Djabara had been on my mind for days. I was out of the ‘bubble for almost a week, outside radio contact and isolated from anyone or anything familiar. I was hardly in the bubble for a day when the message came through encrypted channels without sender or subject. Djabara 2, it said, was important. And a series of coordinates that would guide me to a surface location.
This smelled like a trap. I jumped three systems just to distance myself from the point of reception before I stopped to consider the mission. Alix scanned the file seven times that I know of and probably a dozen more I didn’t. It wasn’t a honeypot. It wasn’t a trojan. The file was safe.
So that meant the coordinates were likely a trap. So I sat on the data while I considered what to do.
Meanwhile reports of Duval and Patreus posturing in the Empire started sounding more and more like civil war. Djabara was smack in the middle of Empire space. If I was going to go I had to go soon, before the shooting started.