3:16

3:16 is a SF game for the October ‘Ronnies’. It uses the terms ‘Cosmos’ and ‘Fight’. It is in the style of Aliens, Starship Troopers, WH4K, etc. and the players are all members of the doomed 3:16th Expeditionary Force sent from Terra to conquer the cosmos.

Vrakkkk-kkkk-kkkkk. Corporal Tollman?s Energy Cannon converted the group of huddling creatures into a cloud of swirling space dust. Vrakkkk-kkkk-kkkkk. Another group, and another, and another. The cannon?s gunnery computer was beeping into Tollman?s earphones at a rapid tempo. These little green bastards were getting murdered. The Kill Counter on top of the cannon increased by the millisecond. Impassively counting the carnage. The rhythmic beeping was trance-like and hypnotic.

Vra-wheeeeeeee. The energy beam sheared off, missing the target and detonating a pile of rocks instead. Suddenly, from all around little green men started to race closer and closer. Tollman?s mind flashed back to a time long before?

She was maybe 1 and they?d been playing The Game. In The Game you went into this really dark cave. All the other kids were already in there and they had sticks and stones. They poked, prodded, bashed and frightened you while you tried to make it to the back of the cave. You had to get there, overcoming your fear and panic, and grab some moss, slick and wet to touch, from the very furthermost cave wall. Then you had to run over the wet floor of the cave avoiding the tripping feet and thrown rocks to break out free into the light.

If you did that then they let you join their gang. It had taken Tollman five or six attempts to get to the back of that cave. But when she did she had learned not to panic or be frightened even when the unexpected happened. She was cool under pressure and had learnt to keep it simple. It was something that had served her well in the Force too.

Never panic, it?ll get you dead.

Back to the present Tollman lowered the cannon and swept a series of ravening beams of energy through the fast-approaching hordes. They fell into clouds of dust. Motes drifting intricately through the alien atmosphere of this hell-hole of a planet.

Vrakkkk-kkkk-kkkkk. The last little green bastard evaporated into a cloud of constituent atoms. The Kill Counter stopped at 97. The tip of the cannon was glowing white hot and the whine of the cooling fans was the only sound left.

Sergeant Brand looked over the top of the trench, ?Corporal, status??

?All Clear, Sergeant. A series of trenches ahead and then we?re done here. After that,? she paused, ?it?s not so clear.?

Brand nodded at the Lieutenant next to him in the trench. The first hurdle had been cleared.

Download

• 3-16.pdf

Tags: Gregor Hutton

This entry was posted on Friday, October 14th, 2005 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Free RPGs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.