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Empire Reforged
Chapter 24: The Assignment That Wasn't There
Location: ISV Silver Lance, Transiting Sector C-17 Mid Rim
Date: BBY 8 – 1830 Hours, Day 3 of Patrol Deployment
The message came without ceremony.
No comm ping. No courier droid. Just a silent transmission tucked into Valk's encrypted traffic filter — bearing the red-edge stamp of Imperial Strategic Intelligence, and an execution timer already counting down.
Lucan read it in silence.
Darran stood across the bridge, watching him with a look that bordered between curiosity and caution.
"New orders?" she finally asked.
Lucan closed the datapad. "Yes."
"From Intelligence?"
"Yes."
She waited. "Are you going to tell me what they say?"
Lucan turned to the viewport, hands folded behind his back.
"They say: Go to these coordinates. Do not confirm arrival. Do not report findings. Do not ask questions."
Darran crossed her arms. "That's not a mission. That's a riddle."
Lucan nodded. "Or bait."
Tarris looked up from helm. "Coordinates put us near the Shroud Nebula fringe. Three jumps out, one uncharted."
Holtz's voice came in from Engineering. "Nebula edge is rough. Radiation pockets. We'll need to modulate shields for the last jump — unless you want the nav array melting."
"Understood," Lucan replied.
Valk turned. "This doesn't feel like follow-up. It feels like they're watching what you do with freedom."
Lucan didn't deny it.
He raised his voice just slightly, enough for the full bridge to hear.
"This will not be listed in any patrol log. We jump, we investigate, we return. No scans sent unless I authorize them. If there's nothing there — we say nothing."
Darran raised an eyebrow. "And if there is something?"
Lucan's voice went cold.
"Then we remember how to bury it."
—
They arrived in-system at 2200 hours.
It didn't have a name. The stars here were dull — as if light itself hesitated to linger. A single planet sat near the edge of the system, atmosphere stripped, surface scorched from a past that no one had bothered to archive.
But there was something else.
"Contact," Valk said immediately. "Dead signal. Military packet format — Type 1C Imperial relay, last used during the Clone Wars. Broadcasting in a closed loop. Encrypted. Very weak."
"Source?"
"Planet surface. Deep crater. No orbital signature. No comm traffic in or out."
Lucan didn't speak. He just stared at the tactical display.
"Zoom in."
The projection adjusted — showing the impact basin nestled in a range of jagged plateaus. At its center: a broken antenna dish, maybe twenty meters across, buried in rock and ash.
And beside it… a ship.
"Crashed," Darran said. "Old frame. Partial cloak design. Could be a stealth prototype."
Tarris squinted. "That's… not in any Navy registry I've ever seen."
Lucan finally turned from the display.
"Prep a recon team."
Darran blinked. "You're boarding it?"
"I'm confirming it."
"Sir, we don't even know if the air is breathable—"
"We won't need to breathe."
—
An hour later, a recon pod broke atmosphere and coasted toward the crater.
Lucan watched from the bridge as Corren's voice came through, calm and clipped.
> "We're down. Visual confirms impact site — vessel hull intact. Markings faded. Exterior shows heat scoring, but no weapon burns."
> "Interior?"
> "We're breaching now."
The next minutes passed in silence — save for occasional pings from the pod's telemetry.
Then Corren returned.
> "Sir… you need to hear this. We found a command capsule. It's still powered. Looks like it was transmitting this entire time."
Lucan's brow furrowed. "To what?"
> "Nowhere. The antenna's fried. It was just… sending. Over and over."
> "And?"
> "It's an Imperial data packet. Origin coded to… hold on…"
A pause.
> "Code says 'ISV Vigilance'. Older serial. Pre-Clone Wars."
Silence blanketed the bridge.
Darran stared. "That can't be right."
Lucan's hands tightened behind his back.
"The Vigilance wasn't built until twenty years after the Clone Wars."
> "Yeah," Corren said. "That's why I said you need to see this."
—
An hour later, the data was secured. The crashed ship catalogued. The signal silenced.
Lucan stood alone in his quarters, replaying the final seconds of the corrupted transmission.
> "To any Imperial command… protocol failsafe active… repeat… unit code VIGILANCE… mission corrupted… primary objective unknown… initiating reset…"
He stopped the playback.
Not because of what it said.
But because of the voice.
It was his.
Distorted.
But unmistakable.
And the message had been looping for thirty-six years.