INRA Base - Carmichael Point
01 May 2018Robert Phillips
I arrived in HR 1188, a location suggested to me to as a potential source of info on INRA. A quick scan of the system revealed all celestial bodies, and a signal coming from the vicinity of HR 1188 A 2.The source of the signal was an Unregistered Comms Beacon which broadcast the following message on the hour:
Secure 9 14 18 1 Bait Deployed Contact Confirmed HIP 16824 A 2 F Secure
This message had the same identifying number sequence for INRA: 9, 14, 18, 1. It appeared to refer to some kind of shenanigans in HIP 16824, body A 2 F.
I laid in a course and jumped to the system. During a scan of the planet's surface, I detected a faint transmission from coords 73.8762, 61.8761.
I headed down to the surface to investigate.
At the coordinates was an old abandoned base showing INRA markings: Carmichael Point.
As I circled the base in my SRV, my scanners detected 4 Settlement Comms Log Uplink points that I was able to hack and retrieve the following logs:
Watching The Sky 1/4
…Bypassing security protocols…
…Secure connection established…
…Site records found…
Everything is in place.
If the thargoids take the bait, this facility should come under attack very soon. And when it does, we’ll find out if our new weapons are worth a damn.
It’s taken a lot of time and effort to make this place look like an important military site. I just hope they fall for it. It’s about time we started fighting back.
Watching The Sky 2/4
…Bypassing security protocols…
…Secure connection established…
…Site records found…
Everyone’s on edge. It’s like seeing an approaching storm and waiting for it to break. The air is heavy with the threat of violence.
Maybe they didn’t take the bait? Maybe we hid it too well? Or maybe we didn’t hide it well enough. What if they realise this is a trap?
I suppose it’s too late to worry about that now. All we can do is watch the sky, and wait.
Watching The Sky 3/4
…Bypassing security protocols…
…Secure connection established…
…Site records found…
Contact confirmed! Thargoids 1,000 light seconds from the site and closing. Ready all weapon systems and prepare to fire on my order. We’ve only got one shot at this and I don’t want to miss.
Wait… wait. What is that? That’s not a regular Thargoid ship. It’s huge.
Will someone scan that thing! And tell command we’ve got a mothership here. Get them the data as soon as possible.
All right, all right, that’s close enough. Fire all batteries!
Watching The Sky 4/4
…Bypassing security protocols…
…Secure connection established…
…Site records found…
Test unsuccessful…targets suffered minimal damage…site lost…all operatives…lost…
So, the site was used as bait to test Thargoid weaponry, which ultimately proved to be ineffective. The logs note the presence of a huge Thargoid mothership during the attack. I wonder what that looked like.
Would I ever get to see a mothership firsthand one day...?