Faction Distress Beacon! (Rimward Trade League + Friends)

[Vera Tillian]

DEEP SPACE—
RRS FRONTIER’S HOPE
Tera Highwind Sird-Gri-Shali TE-236 Ascendant Torc Valhorn
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It was the comm chime from the bridge that woke Vera from a dream that she couldn’t quite remember, but left her with a distinct feeling of unease. She felt clammy and her sleepwear clung to her uncomfortably.

She quickly went through the shortest refresher cycle and into a freshly pressed uniform, taking note of the messages that had been relayed. A distress signal, faint and very distant, had been picked up from a Kathol registered freighter. However, the message itself had been too scrambled and corrupted for anything resembling details to be discerned. All they had was the locational beacon and it was far out in deep space.

Not even local, but it had been bounced through the disparate network of hyperspace beacons their mission had been deploying, so they’d been able to pick it up from here.

She strode crisply through the corridors, saluting the others as she passed, but hurrying quickly forward. Something about this beacon struck her as odd. Not a trap, per se, but odd. On an afterthought, she pinged the deck officer to summon her main bridge crew and the tactical droids.

If there was something of the frontier bizarre going on, she wanted her best.

 

[Jerec Asyr]

A distress signal, faint and very distant, had been picked up from a Kathol registered freighter. However, the message itself had been too scrambled and corrupted for anything resembling details to be discerned. All they had was the locational beacon and it was far out in deep space.

Not far from the Kathol Outback, a corroded old relay caught the equally decrepit distress call. After some congestion and constipation, the relay bounced the signal to various members of the Spacer Guild who might happen to be in the region.

 

[Ascendant]

It had been a quiet period, at least, according to the logs Ascendent perused. Having been rather abruptly ejected from his recharge cycle, the droid soon found himself following instructions to return to the bridge. Unfortunately, any form of data that might have elucidated the particular reason for the emergency status had as of yet eluded the AI. Perhaps even more tragically, he had been forced to unceremoniously terminate a combat simulation he had been conducting while in 'sleep mode' over the last few weeks. The unexpected, and as of yet inexplicable, shift to online mode had disrupted the process, and now the droid was unable to check if the particular scenario had survived intact. He suspected, although he had no method of proving or disproving his suspicion until he returned to the recharging station, that the data for at least this latest session was corrupted, rendering at least one session mute.

This placed the AI in a particularly cantankerous mood as he wound his way through the vessel. If I were not contained within this feeble droid's body, I'd... I'd... I don't know. Though he had occasionally considered what sort of manifestation his code was intended for, it had proven an altogether fruitless endeavour. There was no indication within the protocol droid's memory banks as to what he might have been for. Indeed, it seemed possible this was his intended form, although there were numerous code additions and specifications which placed that specific theory in serious doubt.

Perhaps he had been too engrossed in his thoughts, or perhaps the droid was just a little too aggressive at the moment. Either way, when he collided with a maintenance crewman, the protocol droid almost tried to beat the man with its slow-moving limbs ineffectually. The crewmember, to his credit, managed to avoid knocking into the droid too much and, with the fluid almost practised movement of someone who probably had been forced to work around officers far too many times, slipped around and kept on walking, stopping only momentarily to bow with an apology before quickly continuing about whatever task he had been focused on.

When the droid arrived on the bridge, he desired nothing more than to dispense with the protocol so common in his work, if only to show some sign of aggravation to his compatriots. However, coded mandates are harder to break than Beskar, and the droid almost hissed out words through his vocabulator, "Tactical Officer Ascendent reporting to the bridge." Then, with barely a moment's pause, he inquired, "What is the purpose of our current emergency status captain?"

Vera Tillian Jerec Asyr

 

[Vera Tillian]

Ascendant
=====================

Vera had only just entered the bridge when Ascendant asked the question. Ahead of her, the call of 'Captain on Deck' brought the rest of the bridge crew to attention at their stations as she took stock of everything. Her XO stepped away from the captain's chair and saluted.

"Bridge is yours, Captain Tillian," the man said as stepped over to the executive station. Vera returned their salutes and took her seat.

"As you were, everyone." She said, looking through the details. "Number one, your report on the incident?"

He nodded and activated the recording of the message, letting it play through. What should have been words were easily discernible, inasmuch as they were patterns of noise with pauses between discrete vocalizations. However, it sounded like there was too much interance for them to have been carried over in the data. Or if there were words present, they were deeply buried in the data. After about thirty seconds, it came to an end and began to repeat.

"We received the message 18 standard minutes ago, where it was picked up by one of our communication's techs in the ops center scanning old channels that the new Starchaser built beacons have been picking up. Based on triangulation and beacon signals, the message comes from somewhere out on the galaxy's edge. No timestamp either. So there's no way to know how old it is, but it's coming through stronger than anything should from this distance."

Vera considered that for several moments before turning to Ascendant. "Think you can get any more information out of the message?" She considered for a moment.

"Let's get our comms and tech people on this. Set course for the latest beacon that picked up the message. We might be able to get some more information from there."

 

[Vera Tillian]

DEEP SPACE—
RRS FRONTIER’S HOPE
Tera Highwind Sird-Gri-Shali TE-236 Ascendant Torc Valhorn
=======================================

The bridge was filled with the sound of people working as they set about deciphering the signal they had received, and running it through every algorithm they had installed on the ship. Vera waited, restless with impatience. That was the challenge of being captain, she had discovered. So much of what she did was all about waiting. Waiting for other people to do their jobs, to analyze and make assessments of the portions of a situation.

After what felt like forever, she had an answer.

"We don't have the computing power to clean this up any further," one of the technicians aboard the ship finally said with a shrug, her big Sullustan eyes almost sad with the realization. "We were able to discern a handful of words- hyperspace scout, civilization, droids, navcomp malfunction, but that's it. There seems to be other elements embedded in the message, but we would need to commit the entirety of the ship's computing power to do it any better. Either this message is ancient and degraded, or there is some incredibly complex encoding happening. Maybe both."

Vera nodded. "Thank you, Ensign. I appreciate your assessment." The Sullustan saluted and returned to her station. Vera fought the urge to bite her lip as she considered.

"Send the transmission back to Central to clear up, as well as our coordinates, and the course we're planning on taking. How is the backtrace proceeding?"

"Ready to go!" The answer came back quickly.

"Very well, then," Vera said, reaching a decision. "Engage hyperdrive. Let's see if we can track this vessel down."