Not sure if the last parts on Earth should be one huge chapter, two medium sized (as I posted them) or four small ones.
################
“Welcome to Bruessel Mr Bossert, we are curious what ESA can tell us about the status of the Aurora project.”
Meeting the EU Commission was always a headache in Bossert’s opinion, too many national interests without voter oversight in the same room. But they were also the group he had to convince that Aurora wasn’t wrecked beyond hope.
“Thank you for the invitation Commissioners. I have prepared a short presentation about the facts known about the attack on the Aurora mission and the current status of crew and material. My staff has also worked out a preliminary strategy how we can get out of the current current crisis and bring the project back on track within the projected timeline.”
“Spare us the details for the beginning, just tell us where we are and what we can expect from the future,” one of the Commissioners said, “we can only do a preliminary decision at the moment anyways. The rest will have to be decided when we get more facts about the incident.”
Bossert took a deep breath and put the small remote control for his notebook away.
“You know all the basics about the attack from the data sheet I sent you yesterday. Our astronauts got attacked by the Fenspace variant of a long range precision weapon. At the current time nobody knows what kind of group did this terror attack. Our astronauts survived the attack, Mrs Sarah Brown barely and only because she was rescued by Fen bio-technology.
Like most other terror attacks, nobody did predict this to happen, we have no knowledge who did it and what kind of damage they did. But certain facts allow us some speculation about the criminals.
Up to this point no group has taken responsibility for the attack. I also received the news that the Fen found the wreckage of the weapon system which fired on Pan. This suggests the weapon malfunctioned shortly after the shot or was a one-shot design. The terrorists also did only fire a single shot at the moon, which suggests a limit of their resources.”
“What if they do it again?”
“According to the Fen on board of the stations, this should be close to impossible. They are currently setting up an early warning system, and they promised to keep their stations defenses on hot standby until a permanent solution is available.
In addition to this the yearly political meeting of the Fen will be in three weeks on Mimas, which means the amount of security after the attack will be quite high. I am confident that no further attack will be successful in the next months. This gives us time to plan for the necessary defenses of the station.”
“Defenses? Did you forget that this is a civil project, not some military adventure Mr. Bossert!”
“I am sorry, maybe defenses was the wrong word.” Bossert replied carefully, “I was not thinking about weapon systems. But we are already doing a simulation at ESA if we can put the station deeper into the ice of the moon. Together with an Early Warning System this would help against any kind of attack and give the Fen at Mimas time to react.”
Bossert opened his briefcase and took out two folders, a thin one and a really thick one. He hold up the thin one.
“But the important point is that we cannot do this anymore just by following the plan. This here is the Aurora Mission Goal I presented you a few years ago. I can promise you we will still reach these goals, maybe with a few months delay. The whole station as ESA and JAXA described it, without any kind of Handwavium.”
He waited a few seconds, then he hold up the thick folder for a moment.
“This is the full plan how to do the Aurora mission, with all the details and pre-planned steps. Forget about it!”
This brought quite a bit concern into the faces of the Commissioners, Bossert could hear a few of them whispering to each other.
“We cannot do this mission as we planned it anymore, we have to improvise and adapt our planning if we want to reach the original goal. We have been dealt a huge blow, but we have the personal and resources at Pan to compensate for it if we let them do it. Trying to directly control this from Earth will only end in a disaster.
I propose to give our team on Pan the freedom to change plans if necessary to reach the defined goal. We might also need to ship them more materials than necessary, but I already got the confirmation that we still have reserves available. We still can make Aurora a success for all of us.”
“Thank you Mr. Bossert for this facts and proposal. We will have to talk about this but we will let you know about our decision this evening. But please keep in mind that this will only be a preliminary one, long term plans will depend on the progress made for Aurora.”
----
“Connecting, please wait...”
Kurt Coller waited impatiently for the connection to be established.
‘Radio to Nouveau Paris, radio to the Moon, Interwave to the catgirls space station, at least two of those connections should be unnecessary’ he thought, ‘time that we finally push against a few of those stupid rules. We could drop nearly 2 seconds round trip time’.
The screen in front of him changed and the face of Eric Hunt appeared, his arm still bandaged.
“Good morning Mr. Hunt.”
“Good morning Mr. Coller, what can I do for you? I had not expected a call like this.”
“Mr. Hunt, could you please get the stick I gave you before you left to Nouveau Paris?”
Hunt blinked for a moment and nodded. Every communication between the Aurora crew and the ESA control center in Darmstadt was encrypted by some ‘unbreakable’ security code. Still, just before he left for the ESA depot in orbit the mission director had given him a small flash-drive with onetime-pad data. ‘Just in case’ Koller had told him.
A few minutes later he appeared on Kurt Coller’s screen again. The image flickered for a few moments as the new encoding activated and a clock began to run backwards on the screen.
“Thank you Mr. Hunt. You should know this is NOT an official ESA call, this is just a message Mr. Allan Bossert asked me to relay to you.” Coller explained, “There will be no recordings on our side and I would like to ask you to delete any recording of the call on your side later.”
Eric nodded again, ‘This is getting stranger by the minute’ he thought.
“The ESA Director General has talked with the EU Commission and managed to get a few concessions, but we both know that the whole Aurora mission is vulnerable at the moment.
You will have to improvise for the rest of the mission. Our goal is still the same, the EU and Japan want the station and everything inside has to be as it is specified in the mission statement. Forget about the original instructions how to get there, you will have to make your own plans now.
We are preparing a third supply run for Pan at the moment, which contains all kind of spare materials we have available, but it might not be enough or parts might arrive too late. If you need to repair or replace things just do it, with or without help.
This became a fail-pass mission for ESA and JAXA in the last days. If we succeed, nobody will care if we played strictly by the rules. If we fail, there are more than enough people looking for our scalps. Enough that we won’t get a second chance in the next decade or more.
I know I can count on you. Get your crew together and draw up a new plan how to get out of this catastrophe. Nobody here on Earth needs to know the details, you have more things to do than to write up a new 1000 pages mission plan.
Good luck Eric...”
The video conference had ended minutes ago, but Eric Hunt was still staring on the screen, trying to make his mind up what he should think about the message. He listened to the message a second time, then a third time. Finally he suddenly grinned, pressed the ‘delete’ button and stood up.
There was a lot of work to do.
################
“Welcome to Bruessel Mr Bossert, we are curious what ESA can tell us about the status of the Aurora project.”
Meeting the EU Commission was always a headache in Bossert’s opinion, too many national interests without voter oversight in the same room. But they were also the group he had to convince that Aurora wasn’t wrecked beyond hope.
“Thank you for the invitation Commissioners. I have prepared a short presentation about the facts known about the attack on the Aurora mission and the current status of crew and material. My staff has also worked out a preliminary strategy how we can get out of the current current crisis and bring the project back on track within the projected timeline.”
“Spare us the details for the beginning, just tell us where we are and what we can expect from the future,” one of the Commissioners said, “we can only do a preliminary decision at the moment anyways. The rest will have to be decided when we get more facts about the incident.”
Bossert took a deep breath and put the small remote control for his notebook away.
“You know all the basics about the attack from the data sheet I sent you yesterday. Our astronauts got attacked by the Fenspace variant of a long range precision weapon. At the current time nobody knows what kind of group did this terror attack. Our astronauts survived the attack, Mrs Sarah Brown barely and only because she was rescued by Fen bio-technology.
Like most other terror attacks, nobody did predict this to happen, we have no knowledge who did it and what kind of damage they did. But certain facts allow us some speculation about the criminals.
Up to this point no group has taken responsibility for the attack. I also received the news that the Fen found the wreckage of the weapon system which fired on Pan. This suggests the weapon malfunctioned shortly after the shot or was a one-shot design. The terrorists also did only fire a single shot at the moon, which suggests a limit of their resources.”
“What if they do it again?”
“According to the Fen on board of the stations, this should be close to impossible. They are currently setting up an early warning system, and they promised to keep their stations defenses on hot standby until a permanent solution is available.
In addition to this the yearly political meeting of the Fen will be in three weeks on Mimas, which means the amount of security after the attack will be quite high. I am confident that no further attack will be successful in the next months. This gives us time to plan for the necessary defenses of the station.”
“Defenses? Did you forget that this is a civil project, not some military adventure Mr. Bossert!”
“I am sorry, maybe defenses was the wrong word.” Bossert replied carefully, “I was not thinking about weapon systems. But we are already doing a simulation at ESA if we can put the station deeper into the ice of the moon. Together with an Early Warning System this would help against any kind of attack and give the Fen at Mimas time to react.”
Bossert opened his briefcase and took out two folders, a thin one and a really thick one. He hold up the thin one.
“But the important point is that we cannot do this anymore just by following the plan. This here is the Aurora Mission Goal I presented you a few years ago. I can promise you we will still reach these goals, maybe with a few months delay. The whole station as ESA and JAXA described it, without any kind of Handwavium.”
He waited a few seconds, then he hold up the thick folder for a moment.
“This is the full plan how to do the Aurora mission, with all the details and pre-planned steps. Forget about it!”
This brought quite a bit concern into the faces of the Commissioners, Bossert could hear a few of them whispering to each other.
“We cannot do this mission as we planned it anymore, we have to improvise and adapt our planning if we want to reach the original goal. We have been dealt a huge blow, but we have the personal and resources at Pan to compensate for it if we let them do it. Trying to directly control this from Earth will only end in a disaster.
I propose to give our team on Pan the freedom to change plans if necessary to reach the defined goal. We might also need to ship them more materials than necessary, but I already got the confirmation that we still have reserves available. We still can make Aurora a success for all of us.”
“Thank you Mr. Bossert for this facts and proposal. We will have to talk about this but we will let you know about our decision this evening. But please keep in mind that this will only be a preliminary one, long term plans will depend on the progress made for Aurora.”
----
“Connecting, please wait...”
Kurt Coller waited impatiently for the connection to be established.
‘Radio to Nouveau Paris, radio to the Moon, Interwave to the catgirls space station, at least two of those connections should be unnecessary’ he thought, ‘time that we finally push against a few of those stupid rules. We could drop nearly 2 seconds round trip time’.
The screen in front of him changed and the face of Eric Hunt appeared, his arm still bandaged.
“Good morning Mr. Hunt.”
“Good morning Mr. Coller, what can I do for you? I had not expected a call like this.”
“Mr. Hunt, could you please get the stick I gave you before you left to Nouveau Paris?”
Hunt blinked for a moment and nodded. Every communication between the Aurora crew and the ESA control center in Darmstadt was encrypted by some ‘unbreakable’ security code. Still, just before he left for the ESA depot in orbit the mission director had given him a small flash-drive with onetime-pad data. ‘Just in case’ Koller had told him.
A few minutes later he appeared on Kurt Coller’s screen again. The image flickered for a few moments as the new encoding activated and a clock began to run backwards on the screen.
“Thank you Mr. Hunt. You should know this is NOT an official ESA call, this is just a message Mr. Allan Bossert asked me to relay to you.” Coller explained, “There will be no recordings on our side and I would like to ask you to delete any recording of the call on your side later.”
Eric nodded again, ‘This is getting stranger by the minute’ he thought.
“The ESA Director General has talked with the EU Commission and managed to get a few concessions, but we both know that the whole Aurora mission is vulnerable at the moment.
You will have to improvise for the rest of the mission. Our goal is still the same, the EU and Japan want the station and everything inside has to be as it is specified in the mission statement. Forget about the original instructions how to get there, you will have to make your own plans now.
We are preparing a third supply run for Pan at the moment, which contains all kind of spare materials we have available, but it might not be enough or parts might arrive too late. If you need to repair or replace things just do it, with or without help.
This became a fail-pass mission for ESA and JAXA in the last days. If we succeed, nobody will care if we played strictly by the rules. If we fail, there are more than enough people looking for our scalps. Enough that we won’t get a second chance in the next decade or more.
I know I can count on you. Get your crew together and draw up a new plan how to get out of this catastrophe. Nobody here on Earth needs to know the details, you have more things to do than to write up a new 1000 pages mission plan.
Good luck Eric...”
The video conference had ended minutes ago, but Eric Hunt was still staring on the screen, trying to make his mind up what he should think about the message. He listened to the message a second time, then a third time. Finally he suddenly grinned, pressed the ‘delete’ button and stood up.
There was a lot of work to do.