The strobing transmitter swells from a nuisance into a beacon, washing the hub in hard white pulses. Mara freezes as the rhythm locks to a clean, repeating code.
Mara
Zoey... that is not a glitch. It is calling someone in.
The terminal junk-stream snaps into a live map for a heartbeat, and the overlay shows Dock Nine, marked and centered. The room hums with the vibration of an incoming shuttle signature.
Kaelo
The pad is a courier key. They built the route into the beacon, every hidden shipment, every dock handoff.
Mara drags the data-pad out, hands shaking, and the screen flashes the same cipher that lit the maintenance hub. The heavy tracking was never for the pad alone, it is for everything the pad can open.
Mara
Heavier than contraband, that thing. It is a master key, and it just told the Inquisitor where we are.
Above the red alarm wash, a distant thrum rolls through the deck plates. The Inquisitor's shuttle is close now, and Dock Nine is about to become a trap.
✓ Quest Accepted
Neutralize the beacon
✓ Quest Accepted
Spoof the docking coordinates
“Can I use the data-pad to feed the shuttle a false landing coordinate?”
YES (Likely, rolled 21)
Zoey Terraj
The encryption key is not just a map, it is a remote override for the docking grid.
Kaelo
If you can bridge the pad to the local relay, you could spoof the landing coordinates. I am Kaelo, and I can hold the uplink open for you.
− Scene Quest Removed
Neutralize the beacon
“"Mara, shoot him, he is obviously imperial" Zoey says calmly as she plugs the data-pad into the local relay to start the spoofing sequence.”
SUCCESS (Great Hacking, rolled +0)
Zoey Terraj
Mara, shoot him. He is obviously Imperial.
Zoey slots the data-pad into the local relay. The hub’s clean white panels flare as the spoofing sequence takes hold.
On the terminal wall, the live Dock Nine map shudders, then rewrites itself. The blinking coordinate field accepts a false landing path.
Kaelo
Yes, that. Keep the uplink stable. The beacon has to think the grid is elsewhere.
The pulsing tracker on the transmitter drops from frantic red to a muted, confused amber. Below them, the docking stack keeps reporting the forged coordinates.
A distant shuttle signature blossoms on the sensor strip, and the maintenance hub’s alarms tighten into a harder, colder tone.
Kaelo’s fingers fly over the terminal, holding the line open. The only thing left on the screen is the false approach vector, and the question of whether it buys them enough time.
Quest Complete
Spoof the docking coordinates