30 NPCs – The Beacon Voice

The Beacon Voice

IV

Through that tapestry of darkness pricked with endless points of lights, there are vast stretches of nothing along the trail. An autofuel station here and there, but the bots run those. Haulers sleep through those. Why wake when there’s no one to chatter to? But there on the edge, where the great gate thrums before the jump point, is a terminal with a voice worth hearing. Xe’s a friendly voice, muffled by endless stellar static, a worn antenna, and thick sheets of pockmarked metal, but it’s a friendly voice that’ll guide vessels through that jump across the endless.

Xe is a sole manager and operator of an outstation at the fringe of this sector’s assigned space. Alone, isolated, and solitary is the impression most travelers get when passing by. The voice, though, xe’d tell you that just ain’t so. Oh, there’s bouts where the comm is silence ‘sides the beacon off the gate or the data pulse notice from the inner worlds, but someone’s always coming or going. One can see them, on the scope: silhouettes of heat against an ocean of black. On their way coming here or heading deep. And those, eventually, they’ll be back around.

Xe hasn’t been off the little pebble of a station in a decade. Maintenance crews occasionally pop in but the local swarm takes cares of most things. Every now and then someone launches a tube of printer matter for the station’s fabbers, and the garden pod’s a great time eater for things worth eating. Things are okay out here.

The fly-bys ain’t short. Comm range is measured in days, sometimes weeks depending on how big of an antenna or how vocal the chatter. And xe loves the stories. Loves trading them too. Not a ship goes by that xe doesn’t see, and maybe, for the gift of a little something dropped out the back of a cargo hold, xe’d tell someone about who was logged.

A quiet life marked by occasional bit of charming talk, xe’s not manipulated by too much except gossip and the occasional world bound treat. Xer station is designed to survive rogue debris storms and the worse the gates can dish out, so unless someone has come packing a military vessel, they’re probably not popping that can. Kindness will take someone an extra light year.

In sci-fi, they’re the station before a system gate. The last check point before the big star jump, or the first voice heard after the arrival. They’ll put eyes on a party’s ride and make sure everything traversed without a hitch.

In westerns, they’re the last wagon depot before heading out. They can point towards the guides who know the lands as their birthright, and sell that last bit of kit needed to make the trip possible.

In epic fantasy, they’re the voice of the healing spring the party finds just before the dungeon entrance. The cautious nature sprite that wants no harm to come to the children of humanity.

Out there, just at the edge of civilization. A watchful keeper, holding the flame aloft against the sea of night. This is a life xe has chosen, but xe will eagerly hear of the adventures of others. Trade goods, but more importantly trade stories.