As the power of the Kaliasian Empire wanes in the sector, the ascendant Anaximan Trade Confederation seeks to consolidate its influence over the remaining border systems; however, neither the Kaliasians nor the Anaximans have found a solution to the Mataran pirates keeping both superpowers at bay in the Vionte, Plastho, and Maka systems.
The Perimeter Agency, a pre-Scream organization (now largely extinct throughout other fallen Mandate sectors) focused on rooting out maltech, has outposts on both Jodhild in the Maka System and Thos in the Chrates System; Jodhild sent a request for aid out to Thos, who commissioned a vessel to transport supplies and personnel in response. The freighter was able to safely jump through Anaximan space but came under fire from pirates near Halld, a backwater world still trudging through its medieval period, in the Vionte system. Something fired on both the Matarans and the freighter from the planet's surface, forcing the crew to abandon ship. Now, the survivors find themselves stranded on an underdeveloped world, trying to avoid influencing the development of the fledging societies unduly with their very presence, as they await rescue. On everyone’s minds, though… whatever destroyed their freighter was decidedly well beyond a trebuchet or a catapult....