a couple ideas for how they get thwarted, these are all stupid but i'm throwing them out there:
— ISSP interference? like maybe they're on mars doing recon/idk/whatever bounty hunters do... anyways they could get waylaid by ISSP raids or w/e either coincidentally or intentionally fucking with them and the crew gets detained and by the time they get it sorted out the bounty is taken — BASICALLY SAME IDEA but sabotage!!! from someone with a vendetta who hears the crew is around and comes around like "o fuck no" — mass narcolepsy