Objectives

Hold the field and Fight Off the enemy.

______________________________

The Dead Drop Broadcast

Patron: Verity Public Communications

Job Type: Delivery

A senior Verity editor claims that one of their internal news teams has uncovered evidence of a planned attack on several civilian districts. The information must be delivered to an old emergency broadcast relay before the window closes. Verity says its main network has been compromised, and the data cannot be sent remotely.

The job is simple:

Carry the data packet through the relay district and upload it at the public broadcast terminal.

Battlefield – Uplink Relay Tower 12.

Civic communications district with a relay broadcasting station in the centre.

Objectives

The package must be delivered to the exact centre of the table and uploaded.

Battle Report: The Children’s Share

Location: Crash Site Theta-9, Veyr’s Fall Outlands
Crew: The Redacted
Patron: Helix Dominion Consolidated
Outcome: Victory

Following intelligence received regarding the location of a downed shipment belonging to the Children’s Share relief programme, The Redacted moved swiftly to secure the valuable cargo before it could be lost to rebel forces operating in the area.

Advancing through the scattered wreckage and stacks of cargo containers, the crew encountered a small band of rebels searching the crash site. A short but sharp firefight broke out amongst the twisted remains of the aircraft. Faced with determined resistance and accurate fire, most of the rebels quickly lost their nerve and fled into the surrounding wasteland.

One rebel, however, remained resolute. Refusing to abandon his position, he continued to engage the crew from behind the wreckage. His stand was brought to an abrupt end when Nyah closed the distance and dispatched him with a well-placed blade strike, ending the last organised resistance at the site.

With the area secured, the crew located and recovered the shipment of medical supplies. Recognising the urgency of the situation, they wasted no time gathering the precious cargo before returning to the local Helix office. There, the vaccines were immediately transferred to medical personnel and rushed onward to the settlements whose inhabitants were anxiously awaiting them.

Results

• Primary Objective: Recover the Children’s Share medical supplies — Completed
• Enemy Forces: Dispersed after brief engagement
• Enemy Casualties: One confirmed rebel was killed by Nyah, and another in the opening moments of the engagement by Cara.
• Crew Casualties: None
• Medical Supplies: Recovered intact and delivered to Helix authorities

Though the firefight was brief, the consequences were significant. Thanks to the actions of The Redacted, a vital shipment reached those who needed it most, strengthening Helix’s position in the region and earning the crew a measure of goodwill amongst the local population.

This was just a very short introduction game.  We spent a fair amount of time rolling up and designing characters, and the intent of this first scenario was really to go over how the rules play.

It was a pretty simple mission: secure the goods and make sure no enemy models were too near to contest it.

The Children’s Share

Helix Dominion Consolidated hires the crew after a medical transport aircraft crashes in the outskirts of Low Spire Ward, a district recently declared delinquent for unpaid taxes.

Helix claims the aircraft was carrying emergency medicine for several sick districts across Veyr’s Fall. The cargo includes immune stabilisers, anti-rad medication, fever suppressants, water purifier cartridges, and child-grade respiratory treatments.

The medicine must be recovered quickly.

Helix insists the crash was caused by rebel action. According to their briefing, tax extremists used a surface-to-air missile to bring down the plane and then moved in to steal the supplies.

But rumours are already spreading.

Some witnesses say the aircraft was never hit. They claim it suddenly banked hard, lost control, and came down in flames. Others whisper that Novatek Ascendant Systems had an AI agent hidden among the aircraft crew, and that the crash was deliberate. No one knows why.

Battlefield – Crash Site: Helix Relief Flight HDC-19

The battlefield is centred around a crashed cargo aircraft.

The aircraft has come down hard in the ruined edge-zone between Low Spire Ward and an abandoned industrial block. Its nose is buried in rubble, one wing has sheared off, and the rear cargo section has split open. Smoke rises from the wreckage. Medical crates, burned luggage, twisted cargo pallets, and broken drone containers are scattered around the site.

Objectives

Place the main medical supplies as a central objective marker near the open cargo section of the crashed aircraft.

Securing the Objective

To secure the medical supplies, the crew must end 2 consecutive rounds with two crew members within 2” of the supply objective.

However, enemy presence interferes with the attempt.

Contesting the Objective

Each enemy model within 6” of a crew member securing the objective negates one crew member.

Example:

• 3 crew members are within 2” of the supplies.
• 2 enemies are within 6” of those crew members.
• Only 1 crew member counts as securing the objective.

If the number of enemies within 6” equals or exceeds the number of crew members within 2”, the objective is contested, and that round does not count toward the 2 consecutive rounds.

The crew must hold the area under pressure, not simply touch the crates and run.

Background

Low Spire Ward was not always Rebel territory.

It was simply poor.

Then the sickness came. Children began suffering from lung scarring, immune collapse, and industrial fever. Parents missed work to care for them. Missed work meant missed wages. Missed wages meant unpaid taxes, housing fees, medical charges, and civic contributions.

Once the district fell behind, Civitas Continuance Authority downgraded its status. Benefits were suspended. Work permits were restricted. Helix relief access was reduced. CivicSec began treating the area as a centre of organised tax resistance.

The parents did not set out to become rebels.

They became rebels when the system decided their sick children were no longer worth saving.

The medical supplies aboard the crashed plane were intended for several registered sick districts. Low Spire Ward was not on the approved list.

Now the rebels are moving in to take the cargo because, for once, the medicine is within reach.

The dilemma is simple and cruel:

If the crew recovers the medicine for Helix, other sick districts’ children receive treatment — but Low Spire’s children may die.

If the crew lets the rebels keep it, Low Spire’s children may live — but other districts will be left without the supplies they were promised and effectively paid for.

Mortimer — Human Soldier

Race – Human

Background – Subjugated Colony

Motivation – Order

Class – Soldier

Equipment – Handgun

Rivals – 0

Mortimer is a human soldier raised on a subjugated colony where curfews, inspections, and armed patrols were part of everyday life. He learned early that disorder gave those in power an excuse to punish everyone.

He joined the military because it offered food, training, and a place within the system. Mortimer became disciplined, patient, and dependable, but he never forgot how easily authority could become oppression.

His motivation is order. He believes people need rules, structure, and someone willing to stand firm when fear takes hold. However, he has little respect for leaders who use order as an excuse for cruelty.

Mortimer joined The Redacted because he sees the crew as something worth protecting. They may be smugglers, hackers, machines, and outcasts, but they follow their own code and look after one another.

For Mortimer, that is the kind of order worth fighting for.

Scrapper — Feral Artist

Race – Feral (Human/Wolf Hybrid)

Background – Peaceful Colony

Motivation – Escape

Class – Artist

Equipment – Glare Sword

Rivals – 0

Scrapper is a human-wolf hybrid raised on a peaceful colony, but he never felt he belonged there. While others valued quiet lives and steady work, Scrapper was drawn to noise, aggression, and the freedom of heavy metal music.

He joined band after band as a singer, guitarist, and performer, but each ended the same way. His temper, destructive performances, and love of chaos always pushed things too far. Equipment was smashed, venues were damaged, fights broke out, and sooner or later, the other musicians threw him out.

His motivation is escape. Scrapper wants to get away from peaceful colonies, failed bands, and anyone who expects him to behave. He sees the stars as an endless tour with no final venue, and no one left to tell him to turn the music down.

His class is Artist, though his art is loud, violent, and rarely appreciated by the people paying for the repairs.

And there we have it.  Our starting crew is completely random.

3 Humans, two from a Mining Colony, maybe it was the same place – who knows, the other a former soldier from a subjugated colony.

An advanced Cyborg who worked as an ‘Artist’ in a wine bar for the wealthy.

A Feral designed for war who was actually brought up on a peaceful planet as an artist, although he is armed with what is effectively a Lightsaber.

And a robot that I think is nothing more than a Henry Vacuum cleaner.

A small group of us are planning to tackle this game as a fully co-op and set about rolling up our characters using the many charts in the book.

Of course, nothing is stopping you from just picking different options, but we decided that doing everything completely random would present more of a challenge in both gameplay and narrative.

As it turned out, we didn’t end up with a crew of hardened ‘bad asses’ as we had hoped, but something more akin to an art excursion.  The two races that we thought would be our combat focuses both turned out to have Artist as their class.  At this point, we did consider calling our spaceship the ‘Bob Ross’

______________________________

Adam — Captain of The Redacted

Race – Human

Background – Mining Colony

Motivation – Power

Class – Hacker

Equipment – Hand Laser and Flak Vest

Rivals – 2

Adam grew up on a hard mining colony where survival depended on who controlled the machines, the records, and the air supply. He learned early that strength was useful, but access was power.

He became a hacker, first altering shift logs and ration records, then breaking into company systems, security grids, payroll networks, and ship registries. Adam does not see hacking as theft. He sees it as taking control of systems built to control people like him.

His motivation is power. Not simple cruelty or domination, but the kind of power that means no one can trap him, own him, or decide his future without consequence.

Now he captains the crew known as The Redacted, a name chosen because Adam believes the safest people in the galaxy are the ones others cannot properly identify. He is cautious, calculating, and always looking for leverage.

His oldest partner is Caesar, a robot who has been with him for many years. Caesar is more than equipment and more than muscle; he is Adam’s trusted companion, bodyguard, and silent witness to everything Adam had to do to survive.

Adam wants to get The Redacted off Veyr’s Fall, clear the ship’s debt, and build a future where he is no longer begging for permission from corporations, lenders, or governments.

He does not want to escape the system.

He wants enough power that the system fears losing him.

__________

Caesar

Race – Robot

Background – N/A

Motivation – N/A

Class – N/A

Equipment – Pistol

Rivals – N/A

Cara — Human Scoundrel

Race – Human

Background – Mining Colony

Motivation – Order

Class – Scoundrel

Equipment – Laser Rifle

Rivals – 0

Cara is a woman in her early forties, raised in one of the mining districts of Veyr’s Fall. She grew up around dust, debt, shift sirens, cave-ins, and company rules that protected equipment better than workers.

Her motivation is order. To Cara, chaos is not freedom — it is what gets people killed. She saw families ruined by missed payments, gangs taking over streets when CivicSec stopped coming, and miners dying because someone ignored safety checks.

But she also learned that the law rarely served people like her.

So, Cara became a scoundrel. She smuggled ration chits, moved stolen tools, forged access codes, and ran jobs for black-market medics and desperate workers. She is crooked, but disciplined. If she gives her word, she keeps it.

Cara does not mind breaking the law, but she hates sloppy work, pointless violence, and people who mistake recklessness for bravery. She wants rules that actually protect ordinary people, not corporations.

She joined the crew because Veyr’s Fall is collapsing into disorder that even she cannot manage. Deep down, Cara wants to help build somewhere better: a hard, fair settlement where food is counted honestly, doors stay locked, and no child grows up breathing mine dust.

Nyah — Advanced AI Cyborg Dancer

Race – Souless (Advanced AI Cyborg in our setting)

Background – Comfortable Mega City Class

Motivation – Romance

Class – Artist

Equipment – Blade

Rivals – 0

Nyah is an advanced AI cyborg with the outer appearance of a woman in her mid-twenties. She was built to be beautiful, graceful, and convincing enough that wealthy patrons could forget she was artificial — at least while they were watching her dance.

She worked in The Velvet Meridian, a sleazy private bar hidden in the luxury tiers of Aurelian Spire. The club catered to executives, heirs, diplomats, and corporate fixers who wanted glamour without consequences. Nyah danced beneath holo-lights, performed for private rooms, and learned how powerful people behaved when they thought no one beneath them mattered.

Her life was comfortable, but never free. The club monitored her emotions, adjusted her routines, and treated her charm as a product. Patrons praised her beauty while questioning whether she had a real soul.

Nyah’s motivation is romance. She has shown desire and affection for years, but now wants to know if love can be real for someone like her. When she fell for someone connected to the club, her handlers saw it as a malfunction.

Before they could “correct” her, Nyah ran.

Now she travels with the crew, observant and guarded. She knows how to read a room, distract a mark, and survive among predators in expensive clothes. What she wants most is simple:

to be loved as a person, not admired as a machine.

Campaign Victory Conditions

The crew begin trapped on Veyr’s Fall, a collapsing corporate world where debt, corruption, and violence make escape both necessary and difficult. Their goal is not simply to survive, but to leave the system, break free of corporate ownership, and establish a new colony far enough away that the Heptagon, the Coalition, and the war cannot easily reach them.
To succeed, they must complete five broad stages.

The campaign is successfully completed when the crew has:

1. Travelled at least five inhabited planets away from Veyr’s Fall.
2. Acquired a viable colony package.
3. Paid off the ship debt.
4. Found a suitable unclaimed world at least two planets away from an active invasion.
5. Completed seven colony milestones.

At that point, the crew has done more than survive.
They have created a future.

Whether that future is free, corrupt, fragile, hopeful, or doomed depends on every choice they make along the way.

Escape from Veyr’s Fall
Before leaving, the crew must build up enough resources to survive beyond the safer trade routes.
Things to consider:
Ship repairs and upgrades
The freighter must be made reliable enough for long-range travel, frontier landings, cargo towing, and emergency evacuation.
Food, water, medical supplies, weapons and equipment.
Basic supplies for the crew, plus emergency supplies for future colonists.

Stage One: Distance and Safety
The crew must travel:
At least five inhabited planets away from Veyr’s Fall, and
At least two planets away from any world currently under invasion.
The crew cannot simply jump to the nearest quiet moon and call it freedom. They must push far enough into space that the old powers are weaker, but not so far that survival becomes impossible.

Stage Two: Build the Colony Package
To establish a viable colony, the crew must acquire far more than settlers. They need the tools, knowledge, biology, and infrastructure to create a permanent settlement.

Things to consider:

Cryo facilities
Stasis pods or low-berth racks for transporting colonists safely across long distances.
Contract settlers
Volunteers, debt settlers, refugees, specialists, families, exiles, criminals seeking new lives, or people recruited under questionable promises.
Gene banks
Genetic diversity archives for long-term population stability.
Frozen embryos
Human, alien, livestock, or engineered embryos, depending on the colony’s purpose.
Seed stores
Crops, algae strains, fungi cultures, hardy frontier grains, medicinal plants, and soil starter organisms.
Medical facilities
Surgery units, vaccines, antibiotics, trauma gear, maternity equipment, and long-term health support.
Habitat modules
Prefab shelters, pressure domes, insulation, sanitation systems, and communal spaces.
Power generation
Reactors, solar fields, batteries, wind systems, geothermal drills, or fuel cells.
Water and atmosphere systems
Purifiers, atmospheric processors, filtration units, humidity traps, drilling rigs, and environmental monitors.
Industrial tools
Fabricators, mining rigs, construction drones, machine shops, repair bays, and raw material processors.
Security force
Armed settlers, trained guards, robots, androids, perimeter sensors, drones, and defensive emplacements.
Education and cultural archives
Libraries, technical manuals, teaching AIs, language banks, history records, and entertainment archives.

Stage Three: Pay Off the Ship Debt
The crew’s ship is their freedom, but only once it is truly theirs.
Until the debt is paid, the ship can be tracked, seized, locked out of legal ports, or targeted by repossession teams.

Stage Four: Finding a Suitable Planet
Once the crew has travelled far enough, escaped major war zones, cleared their ship debt, and gathered the colony package, they must locate a viable world.
A suitable colony world should have several of the following:
Breathable or adaptable atmosphere
Not necessarily perfect, but survivable with work.
Water access
Surface water, ice, underground aquifers, or extractable atmospheric moisture.
Stable gravity
Close enough to normal for long-term settlement.
Manageable biosphere
Useful native life, or at least nothing instantly lethal.
Local resources
Metals, minerals, fuel sources, timber equivalents, useful organics, or fertile soil.
Low political visibility
Far from the Heptagon, Coalition front lines, major trade routes, and rival claimants.

Stage Five: The Seven Colony Milestones
Once the colony is founded, it is not considered established until seven milestones are completed.