Finally Get to Shoot Something!

The second session of this campaign marked my fourth venture into the world of Traveller, and by that point, our party had yet to fire a single shot. After several years of playing Dungeons & Dragons, I found Traveller’s skill-based system and emphasis on non-combat challenges to be a refreshing and rewarding change of pace. Still, what’s the point of owning a laser rifle if you never get to shoot it?

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We arrived at Callia, a thin-atmosphere desert world with barely any water. The crew did a quick hail down to the surface and said the Garnette landed in a place called Makintown. They had their own launch and flew us down. No customs in sight. I know it ain’t exactly legal, but with nowhere else to stash it, I kept my trusty ol’ rifle slung over my shoulder.

Town was small—maybe a few hundred folks—set along the bank of a skinny waterway. Simple place. Mostly small family homes, doin’ what they could to scrape a livin’ outta the sand. There was only one two-story buildin’ in the whole place.

We headed over to the Garnette, which was parked on the far side of the dirt landing field. Its load ramp was down. Kimberly got her hackles up as we got close. Zem pulled the laser pistol outta the case, bein’ cautious. Seemed a bit much to me. I figured maybe there was just a stray cat or a coyote sniffin’ around. But as I walked up the ramp, I caught a whiff of somethin’ I recognized—blood.

We got our weapons ready and stepped inside. There was a blood trail, and in it, some strange four-toed footprints. A few steps in, I found a poor Varger, layin’ dead on the deck, cut bad from behind. Fella never even got his piece out the holster. There was a cryo-stasis unit nearby, smashed open from the inside.

Max and I stayed by the ramp with Kimberly, while Mitch and Zem tried to search the rest of the ship. Hatch was locked, so they tried callin’ through the intercom. Nothin’. I ran over to a shuttered buildin’ across the landing pad to check if any officials were ‘round. No one there. Meanwhile, the boys tried to climb onto the upper hatch, but didn’t have any luck.

When I got back, Mitch said he had searched the body. Not sure that was the best idea, but he tried callin’ Captain Bernadette and the rest of the crew. No answer. He did find an ID card. The dead Varger’s name was Nanto.

We crossed the bridge into town—had to go over the lil’ waterway to get there. That’s when we found a big ol’ pool of blood right on the bridge. Locals didn’t even flinch. One guy walked straight through it without even lookin’ down. I spotted drag marks leadin’ down under the bridge. We followed ‘em and found another body—Indy. Another crew member from the Garnette. She was torn up, looked like an animal got her. A big one.

Kimberly sniffed out another arm nearby—human, male. We followed the trail further and found even more body parts. That’s three dead folks in just a few minutes. Zem looked ‘em over and reckoned it was parts from maybe two or three bodies. It was a mess. There was a snub-nose pistol nearby loaded with tranq darts. I handed it to Max.

Found some tracks leadin’ up into town, so we followed ‘em toward the big two-story government buildin’. Town was quiet. Just as we got close, we spotted a woman peekin’ out from the edge of a buildin’. Zem went to talk to her, and she ducked away, but I called out and she stopped. She looked real nervous—paranoid even. Said folks weren’t acknowledgin’ the attacks, like their minds had been wiped or messed with. Introduced herself as Ammegash, the town medic.

She told us ‘bout a fella named Edkiku she’d been treatin’. Said she’d known him for years, even knew his wife and new baby. But now he claimed he ain’t never been married, never had a kid. So we paid him a visit.

Found him in his backyard, workin’ in a garden. Nice enough fella. But when I asked about his wife, he flat-out denied ever havin’ one. Offered to let us inside. The house sure looked like a family lived there—nursery, two toothbrushes in the bathroom, the works. He said it was a guest room. I kept him talkin’ while the others looked around. Zem came back and asked if he could run a medical check, but Edkiku refused. Claimed we planted all the woman’s stuff in his house. The more questions we asked, the more upset the fella got.

Outside, we asked Ammegash where the wife and kid mighta gone. She didn’t know. We asked about someone named Blanca—no luck there either. But when we brought up Captain Bernadette, she said she might be in the “big house”—that two-story one.

As we got close, we heard a sharp whistle. Up on the roof was a female Aslan, holdin’ a gauss sniper rifle, marine corps issued. I hollered up and asked if she was Blanca. She asked who we were, then let us inside. Locked the door up tight behind us, three times over.

First thing she told us was to shut off our comms. Said she’d been tryin’ to reach Bernadette’s crew for hours. We had to break the news—two of ‘em were dead. Blanca told us they’d stolen—or rather, “borrowed”—a specimen from a research facility, brought it here hopin’ to sell it. But it escaped.

She showed us some security footage. I didn’t see nothin’. Neither did Zem or Mitch. But Coop said he saw it, clear as day. So did Blanca and Ammegash. Next video showed a guy workin’ in a field gettin’ torn apart. Looked like he just exploded. Coop said the creature did it.

Blanca reckoned it was drawn to comms signals. So Mitch rigged up an IED usin’ some of my shotgun shells. We set it up outside with a couple spare comm units as bait. Zem and I set it, then hightailed it back inside.

I’ll be honest, I was startin’ to doubt the whole story. Maybe that body just fell off the bridge. Maybe Edkiku was tellin’ the truth. But Coop was dead sure, so we stayed up and took watch shifts all night.

Nothin’ happened. Of course.

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We kept watch all through the morning. Late in the afternoon, we spotted three fellas walkin’ up toward the house. They had rifles slung over their shoulders and were haulin’ the carcass of somethin’ they’d hunted. Blanca called ’em hunters, and I offered to go down and have a word.

She ended up buyin’ some of the meat off ’em—looked like desert lizard, maybe? Hard to say. Then she got to tellin’ ’em about that invisible creature she reckoned was stalkin’ around town. Showed ’em the videos too, but just like us, they didn’t see a thing. Still, they believed her. Said they could track it.

Blanca and Ammegash stayed behind at the house. The rest of us tagged along with the hunters to fetch the rest of their crew. Their camp was set up about two clicks outside the village. When we got there, Zem noticed somethin’ off—five hunters, but six bedrolls. They claimed one was a spare, just in case. But there were personal items next to it… and a set of tracks leadin’ off into the desert.

We followed that trail for close to three miles before we found another body—looked like it’d been mauled by a big animal. Torn up real bad. Fella was dressed same as the others, said they were Jonkeereen. We found tracks leavin’ the scene, headin’ back toward town.

Those prints led us to a low rock overhang, looked like something had nested there overnight. From there, it moved back into the village.

I had a lot of time to think on the walk back. Coop and I—we been through hell and back together. War, more than once. And I figured it was time I told him straight: I believed him. Sure, I couldn’t see nothing on the videos, but at the end of the day, Coop’s always had my back, and I sure as hell was gonna have his.

Once we were back in town, things got tougher. Between the hard-packed dirt, gravel, and concrete, it was near impossible to track anything. I stuck close to Coop, kept Kimberly by my side, watchin’ to see if she picked up on anything.

Didn’t take long. Coop spotted somethin’.

Then all hell broke loose.

We got into one hell of a shootout—against what, I still couldn’t rightly say. Everyone opened fire. I just shot where they were shootin’. Whole thing was a blur. Folks say we killed it—whatever it was.

Me? I don’t know what I saw. Might’ve just been shadows and nerves. But the others? They all looked sure. Felt like they’d just won a war. And if they felt good about it, who was I to tell ’em they were chasin’ ghosts?

As a note of interest: I only made one attack roll during the combat encounter—and I missed.