Missing Pieces

Following the battle of Ra’un, Captain Rath took his fighter’s receiver unit to an analysis center to have the encrypted transmission inspected. The facilities were aboard the 58th Fleet’s current headquarters, a space station orbiting Bilbringi. The analysis team there had plenty of experience decrypting new republic communications, so he figured it wouldn’t take long to uncover the message. Rath used his code cylinder to open the door, greeting the analysis techs as he entered, “Evening, gentlemen.”

“What can we do for you, Captain?”

“I’ve received an encrypted message from someone, but it doesn’t match anything we use. We weren’t having much luck decrypting it on the Citadel, so I figured it would be best to bring it here,” held up the receiver unit.

“Well you’ve certainly come to the right place, set it on the table there,” the lead tech pointed to a small table between a set of data consoles. Rath compiled, and the technician hooked it up to a machine hanging from the wall. “Now, let’s see what we have here,” he pressed a few buttons on the right console, causing a hologram to be projected from the table. Gradually, words began filling the projected screen.

Elija Rath, if     have received this messag , I have s  ethi g important to te l    .      still  live. The des ru   on of     Ardent at Daupherm didn’t       . It took    too long to recover            , but now   ca          ea ly everything. I’ve learned of your recent exploits      I must   y, I am quite       of y  .

     for me    m  k     nte  in Il   trii, I’ll be waiting  or you to    ive.

 - A m  al                             

“That’s not good,” the technician said, keying up another program on his console.

Captain Rath stared at the message, “what happened to it?” He could understand some of it, but there seemed to be a lot missing.

“It wasn’t the decryption.”

“Then why is so much of it missing?”

“I’m not quite certain–Simmons get over here,” he called to his assistant.

“Coming sir,” another tech, presumably Simmons, approached. “What do you need, sir?”

The lead tech cleared his throat, then explained, “we’re having problems with this decryption and it isn’t exactly my area of expertise. Do you mind helping the captain with this?”

“Right away, sir,” the technician was more than happy to have something to do; most of the New Republic transmissions were being decrypted automatically these days. Simmons examined the message, then the receiver unit. He turned to Rath, “Well, sir, it probably isn’t an issue on our end; the message was using an older version of the Daupherm base-eight scramble encryption, which we’ve had cracked for years now.”

“Daupherm, you say?” Rath asked, suddenly even more intrigued. He was originally from Ieron, a planet within the Daupherm system.

“Yes, but as mentioned, the encryption wasn’t the problem,” the tech paused, having a sudden revelation. “Was your ship damaged during the battle?”

The battle he referred to was the battle of Ra’un, where Captain Rath had flown a TIE/Ad as Lucent Leader. Rath thought for a moment, “Not during the battle, no. However, the deck crew dropped my ship from a grav lift while loading munitions.”

“Was your long range transceiver damaged?”

“I suppose it could have been.”

“Well that would explain the gaps in the message. It won’t be possible to recover the rest, so this is all we can do for you.”

“That’s fine, thank you,” Rath said. He turned to leave, taking the receiver unit with him. He didn’t have everything, but perhaps he had enough. Next stop would be Ieron, then the Ardent. The more he thought about who could have sent him the message, the more Rath got the feeling it was of great importance.

 

This is the second of an eight build series following Captain Rath; the story for this particular build was done before the previous one. The next few builds will be exploring a little known system in the core, and I can't wait to get started.