156 lines
6.8 KiB
Plaintext
156 lines
6.8 KiB
Plaintext
Message Incoming...
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Source Melchizedek.0294
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Near β Hyi
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Ascension 00h 25m 45.07036s
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Declination –77° 15′ 15.2860″
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Distance 24.35ly
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Equinox J2000.0 SOL
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Year 3782, QEC adjusted
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[System encryption enabled.]
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[Autotranslator enabled...]
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Stephanie Janssen, Specialist First-class
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:::
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To all Earth vessels: we've taken command of the Melchizedek.
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Our captain, Jerome Pasani, is missing. Our crewman, Sandy Kroups,
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is missing too. We are going after them and we're gonna bring them
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home. Or to Beta Hydrii, I mean. New home.
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Our Seriph Rhetorical turned her back on them, so we've removed
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her from command. There's twelve of us on board:
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- Stephanie Janssen (Me)
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- Eva Hämäläinen
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- Dr. Spinelli
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- Dr. Reed
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- Hildar Simms
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- Maureen Hendrix
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- Paul Wall
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- Sandra Gould
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- Lillie Cleveland
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- Donna Fernandez
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- Alonzo Alvarado
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- Edgar Marquez
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Paul, Alonzo, and Edgar are here under duress. Is that the right
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term? They didn't want to be on the ship when we took it, but now
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they're stuck with us. So note that or something in case we get in
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trouble later. We're almost certainly going to get in trouble
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later. If there is a later. There's almost certainly going to be
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a later. Probably.
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Eva is navigating us back along the path that Sandy used to get to
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the anomaly. Also, we're calling it the anomaly now. I suppose
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it's good to have names for things.
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Eva said that we don't need to actually follow the whole path that
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the shuttle took last time since we know they didn't run into
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anything for a while. They read out their position when they got
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anomaly'd. Anomalized. When they saw the thing. So we're going to
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cut across the diagonal, kinda. It's still orbitals so there's
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curves and parabolas, but we're cutting across them too. It won't
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take us as long as it could have, but we'll still be out here
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a bit. That's okay. We have food and water. Maureen fixed that up.
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The night before we left I was hiding in support girding above the
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fore gangway, sandwiched nicely up against some venting and
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coolant tubes. If we'd been flying that would have gotten pretty
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chilly, but instead it was just boring. Meanwhile some of the
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others were being amazing. Maureen changed around duty rosters and
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tasking so that the crew unknowingly re-loaded a bunch of stores
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onto the ship over the past couple days. On the one hand I can't
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believe no one noticed, but really, why would you question it? The
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crew gets all assignments to their pads and everything is
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monitored and orchestrated so you're helping each other without
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really seeing the big picture. Or not, I guess. Score one for us.
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Score two--or goal? I'm not big on sports--was all Eva. Whatever
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is out there it messed with DNA. It actually messed with Simms'
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DNA in particular, and he's been eager to return the favor. We
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have a lot of equipment that deals with sequencing, replication,
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and dispersal. They're important for seeding. Well, that's an
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understatement. They ARE the seeding. Them plus a bit of code and
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bots, anyway.
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It's like this: suck out all the genetic material you can, give it
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a good mix, replicate it until you have a LOT, then force-mutate
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it along pathways tried and true back on earth. You spray that all
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over with a little secret sauce and, whammo, life. That's the
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basics anyway. It gets you the microorganisms you need to support
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later larger life-cycles. That's why we go in phases. Regardless,
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the machines are important, so we have a few extras and we have
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manufacturing to create more.
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Manufacturing is its own tricky thing. The factories are designed
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to self-replicate and to replicate any shipboard equipment. Given
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enough time and raw materials they can duplicate the entire
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Melchizedek, but just the mechanical parts. Rare elements are
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still rare on other worlds, so finding Neodymium or something like
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that is not easy. Fuel for the grav sheer isn't limitless, if you
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see what I mean. But local craft? Oh yeah, we can make a bunch of
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them.
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During the early phases of seeding the factories self replicate
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and replicate the genetics equipment as priorities. Each factory
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has some math on how many other factories it needs to make before
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it switches to the lab equipment and so on. They grow like fungi
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or spores or something. It follows one of those Greek letter math
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things, like Pi. I forget which one.
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Why all the background? Well I wanted to explain because WE STOLE
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STUFF! Specifically we have a manufacturer unit and one each of
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the genetics units. More than that, we set them up to actually
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work on board. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that part. Normally
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they're for planetside work. Well, not anymore. Eva snagged us
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some and then she FRIGGIN BLEW UP THE HABITATS! That was wild.
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Lillie and Donna arranged a film night in Habitat D. Have you ever
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seen Double Indemnity? It sounded cool, but I missed it. That got
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the majority of the crew off duty out of the other habitats. Then
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Eva planted explosives in them and in a bunch of the other
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processing plants. I didn't get it at first, but once everyone was
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aboard the Melchy it started to make sense.
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See, starting up a starship isn't a quiet or fast process.
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Especially from the ground. It's loud. Like explosion-level loud.
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It shakes the ground and smoke is everywhere. There's also a lot
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of comms traffic that goes on around it. Most importantly, Prezzi
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could have used her access to get onboard before we could make it
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into the air. We needed one hell of a distraction to steal a whole
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ship. Eva is amazing.
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The habitats were easy targets since everyone will freak out about
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their stuff going up and immediately run to see if they can save
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things. The other explosions hid what we nabbed from the ground,
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just in case they have some way to try to stop us remotely. Nobody
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was too clear on that point. Shhh.
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So once the explosions started, those of us who were onboard
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needed to secure controls. That was probably the easiest part.
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I've been lying in wait just behind the control room entrance for
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two days. Once they all stepped outside I just dropped down,
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scooted inside and locked the door. Ninja moves! Do you know what
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Ninjas are? We saw an old film about them too. Oh, and the doctors
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rounded up the others on duty and kept everyone quiet until we got
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airborne. Almost forgot to tell that part. Dr. Reed is strong!
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Wow.
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Oh, if you're worried about the crew back planet-side you don't
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need to be. There was a lot of damage done that they'll waste time
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fixing over the next few weeks, but nobody was hurt and they're
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not in danger. Probably. I mean, we haven't called them, but from
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the reports I saw they should be fine. Prezzi will be really
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angry. Or no. She'll be very logical and cold and give dirty
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looks, which is about as angry as a Seriph can be.
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We'll document more soon. Hopefully we can talk Alonzo into
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helping with the genetics research. That's his field. In the
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meantime, lots to do.
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Peace and love and righteous disobedience to you all!
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.
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[End of encrypted envelope.]
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