Scenario 1 — Dead Reckoning

A ready-to-run single session — two to four hours, three to five players — and the first scenario of False Light: the one that takes the crew off the station and into the black. Where The Cold Lantern (Chapter 36) taught the personal-scale loop, Dead Reckoning teaches the hardware the starter never touches — plotting a jump (Chapter 27), a ship fight from the crew stations (Chapters 25, 26), and scale (Chapter 12) — all on the same player-facing engine: your crew rolls; the world rolls only the enemy's damage.

It needs no prep beyond a read. Hand out the pregenerated Wanderers (Appendix A6) aboard the Long Account — the mortgaged free trader from the Chapter 25 ship fight (Armor 24, one standard 8D turret, Cargo Hold, Atmospheric) — or use your own crew and hull. Everything here is built from rules already in the book; where a roll comes up, the chapter is noted. It runs GM-led, co-op, or solo — see the Running it solo callouts in the margins.

The one-paragraph pitch. A simple freight run one jump out of Coldwake. Somewhere in the dark the beacon the navigator trusts has been moved, and the jump dumps the Long Account onto a fringe no one plotted — where a corsair is already waiting in a gas giant's shadow, exactly as Chapter 25 warned. The crew has to survive the ambush, wring a course home out of a sky they don't recognize, and limp into port with a hold full of questions. The answer is that the stranding was no accident. Someone is manufacturing wrecks — and the crew just became a witness, and very nearly a wreck.

Index§

• The situation behind the screen
• How the crew gets the job (the hook)
• Act I — The Plot and the Jump
• Act II — The Ambush at the Fringe
• Act III — Replot and Arrival
• The choice — what the truth is worth
• Wrapping up — rewards and threads
• Running it solo or GM-less
• GM cheat-sheet

The situation behind the screen§

GANYMEDE Salvage has learned not to wait for ships to die. Out at the sector's edge, around the derelict graveyard of Greywell (see the Campaign Frame), they have quietly moved a jump-beacon — corrupted the navigation reference that ships near Greywell plot against — so that hulls coming through scatter into a fringe of empty space where a GANYMEDE-hired corsair waits to take them. A stranded ship is robbed, then broken; a vanished free trader is just one more wreck the salvage logs never explain. It is patient, deniable, and very profitable.

The Long Account's freight run threads right past the tampered beacon. The job, as offered: carry a contracted hold one jump and deliver it. The job underneath: survive a trap meant for anyone, work out who set it, and decide what the proof is worth.

The central truth (and the object that carries it): the stranding was deliberate. The proof is in two places — the corsair's nav logs, which show it loitering on a precise intercept no honest raider could have predicted, and the beacon itself, whose tamper-signature a sensor sweep will read. Together they are evidence GANYMEDE is making wrecks, not finding them — the lever that cracks the firm's deniability across the whole Reach (Chapter 34). It is worth far more as proof than as salvage.

Faction beat (GANYMEDE, clock 6). This scenario is GANYMEDE's scheme caught in the act. If the crew escapes with proof and uses it, tick the clock back one (two if they go public). If they take the corsair's value and stay quiet, the scheme worked — tick it forward. If they never tumble to what happened, it holds, and the next stranding is someone else's funeral.

How the crew gets the job (the hook)§

Pick whichever fits your table; all of them put the Long Account in the jump corridor past Greywell.

• The note's due. Vance's mortgage payment is days away (Chapter 28) and a contracted freight load — flat fee, no price risk — is the safe money. The corridor it travels is the trap. (Default.)
• A favor, or a tip. A Contact lines it up — Ace's salvage broker Tace Driftwell swears the salvage runs thick out toward Greywell lately (it does, and now you know why), or a shipper the crew trusts needs a hold moved quietly.
• Continuing from the Lantern. However The Cold Lantern ended, the crew is in the Coldwake Reach and needs work; this is the first run that pays.

Per-pregen hooks, if you're using them:

• Ace (pilot) — the run is his to fly, and never lost a parcel he swore to deliver is a wound a misjump goes straight for. Tace Driftwell's tip is in his ear.
• Echo (engineer) — she's the one who plots and the one who reads machines; a beacon that lies is a puzzle she takes personally, and a failing drive is hers to nurse.
• Bram (soldier) — there's a passenger or a hold to protect, and a corsair to board. Won't Leave Anyone Behind has its openings.
• Edda (medic) — if the corsair holds cryo-pods (it may), a stranded sleeper is exactly what she can't walk past; Old Grief stirs.
• Jinx (fixer) — she smells the angle before anyone: who profits from a ship that simply vanishes? Her Maimed leg makes the zero-g scramble of a boarding a genuine cost (Owes the Wrong People twinges if GANYMEDE's name surfaces).

Act I — The Plot and the Jump§

Where: the Long Account's bridge and the long week of jumpspace. This act is procedure and pressure — it teaches how a crossing actually works (Chapter 27) and quietly arms the trap.

Sourcing and loading is a beat, not a roll: a Network test (Chapter 23) finds the freight if the crew needs work, but the contract can simply be in hand. Reckon a load of ~20–30 SCU at Cr1,000 per SCU per jump (Chapter 28) — call it Cr20,000–30,000 for the run, steady money, and the reason they're in this corridor at all.

Plotting the jump is the teaching moment. Plotting is Physics (Intellect), 8+ (Chapter 27), and a Trained navigator on a clean course simply succeeds — but this course is not clean. The charts near Greywell are quietly wrong (the moved beacon), which makes this the "under pressure / poorly-surveyed" case that demands a roll. The navigator is whoever holds Physics — Echo plots it Trained, under her Education Advantage; anyone Untrained does it at −3 and should think hard first.

Whatever the roll, the jump ends at the wrong fringe — the reference itself is falsified, and no plot catches a lie it's built on. What the roll changes is how exposed the crew is when they arrive:

The week in jumpspace. A jump is one week, sealed away (Chapter 27) — a natural downtime beat. Use it: a repair, a healing roll, a quiet character scene, or a thing that wasn't aboard at departure. It also means no one can call ahead and no one can call them back — whatever's waiting at the far end can't be warned off, and that is exactly the point.

🎲 Running it solo. Frame the plot as an expectation, then test it (Chapter 44): "The corridor should be routine." Ask the Oracle — "Is the beacon reference clean?" at Unlikely (it's GANYMEDE's corridor). A No is the trap springing; a No, and… (1-1) is the worst arrival above. Let the dice, not your plan, choose how bad the jump goes.

Act II — The Ambush at the Fringe§

Where: the system fringe, well out from a dead gas giant, the corsair sliding from its shadow. This is the set-piece — the ship fight, run exactly as Chapter 25 shows it, with the same five Wanderers at the same stations.

The corsair wants the hold and will take the ship to get it. No hail. Run the fight on the crew stations (Chapter 25), each character one Significant Action on the Account's turn:

• Ace — Pilot. Sets initiative (2D6 + Piloting, with Dexterity), opens or closes the range, and evades incoming fire. The corsair's crack gun crew means his evades come at Disadvantage (he banks 1 Momentum each time, Chapter 7).
• Bram — Gunner. Remote Weapons at the corsair, 8+. He's no gunner by trade, so he leans on a lock (below) — the textbook lesson that sensors are what put a shot through heavy armor.
• Jinx — Sensors & Comms. Recon to paint and lock the corsair, 8+; a clean lock hands the gunner Advantage (a situational edge — the recipient pays 1 Momentum, or Jinx covers it under Assist, Chapter 7). Advantage doesn't stack, so don't double up.
• Echo — Engineer. Damage control: an Engineering test (8+) clears a first-track node — beat out an On Fire, shore a Damaged — or stops a fire spreading. This is what "holding the shields" actually is (Chapter 25).
• Edda — Captain (no casualties yet). Command to coordinate, 8+, handing Ace Advantage on his next evade — which cancels the corsair's crack-crew Disadvantage to a clean roll (Chapter 7). The moment someone's hurt, she's back on the deck with the kit.

Assigning stations (and the under-crewed pinch). This cast has more stations than trained specialists — which is the lesson. Only Ace (Piloting) and Echo (Engineering) are sure hands at their post. Run as written, Bram gunning (Remote Weapons), Jinx on sensors (Recon), and Edda as captain (Command) all roll Untrained (−3), so their successes lean on locks, Momentum, and nerve — exactly the strain of a small crew working a big ship (Chapter 25). A table can shuffle: Echo holds Recon Trained if she can spare the engineer's seat, and Bram has Command Experienced if someone else mans the gun. Leaving the green hands where they are just teaches the pinch honestly.

The corsair (Chapter 25 — describe, don't stat). A Chapter 26 corsair raider: Armor 30, twin 10D mounts, fast and stealthed. Two things make it a teacher:

• Armor is a wall. Same scale as the Account (both S3), so compare armor normally (Chapter 12) — but 30 shrugs the Account's 8D more often than not. Without Jinx's lock pushing the to-hit through, Bram rarely even rolls damage. That's the lesson: a popgun never grinds down heavy armor; the sensors station earns its keep, and the real answer is to board, not slug.
• The corsair hits hard. When it fires, Ace evades 8+ (at Disadvantage); only a miss brings the GM's single 10D roll against the Account's 24 — and 10D readily marks a node. The enemy never rolls to hit. Keep it to one attack a round for a green crew; throw a second (it has two mounts) if they're steamrolling.

The shape of it. A few rounds of lock-fire-evade-mend grinds the corsair's Hull / Systems track (Damaged → Wrecked, On Fire → Offline; all four full = the next node destroys it). A competent crew drives it to Wrecked or Offline — at which point it's a deathtrap for its crew and a prize for the Account (Chapter 25).

Boarding (optional, recommended). A Wrecked/Offline corsair can be taken whole instead of scrapped — personal-scale combat with the ship as terrain (Chapters 11, 25), the boarders statted on the two adversary dials (Chapter 40). The raiders aboard are hardened foes (each shrugs the first hit; carbines, 3D), competent and not suicidal — they fight to hold the bridge and break for the lifepods if outmatched. Zero-g corridors reward Echo's Bulwark scattergun (Zero-G) and punish Jinx's bad leg. If Sool Vantongue survived the Lantern, they may be aboard as a boss — a problem, not a brawler: they'll deal, threaten, or flee before they fight, and they'll lie about the beacon to the last.

Faction beat. Taking or wrecking the corsair is the crew's first real blow against GANYMEDE — but it also means GANYMEDE now knows their name. Whether that's a back-tick on the clock or just an enemy made depends on what the crew does with Act III.

🎲 Running it solo. The ship fight is already solo-ready: NPCs never roll, so there's no hidden enemy turn to play against yourself — you roll your crew's actions and, on a missed evade, the corsair's one damage die (Chapter 44). For its intent, ask the Oracle: "Does it press the attack?" (Likely while it's whole; Unlikely once Wrecked — it wants to run). A spark (doubles) is your cue to throw in its second mount, or a systems casualty of your own.

Act III — Replot and Arrival§

Where: the wrong fringe, then the long crawl home. The fight is won; now the sky is unfamiliar and the note is still due.

Replotting depends on how Act I landed. If the crew merely arrived late, the way home is routine — a clean Physics plot, a week, and port. If they scattered into an uncharted hex, replotting is squarely the "under pressure" case (Chapter 27), often at Disadvantage with no survey to work from — and a run of bad throws is exactly how a one-jump hop becomes an odyssey. This is the teeth behind every jump: the misjump that maroons a crew is the same physics that made the silent arks (Chapter 27).

Reading the truth. Before they leave — or in the jump week home — the evidence comes together. The corsair's nav logs (an Electronics, System Operations, or Cracking test, 8+) show it parked on a perfect intercept it could not have plotted honestly. A sensor sweep of the beacon (Recon or Engineering, 8+; Advantage with a dosimeter or Echo's Reads the Tunnels instinct for machines that lie) reads a tamper-signature. Either alone is suspicious; together they are proof the stranding was built — and the logs name a GANYMEDE breaking-ship as the buyer of whatever the corsair took.

🎲 Running it solo. Each unknown is an expectation-test: "The logs should show where it came from." Ask "Do the logs name who hired it?" at Even. A Yes, but… (a Yes on doubles) hands you the proof and a complication — the breaking-ship logged the Account's transponder too, and now GANYMEDE knows exactly who got away.

The choice — what the truth is worth§

The fight was never really about the corsair; it's about what the crew does with what they now hold. Three honest endings, none "correct" (echoing the Lantern):

1. Expose it. Carry the logs and the beacon-read to someone who can act — Umbral (which can foreclose on GANYMEDE's deniability the way it was shamed at the Lantern), the Vance magistrate, or a media outfit (Chapter 38). A Negotiate, Bureaucracy, or Political Science scene, possibly back-and-forth (Chapter 5's extended contest). The Coldwake Reach learns wrecks are being made. GANYMEDE's clock ticks back; the crew has made a patient enemy and a grateful power.
2. Cash it and keep quiet. A corsair, even stripped, is the best payday the Account has seen — and GANYMEDE pays well for silence. Clean credits, the scheme intact, and a corridor that will swallow the next ship through. GANYMEDE's clock ticks forward.
3. Hold the leverage. Keep the wreck and the secret, and trade on what they know one jump out — sell the proof to the highest bidder, or simply bank it against the day GANYMEDE comes calling. The most Wanderer ending, and the one most likely to make enemies on every side.

Let the players decide, and change the Coldwake Reach to match — seed the result into a rumor for next time (Chapter 33).

Wrapping up — rewards and threads§

The payday. The freight fee for the run (Cr1,000/SCU). Then the corsair: salvage runs at roughly half list (Chapter 28), so stripping it — reclaimable alloys and parts, the two 10D mounts, and above all its Jump-2 drive core (a genuine prize, Chapter 27) — nets a real dent in the note, on the order of a dangerous job's purse (Cr5,000–15,000, Chapter 28), more if they can move the hull whole. A crew that would rather keep the corsair has won themselves a second, faster, better-armed ship — and a hull GANYMEDE will recognize on sight (a Marked drawback, Chapter 26). The evidence is worth more than any of it, but only if spent (the choice, above).

Advancement (Chapter 20). Mark any skill failed on a roll at Trained or better — Physics on a botched plot, Remote Weapons against that wall of armor, Engineering under fire — and resolve marks at session end. Everyone gains +1 XP for the session; any Bane invoked (Ace's never lost a parcel, Jinx's Owes the Wrong People) earns its 1 XP.

Lasting trauma. A boarding action in zero-g, or a 10D round walking through the cargo ring, can leave a Maimed node — a full recovery session waiting to happen (Chapter 10), and a natural spine for a quieter scenario next (the medic's hour, or a port with a surgeon).

Threads to pull next:

• The moved beacon is still out there, and so is the beacon platform that carries it — a wreck of its own to crawl (Scenario 3, Greywell).
• GANYMEDE's operation is now a known quantity, and its clock is moving (the Campaign Frame's faction turn).
• The note is still due. The corsair money buys a month, not a future — which is its own next job (Scenario 2, The Spread).

Acquiring a ship, if the crew didn't have one. The default is that they already fly the Long Account. If your table started shipless, run Act I as a berth on someone else's hull — and let the corsair prize of Act II become the ship that's finally theirs, debt and all. Either way they leave this scenario with a hull and a mortgage, which is exactly where the rest of the set begins.

Running it solo or GM-less§

This scenario is built to run with no GM, alone or co-op, on the Part X procedures (Chapters 42–45) — and the ship fight makes it easy, because the dice are already all the players' (Chapter 25). Three habits carry the whole session:

• Plot, then test the expectation. Frame what you expect ("a routine corridor") and ask the Oracle where there's real doubt (the margin callouts above), at the likelihood the fiction warrants. Abide by the answer (Chapter 42's fair-play contract).
• Run the corsair by intent, not against yourself. It never rolls; you roll your crew's actions and its one damage die. When its choice is open, the Oracle decides — and a spark is your cue to escalate (its second mount, a fire aboard the Account).
• Keep the threads. Log the moved beacon, the breaking-ship, your standing with GANYMEDE, and the note's due date (Appendix A4 solo sheet). Run the faction turn across the jump home exactly as written (Chapter 34) — GANYMEDE creeps, Vance's fees creep, and the next job surfaces on arrival.

GM cheat-sheet§