The Jump

## VOID EP.02 - The Jump

Episode 2 opens up with Tal giving the new crew members a tour of the ship. She lays down the house rules:

* She doesn't want to know about any Faction association.
* Don't go near her bunk or she'll put you out the airlock.
* Clean up after yourself, she's not your maid (or your mom).

As The Defiant. is about to pull away from the docks of Coriolis, the priestess Sholie can be seen making a prayer on the ship. Tal also says a prayer in the ship's chapel as they're waiting for their clearance to approach the portal and make the jump to the Hamura System on their way to Taoan. They all get into their cryo pods, the ship's computer SALI counts them down.

The Defiant. disappears into the portal.

When the ship appears on the other side warning lights flash! Something collides with the side of the hull! The crew wake up and scramble to their stations. Tal is the pilot, Tamir is the engineer, Malik is the sensor/coms operator, and Sul holds his throw up bucket. They have jumped into an unexpected debris field in the Hamura system that has knocked The Defiant. off trajectory! Their course is degrading into the sun.

Malik does a scan of the area and he learns several things:

* This debris field consists of multiple ships.
* The field is so large it is orbiting the Hamura star.
* A signal pings back a distress beacon of a larger Consortium-owned ship called the Ghazali whose orbit has decayed catastrophically towards the sun.

They decide to check out the Ghazali and see if there are any survivors. Malik reminds them of the importance of salvaging what they can from a Consortium-owned ship. Tamir plots a route to intercept with the bigger ship for Tal on their way out of the debris field. They do not have a very big window to mount a rescue. Meanwhile Sul pukes in his bucket and straps in.

Tal's expert flying gets them alongside the other ship. They approach and can see significant damage. The bridge is missing, and Malik reads one biotic and two organic lifeforms on the scans. After docking, Sul does a quick recon of the immediate area with his drone. He finds evidence of some passengers or crew being killed in a gruesome way, but gives the all clear to Malik and Tamir. They saw the camera feed and are not impressed! They cautiously go into the ship proper where they encounter the AI for the Ghazali.

The AI named Suleiman tells them they must retrieve the emerald disc to report back to the Coriolis what happened. It plays back the final message of the Ghazali captain. Malik and Tamir bring up floor plans, logs, and censor readings to find out what happened and they learn several things:

* Three weeks ago a distress signal from the gas mining colony Tsurabi in Taoan was received on Coriolis.
* The Colonial Agency scrambled a rescue fleet and purchased the Ghazali, a decommissioned luxury liner to help evacuate the 300 colonists.
* The Ghazali and a fleet of smaller ships were being escorted from Kua to Taoan by a Legion destroyer called the Zefirah.
* When making the jump from Hamura to Taoan something happened at the event horizon of the portal. As the Zefirah disappeared into the portal there was a huge flash of light and surge of radiation. This causes the smaller ships in the convoy to explode.
* A strange mixture of light and darkness overtakes the ship and something flashes through the portal. Instead of being pulled into the portal as per normal, the Ghazali is spat back out on a bad trajectory.

Tamir and Malik are able to discern the location of the emerald disc, and head to the cargo bay. There they discover mangled bodies and a dead body of a creature called a nakatra among several other empty crates. Malik and Sul search the bodies and find the emerald disc in the hand of a severed arm. Sul's proximity sensor picks up movement coming towards them.

The three men face off against three nakatra! They desperately fight their way back to their ship. Both Malik and Sul are injured.

As they're making their escape Sul slips in a large pool of blood. As he's trying to recover it's like time slows down. He notices in a hand of a dead priest a small hand carved stone. Something calls to him and without thinking he grabs this stone. They make it back to The Defiant with minutes to spare.

## Corruption Bar & Darkness Points

1. Playing the Asteroid card from the Icon Deck.
2. Playing the Blood card from the Icon Deck.

Darkness (Dot) Points earned: 8