Something about Captain Anonymous' testimony has been bugging me, and I recently figured out what it was. He speculated that his cargo had been stolen in the Gulnara Research heist in Antares. Suppose that's true. How'd his clients hear about it? Normally, this sort of information would be classified way above even my considerable reach - but Antares has had a regime change recently, and a lot of the old rules don't apply. With an application of magic private investigator juice (this time, that's a metaphor for single-malt Adharan whiskey), I was able to secure an interview with with one of the station's researchers who'd been working on the project.

Well, it's exactly what I'd come to suspect. They'd been asked to take a look at some archaeological specimens - a weird mix of Ancient tech, Shivan tech, and a few systems no one could positively identify, just like the good captain told me. Their working theory is that the Ancients started using captured Shivan equipment, which isn't that strange when you think about it - our own fighter shields are technically just that. They just couldn't figure out what it was supposed to do before the heist robbed them of their chance.

Now, here's where things get really good. See, I'm not the only one interested in how some pirates heard about classified Shivan research. After the heist, the station staff audited all their systems and eventually found a secure comms channel that shouldn't be there. The actual messages were deleted long ago, but it still logged them, and they were able to figure out the destination.

They were going to Felicity Station in Regulus. Syndicate territory. Boom.

