The skimmer clears the sector in one hard vibration. Behind it, the Imperial interceptors swarm the empty relay hub, pulled toward the broadcast trail, not the ship.
On the navigation console, the purge list keeps unfolding, line by line, into hidden coordinates. The chain of command is not just names. It is a route.
The destination locks into a sealed facility buried off the mapped lanes, a place tied to Shifter's own origin. The old betrayal suddenly has a shape.
Mara Vey
Director Halvek... he built the purge from inside the machine.
Mara stares at the display, relief draining into hard focus. The color leaves her face as the coordinates resolve into a clean imperial tag, buried under layers of security masking.
Mara Vey
This is not just cleanup. It is the source. Your past, the purge, Halvek, it all points to the same door.
Outside the cockpit glass, the sector falls away into dark traffic lanes and distant patrol lights. Inside, the ship runs steady, and the next target waits on the screen.
“Once we switched ships from the skimmer to my modified small freighter, modded for speed and blockade running, and leave the sector. I turn to Mara Vey " in the back there's some cloths that should fit you, that is unless you want a reminder that you are with the empire, and the places we need to go , I don't feel like explaining that to every person we meet." I pause " some are the shoot first ask questions later kind of people." I let the offer weigh on her as I decide where to go. " Dealing with Halvek is the obvious choice, I don't do the obvious, savvy?"”
SUCCESS (Good Agility, rolled -2)
The freighter answers Shifter’s course correction with a clean, hungry thrum. Dock lights slide across the cockpit glass as the sector drops behind them and the ship settles into open dark.
Shifter
Back there, there are clothes that should fit you. Unless you want to keep wearing the Empire like a warning sign.
Mara glances toward the rear hatch, then back to the console, her posture loosening by a fraction.
Shifter
Some of the people we need to deal with shoot first and ask questions later. I do not feel like explaining you to them.
Mara Vey
Practical. Appreciated.
She pushes off the pilot seat and heads aft, leaving the decoded route glowing between them.
Shifter
Halvek is the obvious choice. I do not do the obvious, savvy?
Mara Vey
Then we keep the route, and we keep moving. The Empire can guess wrong without our help.
A soft ping ripples across the console, not from the ship’s systems but from an external packet trying to taste the route data. The coordinates remain visible, for now.
“I feed the packet the wrong data.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +0)
Shifter feeds the packet a braided mesh of false route ghosts, ugly enough to look rushed and real. The console flares once, then goes still.
The external ping stutters, bites, and drinks the decoy. The hidden coordinates stay locked in place, untouched.
Mara Vey
That was not a guess.
Shifter
The packet takes the bait.
On the display, the purge list folds inward behind a fresh veil of junk data, masking the route from any clean remote scrape.
Mara Vey
They know we have it now. Or they would, if this had failed.
A second probe brushes the ship and finds only static. Mara pauses at the rear hatch, hand on the frame, watching the console like it might bite.
Mara Vey
Do we keep the real path, or do we bait them with a longer lie?
“"We bait them "I tell her, I sent our jump coordinates to Halvek facility, then using a smugglers trick I feed my Mac computer the coordinates to an abandoned mining facility”
SUCCESS (Fair Reasoning, rolled +0)
Shifter opens the nav stack and spoofs the live route feed with a clean lie, an abandoned mining yard far off the hidden lane.
The console accepts the decoy and stamps it into outbound memory, while the real coordinates stay locked behind the junk veil.
Shifter
We bait them.
Mara straightens at the hatch, reading the split in the data trail as the ship quietly forks its own history.
Mara Vey
Smart. If they scrape the wrong trail, they chase dust.
A fresh packet ping touches the spoofed route, then slides off into the dead end Shifter planted.
Mara Vey
So the real path stays ours.
✓ Quest Accepted
Secure the real jump coordinates
“I type into the nav coordinates of the mining facility”
SUCCESS (Fair Reasoning, rolled -2)
Shifter keys the mining facility coordinates into the nav stack, and the hidden route snaps into place. The junk veil peels back, exposing the real jump solution as the console tags it for departure.
A thin packet chirps through the ship at the same instant, burning one line of the mask clean before it dies. The console saves the coordinates anyway, but the ping leaves a warning scar in the memory buffer.
Mara Vey
There. It is in.
Mara steps in from the hatch, gaze locked on the accepted route, one hand braced against the frame as if the ship might lurch under the truth.
Shifter
The coordinates hold.
The nav display flips from junk to a clean destination lock, and the ship commits the path to outbound memory. Somewhere outside the hull, a second ping fails to find them.
Quest Complete
Secure the real jump coordinates