Ghost Signals and the Void Run (Completed)

The shuttle settles hard into the berth, still warm from the run. Before the hatch can finish cycling, corporate security officers pour into the cargo bay, scanners up, rifles low and ready. Dockmaster Vane freezes beside the bulkhead, watching them work the hull like they already own it.

A scanner sweeps over the shuttle skin, then lingers near the patched transponder. On the terminal, Vey Port glows beside a fresh route-credit surcharge, neat as a knife.

Vane swallows and sidesteps toward the security team, hands still clasped. The officers are not here to arrest first. They are here to make the ship expensive enough to stop.

Beyond the scanners, a second alert scrolls across the bay monitor, a fresh outbound ping tied to the hunters' last sweep. Vey Port is the paper trail and the only clean lane left, if Nahuli can get this inspection off his back.

Nahuli slides the packet across the scanner line. The Lead Officer flicks through the registry, then taps the berth record on the terminal with one gloved finger, as if the answer ought to be obvious.

Dockmaster Vane makes a small, helpless motion toward the terminal, but stops short of speaking. The route-credit surcharge still glows beside Vey Port, bright and official, while the scanner finishes its slow pass over the patched transponder.

The Lead Officer does not look at Vane. They peel the packet open, compare seals, then set it back with a flat little click that lands like a verdict.

On the terminal, the outbound alert crawls one line higher, and the officer's scanner pauses on Nahuli's toolbelt as if deciding whether to treat him as a mechanic or a liability. Vane watches Nahuli instead of the rifles.

Nahuli plugs into the ship’s diagnostics and pulls a full sweep through the transponder, route buffer, and wake logs. Lines of stored traffic peel open on the terminal, clean at first, then ugly.

A buried relay handshake surfaces beside the Vey Port registry, then fragments into false headings, stale hull IDs, and a hunter-linked ping riding the same metadata stream.

Nahuli isolates the trace chain and strips the outbound tags from the active wake. The terminal’s warning line drops away, replaced by a neutral maintenance readout and a fresh checksum.

The cargo bay lights keep humming over the inspection table as the clean scan settles on-screen. The ship’s wake is now quiet, but the officer is waiting for proof the numbers match.

Nahuli taps the terminal again, and the cleaned wake report expands into a tight column of checksum lines and route stamps. The hunter trace is gone from the active view, replaced by plain maintenance headers and Vey Port registry data.

The officer steps in closer, scanner rifle angled low as they compare the cargo bay display to the berth record. Dockmaster Vane swallows hard at the bulkhead, watching the numbers with obvious relief and lingering fear.

A confirmation tone chirps from the terminal. The maintenance checksum matches the live transponder packet, and the inspection flag flips from amber to green on the side panel.