Terror on the Halcyon

(set in the world of Centauri Knights)

Adventure Background

From a tourism brochure:

“The luxury resort station Halcyon orbits the planet Regulus 4, and was by built Carnival Interstellar as an extension of its space cruise ship line. Opening for business in 2268, the Halcyon offers all of the amenities of Carnival’s old Earth cruise ships, including a top-rated casino, multiple entertainment venues, and awarding winning dining establishments and spa services.

In addition, the Halcyon offers shuttle excursions to the beautiful planet below, Regulus IV, where guests can marvel at the luscious, unspoiled flora or go on safaris to view the untamed fauna. With over a dozen planetary ports of call, each offering a different exciting adventure, your imagination is the only limit!

With hundreds of staff to serve your every need, no other company has a facility that can match the sheer beauty and majesty Carnival’s Halcyon station and its accompanying planetary complexes.”

Decks of the resort station Halcyon (by level)

1. Command/medical 2. Crew Quarters 3. Kitchen/Dining Room 4. Kitchen/Dining Room 5. Casino/Gaming Parlor 6. Entertainment/Dance Club 7. Entertainment/Dance Club 8. Exercise/Sports Complex 9. Pool/Spa Services 10. Guest Suites 11. Guest Suites 12. Guest Suites 13. Guest Suites 14. Docking Facility/Supplies 15. Power Station/Storage

Introduction

Thirty six hours ago, an undocumented meteor swarm struck the resort space station Halcyon and its accompanying facilities on the planet Regulus IV. The swarm damaged the station’s power core and

communication grid, penetrating the hull in some areas and causing the station to temporarily lose power, making communication impossible. When the Halcyon’s backup generator kicked on shortly thereafter, the station’s force field sealed any breaches to prevent decompression, and crew on every deck were able to report their status to the captain.

Unbeknownst to the Halcyon’s guests and crew, the swarm deposited microscopic alien bacteria onto the station, which was then sucked into the station’s air circulation system and spread to all decks. Once inhaled by humans, the bacterial virus killed their host within five minutes and reanimated the corpse, transforming its victim into an undead monstrosity. Many on the station were able to resist the microbe’s initial infection, but were instead infected when they were attacked and bitten by those around them, putting the contaminant directly into their bloodstream.

The first messages from the station to reach the outside world reported that power was intermittent and that radiation leaking from the damaged power core was making it difficult to get accurate readings on the station’s condition. Ten minutes later, further reports detailed an increase in violent assaults on the station – both guest against guest and guest against crew. Security had been dispatched to address the problem. The final communication from the Halcyon was a garbled distress call. The first officer announced that the station had been overrun by an unknown force and military aid was requested. The communication grid then went offline and contact was lost.

The Adventure Begins

The heroes are Terran Confederacy Marines, assigned to protect the space lanes and defend human interests throughout the galaxy. Their unit had just successfully completed a mission and was enroute to an orbiting base for debriefing, when the Halcyon’s distress call was received at the base. Being closer to the Halcyon than any other ship, the heroes’ squad was redirected to the station. They are ordered to investigate and neutralize the problem, both on the station and on the planet below.

Nearing the station, the heroes spot an escape shuttle floating lifelessly in Regulus IV’s orbit. A shuttle of this size should hold a thousand people, at minimum. Sensors detect no life forms aboard but through the shuttle’s port holes, lights can be seen flickering on and off. With a close enough look, the heroes can spot dark red stains (blood) on some of the windows. The station’s other three escape shuttles are nowhere in sight.

Life support and artificial gravity still seem to be operational, but sensors detect no signs of life or movement on board the Halcyon. Searches will have to be conducted deck by deck, as long range scanning is being blocked by the Halcyon’s power core radiation leak. Though the backup generators are operational, they seem to be struggling to consistently power the massive station. They must have been damaged during the meteor strike, as well.

Aboard the Halcyon

Landing in the station’s bay is a little harrowing, as the Halcyon’s auto-docking computer is off-line. The dropship sets down next to the stations compliment of fighters – half a dozen small ships used to keep pirates and raiders at bay. The ships are all in working condition, though they are electronically locked down. Intermittent power outages give the docking area a strobe light effect, making it difficult to see more than a few feet at a time. The heroes need to be extra cautious about their surroundings, as the power may go out at an inopportune moment.

Once aboard, the heroes’ unit is split in two, with five platoons (5 men each), along with one of the unit’s two androids, being deposited on the station. The other five platoons stay on the dropship for the trip to Regulus IV. The heroes are in one of the platoons left on the station. After depositing the men and their equipment, the dropship launches from the Halcyon’s dock, effectively abandoning the heroes until the ship’s return from the planet to pick them up.

Splitting the men into smaller groups, the sergeant in charge assigns each platoon a different group of decks to search. The heroes are given Decks 5-9. The mission objectives are to search the station for survivors and eliminate any threats; report any findings to the commanding officer immediately.

Working through the station, the heroes find evidence of violent struggle everywhere. Blood stains the carpets, tables and chairs are broken or overturned, and shattered glass litters the ground. Oddly, not a single person – alive or dead – can be seen. (The risers have moved all of the bodies into a couple of rooms on each deck, keeping them out of sight and feasting on the remains.)

Suddenly, as if on cue, the enemy attacks. Zombies swarm out of every room on the deck, attempting to surround and overrun the heroes. The heroes need to make a decision – fight or flee. If they fight, the horde will eventually thin out, but not before the heroes are forced to use almost all of their ammunition and medical supplies. If they head for safety, whether that be back to the elevator (to leave the deck) or into an interior room (which can then be barricaded), they will have to fight through the risers standing between them and the exit.

Attempting to make a getaway on the elevator will create a new set of issues for the heroes. The power conveniently goes out while the heroes are between decks, leaving them stranded in the dark. If they try to wait until the power returns, risers from the decks above them will eventually break open the exterior elevator doors, dropping themselves onto the top of the elevator car. The heroes will then either have to fight the risers as they attempt to get into the elevator, or pry the car’s interior doors open and climb out mid-level. Climbing out may take them out of the frying pan and into the fire, though, as another zombie mob may be waiting for them on a different deck.

If the heroes fight off the enemy and manage to complete their search mission, they can find survivors in the athletic trainers office on Deck 8, behind an electronically locked and physically barricaded door. On Deck 2, some of the Halcyon’s crew have also survived, locking themselves in the station’s emergency armory. These non-combatants will be a hindrance to the heroes, as they are unarmed, ineffectual fighters who move slowly.

Booty Call

To make matters even worse, a local pirate gang has taken this opportunity to raid the station. Having intercepted the Halcyon’s distress call, the pirates know that communication is out on the station. They know that the closest military facility is three days journey away and figured to have come and gone – with the Halcyon’s coffers and guests picked clean – long before military aid could arrive. The pirates had no way of knowing that the heroes were only a short trip away from the station at the time and would arrive before them, and with the heroes’ ship being on Regulus IV, the pirates would have no idea they weren’t alone.

If the heroes get into trouble at some point during the adventure, the pirates may come charging in, guns blazing, and inadvertently rescue them. Alternately, the pirates could get into trouble and be holed up on one of the lower decks, in need of rescuing themselves. In this case, if the heroes need motivation to rescue the trapped pirates, the brigands could bargain with them – using the access code to their ship as collateral. Without that code, the heroes would need to spend a bit of time breaking through the pirate ship’s security system before they could make an escape.

The heroes will then need to decide if they want to team up with the pirates for mutual protection, or fight the pirates and the risers at the same time. Either way, the heroes can ultimately use the pirate’s ship to escape the Halcyon. Unfortunately, the ship isn’t big enough to hold more than a dozen Marines. If multiple platoons survive intact and reach the dock, the heroes may have to decide which of their friends gets left behind.

Waiting out the danger

If the heroes decide to find a safe spot and hole up until rescue comes, they will face another problem. After a few hours, the intermittent power failures eventually become permanent, as confused zombies arbitrarily press buttons and pull random levers in the power station. With the power out, the artificial gravity fails, leaving the heroes to float around helplessly. Also, the power loss causes the Halcyon’s orbit to deteriorate. Within twenty four hours, the orbit will decay enough that the station will get caught in Regulus IV’s atmosphere and begin falling toward the planet.

To prevent all of this from happening, within three hours of their arrival on the Halcyon, the heroes must repair the damaged power core and restore primary power. This must be done at the source, so the heroes must brave the station’s radioactive and zombie infested power station.

Miscellany

If the heroes are having too easy a time plowing through the undead, a couple of Gennies or cybernetically enhanced zombies will make them reconsider their tactics.

The heroes should also consider collateral damage, as their weapons may cause damage the Halcyon’s hull and cause explosive depressurization. Grenades, armor piercing rounds, rocket launchers – any one of these could prove deadly. With a faulty power system, the station’s force field may take a while to respond or simply not be able to contain the damage effectively. Any critical weapons failure will have a chance to breach the hull, with this percentage increasing based on the weapon type.

On Regulus IV

Once reports of the approaching meteor swarm came in, the Regulus IV facilities director cancelled all scheduled guest excursions and recalled all shuttles to the main base. The shuttles are now neatly parked in the hangar bay, undisturbed, though several were damaged when meteorites came crashing through the hangar roof and hit them. The shuttles are all locked down and would require a bit of time to start their engines and make them operational.

Coasting into the hangar bay and landing next to the shuttles, the rest of the heroes’ unit splits up and searches the main Carnival planetary complex. An enormous facility, it would probably take several hours to search the building under the best of circumstances. Ravenous zombies getting in the way makes the search a bit less than optimal.

Not long after arrival, the dropship pilot receives reports that the soldiers are under attack. Several platoons are pinned down by attackers on multiple flanks, but none of the other squads are in any position to help. Fearing their comrades will be massacred, the ship’s pilot and co-pilot launch the unit’s Landmaster Armored Personnel Carrier (stored on the dropship) and attempt a daring rescue.

Nobody is left aboard the dropship to receive the distress calls coming from the Halcyon…

Depending on events on the planet, the dropship crew may successfully rescue the marines and make it back to the ship with enough time to reach the stranded soldiers on the station. Or, their vehicle may get surrounded in the complex and get wiped out, leaving the heroes with only one option to get their ride back. As an emergency precaution, if absolutely necessary, a ranking officer (or android) can take

control of a dropship remotely, but this procedure will require time and access to long-range communications equipment.

Part II

The heroes finally manage to escape the doomed Halcyon. Just as they begin punching coordinates to the nearest base into the computer, the ship’s sensors pick up a signal from Regulus IV. It’s a distress call on a military frequency. Some of the heroes’ comrades are still alive on the planet below!

Do the heroes risk their hard earned freedom to rescue their fellow soldiers? Or do they leave their friends to die a gruesome death at the hands of the zombies?

Vallia (from Deathwatch: The Achilus Assault)

In the Imperium, Vallia would be classified as a ‘death world’ and, given the abnormally aggressive nature of its flora and fauna, be declared out of bounds to all but those with the very highest level of authority. The Tau however have far less experience with such worlds, and have yet to fully appreciate the extremes of malevolence that worlds like Vallia can exhibit. The Explorators and Rogue Traders of the Imperium know that death worlds are more than just dangerous environments, a fact that the Tau are only just beginning to understand.

Vallia is almost entirely swathed in jungle, the flora extending to every corner of the surface and every crack below it. Even the seas are choked with carnivorous plant life, as are the lightless caverns deep beneath the ground. In fact, Earth Caste scientists have come to believe that the world’s plant life is dominated by one single organism, its roots extending deep into the world’s crust. In places, roots that must be hundreds of meters in circumference have destabilized the underlying tectonic processes, causing hundreds of volcanoes to erupt across the surface.

Numerous Tau expeditions to Vallia have ended in disaster as the plant life as well as animal life has reacted in concert to expel the invaders. The first three expeditions were completely annihilated, but not before the discovery of unique and highly desirable natural resources in the form of compounds excreted by the carnivorous flora. A fourth expedition was dispatched to confirm these findings, this time accompanied by a Fire Caste battle cadre entirely equipped with battle suits configured to hold the predatory flora and fauna at bay. Although dozens of Fire Warriors died in this mission, samples were recovered and shipped back to Tsua’Malor for analysis. What was discovered during that analysis caused a paradigm shift in the way many Earth Caste xeno-biologists view the evolution of complex symbiotic biospheres, a view which has yet to be accepted by those who have not seen the evidence with their own eyes.

The Earth Caste scientists of Tsua’Malor have discovered that every life form on Vallia is interconnected. This symbiosis goes far beyond the conventional interconnection seen in many life forms, and extends to an amalgamation of will and a form of gestalt intelligence. Though they have yet to fully accept their own findings, the Tau have discovered that the death world of Vallia is in fact sentient, ruled over by a single, utterly malevolent intelligence that can mobilize every single living cell on the planet to repel any who would set foot in its domains.

Part III

After the heroes escape and are debriefed, the military decides to destroy both the Halcyon and the planetary facility, but Carnival Interstellar convinces them to delay their action. To recoup losses from the station and the complex, Carnival’s Board of Trustees votes to hire a mercenary company to eliminate the zombie presence.

The heroes are part of the mercenary unit hired to take care of the problem, assigned to the complex on Regulus IV. The mission is simply to eradicate everything that moves – shoot first and don’t ask any questions. The heroes are well-armed, well-trained, and well-prepared to face what is coming. Once the risers are eliminated throughout Carnival’s facilities, the mercenaries are then to support repair staff as they fix damage suffered during the meteor swarm and subsequent battles, and get the facilities back online.

Little do the heroes know that, by the time the mercenaries arrive on Regulus IV for their mission, the alien infection has mutated and spread to the local flora and fauna. Not only will the heroes have to contend with hundreds of risers, but they will also have zombie animals and man-eating plants to contend with. When the main buildings are finally clear, the remaining mercenaries will have to take up defensive positions to prevent outside creatures from getting into the compound, covering the support staff as they try to erect walls around the complex.

The mercenaries have a limited amount of time to accomplish their mission though, for if they haven’t finished their job in 48 hours, the Terran Navy will orbitally bombard the planet, completely obliterating the complex and killing any remaining survivors.

Part IV

The missing three escape shuttles from the Halcyon launched with survivors – a few of whom may have been infected. The shuttles reach their pre-programmed destination, the nearest human occupied planet, with each landing in a different location. The local populace come out to investigate, only to be savagely attacked by zombies. It’s not long before a full-fledged rising spreads across the entire colony.