Project New Dawn

[Frostpfote]

Project New Dawn

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Act 1: The Beginning

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To the Stars

It is nighttime at the main headquarters of the Pathfinders Corps. Dozens of heavy lifters and transport shuttles deliver scientific equipment, food and anything the crew will need for their survival for the first couple of months.
Michael stands on one of the platforms as one of the biggest transports at their disposal takes off to deliver its cargo to the spaceport where the New Dawn is anchored. “If everything goes according to plan we’ll be ready for departure in about 4 and a half hours. The crew is already on the ship, are you sure you don’t need a shuttle to get you up there? Over.”, the voice comes from the walky talky on his belt, he quickly picks it up and answers with a thoughtful voice: “That’s good news, try to stay in schedule. I’ll observe the start from my office, no need for a shuttle to get me up. Over.” The wind starts to get rougher after his response, so he goes inside to call the crew on the bridge for the last instructions before the upcoming solar storm will cut all connections to the New Dawn.

One hour before the start. The crewmembers on the bridge have already booted Aurora who is now closing starting to close most of the cargo hatches. Nobody would notice, but she is worried about Michael. He wasn’t on the ship again after the test flight. Just before the solar storm hits the launch site Aurora receives a call request directed to her, it comes from his office. She immediately accepts and listens carefully for what he would say. “Good morning Aurora, it’s me….as you might have guessed.”, he scratches his head slightly nervously as he speaks into the microphone: “I’m calling you one last time before your mission starts to…say goodbye. Once you have left the docking station any connections to the outworld will be restricted so…”. He sighs, unable to express what he really wants to say. “Michael, it’s okay – I will make you and the others proud. This is why you’ve created me, my whole life you have cared for me and prepared me for this mission.”, a bit of static starts to interfere with the call but she’s clearly trying to make this parting a bit easier. “Once the mission is completed I will get back to you as quick as I can.” Michael knows that this mission is most likely going to take longer than his lifespan, or those of the crew. He knows that at some points Aurora will be alone on the ship, and he fears this moment. He stays silent for just a couple of seconds before he presses the button and takes the microphone closer to his face with a tear running down his face – but the alert signal on the screen in front of him indicates that the solar storm has covered the ship and anything he’d send would just get lost and never reach the New Dawn. He kicks the mic off his table in anger and rushes to the window to look into the sky, as if his thoughts could reach Aurora up there.

Navigation Deck

“Bringing primary engines online!” Aurora’s voice appears clearly hearable across the bridge. The solar storm may blindfold the crew, but not her. She could make the necessary calculations to guide the New Dawn out of the storm. “Docking clamp status? About to detach! Primary engines? Online! What about the shields? Offline, we’ll activate it once we’re out of the storm!”, the crew’s last minute chatter on the bridge is tense. Everybody is focused on their screen as Aurora sets the course. Normally the start would be performed by the crew, but due to the storm they have decided to let the ship’s assistant handle it. “Initiate countdown, primary engines ready to give full thrust! Get us through that storm!”, a woman who appeared to be the crew leader shouts across the bridge, shortly after everybody else is silent as Aurora starts to count down. “10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…lift off.” The ship immediately shakes under the force put out by the three primary engines as it accelerates towards the unknown. For about a minute one could hear a needle fall to the ground it is that silent. Some of the sensors come back online, a sign that the end of the storm could not be far. Some of them already start to cheer in anticipation when out of nowhere the ship rumbles as it receives a huge impact on the front deck. “What was that? Did we hit an asteroid?! Negative, we’re still far off the field! Captain, reading multiple contacts in close proximity, dozens of them!” The captain walked over to the windows of the bridge to make out what exactly hit them. The storm fades as they’re still pushing forward on full speed. The captain’s jaw drops for a moment as she sees from where the impact came from. “All spare energy on the front shields, bring the point defense online Aurora, we got Nomad ships inbound!” Shortly after the ship’s front is bombarded with purple-blue projectiles, for now they can fend them off but they have to get out immediately if they want to survive.

Upon leaving the storm the New Dawn is greeted with a sizeable nomad invasion fleet. Hundreds of small ships with several dreadnoughts backing them up. If they hadn’t been building up speed already they would be sentenced to death, but the engines giving all they’ve got and second by second adjustments of the ship’s shields to cover the most important parts of the ship they manage to break past the fleet, fearing the Nomads would follow them – but they don’t. “Distance increasing captain, they’re not following us!”, a man shouts towards her in relief. But the captain and Aurora knew what this meant. The Nomads never came to interrupt the New Dawn, they came to erase the entire launch site on the planet.

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