A High Frontier event by Paul Watson
It is 2180.
Transmission begins:
On the prison moon of Rhea (also known as Saturn V) two violent criminals have made a break from a maximum security hospital, stealing a Weyland-Yutani cargo craft that had just picked the bodies of two executed prisoners for return to their families on Earth. A spray painted legend with the words “They’re not dead!” was found on the wall of the space dock – although who exactly the ‘they’ refers to remains a mystery.
The escapees were able to avoid their spacecraft being tracked but background checks have revealed that one of the prisoners has a brother serving on an outer rim colony world. The brother is a struck off surgeon now serving as a lowly med-tech and it’s believed that the prisoners may have approached him for help in removing the implanted tracking chips from their necks.
Needless to say both the Federal Security Service’s office and W-Y would like to see the recapture of the prisoners and the return of the Cargo craft – which, in addition to two cadavers they feel honour bound to return to their families, also holds valuable medical research material.
Due to the communications time lag, the colony’s responses to official enquiries have taken a couple of hours. The colony commander confirmed the arrival of two new people – claiming to be mining engineers. Their descriptions exactly fit those of the wanted men. Further information has, however, not been forthcoming as communications have abruptly ceased with no explanation.
As of now, no colony ‘Mayday’ has been received in the last 72 hours. Too long to be explained as a simple transmitter failure.
As such the FSA office has contacted the ICC and the Colonial Administration for permission to ‘saddle up a posse’. The team will comprise a minimum of 12 Colonial Marines, 2 Corporate investigators (with optional bodyguards) and 2 Federal District Marshals.
Congratulations. As part of the team selected, you’ll receive further orders on route.