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Empire Reforged
Chapter 25: Signal Without Origin
Location: ISV Silver Lance, En Route to Redacted System Exit Vector
Date: BBY 8 – 0630 Hours, Day 4 of Patrol Deployment
Lucan stared at the monitor long after the recording ended.
> To any Imperial command… protocol failsafe active… repeat… unit code VIGILANCE… mission corrupted… primary objective unknown… initiating reset…
The voice was his.
Not exactly. Distorted. Older. A fraction off-center in cadence. But unmistakable.
Valk stood behind him, watching the waveform analysis on her auxiliary screen.
"We ran four voice passes," she said. "Matched to your vocal signature at 92% certainty. Higher if we account for digital drift over time."
"Thirty-six years," Lucan said quietly.
Darran entered the room, datapad in hand.
"No match in any Imperial fleet database," she said. "The ship doesn't exist on the Navy registry, past or present. No serial, no order history. Hull design doesn't match any mass production class. It's something else."
"Clone Wars black project?" Valk asked.
"Possibly," Darran said. "But that wouldn't explain the voice… or the message format. Whatever this was—it was transmitting on an outdated failsafe loop meant for deep-space surveillance drones."
Lucan stood up.
"No command signature?"
Valk shook her head. "It never connected. It was a dead node. Blind. Repeating the same thing for decades."
"Then it wasn't trying to contact anyone," Lucan said. "It was trying to be found."
—
Two hours later, Lucan stood alone on the Silver Lance's ventral observation deck. The ship drifted at low power just outside the system's gravity well, engines warm but idle. Outside the viewport, the remains of the black planet faded into shadow.
He keyed in a secure transmission.
> To: Fleet Intelligence Node Cresh-1
Subject: Anomaly SC-X-Redacted
Contents:
One crashed stealth vessel
Active transmission relay
Voiceprint match (92%) with current Imperial officer: Commander Lucan Virex
Transmission duration: 36 years continuous
Request clarification or explanation.
He sent it.
And then, predictably — he waited.
The reply came five minutes later. Too fast. Too perfect.
> RESPONSE:
Commander Virex — anomaly acknowledged.
Vessel listed as decommissioned probe. Signal artifact likely the result of resonance imprinting during long-range telemetry error.
No further investigation required.
Maintain patrol schedule. Do not alter course.
Lucan stared at the message until the text blurred.
Then deleted it.
—
Darran joined him on the bridge.
"They closed it, didn't they."
"They buried it," Lucan said.
"Want to push it up the chain?"
"No."
She frowned. "Why not?"
Lucan looked at her.
"Because if they're lying to me… then I'm already further inside this than I realized. And if they're telling the truth…"
He trailed off.
"Then I'm still not ready to hear the rest."
Darran folded her arms. "So what now?"
Lucan turned back toward the viewport.
"We log it. Quietly. Off the books. And we keep moving."
She studied him. "Toward what?"
Lucan's voice was steady.
"Toward the next lie."
—
Below deck, Corren oversaw the final sealing of the black box recovered from the downed ship. It would be stored in Vault C — a space not on any official deck plan. Holtz welded the last seal shut by hand.
No one spoke.
Because even ghosts can leave footprints.
And Lucan had just found one in his own.