Paradox Base

"Traitors! Rotten no-good traitors!" Dr. Silva cursed, smashing the wrench she held into the nearby workstation monitor, sending chunks of the screen and plastic flying.

Everything had happened so fast! Three members of engineering had requested a demo of the newly completed targeting upgrades for Project XIV-c, which was fairly routine. These kinds of inter-departmental demos were nothing new. With the deadline so close, it made sense to anticipate any necessary changes in advance if anything did go wrong... so even the typically suspicious Doctor Cassidy Silva didn't think twice when three low-ranking engineers walked in for the demo slot. They were an hour early, but, again... that looming deadline had everyone jumping ahead.

Argus wiped his sweaty hands on his pants, gingerly reaching into the mess of wires behind the removed control panel for the door. "I'm sorry, doctor Silva. I should have noticed something was off," he said, gently pushing and pulling at wires until he found the bundled set he'd been looking for.

Dr. Silva sighed and brushed a stray hair off her face. In calm times, it was an affectation that Argus found distractingly attractive... but the theft of what was effectively a potential weapon of mass destruction was more than enough to purge any such thoughts. "It's no more your fault than it is mine, Lore," she replied - using his chosen callsign in place of his given name "Right now we need to focus on getting word to the security teams and getting the weapon back."

"I swear to you, doctor, the weapon will be safely recovered before they leave this sector." Argus briefly touched the Exodus-Iron medallion hanging from a cord on his neck as he swore the vow. A vow that wasn't entirely impossible to achieve, but was looking less and less likely by the minute.

Argus - Lore, as he preferred to be called by anyone outside of his family - flinched back at a sudden spark and small puff of smoke. A heartbeat later, the door slid open. He stifled a shout of joy.

"I'll try to head them off at the docks!" Lore shouted as he dashed out of the room.

The familiar corridors of Paradox Base streamed by him in a blur as he raced through sparsely populated corridors. He ignored the spattered shouts and curses that rose in his wake; he was already fifteen minutes behind the thieves and there was no time to worry about not making a scene.

The research and development station was large, though the crew complement was small. The kind of work they did here generally made having both thick walls and plenty of open space something of a necessity. Which meant that if he hurried, there was a chance he could catch the thieves before they left the station. The whole thing had clearly been well-planned, so it was a safe bet that the thieves would be taking pains to not draw attention... which in turn meant they were likely going to be slower. Maybe, with luck, they'd be just slow enough to stop.

Lore had spent six months as a research assistant to Dr. Silva, and in that time had learned every shortcut the station had, which he mentally mapped ahead of him as he sprinted through corridor after corridor. He thanked the stars that the secret nature of their research meant there was only one docking bay that he had to check. They'd either be there, or they'd be already gone.

By the time he reached the docking bay, he was covered in a sheen of sweat and was gasping for breath. He staggered and leaned against a wall as he surveyed the few ships currently docked.

'Come on, please be here,' he thought as his attention hopped from one ship to the next.

Movement caught his eye on the extended cargo ramp of the second-to-last ship. Three uniformed workers pushed a wheeled metal container into the cargo hold of a small courier-class ship.

Lore ripped his communicator out of his pocket at the same moment a klaxon started wailing and red emergency lights flicked to life.

"Doctor Silva! I caught up to them, but they're already boarding a ship!" he yelled into the device, already moving for his own ship.

The reply was drowned out by both the klaxon, and the sudden roar of the other ship's engines as they flared to life.

"I'm almost at the Pandora," he panted, fumbling in his pockets for his keypad access. "I'm going to try to disable them!" he shouted, slowing for a moment as Pandora's port-side hatch opened.

"Doc, if things go badly... it's been an honour working with you these last few months, I've learned a lot. I appreciate it." He shut the communicator before she could reply, and rushed into the cockpit.

The thieve's ship darted out of the port as Lore settled into his familiar pilot's chair and began the pre-flight routine. It'd be a harder startup than she liked, but Pandora had done these fast starts before.

What they hadn't done before was start a firefight outside of one of the most dangerous and sensitive research stations in the sector.

That feels like a nice stopping point for this first bit of narrative. This fiction was based on played events of the STARFORGED tabletop role-playing system.

We'll be back soon with another chapter... and I'll be drafting a smaller blog at some point talking about how the game's design lends itself to this style of game-to-story transformation very well.

Until then, happy worldbuilding, writing, and happy gaming folks!