Fire Storm
03 Oct 2021Andadromous
----- GalNet Low-Bandwidth Interpersonal Protocol
Routing Endpoint: Alioth:AliothUniversity:Xenobiology:Student:Student:#900123405N_Rostami
FuzzyLogic Entangled Pair Public Key Encryption; 4096-bit; Obfuscated IPV6
**Warning Low Integrity Channel**
STATUS::Draft 3 October 3307
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Hey kid,
Been a while I know. I think I have this transcriber thing worked out now.
The thargoids attacked Cornsar.
They tell me I should talk about these things. The Galnet medicos checking in all the time to make sure we are not falling down a gravity well we can’t get out of. Planets have exclusion zones, but our brains don’t, or something like that.
What can I say about it? Let’s see. How to explain.
Before the re-terraforming of Earth, before people spread out into the galaxy like lichen creeping over stones, the countries of earth were on fire. They show the videos in history classes but you probably already know this. One image that really sticks with me is a holocapture from the Ottobre Nero, the month-long firestorm that basically removed the old country of Italy from the globe. The holodrone was running from the fire front as fast as its impellers could push it, and behind it there were fire tornados. Giant, swirling columns of flames, sucking in air to make their own winds. Trees wrenched from the ground and spinning ablaze. There’s a commentator screaming about Nero fiddling for some reason as the housings of the drone melt and run over the lens.
Inside the stations, in Cornsar, it was like that. Fire in space is a really bad thing. Without gravity, burning gases can’t rise. Being “lighter” than the air around you is meaningless when nothing has weight. The flames expand out in a globe, and you can’t see them. If your ship flies through one, more oxygen and combustible material can get dragged in with your wake, and suddenly you are in the middle of an explosion. What looked like open space is suddenly an imploding fire tornado.
I heard about the attacks and I had to go help. I’m not going to sit around and do nothing while another Ottobre Nero happens.
Inside the station it is like pre-enlightenment images of hell. Escape pods are swirling around in the flames, triggering fire bursts as they bounce off each other and breach stable flame globes. There’s people in there, signalling frantically to get out. Some of the pods are damaged by the time you get there, and you have to triage. You’ve got a minute before your ship is melting like that old holodrone, even with heatsinks firing. You have to triage. Do you target the damaged pods because those people are nearly dead, or do you target the undamaged pods because you know your limpet is going to be able save them, and it might be too late for the others.
You smack down on the landing pad as fast as you can, and the station drags you in. Inside it is bedlam. People are screaming to get out. Big men try and push credit chips in your face, children wail in the corridors, looking for parents that might already be dead. Evacuation coordinators call out numbers and offers. Passengers scramble over each other to get in the ship, tripping and trampling. There’s a minor faction there called Xembala, they are a tiny part of the system, no presence in any other systems, no controlling interests. A communist group, small and struggling. I don’t know why, perhaps it was their kids in their rough grey clothes, the desperate eyes of their coordinator as they got passed over again and again, the one little girl grasping a doll made of cornhusks and superconductors. Whatever it was that made up my mind, I got them all out.
It took us a week to clear the stations and get the fires out. Combat pilots spoke of interceptors by the thousands, I could hear them on the scanner just a couple of million metres away sometimes. But we got as many out as we could, and ferried them away to safety. I like to think that we were doing good. I like to think I was balancing scales.
I miss you terribly, Nasrin.
[File Termination]
[Draft NOT SENT]
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Interspersed Random Matrix Distribution, Intonation Coding
Routing Undefined
Hard Ansible Protocol; 32,768-bit; Multipass
Malicious Decryption Package ACTIVE
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Objective obtained. 7/7 black boxes recovered; agent recovered by targeted limpet extraction. Recruitment channel open.
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