Lakon’s Vision and the Ears in the Belt

COMMANDER’S LOG
CMDR: [REDACTED] aka MostlyAwol
Date: 3311-07-31
System: Epsilon Eridani
Vessel: Corsair – Veritas Obscura

Caught a feed on the local comms, news segment about Lakon’s next moves, their “future vision” framed as industrial evolution. In the background of the story, a clip played of a Type-11 Prospector working a belt. Medium frame, at least one large hardpoint, moving like it was sampling rock… except the posture was too deliberate, too quiet. Nova called it “a mouse with a bite” before I even said anything. She’s kept that. I didn’t correct her.

On the surface it’s a survey platform, believable and innocuous. Under the hood, with a few subtle swaps, prospecting limpets traded for passive receivers, the big hardpoint repurposed into a directional listening rig, it becomes something that hears more than it should. The size gives it enough juice to triage anomalies in real time without making noise, and enough bulk to hide intent behind the pretense of routine work.

I’m not going to spell out what I do with the threads it brings back. The logs will read “routine belt survey.” Nova calls deviations “pattern drift,” and that’s what I’m tracking. Little ships like that see edges of things bigger vessels smooth over. Lakon talks about expansion; I’ll keep watching what they don’t say aloud.