The man received a message in a code he used to know. Thoughts assaulted his mind, he heard whispers and glides he couldn't see.
In the turmoil, there was a shining light, a question from an old friend and wingman. So familiar, yet alien. Is it mine? - he thought, but then a dreadful stream of a mind took over. Prepare ... shells .... void - those are the words he understood and firmly started walking towards the hangar.
"Hennesy" A loud voice came over the comms speaker in his bunk room. "You are needed in the bridge acknowledge."
A groggy Mack Hennesy lifted his head of off his pillow, semi-conscious he managed to hit the button on his in-room mic. "Roger....on the way, 3 minutes." He sat up on the edge of his bunk, rubbed his eyes and wondered if the feeling of sandy grit under his eyelids would ever go away. He would have a chat with the ships engineer and see if they could adjust the % of moisture in the Oxygen filters. It was a common problem on long space flights. Moisture is good for the body, but bad for just about anything on a board space ship. Engineers would usually keep the air inside a ship as dry as possible. The result was a crew with extremely dry eyes. He got dressed and started to make his way to the bridge.
"....ah yea..I get what you are sayin Malice, but your gonna owes me big time when this pans out for ya." Engineer Sparks Henderson and Captain Malice had been having heated discussion.
"Sparks, I don´t care how long we have known each other, I´m not going to believe you can tell what dog is going to win a race by the color of his excrement." He and Sparks were both gambling men, any time near a track or a table was a good time as far as they both were concerned.
"Captain, reporting as ordered sir." Mack walked onto the bridge and on seeing the ships Engineer added. "Sparks, anyway you can up the moisture content, my eyes are about the dry up and fall out."
"That is Sir Sparks to you spacefart." Sparks was not known for being kind in any way to crew members who had less than two systems mapped out and traveled, and Mack Henessy was one of those. "You know what happens when we reach a destination and all yall go running off to the bars and the girls....I gets to stay here and change out corroded DataLinks and LifeSupport relays....."
"Easy Sparky" Malice cutting in to the engineers rant, who in turn gave his captain an evil look, no one called him Sparky, well no one but the Mat Malice. "Mack, new signal came in, we got it recorded for ya, get to it, see what you can make out."
"Yes Sir, right away." Mack went to his station, sat down, put on his headset and got to work.
"and Sparks, see if you can juice up the moisture percentage just a bit. the ship air is so dry, my nuts are about to dry up in their sack." Malice said looking over his shoulder at his radio operator.
Sparks grumbled a bit, and shoveled off to the engine room mumbling something about it would be a true statement if Malice had any nuts.
"I heard that Sparks, do not make me come show them to ya." Malice added the last parting shot.
"Captain, Sir, done, but I still do not know if they are talking to us or not, and the signal seems stronger but it is corrupted and incomplete." Mack handed his captain the newly transcribed transmission.
|THIS IS S**SUMA. WE HAV* **EN BAD*Y DAMAGED. *OG** HAS *EFT TH* *HIP FOR SECU**Y. WE ARE ADRIFT...!
"Well, it does indeed sound like someone is in need of some help," Malice started writing. "Let´s hope he has some credits or some influence and that we can get there first. Here Mack, send this, see what we fish out."
For Mack Hennesy, the challenge was over, and in a few minutes would have the transmission sent out. He started to dream about what he might be able to do with his cut of the Salvage Fee they might get out of this.
"Captain Malice, Sir there is an issue with Transmisions in morse we have been getting" Mack had spent a few hours going over the recordings, and he had found a faint signal after the ones he had already picked up on.
"Issue? We get an answer back on the original signal?" Malice was getting smugglers remorse and wondering if the last step he took, dropping out of cruise to get a better read on the signal, was the right decision. Every hour they were burning thrusters traveling at sub-cruise speeds, they were burning credits in the form of H-fuel.
"After the last transmission you gave me Sir, I found a second transmission, real faint, here sir" Mack handed his captain the transcription. "We are still only getting half the data, but seems someone is attepting to contact the distresst ship, if I read it right sir."
|M***AGE RECE**ED... A***VATE PLA* AL**A 3*7... PR**ED TO R**DE*VOUS. M** Z WILL B* *AITING. *OOD LU*K.|
"You get a fix where this last signal originated from?" There was one word Malice did not want to hear, but from what he already was quessing it was what was comming next.
"Closer to Kusari space sir, what I mean is sir, we seem to be closer to the distress call than where this last signal originated from." Mack was a bit proud of himself and could not help but to have a cat that ate the canary smile.
"Kusari." Malice let out in a slow exhale. "Always Kusari, ok gents...here is the plan. We cruise along for another few hours, if something happens that is in our favour and on our route, we follow up on it. If not, they are on their own." Captain Malice adjusted himself in his seat a bit. "Mack...keep an ear out, and good work. See if you can clean up that last transmission and get anything more usefull out of it."
Matok's helmsman was busy, digging up an old protocol for morse code.
"Sir, I found it," he exclaimed.
"What does it say?" asked Matok as he looked over his shoulder.
After a brief delay, the helmsman started reading, "THIS IS SATSUMA. WE HAVE BEEN BADLY DAMAGED. KOGEN HAS LEFT THE SHIP FOR SECURITY. WE ARE ADRIFT..."
Matok cocked his head. "Kogen.....Jien Kogen....the emperor of Kusari last I knew....."
"Is there more?" asked Matok. The helmsman only looked up and shook his head.
Matok looked straight forward as he gave his order, "Send this message: Request your location. Can and willing to help. Please respond."
"Yes, Sir. Doing so now."
He sent the message:
Callsign: IKN Akira Kimura
Location: Leeds, West Leeds Smog Cloud
Akira receives another transmission, "Hmm... whats this one say.. Freelance Trade vessel? Must have not set the broadcast frequencies correctly..." He changes his settings to broadcast over an encrypted IKN-band, which the distant vessel in distress could decipher upon receiving.
A brief moment passes as Akira lights a cigar, pondering what could've become of the IKN vessel. He ashes, "Hopefully there's still someone alive on that ship..."
His screen lights up, another transmission has been received. "Hm... what is this? Satsuma?.. let's find out whats going on..." He composes another string of code to broadcast to the IKN vessel.
On board .:j:.Faded Dreams Spatial class deep space explorer SHF.
Tau 23
Ortog keeps looking the scanner screen as it would suddenly clarify the origin on the misterious signal.
He talked in the long range comms:
"Parker, I am going to continue investigating this, its a distress signal. Regardless of the fact it originates from an IKN vessel...well..the past is the past, and if they need help I am not denying it to a human being in distress."
Santo Kaisa Kazuya Suzuzuma stared through the bridge window of the Kusari Gunbout, Fusoku.Arashi, as it cruised its way through the color contrasts that was the Manchester system. The regions of red and white... separated by the vastness that was the barrier nebula, he always did fancy the hidden wisdom you could get from passing through a system like this.
A woman clad in a uniform that designated her as the gunboat's main gunner, bowed quickly to her superior in response. "Hai, Santo Kaisa-san. We're already considering whether Bretonia might have the answers we seek."
"And have you also considered the fact we just contacted one of the sworn enemies of His Imperial Majesty, and had them ceremoniously deny our request?" The officer remarked without at all hiding his dripping sarcasm, his gaze still focused on the view outside. "You do realize we've taken a big risk in sharing the exact details of our pilgrimage to them, and may have potentially compromised our mission's security in the future?"
"Yes, I know that, bu-"
"Santo Kaisa-san!" Another crewmember within the bridge, this time the Comms Officer, called out to pierce the tension as his console began to beep, "You won't believe what transmission I've just picked up... It's concerning His Imperial Majesty."
Suzuzuma quickly spun around and went to stand behind the Comms Officer with a surprised look. "New orders from His Imperial Majesty, Okiza?"
he man named Okiza turned to the Santo Kaisa with a grim expression on his face, "Worse, Santo Kaisa-san... His Imperial Majesty seems... to be under threat."
Heads quickly snapped towards the Comms Officer when his words dug deep into their psyches. He punched in a few commands on his console as he quickly continued, "The transmission I picked up originated within the Taus regions, and was sent through an archaic encryption system called Morse Code. Patching the translated message to the viewscreen now."
All eyes immediately fell upon the bridge viewscreen as the message began to form:
Code:
THIS IS SATSUMA. WE HAVE BEEN BADLY DAMAGED. KOGEN HAS LEFT THE SHIP FOR SECURITY. WE ARE ADRIFT...
The bridge fell deathly silent for the next few moments, save for the ambient sounds of the bridge equipment that cared not for the gravity of the situation. The blood in Suzuzuma's face drained out as he looked upon the message with shock. The gunner-woman turned to her superior with genuine worry, "Santo Kaisa-san... What should we do?"
Suzuzuma just stood there, silent for the next few more moments as he contemplated all his options as quick as he could. Finally, after the seconds seemed like forever, Suzuzuma cleared his throat and said, "Plot a course for Planet Harris, via Dundee system. I have an inkling feeling this might be a trap set up by the Gallics. We'll need important direct intel about recent Gallic movement before we can move in. Meanwhile, Okiza I want you to send back to "Satsuma" a message through the same encryption, concerning their exact sitrep, location, and last known whereabouts of His Imperial Majesty. I also want you to send transmissions to Battleships Yamaguchi and Nagasaki asking the current whereabouts of His Imperial Majesty without giving any hint of this news.
"If... Kamikaze so help us, this turns out to be authentic, then at least we'll have a base of operations to prep ourselves in, and can ask for assistance from the Bretonians there. But above everything else, we must proceed first and foremost with great caution... IKUZO!!!"
"HAI!" The bridge crew saluted and quickly went back to their posts as the Fusoku.Arashi sprinted for the nearest Trade Lane towards the New London Jump Gate.
Suzuzuma slowly sat back down on his Captain's Chair, reclining deeply into the seat as his fingers rubbed themselves on his chin in thought, whispering to himself, "It's not like You to head to the thick of the warfront, Your Highness... What are You not telling us...?"
Shin stands on the Bridge of the Takao without a word. He just stares at the sending ID. His XO looks at him and slowly asks: "So what shall we do ?" Shin looks at him with a cold stare and says "Find the origion of the Signal and prepare an answer on old Imperial Guard Comlinks. I want to answer to that message"
He sits in his Commandchair and speaks with a clear voice. "This is Shin Takeru commander of the Takao former Commander of the IKN-Kirishima Imperial Guard vessel Destroyer Class. Im broadcasting on old Imperial Guard Comlinks. Emperor if this is you send me your coordinates and me and my men, who are all former Imperial Guard members will come and support you with all we can. Emperor I don`t know if you still remember me but I hope you do."
As the message is send Shin stands up and opens the Comlinks in the Ship. "We will go to the Taus and search for our Emperor he is alive. All hands we are on yellow alert from now on. Comlinks are closed for all unauthorized personal. All comlinks need to be permitted by the XO or me."
Captain Mat Malice looked at the transmission his radio operator had just handed him. He still had no way of knowing whether the Satsuma was contacting them or some of the other signals they had monitored but were to faint to decode.
Either way, there was a ship out there somewhere and it needed help, and he had a last known position.
"Good work Mack, keep an ear out for anything else, Charlie, take us to this position, sending the coordinates to your console. Sparks, I need you and the Doc to get together anything we can use in ship repair and first response medical treatment, and arrange to eject some of our cargo to free up a hold, we may need the space for injured or survivors."
His crew responded with rogers and yes sirs. He set about writing up and handing Mack Hennesy a new message to send. "Mack, send this out."
"Yes sir, right away." Hennesy could feel the tips of his fingers tingle as he typed up and sent the transmission.
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