The Truth about Station 18

The environment scanner beeps and displays three green bars: no radiation, no toxins and no foreign organisms. The air is indicated as Kua standard. You turn to your friends and show the sensor display.

They give the thumbs up. With a brief gesture, the captain gives command to proceed into the station. You step over the airlock threshold and are met by utter darkness. The only light is the slim finger of your helmet light, cutting a narrow path through the inky blackness.

From exo's fabric pocket you remove a sugar globe and some vacuum-packed sugar solution. Carefully, you cover the globe with the gel and rub it in. Slowly it starts to glow, first with a gentle light then brightening to a strong white. One last time you turn to the captain, who gives you a nod prompting you to roll the sugar globe down the yawning black corridor beyond the air lock. It bounces over the dirty floor before it sticks to something – is that a tree root?

This scenario was originally written for the first version of Coriolis and published in 2010. There has not been an English translation – until now. When reading this, you may notice big parallels with “Dark Flowers” from the Coriolis Quickstart. However, this version has a different – and darker - underlying mood. I have stuck closely to the Swedish original and made an attempt to update the stats to the current Coriolis version. As ever, feel free to vary them as you see fit.

Many thanks to Fria Ligan AB, who gave me their kind permission to distribute this translation as part of the Free League Workshop programme.