The Weyn Dock incident and its aftermath, part 1
14 Jun 2019Prochaska
The station Weyn Dock, orbiting the gas giant 64 Arietis 3, was heavily damaged by attacking Thargoids in February 3304, and the repairs were still going on in December. Diane Verlaine, commander of the Torrens where Zoe had worked for one year in 3300-3301, had accepted a contract to transport a team of executives from Jet General Solutions, the company in charge of the 64 Arietis system, to the damaged Starport to retrieve the flight recorder of a long-lost Type 9transporter. The flight recorder was located in the Science/Medical facilities, which was sealed off from the rest of the station at that time. Verlaine contacted Zoe as an engineer was needed for that mission, and she accepted the assignment. Due to the mission target being located in a sealed off environment, access to it was not possible via docking at the station, and an EVA had to be conducted. While omitting the details of this operation, the results found out in the end were these: together with the recovered flight recorder, an alien specimen had been brought to the station, which decimated the crew over time. The presence of the creature on board was not a coincidence, but it's transport there and the sealing of the Sci/Med departments it resided in after its arrival seems to have been a deliberate act of JGS. At the same time as Zoe and her team there was another team operating on the station to apprehend the creature itself, which failed. The alien specimen had constructed a hive-like site on the station, which Zoe was able to destroy, and the creatures where eventually vented into the vacuum of space. While the recovery of the specimen was a failure for JGS, they were able to attribute the fatal breach of quarantine on human error and arbitrary action of the station personnel in the chaotic environment of the damaged Starport, evading legal consequences for the incident this way. Zoe, while being isolated with the alien specimen in the confinement of the quarantine, was able to locate a trace to her lost parents. She found out that they were the crew of the lost Type 9, whose flight recorder was the target of the retrieval operation.
On Weyn Dock Zoe had found out that the specimen had originally been found on an alien world, and she thought it likely that this was one of the discovered Guardian sites. So directly after the incident, she went to the guardian sector of space near the bubble to look for clues there, but she only saw empty ruins. Zoe used the time spent there to collect some Guardian tech, but her search was basically a failure. She returned to 64 Arietis to look for clues and cause some havoc for JGS. Docking at Weyn, she remarked that Diya Glenn, the executive responsible for the Station, was replaced by someone else. Zoe tried to get in contact with Diya, but that was not possible. After that she flew to the Blue Meteor Co. installation, also owned by JGS. This was under attack by pirates. Zoe received a call for help, and her old bounty hunter instincts immediately took control. After the attack was repelled, she realized that she had failed her initial plan to cause mischief. Instead, she went to Boulle Landing, another big installation controlled by JGS on planet 4 e of the System. She got acquainted with executive Precious Cotton there, and was well received by her. Zoe had to complete a further mission for her, the sabotage of a megaships defensive systems in one of the neighbouring star systems. After completing this task, she was informed that Diya had been abducted to Blue Meteor Co and was being detained there. Zoe also got some information that got her access to the station. While freeing Diya, she was surprised when realizing that Diya had considerable experience in single combat. Together they left 64 Arietis and returned to Bluford Orbital.
Here came the explanation for Diya’s unexpected abilities. Diya explained that she worked for a private investigative/security outfit and had been on Weyn Dock on an assignment from Sirius to collect Information prior to a possible takeover of JGS. After her last report to Sirius about the failed Operation involving the Alien organism, the takeover plans were dropped by Sirius. After that, her cover was blown and she was abducted from the spaceport.
She also had insider knowledge about the background of the Weyn Dock incident: JGS had an employee in its research department, a Dr. Mayakovsky. He claimed he had been involved in a secret Research Project years ago that had discovered alien artefacts in the area around a crashed Alien spaceship. He had found out that the specimens produced a special liquid for the hatching of their breed. He wanted to spend more time and resources into its analysis, as he saw the substance as potentially valuable. But the creatures proved to be dangerous and caused some deaths among the team, and the Project was dropped and traces hushed up as a consequence. Two of those dead had been Zoe’s parents that were hired for this project as transport pilots. After being recruited by JGS, this Mayakovsky had been able to convince his superiors of the potential profitability of a continuation of his project from long ago.
Then Zoe came across the announcement for the Distant Worlds 2 expedition and decided to take part. During the Expedition, she met Commander Marc Ueberall, whom she had attended high school with. He belonged to the Colonia Citizen Network and brought up the idea to visit the Colonia system. Zoe did that and there she stumbled upon the crashed Type 9 of commander Hyford on planet 5 e and his related message at the listening post in Orbit around planet 2 b. Hyford
had been hired by an outfit not part of any of the three superpowers to fly transport missions to the Pleiades sector of space. He found out eventually that one of the "goods" he was transporting were living human beings that were used for illegal experiments. Hyford had finally been disposed of as he was a witness. The similarities of Hyfords assignment and that of her parents were striking and she would investigate this further once back in the bubble. So, the focus of her investigation had been redirected to the Thargoids.