Public Misplaced Objects (Spacers, Truckers, et al) [Planeshift]

[Rinea]

Bellassa: A peaceful world experiencing a 'boom economy' at the center of traffic between the High Republic, Galactic Alliance, and Black Sun space.

Until, suddenly, an entire space station ripped out of hyperspace and collided with dense shipping traffic around the planet.
​

Debris was scattered everywhere. S.O.S. messages flooded all nearby systems. Local defenses consisted of volunteers meant to deal with the occasional smuggler; never were they equipped or prepared to deal with this. Spacers scrambled to avoid the wreckage of freighters and the broken pieces of the station, which did not survive the sudden breach entirely intact.

Then, as if things couldn't get more chaotic, a corvette dropped out of hyperspace moments later--emitting a message.

"Attention local system traffic: This station is under quarantine effective immediately. Do not attempt to board it. Do not fire upon it. It is in your best interest to stay away, and we will protect that interest at any cost. For the greater good." The message cut out from there.

The corvette moved towards the station, then began to board it.

To make matters more unusual, the station itself appeared to be sending a signal of its own.

Spoiler: OOC

This thread doesn't have an objective other than to explore more consequences of the Planeshift event, and uncover the mysterious origins of the station and the signal it is broadcasting.

Open to all.

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

The galaxy was such a mess, but that meant more work for her and her family. Kaia had been jumping around, without a true method, but dropping beacons wherever she went, getting lost spacers to a settled world, or a port where they could find haven, and refuel and rearm. With the addition of the Companions in the main galaxy, she had so many routes to fish through. It was going to give her a good amount of credits.

With the SOS around Bellassa, the Wandering Star and actually, a companion vessel, one of the Starchaser Enterprises old Gentes Freighters was following the jump, there to help pull debris from the lane that Kaia found. Her droid heard the message and replayed it for Kaia.

“Corvette, this is shuttle Wandering Star. What quarantine? Perhaps we can help?” For most, a Starchaser Enterprises flagged vessel was a good sign.

 

[Rinea]

“Corvette, this is shuttle Wandering Star. What quarantine? Perhaps we can help?” For most, a Starchaser Enterprises flagged vessel was a good sign.

For a long, uncomfortable moment, there was no reply, and certainly not the voice from earlier. And then there was noise.

A knowing ear would note the similarities between it and droid binary. However, there were significant deviations in syntax. A best guess would suggest that expertise in either linguistics or cryptography might be necessary to decipher the noise, if it were a response at all.

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

Her shuttle, well, honestly, mobile home and exploration platform, was moving ahead of the Gentes freighter. She was definitely her father’s daughter, and could never truly get away from a freighter, even if the crew on the Corellian Dawn were more people like her, pathfinders. And salvagers and miners. As the noise came through, Kaia flinched slightly before iBorg implants helped filter it.

Still, it was off. Even with the implants, and Drifter moving to and fro, beeping in his own language, one that Kaia knew, she shook her head. Something was off.

“Drifter, can you run that through the Star’s database? See what it turns up?”

Her ship was moving forward now.

Rinea

 

[Rinea]

“Drifter, can you run that through the Star’s database? See what it turns up?”

Suspicions would be confirmed. This language was droid binary, but it is no longer droid binary. Perhaps to make matters more curious, there were no records of its use anywhere in the known galaxy. Yet, a smart droid would be more than capable of deciphering the language. It would be a matter of seeing where the similarities end and some educated brute forcing to determine the correct paths.

Her ship was moving forward now.

There were no further warnings, nor did the corvette's weapons come online. However, chaos was unfolding rapidly as confusion mounted into misunderstandings, and misunderstandings became hostility. One freighter among the rest fired its laser cannons at another for getting too close to a downed ship in its fleet.

The beauty and the risk of trade lanes, which hosted a multitude of cultures and norms, that could just as easily clash as they might cooperate. Elsewhere, small efforts for impromptu rescue were already underway.

Kaia Starchaser

 

[Vestra Tane]

TAGS: Rinea Kaia Starchaser OPEN

This run had been good. Fifteen barrels of liquid tibanna, all perfectly illicit, rested in the cargo bay of The Smiling Knife, all waiting to be auctioned off to some Vigo or other. In the cockpit, meanwhile, small sachets, each no bigger than half a cred-chip, littered the ship's nav controls, torn open and emptied by shaky hands. The culprit, with oil-black hair and glittery cheeks, laid cackling in the captain's chair. Vestra Tane, Syndicate contractor, con artist and general ne'er-do-well.

The plan had been to drift her way out of the mess the invading space station had caused - she'd been lucky enough not to get clipped by its sudden translocation or by any panicking pilots. But now...

<<Captain, are you sure this is wise? You have: Four outstanding warrants in Republic Space. Three outstanding warrants in Alliance Space. Lingering at a crisis location is likely to->>

"Yeah yeah, I get-get-get it, Vee! Hop on the turrets!"

The little minimech whirred with annoyance, but he knew better than to question Vestra too much when she was like this. She'd start throwing things, if he wasn't careful. Probably including him. And so with no little reticence, V7-T5 wheeled himself to the back of the Smiling Knife's cockpit and plugged himself into the ship's targeting computers.

Vestra, meanwhile, was still cackling, hands jittering, as she fiddled with the Knife's controls and hit the thrusters.

To any outside observer, it looked like the Knife was heading right for this mystery corvette...but the pilot would have to be a lunatic to do that in such a dinky little freighter, right?

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

Her probe twittered a few things to her as he read the language. Trying to decipher, as Drifter was no ordinary probe droid, the same way her father’s trusty R6 was merely an astromech. The droid was starting to run a program through the ship, linking into to ALLY, and Lexi, two artificial intelligences. A read out on Kaia’s screen said to give the droid some time.

The Mirialan nodded.

A trained, and faithful Warden of the Sky, Kaia held tight to her ship’s controls as a fighter broke out. She had some weapons, but mostly just a Jump Start cannon, enough to get someone’s attention, but not designed to make any negative effects on another ship.

“Ally, can you tell me just what that other ship is doing? And provide a course flying outside of the corvette and the … is it called Knife?’s flight path. Shields up.”

Rinea Vestra Tane

 

[Ranna Sejast]

Things had been going well for a while. Bellassa had been boring, but a blessing full of easy work both mechanical and mercurial, and pretty enough. Ranna had even stopped wearing her beskar off the job, not like anyone wanting to do her harm would recognize her outside it. The planeshift had admittedly thrown her, but she always thought of herself as the type to land on her feet, plus it didn't hurt that she never much cared where she was or had a place to get to, preferring to follow the credits. And of those, there were plenty to be had here.

Now she was racing out of Bellassa's atmosphere in her Beviin, still in its black and white skull squadron markings. There had been a planet-wide emergency with this station's appearance, with real fears of pieces of debris falling onto the planet. Comm chatter flooded the air waves and Ranna picked the strangest to listen in to, an open invitation to join a Utopia, free everything, nothing in return. Sounded too good to be true, probably was. Reminded her of an old saying, "if you're not being sold something, you are the product." Really put her in a mood to agree with the corvette that showed up to warn people away. Still, she was small-fry until someone put a bounty on something.

Arming her lasers, Ranna flipped the fighter's s-foils over to attack position and blasted away at the larger pieces of station debris, breaking them up before they did more damage. Later, she'd be offering her services to help fix up the ships damaged by the ongoing collisions.

 

[Rinea]

To any outside observer, it looked like the Knife was heading right for this mystery corvette...but the pilot would have to be a lunatic to do that in such a dinky little freighter, right?

As soon as said 'dinky little freighter' closed in, the corvette's power signatures spiked. Excessively. One, from a set of 10 tubes on the corvette, opened up and fired a single advanced concussion missile at the approaching ship.

Her probe twittered a few things to her as he read the language. Trying to decipher, as Drifter was no ordinary probe droid, the same way her father’s trusty R6 was merely an astromech. The droid was starting to run a program through the ship, linking into to ALLY, and Lexi, two artificial intelligences. A read out on Kaia’s screen said to give the droid some time.

The trio of droid intelligences would face little trouble in the way of translation. In fact, about half the message came through deciphered.

"Error: unrecognized authorization. IFF not found." The rest of the message would likely follow from the same context, but it still needed a bit of time to clear up the remainder of the syntax.

Arming her lasers, Ranna flipped the fighter's s-foils over to attack position and blasted away at the larger pieces of station debris, breaking them up before they did more damage. Later, she'd be offering her services to help fix up the ships damaged by the ongoing collisions.

Most of the debris proved easy to clear, except for the armored pieces, which appeared to be constructed of an advanced alloy that suffered little more than scorch marks.

All three of the ships would receive an emergency broadcast from the station itself. Unlike the repeating message, this one seemed live.

"Help us! We're... [staaaatic] be evacuated! [static] are childr--" the whole signal was badly scrambled by the end of it. Not due to equipment failure, it was being jammed from the inside.

Vestra Tane | Kaia Starchaser | Ranna Sejast

 

[Ranna Sejast]

Hmm, now that seemed interesting. Ranna leaned forward against the harness holding her to the fighter's seat as she bought the ship in for a closer look at a particularly large piece of that armor. Using her heavy lasers, she blasted it into a higher orbit that should keep it out of everyone's way and tagged it as a navigation hazard while registering a salvage claim on it with the local authorities.

Then the station blasted the comms with their plea for aid, static-y and full of pathos. Ranna, gave it a moment, drumming her gloved fingers on the fighter's yoke. If they didn't have escape pods, what did they expect someone in a single-seat fighter to do about it? Keying her own comm, Ranna broadcasted back to the station on the same channel, uncaring of others that might be listening in. "If I can save you, what's it worth?" Her voice was mechanized, obviously altered by a vocoder. At the same time, she wondered if this was some attempt to lure people into a trap.

Rinea Kaia Starchaser Vestra Tane

 

[Vestra Tane]

TAGS: Rinea Kaia Starchaser Ranna Sejast

As soon as said 'dinky little freighter' closed in, the corvette's power signatures spiked. Excessively. One, from a set of 10 tubes on the corvette, opened up and fired a single advanced concussion missile at the approaching ship.

Perfect.

Vestra inhaled.

A lesser - or at least more sober - pilot may have felt some trepidation at the sight of a concussive payload speeding through the void towards her. A more sensible pilot would've accepted the shot as the warning that it was and backed off.

"Vee."

«Confirmed.»

Vestra fiddled with the controls in front of her. Distance of about one and a half kilometers...she had a couple of seconds before the missile hit. Enough time to prepare to -

«Captain, incoming-»

Climb.

The Smiling Knife tilted on its aft with a sudden, jerking motion, and climbed...up? At a ninety-degree angle to the trajectory of the oncoming missile. Direction was meaningless in the void, it turned out.

The criminal allowed herself a moment of smug satisfaction. Spice didn't have chit on the high you got from near-death. Still, she did prefer her death just near, not imminent, and that trick wouldn't be enough to throw the missile off entirely. Luckily, she knew Vee had her back.

The Knife's turret array spun about in their gimbals, and then krakk, krakk, krakk!

Three angry green shots - two to bring down the missile's shielding, and a third to set off the payload prematurely.

Inside the cockpit, more cackling, while the captain levelled out the vessel and set it careening towards the mystery corvette again - much, much faster.

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

She kept moving her ship forward. The shields coming online as she kept moving. Without getting too close, the Star would need the shields. No reason to get too close and risk her ship. But if she could rescue anyone? She had to try. The droid minds were still working, and, honestly, Kaia had known it was only a matter of time.

Her HUD gave her the flight path and the Starchaser was taking her ship into the proposed path, shields angled.

What she didn’t expect was so much to happen at once.

Power spikes and a translation?

“Repeat! This is Wandering Star. Evacuation, repeat!”

The missiles were no longer her focus, she could keep ahead of them.

 

[Rinea]

"If I can save you, what's it worth?"

There was a delay. Then, "Anyth...[static]...weapons, food, suppl--" The signal was heavily degraded before it shut down completely.

Whoever it was, they sounded desperate, and based on the last message, it appeared there were many of them trapped inside.

Inside the cockpit, more cackling, while the captain levelled out the vessel and set it careening towards the mystery corvette again - much, much faster.

The missile indeed detonated before hitting its mark. The corvette remained in place where it was, and didn't fire a second missile. Instead, the Knife would find itself under barrage from an all-out EW attack--but it wasn't from the corvette.

It was the station, whose electronic defense systems had attempted to seize control of the freighter and force it to dock. It was strange, really, like perhaps an automated docking system had been used to hijack the vessel. The same would be true for Kaia Starchaser 's Wandering Star, though its companion ship was left alone for now.

Both ships received a new signal. For the Knife, it was a whole lot of garbled noise, that unusual 'droid binary but not.' For the Star, however, the message came through perfectly.

"Illegal vessel, prepare to be impounded."

Ranna Sejast | Vestra Tane | Kaia Starchaser

 

[Tilon Quill]

and collided with dense shipping traffic around the planet.
​

Debris was scattered everywhere. S.O.S. messages flooded all nearby systems.

Arming her lasers, Ranna flipped the fighter's s-foils over to attack position and blasted away at the larger pieces of station debris, breaking them up before they did more damage.

As soon as said 'dinky little freighter' closed in, the corvette's power signatures spiked. Excessively.

Help us! We're... [staaaatic] be evacuated! [static] are childr--" the whole signal was badly scrambled by the end of it. Not due to equipment failure, it was being jammed from the inside.

Three angry green shots - two to bring down the missile's shielding, and a third to set off the payload prematurely.

Inside the cockpit, more cackling, while the captain levelled out the vessel and set it careening towards the mystery corvette again - much, much faster.

taking her ship into the proposed path, shields angled.

It was the station, whose electronic defense systems had attempted to seize control of the freighter and force it to dock. It was strange, really, like perhaps an automated docking system had been used to hijack the vessel.

After a good twenty minutes of work, Tilon tried to breathe easy. He deactivated the North Ridge's tractor beam to let a damaged Hapan shuttle take a higher, safer orbit. Verifying that orbit, communicating with the shuttle and the overwhelmed traffic control, took another five minutes.

His heart rate had just stilled when his orbit brought him into line of sight of the station that had caused all this — and the complex, violent situation around it. A Starchaser Enterprises shuttle and freighter were at risk, just for starters; professional courtesy joined the factors driving him to intervene.

With distance to work with, he took the time to tease apart the sensor and communications data. The situation grew no clearer. Some of the transmission scraps he picked up made little sense. Dressel, for example, had no technocratic regime and no ability to brag about its standard of living; he'd been there just three weeks ago, been there for a mass protest demanding a wealth tax. Other elements of all this failed to line up too. Even without the weapons fire, it was as baffling a picture as he'd ever encountered when serving as a commscan officer and then a hyperspace scout.

None of which changed the fact that the station was broadcasting a broken but unmistakable distress call.

He set his comms to broadcast at maximum strength, conscious that he was making his little ship a target.

"This is Tilon Quill on the independent explorer North Ridge. I'm responding to a distress call from the station and am moving to a docking vector. The North Ridge will offer aid."

 

[Ranna Sejast]

Ranna let her Beviin drift for a moment, considering the words of those calling for help as she watched a light freighter duel with that corvette. It might need to be dealt with, and nothing ran up a bill like hard ordinance. They might have said, "Anything you want, we have weapons, food, and supplies," or maybe the static had covered them saying, "we don't have weapons, food, supplies."

Ugh, why did being an independent contractor have to be so hard? Ranna smiled to herself at that thought. Minutes earlier, she'd been thinking of how easy she'd had it lately. Priming her fighter's anti-missile system, she gunned the engines as the s-foils spun about the little fighter as she traded maneuverability for speed. So many people were already offering help, the least she could do was not be seen burning exhaust away.

Closing in on the corvette, Ranna let loose with a single mag-pulse torpedo, and opened up on the corvette with all six of her guns as she strafed by. She didn't think she'd do any real damage to it, but she wanted whomever or whatever was commanding it a bloody nose and make them reconsider engaging the ships coming to aid the station, even as part of her still thought it was a trap.

Since the other ships were already headed that way, Ranna decided to follow them in.

Rinea Kaia Starchaser Vestra Tane Tilon Quill