MURASAKI BROADCAST CORPORATION NEWS BROADCAST DATED 8-12-58
GEHENNA STATION
GLIESE 832 SYSTEM
SULIANA: Hello, good evening and welcome to a special
edition of Em-Be-Cee news. We’ve just received word that shots have been fired
in the Salahuddin Building on Twenty-Five-Hundred Nodaway Avenue. Corporation
Peacekeepers have cordoned off the surrounding area, and what is believed to be
a Tactical Armed Response unit has been spotted moving into the building
several minutes ago. We go now live to Farman Dzierzkowice who is at the scene.
Farman, what can you tell us? Have there been any further developments?
FARMAN: Hi, thank you, Suliana… no. Although the scene here
at the Salahuddin is very tense at the moment, with multiple Peacekeeper
vehicles surrounding the building, it has been, for the most part, quiet since
we arrived. A medical team arrived with the TAR team about ten minutes ago, and
proceeded past the barriers and into the building via… wait one second,
Suliana, there seems to be a… yes, if you watch on the monitor, you can see
Kay-suits being deployed from the TAR hovercraft. They, uh, seem comparatively
light for kaybots, and… okay, yes, I’m now receiving statistics on my feed, and
these are Em-One-Fifty-One Fast Attack Kaybots. Now, they’re small and they’re
fast, which makes them ideal for urban combat scenarios, but the fact that they
are being deployed here at all should speak to the severity of the situation
inside the building.
SULIANA: Thank you for that, Farman. We have here in the
studio with us Retired Colonel George Maasbommel, formerly of the
Em-Cee-Dee-Ef. Now, tell us, Colonel: what kind of situation could be
developing in there that would necessitate the deployment of kaybots?
MAASBOMMEL: Well, Suliana, the modern kaysuit has many
advantages that may prove useful in a civilian setting. First of all-
SULIANA: I’m so sorry, Colonel, but we’ll have to go back to
the Salahuddin, as I am told that more shots have been fired. Farman?
FARMAN: Yes, Suliana! Mere seconds after the Kay-suits were,
uh, deployed from the transport, the transport itself came under fire from what
looked and sounded like anti-infantry rockets, fired from a position somewhere
relatively high up in the Salahuddin Building. The transport is heavily damaged
and is being maneuvered out of position… no one seems to be injured at present,
but the TAR team is taking every precaution to ensure safety, and we have been
asked to move back and out of the maximum projected range of… whoever is firing
these rockets.
SULIANA: Thank you, Farman… please, get yourself to safety
and we know you will keep us informed if there are any further developments.
FARMAN: Absolutely. You can count on me.
SULIANA: Stay safe, Farman. Farman Dzierzkowice there, in
the line of fire to keep us in the loop… Colonel Maasbommel, I believe you were
discussing the advantages of kaysuits?
MAASBOMMEL: Yes… tell me, do any of you have the
specifications for the kind of transport used to ferry the kaybots in?
SULIANA: Um, yes… it was an Em-Six-Six-Five, known as a
‘Bear.’
MAASBOMMEL: I see… and your man, uh, Jerz-
SULIANA: Dzierkowice, yes.
MAASBOMMEL: Yes, he said that it had taken significant
damage.
SULIANA: Yes.
MAASBOMMEL: Well, that means that whoever’s firing from in
there had access to some fairly heavy weaponry, so in my opinion, simple
criminals would be… unlikely culprits.
SULIANA: What are you saying here, Colonel? Could Gehenna Station be under attack by some kind of insurgents?
MAASBOMMEL: Well, I don’t like to speculate, but yes, that
could be a possibility.
SULIANA: What are some other possibilities, in your opinion?
MAASBOMMEL: W-
um, well it could be anything, really, from, uh terrorists who have
somehow managed to obtain operating codes for Kaybots, to some sort of special
mission orchestrated by a foreign government.
SULIANA: Okay, but… wait one, there seem to have been more
developments at the site. Farman, can you hear me?
FARMAN: Yes! The terrorists seem to be making a frontal
attack on the Peacekeepers in the building lobby! As you can see, there is a
full-on plasma firefight going on in the-
(loud explosion)
(loud explosion)
SULIANA: Farman! Farman, are you there?
FARMAN: Huh? Yeah, yeah, I’m… I’m here and uh… oh. Oh God.
Oh my God, Suliana… the… the terrorists are dead, they’re all dead, and the
Peacekeepers in the lobby too… they- the attack seems to have been a suicide
run, and they… detonated themselves and… they… they’re all dead. Every single
one of them.
MURASAKI BOARD OF TRUSTEES
SPECIAL ASSEMBLY OF HONOR-TRUSTEES
MAJOR SHAREHOLDERS AND EXECUTIVES ACCESS ONLY
CLEARANCE CODE REQUIRED FOR VIEWING
PLEASE ENTER YOUR 18-DIGIT CODE NOW
PROCESSING.
PROCESSING.
ACCESSING.
DISPLAYING…
VICE PRESIDENT COTTINGHAM: Thank you, all in attendance. For
those of you teleconferencing in, sorry if it’s the middle of the night over
there, but you really ought to consider moving to where the action is.
(scattered laughs)
MR. COTTINGHAM: Now, as you all know, we’re here to review
the incident over on Metal H - uh, I mean, Gehenna Station two weeks ago. The
Board of Directors’ immediate reaction was to detail an investigative team from
Elder Section. The team was given leeway around, authority over and resources
from the Peacekeepers, the Em-Cee-Dee-Ef and Ay-Tee-and-Ay to accomplish its
goals; namely, the protection of your interests and investments as
Honor-Trustees of this company. Now, in order to speed up the process, a
Trustee Board majority vote decreed that the findings of said investigation be
delivered to you ASAP, so the team leader’s fully updated and synchronized
surrosynth will be asked in here in a second, in lieu of the commander himself,
who is following up a lead on Haven. Since I’m sure some of you remember only
too well what happened last year at Yanrakynnot, let me assure you that this is
a purpose-specific debrief-only surrogate. It has no wireless transmitters of
any kind, was constructed with self-purging dataports, and is scheduled for a
complete motherboard wipe and incineration following this briefing. Even so, I
know how some of you guys feel about surros, so if you’d like to take a minute
to compile and switch to internal datanets, now is the time. Also, for those of
you who have never dealt with surrosynths before, please address it as Jody,
Captain Shaw or Mister Shaw, but be warned that it is not aware of its own
nature and imminent destruction. It truly believes it is Captain Shaw; this is
done to increase its effectiveness as a surrogate. Under no circumstances
indicate, mention or even insinuate that it is anything less than utterly and
completely human.
(inaudible whispering
and mumbling)
MR. COTTINGHAM: Alright, ladies and gentlemen. Mister
Campos, if you’d be so kind.
(door opens, shuts)
MR. COTTINGHAM: Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to
you: Captain Jody Shaw of Elder Section.
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: Good evening, Mister Vice
President, Members of the Trustee Board.
MR. COTTINGHAM: Good evening, Jody. How’s your mother doing?
If you don’t mind my asking?
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: Not at all, sir. Chemo’s
pretty rough, sir, but she’s a fighter. Doc’s given her a fifty-fifty chance.
MR. COTTINGHAM: Damn. Still, that’s better than nothing.
Just remember to send us the bill.
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: Yes sir.
MR. COTTINGHAM: I mean it, Jo. If I find out you’ve paid as
much as a yen of that treatment, I’ll be very upset.
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: Thank you, sir.
MR. COTTINGHAM: Now, if you’d be so kind as to deliver your
report, please.
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: Very good, sir. Our initial
investigation was three-pronged: first, we sifted through the Kaybot wrecks at
the Salahuddin Building to see what that could tell us about the suspects.
Second, we combed through the transmissions and security feeds from the
building that night, trying to identify them, and third, we did background
checks on everybody with access to the office, looking for an inside man.
MR. COTTINGHAM: And what did you find?
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: The transmissions and
security feeds were mostly a dead end, the latter because the perpetrators
never took off their Kaysuits throughout the incident, and the former due to
the high amount of vocal scrambling on the intercepted transmissions. The team
appears to have been well trained, sir: they practiced radio silence unless
absolutely necessary, and used code names all the way through. The vocal
scramblers used oscillating, randomized filters, meaning that for any positive
voice-ident to be made, we’d have to either completely normalize the patterns,
leaving the voices masked, or manually touch up every transmission, which once
again left the vocal patterns unidentifiable.
MR. JAROLIN: Excuse me, uh, Captain, but you said ‘mostly a
dead end’… did the analyses of the vocal transmissions produce any information
at all?
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: Yes and no. Once we’d cleaned
up the vocals, I had a dialect expert listen to the accents and see if she
could make anything out. Most were pretty neutral, big city accents from the
Tri-System Hub or the Hinterlands, but one was a lucky hit. Our girl identified
it as something called an Essey accent, local to Fourlakes in the Thirty-Six
Ophiuchi System. This proved mildly useful, for reasons I’ll come back to later.
MR. JAROLIN: I see. Go on.
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: We had a bit more luck on the
other fronts. Genetic analysis of what little was left of the perpetrators
scored no hits off our genetic database, but, much like the accent analysis,
revealed a mixed bag, which led me to begin to suspect we were not, in fact,
dealing with secessionists or insurgents, as they would most likely have a more
uniform genetic makeup. Analysis of the Kaysuit wrecks was far more conclusive:
they were local thefts, stolen from the Forty-One-Twentieth Em-Cee-Dee-Eff reserve
barracks in the Maleheh district. This we ascertained after reconstructing part
of a circuit board serial number, and having all barracks on the station report
missing units.
MR. TAGGART: Thefts? How were they stolen?
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: Well, I say thefts, but they
were actually requisitioned, ostensibly by a Lieutenant-Colonel Duthie of the
Dalsze barracks. We ran a check on the requisition, and quite quickly
discovered it was bogus, lacking Duthie’s correct ten-digit ident. We ran down
the noncom who made the delivery, a Corporal Chatterjee, who said that his
delivery instructions told him to hand the Kaybots over to an Ay-Tee-and-Ay
clerk, who had purportedly been ordered to inspect the Kaysuits for topside
action prior to their final delivery to Dalsze.
MR. ECKERT: What? And the paperwork checked out?
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: Yes, but only superficially.
It was filed on completely authentic Em-Cee-Dee-Ef requisition templates, which
is why neither Chatterjee nor his staff sergeant thought to question them.
MR. TAGGART: Even so, this obviously constitutes a serious
security breach. The Board of Directors has been informed, I take it?
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: Yes. More stringent security
measures are already being implemented, as I understand it. If I may continue?
MR. TAGGART: Of course… pardon my interruption.
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: Not a problem. Now, this
supposed Ay-Tee-and-Ay dataclerk was obviously not what he said he was. The
handoff was made in the basement of the Ay-Tee-and-Ay’s offices in Łomnica
Square. We located the hovertruck in the parking basement of the Salahuddin
Building; the two basements are linked by a cargo transfer chute that traverses
the entire Stromer district. The Kaybots then entered the building through the
number seven freight elevator. By now, the amount of evidence we’d accumulated
on the manner of entry began to point to a rather disturbing conclusion: an
inside man was almost certainly involved, and our background checks on
personnel revealed something even more disturbing.
MR. NOTTOLINI: Oh?
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: Yes. After a thorough
investigation of all of the Murasaki employees attached to the office at
Twenty-Five-Hundred Nodaway, we found twelve people with anomalies in their
records that we felt warranted further research. Of those, eight of them turned
out to have verified personal reasons for said anomalies: mild pre-contract
anti-corporate sentiment due to the nature and location of their upbringing,
minor embezzlement out of desperation due to family illnesses or simple greed,
stuff like that. Two of the others died in the incident, leaving only two: a lab
technician named Hering and a senior scientist by the name of George Graham.
(scattered mumbling)
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: Now, since the aforementioned
Kaysuit requisition came on completely legit paperwork and Graham was the only senior
staff member at the lab whose past is… shall we say, ‘interesting,’ he
instantly became our prime suspect.
MR. CAMPBELL: Excuse me, Mister Shaw, but what exactly was
it about Graham that you found so ‘interesting?’
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: Well, first of all, he was
educated in a Confederate academy, the Eleventh Chapter Supralight Theory
Academy in Pennsylvania, but defected after his internship and wasn’t seen
again until the E-I raid on Ceres, personally supervising the metal extractors.
A cross-referencing of all our asset databases confirms that he was completely
unaccounted for throughout the Moon War and up until after the Cannon.
Furthermore, his internship was in Bernhardt Propulsion Labs on Mars, a subsidy
of the Currie Group, which, as I’m sure many of you remember, was the primary
corporate financier of the Earth Initiative, and subsequently Silas Blake’s
construction of the first Jump Cannon. This offers substantial circumstantial
evidence that he spent this period in Blake’s personal employ, working on the
Cannon. He then stays off-radar until resurfacing about eight years ago,
working for Thicket Intra-System Travel, a nationalized subsidy of the United
Systems Military. He defects to us five years ago at Lacaille
Nine-Three-Five-Two, and has since then been working for Manifesto Section on
what I understand is the top-secret project that eventually led him to Gehenna. He is currently at large, not counted amongst the dead, but not present
among the living.
MR. HÄRTLING: I see.
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: In short: he is an
intelligent man with a rare gift for self-preservation and a decidedly fluid
sense of loyalty. As I do not have access to Manifesto Section’s files, I was
unable to ascertain what possible motives he might have had for orchestrating
an armed assault on his own lab, but the rest of the pieces add up. An element
of my team trawled the port bars on Gehenna, asking about a woman with the accent
we heard on the intercepts, and sure enough, a merc named Auyón, first name Şenkaya,
street name ‘Pilgrim’, was known to frequent the bars around the Zelter Docks until two
weeks ago. A number of other local mercs have not been seen for some time, and
we managed to tentatively match some of their identities to genetic material
found at the scene; namely, a Brett Kontorfilli, street name ‘Goodluck,’ a Huw
Curtin, street name ‘Savage,’ and a Christopher Garvan, street name ‘Third.’ We
suspect they were part of a mercenary team hired by Doctor Graham to attack the
secret lab in the Salahuddin Building to facilitate his own illicit escape from
Murasaki space.
MR. COTTINGHAM: And have you made any headway in locating
Doctor Graham?
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: Some. He maintained a sizable
estate on Haven, but an investigation revealed that the estate is largely a
cover. It seems he married a local woman and purportedly had three children
with her, but it didn’t take much investigation for me to find out that the
marriage is a sham and the children weren’t his; he was simply paying her to
maintain the illusion that he’d settled down comfortably in Murasaki employ. As
far we can tell, he hasn’t even been to Haven in years. This kept him under Elder
Section radar to a degree sufficient for us not to raise any red flags when he
was given special clearance. Now, as I do not have that clearance, I could not
speculate as to his current whereabouts, but I would assume he would be seeking
a buyer for whatever information he accumulated working for Manifesto Section.
By this time, he could be clear across the Thicket or on the other side of the
River.
MR. ŘEZÁČ: Very enlightening, Mister Shaw, thank you… tell
me, do you think any of this mess could have been averted if Elder Section had
been kept better apprised of Manifesto Section’s affairs? The nature of the
research being conducted at the Salahuddin building, perhaps?
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: That’s… a very loaded
question, Mister Řezáč, and I’m not sure if it would be in my best interest to
answer it. There are supervising chairmen of both sections in the room, and…
MR. ŘEZÁČ: Please. Humor us.
SURROGATE 64-95649BN929/88BBE: Well… I understand the need
to compartmentalize information, but I can’t help but wonder how exactly we’re
going to find Doctor Graham. Without access to Manifesto Section’s files on his
research, Elder Section will be forced to spread its undercover assets pretty
thin and hope Graham stumbles into the net. We won’t be able to target likely
boltholes and agencies or officials he might contact, seeking negotiations or
even asylum. And even if Manifesto could give us an accurate and concise list
of that info without briefing us fully on Graham’s work, it would be pretty
easy for us to extrapolate the nature of the information he has from it. In any
case, it would be unwise for us to proceed without all the relevant background info;
it might lead to us compromising the info anyway, and in enemy territory.
MR. COTTINGHAM: Quite. Thank you, Captain Shaw. Were there
any further questions for the good captain? No? Very well… Captain, you may
leave now. Thank you for your time.
(door opens, closes)
MR. ŘEZÁČ: Fascinating. And it truly knows nothing of its
real nature?
MR. HÄRTLING: No, nothing. In fact, it-
(gunshot)
MR. NOTTOLINI: Good God! What was that?
MR. COTTINGHAM: Calm down, Michel. That was Campos
terminating the surrogate.
MS. PETROVA: Is it really necessary to do it by shooting…
it?
MR. COTTINGHAM: Quite. You have to keep in mind that it had
all of Shaw’s skills, all of his abilities. Shooting it in the back of the head
as soon as possible really is the most effective way. But let’s put that aside
for now, shall we? We have more pressing matters to attend to.
MR. HÄRTLING: Quite! If Graham really is on the run, we
could stand to lose millions here! Billions, even!
MR. ADETONA: Billions, Rico? The hell with your billions. We
might be about to lose Earth.
MR. JAROLIN: Earth!? What in blazes was Graham working on
that was this important?
MR. TAGGART: An experimental propulsion system that could
have taken us to Earth without going through the Freehold. Some sort of gravity-powered
mass drive, right? Pretty esoteric stuff, as I recall.
MR. COTTINGHAM: Yes. It would give any sufficiently massive
spaceworthy vehicle the ability to utilize a sort of… gravitic accelerant to
travel parsecs in a matter of hours, the only catch being that you could only
use it to travel between large-mass planets. If you use a star, you come out of
the jump too close and fry your ship, and a smaller planet couldn’t generate
enough mass to bring you out of it; you’d either plow straight into the planet,
or more likely miss it by a few million klicks and just keep going forever.
Still, the schematics I was shown were quite promising. It was designated a
high priority by the Board of Directors from the get-go.
MR. ŘEZÁČ: Pánbůh. How far along with his research was Graham?
MR. COTTINGHAM: Michel?
MR. NOTTOLINI: According to Manifesto’s latest memo, he was
on the verge of a major breakthrough. Very close, in fact.
MRS. SZILÁGYI: How close are we talking, here? And when was
this memo drafted?
MR. NOTTOLINI: First of this month, as per standard
procedure.
MR. WARDEN: Son of a bitch. Just over a week before the
incident.
MS. PETROVA: It gets better.
MR. NOTTOLINI: Maria-
MS. PETROVA: Oh, come on, Michel. The cat might has well
have eaten the bag and crapped it in our faces at this point.
MR. NOTTOLINI: It’s procedure for all the lab chiefs to
submit progress reports at the end of every day, and Graham was a little late
with his.
MS. PETROVA: A little!
MR. ECKERT: How late?
MR. NOTTOLINI: You have to understand, it’s not unusual for
these guys to be slightly behind with this stuff. They keep saying they can’t
be rushed, and a lot of these beakers just plain forget! They’re very-
MR. COTTINGHAM: How late was Doctor Graham’s report, Michel.
MR. NOTTOLINI: It’s difficult to say if it was accurate-
MS. PETROVA: A week.
MRS. SZILÁGYI: So let me get this straight: you put a
three-time defector in charge of one of the most sensitive and important
scientific projects in the world, and don’t think to at least check in on him
when he hasn’t reported in for a whole week?
MR. NOTTOLINI: He’s a brilliant scientist, and everyone says
so! We ran his proposed jump cannon recalibrations through Em-Cee-Dee-Ef’s most
advanced Neuschönau simulators, and they were so accurate, they had the
Em-Cee-Cees making planetfall an average of eight meters from the target! Eight
meters, from two-point-three parsecs away!
MR. TAGGART: So what you’re saying is that if someone’s
really, really smart, he’s automatically not a security risk anymore?
MR. COTTINGHAM: That’s enough, people. An abridged report on
Michel’s… rather dubious judgment in this affair will be made public for the
shareholders at the end of this quarter, and they’ll decide his fate, but in
the meantime, I think we can all agree it would be best if he stepped down as
managing coordinator of Manifesto Section in the interim.
MR. WARDEN: I second that.
MR. COTTINGHAM: All in favor?
MR. CLARE: Aye.
MRS. SZILÁGYI: Aye.
MR. TAGGART: Aye.
MR. ROBERTSON: Nay.
MR. ŘEZÁČ: Aye.
MR. HILL: Nay.
MR. ECKERT: Aye.
MR. CAMPBELL: Aye.
MR. HÄRTLING: Nay.
MR. JAROLIN: Nay.
MR. ADETONA: Aye.
MS. PETROVA: …aye.
MR. COTTINGHAM: Well, there we have it. Mister Nottolini, if
you’d be so kind.
MR. NOTTOLINI: Yes. Yes, of course.
(door opens, closes)
MR. COTTINGHAM: Now that that’s concluded, I’d like to get
your collective input before I submit my report to the Board Of Directors.
MR. JAROLIN: Well, it’s obvious. Graham will have to be hunted
down and eliminated, tout-suite.
MR. ADETONA: Or at the very least imprisoned, brought up on
charges for corporate espionage.
MR. TAGGART: Screw ‘corporate,’ we’re a government now! He
should be shot for treason!
MS. PETROVA: If I might make an alternate suggestion?
MR. COTTINGHAM: Of course.
MS. PETROVA: As the Shaw-surrogate pointed out earlier, it
would be very difficult to catch Graham without compromising the information he
has and allowing it to spread even further. It would also be extremely unlikely
for us catch him before he sells his research, meaning that any punishment
leveled against him would be pointless.
MR. ŘEZÁČ: What would you suggest we do, then?
MS. PETROVA: In regards to Graham himself? Nothing. Let him
try his luck with the other governments; in all likelihood, they will be too
suspicious of him to trust the research, especially if we send no one after
him. In regards to the work he did, however, I feel it would be wisest to make
his ideas a reality, and put them to use before anyone else can.
MR. ADETONA: Explain.
MS. PETROVA: What Graham either didn’t know, or was banking
on us not to make use of, is that we not only keep complete backups of all
corporate lab mainframes, but have used personality-coded computer brains –
very similar to your surrogates – to build upon the research of deceased or
retired scientists. I have seen Graham’s work, and what the computer brains
have built upon it, and am confident that we can achieve a working prototype of
the mass drive in a few weeks.
MRS. SZILÁGYI: In a few weeks she says! And what would you
propose we do with this prototype?
MS. PETROVA: Well, invade Earth, of course.
(murmuring, chuckling
from around room)
MS. PETROVA: I’m quite serious. We won’t be able to stop the
other governments from having the mass drive, so we might as well be the first
to put it into action.
MR. HÄRTLING: Now, even if this plan weren’t lunacy, I
thought Scott said that the drive only works if you’re jumping between very
large planets, and I assume Earth would not qualify for that.
MS. PETROVA: You’re quite right. We’d use Jupiter or Saturn
as a target for the drive, and then establish a beachhead on one of the outer
moons; from there, we could build up a powerful enough force to hit Earth
within a fortnight.
MR. HILL: Do we even own any planets large enough for this 'mass drive?' I've been to half the systems in the Hinters, and all I remember seeing are Earth-types and smaller.
MS. PETROVA: We actually have one potential candidate for a launch site: Crustallos.
MR. JAROLIN: Really? Crustallos is that big?
MR. ROBERTSON: Where is this 'Crustallos?'
MR. JAROLIN: Not two parsecs from where you're sitting, Rick. It's a massive chunk of uncolonized ice in orbit around Gliese Six-Seven-Four.
MR. ŘEZÁČ: Well? Scott?
MR. COTTINGHAM: Well, it’s… an interesting idea. Certainly interesting enough for me to include in the report.
MR. ADETONA: Oh, it’s a doozy, alright.
MR. COTTINGHAM: Any other suggestions?
MR. ROBERTSON: Asides from what Jon and Ralph already
suggested, no.
MR. HILL: No.
MR. CLARE: Nope.
MR. ECKERT: No, nothing. It seems you have this board’s
unanimous backing in proceeding with the elimination of Doctor Graham.
(throat clearing)
MR. ECKERT: And, uh, looking into Maria’s rather ambitious
plan.
MR. COTTINGHAM: Very well; this meeting is adjourned. Have a
nice weekend, everybody.
HOUSE CENTAURI ROYAL SECURITY ARCHIVES
DATED IN THE ANNUM OF THE TWELFTH STAR, EIGHTIETH CYCLE
INDEPENDENT CODED INTERCEPT
(note: all parties in
this transcript are positively identified as allies of the Freehold, and the
purpose of this intercept was for verification only. All relevant files have
been cleared and made accessible on the House Sol registry computer system in
New Caracas.)
LT. CMDR. PEARS, VENUS BRIGADE, DIRECTORATE INTEGRATED
COMMAND: CenCom, this is 'Joule,' do you read, over?
CENTRAL COMMUNICATIONS SURROGATE RELAY I/S-4, .86 AU ORBIT:
Roger, 'Joule,' this is CenCom, over.
LT. CMDR. PEARS, VENUS BRIGADE, DIRECTORATE INTEGRATED
COMMAND: I just had a hostile bogey buzz one of my bases… did InterSpace pick
up anything unusual flitting around? Over.
CENCOM SURROGATE RELAY I/S-4, .86 AU ORBIT: Negative, Joule.
If you have hostiles, then they're planet-bound, over.
LT. CMDR. PEARS, VENUS BRIGADE, DIRECTORATE INTEGRATED
COMMAND: Well, if this is some Venusian colonist’s idea of a prank, it’s not a
particularly funny one, over.
CENCOM SURROGATE RELAY I/S-4, .86 AU ORBIT: Describe the
nature of the encounter, over.
LT. CMDR. PEARS, VENUS BRIGADE, DIRECTORATE INTEGRATED
COMMAND: An Em-Thirty-Seven with a false transponder registry drove through the
Ovda airbase, heading southeast, and then turned and headed back through on a
northbound heading. We tracked him down into the Niobe, where we lost him a few
hours later. Over.
CENCOM SURROGATE RELAY I/S-4, .86 AU ORBIT: Is there a
possibility of some sort of sensor phantom or glitch, over?
LT. CMDR. PEARS, VENUS BRIGADE, DIRECTORATE INTEGRATED
COMMAND: No, no, negative, CenCom, I tracked him visually into the base. He
zipped past my Em-Cee-Cee and took a couple potshots at the fighters in the
maintenance bays. I saw him with my own eyes, over.
CENCOM SURROGATE RELAY I/S-4, .86 AU ORBIT: Your Em-Cee-Cee sensor
array is not equipped with the latest forgery-detection software. How were you
able to ascertain the Em-Thirty-Seven was equipped with a falsified transponder
code? Over.
LT. CMDR. PEARS, VENUS BRIGADE, DIRECTORATE INTEGRATED
COMMAND: It was flashing an Imperial I-Eff-Eff code at me. Over.
CENCOM SURROGATE RELAY I/S-4, .86 AU ORBIT: Understood. I
assume you have already contacted the Venus Transit Authority in Beta Regio and
the Double-Vee-Ar in Mariko City, inquiring about lost or stolen Em-Thirty-Sevens?
Over.
LT. CMDR. PEARS, VENUS BRIGADE, DIRECTORATE INTEGRATED
COMMAND: Yeah, and there were a few, but… listen, no offense, CenCom, but is
there a human on board? I was expecting to speak to your supervisor, a
Lieutenant Declercq? Over?
CENCOM SURROGATE RELAY I/S-4, .86 AU ORBIT: Lieutenant
Declercq is currently asleep. This is the night shift, over.
LT. CMDR. PEARS, VENUS BRIGADE, DIRECTORATE INTEGRATED
COMMAND: You guys don’t have anyone working the night shift? Over?
CENCOM SURROGATE RELAY I/S-4, .86 AU ORBIT: Yes, it is
usually monitored by Second Lieutenant Montenegro, but she is on leave. Over.
LT. CMDR. PEARS, VENUS BRIGADE, DIRECTORATE INTEGRATED
COMMAND: And that’s the whole crew, over?
CENCOM SURROGATE RELAY I/S-4, .86 AU ORBIT: Negative. There
is also Senior Specialist Maria Bagehot, enlisted, our chief technician. Over.
LT. CMDR. PEARS, VENUS BRIGADE, DIRECTORATE INTEGRATED
COMMAND: Well, where the hell is she, over?
CENCOM SURROGATE RELAY I/S-4, .86 AU ORBIT: Off-duty in the
mess hall, sir. She does not wish to be disturbed, over.
LT. CMDR. PEARS, VENUS BRIGADE, DIRECTORATE INTEGRATED
COMMAND: Well, can you fucking get her on the horn? This is kind of important,
over.
CENCOM SURROGATE RELAY I/S-4, .86 AU ORBIT: According to
station recreational and medical sensors, she has been rendered temporarily
unfit for active duty, and would need to undergo detoxification before
reporting in, over.
LT. CMDR. PEARS, VENUS BRIGADE, DIRECTORATE INTEGRATED
COMMAND: Great. Fucking terrific. Over.
CENCOM SURROGATE RELAY I/S-4, .86 AU ORBIT: I’m sorry, could
you clarify your last transmission? Over.
LT. CMDR. PEARS, VENUS BRIGADE, DIRECTORATE INTEGRATED
COMMAND: Never mind, just forward my report to Earth, and- g- what in all the
blazes…
CENCOM SURROGATE RELAY I/S-4, .86 AU ORBIT: I’m sorry, could
you clarify your last transmission? Over.
LT. CMDR. PEARS, VENUS BRIGADE, DIRECTORATE INTEGRATED
COMMAND: We’re under attack! We’re under attack from a force of
Em-One-Sixty-Fives and One-Oh-Sixes, no, scratch that, just one Em-One-Oh-Six,
and there’s… Em-One-Nineteens… it’s a lightning assault! They’re everywhere!
And they all have… Imperial markings! I repeat, this is Ovda Airbase, and we’re
under attack from a force of light assault vehicles bearing Imperial markings!
We require immediate assistance from anyo-
(transmission
dissolves in static)
CENCOM SURROGATE RELAY I/S-4, .86 AU ORBIT: I’m sorry, could
you clarify your last transmission? Over.
END INTERCEPT
