"We jumped WHERE?"
This scenario will teach the party a few lessons of physics in Zero-G. It gets very funny if you have the Mechwarrior Companion (page 60-63). This adventure is better played without Mechs. Small arms are very welcome.
The story
The party gets an assignment. It sounds simple in the beginning: They guard some very important scientists which have plans for a new Mech (this works good in most campaigns). The scientists will travel to one of the bigger factories (like the ones on Coventry). The target planet shouldn't be too near to their starting location. There are four scientists on the DropShip and if one of them dies, the assignment is finished - without payment.
What the party doesn't know
By chance, a small group of terrorists from the Capellan Confederation gained control over the JumpShip short before the party arrives. Nobody knows from this (exept the JumpShip crew, of course) until someone activates the alarm. At this moment, the JumpShip is near Terra. The party will see this as a welcomed variation to their original assignment and will try to stop the terrorists (at least I expect them to do so). Depending on the quality of the party, there will be 3-6 terrorists in the command room, or however this is called. This is the point where Zero-G comes into play. I don't think that your party has many Lasers or Gyrojet weapons, so they could think of using their Pistols and SMGs... (Our party fired SMGs etc. Oh we had much fun...) However, the party won't be sure-shots so they'll miss their targets sometimes. The shots will strike the control panels so there'll be a short circuit. The JumpShip reacts by re-programming the course and initiating a jump while the fight goes on. When the battle comes to an end, the ship jumps to ...? But the party has different problems at the moment. I'm sure you've read in the novels how a jump is done correctly. Wasn't there something like "Fasten you seatbelt" ...? Now guess what happens when the ship jumps and some persons (in fact: all persons) are just hanging around. You get the point.
What now?
The whole crew is out of action for a while so there isn't anybody who could probably take over the controls or communications equipment (Don't say you have a JumpShip captain in your party!). The only other wake paerson is a DropShip captain who now calls for survivers to get down to the planet.
Too many possibilities...
From now on, everything can happen. The party will survive (exept some gamemasters want to kill a whole party), but now they are on an unknown planet.
Here are some of many possibilities:
- There is a situation like in "Far Country": The party is on an more or less uncivilized planet in the middle of nowhere
- They jumped to one of the five houses (I heard the Dracs have a special welcome-service called DEST...)
- They jumped into Clan space and will be treated as bondsmen (for that, this scenario should take place near the truce line)
- They jumped to a huge sun and will have no chance of escaping from their hot fate !!!! No, that sounds stupid.
- Another variant is that you use this as a base for a complete new campaign. It should be at least a great intro!
