:: Unknown ::
It was a calm and sunny day in the capitol city
of Hiigarius on the serene planet of Hiigara. In the capitol
building, the senate was discussing a new environmental bill. In
the colleges, professors were teaching students basic hyperdrive
theory. In the park, children were playing with their pets. And
in a satellite station, data from a sensor satellite was showing
objects in hyperspace approaching Hiigara.
The report was on a small, featureless diskette
delivered by hand to the senate. "Here you go sir," the
messenger said, handing the disk to Niicara, the president of the
planetary space program, HASA (Hiigaran Aeronautical and Space
Association).
"What is it?"
"An urgent report from the local satellite station."
When was the last time THEY sent any urgent messages?
Niicara thought. I never even knew they had that kind of
authority.
"Why wasn’t this sent electronically?"
"It’s top secret."
This really is odd. A SATTILITE station sending a top secret
message?
"Thank you."
"You’re welcome, sir."
Niicara placed the disk in his computer and activated the program
that contained the report.
Report #45-2375-01 from satellite station
#45-2375
Date: 3/12/35
Priority: AAA, urgent
Classification: Level 2, hand-deliver and show only class-A or
class-B officials. Destruction not required.
The extreme-long-range satellite #ELR5-B has
detected a large group of objects in hyperspace on a direct
course toward Hiigara. They have been automatically designated
f1-35.They are coming directly from the known location of a major
Taiidan base. The supercomputers give a 84% chance of f1-35 being
a Taiidan military fleet, a 13% chance of f1-35 being another
species escaping from the Taiidans and seeking refuge, a 2%
chance of a diplomatic or otherwise peaceful Taiidan fleet, and a
1% chance of sensor error. This situation qualifies (under
directive 24-672) for either increased interstellar caution,
dispatching of an interception fleet, evacuation of Hiigara, or
any combination of the above courses of action. The ETA of f1-35
is approximately 4 months. #ELR5-B and its shorter range
counterparts (MLR3) will have a definite picture of f1-35 in 1
month. Our current forces are insufficient to repel a Taiidan
invasion force consisting of the amount of objects observed. The
supercomputers recommend preparations for a partial evacuation of
Hiigara.
45-2375-01, yup, it’s their first one.
Military fleet? 4 months? That satellite has a pretty good range.
It’ll take forever to evacuate Hiigara. I know we planned
for this when we heard of the Taiidans, but it would take years.
Then again, we could just evacuate SOME of us. We could do it in
4 months, but its inhumane to the rest of us. This is going to be
a long four months.
The senate was busy squabbling over a fuel
price bill when Niicara ran in.
"Can’t you use the doorbell like everyone else,"
someone in the crowd said.
"It’s very important," Niicara said,
"there’s a Taiidan fleet headed this way!"
"WHAT?!?" The senate went silent.
"I received a report showing an 84% chance of Taiidans
coming."
Chairman Dafiira spoke. "Oh, eighty-FOUR percent, the tone
in your voice was that there was 100% chance."
"Either way, there’s a lot of ships coming, and
they’ll be here in four months."
"Again, the tone in your voice was saying something like 5
minutes."
"What do the supercomputers say?"
"To, uh, increase caution, intercept f1-35, or, uh, evacuate
Hiigara."
"f1-35?"
"That’s the objects’ designation."
"Do that in FOUR months?"
"We can intercept in 2 months," Niicara pointed out.
"EVACUATE in four months?" Members of the council
started talking to each other.
Dafiira quieted the restless council. "Okay people, lets
take a vote on this. Everyone submit a proposal on what to do,
I’ll pick the most rational ones, and we’ll vote on
them."
When the vote was over, it was nearly unanimous to simultaneously
dispatch a scouting party to intercept & investigate f1-35
and to prepare to evacuate as many of the Hiigarans as possible.
The space station where the scouting party was
being prepared for launch was clean, polished, and huge. I
wonder why they polished it? Neiign thought as she walked
down the halls. She entered the bay where her trusty scout #56
sat waiting for duty. Out the window, she saw the cold darkness
of space, along with stars, beautiful Hiigara, and various
construction projects, with the carrier her fighter and the
gravity well generators will travel in on the dangerous mission
to intercept the mysterious fleet.
She remembered the commander’s explanation for her question
about what the generators are for. "All the gravity well
generators are to get the attention of the fleet, if it is a
fleet. The generators aren’t powerful enough to bring them
out of hyperspace, but we’re hoping they’ll notice the
strain on their engines and stop to check it out."
As she was watching various ships running around, she noticed
that large scaffolding was being deployed. Scaffolding always
meant they were starting to build something, but that’s a
lot of scaffolding. They’re making something big. I
wonder what it is. She noticed in the distance more large
scaffolding, and more out another window. They’re making a
lot of something big, must be space stations. Her watch started
beeping, signaling her that its time to take her scout to the
carrier.
Neiign flew her scout slowly toward the
carrier, the whole time wondering what all the scaffolding was
for. She had convinced herself that it were space stations, until
she saw a construction robot carrying a hyperspace induction
module toward one of closer construction sites. A space
station with hyperdrive? Now she was totally confused. Then a
thought struck her. Maybe that fleet we’re going to is
Taiidan. Maybe those are evacuation ships. Is Hiigara in trouble?
Then again, it may be a false alarm. Maybe we’re going to
help another race by building spaceships for them to flee.
We’ve done it before. Why not again? It must be a lot a
people though. The autopilot of the scout took over and it
carefully docked itself inside the carrier Interception. I wonder
if that’s a coincidence that it’s named like that and
its first mission is to intercept.
On Hiigara, in a small HASA office, Niicara
watched the soft orange light, a rather weird effect on the
atmosphere that results from hyperspace induction in space. This
particular light was caused by the Interception’s
jump. Only a week, and already we launched the interception
carrier. 3 more weeks until the satellite gives us a good picture
of f1-35, and a month after that until our carrier establishes
contact.
Three weeks later, the report came in.
Report: #45-2375-02 from satellite station
#45-2375
Date: 4/12/35
Priority: AAA, urgent
Classification: Level 2, hand-deliver and show only class-A or
class-B officials. Destruction not required.
Satellites #ELR5-B, MLR3-A, MLR3-B, and MLR3-C
have completed a RHF scan of f1-35. F1-35 is an artificial group
of ships. Not all ships can be identified, but 100% of
identifiable ships are a complete match with Taiidan military or
ground invasion vessels. 50 ships have been spotted, but there is
a 94% chance that there are more than are currently detected, 96%
chance that f1-35 is hostile toward Hiigara, and 95% chance that
evacuation will be necessary if f1-35 is hostile. However, the
chances of successfully evacuating ANY ships after f1-35 arrives
is 21% if f1-35 is hostile.
Niicara’s blood ran cold. I don’t
like those odds. I have a feeling f1-35 is the designation of our
doom.
In the carrier Interception, the blue of
the hyperspace was almost hypnotic. Captain Tiigaw was reading
the morning news, direct from Hiigara, laughing when he reads the
comics.
"Sir!"
"Yes, what is it, Lieutenant?"
"We’re preparing to drop from hyperspace, sir."
"Go ahead."
The blue of the hyperspace reverted back into the serene
blackness of space. The gravity well generators were deploying
themselves towards the optimum locations to alert f1-35.
"Our computations indicate that f1-35 will arrive here in
about 10 minutes, sir."
"Prepare the gravity well generators then."
"Yes, sir!"
Neiign reviewed the instructions in her mind.
"Our gravity well generators will hamper our own hyperdrive
as well as f1-35’s hyperdrive. It will take 5 minutes for us
to move out of our gravity wells to engage the hyperdrive. This
means that if f1-35 is hostile, we need to hold it off for 5
minutes while the Interception prepares to flee. Make sure
I’m docked with it though, or I’ll get left
behind." She activated the launch sequence for her scout,
and scout #56 went gracefully sailing away from the Interception,
followed by other scouts flown by other brave pilots.
"Gravity wells online, sir."
"Very good. How long until we meet f1-35"
"10 seconds, 5…4…3…2…1…now."
"Sir!"
"Yes, what is it?" Diival, the Taiidan commander
replied.
"Our hyperdrive is being bogged down by large numbers of
gravity wells. Should we exit hyperspace?"
"Go on ahead, we have time."
This’ll delay our invasion of Hiigara, but I don’t
think this’ll take too long. I’ve been longing for a
nice, big battle. The blue of the hyperspace dissolved into
blackness and sensors detected a single carrier with a few
scouts.
When the commander saw the Taiidan fleet, his
first words, after gasping for air were "GET US OUT OF
HERE!!"
"It will take 5 minutes to escape from our gravity
wells."
"We’re dead …get the scouts to try and hold them
off so we can get away."
"Yes sir."
"Make sure to transmit all sensor data back to Hiigara so
they know that these guys are hostile!"
"Yes, sir!"
The valiant battle between an entire Taiidan fleet and a Hiigaran
carrier was going badly. The scouts were barely denting the hulls
of the Taiidan ships, the Taiidan corvettes were tearing through
the Hiigaran scouts, and some Taiidan ion cannon frigates were
getting closer and closer to coming in range.
"2 more minutes, sir!"
"Can’t this thing go any faster?"
The Taiidan ion cannon frigates came into range
and opened fire. The order came through to Neiign and the other
remaining scout pilots: "Return to the Interception,
return to the Interception, it is preparing to engage
hyperdrive." Neiign flew full speed toward the badly damaged
carrier, and managed to dock with it. The Taiidan ion cannon
frigates lined up for one last shot.
"Sir, bad news, the Interception
has been destroyed."
Niicara felt bad for sending that brand new carrier to its death.
His friend, Tiigaw, was the captain of that vessel. Why didn’t
we just wait the month for the satellite to determine f1-35’s
nature? At least we know now that f1-35’s hostile.
The sensor data showed that the Taiidans were collecting
resources for the jump to Hiigara. They only had 2 months to go
before the Taiidans attacked Hiigara. It would be the last 2
months of a lot of people’s lives.
Onboard scaffolding 346-C, where the evacuation
transport Escape was being constructed, Liimsa was
overseeing construction of her very own ship. She knew her
incredible engineering skills, in addition to her leadership
skills, would come in very handy. It is almost impossible now to
separate the facts from the rumors about f1-35. Some people say
it’s 1,000,000 ships and 100,000,000 troops, some say its
just a lie designed to keep people away from a secret government
operation. Some say it’ll be here in only 2 months. And some
think its already here, waiting to strike. She didn’t
believe any of those rumors. President Niicara told her and the
captains of the other evacuation transports that it is probably
an invasion force and it’ll be here "soon."
1,000,000 ships, ha! Two months, ha! And the people who say they’re
aliens from another planet, well the Taiidans are. Anyway, the Escape
has to be done as soon as possible, or ASAP as the people in HASA
call it.
I hope I’m not stuck with these idiots when I command
this thing, Liimsa thought as she repeated for the 6th time
to a designer about why cryogenic sections #75 and #105 need to
be connected to power terminal #7 instead of #6. I should hook
the stupid thing up myself, but no, I can only supervise. The
people over at HASA are way too strict, she thought, signing
an equipment purchase form. Why do I have to sign purchase
forms all day? Oh, yeah, the workers are clumsy and break stuff,
even though NOTHING CAN FALL IN ZERO G!
The engineers are way too strict,
Niicara thought to himself. No, you can’t touch that. No,
you can’t do that. No, that’s my chair, blah, blah,
blah. They have it easy, while I have to sign papers all day.
Gee, I’m getting a lot of purchase forms.
Only one month remained before f1-35 arrived.
On the still incomplete Escape, Liimsa was talking to a
subordinate engineer when over the intercom she heard something
smash and "OOPS" came through the speaker.
Later, she was almost interrogating the engineer who broke the
crystalline core for the weapons power systems.
"Do you know how much that thing cost?"
"$100?"
"Over 10 million dollars!"
"oops."
"How on Hiigara did you manage to break that thing?" It
can survive ion storms, but not clumsiness.
"I dropped it."
"And?"
"It fell."
"In zero gravity?"
"Yeah."
"I would like to see that."
"OK, next time I’ll drop it on purpose so you can see
it."
"You’re fired."
Another day, another accident, another purchase
form. This ship has set so many world records. Most accidents,
highest cost, least job security, most number of times 1,000
purchase forms needed to be ordered. Why did I have to get duds
for crew? This had better be worth it.
