Ok… so I'm going to be running my first session in the next few weeks!

I plan to start the session in media res and have their ship pulled screaming out of hyperspace in an uncharted system where they'll pick up a faint distress beacon coming from a large debris field that is the remains of a destroyed Republic medical station.

A bit of backstory…. The ship transmitting the distress beacon is a freighter that belonged to a smuggler who wronged one of the local Crime Lords. As punishment he was sent to complete another job (free from any reward) delivering a cargo of stolen imperial blaster rifles to a world currently in the midst of a civil war.

The rifles are actually payment for a group of pirates that work for the Crime Lord. The Crime Lord had the smugglers navigation computer sabotaged to bring the ship to this system then, once in system, the life support (also sabotaged) vented leaving everybody in the ship dead. The pirates could then just waltz in a take their payment from the cargo hold.

I'm looking for a feasible reason for the player's ship to be pulled out of hyperspace, I was thinking that picking up the distress beacon might do it… but now I'm not sure that's enough??

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Bad Astrogation data? Its an uncharted system, so it wouldn't be on any standard star charts. Perhaps the planets moon is in position to extend the planets gravitational shadow further out into the space lane and cause an emergency exit from hyperspace.

Have you watched the pilot episode of Firefly?

Me I'd go with a makeshift satellite that upon receiving a signal from the medical station that indicates the smuggler ship had arrived triggers its ant-jump drive the same sort of device used in the variant star destroyer and your PCs are just unlucky enough to come into range of that satellite and are pulled out of hyperspace.

Now if the only signal they can pick up is from the smuggler's ship maybe that will be enough to make them want to investigate and find out how to reactivate their hyperdrive, but have you thought about keeping the medical station intact?

The smuggler ship docks with the medical station a virus links up from their ship to the station so when they board the station it vents the life support on their ship stranding them aboard the medical station.

Your pirates can just dock alongside the now vented smuggler ship and remove the contraband all without entering the station and then leave placing explosives so when they jump out it blows up the smuggler's ship and maybe even the medical station although on low power and no means of escape that's a nasty way to go.

However what are the pirates doing at this point when your player's turn up?

Great ideas guys! At the time the player's arrive in system the pirates are en route to collect their payment (having been given the location by the Crime Lord). I'm going that the players will investigate the freighter (fingers crossed that happens). I plan for the pirates to arrive as the player's are exploring the stricken freighter & looting is cargo of blaster rifles... Then they'll attack once the pirates realise what's going on. I'd gone with a destroyed medical station to give me some terrain to make the space combat a bit more interesting.

Hmm... Seems a bit of overkill for this crime lord to have his agent sneak aboard and sabotage two systems like that. Why not kill two birds with one stone and put an astromech droid on board with instructions to get the ship to the uncharted system and then to vent the atmosphere to space. The crime lord could say "So boys, this here salvaged astromech my tech boys fixed up has got the coordinates. What, you thinks I is goona give you lot the coordinates to my most secret drop point?"

Then when the ship got to the system and everyone is at the bridge trying to see what is happening the little droid that everyone ignores, after all who notices an astromech droid, simply seals the blast doors to the bridge and by remote control detonates the large explosive charge near the main window venting the compartment to space and allowing the little droid to return to the crime lord with the ship. After all, why waste a perfectly good smuggling vessel?

However something went wrong and the droid can't get the jump system online until he can make repairs.

Now, the question is do you want the players to have the guns as a reward cargo or not? I'd say there would be too many for one load in the pirates smaller vessels so they have to come back for a few of the crates. So if the players are successful they get a decent haul but not the big score.

So enter the heroes.

The system is secret for a good reason. It is a natural McGuffin Generator. What is a McGuffin Generator? Doctor Seamore McGuffin postulated that a counter hyperspace wave could be generated that would force a vessel out of hyperspace and make it impossible to re-enter without recalculating the jump. Something that takes the navacomp a long time to crunch the numbers. How does it work? What, are you some kind of Hyperspace Research Scientist? I can't explain it to you unless you have far more scientific background than a smuggler like you could possibly have. All they know is the navacomp readout came up with "McGuffin Feild" as a reason for dropping out of hyperspace and it could take up to a full day to calculate the next jump.

The system is great for the pirates since it's not off any of the major trade routes the kind of ships passing by are probably not running legal cargoes and certainly aren't the big freighters or even worse Imperial patrol craft that they might not be able to handle. So when a smuggler drops out of hyperspace the pirates attack, seizing the ship and cargo while spacing the survivors so the system remains a secret.

So when the PC's fly too close while hauling a perfectly legal low profit shipment of consumer goods to a new colony nearby they are stuck for several hours while the navacomp crunches the numbers. Sensors pick up another vessel that seems to be functional but reads no life forms. The little astromech isn't detected because the pirates turned it off so it couldn't fly off with the guns. They don't trust the little tin can anymore than they trust the crime lord they are doing business with.

Now, unless your PC's have a tragic abundance of morality they will board the cargo vessel. Now the pirates being an untrustworthy bunch, gee go figure, they have sliced the hatch controls so the docking clamps lock down on any ships the board without first transmitting the proper code. Once the clamps lock down the power from the ships reactor is funneled to the clamps frying them and fusing the ships together so the PC's can't run without dragging the other ship along. Also the power feed fries ships sensors and weapons so they would be flying blind anyhow. Now the ships sensors wont come up until the pirates are almost ready to dock, far too late for them to get to the freighters other hatch and ambush the pirates.

What follows is a terrifying cat and mouse game fought in an unfamiliar freighter with pirates who will show them no mercy. First off, the pirates want their guns, which unfortunately were right by the primary docking hatch which is where the PC's ship is docked. Unless they suffer from an abundance of morality the crates of Imperial blaster rifles are probably on the PC's ship since they would have found them immediately upon entering the freighter. So there is that problem. Also the power feeds are still messing up the Pc's ship so they need to go to engineering to shut them off. Thirdly they have a couple pirate fightercraft escorting the pirates shuttlecraft that will need to be dealt with requiring weapons to come back on line. The mechanic will find that a critical part to the weapons system is fried and they don't have spares so they will need to scavenge the parts from the freighter, while the pirates are trying to kill them. Oh, and don't forget once they have dealt with the pirates on board, gotten the power couplings disengaged, found the parts, fixed the weapons, cut the ship loose and battled the fighters they still have to get the navacomp to spit out new coordinates.

Hilarity ensues.

Sound like a good time?

Now, just for added fun remember the little astromech that started all this by backstabbing the original crew? They are pretty valuable... Depending on how evil you want to be the little guy could be right next to the crates of weapons. It doesn't care what ship it comes home on, just as long as there isn't any crew that could talk about where the secret system is....

Enjoy

Great ideas MrMyxzptik! Love the Mcguffin idea! In answer to your question, yes I'm hoping the players take the cargo of rifles... Mainly because it's going to come back to bite them when the Crime Lord realises that they took them. There's also a relic on board that the smuggler was supposed to deliver to the Crime Lord but decided to tell him he failed to obtain it (the reason for his punishment). There'll be details on his ship about who he was planning to fence it to... Again, I'm hoping the players will take that bait & try to sell it on.

Cheers all for the ideas, a great help as always!

I like your style there. Everything has a price, even if you think it's for free someone else wanted it and probably still does.

It's taken a little longer to get sorted than I expected but the first session for the crew of The Echo Rising is set for the 28th November... Really excited to run this at last, and just a bit nervous, been a while since I've run a game!