Expedition: Atlantis (Just Another Day At The Office, Part 4)
(Author’s note: if you haven’t read the earlier parts of this story, you should read that first before enjoying this story. Start with “Just Another Day At The Office”.
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“Ahhh.” Sam sighed contentedly. “It feels like forever since I’ve enjoyed one of these!”.
“Glad you are enjoying it, Sam. There aren’t that many left, so we only break them out for special occasions.”
“I’m honored, then! Cheers!” Sam thrust his can outward and then took another long sip of his OtraCerveza, relishing the taste and texture he hadn’t experienced in many weeks. Otra was pretty much the best beer out there, too. Their catchy slogan, “it’s always time for an OtraCerveza!” was a pun in itself, as “otra cerveza” literally meant “another beer” in one of the languages spoken on their planet Cestus 3.
The Alyra left port earlier that day, on a voyage to Atlantis on the Southern Continent. At top cruising speed of around 45 knots (with calm seas and good weather, never a given on the Great Sea) the mini fusion plant-powered vessel would make the 6,350-mile journey in just over 5 days. Sam had to admit he was enjoying the voyage so far; the fresh breeze and salty air, the warm sun, and the good company all re-invigorated him. It sure beat being holed up at home alone in the dark eating cold Spaghetti Ring-o’s out of the can, while hoping the Drekons didn’t choose that day to strike his suburban neighborhood. That described Sam’s life up until 5 days ago.
“Finish that up so we can get back to work. We need to get you logged in again.” Nika, the resistance cell’s young Comms specialist, was working with Sam on accessing the IGCBCS system from aboard the Alyra. So far, it seemed the Drekons had left the comm satellites alone, but the central routing and switching points for the planet-wide network were destroyed in the initial assault on the capital city of New Liberty. Nika was trying some unorthodox methods of routing around the down systems. She needed to get very creative with some of the secure data transfer points so Sam could connect to the Data Repository Facility in Fairmount. The DRF was an unmanned remote backup facility of the HQ building Sam used to work in. A building destroyed by the Drekons on the night of the invasion. Being on a moving ship made Nika’s task all the more difficult.
The Alyra was carrying a motley crew of 12 including Sam. Introductions that morning were brief and Sam hadn’t quite gotten around to talking with all of the other expedition members yet. On board besides Sam and Nika were:
> Jeremiah, the leader of the resistance
> Brent Ward and Peter Mjin, engineers
> Juan Obi, logistics
> Midori Yuki, medical
> Dace Reddy, navigation; he shook Sam’s hand as they boarded and took great pleasure in telling him “when you’re ready to go, you’ll need Reddy to get there!”
> Nalle Bardolf, historian
> “Ace”, pilot of a trade ship from the Spaceport at New Liberty (Sam had no idea what his real name might be, everyone simply called him “Ace”)
> “The Chief”, security – a strange fellow who always seemed to refer to himself in the third person. No one seemed to know his real name either.
> The captain of the Alyra, P.J. Nath
Together they were headed to the Museum of Antique Warfare in Atlantis, to view an ancient relic of the dark days before the Intergalactic Treaty was signed. It was hoped that the antique Corvette housed there would yield some clues as to how to defeat the Drekon occupation. Fortunately, the museum was located directly on the boardwalk in a sheltered harbor, so they could literally sail right up to it and walk inside. Then the Engineers could earn their keep trying to unravel any secrets the ancient fighting ship might be willing to give up. But that was several days away yet.
Sam re-focused on the task at hand, which was to do his best to keep the planetary guild alive and well in the online universe. “Nika, tell me something. Is there a resistance member who goes by the handle of ‘Speedy’?”
“Is he the user you messaged when you connected with your mobile? I still can’t believe you got that to work from inside the D.I.Z. - that’s amazing!” Nika shook her head in wonderment. The “D.I.Z.” was what most of the resistance members were calling the Greater New Liberty Metropolitan area, the largest population center on the planet. Or more precisely, the formerly-largest population center on the planet thanks to the Drekons. “D.I.Z.” stood for “Drekon Invasion Zone”. And it was currently the most dangerous place on Cestus 3.
“Someday I’ll tell you that tale... but in the meantime I was wondering how he was able to log in to the IGCBCS.”
“Well, rest easy - Speedy’s one of us. But not in this cell, he is based way over in Britannia. I haven’t spoken to him, so I have no idea how he got in. It’s worth finding out how he did it though – comms are still pretty messed up all over the place.” As if on cue, en error message appeared on Nika’s screen, indicating her last attempt had timed out. “Which is making this very frustrating!”
She was about to enter a new algorithm on her terminal when her mobile went off. It filled the deck with the sound of screeching death-metal music, complete with over-the-top screaming vocals that made Sam wince and plug his ears.
After listening for a few moments, Nika simply said “thanks” to the caller and terminated the comm. Turning to Sam, she said “that was HQ. The Drekons just got back from their daily slaughter run.”
“Where did they hit today?” Sam hoped his neighborhood had been spared; there were still some of his neighbors living there who hadn’t fled for other areas of the planet.
“Drakesh”, she replied sadly. Looking at her watch she continued, “right on schedule too”. Drakesh was a populous suburb about 10 miles north of New Liberty, meaning that the Drekons were still keeping to their bizarre practice of striking no more than once per 24-hour period, but hitting hard in places with large populations.
“That’s too bad, it’s a nice area. Or it used to be”, Sam noted. “Soon there won’t be anything left around New Liberty for them to hit.” This was a depressing thought indeed. Changing gears, Sam asked “say, what the heck was that horrible noise?”, pointing to Nika’s mobile.
Nika smiled. “What, my ringtone? Why, it’s only the latest and greatest from my fave band, ‘Cowbells in Space’. I downloaded it the day of the attack, in fact. It’s their new song ‘Mustakraken’. Well, unless things change it’ll probably be their last song...” she said somberly.
“I’m getting too old, it just sounded like noise and screaming to me.” Sam mused.
“What kind of music do you listen to?” asked Nika.
“Well, I like the classics, I guess. You know - Shame, The Machine, Badboy, Teaspoon... stuff like that.”
“Wow, you are old!” Nika retorted with a wide grin.
“Thanks a lot, you little whippersnapper, you! Now let’s get to work before I drop dead of old age right here on the deck!”
The new algorithm worked, and after some adjustments to the antenna and comms equipment on the ship, Nika got Sam a more or less stable connection to the DRF. Once logged in, Sam found pretty much what he expected to find: most of the guild’s fleets were wiped out, and many bases were under occupation by various guilds. “Vultures!” Sam muttered. There wasn’t a lot he could do except set his own queues for production and construction, hide his credits in dummy research and make sure his remaining fleet – which wasn’t much – was located over his bases for maximum defensibility. He could possibly free some of his guildmate’s occupied bases; he’d have to run some calculations later to be sure.
There was still no message from ‘Speedy’, so he sent a follow-up, letting Speedy know about his new position with the resistance. Speedy was just about the only one who got his fleet mobile before the jump gate was attacked by [VNDKR] and [EMNR7]. Those guilds worked together to slaughter the helpless fleets of [CSTS3]. With all users in the guild offline, it was like taking candy from a baby, Sam thought.
Crafting a carefully-worded message, Sam sent a warning to friendly contacts in other guilds about what happened with the Drekons. In light of what Jeremiah told him about this happening before to other guilds, surely no one in the galaxy was safe. People needed to be warned about the real threat that was lurking out there - just because Cestus 3 was asleep at the switch didn’t mean other planets had to suffer the same fate.
In the message was also a plea for assistance in the form of temporary NAPs, or Non-Aggression Pacts. Sam worked to set up NAPs with as many guilds as possible, to give [CSTS3] a fighting chance to stay alive. As far as he knew he might very well be the highest-ranking guild representative still alive and able to log in. None of the leadership had been online since the initial invasion, so he felt justified making the diplomatic requests. It was probably a losing cause, but certainly worth a shot.
The rest of the day was uneventful, except for a few random comm dropouts that Nika promptly corrected. “She may be young, but she’s very good!, thought Sam. He was able to free 3 of his own occupied bases, but 2 were promptly re-taken an hour later. He decided not to waste any more fleet on that for now.
After a delicious hot meal prepared by Mr. Obi (apparently “logistics” included “cook”), Sam retired to his bunk and let the waves gently rock him to sleep, his spirits higher than they’d been since the Drekon invasion.
The next day, Sam finally received a reply from Speedy. And it was chock-full of information. Throughout the day Sam maintained a conversation via IGCBCS messaging with Speedy.
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From [CSTS3] Speedy Reply - Block Player - Report - Copy Savebox
Sam! Boy am I glad to hear from you! Sorry I haven’t written sooner, the comms are still very shaky here. Since New Liberty was hit we’ve been cut off from both IGCBCS and the government. Most of the comms and a lot of the power were routed through N.L., so as you can imagine it’s been chaos over here. We’re not getting news very often, and when we do it’s hard to tell what’s fact and what’s rumour.
The power is unreliable – we’ve got an old Fusion plant running but it can’t nearly keep up with demand. There were riots the day after the attack, and all the grocery stores were cleaned out and/or looted. Everyone is either holed up at home, or they ran off for the rural areas. There have only been 2 attacks in Britannia since the invasion, which is good I suppose.
Anyhow, after not being able to get into the IGCBCS via land lines, I tried a different approach. I remembered about the DRF, and figured if I could get to it I might be able to log in. Using my not-inconsiderable hacking and scripting talents (I’m so modest, aren’t I?), I was able to connect every once in a while over the civilian wireless systems. So far it looks like just you and me in here. Sorry about your fleet, that sucks. I sent mine on a 1000-hour journey to buy some time. Fleet can be rebuilt; planets, however, are harder...
Tell me more about the mission you’re on if you can. We could sure use some info – and hope - over here.
Speedy
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To [CSTS3] Speedy Msg - Copy Savebox
Speedy,
I’m so glad you got my messages and could respond. Where do I begin?
Firstly, the reason you can’t connect to the IGCBCS over land-line is because:
1) the central planetary comm network switches and routers in New Liberty were wiped out and
2) the Drekons hit the IGCBCS HQ building on the night of the invasion. It’s gone, sorry. I’m just glad it didn’t happen during my shift there...
I’d tell you more about the expedition we’re on, but I’m not in charge and don’t know how much I can share. I’ll ask and see what I can do regarding that.
As for New Liberty, it’s in ruins. There is a single Drekon ship parked on the front lawn of Parliament House. Lots of folks think that the Drekons must be hiding their fleet in orbit, but we’ve only seen that one ship since the morning after the invasion. As you can probably guess, the long-range scanners were destroyed when they hit the Spaceport that first night so we have no idea what’s in orbit.
Nothing we’ve tried to hit their ship with has made a dent. And lots of folks died trying. Once a day that ship takes off and goes pillaging somewhere and returns. Most of the attacks have been in and around New Liberty. And nobody can figure out why they do it once every 24 hours, almost like clockwork. Let’s just say that if our expedition is successful, maybe we can put an end to that.
I’ve contacted a bunch of folks in various guilds asking for temporary NAPs so we can maybe hold off on being farmed for a while. So far I’ve only heard from 2, but they did say yes. If you can send out similar requests to your contacts list it may help, who knows. Hopefully some others will act honorably – hah!
Talk to you soon,
Sam Z.
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From [CSTS3] Speedy Reply - Block Player - Report - Copy Savebox
Sam! When you said the scanners were out, that reminded me of something! The spaceport in Britannia has an older set of short-range scanners for incoming/outgoing trade ships. We don’t get nearly the traffic you do in New Liberty, so we haven’t upgraded in forever – and our scanners are not on the net, they’re strictly for local use right at the facility. Anyway, they’ve been shut down since the invasion since they suck up MAJOR power, and it’s not like any of our trade routes are active right now.
So I spent the afternoon down there and arranged to have the power re-routed from the Fusion plant for a “priority operation”. Don’t ask how I pulled that off, let’s just say it’s a good thing the jails are shut down right now :D
More importantly, the scanners still work and they can see what’s in orbit! Or, more to the point: what’s NOT IN ORBIT. That’s right, Sam – there is no Drekon fleet in orbit! We are 100% sure of this! We have been running continuous scans and there is nothing up there that doesn’t belong. Just the satellites we put there. Do you realize what this means? We’re being occupied and terrorized by just one ship! I hope your mission is to take that ship out, Sam.
Anyway, make sure Jeremiah gets this news right away, it’s critical intel! Meanwhile, I’ll continue the scans, and I’ll continue asking online for NAPs and begging people not to farm us. As if that’ll work.
Good luck,
Speedy
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Sam was stunned. The Drekons were holding Cestus 3 with one small ship after all! Granted, it was a seemingly indestructible ship – but surely there must be a way to defeat it and end the reign of terror. So far that seemed to be an insurmountable challenge, but it was better than having to figure out how to deal with an entire armada of Drekon ships, that was certain!
Sam sprang up from his workstation and ran full-tilt for the bridge. When he got to the forward deck he took the stairs 2 at a time and burst through the bridge door, hyperventilating. Jeremiah was there along with Captain Nath.
“What’s the matter, Sam? You look like you’ve got some news!” Jeremiah got up from his seat and approached Sam who was bent over with his hands on his knees, gulping air.
“Drekons - one ship! No fleet - in orbit!” Sam managed to blurt out in between gasps.
“Take a deep breath, Sam, you’re not making sense”.
Sam took a few moments to fill his lungs. “The Drekons do not have a fleet in orbit, it’s just the one ship in New Liberty!”
“How do you know this”? Jeremiah asked.
Sam explained, relaying his conversation with Speedy to Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s face lit up and he smiled broadly. He grasped Sam by the shoulders. “Sam, my boy – you may have just provided us with the single most important piece of tactical information in the world! I knew bringing you on this expedition was a good choice! If this turns out to be true, you’ve just given us all new hope. Well done, Sam!”
Jeremiah let go of Sam’s shoulders and keyed open the ship’s intercom. “All hands to the bridge immediately! All hands to the bridge!”
TO BE CONTINUED...