...a garbled signal cackled over the radio next to the Zoner's bunk. He was trying to pass the time; even if he could rationalize burning the fuel to leave Freeport 11, he wasn't sure he wanted to. The tension between the Core and the Order is always high, and no one wants to get caught in that crossfire. Add the constant Nomad presence, with ships being visible from the station's biodomes at times, made it clear that it was a easier to stay inside.
Not much to do, though; decoding this garbled signal would be a welcome distraction, and stave off the cabin fever for a bit.
...
It wasn't easy, but surviving out in the Border Worlds and Outer Rim teaches you a trick or two that could mean life or death out here. The signal wasn't repeated, and the initial strength wasn't great, but it came together, piece by piece. After a few hours of tweaking potentiometers and signal modulation, a message became clear over the background noise, be it from radiation, static, or something...alien. This transmission was human, though: the header came through, but the message was fractured...
::static::...full report to follow. I can ::static:: report that Kebok Survey Station has been ::static:: fully deployed, and the station is on-line.
::static:: ...rapid base deployment protocol followed, detection unlikely. ::static:: Routine resource shipments to begin... ::static::
::static::
::static::...monitoring deviations from known ::static:: hostile movements ::static::
::static::
End Transmission
The Zoner sighed. A new Order base, somewhere out here? He felt that if this kept up, Omicron Delta would become the equivalent of "Hammen Hole" in Omega-5. A wave of exhaustion hit him; perhaps it was the mental stress of decoding the message, or the perpetual tiredness that seeps in when all you have to do is sleep in your bunk or stare out the window.
The bunk was more appealing than the bar this rotation. However, just in case there was more communication on this station, he kept the frequency tagged. Fresh information could be worth a pretty penny in these parts, and sometimes credits are just what you need to make it another day.
Yegg sat on the edge of his temporary logding, the Order finest: an emergency triage bunk at Taba Starbase in Mu. He was drained. Last time he was here, it was when his training vessel had an electrical fire in the cockpit back in training. He was much less battered and bruised this time around. This time, no external evidence of the pain.
It had all happened so quickly, and he didn't know how long it had been since he slept. He half-smiled to himself; it wasn't worth trying to count, and he'd likely get it wrong, anyways. Staring and checking, rechecking, and reviewing shipping manifests would do that to someone.
The traced is thumb on the edge of his datapad; he was exhausted, but couldn't sleep. He re ran the whole timeline again, and shook his head at the fact that such a long period of time could be compressed into just a few minutes.
...
He was in the second fleet at the time. He stumbled on the Iridium Ore deposit on a routine patrol in Omicron Lost. After asking around to his fellow Order Ensigns, and realized how much they were paying for ore over at Sicca Shipyard, the plan for a small base to mine out ore and distribute it began to percolate. Yegg sighed; that was less than two months ago.
The base was built quickly, under his own credits and effort, and before Yegg knew it, he used his personal funds to acquire two vessels; one for mining, and one for transport. The work went quickly, and the base's storage capacity was expanded. Yegg looked down at his flight suit; at about the same time as the Logistics out of Lost were ramping up, his application to the Order Primary Fleet was accepted.
The Order was stretched thin, though, and couldn't contribute much to the operation. Regardless, he was assigned to the Logistics division, and allowed to continue operation. His vessels, the "Satet" and the "Shezmu", were inducted as legitimate Primary Fleet vessels, and it was going like clockwork.
Until...well, a little encounter set into motion what ended today; and at the end, we were left with a tired Ensign, alone in his bunk, only his thought to keep him company, sweaty after personally moving the last of the critical components off the base, and back to Order-controlled space.
...
He knew putting assets down in such a hotly contested system such as Lost was a risk, but he didn't know how deep the Core and Order bad blood went. He was a fresh-faced Ensign, and he hadn't lived through the past conflict.
He knew, though, that the Core were justified in forcefully removing the base. If the Order found a Core base in a contented system Yegg was sure he'd get called to the battlefield.
"War is hell" they say, but it's what he signed up for when he joined the Order. And hell wasn't known for being accommodating.
Yegg laid back down, and closed his eyes. Perhaps rest would finally come.
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