Chapter 90: Signals in the Void
Summary: Mystery beacons and Sabé finally getting her way...
Warning! Chapters 88-92 were all posted back-to-back! Make sure you don't miss any of them!
Chapter 90: Signals in the Void
Izuku was trying really hard to suppress a grin as he sensed the wild mix of annoyance, embarrassment, and a few more interesting things coming from Padmé as her handmaidens joined them in the Knight Errant's Flag Bridge. As they were currently moving with a relatively minimal escort, just the Knight Errant's own dedicated frigate and corvette screen, the Flag Bridge wasn't properly in use. If the ship were brought to General Quarters, crew would rush to man it and relay his orders, of course. But this wasn't a fleet action they were deploying on, and the small squadron could easily be managed by the Knight Errant's Captain without Izuku's own personal staff needing to be drawn in. Normally, Lieutenant Trotter at least would have been present, along with one person each for comms and sensor watch just as backups, but Izuku had dismissed them in light of using the Flag Bridge to host his guests instead.
Now, he was slightly grateful he had, as he might have needed to deal with some very distracted officers if any had been present. For, of course, the same reasons he was trying to suppress a grin, and Aayla wasn't even bothering. Padmé had joined them without her handmaidens at first, seeming a little bemused that they'd apparently broken their normal rules and let her head off with just Aayla. Then, with serious faces that hadn't lasted long, all four of the handmaidens had appeared in…new uniforms.
Specifically, bunnygirl uniforms.
Thankfully, they weren't quite the same level of scandalous as the version Asora regularly used to, well, scandalize people. Done quite nicely in the same whites that Padmé and the handmaidens all used for their day-to-day 'work attire,' the handmaidens version centered around a cleavage-enhancing mixture of leotard and corset that was clearly modeled on the bunnygirl style. Yet, while their thusly-enhanced cleavage was indeed left bare, their shoulders were not. Instead, their arms and shoulders were covered by a sort of half-top that Izuku had no idea the name of.
Whatever it was called, it completely covered their arms and the tops of their shoulders, continuing in back to cover up the deep plunge most 'bunnygirl' outfits had in the rear to match their front. Yet, the top extended only an inch or two down their fronts, just enough to keep it in place, leaving their upper chests and enhanced cleavage exposed. Add in thigh-high boots and a more modest cut to the leotard bottom, and only a few inches of 'absolute territory' was exposed between the leotard ending and the boot tops beginning. The overall effect somewhat muted the scandalous nature of the new 'uniforms,' something helped along by their obvious quality, while still retaining more than a hint of sex appeal.
Honestly, if you got rid of the bunny ears that the serious-faced-but-lips-twitching handmaidens were wearing, it would be quite passable dress on a great many worlds. Simply another style of fashion, rather than anything to be upset over. At least if you didn't have any pre-established concept of the outfit type. Due to Asora's open and teasing nature, Padmé did have that context, and was very clearly struggling not to react to her handmaidens…prank? They all certainly felt gleefully amused enough behind those serious facades that it had the feel of a prank, though Izuku got the impression there was a bit more to it.
Before Padmé could sort herself out and get her tongue untied, Sabé glided forward with a cheerful smile.
"What do you think, boss? Asora was super helpful in getting us the basic pattern, and a tailor droid on Tythe Central was able to work on these new uniforms for us! Since we unexpectedly had the authorization to dip into something called 'synthweave' materials, the droid was even able to make them slash and cut resistant! Anything short of a proper vibroblade will have trouble getting through. A nice upgrade on the materials of our usual outfits!"
Aayla, radiating utter delight at the turn the morning was taking, leapt into the conversational gap to keep Padmé off balance.
"Ah! Synthweaving is a novel practice that Tythe has brought back a bit. It allows the careful lacing of some metamaterials into cloth to give it, at the low end, some additional toughness. At the high end, it can actually be made resistant to light blaster fire while still behaving like a decent faux silk. The high end requires special facilities due to requiring nanite-guided material weaving, though. If you end up liking these new outfits, I can make sure you get access to the higher end options! I imagine getting the senator something that can mitigate assassination attempts would be a nice addition to her protection!"
Sabé blinked, her amusement wavering with legitimate interest, though not as hard as Eirtaé's did behind her. The obvious instigator rallied after that brief hesitation as she clearly filed away Aayla's words to follow up on, and kept the ball rolling so Padmé couldn't find any traction.
"Really? It's so comfortable, too! Why this breathes much better than what we were wearing. It would be horrible to go back to that after this freeing experience, really. Oh! Has the boss asked where we are going yet? I know she was really curious why our course was heading out into Wild Space!"
Amused, doubly so at the growing sense of defeat he was sensing in the senator, Izuku added his own ploy to distract her from addressing the new uniforms.
"We had not explained, just yet, as we assumed it would be better to wait for the rest of you. As it happens, we are investigating a bit of an accidental discovery. We were suffering numerous attacks along the Triellus Trade Route, and our intelligence division thought it might be an old listening post from the New Sith Wars, repurposed by pirates, that was responsible. That proved not to be the case, the cause instead being a small unknown hyperlane the Hutts didn't have on official maps. But, by some freak chance, the probes sent to check for the listening post possibility actually did find something of interest."
His distraction had succeeded fully, with Padmé having been sucked in as he brought up first a holo of the Triellus Trade Route…then the data on a transmission that had been detected in Wild Space. The probes sent had identified a derelict space station, considerably more sizable than a mere listening post, and a zoomed in snapshot showed a circular emblem with a split down the middle. One side of the split was identified by a tag as being half of a very old symbol for the Jedi Order. The other held only question marks.
"Best estimates say the station is a minimum of 2,500 years old, and may be as much as 4,500. There is no record in any database the League has access to that records a split emblem like that, though. Meaning it's either from a forgotten chunk of the Jedi and Republic's history, or else it was unique to this station, being joint operated between the Jedi and an unknown faction."
Mei, previously silent and completely uninterested in the uniform change drama, not beyond an appreciative glance at the bodies wearing it at least, spoke up from where she had been pouring over every detail of the probe's sensor readings.
"That's not all! This station-baby is weird! A hodgepodge of different tech bases! Like, at least three completely different design philosophies at work, with some indications that more might have been used in places! While it's hard to say without the baby being powered, I think some of it looks like it might be far more advanced than it should have been for that time period, too. Prototype tech, or maybe even a research station of some sort! Though it's got an awful lot of guns for that…"
That statement caused a concerned look from Padmé and her handmaidens, one Aayla identified the source of immediately and stepped in to reassure them about.
"As Mei said, the station isn't powered. Not even in standby mode. Given its age and damages, it's likely dead in space. Even the distress call the probe picked up isn't actually coming from the station itself, but something inside. A ship, most likely. Possibly one much newer than the station, if someone found it and attempted to investigate. Though the broadcast format is…odd."
Padmé, fully and completely distracted and invested at this point, finally managed to get a word in edgewise.
"A distress call? Not just a beacon of some sort? Is that why you decided to check it out? And how is it odd?"
Izuku took up the explanation to answer the questions easily enough.
"It is a beacon, but of a type that used to be used by ships that had suffered disastrous jumps or otherwise become stranded. A limited-range simplistic subspace broadcast, really. These days, you really only see them in places too distant for proper holonet coverage. Of course, Wild Space qualifies, so it could be from almost any era. The only way we know it's meant as a distress signal is that it's broadcasting in a set pattern that's intended to express exactly that. A crude S.O.S. that's really the only way to set up a distress beacon with enough range to matter, if you're out beyond the range of the holonet's hyperwave repeater stations."
That caused Padmé's group to mentally blink. The idea of being out of range of the holonet was a weird one. Even in the Outer Rim Territories, let alone the Mid Rim where Naboo rested, you could always count on the galactic holonet carrier frequency to be available. The massive, and incredibly expensive, hyperwave transceivers spread across the galaxy were one of the major reasons the Republic even existed. So long as you had an, admittedly fairly expensive, emitter/receiver, there was virtually nowhere that the s-thread communication system didn't reach. Generally, outside of specific stellar phenomena or enemy jamming, you could get a signal anywhere in known space. The fact that such didn't extend to Wild Space made sense, but it was a foreign thought to all of them. Dormé was the first to speak up with a concern.
"Ah, Sovereign Midoriya? Will that mean we'll be passing out of holonet range ourselves? If that's the case, we'll need to warn various factors and allies that we might not respond for a bit…"
That was a good point, and a seemingly innocuous question. Yet, it caused Aayla and Izuku to glance at each other in a way that clearly held meaning. They all knew more than enough of reading body language to spot the short conversation of sorts between the pair. Eventually, Izuku shrugged and Aayla answered.
"No. It's not something for general public consumption, but the League Fleet doesn't use the holonet at all. We have an entirely novel communications system. It's too limited to deploy on a consumer level at the current time, but it means our Fleets aren't reliant on the holonet. Given we expected to be operating at least somewhat into Wild Space due to Hutt Space bordering it, we preemptively developed a solution."
A…novel communications method? That could partially explain how no one had found out about their military buildup. While holonet calls were incredibly secure, basically impossible to intercept by the nature of the technology, the same wasn't true of the relay stations. Everyone above a certain level within the Republic was aware that the regular holonet leaked like sieve as a result and made heavy use of private encryptions to counter it.
Richer worlds even went so far as building much more potent, 'military grade,' holonet transceivers that could make point-to-point connections without touching the main grid. Though such devices cost as much as decent frigate. Naboo had a single such device, acquired during Padmé's term, in response to the Trade Federation's jamming during their invasion. While not impossible to jam, such powerful units could punch right through the level of jamming the Federation had brought to bare over Naboo. Something that would have let them summon help without needing Padmé to flee the planet. That single unit, despite being a large planetary model rather than portable ship model, had still set Naboo back close to six million credits. A shipboard model might well be twice that cost, or more depending on the level of miniaturization.
No one could afford to put them on every ship in a fleet.
Which had been one of the many, many things that caused rampant confusion when a fleet large enough to match a Core World just popped up out of nowhere. Even just the holonet traffic from such a fleet should have given away their existence. Let alone that traffic passing through the main holonet relays, which were subject to slicing by everyone despite the best efforts to protect against it. If the League had come up with something new to use in place of holonet commucations, it explained away at least one of the many, many oddities surrounding how they'd hidden their buildup.
"I see…and you'll allow our own regular communications to be hooked through this system?"
Izuku answered Padmé's follow up question with a shrug.
"No ship in the League Fleet actually has holonet access equipment. Such would be a security risk. So any holonet signals you send through the ship's uplink are actually being forwarded seamlessly to Tythe and broadcast from the massive holonet station installed there. You'll experience no loss of signal even in Wild Space. Or anywhere else, for that matter."
Eirtaé looked like she was going to bite through her lip trying not to ask how that worked, so Padmé hurriedly moved the conversation on to speculating about the mysterious space station that they were apparently heading to investigate…
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Izuku frowned, shaking his head slowly.
"No, Senator. While I appreciate your bravery, I can not in due conscience allow you to accompany us aboard a potentially dangerous and derelict station. If we end up deeming it safe, and find something interesting, you can come visit afterward. It would be disastrous if you were harmed while under our care."
Padmé tried not to scowl. She knew he was right, of course. At least from the political angle. But she had to admit to herself that the rampant speculation about the station had piqued her curiosity. She'd never gotten to explore something of the sort before, and had never been exactly the type to just sit and wait around. Not even if she knew she really should. Before she could try protesting again, Sabé put a hand on her arm. Grinning at her knowingly, her handmaiden offered up an alternative.
"How about I go instead? I'm fully certified even for combat in vacuum, and Padmé can link into my perspective via my suit to ask me to look around for her if she spots something interesting."
Surprisingly, it was Mei that responded, before anyone else could.
"Ohhh! She can use my Virtual Reality Baby! That way she can see what her sexy bunny minion sees in full 360! She can even watch Bun-Bun's back!"
Padmé's eyebrow twitched at the new nickname for Sabé. Somehow, the handmaidens were still wearing their 'new uniforms' five days on from first revealing them, always managing to divert or team up to out argue her before she could properly insist on them reverting to their normal outfits. They had at least lost the bunny ears, which honestly rendered the outfits fairly tolerable. Which was part of how they'd gotten away with it so far. Worse, however, was that Mei had somehow figured out that Sabé was the one pushing everything and had nicked-named her 'Bun-Bun.' The fact Sabé was amused by it didn't help. Her lack of protest meant Mei kept using the nickname, acting as a constant reminder of what had inspired the otherwise not-so-scandalous outfit change.
"Virtual Reality? Some sort of immersive holo system like The Delve uses?"
The question came from Eirtaé, of course, who had glommed onto Mei with a fervor. Even if she could barely follow the genius half the time, she was apparently learning a lot. She'd also earned her own nickname of 'Gear Minion' as she'd helped the pinkette with whatever project she inevitably had going at any given moment. Padmé's Handmaiden seemed to outright take pride in that particular nickname.
Which...fair.
Padmé had to admit she was sort of okay with the oddly endearing-but-manic engineer having given her the nickname of 'Xena,' after apparently viewing a chip of her Delve. At least, she was once that reference had been explained to her. She wasn't sure she was a 'Warrior Princess,' but the idea was a little flattering. Something about Mei's…Meiness as their host called it, left you with a certainty that there wasn't a hint of sarcasm or malice in most of her nicknames. She only seemed to nickname you if she either really liked or disliked you, and it was always pretty obvious which one it was. Others, she never seemed to correctly remember the name of no matter how often it was told to her.
"Nope! The original projected experiences straight into your brain, like you were really there! But Izu said that needing to give people a neural chip implant was too invasive! So, this version is just a bio-reactive pod that streams you a full 360 experience via the interactive gel!"
Izuku, seemingly amused, coughed gently.
"There's also a fairly lightweight helmet that can be used instead. It gives you an immersive look through the visual sensors on one of our specially equipped armors. It's an experiment in seeing if partnering someone behind the lines with someone in the field, as an extra pair of eyes, would help or hinder. We do have a few of them on board, and they're vac-rated. Far more protective than a regular vacsuit as well, if you decide to send Sabé along."
Frowning, but getting a feeling it was the best comprise she was going to get, Padmé relented. A few minutes later, when it turned out the prototype armors were meant for long-term field wear and Sabé had to get into it naked and make 'plumbing connections?' Well, she might have felt she finally got a little revenge for the uniforms, in the form of Sabé's blush as Aayla cheerfully explained it to her….
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A/N 1: Mwahahahahah? Sabé finally got her bunnygirl uniform! Honestly, when I originally wrote about Asora using one as a uniform, it was a throw away comedy bit. Now, it appears to have gotten away from me somehow :-p.