[RFC][Story] Mission to Arcadia

[Dartz]

I'm noticing that this is.... dull. Was hoping to track events going over an entire year..... but. Well. It's what it is I guess.
Ideas anyone?
June 2024

The old house was warm in a way the concrete apartments weren't. It was also guaranteed to be unbugged. The thick scent of fresh coffee hung over the whole room, a pot brewing beside the model Lancer-class in the corner. She'd gathered them in the living room of the dome-house, the team from Venus sticking together around a coffee table by the window. Rune and Daryl sat on a pair of armchairs, with Lev taking a beanbag for himself in the far, and a small footstool for his tablet.

Behind Jet Jaguar on a pulldown screen, an image was projected of a blue-water planet, dotted with green islands and a single large continent. A hot spot was marked in orange on the surface

"I'm organising this into three teams; Top, Bottom and Lab. I've prepared individual briefings for each team, which you can review amongst yourselves.."

Lev yawned, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Already the briefing had gone on for over an hour.

"Top team are responsible for the modifications to Lun itself, and crewing the ship. Top team will also maintain our cover story - making it look like we are who we say we are. Daryl Haur will be team leader for Top, with Rune Alekseeva as deputy."

Daryl nodded, then recrossed her legs. Lun watched on with inhuman attention, mentally recording everything.

"Bottom team will be responsible for the mining operation proper - for the design and development of deepwater mining equipment, and its operation on mission. You'll need to work with Top team to fit it inside Lun's cargo bay. Otherwise, you're free to figure out how to get things done. Team leader will be Markas Vienoulis. "

He smiled and nodded, looking just a little relieved. The first hour had alarm bells ringing in his mind that he'd be dealing with another Drummer - but this might actually be tolerable.

"Lab team. Right now that's just yourself Lev. You're responsible for the fit out and operation of the lab aboard, drafting research aims, and for making sure it convinces any Starfleet inspectors. I've given you a separate assignment in case you need to bring more people aboard. "

He seemed momentarily horrified at the prospect, taking a gulp of steaming tea to hide his feelings. It was the rollercoaster feeling again. It was far more responsibility than just driving a rover.

She seemed to look right at him.

"I need a basic outline of each team's plan by next week, with our aim being to finish design work by the 31st of next month."

A week? They all looked at each other for a moment. Was the cyber mad, or had she just forgotten what humans were capable of.

"Now I know that's tight. But I also know you're each capable of doing it. If you think you'll need outside help, let me know and I'll arrange it."

The screen behind her switched to a map of the Earth, diving down from orbit towards North America. Two points were highlighted on the map, one just off Newfoundland, another in the Great Lakes. It wasn't hard to guess what the first one was.

"I've scheduled a test mission to Earth for September 9th. We'll survey and dive on two wrecks - Edmund Fitzgerald and Titanic, and recover artefacts from the Titanic. Both are well documented so we can calibrate our gear on them. We come home on the 18th to make repairs and changes."

"Titanic," Skippy whispered to Yumeko, a gleam of excitement sparking in his eye.

"Departure for Arcadia is scheduled for October 5th. All going well, we return sometime around the 31st."

The cyber took one final breath

"So. Any questions?"

There were many
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It looked to be nothing more than a brass-tinted AA-battery. Yumeko stared at it, her own reflection staring back at her from inside the transparent polycarbonate block that contained it.

"I don't know why it seems so insane..." she said, letting herself trail off

"What's that?" asked Markas. His attention was more focused on getting the workstation in their common-room working.

"Using actual alien metal as a power source," she answered, glancing back at him. "I want to think it's crazy. But then, you know, handwavium." She shrugged. her shoulders.

"I want to know what happened to them," said Kay. He leant against the back wall, holding a copy of their briefing on a computer tablet. "I want to know who was using handwavium ten thousand years ago, and why that gate is in ruins and - more importantly - why they aren't here now? Am I the only person who's kinda unsettled by the implications of this?"

He looked around the room.

Markas answered with a gallic shrug, the workstation still refusing to log him in. "Ten thousand years for a chunk of shrapnel from an exploding advanced civilisation to make it across the void of space? It's a one-in-a-million chance it happened to land on Earth, that's all." He places his hand on the brick "It's a fact of history that all new civilisations loot the junk of their predecessors, we're just doing it on a galactic level. Handwavium, gate-metal - so long as it's useful and safe it's all the same."

Yume' offered him a weak smile. "Yeah, I guess it's just irrational but it still feels weird. Maybe because I grew up with the wave while yous are old enough to remember when the laws of physics were more than guidelines..."

He folded his arms, feigning hurt. "Well, I like to think I'm young at heart." He returned his attention to his workstation. "Now if I can just login and get the details off the bloody server."

He finally hit it a frustrated belt with the palm of his hand, but it stubbornly refused to do anything more than offer him the same login prompt, over and over again. Groaning in annoyance he shut it off, deciding to work from his briefing notes instead.

He dropped a well-used notepad onto the coffee table in the centre of the common-room, dropping himself into an armchair. "Anyway, where do we start?"

Yumeko looked at him, then at the others. "Most of our gear's already borrowed from the Jupiter Survey Project - It'll take the pressure easily."

"The suits too?" questioned Skippy, leaning forward on his chair. He glanced at his temmates in turn. "I know I'm not the only one who wants to stand on the deck of the actual Titanic."

"And have the whole thing collapse under you, Jack? It's so corroded it's a bloody deathtrap," said Kay.

"What do you expect from something made in Belfast?" Skippy shot back.

Kay rolled his eyes into the back of his head "Oh Ha-Ha."

Markas took a deep breath, settling himself in his chair. "The way I see it, getting that deep is the easy part. The problem is, fitting it all into the space we have."

"Any ideas?" Asked Yumeko. She placed a whiteboard marker on the table, making the challenge.

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The Moskito Criterion -by- Rhyna
Thriller-Techno-RPF
Triggers: Torture. Extreme violence. Gore. Biomod Horror. 'Adult' themes.
Space Cruiser Lun is stolen by a group of Senshi activists who announce their intention to fire the ship's missiles on Stellvia. All of Great Justice races to stop them before they can reach firing position. But what are their true aims? A conspiracy is revealed - one which reaches to the heights of Great Justice itself and threatens to undermine the PEPPER treaty and ten years of peace.

The summary was printed on the monitor screen in green text. It projected out onto two women's faces, gleaming in their staring eyes.

"To cut a bad story short," said Jet, grimacing. "It's a Red October knockoff where they don't really intend to actually fire - just bluff to draw out a massive response and prove that there was a conspiracy in Great Justice to build secret weapons of mass destruction. The ship and crew are destroyed by kaboomite missile right after transmitting their evidence and proof to Fenspace at large, vindicating their actions and getting a bunch of us sent to Azkhaban in the process..."

The amusement in her voice was clear.

"Wow. I'm speechless." Daryl drew back away from the screen, aghast. She glanced at Jet, then back at the description, before pressing the palm against the side of her face. "How the fuck did they get that many triggers into a five thousand word story?"

"Yeah. It's complete shite." Jet dismissed it with a few taps on the keyboard. She stood up to her full height, placing a single hand on her hip "But it's a sign of a problem."

Daryl scowled. "I read that vigilante blog. The idiot's a walking demonstration of Poe's law. "

"But even Elephant Sightings think's something's up." She tapped up another wall of green text, accompanied by an image of Lun being towed by a pair of Blue Midgets.

"So maybe we should show them something then?" A devious smile crept across the pilot's lips.

"It'd have to be big, flashy and public to shut them all up." Jet thought on it, pursing her lips. "Which means we've three weeks to have something ready by Convention."

"And that race at Atalante the week before... so we loose a week."

Jet looked at her. "You okay for that?"

Darly gave her a hard glare, her face setting itself in stone "I was okay for the last one, I'm going to be fucking okay for this one. It's not like I have a choice anyway. I can't let them beat me." Her voice was cold, barely holding back on the anger inside.

Jet saw the shiver run up through the woman's body and decided against pushing the matter "Alright..."

Daryl turned her attention towards the monitor for a moment before closing her eyes. She drew in a deep breath through her nose, exhaling the tension in her body out through her lips, She opened her eyes again, placing her hands into the small of her back, stretching herself.

"Look. I've an idea for this thing. If we could get a spare Kulbit engine in the back of it, how fast do you think one of those moskit missiles'd go?"

Jet's eyes gleamed, a grin crawling across her face.

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Elephant Sightings

What is going on on 77 Frigga?

Rumours have been flying recently about the new spacecraft being rebuilt on 77 Frigga. I'm reminded of some of the hyperbole that surrounded the new 'super-fighter' from last year, calling it a direct challenge to the domination of the Valkyrie/Talon/Blackbird series. As I recall Yours Truly here at Elephant Sightings was the first one to call it for what it actually was a full six months before its public unveiling.

In the same way, I'm going to call it now. Lun is not being built as a weapon of mass destruction or some Senshi USS Vengeance.

So, that begs the question; what are we looking at?

Let's start with what we know for sure. Lun is a craft bought with very specific purpose in mind that is not being publically acknowledged. Furthermore, this is a ship that was bought because it was the best option for the job.

If it was just a replacement for a wrecked cruiser - then there're any number of better options available. Not to mention the difficulty in purchasing the ship, transporting it from Russia, then the added expense of retrofitting and waving. If it was being done as a labour of love, you would expect to hear more public announcements.

It is not being built for freight either. Despite a takeoff mass of over four hundred tons, it has less than a tenth the useful internal volume of a Gagarin class. Even compared to the much smaller and lighter White Stallion, Lun will still only has two-thirds the habitable internal volume. The missile tubes and tail-structures might bring them both even but on cargo and transportation capability, Lun falls short of everything in its weight class. If you'd like to see how small she actually is, there're some remarkable pictures in this decade old Russian blog-post.

If it was built for direct combat, it would not have been given a Class II PEPPER registry - especially not if anybody ever had any intention of reactivating the missile armament. I doubt it's a deliberate false declaration either - on account of it being so bloody obvious. I'd say it's armament listings are correct. Lun is really going to be that lightly armed.

However, Lun does have an unusually large sensor array - even for something of its size. Furthermore, based on stated fuel, food and life-support capabilities, it's endurance with a standard crew would be massive. It might be able to operate for months unsupported. Registered plans show a large part of the inboard wing structure being given over to a pair of huge fresh-water tanks on either side. Couple with a propulsion system capable of some high-speed dashes if needed while being capable of a long cruise on minimal power.

Based on this, I'd say Lun is being built specifically to find something valuable.

Or perhaps, someone.

I can't offer direct proof. But I can say that somebody is bankrolling the reconstruction of Lun. It's current estimated value far exceeds that of any insurance payout that would have been received for a wrecked Outlaw Class. The estimated costs to retrofit to the given PEPPER specification also exceed the known financial means of its owners - proving there has to be some sort of cash inflow.

Her Highness has made no secret of her intention to hunt down and bring to justice the remaining Dark Senshi - including Naoko Sato. Ultimately, her attempts to enact this policy publically are being blocked by the Love party who currently control the Parliament. She has however, made successful attempts to increase Millenium influence and presence in the Main Belt - especially with the assimilation of Frigga itself into the fold and the links between the Militia and the Roughriders. It would also fit with the owner's known history. Jet-Jaguar led a raid on Nehallenia nine years ago.

But anything further would be baseless. Even that is going out on something of a limb for me.

What I can stand over is this. Lun is being built to find something - something that may take a long time to find - and that something is more than valuable enough to fund its construction. Who or what that might be is anybody's guess.

Answers on a postcard please to the usual address.

-Xi

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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?