Curiosity
16 May 2020Amata Lirein
Amata was looking at the monitor once more, reading the file she downloaded from that listening post she stumbled upon while flying around The Bubble between the engineers to tweak the Astarte's systems. She normally ignored them as they seem to be usually used as a signal booster to enhance communications in larger systems like Maia, but this one was odd... it was located in LP 855-10, a completly uninhabited system noone has claimed so far. This oddity peaked her interest, and the message her ship's computer downloaded from it was even stranger.…Transponder Signal VEN-393-A Detected…
Matching Signal Detected. Kitae. Time Stamp Predates Parameters.
…Venus…gas nebula…Kitae…fleet…modified…Blood red…By the time…we…fierce at first…the best…there was nothing…Zephyrus…initiate…talking…any day.
…Signal Lost…A quick look on the starmap told her that Kitae was an independent system just 5 jumps out of Burojinura, but there was nothing in any archives she had access to hinting that anything out of the ordinary has ever happened there, with Zephyrus being one of its neighbors. Something didn't seem to add up. She walked over to the pilot seat and strapped herself in before activating her com unit.
"Stephens Enterprise flight control, this is Faulcon DeLacy Alpha-Lima-Zero-Zero-Three Astarte, requesting permission to launch." "Astarte, this is flight control, you're cleared for departure, number 2 at the mailslot after a Beluga." "Astarte, roger, cleared for departure, traffic in sight."
She smirked while waiting for the massive cruise liner to clear the mailslot, thinking to herself. Well, Amata, this is one of the reasons why you wanted to become a pilot in the first place: To see strange things. Here's your chance...