News, No Chance Miss Good, Luck

A deathly detective story about fencing, forgery and fake-news crimes

by Miss Luck Good III.

The humid air of Teagarden’s Star clung to Luck Good’s skin like a second suit. Even here, in the relatively settled Inner Stars, far to the south of the Sun and well within the comfortable 60 light-year bubble, life wasn’t always easy. The domes hummed, the hydroponics glowed green, and the Credit system flowed smoothly enough for most, but the vastness of space still imposed its will. And here, on the edge of the Rim, the biggest imposition was time.

Luck, a journalist with a sharp mind and the enduring resilience of her Afro-Latin ancestors, understood time better than most. Her work at the Teagarden’s Star Chronicle wasn’t about breaking news in the instantaneous way the Inner Core might experience it (not yet, anyway, not before the Quantum Leap). It was about sifting through the delayed news, the data packets that arrived on FTL ships days, weeks, or even months after they were sent, piecing together a coherent picture of a galaxy perpetually out of sync. News here was a precious, perishable commodity, its value fluctuating with every arriving ship.

Lately, though, the usual rhythm of delayed information had been disrupted by something else entirely: glitches. Small, frustrating inconsistencies in the station’s economic data streams. Pricing schemas for common goods would suddenly spike or dip without a corresponding change in supply or demand. Trade deals, negotiated based on the latest (but still weeks-old) market data, would unexpectedly fall apart due to phantom shifts in value. The most visible impact for everyday citizens was the unpredictable rise in the cost of essential meal subscriptions, forcing the station council to step in and implement temporary protective clauses to prevent hardship.

It didn’t take long for Luck to realize these weren’t random errors. Someone was exploiting the system. A criminal mind was manipulating the flow of information, inserting absurd messages into the OCN data streams – messages that seemed to carry false market data, designed to disrupt the careful balance of Teagarden’s Star’s economics and its outer relationships. They were like whispers from ghost ships, untraceable and seemingly meaningless, yet potent enough to cause real-world problems. These fake messages were being sold into the news market, hiding other, darker operations behind a veil of economic chaos.

Luck had written about it for the Chronicle, a small column on the front page, trying to alert the public and the council to the subtle but damaging threat.

Teagarden’s Star Chronicle

Fraud Messages Disturbance - A Serious Matter

By L. Good

Our station’s economic equilibrium, a delicate balance maintained by the timely (or as timely as light speed allows) arrival of trade data, is currently facing a subtle but concerning disturbance. Over the past few weeks, anomalies in OCN data streams have led to unpredictable fluctuations in pricing schemas, impacting everything from resource valuation to, most noticeably for residents, the cost of meal subscriptions.

These disturbances appear to be linked to what station tech-priests are calling “fraud messages” – untraceable data packets entering the network that do not originate from registered vessels or known sources. While seemingly nonsensical in content, these messages are having a tangible negative effect on our market stability, forcing the Station Council to implement protective measures to mitigate rising costs.

This is more than just a technical glitch; it suggests deliberate exploitation of our reliance on delayed information. The source and purpose of these messages remain unclear, but their impact is undeniable. Residents are advised that the Council is investigating and working to reinforce our data filtering protocols. We will continue to monitor this serious matter.

Later that cycle, Luck met Detective Kim Joe “KJ” Tanaka at their usual coffee place near the central hydroponics park. The air was warm and damp with the scent of growing things, a stark contrast to the cold metal and data streams that filled their working lives. KJ, a man with tired eyes but a sharp mind and a quiet integrity, was more than just a contact in station security; he was a friend.

“Hey, Luck,” KJ said, sliding into the seat across from her, accepting the steaming mug she’d already ordered for him. “Read your piece on the fraud messages. Good work, getting the Council to move.”

Luck stirred her own coffee. “Thanks, KJ. But you know it’s more than just ‘fraud messages,’ don’t you? These things… they don’t make sense. And they’re hitting us just right to cause maximum disruption. Someone’s doing this on purpose.”

KJ took a slow sip of his coffee, his gaze distant for a moment. “Yeah, Luck. We know. It’s… more complicated than it looks on the surface.”

“Complicated how?” Luck pressed. “Is it just some high-level fencing operation, using phantom data for market manipulation?”

KJ hesitated, his eyes meeting hers, and she saw a flicker of genuine worry there, something deeper than the usual stress of station security work. “It started that way, maybe. Or that’s how it looked. But there are… layers, Luck. Things that don’t fit. The origin of these messages, the patterns… it’s not standard criminal activity. It feels… older. Like something we don’t understand yet.”

He leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice. “Be careful with this one, Luck. Seriously. You’ve stirred things up with your report. Some people don’t like it when you start looking too closely at the ghosts in the machine.”

“Ghosts?” Luck asked, a knot forming in her stomach. “What kind of ghosts, KJ?”

But KJ just shook his head, his expression tight. “Can’t say more right now, Luck. Not yet. Just… trust me on this. It’s bigger than fraud. Way bigger. And it’s dangerous.”

He finished his coffee quickly, a rare hurried movement for the usually deliberate detective. “Got to go. Keep digging, but watch your back, okay?”

Luck watched him go, the vague warning echoing in her mind. Bigger than fraud. Dangerous. She trusted KJ. If he was worried, truly worried, then this was something serious. She looked down at her own console, the screen still displaying the latest batch of garbled message fragments. They weren’t just data anymore. They were a puzzle, a threat, and now, a mystery wrapped in her friend’s warning.

She didn’t know how big it was, or what kind of danger KJ meant. But she was about to find out.

Teagarden’s Star Chronicle

A Stunning Case of Murder

By L. Good

Our community was shocked this cycle by the tragic death of Detective Kim Joe Tanaka. While initial reports indicate an accidental fall in the central plaza, the circumstances surrounding his passing have raised questions among those who knew his dedication to upholding the law on our station. Detective Tanaka was known for his diligent work, most recently investigating irregularities in our station’s economic data streams. His loss is a profound blow to the security force and to all who valued his quiet integrity. The official investigation is ongoing.

The words felt cold and inadequate on the page. “Accidental fall.” Luck knew better. KJ’s death wasn’t an accident; it was a period at the end of a sentence, a brutal punctuation mark on his investigation. And now, it was the start of hers.

There was no turning back. It was personal now. The vague unease she’d felt about the fraud messages had solidified into a hard, cold resolve. She wouldn’t just report on this; she would uncover it. Every layer.

Working from her cramped office at the Chronicle, surrounded by the familiar hum of the station and the faint scent of hydroponic growth, Luck began to dig. She started with the message fragments themselves. KJ had given her copies of the ones he’d flagged, the ones that didn’t fit, the ones that seemed to come from nowhere.

They were a jumble of distorted signals, static, and bursts of data that defied standard OCN protocols. The tech-priests had dismissed them as anomalies, perhaps residual noise from experimental drives or atmospheric interference from distant systems. But KJ had seen a pattern. And now, Luck had his notes.

His notes were sparse, coded in a shorthand only he and Luck would understand from years of shared information and off-the-record conversations. Phantom sources. Temporal displacement. Language anomaly. Language anomaly? Luck frowned, looking at the raw data. It wasn’t just static; there were structured elements, but they didn’t conform to Universal Language or Galactic Standard, the variants of English spoken by virtually everyone in the settled galaxy, from the Inner Stars to the furthest Rim. It was something else. Something old, maybe? Or something… isolated?

She needed access. Access to more OCN data logs, to ship manifests, to historical archives that weren’t readily available to a journalist, even one with her press credentials. This was where her “good luck” came in – a blend of resourcefulness, knowing the right people (or the right vulnerabilities), and a willingness to bend the rules just enough to get the truth.

She started with the public OCN archives, using her press access to pull up every record related to “unidentified signals” or “data anomalies” reported in the last few years. It was a mountain of digital dust, full of false positives and dead ends. But she was looking for something specific now, guided by KJ’s notes and the timing of the economic disruptions.

Then came the private archives. OCN wasn’t entirely transparent, especially with its internal operational data. But Luck knew people. A contact in station maintenance, a former OCN technician who owed her a favour, a data broker who operated in the grey areas of the network. Through a series of back channels and carefully negotiated data transfers, she gained temporary, illicit access to deeper layers of OCN logs. This was risky. If she was caught, her career, possibly her freedom, would be over. But KJ was dead.

She spent cycles sifting through the internal logs, looking for correlations between the arrival of the phantom messages and specific ship movements or network activities. It was painstaking work, made harder by the inherent time lag. A message logged as arriving today might have been sent weeks or months ago. She had to think in layers of time, peeling back the temporal distortions to find the underlying sequence of events.

She started to see it. The phantom messages weren’t random. They arrived in bursts, often coinciding with the departure or arrival of specific types of ships – smaller, less regulated freighters, not the big, scheduled colony vessels or cargo haulers. And the content, once she started running the structured elements through linguistic analysis programs (programs she accessed through another favour owed, this time by a less-than-scrupulous data scientist), hinted at something… unexpected. It wasn’t just random noise. It was communication. In a language she couldn’t identify, but definitely structured.

The fraud messages, the ones causing the economic chaos on Teagarden’s Star, were clearly based on translations of these phantom messages. Someone was receiving these ancient, garbled signals, deciphering them, and then using the information – or a distorted version of it – to create the fake market data.

But where were they coming from? And why?

KJ’s notes had mentioned “phantom sources.” He’d been looking into the origin points of the signals. Luck focused her search on the initial reception points logged by OCN’s deep-space sensors. The signals seemed to originate from a cluster of stars far to the south, beyond the established Rim, in a region that was not, should not be populated at all. A small cluster of nearby star-systems.

The data was fragmented, inconsistent. But as she cross-referenced the reception logs with historical ship registries and early colonization records, another pattern emerged. The timeframe of the signals, eighty years old, aligned with a period of risky, experimental expansion. And the origin points seemed to coalesce around a specific, tiny station established around 2745: LHS 1610.

LHS 1610. Luck pulled up the very limited older records on the station. Astonishing, because LHS 1610 was large today and traditionally large stations were proud about their founding history; but here, almost silence! Established by a ship-family, a small, independent outfit. Listed purpose: deep-space refuelling and resupply. But KJ’s notes had a question mark next to LHS 1610. Purpose? More than fuel?

Was LHS 1610 more than just a refuelling station? Was it a staging point? A hidden hub for something much larger?

The language of the messages continued to puzzle her. She ran the linguistic analysis again, comparing the patterns to known historical languages, to the various dialects spoken across the galaxy. Nothing matched perfectly. It had elements that felt vaguely familiar, like echoes of old Earth languages, but twisted, combined with something alien or evolved in isolation. It was a language born of separation, a linguistic testament to distance.

The implications were starting to form a terrifying shape in her mind. Messages eighty years old, originating from a cluster of stars far to the south, routed perhaps through a once tiny, back than obscure station like LHS 1610, and now being used for criminal gain on Teagarden’s Star. Eighty years plus. That was the travel time for a message sent at light speed over a significant distance. A distance that aligned with the whispers of a lost venture.

KJ had called them “ghosts.” Maybe he wasn’t just being poetic. Maybe these messages were literally from a place that the galaxy had forgotten, had never known.

The Lost Colonies. The phrase formed in her mind, a chilling possibility. The risky venture to the far South, the ships that pushed far the limits, the ones that were never heard from again. Were these messages from them? Were they still out there?

The thought sent a shiver down her spine. If these were communications from the Lost Colonies, eighty years old by the time they reached the Inner Stars, what did that mean? Had they survived? What kind of society had they built in isolation? And who here, in the settled galaxy, knew about these messages, was intercepting them, and using them for their own dark purposes?

Her investigation had just cracked open a door to a past the galaxy thought was buried. And someone had killed KJ to keep that door shut. She saved the latest findings, encrypting the file even tighter. The roaring of the station outside seemed to fade, replaced by the silent, immense distance that separated Teagarden’s Star from those far-off, silent stars. She was on the trail of a ghost story, a crime that spanned decades and light-years, and she knew, with a cold certainty, that she was now in as much danger as KJ had been. She had to keep digging, but she had to be invisible. Her “good luck” would need to hold.

If you cracked a door open, that never was unheard, …

Luck’s luck, however, wasn’t entirely her own. Her deep dive into restricted OCN logs, her probing questions about phantom signals and obscure historical records, had, as KJ predicted, drawn attention. Not from the criminals she was hunting, not yet, but from entities operating at a much higher level.

A standard, impersonal message arrived in her Chronicle inbox, routed through the station’s official channels. It was from the Teagarden’s Star Council Offices.

Subject: Inquiry Regarding Data Access Protocols

Miss L. Good,

This message serves as a formal notification regarding recent access patterns detected within station-managed data archives. Anomalies have been noted concerning your user credentials accessing restricted historical and operational logs. Unauthorized access to such data constitutes a violation of station protocols and Collective agreements.

While this is currently logged as an anomaly requiring further review, please be advised that continued unauthorized access may result in disciplinary action. It is imperative that all data access aligns with established journalistic permissions and ethical guidelines.

A record of this notification has been logged.

Sincerely,

Teagarden’s Star Council Data Integrity Office

It was a warning. Cold, bureaucratic, and utterly devoid of personal threat, yet chilling in its implication. They knew she’d been digging where she shouldn’t. But the strange part was the tone – a formal slap on the wrist, not the heavy hand of station security coming to haul her away. It was as if someone wanted her to know she’d been seen, but also… wanted her to keep looking? It didn’t make sense.

Before she could even process the Council’s strange message, another one arrived. This one wasn’t official, not in the same way. It bypassed the standard inboxes and appeared directly on her personal console, flagged with a priority she’d never seen before.

REMINDER: IMMEDIATE PRESENCE REQUIRED - OCN TEAGARDEN’S STAR OFFICES - REFERENCE: ANOMALY 734-DELTA

PROCEED WITHOUT DELAY.

A “REMINDER”? She’d never received an initial notification. And “Anomaly 734-Delta”? That wasn’t a public designation. It felt less like a summons and more like… an urgent invitation she hadn’t known she was waiting for. Despite the inherent risk, the sheer strangeness of it, and the memory of KJ’s warning, something compelled her to go. Her gut, the same gut that had told her KJ’s death wasn’t an accident, told her this was the next step.

The OCN offices on Teagarden’s Star were usually quiet, efficient, a hub of data flow rather than human interaction. But when Luck arrived, the atmosphere was different. She was expected. Ushered into a small, sterile meeting room, she found herself facing not just the head of OCN’s local operations, a stern-faced woman named Director Anya Sharma, but also two other individuals. One was a man in the crisp, dark uniform of Horizon, the social and logistical arm of the former Jade Horizon Energy, now deeply intertwined with OCN’s operations, particularly in the Wolf-Pack regions. The other was a woman with sharp, intelligent eyes and the air of someone who spent more time in dusty archives than bustling stations.

“Miss Good,” Director Sharma began, her voice cool and measured. “Thank you for responding to our… reminder.” There was a subtle emphasis on the word, acknowledging the unusual nature of the summons.

Luck sat down, her back straight, her reporter’s instincts kicking in despite the tension. “Director. I received a warning from the Council about my data access. Is this related?”

Director Sharma nodded. “Indirectly. Your recent inquiries into certain… anomalies… have intersected with ongoing investigations at a higher level. Investigations that require a degree of… discretion.”

She gestured to the woman with the archival air. “This is Dr. Aris Thorne. Dr. Thorne is a Senior Historian with Horizon, specializing in the early expansion period and… certain less-documented ventures.”

Dr. Thorne offered a small, knowing smile. “Miss Good. Your persistence is… noted. Your analysis of the fragmented messages and their potential origin is remarkably close to our own findings.”

Luck felt a jolt. “You know about the messages? The ghost ships?”

“We know they are not ghosts, Miss Good,” the Horizon representative spoke for the first time, his voice calm but firm. “They are real. And they are old. Very old.”

Over the next few hours, in the sterile, quiet room, the truth, or at least a significant portion of it, unfolded. The fragmented messages weren’t random noise or criminal forgeries based on nothing. They were genuine transmissions, eighty years old by the time they reached the Inner Stars, originating from the Lost Colonies.

The Horizon Historians, working in conjunction with OCN’s deep-space monitoring divisions, had been quietly tracking these signals for years. They were incredibly faint, distorted by distance and time, and written in a language that was a blend of old Wolf-Pack dialects and ancient African languages – a linguistic fingerprint of the diverse group who had embarked on that perilous, isolated journey between 2700 and 2800.

The signals confirmed it. The Lost Colonies had survived. They were out there, far to the south, a human civilization that had grown and evolved in complete isolation for almost a century.

And the fraud messages? The economic disruptions on Teagarden’s Star? They were the work of a criminal network that had somehow gained access to the raw, undeciphered Lost Colony transmissions. They were using linguistic analysis programs, perhaps similar to the ones Luck had illicitly accessed, to translate snippets of the messages and then using that outdated, often irrelevant information to create fake market data, exploiting the time lag for profit. They were fencing not just data, but the very echoes of a lost civilization.

KJ’s investigation had stumbled onto this network. He’d seen the connection between the economic fraud and the phantom messages, but he hadn’t understood the full scope – the eighty-year delay, the Lost Colonies, the historical significance. He’d gotten too close to the fencers, the ones who profited from the temporal gap, and they had silenced him.

Director Sharma explained that OCN and Horizon had been monitoring the situation, trying to identify the network without revealing the existence of the Lost Colony transmissions to the wider galaxy – a revelation that could cause widespread panic, political instability, and potentially endanger the colonists themselves. Luck’s public report, while drawing unwanted attention to the fraud, had also inadvertently highlighted the urgency of the situation. Her “illegal activities,” her unauthorized data access, had actually helped them by confirming certain aspects of the network’s operation and demonstrating the extent of the vulnerability. They hadn’t stopped her; they had, in a way, guided her, allowing her to uncover just enough to be brought into their confidence.

“We need your help, Miss Good,” Director Sharma said finally. “Your access, your understanding of the network from the user’s end, your ability to communicate complex information to the public… you can help us expose this network and mitigate the damage, without causing undue panic about the colonies themselves. At least, not yet.”

The crimes had to end. The network of fencers and forgers had to be dismantled. But how to do it without revealing the full, explosive truth about the Lost Colonies? How to repair the damage done to Teagarden’s Star’s economy and restore trust in the OCN network? It was a monumental task, one that required not just detective work, but careful, deliberate communication. Moderation. Maintenance. Mitigation. The very principles OCN claimed to uphold.

Luck agreed. It was personal. For KJ. For the truth. And for the unknown people of the Lost Colonies, whose ancient messages were being twisted for criminal gain.

Over the next few cycles, working closely with Director Sharma and Dr. Thorne, Luck crafted a series of reports. They were a careful dance around the full truth, exposing the criminal network, detailing their methods of creating “fraud messages” based on “unidentified, archaic data signals,” and explaining how they exploited the time lag. She highlighted the importance of OCN’s efforts to identify and filter these signals, subtly framing OCN and Horizon as vigilant protectors of the network. She didn’t mention the Lost Colonies by name, referring to the signals only as originating from a “previously uncatalogued deep-space source.”

Her reports were a sensation on Teagarden’s Star and beyond, picked up by other stations and news outlets across the Inner Stars. The criminal network was exposed, their leaders apprehended (their names and faces appearing in the Chronicle, a small victory for KJ’s memory). The economic disruptions on Teagarden’s Star began to subside as OCN implemented new filtering protocols based on Luck’s and Horizon’s findings. The damage was being repaired.

Luck had written the story. Or, at least, the story the galaxy was ready to hear.

The experience changed everything for Luck. She had seen the hidden layers of the galaxy, the delicate balance of information, the power of both connection and isolation. When Director Sharma offered her a position within OCN, not as a standard journalist, but as a “Registrar of Anomalous Communications and Historical Data,” a role that would involve analysing unusual data streams and contributing to OCN’s public information efforts, she accepted. It was a new chapter, a chance to work from within the network, to help manage the flow of information responsibly, and to continue, in her own way, to monitor the silent whispers from the south.

Years later, now a seasoned OCN official, Luck penned another column for the Chronicle, reflecting on a different historical event, one that had shaped the galaxy in the decades of her own investigation:

Teagarden’s Star Chronicle

Echoes of the Hyperspace Wars: A Legacy of Deliberation

By L. Good, OCN Registrar

The Hyperspace Wars, a chaotic period spanning from 2805 to 2838, remain a sombre chapter in our history. Fuelled by the perilous race to break the 13c speed barrier and exacerbated by rampant piracy and corruption in the temporal gaps between systems, this era saw tragic loss and widespread disruption. It was a stark reminder of the dangers inherent in pushing technological limits without a corresponding framework for cooperation and ethical guidance.

However, from the ashes of this conflict emerged an institution dedicated to preventing such chaos from ever gripping the galaxy again: the High Yards of the Academies of Philosophical Honour, founded in 2843. Situated strategically between the burgeoning star systems, the Academies were established as a beacon of deliberation, mediation, and the preservation of knowledge. Their Scots Yard tackled complex interstellar legal disputes, while their various institutes fostered philosophical debate on the profound questions raised by our expansion into the cosmos.

The Academies’ work, though often unfolding across the light-years with the inherent delays of light-speed communication, established vital precedents for interstellar law and ethical conduct. They provided a forum for resolving conflicts through reasoned argument rather than destructive force, a testament to the power of intellectual pursuit in shaping a more stable galaxy.

Today, the Academies continue their vital work, a cornerstone of the interconnected galaxy. Their legacy serves as a powerful reminder that while technology may bridge the physical distance between us, it is our shared commitment to deliberation, understanding, and the pursuit of wisdom, championed by institutions like the High Yards, that truly binds us together.

Writing about the Hyperspace Wars and the Academies felt different. It was history, documented and understood, unlike the raw, unsettling mystery of the Lost Colonies. Yet, in a way, both stories were about the challenges of distance and the flow of information in a time-delayed galaxy.

Years turned into decades. Luck, now a respected figure within OCN, continued her work, analysing data streams, identifying anomalies, and contributing to the careful, moderated flow of information across the network. The whispers from the south still arrived, faint and distorted, but now they were part of a known, monitored phenomenon. She never revealed the full truth about the Lost Colonies publicly, respecting the need for stability and the potential danger to the colonists.

But the story wasn’t just about the galaxy. It was about her.

One quiet cycle, alone in her quarters, an old woman now, Luck opened a personal, encrypted file, one she hadn’t accessed in years. It contained the original message fragments from Teagarden’s Star, KJ’s notes, and the data she’d compiled about LHS 1610 and the language analysis. And it contained something else. Old family records, digitized and preserved. Stories and images from her ancestors, those who had left the Wolf-Pack region almost a century ago, seeking a new life.

She scrolled through the faded images, faces she hadn’t looked at in years. And then she saw them. Faces she recognized from the linguistic analysis data, from the fragmented images embedded within the Lost Colony transmissions that OCN had managed to partially reconstruct. Faces that were eighty years younger in the transmissions, but undeniably the same. Her great-grandparents. Her great-aunts and uncles. People she had only known through stories and faded pictures.

They were among the settlers of the Lost Colonies.

The realization settled over her, quiet and profound. The ghosts in the machine weren’t just a story she’d uncovered. They were her family. The language of the transmissions, the blend of Wolf-Pack dialect and old African languages – it was the language of her ancestors, a language she had heard in snippets from her grandparents, a language that was a part of her own heritage.

Her investigation, her dangerous dive into the temporal shadows, hadn’t just exposed a criminal network and a hidden truth about the galaxy. It had led her back to her own roots, to a branch of her family tree that the galaxy had thought was lost.

She closed the file, the weight of the revelation settling in her heart. She was a part of that ghost story, a descendant of the Lost Colonies. She had helped protect their secret, helped ensure their continued isolation in a galaxy that was now connected by instantaneous communication, a connection they did not share.

She looked out the viewport, at the distant stars, some of them perhaps the silent homes of her lost family. She couldn’t reach them across the light-years, not in real-time, not yet. But she knew they were there. And she was here. Connected by blood, by history, and by the enduring power of information, even when it travelled at the speed of light, taking decades to bridge the immense, silent distance. Her “good luck” had not only saved her life and exposed a crime; it had led her to a truth about herself, a truth hidden in the temporal gaps, waiting to be found.