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They Reign -1

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Heheheh. Brainstorming with Aaron Blackpaw gave birth to this thing...expect to see this story to continue soon, I hope! Hopefully you will find this an interesting piece, and I look forward to your comments and other feedback! Remember that all votes, faves and watches will help others to find these stories to enjoy as well!

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SHAPIRO-ZIPPERSTEIN A SYSTEM

JANUARY, 2280

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The space station was not one of the large, shiny ring-shaped monstrosities that orbited the large developed worlds. The one that circled the little nameless planet in the Shapiro-Zipperstein A system looked more as if it had been cobbled together from any spare parts that had been left lying around from the construction of the facilities that appeared to be more deserving of the title of a spaceport. Solar panels, radiators, parabolic antennas and docking arms protruded from awkward angles, some reaching for the space beyond, some towards the ugly gray planet. The windows of occupied modules shimmered like the stars. It might not have been pretty, but it was functional to the utmost. A small white spacecraft sat docked to the underside of the station.

Only a single man stood watch in the Operations Center - a quiet, tidy space where the beep beep beep of the signal tone was the only thing that required his attention now. The badger on duty had been enjoying his ATV magazine for the Nth time. He had been waiting for the new issue for some time now, but when you worked and lived in such a remote place, waiting was part of the game.

The incessant alarm was an unwanted intrusion into his peace. It was not the usual chipper beep that signified the arrival of one of the pre-timed data streams from the big SLRN repeater stations that helped to carry the signals across the immense distances of space. No, this special beep told him that this one was marked PRIORITY, and that did not bear well for his peace of mind.

The badger pushed his wheeled chair across the room so that the could access the COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS console. The holoscreen already flashed, waiting for his confirmation of the message having been received. A countdown was flickering backwards. 54 seconds. 53 seconds. If he would not acknowledge the message before the time ran out, the computer would alert the entire crew and keep bothering them with reminders until someone actually did go through it.

"Alright, alright..."

A few taps zeroed the timer and brought him open the interface that told him that the message was currently being unpacked from its multiply redundant quantum cocoon. The computer did not think it would take long. The amount of data was small compared to the large streams that could have everything in them ranging from personal correspondence to operating system updates and probably not a small amount of pornography the people down in the mining colony insisted on ordering in. The videos were usually responsible for clogging in the data stream.

Beep!

The message was ready. Another touch on the controls opened it in its entirety. Page after page flashed past his eyes and made him frown.

"That's too fast..." the controller muttered.

He returned to the beginning of the message, and made sure that this time the computer wouldn't just show him the whole thing in under a second.

The badger blinked, as the first lines appeared, now able to read them.

"Shit."

It took him only a minute before he tapped on his communications earpiece.

"Baker to the XO, Code six, I repeat, Code Six."

He didn't stay to wait for a reply. He knew the computer would deliver it either way.

Now the badger sat back and waited.

*

Half an hour later, a small congregation had gathered in the office of Tobias Pennington, the commander of the station. The room was not very large, but those who needed to be there, did fit. The slim wolfess was Ulla Chung, the director of the SAR Service posted on the station. Next to him the ursine shape of Doug Haley, the Assistant Chief, looked decisively rumpled and indeed spaceman-like, especially since he insisted on wearing a ghastly spaceman sweater that made him look even worse. These three formed the station crew, and contrasted with the two whom unsurprisingly stood on the other side of the commander's room. Their feline countenances and caps made them stand apart as well. Both wore a simple blue item that read "ANDERS LEXELL" over the forehead part. The larger one was a tiger and named Peter J. Hodge, according to his name tag on his shirt. The lion in the navy blue shirt was called James Franklin.

Everyone except Franklin was religiously drinking synthetic coffee. It was just a few minutes past five in the morning onboard. The station stuck to Earth General Time, to ensure that all over the universe everyone would be in sync with the head offices on the blue marble that many still called home. Only two of those present in the room had actually been born there. Ulla Chung had not even visited.

"...so we don't really know anything, do we?" asked Franklin, at this moment.

"We know there is an emergency," Ulla Chung replied.

"Hard to tell with an automated one, though," Captain Hodge said.

"We know that their computer barfed out a signal on the emergency channel, and that the signal repeated several times before their communications array apparently went offline," Pennington said. "Laval 405 picked sixteen repeats on a cycle of 12 minutes apart before the system shut down, or so they think based on the data corruption on the last one they picked up."

"And I presume nobody picked up the phone when they tried to call them back?" Franklin asked.

"No," Ulla Chung said. "Not after two days, and that's when they forwarded it to us to activate our response."

"Why aren't they sending the Euler?" Hodge questioned. "They're closer. They could be there in a week."

"The_Euler_ is underway to another location," Ulla Chung said, "we're the closest one in range. You can be there in two weeks if you go now."

"Hopefully not to wake up to them telling us that it was a false alarm," Franklin chuffed in the way only felines did.

"It does not appear to be so," Pennington said," they've checked the repeats, and with that timetable, there should've been a crew response to close down the transmission, let alone to send a message to inform about the false alarm."

"So maybe someone did shut it down," Hodge said. "It was online only for a few hours. Maybe someone noticed that the computer was doing something it was supposed to do and closed it off."

"They still would have sent out a notice saying that it was a fluke," Ulla Chung said, "that much we should assume."

"Can you even trust the crews on some of these outposts to be up to date to all the procedure?" Doug Haley asked. "It's not a big one, isn't it? Just thirty people or so."

Pennington cleared his throat.

"That would still be bigger than us, Doug," the boss said.

The Assistant Chief looked somewhat embarrassed.

"Birnbaumer 2 is a xenobiological research site," Ulla Chung said, "they are cataloging the local lifeforms for the science outreach program. They've never had any problems with operations before. They're a tightly run facility."

"Is that supposed to mean that they can't fuck up?" Franklin asked.

"It's supposed to mean that there's 34 people there who might be in trouble and have been so for quite some time, and they are in need of help," Ulla Chung said. "And the procedure is quite clear in that any automated distress call has to be investigated by a response suitable to the perceived severity of the situation."

"Which you have decided to be Code Six," Captain Hodge noted.

"Yes," Ulla Chung replied. "An unknown emergency on a manned outpost that is out of communications with the monitoring network."

"That makes what...a week now?" Hodge asked.

"Yes," Pennington said. "Approximately seven days. Laval 405 is about a day away from Birnbaumer 2 on SLRN."

"Who knows what'd be left there to pick up if we are there two weeks from now," Franklin grunted, "probably nothing, if something bad enough has happened. Then it'd be just a mopping up operation."

"One that we are obliged to investigate none the less," Ulla Chung retorted sharply, "if only to find out what happened."

"What kind of natural threats do they experience there?" Captain Hodge asked in a less passionate tone.

Pennington looked at his computer display.

"Birnbaumer 2, established in 2274 by the science initiative to research into local flora and fauna...planet geologically stable...oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere....occasional hurricanes but the outpost is on the southern hemisphere, which is less prone."

"How about the actual research?" Franklin asked. "Could some of their equipment be volatile, or the samples maybe? What are they looking at over there?"

Pennington's vulpine ears flip-flopped while he studied the data on his computer.

"Looks like a fairly standard scoop and run operation," he said. "They mostly gather samples to be sent back for full analysis on major facility. Normal pharmaceutical, industrial material synthesis, microtech contracts."

"Maybe they picked up something they shouldn't have," Franklin continued his doomsaying, "just like the Brooklyn Delta xenobat virus - "

"There have been no reports of biological contamination during their entire operation," Pennington replied, "it all reads here. They have a strict containment procedure for their samples."

"Could've happened just now," Hodge said. "Wouldn't be the first time."

"Nor the last," Franklin agreed.

"That's why you have procedures to follow," Ulla Chung said to the feline duo," you will deploy using standard precautions."

"They probably would have gotten out a proper distress call if that was the case," Doug Haley said, "nothing would have been so quick as to incapacitate the entire crew."

"Nothing we have seen yet," Franklin said. "And they are poking out looking for them."

"Since when have you been an expert on microbiology?" Doug Haley asked the lion.

"When did you become one, Haley?" the lion hissed in response.

The bear puffed out his cheeks.

Pennington cleared his throat again. For a small man, he could use his voice very effectively.

Likely because of that too.

"For all we know, it could just be a comms array issue," the boss commented. "It happens often enough. Even we went to protected mode a few weeks ago when there was a power surge in the main bus."

"And we fixed that before anyone got worried about it outside," Haley said.

"It sounds like more than a power spike," Hodge said, "especially if they want to activate us."

_"_If_you_want to activate us," Franklin looked at the wolfess. "It's up to you, after all."

"I do," she said sternly. "I am the regional director, and I am going by the book here. We have a distress signal to check, and you are the team we can send in at this time."

Hodge shrugged.

"If you tell us to go, we'll go, obviously," the tiger said. "We've been sitting on our tails for two months and even if we go there only to wake up to find everything fine and dandy, it'll be good to keep us moving."

Ulla Chung nodded.

"Do you agree, Mister Franklin?" she addressed the lion.

"It's not up to me," the cat grumbled. "I'll go wherever the ship goes. My team is ready. I don't let them go down."

"Captain?" Pennington asked.

"I'll be ready in three hours," Hodge replied.

"Consider yourself activated then," Ulla Chung said. "I will be putting the call up on the SLRN pipeline to the higher-ups so that everyone is on this."

Captain Hodge gave a more sharp nod that his ears accompanied.

"I'll tell Burnett to start spinning the turbines," he said.

"I'll get the launch crew on standby," Haley said.

"I have work to do as well," Ulla Chung said.

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