Something strange has been happening on the very edge of the fringe, known to very few of the few pilots who frequent the place. The very few happen to know one thing—that sector Vo12 has become a dead zone. It's not the fact that the teleporter relays don't go out that far, no, it's that no one seems to be headed to, or going from that sector. There's nothing there, anyways, except a few sparse asteroid fields. But the very few of the few know something. Something was there, a refueling platform for asteroid miners. It was there. No one paid much attention to the place, until a freighter pilot picked up a distress signal, relayed from a skip communications drone that had been in sector Vo12. A distress signal was nothing unusual, and it prompted a few pilots to go investigate. Since then, those pilots haven't been heard from. Nothing's been heard at all. Nothing, until January 22nd, USC, when another skip communications drone appeared at a small outpost, relaying a new signal. This, too, had come from sector Vo12. This time, it wasn't a distress signal, but the last words of an unfortunate captain. Spoiler: NUO-516-225 "Willow Five" Final Transmission The nervous voice of a strong woman can be heard. "...this is Captain Kimcuhara of... *** **** ...ow Five', we are... **** ** ***** *** ...nder fir... ** * ******* ...iser... *** ...he jump drive isn't worki—" The transmission cuts out for a moment. "—ields are down!" "This... ***** ** *** ** ...st transmissi... ** ** ** ...yone listening, AVOID, THIS, SECTOR..." The voice gets more frantic. "...epeat, AVOID, THIS, SECTOR! We're about to..." A gasp can be heard, before the transmission cuts off abruptly. For a little while, quite the stir arose between the various pilots, explorers, and traders who dwelled among the few and far between stations along the very edge of the fringe. Some say the sector had become a haven for pirates after a hostile takeover, or a single cruiser that could stop ships and rip them from warp space was preying on anyone that dared enter the sector, or that a malfunctioned AI had taken control of an experimental starfighter and destroyed everything there! Incredulous! Of course, all of that is just speculation. Maybe there's some truth to some of it. What is true, is that sector Vo12 has become a dead zone, and nobody knows why.
