In The Beginning...
15 Apr 2016Nuntius Mehen
4/1/3302Wing Location Restricted
Somewhere Near 17 Draconis System
CMDR Nuntius Mehen
It's been 4 days...
The dull hum of the life support system slowly pulls me back awake. My eyes, dry from the closed system low power setting and half shut drift up to the dark HUD.
Shit...time to melt the ice built up on the canopy again. I snap upright in the pilots seat as I wave my hand across the modules panel reactivating everything. It's hard to tell how much time has passed when you are this far out from the main star, focus..... time to do a status check.
The cockpit of the Thuban lights up in a ballet of screen flickers and boot tones. Finally, the wing HUD snaps online. Everyone seems to be operational.
*Open Secure Wing Comms*
INITIALIZING COMSEC NET
TRANSMISSION ENCRYPTION KEY ACTIVE
*All Stations this Net, All Stations this Net, Status and Comms check, in sequence!*
Static filled silence cuts through my headset, its times like this that place in the back of your mind where you keep all the bad shit loves to start talking. Try again...
*I say again, All Stations this Net, All Stations this Net, Status and...*
*Nuntius, this is Snanubis, switching to callsign Thuban 1, all systems nominal, fuel levels yellow, status green, over.*
*This is CMDR Fireteam, switching to callsign Thuban 2, all system nominal, fuel levels green, op status green, over.*
*This is Dynalord666, switching to callsign Thuban 3, all systems check, fuel is good to go, operational ready.*
*CMDR, this is CosmicDebris76 switching to Thuban 4, all system go, fuel go, op ready. How copy?*
*This is Thuban Actual, Good copy, Fed SATSEC signals have been clean for their last 24 hour check in. Receiving data dump time now.*
As the panel flurried with useless security data, ration inventories, and maintenance logs the cold hard realization of how standard these reports are started to set in. This was only going to work if they were willing to talk he told me....whats going on down there Alex...
Last time I spoke to Harrow we agreed every 3 hours, for 3 mins there will be a secure COMSEC link for us to monitor for an update. Everytime the signal has been empty, everytime the odds get worse something went wrong.
It's been 4 days...
The sea of reports and files speed across my screen like a waterfall of mundane tasks, nothing seems to be catching my eye or the filter software.
Wait...there was an encrypted message sent direct from FKEEPCOMM. No wonder I didn't see it initally, this doesn't have a timestamp or a personnel ID. This has to be from Alex, I flash my hand over to the comms panel and expand the text.
An operator error exception has occurred at FISSREAC0020093:09
FISSREAC0020077:14 FISSREAC0020023:17 FISSREAC0020088:22
neutron multiplication rate at spikevalue 99999999
Proceed to vent radiological emissions into atmosphere.
Consult reactor core manual for instructions on proper reactor core maintenance and repair.
[OPEN CoreManual.txt]
There it was, what we had been waiting for. Years of work and planning for this exact moment summed up in 2 words.
[MESSAGE/START]
I'm in.
[MESSAGE/END]
There was no turning back now, everything was falling into place and in this cold dark corner of the Galaxy things were being set in motion that would alter everything as we know it. For the Feds, for the controlling powers, for all of us. For the Galaxy.
*Be advised initiate hard points check, we are going REDCON 1 in 5 mikes, I say again REDCON 1 in 5 mikes.*
Nuntius 1: Change to STRIKE NET 1
Nuntius 2: Change to STRIKE NET 2
Nuntius 3: Change to STRIKE NET 3
Nuntius 4: Change to original NET ID
FRAMESHIFT DRIVE CHARGING