Captain James Rushaan owned the IMV Lucky Trader, one of the larger independant trading vessels around. She was actually equipped with a full shipyard internally, though it mostly was used for repairing clients' ships and upgrading others. His ship could not help but intercept the badly garbled message.3rd Impact wrote:The ship was alone save for a badly damaged pair of Stygians escorting it. They had taken the brunt of the alien assault, but neither had been entirely incapacititated, which was a blessing.
The message clearly had the telltale signs of a damaged transmitter ... but it could be a trap. Probably not, though. The unwritten Law of the Stars had their own perogatives. And since they were nearly at the end of this leg of the patrol route... "Attention. We have received a distress signal and triangulated its position. I intend to investigate this signal. Any craft wishing to disembark should do so within the next hour."
Predictably, few ships left. Most were still refitting or their crews on R&R. A detour hardly would change that. And so, after posting an updated position report and the patrol route change on their netsite, the IMV Lucky Trader jumped into hyperspace and exited where a cluster of several ships now patrolled, including some very battered ones.
"Attention local-area vessels. This is the IMV Lucky Trader, do you need assistance, over?"
(Note: Lucky Trader is 55km long and armed enough to take on most heavy cruisers.)