Commander Nigel M Chalmers was not having a good month. After being re-assigned to some back-end listening post after a ‘minor diplomatic incident’ he had the pleasure of exploring the joys of sitting in a chair in full black armour, supervising and attempting to make some form of idle conversation with the ISA intelligence operatives that shared the spacious command room he was in. He was not having much luck on the conversational side, who would have thought that a group of people who spend their entire working career in a room staring at a screen would have poor people skills? What he would give just for something, anything to happen that would give him something to do.

“I never should have thrown that Tarkin diplomat out the window,” he muttered under his breath, leaning back in his chair and slowly allowing his eyes to close. “How was I to know that those wings were purely for decoration, I mean really who in their right mind makes decorative wings a part of their military uniform it’s not like-”

“Sir!”

“I wasn't talking to myself!”

Nigel bolted upright in his chair to find that every single data technician in the room had stopped what they were doing and were staring at him like he was mad. This was probably not too far from the truth. “What are you all staring at? Get back to work!” the situation salvaged, Nigel proceeded to direct his attention back to the front the command area, where a Senior Logician, judging from his uniform markings, was standing at attention. His dark grey uniform was dull and bland, save for a name badge reading ‘Robert Paulings’ and the three-eyed, winged skull icon that represented the ISA. The Logician had his right arm raised in a salute, his brown eyes staring straight ahead, seemingly going straight through the commander.

“What is it Paulings? I swear if this is about another transmission that just turns out to be another old advert for freeze-dried potatoes I’m going to eject you out of the airlock.”

“No sir, it seems that one of the stations on Deck C has picked up a locator signal from an Emergency transmission unit,” Paulings replied, seemingly unfazed by his commander’s threat.

“An emergency beacon? What agent was recorded to have be issued that particular unit?”

“None sir, no record of this particular unit exists at all in our databanks, all that we know is that it was activated a short time ago, the location does not show up in any record and that the readings of the device indicate that the surrounding atmosphere is able to support life.”

“Are we able to lock onto its transponder signal?”

“Yes Sir, we have a solid lock and we can establish a safe transit tunnel to it’s location.”

Nigel placed his hand on his chin in thought; it was unheard of for an Emergency Subspace Beacon to be issued without any record at all, mainly because anything incorporating subspace technology wasn’t exactly cheap. The fact that one of these beacons suddenly is activated in an uncharted area of space raised alarm flags in his head. Either one of the other Imperial Intelligence divisions had been conducting operations without the knowledge of the ISA or somehow the beacon had fallen into enemy hands at some point in time. Commander Nigel M Chalmers considered all of these possibilities and came to one conclusion.

“Attention all personnel!” The Commander's voice boomed over the station’s intercom, causing all of the 3154 ISA staff garrisoned on the listening post to halt what they were doing and pay attention. “I want Wraith teams three and seven to report to the transit area in full gear, Lieutenant Takinata report to the command area and the science team meet me in the Deck G laboratory for briefing immediately, that is all.”

‘Finally,, a chance to do something other than sit on my arse,’ thought Nigel as he fastened his helmet onto his armoured shoulders and began to make his way to the briefing with the science team. ‘Maybe this will get me out of this dreary assignment and back in some action.'

Deck G – Anomaly Research Division Briefing Room

Commander Chalmers surveyed the expressions of the group of scientists in front of him after he informed them of the discovery of the transmitter. Excitement was reflected around the room, clearly the scientists were as anxious to do something useful with their time as he was. Events and finds such as these were the primary reason that each remote listening post had a small scientific team, although opportunities to leave the station and investigate were rare.

“Due to the nature of this anomaly,” Nigel said, continuing the prior conversation. “We require at least five of you to accompany the first response team, led by myself, to ascertain the circumstances of this beacon’s activation as well as how it arrived at the location in the first place.”

“Excuse me Commander,” the head Xenobiologist, Dr Charles Zarkrof spoke up. “While I am interested in the endeavour, what sort of environmental or, dare I say, local inhabitants might we encounter? How safe if the area surrounding the beacon, while I have the utmost faith in your men, how do we know that they will be able to ensure our safety?”

‘Bloody scientists, always concerned about the competence of people without multiple P.H.D’s’ Nigel thought as he sighed mentally, preparing himself for the objections that will surly follow his response.

“I can assure you, Dr Zarkrof, we will be able to adequately neutralize any threat that would dare threaten your team as killing is, after all, our main profession."

“I can… understand that Commander, it’s just I do not trust anyone but myself with my own safety. I mean as… professional as your men may be I feel that the only person I can trust is myself.”

‘He just doesn’t give up does he, I wonder if scientists are viewed in same group as foreign diplomats when it comes to windows.’ Nigel slowly started to become disinterested in the conversation as the Xenobiologist continued his tirade. ‘Then again the station doesn’t have windows, maybe a trash ejection unit would work the same, oh! I wonder if he’ll freeze straight away if he is ejected or will it take a wh-‘

“Commander?” The Doctor’s nasally voice brought Nigel away from his happy thoughts and back to depressing reality “How do you propose we solve this issue?”

‘Crap, come on brain, think of something, anything to get me away from this god-awful excuse of a man and give me a solution!’ Suddenly, possibly the greatest idea of the day, no, the decade graced the front of Nigel’s mind.

“Tell me professor; you have been keeping up with your firearms training, have you not?”

“Well, yes Sir it is after all a requirement of my position but I don’t think I quite understand what relevance that will have to do with anything regarding our current discussion?” It was a requirement of all UIP personnel to undergo basic military training. Zarkrof could not see the expression under the Commander’s onyx-black, skull-faced Helmet but he had the feeling that the Commander was sporting a wide malicious grin.

“Well, you see my good Doctor,” Nigel said as he pulled what was possibly one of the meanest looking black handguns Zarkrof had ever seen out of a holster strapped to his side and held it, grip out towards the professor. “It looks like your standard defence training will come in use after all.”