An Unregistered Comms Beacon can be found in the Caucuma system, orbiting body 10 d.
The transmission times of this beacon are believed to be on the hour, every 3 hours, with transmissions reported at: 00:00 / 03:00 / 06:00 / 09:00 / 12:00 / 15:00 / 18:00 / 21:00.
The transmitted message is the following:
4 1 14 7 5 18 15 21 19
(repeated four times)
Decodes by letter positions to:
DANGEROUS
This message is the decryption key for an encoded Galnet article in the local Herald:
(Note: this Herald is still currently available – March 3310 / An archived image from March 3310 is also available – THE CAUCUMA HERALD)
***COMPROMISED CARRIER SIGNAL***
2 AUG 3302
hotel echo mike juliet kilo echo – 1 alpha – hotel delta november juliet india victor juliet yankee – quebec uniform mike echo delta quebec 4
The message consists of a series of words that can be interpreted as the NATO phonetic alphabet, yielding the message:
hemjke-1a-hdnjivjy-qumedq4
Applying a Keyed Caesar cipher with the key of DANGEROUS taken from the beacon yielded the message:
merope-1b-maconvoy-threat4
Unfortunately, the expected Signal Source POI is not present around body 1 b, in the Merope system.
However, there is a Listening post orbiting body 1 b, which leads to the HIP 14909 Distress Call.
