Once upon a time, eons ago, when starships still crossed the skies and took centuries to get to the closest star, and suns like any other shone every night, there was a ship called The Dawn.
Now, this starship was not one you're familiar with. It was made for people to take thousands of years in a trip. One without communication back home, and that was when you'd be lucky to live to two-hundred! So, what they did was build chambers for people to sleep in for the ride. The ones that would stop your body. Of course, it was old tech - not safe to be in for more than fifty years - so they traveled in half-century bursts with stops maybe a week or two for their bodies to recover.
The mission behind The Dawn was a regulaur one around that time. A mining mission for new and rare materials - alongside those Earth was running dry of. A thousand people would be shipped there to form the mining outpost, then come back maybe twenty years later with the haul of a planet.
Doing missions like these was the opprotunity of a lifetime. To go off to a distant planet, see the alien landscapes, and get paid? Of course, twenty years of hard and demanding work - oftentimes dangerous - and the loss of everyone else you knew was something only the ones who wouldn't be missed, or the extremely desperate would take. And so the pay was so often poor even for the unique and hazardous work that was being done.
But still, people joined, and The Dawn was fully staffed. A crew of two-thousand, and a group of thirteen leaders who were greedy and cruel. The ship flew out, to the edge of where it could go. A planet we now call New Rosewood. There's a wormhole there - you could even go to see the mining site. The equipment is old and rusty, but there.
But for twenty years they dug, the conditions harsh but the friendships they made good and loyal. And soon came the time where a ship like this would normally depart. But the leaders of this misson would not allow it. The haul of the planet was too rich, and the wealth gained too tantilizing. Another ten years, they said, and whispers of rebellion formed mere hours after.
It took a crew, a whole fifty men to make the plan and execute it with passion and grace. It took two years to come together, and finally, when it was done, the rebellion had a hack into the security system to bring it down for an hour. They sent a single lass in by the name of Jane to reclaim the key and let them take off with as much crew as they could aboard.
They happened upon one of the leaders, and the fight was bloody and quick. A drill to the head, a single scream, and Jane rushed out victorious with the ship's key held in their hand. Leading the miners to the ship to silenty take off moments after.
There was one thing they were not told, however. A window of time in which the location they would be at would be out of reach of Earth with the engines and power The Dawn had. You see, the leadership chain that saw it each padded it up until it felt reasonable to spend thirty years on New Rosewood. Each one thinking the one prior took it far too safe and that they would never spend more than two decades there. And the universe's expansion doesn't operate in such a way.
Now, with Jane captaining the ship, they saw how the ship would never reach home. So, each time the crew awakens, they send a distress call - their location, what they are, and how many on board there are. Tuning a reciever in the right bits of space during the right years, you'll hear as such.
Should you follow those signals, the crew of The Dawn aren't to be found. The ship, battered and torn from millenia of junk hits and close calls to stars is. The radio, should you board and try to find it, isn't broadcasting a word. Though, some who have boarded claim to see the ghosts of the crew, going about their two-week rest from their otherwise eternal slumber.
