Exodus: Signal Lost

Kryo’s call came while I was killing time at Port Baijini Station. No urgency in his voice — which made it worse. Kryo doesn’t reach out unless something’s off.

A Carrack had gone radio silent.

Not destroyed.
Not overdue.
Just… quiet.

The ship’s designation was Exodus.

She’d been out on a long-range exploration mission, the kind that stretches weeks into months. Sparse check-ins were expected. Silence wasn’t. Two full weeks without a ping meant something had gone wrong — or someone didn’t want it noticed.

One of our own was aboard.
Ragnar a fellow Pathfinder

That was enough.

What bothered me even more was what hadn’t happened. No missing ship report. No insurance inquiry for a multi-million dollar ship. No escalation. A Carrack doesn’t just disappear without someone, somewhere, asking questions. The fact that nobody had raised an alarm felt deliberate.

Kryo told me to meet him at Grim Hex.

Neutral ground.
Minimal logs.
Fewer questions.

I spun up my Corsair, left Baijini behind, and let the station lights fade. Grim Hex greeted me the way it always does — flickering lights, recycled air, and the quiet understanding that every conversation here is only private if no one finds it useful.

Kryo was already at the bar, nursing something that smelled like regret. We didn’t bother with small talk.

Exodus had been out for months. Deep-range exploration. Multiple hops planned. The last confirmed report came in over two weeks ago — clean telemetry, no anomalies, no distress indicators. Then nothing. No delay notice. No automated beacon. No follow-up from command or insurers.

Even stranger — no one else had flagged it.

Either the ship hadn’t missed its official check-in window yet… or someone quietly moved the paperwork.

We went over what little we had. Old routing pings. Partial nav breadcrumbs. A few corrupted telemetry fragments that shouldn’t have survived transmission at all. The Carrack’s signal wasn’t gone — it was fractured, like someone had taken a clean trail and broken it apart.

Ragnar hadn’t sent a single personal ping. Not to friends. Not to Pathfinders. Not to anyone.

That wasn’t like him.

We filed a soft inquiry through standard UEE channels, and then we filed inquiries through channels we actually trusted — not to locate Exodus, just to see if anyone pushed back. Sometimes resistance tells you more than answers.

The inquiry came back clean.
Untouched.
Unanswered.

That told us everything.

Ships disappear all the time in space.  When nobody asks why, that’s when it matters.

We finished our drinks and stood up. No speeches. No promises. Just an unspoken agreement that this wasn’t something we were going to ignore.

Exploration ships are meant to push outward. They’re not meant to vanish inward. Exodus didn’t just go silent.

Something took her off the map.

We're going to have to go find her ourselves.