The Imperial Destroyer "Bulldog" has received a emergency signal from Asteroid PQ-1128, site of a private research station (Ridley Station). There was also a voice transmission, indicating that "the creatures" had broken loose and were attacking station personnel. The signal was suddenly terminated before the comms officer could find out more. Sensors monitored a large explosion on the asteroid shortly thereafter. This was apparently a shuttle crashing into the bay doors from inside.

"Bulldog" has moved in close and a squad of marines have jetted over into the station. The interior airlock to the docking bay is undamaged; marine orders are to investigate, aid any survivors and deal with "the creatures". A naval work-party in Vacc Suits are working to open up the bay doors, but it will take time to clear it enough for small craft to dock.

The Marines are all in sealed environment armor. Each has a laser rifle and pistol, knife/bayonet, 1-2 grenades and a basic medikit. Two marines carry LMGs instead of rifles. The Sergeant is REP 5, 2 Corporals and the remaining 6 marines are REP 4. They are accompanied by 2 medi-bots (towed along from "Bulldog"); the 'bots also carry several rescue balls in case survivors need to be transported over to the ship (there should be more of these, as well as vacc suits, on the station).

On the station are 13 aliens (of the Bug/Xenomorph type) and 6 scientists/technicians. The survivors are REP 2 or 3. Two of them are armed with laser pistols; all of them are hiding from the aliens.

If two black (Marine) cards are turned for initiative, a scientist emerges from hiding in a nearby room. I had the marines test to see if they fired, though they'd only shoot if they blew both dice.

Aliens are all REP 4 and treated just as in CR. I allowed them to move along the ceiling at normal movement rates, so narrow corridors are doubly hazardous! They get revealed in one of two ways: when a marine checks a room, it has 1-3 aliens in it on a d6 score or 1 or 2; if two Red (alien) cards are turned for initiative, 1-3 aliens emerge from a nearby uncleared room, a hallway, grate, etc.

Rooms which have been checked (and had any aliens in 'em killed) and rooms which had survivors in them are "cleared". Aliens cannot appear from these areas (though I had a Joker result in aliens doing so, the sneaky devils). When all 13 aliens are dead, the station is cleared. Any living aliens which cannot be seen by a human or 'bot are put back in the "pool". This includes aliens which flee around corners and those left behind if the marines fall back, etc.

The difficulty of the scenario can be modified by using more aliens, increasing the number who appear (to d4, d6, etc.) or reducing the number or REP of the marines. As written, the marines should clear the station, though not without some casualties. Watch out for intersections and areas with several uncleared rooms!

The basic design of the station is a large "U" shaped corridor (more or less), surrounded by various rooms and smaller corridors. In area between the arms of the "U" are a series of connected rooms (the labs). In the center of the bottom part of the "U" is the room in which the marines start. Corridors lead to the left and right; behind them is the airlock (with the docking bay beyond that).

My station was built using MapMaker, a free program for making tile maps. This can be found at Hulkskulker's KnowledgeBase. A number of tiles are included with the program; new tiles can be added with no trouble (textures for DOOM, Quake, etc. are good sources for this).

A variant of this (suggested by my brother) changes the the setting to an underground survival shelter on a colony world over-run by aliens. Most of the survivors are in cryogenic stasis, with only a few actually awake when aliens manage to enter the complex. Their distress signal is picked up by a group of Cybermen, who land with the intent of grabbing the humans for cyberconversion. In this version, there were potentially 14 humans (8 armed, 6 unarmed) and they appeared in groups of 1-3. They will generally hole up in a room, and will fire on both Aliens and Cybermen. Humans moving into an uncleared room will cause a check for Alien occupants, which can make for really interesting situations ...