User:Narc/Starship Annie

The setting
Crew of a mining starship (Lucky Strike). Small (for a freigher), old, broken-down, but barely usable. Mining in an asteroid belt (Trilah system) which is out of the way, deserted, and just barely good enough to turn a profit. And there's something on the scanner that's not an asteroid. It looks like... a pretty big ship.

The Lucky's communications equipment is sparking and probably not working. Emergency commo got no response.


 * Red-ringed Rocket logo, military design. "HSS-1394, Annie"
 * Previous captain, Robert Earnest
 * Previous first mate, Dave Lionheart.

Emergency protocol 11.4: The new arrivals are now captain (narc) and first mate (icepick).

Alien race: Lyrians

Chapter One: The Mystery
En route to the navy District Hub station, Annie notes that the first populated system we tried to reach... wasn't. Populated, that is. We microjumped two light-hours out and found regular EM transmissions, all of which seemed to get quite abruptly cut off, with a final transmission (in the clear) of a scream being abruptly cut off.

We decided stealth was the better part of valor, and attempted a ballistic comet-like orbit, using passive sensors to get a closer (but hopefully quite safe) look at the invaders (what we can see of them... or, rather, guess at). We also released silent recon drones instructed to get a closer look and alert with omni-directional broadcast in case of interesting parameter changes (EM spectrum or gravimetric).