Fall of Krotsemid. (will be open soon)

[Jordaxia]

A lone crawler tugged itself along one of the many valleys of Krotsemid IV, two treads bolted with semi flexible joints to the sides of a low profile, angular chassis, as hurricane force winds battered the small vehicle and howled throughout the valley. Behind it, churned muddy tracks marked the crawlers’ progress. Sheets of rain crashed down, quickly scouring the landscape of any evidence of its passing. Ahead, nestled where the two ends of the valley culminated in the sharp incline of a mountain, was a concrete burrow with a bulky door at the end. Slowly but stubbornly, the crawler inched towards it.

Inside, a dim red light illuminated the cabin, utilitarian, without enough space to stand straight. The growl of the four engines reverberated through, lending a deep tremor to the A rack of seats on both sides contained numerous suited individuals, most looking bored, staring at the screens of their laptops, analysing huge mounds of data, all of it vital to the wellbeing of the colony, yet tedious to read through. In a crouched pace, Lucius Ahrenson, a Captain in the Union Marines stepped up and down the cabin walkway. At about five foot 11, with short brown hair, deep green eyes, an olive complexion and with a relatively unassuming, light build. Lucius was not the most intimidating soldier in the Union marines, but then, if he was, he would likely be with the frontline forces in the Viran Nebula, rather than safeguarding the peaceful, at least militarily, existence of the 400,000 colonists on Krotsemid IV. With the sound of the engines, as well as the wind and rain striking the hull, he could barely feel himself think. Having spent most of his life on space stations, he wasn’t used to the terrestrial drudge of rain. It was a mercy, then, that at that moment, the crawler crossed the threshold between the raging hurricane outside, and the relative, sterile tranquillity of his destination. Dug deep into the heart of the mountain, it was, ironically for its position, a weather observation station, using some of the most advanced, sensitive, and expensive sensory equipment available to make what was promised to be frighteningly accurate predictions of weather patterns as much as several decades before they formed. Appropriately, the hurricane that formed off the coast 4 miles away, 3 days ago and was still raging, caught the entire facility completely unawares, shorn the sensitive equipment off where it protruded from the side of the mountain, and hurled it, with little dignity, into the sea. This simultaneously managed to compromise the stations communication with the colony, and was the reason that 14 well briefed bureaucrats were now bearing down upon it. As far as Lucius was concerned, that was all irrelevant. He was here on a simple information gathering mission. Marine brass on the planet wanted to know what the damage was to their satellite uplink, which the meteorologists had been granted permission to use whilst the final components of their own network got shipped from Lunache, 3 weeks away by conventional spacefreight. They already knew that it was badly damaged, the fact that they couldn’t communicate with any of their satellites informed them of that, but the security forces were already operating close to their quarterly budget, and cock ups of this magnitude would sting, badly.

The large door thumped shut behind the crawler, finally sealing away the hurricane. The vehicle ground to a halt, engines winding down. At the back of the crawler, a hatch swung down, allowing the bright white light of the observation station to flow in. Blinking, Lucius was the first to step out, as the other passengers yawned and allowed time for their eyes to readjust to something resembling well lit, slowly shutting over laptop lids and unfastening safety harnesses that gripped them securely to the sides of the crawler. It wasn’t that Lucius was especially motivated to look at a shorn stump of an uplink, but 13 hours aboard a rattling, cramped, shuddering vehicle without so much as a net connection to idle away the hours, inspired his legs with a compulsion to walk, and his mind with an urge to do anything. Outside, in the vehicle bay, a small group of worried researchers had gathered. They stiffened when they seen him, anticipating that he would deliver even an ounce of the fury that the military would pour onto them for allowing their entire satnet to be disabled. One of them stepped forward.

“Captain, I…� he stammered, as Lucius’ stepped quickly past him. Dumbfounded, he tried to signal the captain, but his swift step had already carried him to the doorway leading to the station proper. A swipe of an access card caused the door to slide into the wall, and Lucius was gone. Turning back, the lead researcher found himself staring into the eyes of a sharply dressed woman with a decidedly unimpressed look on her face.

“Mr Bertrand Rolan, I am Maria Eriks, I represent the Union Marines finance dept. I’m here to discuss the precise circumstances and expense incurred to the Marine HQ on Krotsemid with you and your team, and your responsibility in the failure of the entire Krotsemid satnet. We understand your team of meteorologists is now indebted to the Marines for quite a significant amount of money.� She flatly flashed an ID badge at Bertrand, as all the colour drained from his face. “Also, the civilian administration of the Krotsemid IV colony would like to have words with you once we are finished discussing financial matters, about the sudden arrival of a force 8 hurricane above the settlement, without any warning whatsoever� she gestured back to several other similarly attired men and women who looked no more happy to see Bertrand than she did.

“Ah.� He managed. “We, uh, we h-have a room set up to meet with you and your colleagues, i-i-if you would p-please follow me?�

She sighed, and waved for him to lead on.

Deeper inside the facility, the grey concrete walls were replaced with clean white tiles on the floors, walls and ceilings. Lucius felt his footsteps uncomfortably loud against the surface, and was thankful he did not have to work here permanently. The entire area felt sterile, as though humans would never live or work here, though he knew the research staff were actually full time residents, though the need for food trucks meant they were not a self sufficient mini-colony. It was only due to the various corridors being well signposted that he had not gotten massively lost, as it was all but impossible to distinguish one from another. He knew it was probably not a deliberate design choice, habitation modules on starting colonies were invariably mass produced prefabs, designed to slot into each other to create a size and shape of rooms and buildings that was acceptable to those who would be using them. Unfortunately, such mass production led to an uncomfortable uniformity that might even be unsettling to people from more developed regions. Krotsemid IV probably wouldn’t see any professional architecture for a century or more if it were a standard human-habitable world, and it was certainly not that. The planetary weather would need to calm down to allow for more buildings to be constructed above ground. That hadn’t happened in the ten years Krotsemid had been a colony for, or the 50 it had been observed as a potential candidate, and it showed no signs of doing so, either.

After a short time navigating the snakelike corridors that ran under the mountain, Lucius finally came across the room that contained the wrecked equipment. Under normal circumstances, the devices would retreat down into the sheltered parts of the station and continue to take partial readings, whilst still permitting communication with the Military satnet. This time, the first warning the meteorologists got that something was up outside was all of the sensors simultaneously failing. They had retracted it, and found a broken, sparking mess of wiring and metal. The first signs they had that there was even severe weather occurring was when they attempted to open the doors and send someone up the mountain to see what had damaged the equipment so suddenly. It didn’t take a genius, Lucius surmised, to see that so much sensitive gear wouldn’t all display identical false readings, and that foul play was a far more likely answer for this catastrophe. Corporate espionage wasn’t unheard of in the union, but it was far less common to find it in an arena that Union officials had a direct interest in. Looking over the wreckage, there wasn’t a single component that he recognised as being the uplink to a satnet of any kind. His report would have to simply state that the hurricane sheared and mangled everything into an irreparable mass, and no repairs would likely be fruitful, and certainly no less than the cost of simply replacing the link outright. Of course, that would mean placing an order in with the fabricators on Lunache, and several weeks delivery time, an almost unbearable amount of time to be short of the satnet. Lucius sat on a chair facing a large, offline screen. It was supposed to be where one of the staff would send the weeks readings along to the Krotsemid IV colony. He looked momentarily at the reflection on the dark glass, and spun on the chair to face the mangled sensors, staring at it. Slowly, he stood and investigated closer. Who would stand to get something from destroying this system? He thought, mind steadily mulling over facts that didn’t add up. It’s not even subtle. There’s no way that all of this stuff can simultaneously malfunction in the same way, it’s got dirty trick wrote all over it. Sure, these guys aren’t going to have any more grant money sent their way anytime in the next century, but obvious sabotage won’t convince anybody this facility was a mistake, just that it was close enough to being onto something that some paranoid moneygrabber had to shut it down! Lucius paced quickly, circling the wreck. But that isn’t all there is. It wasn’t publicised that we let those civvies borrow their satnet uplink to make the whole deal work, but anybody with a few people in the right places could find it out, and there are a lot of interested parties in Krotsemid; people don’t set up shop in the middle of a hellhole like this unless there’s a good reason. Enough precious metals to bankroll another 10 planetary startups kind of a good reason. A lot of people would be interested in sticking their fingers in that kind of pie, but none of them gain anything by shutting down… His own thoughts trailed off as he pushed bits of scrap metal aside, the groans and wails of it resisting his arms not even registering. He dug down to the base, a small hemispherical unit where all the sensors and electronics plugged into the centres power supply. There was a single, almost perfectly circular hole, cut into the frame so precisely it almost looked like it was supposed to be there. “Oh, fuck.� Lucius whispered.





(ok, the set-up is done here. I'm posting this because it's been something I've been working on over the last couple of days. it's actually not anything to do with Jordaxia, but I'm still undecided about introducing this to NS. I actually started this not as an RP project at all, but I'm finding myself drawn to making it that way. It's about a human nation that's just called the 'Union' currently. Think of it as a natural progression of Earth from where we are now, but with different planets, so that I'm not claiming anything inside sol. I kinda got the inspiration from a growing interest in sci-fi that tends to use advances in human tech that we have -now- with a few practical exceptions (shields, FTL.). What this means is guns that fire bullets, cars that have wheels, and generally no stuff that feels REALLY star-trek. I'll let my telling of it be the real descriptor, because I can't neatly summarise what I'm going for here. I know there is no way in right now, but by the end of the next post, there will be, and noting any interest beforehand as to what kind of role anybody might like to play would help. Without wanting to give much away, this will focus around small, ill equipped groups of people against a locally overwhelming force, and anybody who wants to join in shouldn't be expecting to bring more than 5 men. What I'd -really- appreciate, though, is any comment as to the quality of the post. This is my first bit of writing in some time, and I'm wanting to improve drastically, but I can't really think what to do. ok, that's enough rambling from me.