The Aurora

The Aurora was a brand-new Alterra Long-Range Capital Ship (and possibly the first of its class) sent to the Ariadne Arm by the Alterra Corporation to build a phasegate. Its auxiliary mission, unknown to most of the crew, was an agreement made with the Mongolian Independent States to search for and possibly rescue the survivors of the Degasi crew. It was thought that the ship's advanced scanning suite, superior to any ship that had previously made a search effort, would have better luck in finding the crew, or finally confirm whatever fate had befallen them. During a gravity slingshot maneuver around Planet 4546B, the Quarantine Enforcement Platform struck the Aurora with an energy pulse on the starboard (right) side, resulting in catastrophic hull failure and leading to it crash landing on the surface of the planet. All the starboard Lifepods were damaged, if not outright destroyed by the energy pulse; most of the port side Lifepods that did launch (pods 1 to 25), after landing, were either compromised or otherwise perished to the hostile ecosystem. The only exception is Lifepod 5, which contained Ryley Robinson. Moments after Lifepod 5 launched, Ryley heard the enforcement platform fire and witnessed a second energy pulse strike the already crippled ship.