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This one is
Alien 3 (1992) with some bits of
Alien 4 (1997).
Like
Chekhov's Gun, you know when you have a space station orbiting a black hole it's going to fall into it. Guaranteed.
The PCs are guest scientists and crew of a plasma tanker, the USCSS Cetorhina. The Cetorhina runs from Earth to Erebos Station, a plasma farm, loading plasma energy and rare elements as cargo, going to either Earth or the Frontier, offloading the cargo, and returning to Erebos Station in Draconis 26. The Cetorhina has done this 8 times in 6 years. Erebos Station is operated by prision labor and watched by a Warden and Corrections Androids. A black hole causes plasma streams to circle it like water down a drain. Erebos Station harvests the plasma. The proximity to the black hole causes accelerated NDD (Neurological Distortion Disorder), mental issues. Appropriately dispensed medication helps ameliorate these problems. W-Y probably pays hazard pay to the human employees and probably doesn't care too much if the prisoners go crazy. The prisioners here are high-risk lifers: violent gang members, organized crime figures, and terrorists.
Instead of bringing in prisoners and supplies this time, the Cetorhina is bringing a bunch of scientists. Sparkling xeno-life has been spotted in the plasma stream. The scientists are lured by lucrative contracts to study this new life.
I noticed Clerke's Clues (p.28), Weaponizing the Virus (p.34), and Deck C - Medlab (p.32) info is all spread out everywhere and needs to be understood by the GM before running, otherwise info will be skipped or missed. Clerke's Reports (p.29) are pretty fragmentary if you just hand them out piecemeal and make the PCs do a treasure hunt betwen terminals. A bit odd and I doubt the PCs would do that. I actually handed out all of Clerke's Reports in one go in the Medlab.
The Hessdalen Lights make more Perfected and so does the 26 Draconis Strain. So, I'm not sure why the Perfected want the 26 Draconis Strain. Maybe it works faster or lets them make a black goo bomb? The Hessdalen Lights need radiation to survive and the 26 Draconis Strain doesn't. So, maybe it's a better way to make more Perfected and has a higher survival rate.
In the game I ran, the Players mainly picked crew members of the Cetorhina, so they were focused mainly on fixing their ship, scavenging parts, and getting out of there.
When I played, the Players mainly picked scientists, so we were focused on discovering how the Xenos worked and how to kill them.
If you want to focus more on the prisioners. You can bring in more of the conflict between the Warden and the prisoners. My players never went to Deck H, so they never ran into the surviving prisoners. If you want more emphasis on the prisioners, you'll need to use more of their optional events and even put a few on other decks and have them take over sections of the space station. This is if you want a different feel in the scenario than what is written.
Act 1: At the start, I showed pictures of the black hole (scenario cover or box cover) and the exterior of Erebos Station (p.7) while reading out "What's the Story Mother?" (p.9). When the PCs arrive, docking port Terminal 2, Deck G will open up to them. As they try to dock, a gravity shear smashes the Cetorhina into the right side of Erebos Station, causing structural damage and plasma fires on Erebos Station (right side of Decks F, G, & H). Depending on how they pilot their ship, they'll crash into either Deck E, F, or H (p.16, Crash Location Chart). The accident will disable the Cetorhina until it can be repaired and separated from Erebos Station. Captain Lugar of the Cetorhina has been to the station numerous times, so she has some knowledge of the station's layout. To put out the fires, airlocks can be opened to vent areas out to space (p.26, Plasma Fire). PCs may have to go into the Chute, to shut the emergency doors between each floor (p.27, Emergency), before they open up the airlocks (p.38, Plasma Vent), otherwise they may space the whole structure. The emergency doors should close by themselves, but the crash and the plasma fire may have affected the mechanisms, and the structural integrity of the station. Exterior airlocks are all secured and would require ComTech rolls to open from the outside.
Act 2: Just as a Deacon Xeno is about to kill a PC, it is told to stop and the Perfected shows up with a deal. It wants the 26 Draconis Strain in exchange for what is most likely a bad deal. The PCs are directed to the Cheiron. Most PCs will go along with this just to have a truce with the Xenos. The Perfected cannot sense the Pilot (p.50). They want his infected blood. This is not made clear at all. PCs may be puzzled as to why the Perfected can't get this themselves. Or how the Perfected knows the 26 Draconis Strain is on the Cheiron. The only thing I can think of is that Perfect Aly (on Deck B, p.31) has some residual memory of hiding Lavigne in the hypersleep chamber and the Hive has finally figured this out and still can't find Lavigne and need the PCs to do this. A bit weak sauce, but the only thing I can think of that works.
By now I've asked for NDD and Radiation sickness checks. So far, nobody's suffered anything. I'm not sure if it's even worth asking for the die rolls, especially the Radiation checks.
The PCs never went to Deck B, so never ran into Perfect Aly. I actually think it'll be better to change it so that the first Perfect they run into is Perfect Aly, if Aly's grand niece, Lugar, is in play.
They did discover Asteroid 1113B (p.8 & p.34) and its collision course with the space station. Finding this out doesn't really matter other than it creates a ticking clock for either moving the space station or fixing the Cetorhina.
In both my play and run, the PCs didn't give the 26 Draconis Strain to the Perfected. The Players in the game I ran found the Ladder to the Ventral Aux Hatch and was able to sneak away, get the Power Cells from Cargo Bay 1 (p.18), use the EVA pods to transport the batteries back to the Cetorhina (got a 3 successes on Mobility, the sneaky bastard). They also used the EVA pods to get the Thruster Compression Coil (p.18) and cut away the Hive tendrils (originally they were going to cut the Cethorina free (p.18), but this takes a whole shift), so they decided to cut the tendrils and risk hull damage by pulling away from the space station (p.57).
One PC started working on Weaponizing the Virus (p.34), but it was too late. It takes a whole shift to do this. So, the PC packed up whatever he could and took it to the Cethorina.
Act 3: The PCs broke free of the space station and let it fall into the black hole. But it's not over yet, there's a Ninth Passenger (p.57). And the PC with the Virus lab decided to become Perfected and infected himself. There's no real rules for this, so I went with the Effects on p.70. Gave the PC the Fulfremmen Speed, Health, and Armor Rating. As crew members are snatched away by the Ninth Passenger, they're transformed into Xenos and the Perfected ordered them to take over the ship. In the end, only the Perfected and Adrien the cat were the last surviving PCs.
In the game I played in, one of the scientists switched the 26 Draconis Strain with the Weaponized Virus and gave that to the Perfected. My PC called the UPP for pickup and we got off the station.
When I played this, we mainly picked the scientists. When I ran this, the PCs picked were all the crew of the Cetorhina. Only when the PCs started dying did the scientists get picked as PCs, but the game turned out fine even though I was worried that there were no active scientists at the start of the game.
Overall, depending on what the Players are interested in or what the GM wants to emphasize, this scenario can be played with a specific focus. Though the scientist clues and clue trails are more developed. So, if you want a different focus, you'll have to pick events more in line with what you want to see happen and even create your own events.
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