5 Years of Remembrance - Loss of the Wilted Vision
27 Oct 2022D. James Totendost
By Kennedy Winslow for the Tau Ceti Free Press
Pictured Above: Last known image of the Wilted Vision from camera feed.
A half decade has passed since talks between the Sublime Order of van Maanen’s Star and industrial leaders from outside of Tau Ceti broke down. Looking to establish stronger trade ties with the reclusive sect various envoys from large industrial concerns went to the Permit-locked system for emergency talks. Shortly after, when things had melted down, the industrial leaders climbed aboard the Z.H.E. Wilted Vision for their return trip to Tau Ceti from Jeury Terminal in the dark blue dawn. It would be days before anyone realized they were missing and on this fifth anniversary we peer into the sky and hope to learn more.
Details in general are hazy but what we know follows. The tension between parties had been building for a year behind closed doors and what would be the last meeting was seen as an emergency session which analysts described at the time as, “necessary to keep van Maanen’s star open at all” (TCNN. 3303. Commerce Review Live). This meeting was slated to last up to three days but ended after one and nobody in Tau Ceti was aware that a change to the timeline had occured. The delegation was using the new (at the time) Dolphin passenger liner from Saud Kruger. In these earliest models there were no mechanical backups for doors with known faults which would seal them shut. The Wilted Vision completed pre-flight checks, lifted off without errors, and left the planet with ease. No flags were raised until approximately 48 hours later when Ortiz Moreno City flight control asked for the return flight plan from Jeury Terminal.
Soon after leaving Jeury Terminal the Wilted Vision activated their FSD and flight control confirmed the deactivation of their flight beacon. The latter deviates from common practice but raised no official flags. Approximately one hour after the ship went dark a naphtha-class tanker, an individual trader in a large freighter, and an intra-system courier in UV Ceti all heard a broken transmission. Actual audio caught by the carrier was recovered but is classified under Sublime Order Austerity Mandate 37-12. The text of the transmission is below:
//Transmission Begins//
Voice 1: [Coughing] Extraction team this is 242 Greco on Whiskey Victor!
[mechanical detonation and gaseous hiss, digital klaxon begins sounding, muted pounding heard]
Voice 1: [Coughing, yelling] GODDAMN! 242 Gotham neutralized. Short initiated. Attempting to perform extraction stage one but the cockpit is sealed too, can’t drop out of supercruise, and fire has broken out. Requesting immediate assistance!
//Transmission Ends//
//1 Minute Passes//
//Transmission Begins//
Voice 1: [Coughing, labored] EXTRACTION TEAM! Is anyone there? Jim, are you there? I’m gonna fucking come back and haunt you [Coughing] motherfuc…
[mechanical detonation]
//167 Minutes Pass//
//Transmission Ends//
After the errant transmission was reported and the realization that the ship never ended up where it was supposed to be people started looking more closesly at the details. The Wilted Vision was a contracted vessel through the now-defunct company known as Zheng He Enterprises (ZHE). The company itself was a subsidiary of the Sirius Corporation and had a shady revenue stream. Despite this the company was more or less above board. After ZHE was digitally compromised by the “Blue Cobra” hacks of May 3307 and their galactic impropriety came to light these details became more salient and dataminers began digging.
New details have emerged and we here at the Tau Ceti Free Press are publishing them now. An image of the wilted vision prior to it’s arrival at Jeury Terminal lies below:
The still frame is from a Patterson Enterprise security feed and it shows a man inspecting one of the landing gear legs. In the uncorrupted video snip the man simply inspects the area where he is in the still. Recovered also was the following log from a cached ZHE file group flagged under nomenclature “U242”:
//Data Corrupted//
//Data Corrupted//
…met the ‘venerable architect’ years ago when he was on his pilgrimage. Didn’t expect to hear back from him with something so markedly less than “sublime”. The two doubl…
//Data Corrupted//
//Data Corrupted//
//Data Corrupted//
…hat makes this so appealing is that this is the kind of mission where we can easily deal with problems of our own without causing them to realize it’s coming. I think I’ll have Jim deliver the Wilted Vision to Janus and Harvey. He’s a new enough face that they’ll think he’s malleable and all the while he’ll be making sure that they neve…
//Data Corrupted//
//Log Timestamp 16.10.3303 by Anders, T., COL (Ret.)//
We know that Tristan Anders served in the Sirius Navy and that he was in charge of a small department known “Expeditions, Research, and Acquisitions”. There are ties which implicate the man in the “Ram Tah Conspiracy” of 3304. Who are Jim, Janus, and Harvey? Did the Sublime Order of van Maanen’s Star have something to do with the disappearance? What is U242? We simply don’t know and this article isn’t the place to discuss these details.
We must first remember the five years which have passed. Space can be as unforgiving a void as ever. We must try to wrest from it all the scraps of those we’ve lost. In the darkness of the black we must shine our investigative light for the truth. Time can freeze in the cold of space preserving what some would rather assume has decayed to dust and on this fifth anniversary of the disappearance of the Wilted Vision those we have lost in space are found in our hearts.