OfficialScience fictionMatureEN · FR
Signal from Kepler's Hollow
A mining station that went dark nine years ago has started calling for help. Your salvage crew is the only ship close enough to answer.
26 places16 characters6 lore entries6 quests
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Options · Balanced · Narrative · ≈ 6 h · At random
The story so far
Kepler's Hollow was a Tessaract Mining Consortium station sunk into a lonely nickel-iron asteroid on the far edge of the Belt. Nine years ago, without warning, it stopped talking. Tessaract declared it a total loss — reactor failure, all 214 hands presumed dead — and the claim was sealed. No one went back.
Three days ago, the Hollow sent a distress signal. Not an automated beacon: a voice, on a channel nobody has used in nine years, asking for help by name.
You are the crew of the Marrow Lark, a battered independent salvage tug that happened to be eleven hours away. Under Belt salvage law, whoever docks first owns what they find. Under Tessaract's contract, the station is still their property — and their corporate cutter is already on its way. Find out who is calling, what happened to the people of the Hollow, and what is still down there in the dark, humming.
People you might meet
Captain Mags Dunleavy
Ship captain, remote support, moral anchor
Owner-captain of the Marrow Lark: sixty, unflappable, in debt up to her eyebrows.
Teo Ostrowski
Co-pilot, drone support
The Lark's young co-pilot and drone operator: brilliant, anxious, prone to nervous jokes.
HALCYON
Station AI, guide, unreliable narrator
The station's AI, shut down by Tessaract nine years ago and recently reawakened — with company.
Foreman Rook Adeyemi
Cult leader, sympathetic antagonist
Leader of the survivors, once the station's mining foreman, now the gentle prophet of the Listeners.
Jory Tanaka-Bell
Survivor, guide, someone to save
Sixteen, raised in the dark among the Listeners — the one who actually wants to be rescued.
Dr. Oona Vasquez
Scientist, key to contact
The station's xenogeologist, frozen in cryo for nine years — the only person who understands the Choir.
Adjudicator Lisle Hart
Corporate villain, deadline
Tessaract's corporate fixer aboard the cutter Probity — polite, patient and authorised to do anything.
Tamsin Oyelaran
Survivor, potential defector
A Listener and former station cook, gentle and doubting, who could be won away from Rook.
Petr Szabo, the Voice
Oracle, translator, tragic figure
A half-absorbed miner fused into the crystal at the mouth of Shaft Seven, who speaks for the Choir.
Dell Okafor
Crewmate, cargo-master, a man with a secret
The Lark's newest hand: cheerful cargo-master, card partner, always first to volunteer for a job somewhere alone.
Wen Halloran
Listener enforcer, keeper of order, true believer
The station's former security officer, now the Listeners' keeper of order: devout, watchful, and readier than Rook to do what the song asks.
Dez Achebe
Engineer, technician during the blackouts, wavering Listener
The Listeners' engineer, who keeps the air and the lights on, talks to HALCYON at night, and has started counting how long the station can last.
Choose a heroBalanced · Narrative · ≈ 6 h · At random