Hush My Darling (a Mothership adventure)

 1.     Camp.

Last known whereabouts of Dr Mason and her android companion Faraday. Bivouac dome, ration packets, half pack of Lucky Star cigarettes.

Nearby, a mound of earth and stone opens into a dark, yawning cave. Atop the hill a gang of male raptors have nested birdlike around the top of the shaft, occasionally rising on warm updrafts from the opening. They are docile unless approached, with the largest taking charge and squabbling over food. [C: 60 Toothy beak 1d5; I:30; W:2(10)]

2.     Cave. Hung with stalactites, echoing drips in the dark. The stone floor slopes into a wide, shallow pool. Laying in the water is the body of Faraday, synthskin riddled with tiny holes, reaching back to the entrance and the camp with a face frozen in pain. Faraday carries a knife, flare gun and radio transmitter. No signal underground.

The pool is home to a swarm of leeches which bite and drain the fluids of any prey that disturbs the water, Body save vs 1 Wound per round while at least partially submerged.

Across the water the natural rock wall gives way to a green panel, smooth plastic-like stone. This alien tech opens like shrivelling skin with the application of both liquid water and light pressure such as when submerged, exposed to rain, or with a soft push from a wet hand.

A drip from a stalactite above causes this panel to partially open and close in steady sequence, releasing bursts of warm air from the shaft beyond.

3.     Shaft. Vertical, unnaturally smooth cylinder set deep into the ground, pumping warm air up to the top of the hill by the camp. A green panel in the wall partway up connects to the cave.

At the bottom, an alien engine thrums low, venting its heat straight up. Black tubes, cold to the touch, run from the engine along the walls and down into the tunnel.

4.     Tunnel. Narrow, dark, cold. The walls are thick with black pipes and frosted over, moisture permeating from above. Any water quickly becomes solid ice if exposed to the air here.

Partway down the tunnel, Dr Mason is crouched by a tube in the wall, knife in hand, corpse frozen solid by the icy air from the hole she’d made. In her lab coat are tools for xenobiological sample collection and a cheap plastic lighter.

The tunnel runs deep underground from the engine at the bottom of the shaft to a green panel at the other end which serves as the door to the chamber.

5.     Chamber. Spherical hollow, kept chill. A large, humanoid figure with smooth, amphibian skin rests in cryosleep on an altar.

While kept cold, it sleeps. If awakened before its time, the alien attacks in confusion and rage. [C:80 Unnatural strength 2d5; I:85; W:5(20)]

PacyGen Soft Drinks and Pharmaceuticals have a bounty on undiscovered life forms on the planet. While Dr Mason and her team have already registered most native fauna, evidence of intelligent life could be worth up to 1mcr.