WIP – USE ME Starter Pack – Outpost 32

“Craft Delta Tango 3 please identify yourself. I repeat this is Outpost 32 controller traffic please identify so that we can direct you to landing pad Alpha for customs inspection.”

Lorn Abbott had attempted contact with the incoming star craft for more than ten minutes and it was becoming clear that who or whatever was on the ship was not in a talkative mood. Lorn tried again and then waited as the broad spec beam gave him nothing but empty signal in return. He turned to the assistant controller.

“Bernat I think we are going to have trouble. That ship is close enough now for me to get a visual lock. Its a discus and that means it’ ain’t Terran or even an allied species. Typical luck for us isn’t it I mean the 304th Legion only left three standards ago and all we got here is a detachment and the citizen militia.”

Lorn tried once more since Bernat offered nothing but a grunt by way of a reply. This was pointless. He knew the craft could hear him and its vector meant the Outpost could be its only destination. Who were these creatures?  The Central Processor had been running designations for three hours searching its memory for a match to the ship or its markings. Typically the search only took moments once a vessel was in visual range but this alien ship was rare indeed.

The Central Processor toned that its search had returned a positive result and Lorn sighed as Bernat failed to shift his bulk from the console seat even though he was right in front of the CP station. Reaching over Lorn tapped his code into the screen and the information flashed up. Lorn felt sick to the pit of his stomach and after a moment Bernat actually retched.

Lorn picked up the internal com channel and contacted all of the armed Humans and Aliens in the Outpost.

“Alert One. Top Priority! We will have hostile visitors in nine hours time. Confirmation of Zeta Reculians, Greys. Armed and Dangerous. Known slavers and abductors. All outpost security and militia personnel report to command for briefing.”

Lorn Abbott had never held a weapon in his life but the Greys would take him anyway….why did they do this….why?

Work is in progress on the first USE ME Starter Pack titled ‘UMS01 Danger on Outpost 32‘.  As outlined already on the blog here this starter pack will contain all book, miniatures, bases, dice and inserts to play three linked unique scenarios either with another player or on your own solo play.  You can read the fiction introduction above.

This starter pack is the first of four planned for the 15mm science fiction generic setting and they are quite quick to put together as USE ME is a simple set of rules and each scenario needs to be play tested only twice and once more with solo rules added.

I hope to have more to tell you at the end of the week!

GBS

Live for a Week on Five Pounds

All the Money I have for Five Days Food

I was quite moved by the newspaper article that I outlined last week here.   So to that end I decided on Sunday that I would try and live on a pound a day for food for one week (that is Monday to Friday).  It will only be me, not my wife and children and it will not include petrol or other payments (otherwise I will not be able to get to work and I will be the ‘bad guy’ for making the kids live on 25p each a day!).  I will post a couple of times to let you all know how its going.

At the moment  I am about to head out to the super market to see if I can spend my remaining day’s budget on some reduced food…waste not want not!

GBS