ENGINEERING OVERVIEW

STRUCTURAL SCAN — UNCHARTED BODY

LT. OKONKWO: “Four of us left. They kept us for labour — stripping salvage. We’re the lucky ones.”

CPO RASMUSSEN: “Vane? Tactical Action Officer Vane was here. They moved him about a month back — shipped him out to Tortuga. Said he was worth more than the rest of us put together.”

SPC. DELACROIX: “They took the cargo too. We were running a guidance system to the Great Red Spot military base when they hit us. Whatever that thing is, the pirates have it now.”

ENS. HARLOW: “Their raider’s still on collar one and we can fly her. We’ll take her and run. You get clear — and thank you.”

CHRONOCAINE HYDROBROMIDE

RECOVERED ARCHIVE — V. CORSAIR SCIENCE LAB

DEVICE IDENTIFICATION — The unit taken from the J A S Gale is not a guidance system. It is a triangulation node for a molecular disruption weapon.

PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION — A node emits no destructive energy of its own. Three nodes, spaced and phase-synchronised, define a closed volume between them. Within that volume molecular bonds are driven into resonance and fail simultaneously. Hull, atmosphere and crew are reduced to unbound particulate in a single event. One node is inert. Two are inert. Three are a weapon.

WHY THE GALE — A single node carries no capability, which is precisely why it moved on an unescorted cutter rather than a warship. The Gale's crew were never told what they were carrying to the Great Red Spot base.

REPLICATION — Corsair lab logs confirm the captured node was fully reverse-engineered. Two further nodes were fabricated in-house. The build log closes three weeks ago with all three units assembled, phase-matched and bench-tested.

SALVAGED NAV LOG — JOVIAN VULTURE

CONTRACT — Her tasking order is three lines long: intercept the freighter that boarded the Vortex Corsair, recover anything taken from the science lab, and leave no hull under way. We were the contract.

CIRCUIT — Six weeks of the same run: Tortuga, then a prisoner transport called the COLD ORBIT, then back. Ten crew, three decks, fifty cells. She has been ferrying people out to it and coming back empty.

TRANSFER MANIFEST — Forty-one names, all of them Alliance debtors and deserters — and one that is neither.

They did not kill him with the rest of the Gale's crew, and they have not traded him in eight months. Somebody wanted a J A F tactical officer kept alive and out of sight — which means he knows something worth keeping.

DEBRIEF — T.A.O. KAELAN VANE

"The Gale was not lost." Eight months of the record says otherwise, and every line of it is wrong. She was boarded in the clear, under way, with her transponder live.

THE CARGO — Vane signed for the node himself and watched them cut it out of his own cargo deck. He was kept because a tactical action officer who can testify to a boarding is worth more alive than a body in a manifest — and because the Alliance wanted to know what else the J A F had shipped.

HIS CREW — The survivors went to the asteroid base. He has spent eight months assuming they were dead. Telling him otherwise is the first good news he has had.

TACTICAL PLOT — FOUR CONTACTS, INBOUND ANANKE

ANANKE STILL STANDS

Three node carriers destroyed. One weapon platform disabled and taken under tow. The molecular disruption programme ends here — there is no fourth node, and the build log went up with the Corsair's lab.

Tactical Action Officer Kaelan Vane is aboard the Meridian, alive, and giving the testimony the Jovian Armed Forces spent eight months not knowing they needed. The J A S Gale is being reclassified from lost to boarded.

The Meridian was nine days into a hunt for this formation. She had a heading because forty-odd freed prisoners walked into Ananke High Orbital with a story about an asteroid base, a pirate holding pen, and the freighter crew who opened the cells on their way out.

⚠ EVA AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED

AFTER ACTION REPORT: GALE ENGAGEMENT

SUMMARY:

J A S Engaged Inner Systems convoy on or about May 4, 2083. Contact was lost shortly after. Long range scans showed no power source but a small energy burst at the last known ship's location. It is presumed that the ship was destroyed.

DISPOSITION:

The vessel is categorized as "LOST WITH ALL HANDS." It will not be added to the list of derelicts available for civilian salvage due to the presence of sensitive military hardware and classified ordnance. Crew Member Families are to be notified, at this point these crew members are MIA until otherwise determined to be KIA or found.