Posted by Lieutenant Alan Dysart (Communications Officer) in The second half of a vanishing act
Off in space, drenched in darkness. A rip in space and time, old and familiar to this place opened for the second time since humans had begun traveling the stars. And something spilled out. A piece of an old starship, and some escape pods. Most of them were damaged beyond repair. But one still held life. And that life was calling for pickup.

-Alan Dysart

Down time…

Juliet leaned back in the chair and looked at the screen. Down time was her favorite time on the Levi. It gave her a chance to watch the stars. While most watched the stars to admire their beauty and simplicity, Jewels had other reasons. Having traveled all over space, stars weren’t the most exciting thing in the vast darkness of ‘out there’. She looked for what was between them. Planets, asteroid fields, comets and other minutia that most dismissed out of hand as mundane.

But tonight, as the Chrono kicked over a super early 0300, something made her sit up and take notice. A blip on the furthest reaches of the scanner’s ability set off a small alarm. She had been using the array to read deep space far beyond the ship’s normal sensor range, so she guessed the bridge hasn’t been alerted, yet. Cranking up the clarity a couple more notches, like ratcheting a tie down just past its safety level, she managed to get a reading. A ship, and debris, lay out there as if it has been spit out by some great dark monster without form. Cocking her head to the side, she tapped the console as the rip disappeared, =^=Shuttle Bay to Bridge, this is Jewels, ummmm… It’s Anders. I have a ship with debris, possibly pods, on the far scanners. And there’s a feint signal coming from that direction.=^=

She quickly tapped out a query for distance, =^=Permission to take runabout to investigate?=^= The chances of a positive response, especially by herself, were slim to none. But what else could she do? One didn’t ignore such calls for attention out here.

Juliet Anders
Jewels
RTF/Security