Sotala

Kaj,

I’ve tracked down the cause of last week’s shortfall: we lost one of our wranglers, The Sotala (a Boeing Enceladus 80-09). Some corporate algo bought her right out from under us while she was still en route to 2851 Harbin. She never made that gig. There’s your lost nickel revenue right there.

One of our hornets happened to be passing through the neighborhood so I diverted it for a quick flyby (Vesta will be getting their rods 16 hours late — sorry about that). As you can see, the habs are rigged for burn so whoever the new owners are, they’re in a hurry. They’ve ditched the rock ropes entirely, and there’s some kind of refit in progress around the bow. I’ve sent the footage off for analysis but I don’t know how much it’ll tell us. You know those Hornets ain’t built for recon.

There’s no evidence of anything illegal here — yet — but it seems odd, to say the least. Someone was in such a hurry to get their hands on a wrangler that they bought a used one at three times the cost instead of just waiting for the next new hull to roll off the line. Not to mention compensation for an aborted harvest. Something’s not lining up here.

Anyway, The Sotala is now showing up as Crown of Thorns on the local transponderscape (I’m attaching the specs), and she’s headed your way; on her current trajectory she’ll be inserting into E/L in about three months. It’s technically not our business any more, but you might want to keep an eye out anyway.

Best to Regina,
Harri