Space Jam [LA6]

[Sharn]

"What other engineer would have completely fixed that in just a couple of hours." Sharn bragged to the hum of the engine that truly sounded as if it had never been smashed.

[Syzygy Anion]

"I think it may be better than it was." Syzygy grinned from the helm.

[Farkas Lowca]

"It sounds like it's running smoother," Farkas says as he's walking in. "Excellent work as always."

[Sharn]

"I do not disappoint." Sharn smirked, pleased. "I've run the calculations for revised Lagrange points. We should be approaching one soon."

[Syzygy Anion]

"Just up ahead." she nodded.

[Ender]

Indeed, just up ahead of the vessel, was a holonet transmission relay. A light blinking red at steady intervals showed that it was receicing regularly.

It floated, almost peacefully, through the muck of the debris.

[Sharn]

"Get us closer, Sy. Farkas, you know what to do."

[Syzygy Anion]

"Aye." she maneuvered the ship into position.

[Ender]

Getting closer, and sensors are able to pierce through the muck and noise from everything else in the field, the transceiver in no way appeared as 'untouched' as it had a few moments ago. Slash marks, cut open panels and frayed wiring, in strategic points. Something had indeed tampered with the device.

[Sharn]

Sharn took a good look what the tampering could be about, and by what tools.

[Ender]

Upon close inspection, there was evidence of what had done it. Either destroyed by the satellites automated systems, or a piece of debris, a droid. Similar to the Viper series scout droid, but much, much smaller. Wiring had been clutched by one of it's manipulators, but the domed head and photoreceptor had suffered severe damage.

[Sharn]

"Let's retrieve that one and check what can be gleaned." Sharn said.

[Ender]

After minutes of work, the device was brought into the large cargo container.

Looking at it, it was easy to see what had happened. Physical tanpering from the unusual probe droid. Someone had set things about to begin to cut off communications.

[Sharn]

The droid may have had a failsafe installed, so Sharn proceeded with caution while he began disassembly in order to learn its source.

[Ender]

The Droid itself was Imperial, clearly, in make and model. Disassembling the thing was easy enough for someone of the technical mastery that Sharn had. The droid bore all the hallmarks of the Arakyd Industries droid program, only miniaturized. It was in the same line as the Viper series. The physical damage to the thing was to great to try and even get the droid brain operable once more, but given the evidence of the past several days, one could get a good idea of where this thing had come from.

[Sharn]

"Ah, so invasion indeed." Sharn snarled. "They've cut off communications first. I guess it may happen any day or hour." He paused. "How about fixing the minimum amount of relays required to secure one restricted frequency hyperspace comm beam, and selling it to our pirate acquaintances?"

[Syzygy Anion]

"As we expected, then?"

[Sharn]

"Yes. But I couldn't care less about whether the planet down there will have communications restored or not. Once the invasion is through, we can get back here to establish exostellar information monopoly, then sell it to an amicable party. I would say to the highest bidder, but I don't want to get embroiled into the politicality of that, whatever regime emerges on the surface. Hence our new Venator-occupying friends come immediately to mind."