Three weeks after Dock Nine, Zoey Terraj is back in a cramped cockpit, hunched over a salvaged droid with her tools spread out. Her comms unit suddenly cuts through the cabin with an encrypted override, same harsh chirp as before.
A distorted voice rides the signal, familiar enough to prick at memory. It repeats the containment code Zoey used at Dock Nine, like it tastes the words and hates them.
The Voice
That code was never meant for a scavenger.
The signal resolves into a sector ping from an empty stretch of space, one that was supposed to be dead. The droid on Zoey's lap goes still under her hands as the cockpit display floods with the hidden transmission path.
The Voice
You did not break containment. You reported it.
The old setup snaps into place. The Dock Nine code was never just a door opener, it was a distress beacon aimed straight at the Inquisitor.
Somewhere out in that empty sector, an Imperial response net wakes up and starts looking back.
Trace the encrypted transmission to its source