The Damaged ship is a random encounter ship found adrift in various systems.
Background[]
There is a ship icon on the system map; after arriving at the location, you will find a drifting ship, all of whose systems are inoperative. The captain of the ship will contact you, but after the first call he will suddenly stop talking. When you try to find out what happened, another voice will answer that they are fine. You can ignore what has come and leave the ship alone, attack, or demand the return of the original person. Your interlocutor will refuse under various excuses and play for time. At some point, the systems on board the damaged ship will be restored, your interlocutor will drop his disguise and the ship will attack you and try to escape. If you attack and board the ship, you will find several spacers on board. After clearing the ship's premises, you will find the captain's corpse. When you eliminate all the enemies, you can gain control of the ship by sitting in the pilot's seat.
The encounter is bugged, you can get a bounty in the UC sector by attacking the ship itself or after killing spacers in the cockpit. This will also cause an extremely negative reaction from your companion. When boarding the ship, take a partner with you who does not have a negative reaction to committing crimes, or go alone. Try to kill the enemies in the cockpit in stealth, perhaps to avoid penalties for capturing the ship.
It's possible to kill all the enemies prior to the cockpit without negative consequences. If you leave it to your companion to kill the enemies in the cockpit, no negative consequences result. It's very amusing to do a quick save, kill the enemies in the cockpit yourself, have Andreja get mad at you, reload your save, and patiently wait while Andreja happily kills everyone in the cockpit instead. It'll probably be necessary to charge the cockpit to trigger the fight and then retreat back to safety to wait out the fight.
Before engaging in ship-to-ship combat prior to boarding, it is necessary to hail and chat with the enemies enough for them to finish repairing their systems and start threatening you. If you attack before they start threatening you, your companions will become mad at you. Presumably because you attacked before it was confirmed enemies had taken over the ship.