In 1176, three unrelated vessels in the Regency system of Smoug (Spinward Marches 1729) recorded an anomalous encounter with a fourth starship that had just jumped into the system, its jumpflash quite visible to local traffic. Against Quarantine Protocols, the vessel, an old 800dT Broadsword-class Mercenary Cruiser, was reported 'pinging' with an illegal and very old IFF transponder signal of the Third Imperium. Though each of the three ships' passive sensors detected a Comms hail, they maintained their vigil and did not open their Comms, which may have saved their lives in turn. "...But what was weird was a gravimetric, space-time reading unlike I'd ever seen," reported the System Defense Boat Sensors Operator on the scene at the time. "It was like the old ship had some sort of strange after-bubble around it. Too bad we forgot to focus our Sensors. We were just too afraid to make any further contact with the vessel." One ship, a 1000dT, Regency light freighter for a sector logistics corporation, later reported using the manual laser-flash signaller now a commonplace backup device when bodyswap protocols cannot yet be implemented due to extreme range. The freighter signalled with an old flash-code to the vessel whose IFF transponder continued to transmit its details. Warning that they were in breach of Quarantine Protocols and in danger of being fired upon, the three ships went to combat alert and waited. "...And then she just disappeared , no jump grid, no flash no nothing - as if she were never there," reported the Regency captain of the SDB. "We were still filling in firing solutions when two full minutes after the Broadsword jumped in, she just vanished." How Quarantine was breached so deeply into the Marches is still under investigation by Lunion Subsector Navy and the SQS. Visuals under imaging enhancement show that the anomalous ship was indeed the signature, spherical Broadsword-class. The whereabouts of this vessel are as of yet unknown and the Jump-4 neighborhood remains on alert for the potentially-infected ship. "We are confident that should this vessel, an obvious threat to our space, be caught on scopes again, there will be no hesitation to fire upon one of Them," said Regency Sector Admiral Vannurrigan in a public announcement. SQS so far has not detected the ship nor has any world system reported infection. The line holds and we await to see if this threat is ongoing.
