NationStates Jolt Archive

Somewhere, deep in space... well... not all that deep, actually... not quite within the solar system, but close enough, just a few quibbles outside the orbit of Pluto, a disturbance was forming...

"Oi! I saw it first!"
"Hah! Prove it."
"Look behind you!"
"Wha..."
*thwack*
"Ay, No fight'in amidships, ya maggots! 'old on tight, we're goin' froo..."

A raggedy tear opened up in the surface of space: inside, a storm of roiling, coruscating red energy could be see boiling and swirling around a dark, lumpy, misshapen craft which began to edge its way, jerkily and uncertainly, out through the mouth of the wormhole, nosing its way into the clean, dark vacuum of realspace. Then, without warning, the wormhole slammed shut, shearing off several long tubular protuberances from the rear of the ramshackle vessel.

Its surface a patchwork of different metals, ceramics, plastics and crystals, all fused together in a haphazard fashion, the vast ship seemed not only to have been designed, but also repaired by dozens of different committees, if it had been designed at all. All over the vaguely ovaloid hull, strange spikes and tubes and blisters thrust their way outwards, and from between them, without sequence or reason, billowing clouds of gas vented outward, while from the vast engines behind, an endless stream of lethal gamma-rays poured into space.

The vessel travelled serenely onwards into the system, seemingly unaffected by the loss of some of its posterior elements, beaming a single message, on all frequencies and wavelengths, to any in the solar system with the means or inclination to listen:

"Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys, sentients and AIs, starfarers and gas-dwellers, buyers and consumers of all ages and species, rejoice! Today is a momentous and wonderful day for your system! No longer do you have to traipse across the galaxy for that perfect trinket which will gain the heart of your beloved, or for that essential nugget of technology with which you can carry your civilisation on to the next level. No longer do you need to pay extortionate prices for dubious wares sold by unlicensed traders. No longer do you need to pour minds and resources into research products which may prove fruitless. The GRV Finders Keepers, a licensed subsidiary of the Intergalactic Master Traders Association, is here for the purpose of bringing the wonders of the galaxy to you, at never-to-be-repeated knock-down prices, for a limited time only!"The message continued to send, repeating every few minutes, without intermission. The vessel, on the other hand, flew onwards into the solar system for in the region of quarter of an hour, and then juddered to a grinding halt.

"Oi! Grabbit! What's goin' on down there?"
"We're out of fuel, Cap'n. Used up all our reserves opening the 'hole."
"What d'ya think I give ya assistants for, fool?"

A few minutes later, the Finders Keepers lurched slightly, and began to crawl forwards again, now broadcasting a further message.

"Fusionable fuel will be considered as payment for a limited time only!"

Keller Loch Tracking Facility, Charon-

One of several dozen sensor stations in the area, this particular one was designed to track ships and spacial tears within the area of Pluto and Charon. It had as much to do with local traffic control as it had to do with defense operations. Thus when the ship pulled out of the tear in space and then found itself stuck near the Federal Republic's major naval port and research facility a response was quick.

'Spacial anomoly registering on the the sensors, passing information over to Nomad Terminal...correction, one vessel transmitting not hostile indentification. Information update transmitted."

Nomad Terminal Naval Base, Charon Orbit-

The information didnt have to go the Admiral, it was a simple process of going to the officer of the watch. There was no need to call up the 7th Fleet which sat anchored in orbit of Pluto with all its vast firepower. No, the Officer of the watch had the duty of dealing with lone civilian traffic

'Out of fuel? Dispatch the Tender Broadway and have them refuel that hulk, then have them move away from us. I dont like civilian vessels this close to us. Make sure the Frigate Vermillion is on station, alert condition 45.'

Alert condition 45 was simple Federal Military jargon for a possible ship evacuation. When the Tender Broadway arrived with fuel there was always a possibility that an accident may happen, that the ship being refueled was in worse off conditon than previously thought. It was designed to let the Frigate know they might have to dispatch a rescue shuttle at a moments notice. The entire process from the first detection to the movement of the Tender Broadway with her escort took twenty five minutes, the typical response time for a non-emergency situation.

Shell class Tender 'Broadway'-

Shell class ships were ancient by most standards. The hulls going on nearly two hundred years old generally they were built for one purpose and they had done it so well that no one really wanted to update or overhaul the design with a new one. It was designed to fuel a wide range of strike craft and transports and it had easily earned the nickname of a space bound gas station. This also made the ships particularly dangerous to an unexperienced crew and careful movements were needed whenever a foreign craft was being fueled. It was one thing to refuel ships you knew, it was another to fuel the vast amalgamation of ships that plied the starlanes. Thus when the Broadway issued its standard hail it was no different than what had been said thousands of times before.

'This is the Federal Republic Stellar Navy vessel Broadway, we are an unarmed refueling ship responding to the request to trade for fuel. Our sensors have registered that your ship is in need of resupply. We request permission to come along side and begin transfer of materials. We will hold at a range of 100 kilometers and await your reply. Over.'

Initially the only reply that the Broadway received was a mass of static, punctuated by a series of dull thuds, similar to the sound of a fist pounding upon a plastic casing. Then, the static resolved into a clear, if somewhat reedy voice.

"Gyteh fryoop viv joops joshizes klarghhh?
Bog!
Hic est? Nil lingua est!
C'est? Non? Zut alors!
Hargulphe
Graghkji
*crackle*
Testing?
Testin'
Testin'
Translator's workin' cap'n...I fink."

What sounded like a growl could just be heard through the Broadway's comms, followed by a muffled shriek. The voice that then proceeded to waft its way through the comms was somewhat deeper, and silkily refined.

"Ah, my apologies for the delay, gentlemen. The wormhole seems to have caused some minor damage to our translating equipment. Such are the hardships we endure to bring our customers the very finest goods from across the galaxy. We are now deploying our rear access..."

The voice broke off for a few moments,

"My apologies again. An urgent administrative matter. Where was I? Ah yes; we are now deploying our port access tubes. Feel free to dock at your convenience."

Even as the Captain spoke, a pair of broad, segmented tubes began to unfold out from the side of the GRV, halting just clear of the bulk of the continuing gaseous emissions.

The Broadway's engines kicked up for a second once more and the ship lurched forward at a slow pace toward the amalgamation of parts. Manuvered and slowed by its breaking thrusters. The CO of the Broadway wasnt exactly liking the situation as it was unfolding. Something seemed wrong with the ship and the limited radiation sensors were registering the occassional spike from the aft section. The first location where they wanted the ship to dock. This was becoming rather dangerous even without the Broadway being a floating gas station. Then they were requesting fusionable fuel. That wasnt exactly the most prevailant of fuel sources and the Broadway barely had enough in its stores to get a ship the size of the Finders Keepers to Jupiter space. They would be someone elses problem then.

'Encounter suits on, we dont know what to expect, I want this transfer done in under twenty minutes. No one takes any sidearms. The Vermillion has us covered. If these so called traders attempt anything by all means return to the docking collar and we'll disengage while docked...I doubt that thing can handle us ripping away at flank..and with your encounter suits you should be able to survive until you're picked up...' The COs voice wasnt exactly the most reassuring but the four gashands as they were known in the federal navy had seen and been in worse. So when the docking ring extended from the Broadway and connected they knew they had to be quick about it. A massive lead container with as much fusionable material as could be found was at the ready. Rods of highly radioactive material were ready to be connected to the engines of course the gashands didnt know if they were going to be doing it or if the native crew of the ship would attempt the feat.

'This is the Broadway to Finders Keepers, we are pressurizing the tube. Our sailors are in encounter suits. Be warned that we're carrying highly radioactive material for your engines within sealed containers. Have your engineering crew ready to accept the material. This stuff should last you until you reach the 5th planetary sector of the solar system, from there you'll be able to refuel from another navy with a larger supply of material. Be advised once you are refueled you are ordered to proceed within the solar system, you are currently near a restricted military facility.'

The ordeal was almost over. Meanwhile the Frigate Vermillion stayed about 10,000 kilometers out, this was close range for the Federal military but none of the offensive weapon systems were powered up. Two marine teams were however on standby along with a small team of medical personnel. They hadnt bothered to contact any of the engineers, if something was going to go wrong, now it was beyond a simple attempt at repair. The Broadway was a space bound bomb, and the Finders Keepers didnt appear to be much better.

'This is the refueling vessel Broadway we are declaring an emergency. I say again we are declaring an emergency...' It had started an hour ago when the docking clamps first reported a minor malfuction. A repair team was sent to investigate but with a ship as old as the Broadway repairs were long affairs. It was one of the major detractors to using ships as old as the Broadway class. The time to repair them increased over the decades and so something as a simple docking clamp failure had spiraled out of control into a serious emergency which threatened to decompress the entire refueling vessel. The Frigate Vermillion had manuvered itself to a safe distance once the first emergency call was put out and then launched its rescue craft which moved quickly toward the Broadway.

'All hands this is the Captain, prepare the spacesuits, get ready for emergency evacuation...' The damage repair teams had left the area when the situation began to deterriorate and decompression warnings were heard throughout the ship. To say the least it was better than a fuel line failure where the entire ship would go up like a minature supernova in space as the fuel caught fire and caused the ship to rip apart. Unfortunatly for most of the crew the events unfolded too quickly. The men were prepared to deal with fires but decompression was a rarity amongst the refueling ships. It was a problem that investigators would later attribute to being connected to the spacebound garbage calling itself the Finders Keepers. As the docking clamps disengaged by accident, the atmosphere was vented from the side of the side. Automatic door sealing mechanisms failed and those close to the doors couldnt manually close them before being sucked out, only the doors to the bridge managed to close on time.

The crew of the Vermillion could only watch in horror as bodies were sucked into the depths of space, out of a crew of a hundred only one in five had managed to get some of their containment equipment on. Even then they only had enough oxygen to last for several minutes. Their tanks having been empty for nearly a decade without anyone having filled them once more. When the rescue shuttle could finally begin picking up people the vast majority of them would be confined to body bags and the remaining ones would be forever brain damaged from lack of oxygen. In the history of the Federal navy this was still not the worst shipping accident though. A line of refueling ships had been destroyed by accident when one of their fueling lines had a critical failure caught fire exploded and damaged the nearby six refuelers setting off a chain reaction which ended with the deaths of nearly 500 people.

In an hour it was all over, the Broadway was a dead hulk, the Vermillion had moved into range to take it into tow and the Light Cruiser Frontier had been dispatched to ensure the space in the area was clear of civilian traffic. This meant escorting the Finders Keepers far away from Federal Space and leaving them on the doorstep of Neptune. They would be someone elses problem now.