Epistolary Experiment (22/30)
prepare for carrier-guided transit.
vector input; gate hot; skew-frame skew-frame
axis lock and commit, 55-60
drift and ping. close isolate to tangle relay. all wings report in
badger badger badger
steam in the box is thick, foglamps out with salamanders
wyvern, three groups, three count, two count, five count with a basilisk wearing a shiny hat; repeat, three, two, and five with a shiny-hat basilisk
designate three-count wyvern vélv, two-count forl; three flight split and engage these for range; one flight, two flight, on me to smoke the stoner
flash-backup
knives out; light the fires; stove-top hop; go go go
growler growler, grid paint
claws are out and hot, incoming
jink jink
jink jink
bogeys in the haystack, clarify?
prefer no friendly stab
scratch incoming?
hold scratch on itch, only for outbreak
jink jink
jink jink
talons one, break nadir, foam and decoy the claws; talons two, blow through, skim-declutch, and smoke circle on the wyverns; talons three, on me, skin-dancing the basilisk
badger badger badger
flash-backup
talons three, paint motors for salamanders, directed fry on preachers. splash the valets, keep the hotels dry.
splash preachers main, side-slip for backup
shrikes inbound, balefire live in the furball, get down in the chaff and charnel
lead is swept, take flag, talon three-two
inc$$$$
NO CARRIER
– from the thought log of AKV Eyrie-1-3-1
From: Adm. [blank], Imperial Naval Intelligence
To: Imogen Andracanth, VP Research, Ring Dynamics
Subject: Re: UNSEEN KEY; info req.
Security: EYES ONLY UNSEEN KEY
They have – had – a Power!?
To: Adm. [blank], Imperial Naval Intelligence
From: Imogen Andracanth, VP Research, Ring Dynamics
Subject: Re: UNSEEN KEY; info req.
Security: EYES ONLY UNSEEN KEY
They have an elder-race Power’s corpse, would be my guess. Maybe they inherited an established stargate plexus, maybe they didn’t, but we’ve seen them position new gates in the trans-Borderline, so they’ve been getting them from somewhere, at least until recently. Maybe it made a stockpile of them before it died or went dormant; maybe it left an operable weylforge behind; maybe they’ve even been mining its corpse for relay-parts if they could figure out how to expand them enough. No way to tell.
From: Adm. [blank], Imperial Naval Intelligence
To: Imogen Andracanth, VP Research, Ring Dynamics
Subject: Re: UNSEEN KEY; info req.
Security: EYES ONLY UNSEEN KEY
It’s entertaining speculation, but how does it connect with what their fleet is after now?
To: Adm. [blank], Imperial Naval Intelligence
From: Imogen Andracanth, VP Research, Ring Dynamics
Subject: Re: UNSEEN KEY; info req.
Security: EYES ONLY UNSEEN KEY
Damned if I know – yet. Send me everything you’ve got on the candidate system.
“It was sabotage. It had to be.
“The explosion began in the interior of the engineering section, near the power reactor. Starships of Social Harmony‘s class keep their antimatter in a series of ejectable cryocels approximately 200 meters for’ard of the maneuvering room, which is close to the center of the detonation as recorded by the reconstructed sensor logs of other ships in her formation, of which the most important for our purposes was VNS Tolerance. Tolerance was keeping station directly beneath Social Harmony at close formation range. There is no way that a projectile attack capable of penetrating the cryocels could have sneaked past Tolerance and her point defense without being at least detected. And in any case, records from Tolerance clearly demonstrate the explosion to have begun within the antimatter bay and to have blown the ejection port and associated hull segments outward.
“Meanwhile, I have reviewed the design of the cryocel containment system with the VN Bureau of Engineering’s designers and design-reviewers. I conclude, and am assured, that this is not within the failure envelope. The cryocels are retained within the hull by continuously-operating magnetic clamps directly coupled with the antimatter containment system. If one fails, both fail, and the cryocels are automatically ejected by spring force and hypergolic thrusters. For them to fail in this way requires someone to have physically hardwired the clamps to an external power source before triggering a containment failure.
“I don’t know who did it, or why they did it, or how the Impies got to him, but there is no doubt in my mind, Admiral, that Social Harmony was deliberately sabotaged.”
– Republic communications intercept, received at Tarqil (Crimson Expanse)