GURPS Movie Replay: Alien

Premise

The movie Alien, more or less.  The PCs are crewmembers of the Nostromo, a mining ship, returning with a haul of ore.  PCs will probably die, in which case they will take over another character.

Active Characters:

Ellen Ripley - Warrant Officer (aka middle-manager).  Love cats and power lifters.

Ian Ash - Science Officer.  Transferred to the Nostromo at Thedas.  British.

Dennis Parker - Chief Engineer.  Wants more money so he can buy his own ship.

Reserve Characters:

Arthur Dallas - Captain.  The Man™.  Had a thing with Ripley in the past.

Thomas Kane - Executive Officer.  "Great" at everything, and will let you know.

Samuel Brett - Engineer.  Man of few words, but many hawaiian shirts.  BFFs with Parker.

Joan Lambert - Navigator.  Fresh out of the academy.

Summary

Space!

The Nostromo's systems whirred to life, and the crew were woken from their hypersleep.  As they got dressed, Parker asked the ship's AI, Mother, for a status report, but it was stuck processing something.  Parker and Brett headed to the kitchen to grab some coffee, while Dallas headed up to the bridge to see what was going on, followed by the rest of the crew.  The computers were hung up, and Lambert got to work trying to figure out what was going on.

Shortly, she piped up that Mother had picked up a signal and dropped them out of hyperspace early; they weren't even halfway to Earth!  Dallas punched in his ID and found out that, according to company directive, they had to investigate any "mysterious signals" in case they were distress beacons.  Until they did, the cryo-pods were locked out.  Triangulating the source of the signal was going to take Lambert a while, so Ripley went to her terminal and started running diagnostics.

30 minutes later, Lambert had finished her scan and announced that the signal was coming from a planet they were pulling up to, but she had no idea what kind of signal it was.  Ripley found that there was some minor damage to the umbilicus connecting the ship to the cargo, as well as the landing gear, and ordered Brett and Parker over intercom to take a look.  They suited up and went to take a look; Parker went to the umbilicus, while Brett dealt with the landing gear.

Parker found that it was the usual micrometeorite wear and tear, which had ruptured a coolant line, and would be a quick fix.  Brett, meanwhile, reported over intercom that the landing gear was going to take several hours.  Ripley asked Ash to figure out what he could about the planet, and he ran their position through Mother's database.  It was a charted world, designated LV426, more an asteroid with a thin atmosphere than a planet.  The air was nowhere near breathable, so whoever was going down would need to wear hardsuits.

On the upside, the Nostromo would have no difficulty landing, once the landing gear got fixed.  Apparently Weyland-Yutani had considered getting mining rights, but never followed through.  Dallas decided that he was going to lead the landing party, and Kane volunteered to go with.  While they were fist-bumping, Ripley pointed out that, as CO and XO, one of them should really stay on the ship, and Kane agreed, dejected.

For the rest of the landing party, suggested Ash and Parker, and agreed to come when Dallas asked her to ("I guess. Somebody needs to keep these chucklefucks in line").  He initally wanted to land the entire Nostromo because that would be "sick and cool", but when he was reminded that it would take several hours for the landing gear to be ready, he agreed to taking the shuttle.  

They loaded up the necessary gear in the shuttle, the Narcissus, then detached from the ship and headed down to the planet.  Dallas crit-failed his Pilot roll, and came in way too hot.  The cabin filled with a whine that went to a higher and higher pitch before there was an explosion, and the shuttle plummeted and started to roll, sending Ash from his seat.  While Mother informed them in cool tones "Warning: the shuttle is crashing", Parker announced that they'd lost engines 1&2 (aka all of the engines).

Parker picked out a clear landing zone on sensors while Ripley encouraged Dallas, and he managed to wrestle with the controls, and eventually got the shuttle's nose up for a rough landing.  Ripley tried calling up to the Nostromo, but the connection was garbled, and she wasn't sure what got through.  Parker went outside to start fixing the engines, but it was going to take a while.  Coincidentally, Ash determined that they were about 2 hours from the signal's source on foot, so Parker would have plenty of time!  He and Dallas headed off, while Ripley stayed behind to try to get through to the Nostromo.

Planet LV426

Ripley kept repeating the same message about crashing, and eventually Lambert, who was on the other end, figured it out.  Ripley then joked about having to be out of here quick so the "moon dogs" couldn't get them, but Lambert didn't realize she was joking and got nervous.  On the way to the signal, Ash found some depressions that might have had water in the past, and took samples for future research.  Another hour later, he and Dallas came over a hill, and headed into a cave, which looked to be the source.

The cave walls were made of an odd material, and as they continued, Ash realized that the "cave" was actually the inside of an alien spaceship!  He panicked and started vomiting into his suit for 12 seconds, but Dallas was fine, and just patted him on the back until it was over.  Ash tried calling back to the shuttle, but couldn't get through.  Strangely, the video feed seemed to be working fine, so they'd at least be able to watch... if they were paying attention (which Ripley was).

Ripley tried calling back to Lambert to update them that Ash and Dallas had reached the crashed ship, but Lambert was panicking and, though the intermittent connection made it impossible to determine exactly what had happened, it was clear that Kane had been injured.  Meanwhile, Ash and Dallas debated splitting up and looking for clues, but decided against it only because they only had one signal scanner.

After a while of wandering through the alien ship, they stumbled into a stadium-sized chamber with a colossal throne with a (dead) humanoid alien sitting in it.  This time, Dallas freaked out, while Ash calmly took some samples from the alien.  By the time he was done, Dallas had gotten bored, walked off, and found some kind of hole in the floor, then called Ash over.  Dallas set up some rope and climbed down, then reported that he'd found a wide room with shrouded and weird lights with a glowing box in the middle.

From above, Ash asked him to take a sample of the box, so Dallas got out his knife and cut out a chunk; it was stone-like, and connected by wires at the back, so he cut those too, and then the signal went dead.  Dallas climbed back up, and Ash went down to take a more scientific look around.  He determined that, yep, this was alien stuff alright, then climbed back up and he and Dalls started back toward the shuttle.

By the time they got back to the Narcissus, Parker had finished repairing the engines, but Ripley hadn't been able to re-establish contact with the Nostromo for some time.  Worried, Dallas lifted off and they made it back to space without further issues, though the Nostromo was still .  At Ripley's suggestion, they flew by the comms array to see if anything looked damaged, and Parker noticed some micrometeorite damage, but nothing serious.

Emergency Surgery

Dallas successfully docked the shuttle, and, after confirming that the ship was still pressurized, they went aboard and Ripley keyed the PA and asked if anyone could respond.  Lambert responded in a panic, begging them to come to the medical bay, so they headed out at a jog.  They ran into Brett first, who was outside and muttering that he'd never seen anything like this before.  Lambert, meanwhile, was inside the medbay and trying to activate the auto-doc.

Ripley tried to question Brett, but he wasn't talkative.  Ash walked into the medbay, startling the terrified Lambert and causing her to collapse, screaming.  He ignored her, noted some blood streaks and holes burned into the steel floor, and then investigated the auto-doc, figured Kane was in it, then spent 15 minutes correcting Lambert's mistakes and properly configuring it.  

While he worked, Ash asked Lambert what had happened, and, after some time to recover, she told him that she'd heard Kane screaming, then laser fire, and then Kane had something on his face, and she and Brett had brought him down here.  Ripley checked the holes on the floor and determined only that they weren't from laser fire, then failed to console Lambert.  Parker talked to Brett, and he coroborated Lambert's story: something like a hand was on Kane's face, and he was lying on the ground by the time he got there.

Parker and Brett went to take a look at the comms array, but found that it was actually working fine.  Ash finally got the autodoc working and confirmed that, there was an alien lifeform attached to his face and down his esophagus.  Other than some scarring on the inside of his throat, though, Kane was otherwise fine, and breathing normally.  The alien looked to be slightly wounded, and likely the source of the blood streaks.  Ripley suggested they cut it off with the laser scalpel, and Dallas repeated the order, pretending it was his idea.

Immediately after the laser scalpel started, the auto-doc started smoking and showing errors.  After a few moments, a puddle of acid melted through the shell of the auto-doc and splattered onto the floor.  Parker walked over to take a look, and saw that it had already eaten through 2 decks.  Ash checked Kane, and saw that he had some acid burns, but wasn't seriously injured.  Ripley suggested putting him in a cryopod, but Ash wanted to do experiments first, because that could kill him.

As Dallas interceded in the argument, Brett and Parker shouted that the acid was going to breach the hull in a matter of seconds.  Ash grabbed Kane, Ripley grabbed Lambert, and they all ran out, moments before the door slammed shut and the room vented to space, various bags and surgical tools being sucked out the hole in the floor.

Let's Split Up!

Ripley and Ash resumed their argument, with Ripley pointing out that they couldn't risk burning more holes in the ship.  Parker suggested that they could do their tests in the refinery, which would avoid damage to the rest of the ship, and Dallas and Ash agreed.  Ripley left in a huff, and headed off to the bridge, looking for Jones the cat, while Brett went to patch the hull and Parker and Ash went to go rig up a testing area in the refinery.

Active Character Change:
Ellen Ripley's player is now playing Arthur Dallas.

Dallas, followed by Lambert, went to the kitchen to have a celebratory drink for doing such a good job of captain-ing and finding proof of aliens, and Jones showed up after a few minutes.  Several hours later, Ash determined that no matter what he tried, the alien couldn't be removed without spraying acid everywhere and probably killing Kane in the process.  Realizing he hadn't seen Ripley in a while, Dallas went looking for her in her quarters, but she wasn't there.

Bored of looking, he went to the nearest intercom and asked for her to check-in, and had Jones meow into the mic, then went to the bridge to work on the paperwork with Lambert.  Immediately after Dallas walked through the door onto the bridge, it slammed shut behind him, leaving Lambert outside, confused.  Dallas pressed the open door button a couple times, but nothing happened, and Lambert started pounding on the door, yelling "let me in!".  He asked her to hold on, and he ran over to the control console at the captain's chair, but it wasn't working either.

Lambert, now crying in terror, started to say there was something out there, but was cut off, and when Dallas turned around to see what was going on, she had vanished.  Dallas keyed the PA from his captain's chair and informed the others that there were definitely more aliens aboard the Nostromo, and that they looked to have gotten Ripley and Lambert.  As the shock settled in, Dallas puked his guts out, narrowly throwing Jones away in time.

Let's Regroup!

Parker suggested they regroup in the bridge, but Dallas shot it down ("They have control of the bridge!"), and suggested they move to the refinery; two of them were already there, and Brett and Dallas could move along the outside of the hull, hopefully avoiding the alien(s?).  While Ash continued his experiments on Kane, Parker built a motion tracker.  Dallas asked over PA if there was some way to vent the bridge, and Brett said they could probably do it from engineering or the bridge.

At Parker's suggestion, Dallas set off the emergency distress beacon before leaving the bridge.  On his trip to the armoury, Dallas heard what he at first assumed was Jones in the air ducts, only to realize that he was still carrying him; Dallas asked Jones what was going on ("Mreow?"), and then took off at a sprint to the nearest airlock.  As he climbed into a spacesuit, he noticed that the emergency cat survival box was missing from this one.  Dallas tried to shove Jones into a full spacesuit, but the cat wasn't having it.

Dallas cracked the inner door, tossed Jones out and into the hallway, closed the door again, saluted him, and then vented the airlock and stepped out into space.  As Dallas slowly made his way along the exterior of the Nostromo, Brett muttered "oh no" over his spacesuit radio.  After being asked for clarification, Brett replied that he'd messed up using his magboots and was now about 6 feet away from the Nostromo, with no way to get back.  Dallas went and helped him get his boots back on the "ground".

Active Character Change:

Arthur Dallas' player is now playing Samuel Brett.

And Then There Were Three

Brett said "aw, shit" over his radio, and the others asked what was going on.  According to Brett, some acid had shot out from the ship when it peneterated the hull, and melted Dallas' air hose.  Brett tried to patch the hose, but didn't have much to work with, and that was it for Dallas; now Brett was out on the hull and scared of flying off again.  Parker went out to help his friend, while Ash gave up on removing the alien from Kane's face and started trying to figure out how it would respond to cryosleep.

Parker made it to Brett and guided him back to the refinery with no further issues.  Now that they were all together, they started planning their next move.  Figuring that they didn't know what the hell they were up against, or how many aliens there were, Parker suggested that they take the shuttle; the only problem was that it only had three cryopods, so they'd need to bring down another one.  Ash asked that he be allowed to finish seeing if Kane would survive cryosleep, and the others agreed.

One hour later, Ash finished his testing, and determined that both Kane and the alien hugging his face would survive.  Parker suggested they leave Kane behind anyway; the shuttle was close to the refinery, while the other cryopods were all on the other end of the ship (Out of character, Parker's player said "Okay [GM], this is for your ears only, but I'm thinking of betraying them all right now and getting the hell out of here").

Breakdown

They loaded Kane into a spacesuit and started moving stealthily towards the shuttle bay, but Brett panicked and started to run.  Parker fell behind, and upon seeing his friend struggling, Brett recovered and slowed down to let him catch up.  In the shuttle bay, Ash successfully put Kane (and the alien) into cryosleep.  As they got ready to head back out into the corridors of the Nostromo, Parker said that he wouldn't be going with them.  If they wanted to help Kane so much, they could go grab another cryopod, but he wasn't leaving the shuttle.

After much arguing, they reached an agreement: to ensure Parker wouldn't just take the shuttle the moment the other two left, he agreed to be placed into cryosleep ("I don't get paid enough for this") while Ash and Brett went off to grab another cryopod.  Partway through the journey, Brett saw Ash drawing his laser pistol out of the corner of his eye, and asked what he was doing.  Ash shot at Brett, but he narrowly missed, and Brett grabbed hold of Ash's pistol arm.

Ash tried to kick Brett in the struggle, but missed again, and then Brett snapped Ash's arm with superhuman strength(!), causing him to drop the pistol.  Without letting go, Brett asked "why did you try to kill me?", and Ash replied that he'd figured he'd have better odds just killing Brett and going back to the shuttle than trying to get another cryopod.  Ash tried to grab at Brett's holster with his off-hand, but failed.

Brett drew with his right hand, but still held Ash with his left.  Ash tried to grapple Brett with his free arm, but Brett stayed free and took Aim.  After another failed grab from Ash, Brett let go of him, stepped back, and All-Out shot Ash in the torso with the laser pistol, spraying blood across the walls and killing him instantly.  Now unopposed, Brett went to the bridge, disabled the emergency distress beacon, set course for Earth, and then sent a message to Weyland-Yutani using his secret android codes.

Notes:

This is not a blatant ripoff of the Film Reroll, shhhhhh.

Every PC had a Wildcard Skill appropriate for their job, plus some misc attributes.

The GM made some changes to the scenario, obviously.  Most noteworthily, instead of the alien eggs on the planet, there were both a facehugger egg and fully-mature xenomorph secreted away in the refinery of the Nostromo.  They had been in stasis, but were revitalized when they were contacted by the signal from the crashed alien ship on the planet.

Off-screen, Kane actually managed to fight the facehugger off initially, and got some shots off with his gun, but it ended up getting him anyway.

Ripley died to the alien off-screen due to secret rolls, even with her 2 uses of Luck.

Lambert was, likewise, killed by the alien.  Brett had closed the door remotely to isolate her.

Dallas was killed not by an acid burst, but from Brett ripping out his air hose.

Ash's player got confused, and didn't realize he was not a secret android, which was part of why he betrayed Brett (the actual secret android).