Part 1
Drake slowly awoke to the soothing light that began piercing through the panaromic windows as the they cleared from black to clear in his high rise apartment, in the distance beyond the super high rise buildings he half-consiously watched as another 200 storey building was being delivered by one of the many transport ships that had been arriving at the system. Earth was severely over populated and the mass migration had been in effect for over 40 years. There were over 100, 000 families now settled on the far off colony, the farthest and least populated of the habitable systems discovered yet.
With his thoughts quickly coming back under his own control he braced himself ready to get up from his comfortable slumber, as he rolled from his side the hologram lit into life at the foot of the bed and rapidly eveloped the entire room as the news presenter started to give him a live tour of the morning's news. Slowly Drake draws the bed sheet away and stands walks towards where the windows were as the bed itself disapears into the illusion the surrounds him.
"News Off" he interupts the broadcast in an irriated and interested tone, not taking any notice of the virtual scenery, and the reality of life floods back in to view in one quick blur of motion. He looks back out through at the view in front of him watching as the seemeingly small, yet gigantic ship finishes its slow and controlled descend to place the humongous payload in complete silence. Tiny specs of movement buzzing all around it, bearly visible at this range. The new inhabitants are quickly homed, as all through the day other transport ship will arrive into view ready to begin the same procedure over again. "Same *****, different day" he satires in critical mood as the windows rotate open and the low deep roar of noise cascades into room. It's time to go to work.
Standing at 6' 2" and 14st Drake is slightly out of place as a Signals Analyst, he had the physical attriubutes of the Interstellar Guards. Never being interested in violence of any sort he decided not to follow the staus-quo, despite the rewards that came as the four Super Powers battled for control of space, citizens and most importantly food. In a time where soldiers are bought the rewards for service had to be very tempting, but Drake always hoped that one day there would never be for military, especially when the human race was just 4 more unions away frombeing one and the same.
The last confrontation between any of the 4 remaining powers however had been documented over 10 years ago, and peace was now a prospect looked upon as more like a possiblity than hope. With the past being hard to bear, Drake's entire family was killed on Mars as the North American Alliance attacked Pan-Eurasian installations, it was a welcome sign that for once the human race can finally look to get along with each other and work together for the benifit of the species. Turning away from the view in front of him, two quiet clicks of noise filled the room.
"Answer", a small holographic screen appeared showing a live image of his colleague at the office of Stellar Scannings. "There had better be a good reason Dan why you are calling me before I start." The look Daniel's face gave a certain air of concern and there's a flurry of activity behind as large wall mounted monitors flickered with a mass of information that Drake could not understand, people moving quickly around the room between their workstations. Immediately Drake knew that this wasn't a call to say another habitable planet had been discovered.
"Drake, we don't know what is going on down here, we need you here as quick possible. About 3 minutes ago at 0531 local time, our scanners in orbit were looking at Pegasus 22B-2243, we were getting radiation readings, solar gravity..."
"Pegasus 22B is thousands of lightyears away, we can't get there..." Drake interrputed before being cut off himself
"We know, we know..." There was silence for a second, "look, there was a gamma ray burst coming from the vacinity and we were the only organisation who have the facilities right now available, we got radiation from the star, gravity, planetry bodies. Everything. But the gamma, it wasn't coming from the star, it was in the system we can guarantee that, but not the Star! Its like the Sun, and where are, its almost a direct match Cassiopiae!" Drake interrupted again
"Ok, ok. Calm down. Dan get to the point, and what the hell is going on there in the command centre?!" Darren starred at Drake, before finally breaking silence as Drake shouted. "Darren!"
"Its the gamma ray burst." Drake and Darren looked into each others eyes very briefly, there was a real look of fear in his colleagues eyes. Drake was confused."The gamma ray, it is screwing up all the systems here. We have all this stuff on the monitors you see behind me that we don't understand, it looks like jibberish, but it... it looks like some sort of code. What is goijg through the system, it looks like code. It uniform, structured, It's..., it's not something natural!"
Another agonising moment passed between the two men, and then in the backrgound of the holographic screen the monitors flickered once more as numerous symbols came into focus. The noise and activity inside the control centre stopped in one sudden event. Darren turned around on the hologrpahic screen in front of Drake, watching as the monitors had the entire room's attention. Nobody said anything, it was as if the time had stopped. The suspense had grown to bioling point. The monitor flickered once more. The symbols were all gone, they had been replaced. Instead there was a message, written in English. The signal must have been translating itself, using the computers on the colony to interpret itself to its intended recipients. The message was short, but disturbing.
"EVACUATE TO HOME PLANET.
WE WILL GET TO YOU AS FAST AS WE CAN.
THEY HAVE FOUND YOU."
End of Part 1
Message Edited by Moshii on 21-08-2008 10:56 PM
Message Edited by Moshii on 21-08-2008 10:57 PM
