58 Eridani: Episode 1
~ by Andrew Robins
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58 Eridani, Year 29.71 -753 Solar Era (2993 CE).
Free_Trader_Mistral\Ancillary_Core\Passenger\Ramada_Collective_Charter\Survey_log\127
SURVEY STATUS:
- Survey GREEN
- Loading and cataloguing RED (not able to complete)
- Supply status AMBER (not yet known)
- Team Status RED
Daily Log: Mission Director DiDi Turner*, personal entry:
Today was a disaster
We don’t know if Matty, Staner, Dre, Cat, Sui and Half Moon are still alive. We left them on the surface of Mission Target Three.
It makes no difference that we had no choice. When the five minute warning was given they could not make it back to the ship, and we have to assume they are dead.
The attack came out of the blue. We don’t even know who launched it. I have reviewed the sensor logs myself and am none the wiser.
What we know is that a more than 10, 000 high mass vessels appeared in system. We didn’t detect a jump point and we got no warning.
Their first act was to start attacking the sensor net we deployed when we kicked off our survey of the system. They attacked the net with a range of different weapons, but most worryingly with a set of missiles that seemed capable of sustained accelerations of up to 1200 gs.
We don’t know of any technology which is capable of doing that. The fact that such a technology is possible, and being used to make weapons, is horrifying to me.
I will give the crew credit. They gave us five minutes to get on board which was a bold call. They are not part of our collective, and they could see a large element of the unknown fleet on an inbound vector for MT Three. I am grateful to them for the time that they gave us, and also for the special effort they took to rendezvous with Huia and Sheen. That swallow manoeuvre was a moment of gifted madness. I must remember to thank Amelia for her courage.
It worries me beyond words that most of the unknown fleet did not target MT Three. The best analysis of the available data shows that many vessels left system almost immediately on arrival – this time using standard jump drives.
The energy signatures and departure vectors indicate a range of different targets – all of them amongst our human core worlds
As for us, we have survived, although we cannot be sure for how long. There was no way for us to reach minimum safe distance, and so we executed the first in-atmosphere jump that I have ever heard of.
It should not have been possible for us to do this. And yet here we are in jump space. The crew tell us that our drive is heavily damaged, which means we have no control over when, or where, we will arrive.
But for now we are alive – and that is going to have to be enough.
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Check back in on Saturday 19 for Episode 2 of 58 Eridani.
* Mission Director DiDi Turner is a "non-player character", operated by the Games Master.
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Andrew Robins is a long time reader – and sometime reviewer – of science fiction, fantasy and history. People pay him to test stuff, which most of the time is more fun than it has any right to be.
To check out Andrew’s book reviews, see “Book Reviews for ‘on Anything, Really’” in the right-hand side bar.