Public Research in the Kathol

[Kaia Starchaser]

The challenge with being her was that Kaia had so many things she had to be doing for the company that she was forgetting to take the jobs for herself. The dark haired Starchaser had started coloring her hair, it was now a very midnight blue. Her ship, the Wandering Star had reverted to real space, deep in the Kathol Outback, the places where shew as fairly certain time worked weird. Wasn’t there that one Rekali, anyway? Alec?

Time moved weird for that one.

Time moved weird out here.

But what she was here for was the research this time. She had a few blackholes to map, and had placed some safety beacons nearby, to pull ships from lightspeed, if they were still moving that fast. But now? She had a pulsar that she wanted to get some readings off of. It was an irregular pulsar and had caused a few problems lately. Normally a pulsar played as a lighthouse in time.

But what was going on with this one?

 

[Trayze Tesar]

CURRENT MISSION - Seeing Stars
Immediate Goals -
1: Observe unknown starcraft in the Kathol area
1.1: Ascertain the threat level of said starcraft.

BLUFOR - Allies Unknown

OPFOR - Enemy Unknown

TARGETING ACTION(S) - Kaia Starchaser || Open Frequency

---

Ah, the Kathol Outback, it's unsurprising that one of his repute would occasionally patrol through the area where he was declared a commander of. Back then, he merely had only one frigate, and now he commanded four - of which the Wandering Star now had to contend with.

From the command chair of the Munificent-class frigate, the flagship of the Fleet-Under-Marque, a Kiffar leaned forward, eyes focused on the barely visible craft from the viewport, his mind's eye assessing the individuals and content aboard in ways mere scanners could not. His voice, a barely noticeable Besberran bantha-herder's accent, would address the captain and crew.

"This is Trayze Tesar, Fleet Captain of the SIBC-Conciliator." the voice began, a routine tone that betrayed none of the usual sadistic glee that came with Sith flexing their authority over those who happened by. "Unidentified starship, you are within Sith-Imperial space. State your designation, cargo, and destination, over."

Something about this particular stretch of the Outback worried him, as Spacers spoke many tales, consistent tales, and most superstitions had a grain of truth to them. Personally, Trayze wouldn't even be anywhere near a pulsar, but duty, intuition, and perhaps a bit of his own curiosity compelled him to pursue the ship that was where it really shouldn't be.

Hopefully, if the spacer tales were true, it would be the poor little minnow-ship that would be destroyed instead of the fleet.

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

What she was, was a Starchaser. What she had that her father and older brother didn't? She was born starside. She was a true starborn. Her father had been gone, locked in carbonite for months before her mother had given birth, aboard the Dawn Chaser, the ship she called home. The ship that she checked in with every so often, but when she was going to Kathol? She knew this space just as well as her father, maybe even better. And she knew that going deep, and through the odd anomalies and if she was in trouble, the Chaser wouldn't arrive in time. Maybe her brother could, her father definitely would.

But this was a research mission. Her ship wasn't marked with any specific government, hells, she wasn't even a card carrying Jedi any longer. Warden of the Sky on a research quest. What she hadn't really worried about was the Sith getting this deep into the Outback.

But SIBC? That was Sith. She rolled her eyes as she heard the Captain on the comms.

"This is Kaia Topol, astrophysics scientist out of Laekia." It wasn't quite a lie. She learned some astrophysics from the University of Corellia, her mother was a Topol, and yeah, her ship was tagged to Corellia, but also if it was looked at deeper, they'd find the ship on Csillia, Laekia, Sullust. She had been all around.

Space out here was weird. She knew it, there were blackholes, gravity anomalies, time anomalies. She was confident in her placement among these stars, but wanted more data on the this irregular pulsar. "The ship is the Wandering Star. Cargo is myself, a probe droid, and some scientific modeling equipment. Destination is here then out of your hair." Her voice was eerily cool. She had to be against a Sith.

Her shielding was steady, as she watched the pulsar blink. The dark haired woman was doing her best to not reach out in the Force as that was how she did understand gravitational anomalies best. But now? It was just readings from the equipment.

"Am I clear to continue my research?" A bit of snark as she was fine with where she was. She knew what she was doing, and unlike her father and brother, she was not here for ulterior motives… This time.

Trayze Tesar

 

[Trayze Tesar]

CURRENT MISSION - Seeing Stars
Immediate Goals -
1: Observe and aid Wandering Star
1.1: Ascertain the threat level of said starcraft.

BLUFOR - Allies Unknown

OPFOR - Enemy Unknown

TARGETING ACTION(S) - Kaia Starchaser || Open Frequency

---

"Standby Wandering Star." There was a bit of a chuckle, a chuckle from a long day - and a bit of reciprocation of the sentiment. Clearly, both would rather be somewhere else, but circumstances demanded certain ceremony. One blink. Two. The comms hailed again with an audible sigh and the dry tone that indicates that even Trayze doesn't want to hold her up.

"Wandering Star, "under the Defense of Sovereign Stellar Bodies Act, subparagraph two-two-seven-besh-decimal-three, all independent scientific vessels are required to have an escort that is not to hinder your research, but rather to aid and abet so long as the research does not occur within ten light years of any inhabited locale"." the latter part seemed more emotive, as if to indicate that Trayze didn't give a womp-rat's ass about what she was doing out here. If the captain were to try and use the Force, it seemed that he genuinely wanted to help, and was more than content staying out of the way. "If you have express permission from "right authority" of the nearest inhabited locale, you may request a different escort of your choosing, and this vessel will remain until the transfer - do you understand what is being relayed to you, Dr. Topol?"

Strangely enough, the bulk of the patrol fleet seemed to be peeling off, leaving only the Conciliator present. Either the fleet captain didn't think she was a threat, or was so utterly bored that he would consider astrophysics riveting.

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

What was the big problem was who she really actually was. Kaia didn’t share the same direction that her father ever did. Even being raised as a paramilitary Force user, the woman was an explorer, first and foremost. Sure, her ship did have some weapons, mostly missile launchers, and a pair of weapons to both jump-start another ship, or disable it. Or both, depending on how she was really feeling. But with a group like this? There was a part of her that was already prepping her countermeasures.

If she needed to, she’d have to run. It meant getting out of any tractor beams, and jumping to the safety of lightspeed. And that was where the ship and pilot met in the middle. Both were very very good about hyperspace navigation. Even half away.

What she wasn’t expecting was the Captain’s next words. She wasn’t super familiar, well, at all, with the Defense of Soverign Stellar Bodies Act. And honestly, she didn’t think the SIth would be patrolling this far out. Though, her maps had a bit of a lag time when it came to ruling galactic powers. They all changed.

“I mean, I will be honest captain, I didn’t think to look to how far I was from an inhabited system. Just heard that the irregular pulsar was causing harm to navigation systems. Irregular gravity well, honestly.” She could go on, but didn’t need to. “And would a writ of travel from the Outback help? Used to work fully with them once upon a bye.” She shrugged.

“I believe so, you’ll be playing escort for me while I commence my work, yeah?” That would slow things down if she couldn’t pull on the Force for the parts of her research that required that right touch.

Trayze Tesar

 

[Trayze Tesar]

CURRENT MISSION - Seeing Stars
Immediate Goals -
1: Observe and aid Wandering Star

BLUFOR - Kaia Starchaser

OPFOR - Enemy Unknown

TARGETING ACTION(S) - Kaia Starchaser || Open Frequency

---

"A writ of travel? ...Yeah that'd work, transmit it over please." Trayze answered nodding idly, "Yer welcome aboard the Conciliator if'n yer a bit tired of sitting in there. We can clear out a location fer ya ta set up - while we might not be a science ship, a couple hundred droidbrains to assist in computation might help." He offered "Or if not, how far back and how often d'ya want me ta' ping ya ta make sure yer not, y'know, dead. Pulsars can be a bit tricky, and something about this one is..."

Trayze wasn't entirely sure about this particular stellar body, but something was... strange.

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

Kaia took a deep breath, knowing ti was a bit dated but she did have something from the old Coalition out here. “Roger that, its a bit dated but… Planetary and all.” She tapped a few controls to find the file and began transmitting it. Not trying to trick the much bigger ship that definitely had more guns than she did. Worst thing to do was be a Warden of the Sky and try to send a virus that may or may not even work on another ship.

“I hear ya, Conciliator, but I’m set up with my equipment here. I don’t mind giving you some shared data, though. Prefer to keep a clean copy here. My client gets picky if there are too many systems in the data.” Besides, she’d record what she could, and bring it in to the Core and get it properly analyzed and parsed out there.

“I mean, computers running the sims now. This one is weird, though. Irregular intervals, you see that?” Or feel it, if there was a Sith aboard.

Trayze Tesar