As the NBS Radiant Dawn jumped into the neighboring system, Commander Rebecca Johnson could feel the tension in the air. Her team had run countless patrols like this before, but you could never be too careful in space. The vast emptiness of the fringe held many unknowns, from marauding pirates to malfunctioning freighters.
“Alright, everyone, keep your eyes peeled for anything unusual,” Commander Johnson said over the comm. “We’re just doing a routine sweep, but you never know what we might find out here.”
The squadron split off into smaller groups, each taking a different direction to cover more ground. Lieutenant Brian Lee led one of the groups and had been scanning the area for nearly an hour when his sensors picked up something unexpected.
“Commander, I think we’ve found something,” Lieutenant Lee said, his voice crackling over the comm. “There’s a hidden supply depot on one of the asteroids.”
Commander Johnson’s eyes widened in surprise. “Are you sure?” she asked.
“I’m positive,” Lieutenant Lee replied. “There’s a lot of activity going on down there, and it doesn’t look like anyone’s supposed to be there.”
“Understood,” Commander Johnson said. “We’ll send in a recon drone to get a closer look. But I want you and your squadron to maintain your positions and keep a watchful eye. We don’t want to spook anyone down there.”
The NBS Radiant Dawn powered up its dark matter drive to perform an intra-system jump. Larger ships were slow and the use of dark matter jumps is critical for keeping situation awareness. There’s always a risk since the dark matter drive requires a cooldown period before using again. Upon exiting the jump, Commander Johnson ordered the recon drone to proceed with its investigation.
Lieutenant Lee and his team watched as the recon drone silently flew towards the asteroid. Its camera feed showed a hidden entrance to the depot, guarded by two sentries armed with laser rifles. The drone continued to fly closer, scanning the area for any other potential threats.
As the team watched the feed, they suddenly noticed movement on the asteroid. A group of five humanoid figures emerged from the entrance and began to move towards the drone’s position.
“Sir, we’ve been spotted,” Lieutenant Lee said urgently. “We need to get out of here.”
“Agreed,” Commander Johnson said. “All squads, return to the carrier immediately. We don’t want to provoke a response from whoever’s down there.”
The squadron quickly retreated, returning to the NBS Radiant Dawn without incident. Commander Johnson immediately began to analyze the data gathered by the recon drone, trying to determine who was behind the hidden supply depot.
Over the next few hours, the ship’s intelligence officers worked tirelessly to decode the encrypted data recovered from the drone’s memory banks. Finally, they uncovered a message sent from the depot to an unknown location.
“Mission accomplished,” the message read. “The Radiant Dawn has fallen into our trap. We’ll be ready when they return.”
Commander Johnson’s heart sank as she realized that the entire patrol had been a ruse to lure the carrier into a trap. But she quickly regained her composure and ordered the ship to jump out of the system as soon as possible.
The carrier powered its sublight engines and pointed towards the dark energy jump node. It would take some more time before the dark matter drive could be used to get closer to the jump node and this was just the chance that the pirates needed…
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