Prologue (V)

Granger, finally allowed to speak turned his head and looked the Captain full in the eyes, "Captain, there was no failure, my team and I had anticipated every possible outcome. We erected Kinetic Barriers and force fields and took offline several power junctions and isolated the reactor.

"According to SOP (AN: Standard Operating Procedure) for these sorts of tests, we went way beyond what is called for to satisfy due diligence. What happened Captain, was something our science has never encountered before. This substance when subjected to directed energy sources such as kinetic when one of my scientists stepped on it exhibits a amazing ability to redirect and amplify that energy."

"What no-one thought possible was that when subjected to non-specific energy such as the minuscule 0.1 Peu (AN: Plasma Energy Unit) test current the energy was not redirected, it was absorbed, amplified and transmitted to it's neighbouring molecular partners indiscriminately where the same process occurred again."

"This resulted in a series of escalating, unstable and ultimately uncontrollable power spikes. We tried to compensate by applying the largest energy sync and strongest plasma regulator possible to store and regulate the outgoing energy, but the resin built to a critical mass and exploded.

The Energy was being generated too fast to be removed. As much as this substance has the potential to revolutionise our way of generating energy, it's uncontrollable by any means I'm familiar with, or could hope to develop in my lifetime."

Captain Soren mulled over what she had heard before standing up and coming out from behind her desk to lean on the front edge of it. "At ease, perhaps I was too harsh. But you lost half your division, blew up a lab and damaged key equipment during what you assured me was a safe test."

"I agree that this substance is too dangerous to risk developing in our present condition, and yet it's too strategic a resource for us to discard altogether. Shelve it for the time being. Thank you gentlemen, now if you'll show yourselves out I have a decision to make."

Both Deras and Granger briskly saluted, quickly about faced and marched out of her quarters, too relieved to be out of the Captain's line of fire to realise that the fate of the entire crew was being decided.

Darnel stood up and went over to a locker and retrieved a bottle of the 100 year old Andellian fire-wine she had been given by Admiral Nagoya after she had been promoted to Captain. She opened it and poured a glass and then downed it in one go before almost collapsing with glass in hand into the lounge.

What it came down to for her was the blasted communications grid, if only it had been sabotaged instead of no one answering. Never mind the incidental damage from the test, or the untold number of years drifting through space to end up here.

She could have even probably dealt with the sabotage given sufficient time and resources, but if no one used the communications grid then that was a problem. The Imperial communications grid was the Empire's greatest technological marvel, a system that allowed for real-time instantaneous communication anywhere in the universe.

There would be no need to upgrade or replace it, it was the pinnacle of communications technology. If there was no response then there was a very limited number of conclusions.

One being that the frequency was no longer in use as a military channel, that does happened over time, codes and frequencies are changed. But the Imperial listening stations would have been able to spot a distress call on any channel of the network almost immediately.

Two, the language of the Empire had changed sufficiently to render their calls unintelligible, Soren discarded that option as soon as it presented itself to her mind. They still would have replied. Three, somehow there was interference between herself and the grid.

If so, then that would be the first time interference had ever occluded a transmission. Which brought her to the final option, the grid was no longer in use.....because the Empire had fallen, and some time ago if the communications network no longer functioned at all.

A soft blinking light intruded on her thoughts, and with a silent sigh she put the cup down as she picked up a display. The data that the recon flights had collected on this planet told her that this planet was uninhabited. No Insectoid, reptilian or other sentient life of any kind lived in this sector,, and as far as she was concerned that was all that mattered.

Any other data was irrelevant. The planet was habitable for human life and that would be the end of it. Darnel looked up with a smile on her face, it appeared that her decision had already been made, all the while without her having to make it.

Darnel then turned and picked up the handset and after being put through to the CIC she told her XO, "I want the crew assembled within one hour" With that she replaced the handset and finished sipping her wine while the preparations were made for her address.

Tarmac exited and closed the hatch, and breathed a sigh of relief that this debrief was over when the address horn sounded. He stopped and listened to the XO's voice direct all crew not currently engaged in critical repairs to report to the number 3 cargo-bay in one hour.

That cargo-bay was nicknamed the forum as nothing was stored there, and as such made an excellent meeting place. With nothing to do but get some rack time Tarmac decided to arrive early and see whether he could locate some seating for whatever was going to happen.

Nearly an hour later, and the forum was beginning to fill up, as Tarmac watched on from his seated vantage point. One of the medical staff, a Leiutenant Iliya walked up and after curling up in Tarmac's lap asked him, "You were out flying re-con today with the other pilots weren't you Dalma, did you find anything?"

Tarmac looked into Iliya's eyes and smiled as he said in a hushed voice, "Why don't we wait for the Captain? And when did I become your personal lounge?" Iliya's face was mared by a touch of frustration momentarily and then she smiled a mischevious grin as she said, "Since you had the time to find yourself a seat and didn't think to bring one for me too. Now I won't be put off, what was out there."