Yo Ho Ho

On the fourth day out from Civis 2, the Reliant Robin suddenly dropped out of jump space with a lurch and the blare of an alarm. The crew quickly gathered on the ship’s bridge.

“What happened?” asked Cromia. “Is the jump drive broken?”

“Nothing wrong with the J-drive,” answered Els. “We must have hit something.”

“There was nothing on the charts,” said MacReady. “I set a clean course to Sonuria.”

“The sector charts are bullshit,” complained Els. “Someone should do something about that.” She glared at Cromia, the former Scout.

Meanwhile, Cromia had been staring at the sensor console. “There it is,” he said, pointing at the nav display. “A brown dwarf, close enough to dump us out of jump. And some sort of...”

“Attention! Far trader!” A voice boomed over the emergency comm channel. “This is the smallcraft to your spinward. Heave to and prepare to be boarded. We have weapons locked and will chase you down if you run. Let’s do this the easy way so no-one gets hurt, eh?”

Cromia replied to the call. “This is the Reliant Robin, uh, all right, we are standing by to receive your boarding party.” Then he turned to the crew. “Armour. Weapons. Let’s get ready for them.”

Half an hour later, the Robin’s crew was ready as a pinnace pulled alongside. MacReady was standing in front of the airlock, apparently unarmed, to lure the pirates into the ship. The others were hidden, wearing vacc suits and holding rifles.

They heard the outer airlock door open, then boom! A breaching charge blew the inner door loose and MacReady saw it fly away from him. As air poured out the airlock, MacReady and Els lost their footing. MacReady saw two pirates in combat armour entering the airlock.

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Roll for initiative!

By the way, everyone except MacReady is wearing a vacc suit or equivalent. That won’t be an issue, for the next few seconds.