Mira steadied herself against the console. “Plot an intercept. Keep it quiet. If UPD has an emergency, we don’t want a fleet following.”
They hauled the buoy into the hold. Inside, delicate spools of memory crystals nestled like the bones of a small animal. When they plugged the main reader into Eaglecraft’s port, the ship’s dim lights flickered as if the buoy’s memory spoke a different language. eaglecraft 12110 upd
They found the source wedged against a sliver of ice in the shadow of a minor planet: a relic of a previous age—a research buoy no bigger than a cargo crate, its plating frosted with regolith. Painted on one side, almost quaintly, were the letters UPD and a serial number that matched the distress packet. It wasn’t meant to be here. UPD’s logistical buoys were anchored to the outpost like sentinels. This one drifted like a castoff. Mira steadied herself against the console
Eaglecraft 12110 changed course. The ship’s cloak of routine peeled away, revealing something oddly intimate about deep space: its capacity to gather secrets and then abandon them like shells. If UPD has an emergency, we don’t want a fleet following
Eaglecraft 12110 had a reputation that outlived its registration number. It was one of the few medium freighters that could make the jump without an escort, and it wore its history in scrapes along the cargo hold and the faint, polished dent near the stern that looked like a smile. The ship’s name—only ever spoken in half-joking reverence—made Mira imagine a bird at the prow, wings spread to catch the current of the vacuum.