Outsider

[Laowai]

Smoke rose lazily from the Cabin nestled down by the small creek in the valley. It was the only sign that anyone lived there. In fact, were someone to look into the valley for the Cabin, they would not see it, so well was it built in amongst the surrounding trees and shrubs. Were this hypothetical person to try and use more technological aids, such as a hand held scanner, he would still see nothing.
Drawing on greater resources, a scan for power, lifesigns, even using a high power multi-spectral orbital scanner, this hypothetical observer would still see nothing more than an idyllic little valley, nestled between the steep surrounding Ferdinand Mountains.

The jamming field surrounding the cabin was as comprehensive as was available. A combination of Corsair, Order and Lane Hacker technology, mixed with a little bit of genuine "tinkering" it rendered the Cabin and everything around it immune to almost any form of scanning technology - making it effectively invisible.
The comm signals emanating from the cabin were too similarly scrambled. First routed to a a secret TBH comm station in Capital City (without permission of course) it then made its way out of Omicron Gamma via regular corsair channels until it hit Omega 41. From there, it routed through a Zoner comm station (again without permission or knowledge). Jumping from there it left the regular Corsair net completly, scrambling itself through the comm system of The Daumann base Solarius station in Omega 11, through to Omega 7 and entering the trade lane comm channels at Friestadt. From there, it jumped through to the military Channels of both Rheinland and Brettonia and once there, could jump anywhere its sender chose to send it.
If the haphazard system jumping and code scrambling wasn't enough, the new Lane Hacker device that Ben Laowai had retrieved from Magellan a few weeks earlier scrambled the signal completly.

Ben had always been a stickler for secrecy, and in this case, out here in the mountains in his small Cabin, he did not want anyone to find him and break his solitude until a moment of his own choosing.
Which is why when calling his sister, on planet Houston, he was taking no chances.

If anyone was going to find him and show up uninvited, it would be his sister and her damned farmer of a husband.

He reached their comm frequency and left a message "Isabel, it's Ben, i'm alive, i'm fine - i am assuming your son made it back to you by now. I will contact you again soon." He paused and went on "Don't try to track this."


He disconnected the signal and set up the hacker device to deflect any trace programs sent after the signal. Geniuses those Lane hackers, shame about the company they kept.

A noise from outside took his attention from his equipment. A distinctive crack echoed over the valley. He knew what it was immediately, a sonic boom caused by something entering the atmosphere and crossing the sky. He grabbed his blaster and went outside. He dashed a few meters to a tree directly in front of the Cabin. There was nothing unusual about the tree save the rope ladder dangling from somewhere in the canopy above. Ben lept up this and reached the small observation platform he had built on the highest branches of the tree. From here, he had an unbroken view of the sky above the valley.

He saw it immediately, a white trail streaming across the sky. It was moving fast. An escape pod..... Whatever it was it was descending and getting closer. It passed over head and there was another sharp crack.. descent thrusters, definatly an escape pod.
It continued downwards until he lost sight of it heading into a valley several miles away in between several tall mountains, its white-brown vapor trail showing its path as it gradually began to dissipate in the air.

Laowai lept down from the tree. He went into the Cabin and switched in the long range scanner. The object was obscured by the neighboring mountains so it did not show up on scanners. He could log into the Crete orbital net and check from there, but he did not need to. The lack of any signal told him all he needed to know.
The pod had no distress beacon.
None.

An escape pod, by its very nature, preserved the life of a pilot in order that he be found and rescued. Every pod possessed an inbuilt distress beacon that to any scanner within range, would stick out like a sore thumb. It was hardbuilt into the frame of the pod itself and was almost impossible to destroy unless the entire pod itself was vaporised. The only reason for a pod to have no such beacon was if the pilot themselves had deactivated it. And the only reason a pilot would do that was;

If he didn't want to be found.

Ben quickly threw on his combat jacket and strapped on his munitions belt and blaster pistol. collecting his optical scanners and his portable scanner he threw them into a backpack. Lastly he picked up his Liberty "Sharpshot" blaster. Making sure his jamming field on his cabin was configured correctly he dashed out the door, pausing only to lock up behind him.

He had no time to waste, whoever was in that pod was not a Corsair and owing to the fact that they had ejected, were more than likely hostile. They would immediately try to put as much distance between themselves and the pod as possible. Ben knew that it would be days before anyone from Capital City made it our this far to search. So it was up to him.

He dashed off down the disguised path that only he knew, small clouds of dust kicked up behind him as he ran.

---

http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/3289/...047770.png