She lay there with her thoughts for a while, her IMP floating around her head. She wasn’t playing music or anything but she had to admit that she found something soothing about having the little ball of blue light dancing gracefully around. She debated heading down onto the surface and perhaps going to a bar or something. Whilst it would only be a short term fix to her melancholy, a few drinks and some feigned, no-strings-attached intimacy would take her mind off things. She swung her legs off of her bunk and steadied herself with her hands. She was about to push herself to her feet when she picked up a transmission on her IMP. She’d obviously left it on a random mid-range comms frequency. It stopped her in her tracks…particularly the last sentence.

[color=ed145b][i]“We keep to our own”[/i]
[/color]

It was that segment that stuck in her mind. There was always a reason for such stringent privacy and it was exactly that kind of temptation that Tes found hard to resist. 

Finally standing, she left her quarters, followed the corridor round and into the cargo bay. She thought she could hear Ruce’s voice outside. She crossed the gantry and passed through the bridge bulkhead before slumping down in one of the rear chairs on the bridge. Swinging one of the command panels in front of her, she opened the long range scanners. On the monitor, she watched as the Valkyrie sent out an invisible pulse across the planet’s surface. It wouldn’t do the entire planet, of course, but she knew it would do enough to find whatever it was that sent out the enigmatic distress signal. The readout finally bounced back, showing what was obviously a crash site.

[color=6ecff6]“Gotcha!”[/color] She chirped. [color=6ecff6]“Now what the hell are you?”[/color] She tried to perform a systems scan on the downed craft but found no joy. Whatever was left of the craft was too far away or badly damaged or both to get any solid readings. She felt an ache begin to settle into the right side of her face and she winced. She’d need to get some pain relief at some point but, for now, the thrill of the mystery was enough of an analgesic. She opened short range comms on her IMP and turned into Ruce’s frequency.

[i][color=6ecff6]“Chief, if you’re not too busy, we’ve come across something I really think you should have a look at.” [/color][/i]

She knew that she wouldn’t have been the only one to have picked up on the signal so they were on the clock. She couldn’t tell how big the craft was but if there was life on board, they ought to at least try and lend a hand. Failing that, there was the case of Galactic Salvage Rights. If they got there first and the crash happened outside of a settlement, it was first come, first served and who knows what kind of tech and supplies the crashed vessel had.

[i][color=6ecff6]“In case it was too subtle for you, Chief, time is a factor.”[/color][/i]

She interfaced her IMP with the Valkyrie’s communication systems and broadcasted on the Vulture’s distress frequency. 

[color=6ecff6]“This is the Valkyrie to any survivors of the Vulture. Distress call received. What is your status? Over.”[/color]