Session 1 (31 March 2023)

Location: On board the Dejah Thoris, a 200-ton Empress Marava-class far trader, in Far Home 1525 (Demon's Eye subsector)

Date: 057-5600

Time: 1430

Travellers: Ada Windsor, Torka Jax, Jacobe Kyman, Erhardt Hecker, Jaxxon Fomstep, Griff Kodiak

NPCs: Captain Jarumi, Sakamoto (pilot), Spiros (engineer), Smith (steward)

Captain Nika Jarumi summons you to the common room for an important announcement. There's good news and bad news. 

The bad news is, the ship suffered a misjump during its transit from Pel Avena to Merant and went badly off course. The Dejah Thoris is now 3 parsecs coreward of its destination — stranded in the Demon's Eye Rift, the deep space between inhabited systems of the Rimward Federation and the massive Demon's Eye Nebula. There's enough fuel on board to make one jump-2 back toward civilization, but no further.

The good news is that by pure happenstance, a derelict mining vessel equipped with extra fuel tanks is nearby, having seemingly jumped into proximity of a passing comet to assess its mineral potential. The Alexis shows no signs of life, but maybe it has the fuel you need to make a second jump back to reach Merant.

The comet

Jarumi's plan is to spacewalk over to the Alexis, assess the situation, and salvage fuel and whatever else might be of use. Anticipating that she may need to call upon the varied skills and expertise of the Travellers, she authorizes Smith, the steward, to give you access to your gear in the cargo bay. Windsor and Kodiak go to the bridge while Fomstep monitors biometrics from a console. Jax, Kyman, and Hecker head to the cargo bay to suit up.

As the Dejah Thoris nudges closer to the derelict ship, you see an open airlock. The pilot, Sakamoto, points out a human body adrift in space some distance away. No way to tell how long the ship and the body have been floating here: has it been weeks or years? 

Jarumi and Sakamoto suit up and float over the Alexis. They head straight to the bridge, finding evidence of energy weapon discharge in a corridor and a charred husk of a human body. Weird. While Jarumi investigates the bridge, Sakamoto is drawn away. Over comms you hear him wondering about a buzzing noise and a breeze. (A breeze should be impossible in a vacuum, right?) Jarumi asks Hecker and Spiros, her engineer, to come over and see about restarting the fusion reactor. Jax and Kyman come as well, to help investigate the derelict.

Meanwhile, Sakamoto is sounding stranger and stranger. You hear him mention lights, then his verbal musings turn to grunts of effort and gasps of surprise, and then to screams and, abruptly, silence. Fomstep sees the biometric feed lose its signal.

Jax and Kyman find the charred remains of the pilot in the cavernous cargo hold, the corpse still tethered to the deck plates by the blackened remnants of its magnetic boots. The metal components on his vacc suit are scorched near to the melting point. It appears that in his final moments he shot at something with his laser rifle, but evidently missed entirely: the shots all landed in a neat group on the inside of the heavy cargo bay doors.

Hecker determines that it will take two hours for him and Spiros to restart the power plant, but can't vouch for its stability. In the interim, batteries can be used to power local consoles and devices. Jarumi asks them to proceed with the restart and orders everyone to be on the alert and to work in pairs. Kodiak comes over to take help take Sakamoto's body back for analysis. Each of you sets to work on your tasks. Windsor remains on the Dejah Thoris's bridge, no doubt glad not to be on the derelict.

Then you hear Smith's voice over the comms. "What's that buzzing sound?"

Time: 1600

To be continued.