How about a news company picked up the subspace messages somehow or maybe an eager beaver reporter was doing a multi-part exposé on corporate wars and the news team had come out to this nowhere place to film and interview colonists who had stayed behind mostly the company B folks but a few originally company A folks stayed. Then all hell breaks out, the news crew end up broadcasting a story putting both companies a bad PR position when the colonists can't get help... this would force either Star Law or Company B or even A into action or both competing to show "who cares" the most for PR reasons or the news crew could become the adventurers, PC's where hired by the network to babysit the reporter & film/sound crew. The NPC Reporter could be a real pain in the ass, maybe at first trying to stage things like being shot at or taking unnecessary risks to get the story or shot... you know the kind of folks that do dumb things for awards or ratings, it is all ego, they fake being upset or caring for the camera and as soon as the camera stops rolling are utter shallow jerks. So at first the easy job of just keeping the news crew out of trouble and shuttling them around is hard enough and then Colonist start showing up dead, the PCs will want to track the monsters & kill them, but the news folks want to interview grieving relatives & terrified colonists, want film of what ever it is that is killing people, gore shots of the dead and want to milk it for all the drama (blood, death, & monsters is ratings gold!) PCs have to balance all this and get the critters and of course the news reporter wants to look all heroic and badass but is really not. Or it could be a show crew for a show like "Ancient Aliens" or something like a space Mythic race that seems to exist in every planet's folklore but no one can ever get one caught or good film of it, or some sort of general crazy mythic creature hunting show.  With teams running around claiming this sound or that is evidence, PCs where hired just to keep the NPCs alive, not too hurt and so on... but then there really are monsters. 

I am thinking about personalities like that character of reporter in Die Hard movies, RL Geraldo Rivera (AKA really Jerry Rivers)  and maybe Bear Grylls (you know how he would like jump and roll out of trucks, low hovering helicopters and such and find an excuse to get naked every episode and eat something gross raw) for an NPC to babysit on top of hunting the real monsters. 

We used to bet on how many minutes till Bear was naked at my house in new episodes when I had cable. Ha ha ha. I know making a show like Man Vs Wild often requires this madness (I think producers like it) but sometimes it was just too funny.