Ghost Fleet - Chapter One - Niosa's Scorn?

The event that begins the story is the discovery of an artifact on an outer United American Systems frontier world. Not of any known Ozzymadian make and acting in unpredictable ways the corporate team that discovered it makes contact with the Sanujab and arranges a transfer of the item. Roughly the size of a bus it is wrangled into orbit and put on a corporate freighter bound for the Cascadium system where the transfer will occur. The vessel is not alone in the gate transition, many commercial vessels and a naval taskforce are sharing the bulk space mostly to reduce congestion. The naval task force is on its way to Cascadium to use the jump gate located there to enter the shared periphery and begin a 6-month patrol. Some of the commercial vessels are bound for Cascadium to begin developing the outer system.

Some like the naval task force are on their way to the periphery, some will engage in trade and commercial traffic and some are on their way to help develop the Waypoint system and can continue to expand that industrial base beyond immediate strategic needs. Waiting in Cascadium is a small task force from the Principality. The nature of their mission is confidential but they are to take the artifact on and carry it back to study it and keep it safe. Sadly, they will not get the chance.

At the tail end of the procession of vessels, the contracted transport begins to transmit a mayday. Various forms of exotic radiation and exotic particles are now emitting from its hull. The crew ceases transmission and upon the vessel transiting to normal space, a vast release of exotic energy occurs. It propagates both through the gate system and around the Cascadium system itself. For observers, when the light reaches their location, it will appear that the visible light will redshift until the system is completely gone. This effect is also documented to effected the Waypoint system in the periphery as well. All attempts to locate these systems and any survivors of the event fail. The only thing left is a propagating wave exotic energy and its decay products.