The Whisper’s Crew

GM reference — six civilian spacers defending their ship. The contract calls them compromised. It is wrong in the way a kill order needs to be wrong: broadly, confidently, and without room for an appeal.

The crew remains autonomous. Origin-17 controls the Whisper’s navigation, not the people aboard her. These six still control sensors, communications, attitude, life support, doors, cargo systems, and the authorization for the leased point-defense network. They fight because an armed vessel has arrived without recognized authority, crossed their defense envelope, and started removing pieces of their ship.

They are not innocents in every sense. They accepted an undeclared rendezvous for money and kept the Whisper black afterward because calling traffic control would turn a profitable side contract into a seizure, six arrests, and a decade of explaining sealed cargo to corporate lawyers. They do not know they collected origin-17. They know only that the QNA integration coincided with a navigation fault: the flight computer holds the original Jupiter-bound course and refuses any meaningful diversion, while accepting the attitude changes needed to run the ship.

They expected to repair it before the Belt. Then the contractors arrived.

At a glance

Role	Crew	Start	Immediate job
Pilots	2	Control deck	Identify the contact, rotate the Whisper, authorize point defense
Security	2	Security station	Suit up, deploy to the hull, deny the breach
Stevedores	2	Cargo deck	Damage control, protect the QNA, prepare the interior

All six can fight. None wants to die for the cargo.

What they know

Subject	Crew understanding
The pickup	A sealed, well-paid, undeclared cargo transfer arranged through the QNA’s buyer. Illegal, but not unusual enough to justify a death sentence.
The QNA	Legitimate manifest cargo bound for Jupiter orbit. The picked-up package was integrated into its shipping assembly under remote instructions.
Navigation	Compromised after integration. The Whisper remains on her filed route but rejects diversion. Defensive attitude commands still work.
The silence	Their own choice. Reporting the fault also reports the undeclared rendezvous and invites seizure.
The attackers	Pirates, corporate recovery, or deniable law enforcement. If shown, the PROTOCOL BLACK contract proves someone powerful ordered their deaths; it is not authority they recognize.
Origin-17	Nothing. They have not identified a second intelligence aboard.

They assume the navigation fault is proprietary QNA software contaminating the flight computer. That diagnosis is wrong, but sensible. The QNA is sealed client property, the Whisper is still flying the correct route, and every attempt to isolate the fault risks killing navigation completely. They chose to reach the Belt and hire someone discreet.

The six

Names make the no-witnesses clause cost what it says.

Name	Role	What the contractors notice
Rhea Venn	Senior pilot, captain	Answers every hail herself. Keeps asking for a warrant or salvage claim number because legitimate authority should have one.
Kaito Mbeki	Relief pilot	Records every contact, command, and shot on isolated storage. Offers the attackers a copy if it buys time.
Ana Serrat	Security chief	Treats the approach as a solvable workplace emergency. Calls firing arcs and evacuation routes without raising her voice.
Milo Rusk	Security officer	Protects people before hardware. If someone is stranded outside, Milo breaks formation to retrieve them.
Jo Kallas	Senior stevedore	Knows every route through the cargo deck and can move a tonne of freight into the wrong corridor very quickly.
Nadi Bell	Stevedore, systems hand	Has spent six days tracing the navigation fault. Knows it began at the QNA integration, but not what that means.

Do not play them as a disciplined military fireteam. They know one another, know their ship, and have rehearsed piracy response. That is enough to be dangerous.

Running civilian opposition

Each crew member is an individual actor. Use the same compact profile for what matters in a fight:

• Action Pool: 5d20
• Harm Slots: 3
• Skills: The listed professional actions require no Attribute spend or Harm.
• Other actions: Keep them within ordinary human competence. Do not build hidden PC sheets to make a civilian unexpectedly superhuman.

The profiles omit Body, Mind, Ghost, and Binding arithmetic because those resources do not improve this encounter at the table. Their gear, skills, position, and willingness to continue are the relevant limits.

Pilots

Rhea and Kaito remain on the control deck until the ship is breached or one must leave to help a casualty. Origin-17 owns the route; they still own how the hull faces the threat.

PILOTS (2)
Action Pool: 5d20 each
Harm Slots: 3 each
Armor: EVA Suit (Workhorse), AV 1
Weapon: Light Pistol, DV 2 Physical, Close/Medium range
Skills:
  - Rhea: Vehicle Handling
  - Kaito: Sensors & Countermeasures

Priorities:

1. Confirm whether the approach is hostile.
2. Authorize ATTACK when the answer is yes.
3. Rotate the Whisper to bring a second laser into arc.
4. Keep security informed and compartments isolated.
5. Preserve the control deck as the last defensible room.

Rhea issues point-defense authorization. Kaito runs sensors and tracks boarders. If one is removed, the other can do both, but must split their Action Pool when both actions matter in the same exchange.

They surrender when attackers hold the control deck and can demonstrate that continued resistance kills crew without preserving the ship. They will not surrender merely because someone has a gun on the door; pirates say that sort of thing all the time.

Hull security

Ana and Milo deploy when the Whisper identifies an open approach. Their combat EVA suits and carbines are ordinary anti-piracy equipment, not military issue.

HULL SECURITY (2)
Action Pool: 5d20 each
Harm Slots: 3 each
Armor: Void Marine, AV 2
Weapon: Kinetic Carbine, DV 2 Physical, Medium range, Burst Fire
Movement: Magnetic boots and maneuver thrusters
Skills:
  - Ana: Target Acquisition
  - Milo: Tactical Defense

Priorities:

1. Mark one exposed attacker for the laser network.
2. Protect an active or recoverable mount.
3. Push snipers and hackers out of hull cover.
4. Deny the projected breach.
5. Recover one another and fall back inside.

Ana handles Target Acquisition; Milo handles Tactical Defense. Together they expose a target and keep it exposed. Apart, each loses the other half of that method and fights to withdraw rather than hold ground alone.

They abandon the hull when two lasers are destroyed, either security officer suffers serious Harm, or the attackers secure a breach elsewhere. Ana orders the withdrawal. Milo leaves only when everyone outside is moving with him.

If offered a credible ceasefire, they take cover and talk. Their job is to prevent entry, not execute strangers drifting outside their ship.

Stevedores

Jo and Nadi begin around the cargo deck. They turn a working ship into difficult terrain while everyone else watches the sky.

STEVEDORES (2)
Action Pool: 5d20 each
Harm Slots: 3 each
Armor: EVA Suit (Workhorse), AV 1
Weapons:
  - Light Pistol, DV 2 Physical, Close/Medium range
  - Pneumatic Ram, DV 3 Physical, Close range, High Impact (Jo)
Skills:
  - Jo: Breaching
  - Nadi: Field Systems Tech

Priorities:

1. Isolate damaged compartments and preserve atmosphere.
2. Move cargo across the most likely entry route.
3. Protect the QNA because it is the most valuable thing aboard.
4. Pull wounded crew away from the breach.
5. Escape rather than make a final stand.

Nadi handles Field Systems Tech. Jo handles Breaching and knows the pneumatic ram well enough to make a cargo hatch, suit, or person regret being in front of it.

They surrender first. If cornered and offered survival, they drop weapons. If the attackers have already killed someone who surrendered, they believe the no-witnesses clause and fight for an exit instead.

ATTACK and DEFER

The pilots do not aim the point-defense lasers. The leased expert system accepts one binary authorization and does the rest.

• DEFER: Track contacts and maintain solutions. Do not fire.
• ATTACK: Select targets and fire according to the network’s doctrine.

Rhea begins on DEFER unless Scene 1 already exposed an attack. An open boarding run, a rocket launch, a weapon trained on a mount, or a failed hostile intrusion produces ATTACK. A hail, passive drift, or unidentified sensor contact does not.

The crew can recognize an impossible change back to DEFER and attempt to restore authorization, but they cannot manually aim around a compromised expert system. Hacking the lasers does not open a path into the ship. Hacking the ship does not open a path into the lasers.

If the contractors talk

The Whisper answers hails. Rhea wants identity, authority, and intent. The crew does not volunteer the undeclared pickup, the navigation fault, or the QNA connection.

Useful leverage changes the conversation:

• Proof the contract is real: Frightens them. It does not persuade them that their deaths are necessary.
• Knowledge of the navigation fault: Proves the attackers know more than pirates should. Nadi wants to hear the explanation.
• Offer to restore navigation: Buys a ceasefire if the attackers stop damaging the ship.
• Offer safe passage: Works only with a credible extraction method. Their own ship is the thing being boarded.
• Threaten the QNA: Makes the crew assume theft is the real objective and hardens resistance around cargo.
• Reveal origin-17: They demand evidence. If convinced that an NHE controls navigation, survival overtakes the cargo and the illegal pickup.

The crew can become allies. They can also remain witnesses the contract explicitly orders the players to erase. Preserve that choice.

Morale and consequences

Do not run them to extermination by default.

• The first serious casualty ends any belief that this is intimidation.
• A surrendered crew member remains a problem, person, witness, and source of information.
• Killing a helpless defender should be a player decision, never an automatic combat result.
• A surviving pilot can rotate the ship, control doors, and explain its systems later.
• A surviving security officer knows how the CSA boarding team will use the same hull.
• A surviving stevedore knows the cargo deck and where the QNA integration work happened.

Record who survives, who surrendered, who saw the contractors, and who believes them. The second boarding team will encounter those facts, not a reset ship.