Stealth Hyperdrive

by Brandon Cope

Art by Lance S. Winkel

Extract from Report A191-34A-7, from FWS Triumph:

"Current trials go well and Project Spectre is ahead of schedule. The FWS Triumph
has had no difficulties relating to the operation of the Drive. There have been some
minor reports of nausea from crewmembers while the Drive is functioning, but Lt.
Granger assures me that there are no long term effects.

"The FWS Liberty locates the Triumph less than 6% of the time, rising to only 17%
when the Liberty's Science Officer was told the Triumph was within 1 AU.

"Given a few months of further testing, the Drive should be ready to install on
selected warships."

Extract from Report A238-36B-2, from FWS Liberty:

"Lt. Grimes got a lucky break and was able to locate the ship after about ten
minutes. We signaled the Triumph that we had found her, but she didn't uncloak.
After repeating the message several times, I began to grow concerned; Grimes
verified the Triumph's location and engaged our own Drive. Despite the difficulties of
such a maneuver, we located the Triumph and docked with her in hyperspace. We
were unprepared for what we found.

"The entire crew is dead, apparently killed by a small number of crewmen who for
reasons unknown turned on their comrades. We plan to review the ship's security
records after returning to normal space. While waiting for the boarding party to finish
its duties, several crewmen have reported hearing scratching sounds on the outside
of our hull. Lt. Grimes has identified what at first appear to be claw marks on the
Triumph's hull, but there is no way to confirm this until we can check out the
Triumph outside of hyperspace."

Extract from Report A243-21K-9, from

FWS Patriot:

"After arriving at the test site, only the Triumph

was present. All its crew was dead, excluding a
handful crewmen from the Liberty aboard her
(see previous report for details). They say that
they were left on the ship to return it to normal
space after the Liberty separated, and did so. However, the Liberty never returned to
normal space, and all attempts to locate it have failed. My belief is that whatever
disaster befell the Triumph also struck the Liberty. Either the ship was destroyed in
hyperspace, or its FTL drives were activated, removing it from this system. Any
Federation warships coming upon the Liberty should treat is as hazardous. I also
recommend that Project Spectre be suspended until the source of these disasters
may be ascertained."

Game Notes
The stealth drive is a unit that, when attached to a standard hyperdrive, allows the
hyperdrive to function as a cloaking device. When activated, the ship shifts into
hyperspace as normal, but the ship can only travel at normal sublight speeds and
can "see" out into normal space. The best analogy is a submarine running at
periscope depth.

Such a ship is very hard to detect; Electronics Ops (Sensors) rolls are at -5, plus
any stealth gear on the cloaked ship, with another -5 if the scanning ship doesn't
know it needs to use its hyperdrive scanners (GURPS Space, p.29,30) as well (or if
it doesn't have any). A cloaked ship may fire any weapons while cloaked, but is +5
to be detected for the next two combat rounds. It automatically gains total surprise
the initial round if no one was aware of its presence, or partial surprise if someone
was aware it was in the area but had not located it. A cloaked ship that has been
located may be fired on, but it gets a +2 to DF (p.S93). A cloaked ship may uncloak
at any time. If a cloaked ship engages standard hyperdrives, the energy cost is half
normal.

A TL10 stealth drive unit is 0.005 cy, 0.002 tons and $200,000 per cy of the ship it is
mounted in, and requires an incredible 1 MW of power per 1 cy of ship. It must be
attached to a hyperdrive to function, though the hyperdrive may still be used
normally. At TL11, power is used ten times more efficiently and cost is halved. By
TL12, this type of stealth drive is easily detected and thus not used.

What is not currently known is that the stealth drive has potentially fatal side-effects;
everyone on board a ship that activates a stealth drive must roll vs. HT+3 (with a
cumulative -1 per previous trip, excluding normal hyperspace travel). A failure
results in minor nausea (-1 to IQ and DX) for 1d6 hours. A critical failure puts the
character into a coma lasting 1d+4 days. A HT+1 roll must then be made daily, or
the character dies. Any character that survives the coma will become spacesick
anytime they are on a ship that enters hyperspace.

The deaths on the Triumph and the disappearance of the Liberty were caused by an
even stranger situation. While the stealth drive operates, it produces a sonic field
that is extremely painful to a previously undiscovered race native to hyperspace. A
cloaked ship draws members of the race to it, who futilely try to physically damage
the ship. However, any crewman that has slipped into a coma because of the drive
becomes attuned to the races psychic "waves," and is controlled in an effort to stop
the pain.

Since the Triumph situation was the first contact of the two races, things went badly,
the unaffected crewmen thinking the others were attempting a mutiny. The situation
on the Liberty was almost identical, though the helmsman, rightly believing the ship
to be under attack from outside, engaged the hyperdrives, throwing the ship several
parsecs away. A large number of the aliens were killed as a result, and those that
remained alive began fighting back with the controlled crewmen. In the end, all of
the crewmen and aliens were killed; the aliens, attached to the hull, died when it
suddenly exited hyperspace.

The problems with the stealth drive are easily correctable, should anyone live long
enough to discover them.

Adventure Ideas
The party may be in the Navy or Patrol and are assigned to track down the warship.
Since Project Spectre is highly secret, the PCs will not have very much information
on what's going on. For a nastier adventure, the adventurers may have been
crewmen on the Liberty. If they survive the attack, they are now stuck in a ship in
deep space with a FTL drive they dare not use . . .

On the other hand, if the party is a group of independent explorers or traders, they
may happen upon the Liberty, adrift in deep space, with no idea as to what
happened to her. So, of course, when part of the crew tries to pilot the ship to the
nearest Naval base (or pirate haven, to sell it), they will be in for a bit of a surprise.

Along the same lines, who says the disaster had to occur recently? Project Spectre
may be decades, perhaps even centuries, old. In this case, there probably won't be
anyone the adventurers have to turn the ship over to. A fully equipped warship may
seem like a tremendous find, until they start playing around with that funny piece of
machinery attached to the hyperdrive . . .

Past Columns

Article publication date: June 26, 1998

35 Pyramid subscribers rated this article 3.71 on a scale of 1 to 5. Visit the ratings
page for more info.

Copyright © 1998 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to
read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this
text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So
please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to
webmaster@sjgames.com.

Home - Subscribe! - Current Issue - Playtesting - Chat - - - Feedback