The Death of the EGG
22 Jul 2020Redneptun
As the Galnet newscast flashed before his eyes CMDR redneptun hardly noticed the angrily shouting faces and the graphs illustrating recess and ruin. Lately he did not notice a lot. His eyes blank, he proceeded to stare at the moving pictures on the screen when a booming voice suddenly shook this eardrums."COMRADE!", the mountain of a man exclaimed. "WOULD YOU MIND TURNING UP THE VOLUME??"
Redneptun slowly drifted back into reality and realised what was expected of him. He reached for the console next to him and adjusted the volume of the Galnetcast with a swift wave of his hand.
"SPACIBA, COMRADE!", the bearded miner shouted, seemingly unable to speak in a normal tone. Redneptun assumed he was one of the many victims of mandatory volume levels for proximity warning signals. It was a pretty common handicap among the miners in this part of the bubble. Gotta be safe! He smirked, while contemplating the weird outgrowths of governmental overregulation.
His smug thoughts were interrupted by the man-bear smashing down next to him on the bench. "LOT OF BAD THINGS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW, COMRADE. GOOD THING, YOU JOINED OUR GLORIOUS REVOLUTION TO FREE MINERS FROM OPPRESSION OF MEGACORPS. TOGETHER, WE WILL BRING GALAXY A NEW TOMORROW!", he proclaimed. "PARTY OWES YOU A LOT! WE HAVE COMPLETELY LIBERATED SYSTEM IN ONLY FEW WEEKS FROM CAPITALIST PIGS. ALL THANKS TO YOU!"
Redneptun gave the man a puzzled smile and nodded, hoping it was the right thing do.
He had no idea who that man was, or what he did to deserve such gratitude.
To be honest, he did not remember a lot of what had happened recently. The last thing he could remember was...
A painful whistling noise was beginning to fill his ears, while his skull suddenly felt way too small for his brain. He closed his eyes, reached for his head and gave it a quick shake. What the hell, he thought, while the noise quickly faded away leaving only the stinging headache behind.
"ARE YOU NOT FEELING WELL, COMRADE? SHALL I BRING YOU REFRESHMENT? SOME VODKA MAYBE?", the giant shouted in a worried tone. Vodka?!, thought redneptun. Against headaches? Where exactly did I end up at?
He wanted to phrase a polite denial but could only muster enough energy for a small nod.
"IS GOOD CHOICE, YOU WILL SEE! CHILLED, TRIPLE-LOWTEMP-DIAMOND-FILTERED VODKA COMING RIGHT UP, COMRADE!", his benefactor shouted while hurrying off to fetch the promised beverage.
Triple. Low. Temp. Diamonds.
The high-pitched whistling noise returned. Or... didn't it somehow sound more like... drilling? He tried to fight the headache, which had transformed his head into the anvil of a relentless blacksmith, bringing down the hammer on his consciousness.
He noticed something warm dripping on his hand. Something red. His nose was bleeding heavily and the shock of realising this brought him sudden clarity.
He plugged his nose with his left index and middle finger while his gaze fell onto the screen which was currently showing a ringed gas giant from high orbit. He knew that place, he thought. That sun, that planet, those ROCKS! He knew them! But something was odd, something was missing. He tried to read the news ticker beneath the images of the familiar planetary ring vista.
+++ EGG still missing +++ Miner riots all across the bubble continue +++ Hundreds of fleet carriers stranded +++ Follow #EGGisDead to receive current updates +++The EGG... of course. He remembered. He had been one of them. One of the miners. One of its... worshippers. He had seen its glory a thousand times, reaped its gifts until his cargohold was full to the brim- again and again! It had made him a rich man...
He drew his pad from his pocket and gave it a quick peek. He still WAS a rich man. Although...
Scrolling down he noticed some... strange transactions. A few million here, several million there.
Then he stopped scrolling. He had paid HOW MUCH for WHAT?
"Deployment: 5x Anaconda, 10x Krait, 15x Python, 50x Eagle; Contractor: Mercs'R'Us; Payment: 3.5 bn creds; Mission: Liberation of system '33 Bootis', providing assistance to '33 Bootis Workers Party'"
He swallowed heavily. Well, that was ONE way to spend your money. Putting the pad away again to keep himself from possibly discovering even more bills for private wars in banana systems, redneptun tried to focus on the Galnetcast again.
Someone had really done it, he thought. Some crazy son of a bitch had lost his last bit of reason due to LTD-induced brainfreeze and had tried to tow the EGG into hyperspace using his fleet carrier. The resulting hyperspace resonance collapse had swallowed a good part of the gas giants rings, including a small part of its upper atmosphere. The hotspots were gone and the complete planetary system was currently readjusting due to the changes in its bodies' gravitational distribution.
And the EGG and its diamonds... well, they were somewhere- or not; just like thousands of missing miners. This type of event was unprecedented, so no one knew for sure if or where it all went. Redneptun sighed. Looks like the only eggs in Kirre's Icebox one would be able to find for years to come would be the eggheads swarming the place like insects. Everyone wanted to know WHAT THE HELL happened there.
Of course there were also alternative theories about the vanishing of the EGG fermenting deep in the guts of Galnet. Theories about eldritch gods, eternal salvation and an El Dorado for rock hoppers. Redneptun turned off the screen. He never had never been a religious man, anyway. Or... had he...?
"COMRADE!", he heard the communist miner roaring again as he finally returned. "DRINK SOME- IT WILL GET YOU BACK ON FEET!"
Redneptun took the glass and felt it instantly clinging to his skin. It was freezing cold.
A deep sip cleared his mind like a fresh breeze chasing away winter's last clouds.
He smiled. Maybe interstellar communism had its benefits after all.