Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

Williams made her way into the council meeting. It had been a couple of days since she had been discharged from the ship’s medical bay. Certainly not an experience she would care to repeat, she cursed that damn marine for being incompetent. She would have had the man fired for that, but unfortunately, she did not have that power. It rankled her that he wasn’t even reprimanded for failing to protect her. Apparently, General Forest considered simply bringing her back alive as sufficient to consider the task successful. She had tried to talk sense into the man but to no avail.

Putting that aside, today's meeting was nothing special. They had discussed the topic before but hadn’t made any final decisions. They were simply going to continue the discussion on the creation of a new calendar one that marks the loss of their homeworld as year zero. Honestly, she didn’t much see the point of this and didn’t care if this went through or not. She had bigger things to worry about, and a calendar wasn’t going to do damage like many of the other things proposed in these halls. She cursed that damn machine and his minions.

Stepping into the chamber she found that everyone else was already there. She headed towards her seat, mostly disinterested in this meeting. She had a later one, that was far more important to her. It was a meeting with her allies, as they had some damage control to do of a different sort. Recent events had dealt a major blow to her movement. It might take months to recover, especially since the lower morale had been better for her movements. It was unfortunate, but if the people being unhappy would help her make them realize that machine needed to be put out of power, well then she will have to make sure they stay unhappy. More radical measures would be needed clearly.

How radical was the question? She considered a few ideas, and shelved them as the meeting went on. Occasionally responding to the others in a somewhat distracted manner. Before she even realized it, they had come to a final agreement on this new calendar. Including how they were going to implement it in full. She didn’t even notice when the subject shifted to discussing the creation of a more unified language. That topic was far more important, but also one not so easily finished in a single meeting.

Countryman stepped out of the meeting. It had gone well enough, but he could not help but notice how distracted Williams had been. Something was up with her, normally no matter the topic she would try to take control of the meeting, but she had doen no such thing today. Since he was already keeping an eye on her he had an idea of why. That other meeting she had taken great pains to arrange in secret must be rather important to her. He was going to be keeping a closer eye on that one. Keeping that woman in check was starting to look like a full time job.

In the meantime, he had things to do. It was time they got underway. He already had a destination in mind, the star system of Iridia. There was a Cathamari colony there, but from what he knew the system being of no strategic import had minimal defenses, and relied on only a single cruiser to deter pirates, and the like. That cruiser of course was largely why he was heading there, while it patrolled the entire sector it would eventually visit that system. As for the colony itself, it would certainly make an excellent target for some weapons testing. Thankfully he had picked something up that would ensure the colony would not be able to get a warning out.

Although if he wanted to he could wipe it out without them even knowing he was there. The Enterprise was afterall currently carrying ten antimatter bombs, each one had a massive yield of 100,000 megatons. That was an extinction level event. Of course while he called them bombs, they were actually designed to be fired from the torpedo launchers. What made them bombs was the fact that the projectiles in question were nothing more than an antimatter warhead. They carried no engines, no fuel, no guidance systems, nothing more than a warhead. In other words, they were classed as bombs since they were high-yield unguided munitions intended for planetary bombardment. They were the most powerful weapons ever built, but largely experimental. Of course he had plans for all ten of those warheads, and a minor colony didn’t rate such a valuable weapon. Especially given they were not easily replaced.

Modern technology could produce antimatter in useful quantities easily enough. So getting the antimatter for the warheads wasn’t too hard. It was the bulky containment system that made them hard to replace. They required materials not so easily acquired or produced. At the moment, he had just those ten warheads, and once they were gone they could not be replaced. Well, not for the foreseeable future anyway. Not to mention, they had other items to spend their limited resources on. Items that were more important than a few bombs, afterall those bombs while powerful were not of much use outside of a few limited roles.

He pushed those thoughts aside. Stepping of the lift, he made for the bridge. In a few more minutes they would be underway, and in a few weeks they will have arrived at their destination. They might be able to get there faster, but he was in no real hurry. Although he would have to keep his goals secret from Williams and her group for a while longer, lest they try to sabotage his plans.

Tika watched as the Enterprise and her two escorts went to warp. She didn’t know where they were going, but she wished them luck. She was a bit jealous that they had already finished their repairs, while she was still stuck here waiting for her own ship to be fixed. The damage to the Teketh however was failure extensive, and thanks to the attack it had been moved further back in the queue, while other ships were placed ahead of her own. It sucked, but she understood why they had done that.

Maybe she should have taken the humans up on their offer to patch her ship up. She sighed, although that didn’t sit entirely right with her. It just wasn’t right to tax their limited resources like that. Although another department would have berated her for letting them get a look at Krall systems like that. Even if they had been allowed to purchase quite a few examples of Krall technology. None of it was military grade hardware, at least she didn’t think so. She would later learn that a few less than reputable merchants had taken advantage of the recent situation to sell some stolen military grade hardware to the humans in exchange for a few salvage cubes and corn.

At the moment however, she was stuck here waiting for her ship to reach the head of the line and be repaired. While other ships were prioritized for repair ahead of her own. She turned away from the screens, and considered what she would be doing in the meantime. There were things to be done even with her ship stuck in dock and needing a refit.

Captain’s Log December 22nd, 158 CSD; or should I say year zero SDE?:

The recent council meetings have been about changing the calendar. I’m trying it out now a bit in my log. Other than a few council meetings not much has happened since we left Iliera. We crossed the Krall Cathamari border without incident, and we should be arriving in the Cathamari border system of Iridia sometime today.

From the star charts we have an idea about the system. It’s primary is a K-type star. Being a K-type star it is perfectly capable of supporting habitable worlds, although the overall system will be a bit cooler than Sol. That was reflected as well in the orbital positions of the local planets. It had two habitable worlds apparently, but only one of them supported a colony. The first habitable world was fairly close to the primary, and was a dry arid world. It had limited water, and few resources with which to support a colony. The planet also had a fairly thin atmosphere. Most of what water that world did have was locked up in ice caps.

The other planet, the one that did support a colony was further from the star. It had a more terrestrial environment, supporting vast oceans, and fertile continents. Being somewhat earth-like the planet would likely have been ideal for a human colony if it wasn’t for the problem of already being home to a Cathamari one. Not to mention this system was far too close to Cathamari space. It was a shame, but at least the world would serve a purpose. We can use it test our new weapons, especially since we can not allow the colony to remain.

We might be in the system for a while, afterall. We need that cruiser, but we don’t know when it will arrive in system. It could be hours, or possibly days. Hell from what I heard it might even be months, hopefully not that long. There is just no way to know when it will arrive in system. We weren’t able to find a patrol schedule for it on the market.

Countryman closed his log, and sighed. There was much left unsaid in the log. He glanced at the date, and considered the importance of one such date coming up. It may have lost its religious meaning over the centuries, but it was still a widely celebrated holiday. One the ship was preparing to celebrate again. As the earlier festival a few weeks ago, had indicated they very much needed that kind of celebration, and he was planning to make it a far larger holiday. The working title was the “Year’s End festival”, and it was planned to start on the 25th, and end on the first day of the new year. It would be reason to celebrate family, life, and the simple fact that they had survived another year. The end of each year was now something much more precious than used to be, especially now that their race was so close to extinction. Each life was worth so much more now that there were so few of them.

Slipping out of his chair, he made for the door. They were about to drop out of warp, and he wanted to be on the bridge when they did. That wasn’t far away, since at the moment he was in his ready room, which was located on the same deck, and just a few meters aft of the bridge. Just across the hall from a conference room in fact, and sharing an access corridor with the main lift, and the upper level entrance to the bridge.

Leaving his ready room, he turned right, and greeted the guards who opened the door for him. He passed into the bridge and took over command of the bridge from his first officer, just moments before Eri reported warp out. They had arrived at their destination.