Page 107 - The Chronicles Ser2 (6-10)

“Chief; I’m getting the same signals repeated again here look” he finally spoke out to his Commander
Chief Coms Engineer Klute Halaran, who looked at the display traces and said…
“It looks like one of those old Freighter buoys that they used to use in the Markab sector in the Third
dynasty. There are still a few around, it must have picked up a charge from a stellar wind or
something, and Sub-space drift would account for it appearing here. Still; it’s mighty odd that it’s so
clear, and that echoing…” he was about to tell the young man to forget about it when the signal
changed. A phasing and sweeping; swooshing sound was added then the original signal was replaced
by what appeared to be a distorted voice, speaking an old Terran dialect, Atalaman…
Hiss… swishes… “Delta Nuevo Uno Trey Cinque. Preastra Del Har Vuelvo nomiar trellor swint questor
yanvarglis. Por Favora Luna Mechia sentra…” more hisses and swishes then the message repeated
before going silent. Jason and Klute were white, blood drained from their faces and the rest of the
coms deck was stunned into silence.
“That was a Human voice; there are no Human colonies within five Parsecs of here and Sub-space
drift doesn’t account for this. Could you get any kind of fix on that Jason?” Klute asked. Jason triple
checked the coordinates the signal came from.
“It’s definitely coming from about half a Parsec into The Veil around here” he replied pointing to a
location of one of the few known rifts near the outer regions of The Veil on the standard chart.

The coms deck erupted into a flurry of activity. Klute passed on the discovery to the
Command deck and the Captain ordered clarification of the message. A young Fenian spoke out
“My Great grandfather taught me Atalaman, I can translate it. It’s a routine call in message from a
scout vessel to its main fleet command ship. The ship is called the Luna Mechia. He’s reporting a lack
of response. The rest of the message is garbled. But there is one odd thing; that kind of Atalaman
was only used in the High Born.” He said.
“High Born? Get onto the Hive Net and see if any of the Upper echelon Congress had any ships go
missing here. My suspicions are we are receiving a “skip” transmission that has somehow got
trapped in The Veil’s rifts and has taken centuries to break free. If this is a current transmission we
may have just found trace of one of the Lost Colonies” Klute responded. One of the other Coms
techs managed to get the information from the Hive Net about the Luna Mechia. Klute read the
message from central Archive. The Luna Mechia, two Factory ships and sixteen smaller ships were on
a surveying mission; privately funded by one of the ruling Houses of the Atalaman Congress in the
early expansionist era. The expedition was lost without trace when they encountered a severe Ion
Storm and detoured too close to The Veil.
“They must have got caught in the pull of a rogue rift in the outside edge of The Veil. Has anyone
managed to get a time stamp on the signals?” Klute asked. The Fenian; Hasbid Luthaan, replied
“It’s concurrent with Central galactic Time index, so it must be a live transmission, but with the way
Sub space works in The Veil, there’s no way to get an exact pinpoint to proper location, Sir.”
“So we’ve overheard a live broadcast. You realise this means somehow the expedition survived and
we are listening in on descendants of the original crews. I’m taking all the data we have to Captain
Hart. In the meantime see if we can find a way of sending a message to them, wherever they are.”
Klute barked and took the data crystals up with him to the Command deck. Hasbid and Jason
organised the techs and engineers to work out a solution to the Sub-space drift and find a means of
tracing the path of the signal. Standard charts were not going to help much; then someone
remembered that there was a set of Ulahri maps in the ships database. These were more detailed
and showed more areas of The Veil…

Captain Melissa Hart was with Klute in her ready room; off from the main bridge. Klute was
explaining what he thought the signals meant when she interrupted him.
“If we are going to pursue this we need to get the High Councils’ approval. Leave that to me; I’m sure
Councillor Magridson would be only too willing to grant approval, I’m not sure of the others.
Magridson is a descendant of one of the original founding Houses of The Atalaman Congress. Her
personal Archive may have more details. Diplomacy has never been one of your strong points Klute”
she laughed “In the meantime I’ll order a Full Stop and your crew can continue their efforts to find a