The interior smelled like burned polymer and rotting fabric.
Toren stepped carefully through the freighter's narrow corridor, his boots crunching on shattered display panels. The ship's walls bore blackened streaks from an internal fire, but the bulkhead integrity had held. For the most part.
Mira ducked in behind him, nose wrinkling. "Looks like a freighter. No markings."
"That's deliberate," Toren murmured. "No IDs, no tags. Just scars."
They moved past the crew alcoves—stripped bare—and reached the cockpit. The transparisteel viewport had cracked inward, and most of the dash controls were fused into unrecognizable lumps of slag. A body slumped in the pilot's chair, half-fused into the seat.
The smell hit them again—heavier this time.
Mira muttered, "Guess that's our ghost."
Toren leaned forward. The corpse was badly burned, but not old. No mold. No insect nesting. A week, maybe two.
He reached down and unlatched the chest pocket.
Inside was a datapad, cracked but intact. A personal device, probably encrypted. He slipped it into his satchel.
"Kora," he whispered. "Scan local tech signatures."
"Processing… Match found. One Trade Federation transponder: damaged. Located in aft cargo bay. Power levels: intermittent."
Toren turned. "Cargo hold."
They moved fast now, down the rear corridor and into the freighter's belly.
The doors were open. Inside, crates had broken free of their moorings during the crash—several spilled open, revealing spare weapon parts, basic rations, and a few high-grade thermal blankets still sealed in foil.
But what stopped them both was the humming box at the far end.
Metal. Angular. Black with a red stripe along one edge.
And the logo stamped on its side: three interlocked rings around a narrow vertical eye.
Mira hissed.
Toren whispered, "Trade Federation."
There was no mistaking it. Not a smuggler's mark. Not scavenger gear.
Official. Clean. Corporate.
Kora chimed in softly:
"Transponder is attempting ping. Signal range: Low orbit. Containment breach in progress."
Toren knelt. "We have to shut it down."
"No argument here."
He reached into the panel and yanked the main uplink cable.
The hum stuttered. The light flickered.
But for one brief moment before it died, a blue LED blinked—once.
Ping sent.
Toren's stomach turned.
"…Someone saw that."