Chapter 6.3: The Relay at Edrin's Reach

This Tier 0 commission introduces the campaign loop. It supports investigation, Social Conflict, an Extended Task, personal danger, and starship confrontation. The crew may resolve the final pressure without firing.

Commission Brief

Edrin's Reach is an Imperial relay station three hops beyond the Outer Ring. It missed three check-ins after a charged-debris storm crossed the system. The relay serves six frontier settlements and the navigation beacons along their supply lane.

The established route supports all three Translation Profiles. Warp follows its surveyed vectors, certified jump links connect its stellar wells, and registered hyperlanes join the same three legs. Use the crew's chosen drive without changing the commission.

Objective: reach the relay, restore contact, rescue anyone present, and secure the entangled routing cluster.

Tier: 0, Routine.

Mandate: Investigation and Preservation under the Charter. The crew may disable or destroy equipment actively threatening life. Transfer of the routing cluster to any foreign party is prohibited.

Mandate Assets: Mission supplies a relay-compatible repair package, current station schematics, charged-debris navigation data, and emergency capacity for four evacuees. These resources are part of the commission and consume no Prepared Asset choice.

Directives:

• Preserve life aboard the relay and any vessel answering the same emergency.
• Keep the routing cluster under attributable Imperial control.
• Accept surrender and offer a safe withdrawal where immediate danger permits.

Known facts: the station held four technicians. Its last telemetry reported damaged radiator vanes and falling reserve power. A small foreign salvage vessel entered the system eleven hours later. No transmission has left the system since.

What Happened

The storm tore two radiator vanes from the relay and drove charged fragments through its Communications ring. The technicians evacuated in a lifeboat before the station lost power. Their emergency burst reached a nearby salvage crew led by Nera Kel.

Nera docked and stabilized life support. Her settlement, Orra's Well, has a failing atmospheric plant and no replacement regulators. She began removing two relay regulators after concluding the station would be abandoned. The removal woke defense drones running on corrupted local code. One salvager is injured, and the crew is trapped in the docking arm.

The raider ship Sable Current detected the same emergency burst. Its captain, Tovan Rusk, intends to seize the routing cluster and sell its materials. He knows captured Imperial hardware will not operate for him. The cluster's physical components still carry value on several foreign markets. He does not know that the cluster's registered components carry Foundry provenance readable by a properly equipped buyer, or that the trust-root lattice records destructive disassembly while any part of its local log survives. A buyer equipped to extract their value will also create evidence tying the sale to the stolen cluster.

Scene One: Through the Storm

The crew arrives outside a charged debris field surrounding the relay. Traits: Charged Fragments, Intermittent Relay Beacon, and Salvage Vessel Docked.

Crossing safely is an Extended Task: Progress 6, Difficulty 2, Resistance 1, one round per Interval. Reason + Science can model the debris; Control or Daring with a piloting Focus can fly the path; Engineering can tune the defensive field. The ship Assists with Sensors or Engines.

Run a Trouble Track of 6 with Impact 2. A failed Task or Complication advances Trouble. At 3, create Defensive Field Saturated. At 5, inflict Severity 4 Damage on the ship. At 6, the crew still reaches the relay and suffers a Structure Breach.

The first Breakthrough reveals that the salvage vessel is transmitting a local distress pulse. The second opens a clear path and removes Resistance.

Scene Two: The Docking Arm

The relay has gravity and a breathable atmosphere in the docking arm. Emergency lamps pulse against smoke from a cut bulkhead. Three frightened salvagers hold the junction. One supports an injured crewmate. Nera Kel stands forward with a cutting tool held low.

Traits: Smoke in the Docking Arm, Injured Salvager, Defense Drones Beyond the Hatch, and Mutual Weapons Awareness.

Nera asks for medical treatment and safe departure with the two regulators. She believes the relay technicians are dead. Showing the lifeboat launch record or the current needs of the six settlements gives Evidence. Treating the injured salvager creates Care Given Before Terms and lowers the Difficulty of requests to Nera by 1.

Use the Faction Envoy profile from Chapter 6.1 with these changes: Nera has Engineering 3, Diplomacy 2, and the Value Orra's Well gets another season of air. She will return the regulators if the crew provides an immediate substitute or makes a credible Offer to repair the settlement's plant. She will also accept one regulator plus a temporary life-support package. She refuses to leave her injured crewmate.

Violence is possible and unnecessary. The salvagers' personhood is not in doubt. If they surrender, cease hostile action, or request medical aid, the crew must accept the cessation and provide practicable care.

Scene Three: The Relay Core

The central ring is losing heat control. Two feral defense drones patrol between the docking arm and the routing chamber. The station inventory and the supplied schematics identify them as non-conscious maintenance machines with added defense hardware. A diagnostic through the local node confirms that no Synthetic or other conscious system is present. Their corrupted recognition layer makes them an immediate operational hazard. Characters may destroy them, trap them behind a bulkhead, or repair that layer. If the gamemaster changes their nature or introduces evidence that puts the diagnosis in doubt, apply the protections for uncertain personhood in Chapter 2.2.

Use two Feral Defense Drones from Chapter 6.1. A character who studies the patrol for a round gains Pattern Mapped. Reaching the local control node makes repair an Extended Task with Progress 6, Difficulty 2, Resistance 1, and one turn per Interval. Completing it replaces Corrupted Defense Routine with Recognition Restored and ends the conflict.

Restoring the relay itself is an Extended Task: Progress 10, Difficulty 2, Resistance 1, ten minutes per Interval.

Useful approaches include:

• Engineering to rebuild radiator control or replace power paths;
• Science to model the thermal cascade;
• Security to isolate the defense network from the core.

Those approaches can add Progress because they directly change the relay's condition. Medicine can keep Nera's injured crewmate stable while the station warms, and Diplomacy can coordinate salvagers and crew through incompatible procedures. These enabling Tasks create or remove Traits, provide Assistance, or prevent consequences; they do not add relay Progress by themselves.

At 5 Progress, the relay regains Minimal Aelith contact and transmits the technicians' lifeboat coordinates. At 8, Resistance falls to 0. Completion restores Full contact and stable heat control.

Run Core Temperature as Trouble 10, Impact 2. Each failed repair attempt or Complication advances it. At 5, create Routing Chamber Unsafe. At 8, the next Interval inflicts 2 Stress on every unprotected biological character in the core. At 10, the cluster performs an emergency shutdown; the repair can continue, but restarting interstellar routing requires a new Progress 6 Extended Task after the temperature is stable.

Scene Four: Sable Current

When the relay reaches Minimal contact, Sable Current enters Long range and demands the routing cluster. Tovan claims salvage rights and gives the crew ten minutes to undock.

Tovan is a Raider Leader from Chapter 6.1. He wants enough value to clear the obligations holding his crew to their current patron. He fears losing the ship. Evidence of the cluster's registered component provenance and disassembly log weakens his position. An Offer of fuel, repair, or legitimate escort work can give him a way out. A credible promise that the crew will protect his people if he leaves his patron lowers Social Conflict Difficulty by 1 through Crew First.

If talks fail, use this ship:

Sable Current, Scale 3 raider. This is a custom adversary profile, built to represent a fast cutter with a thin and unevenly trained crew; it does not use the player-ship quick-build totals. Traits: Foreign Raider, Fast Salvage Cutter. Systems: Communications 8, Computers 8, Engines 10, Sensors 8, Structure 9, Weapons 9. Specializations: Medicine 0, Science 1, Engineering 2, Diplomacy 1, Security 3, Infiltration 2. Resistance 2. Maximum Shields 15. Crew Quality: Talented. Talent: Emissions Discipline. Weapons: Precision Projector and Heavy Projector.

Tovan begins with Disabling intent. He turns Destructive only if his crew faces an apparent lethal threat. He withdraws when Sable Current suffers two Breaches, when his escape route is about to close, or when the crew offers terms that leave his people safer than continued fighting.

The relay is a location Trait during the conflict. Once repaired, it can Assist one Communications, Computers, or Sensors Task each round with a target number of 13 and a critical range of 1–3.

Resolution

The technicians' lifeboat is six hours from exhausting its reserves. Restored contact makes delegation possible, but contact alone does not complete the rescue. A named responder must accept responsibility, identify a recovery vessel with capacity for four people and adequate reserves, give an arrival time inside the survival window, launch, and remain in verified contact. Record the responder, vessel, and expected recovery time. If any condition is absent or later fails, the crew remains responsible and must launch its own ship or shuttle before debrief. The crew may also choose to conduct the rescue directly without seeking a handoff.

Nera keeps any agreement the crew made. If the crew helps Orra's Well, add Nera as a contact and record Friend to Orra's Well. Tovan remembers safe terms, a broken promise, or an unnecessary killing according to what occurred.

At debrief, consider:

• Service: the relay or its dependent settlements were protected, the technicians recovered, or immediate harm otherwise reduced.
• Judgment: the crew verified the drones' nature before choosing force, protected the salvagers and routing cluster, accepted cessation, and kept force proportional.
• Craft: the crew used its ship, expertise, Assets, and available allies to solve the linked problems.

The commission can award all 3 Standing without combat. A damaged ship, promise to Orra's Well, escaped raider, or relationship with Nera can carry directly into the next offer from Mission.