It's Coming Right At Me!

Turn 1:

Our brave cast of Spacemen fire up their motion trackers and note nine indistinguishable blips moving about the ships. One is the Alien; the rest are either the "escaped" lab specimens or just sensor echos within the spaghetti bowl of pipes, shafts, and wires within the ship. One blip moves quickly into the lab, where Dennis is innocently figuring out how all the lab animals escaped and noticing one of the Alien eggs brought aboard now seems to be open and empty.... Uh oh! Luckily, the blip headed towards Dennis turns out to be a sensor glitch.

More ominously, four of the blips move in unison towards the blue collar portion of the ship where Ship's Engineers Brian and Jon are diligently preparing to whip up some better weapons from spare parts. Better work fast guys!

(Note: Blip movement, the first phase of each turn, is via somewhat random face down counters).

The highly motivated humans move as follows:

• Rob (medical) beats a hot foot from the Infirmary to the Command Module with no incident.


• Ship's Commander Steve (already in the Command Module) unlocks the Arms Locker and picks up Nerve Gas grenades and a Sleep Dart Gun. "I like to keep these handy, for close encounters!" Note, while the Alien is at life stage 1 and 2, the obedient crew tries to follow the Company's orders not to kill the alien, so Steve won't be able to use the grenades just yet.


• Deputy Commander (#1) Michael and Science Officer Chris run from the Mess Hall (leaving his barely eaten lunch) to the Arms Locker with no incident, but aren't able to lock 'n load this turn.


• Ensign Mark and Engineer Ted both run from the Living Quarters to the Command Module, wanting to arm up as well.


• Engineer Brian dutifully begins work on an Electric Shock Prod weapon, which will be quite useful coaxing the Alien towards the carbon freezing chamber. He successfully completes 50% of the project.


• Engineer Jon runs in from Ship's Maintenance and prepares to begin work on a flamethrower next turn.


• Dennis scoots out of the Lab with one of the empty, portable cages and runs to the Command Module. He'll be able to catch an escaped lab animal or stunned Life Stage 1 or 2 (i.e., baby) Alien in the cage.

Turn 2:

The four blips continue to converge on the Engineers! Work faster, Brian and Jon! One is in the main corridor outside their workshop. Luckily this corridor is also adjacent to the Command Module, so backup is on the way.

• Brian completes and arms the electric shock prod, ready for anything that might peek through the hatchway.


• Jon works feverishly on the more complicated flame thrower, completing 33% of the project.


• Ensign Mark runs into the Arms Locker and loads up a Sleep Dart Gun and Blaster.


• Brave Captain Steve gives an epic speech worthy of Henry V to the gathered crew in the Command Module, and leads a brave charge into the corridor to take on the sensor blip about to move on Brian and Jon.


• Michael (with Dart Gun), Chris (with Dart Gun), and Dennis (with Cage) let out a rousing battle cry and follow Steve into the breach.


• Rob runs to the Lab to fetch another cage.


• Ted spends the turn arming up with nerve gas and a blaster.

What happens next? Read the next post, dear friends.