Project Cesium - Chapter 4 - Discharged
Log #4: September 2nd, 2735
I’ve been studying the surveillance drone in the safe room for a few days now, at least I think it’s been a few days. I found a tracker inside the drone, When I tried to scan the Code Signature of the drone, no ship information came up, just the words “They’re coming”. What does that mean? I’m driving myself insane thinking about the possibilities of what’s going to happen to me...
The door’s getting ripped open, they’ve found me. I have to sign off, if anyone’s listening to this, I’m in a star system a few light years from Colonia, please...
Save me.
End of log
July 14th, 2754
4:13 PM
Allison and I can’t believe what we’re hearing.
“You can’t just fire us! We worked hard to get our jobs here and we will not let you take this away from us!” Allison exclaimed
“Well, you don’t have much of a say in this, especially since you don’t work for the Ares Republic anymore. Now please, get out of my office.”
We exited the room and walked back down the hallway, which leads to the elevator, we walked in and Allison scanned her card and pressed the floor -7.
“You have access to floor -7? Not even I have that kind of security clearance.”
“We’re going down there while I still have security clearance, plus I’m a higher rank than you,” Allison said
“How are you, a higher rank than me?”
“I’ve been working here way longer than you.”
“I don’t think that means you’re more deserving of a promotion.”
“Well that doesn’t matter anymore because we’re fired, what are we going to do?” Allison spoke with such worry in her voice, I knew there was something we could do because if we didn’t, we probably would be dead within the month.
“We can do freelance missions for various companies and factions, and it’s not like they won’t hire us, we have plenty of experience, We can do that!”
“We don’t have a ship! Our current one is owned by Ares and I don’t think they want us to have it.”
“I have a bank account that I had been saving for occasions just like this! It should be worth a few hundred thousand dollars!”.
“Ok fine, we can try this out, how about 50/50 split of all profits?” Allison asked.
“Deal. Before we worry about any of that, why are we going to the sub-basement?”
“I figured that if they fire us, we should take something of theirs to get back at them.”
“You’re insane.”
The elevator doors opened, the sub-basement was a medium sized room, dimly lit with a couple desks with computers and research. It made me question what was so special about this floor. When we made it to the desks area, Allison began to look on the computers and in drawers for something, But eventually, I think she found what she was looking for, she took out her phone and set it down on the table. I’m sure the table has one of those wireless surfaces, where if you set a device or memory stick or such, it connects the device to the local network, which in this case, was a small computer set upon the table.
“What are you doing?” I asked
“Stealing some files.” Her phone connected to the wireless link and she began to scroll through the files, I didn’t know what to do so I began looking on other computers for anything that might be worth stealing, to no avail.
“Hey, I found something!” Allison exclaimed.
“What is it?” I looked at the computer, and to my surprise, she had found a file labelled Project Cesium, upon closer examination of the file, the document had a huge amount of metadata, the real information was encrypted with a password that neither of us knew. Allison began to upload the file to her phone and we ran back to the elevator. I knew that what we were doing was illegal, but at this point, I didn’t care.
We were on our way to our ship, trying not to look suspicious, we did receive weird looks from some of the citizens, but nothing too serious. When we got to the ship, Allison turned on the engines of the ship and I ran to the co-pilot seat, as we started taking off, we both noticed some security guards running to our ship, shouting something we couldn’t comprehend due to the sound-proof glass.
Allison began to input some coordinates into the command console. “Where are we going?” I tried to shout over the sounds of the engines engaging.
“We’re going anywhere but here.” The ship reaches hyper-speed and I have no idea where it’s taking us, the predicted time on the console says forty-five minutes so I’d think it’s somewhere very far from here.
I give Allison a confused look, but she doesn’t respond.
About forty-five minutes later…
We made it to the destination that Allison had entered. Still unknowing of the destination, we had arrived. I glance at the ship’s navigational console… and I instantly recognize, we’ve just arrived at Upsilon Andromedae…
“You took us to Upsilon Andromedae?!? do you know how messed up these people are? What the hell!” I said, Ever since the war of Upsilon Andromedae, the place has always been completely insane about its security and thus the system has been in a constant lockdown. Even the smallest breaking of any rule can lead to a death sentence, and if you even think about going there without permission, you can basically kiss your life goodbye.
“What? This isn’t my fault! We were being chased down by security forces and I panicked and just selected a random star system! We were in a hurry!” Allison shouted with an uncomfortable look on her face.
“Just get out of here!”
“I’m trying!” Allison shouted, just before she could initiate hyperspace engines, four ships appeared, we noticed our comms channel opening to which we received a horrifying auditorial message.
Attention entitled spacecraft, you have entered Upsilon Andromedae and are now trespassing, and as we can tell by your ship’s code signature, you do not have the required permission to be in this system, please turn off your engine and allow us to board your ship so you can be incarcerated. If you do not listen, you will be eliminated.
“Well shit, now we’re completely screwed because it took us too long to fix your mistake!” I said, I instantly regretted it, but it was too late.
“My mistake? You were the one who decided to leave the mission early and get us fired!” Allison shouted.
“That was your suggestion! Don’t blame me for your bad idea!” I said
“Well, it’s too late to change this. I’ll turn off the engines.”
Again, entitled ship if you do not turn off your engines, you will be destroyed, this is your final warning.
“Okay!” Allison said
Engines disengaged. Unknown ship attempting to board: do you wish to allow this? Allison pushed yes, and we could hear the ship boarding us. I was filled with worry and I could tell that Allison was as worried as I was.
Before we could argue any longer, the boarding door opened and a half-dozen soldiers ran into the room armed with automatic weapons that I could not recall. The soldiers were wearing white camouflage and cargo pants of the same colour.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” I believe the person speaking to me was their Commanding Officer.
“I read their ship’s code signature, It’s owned by the Ares Republic.” One of the soldiers responded.
“Are they affiliated with the Ares Republic?” The C.O asked.
“We were, but we were just recently fir--” Before Allison could finish, the soldier interrupted her.
“Ah- no talking.” The C.O said.
“It didn’t say anything about their affiliation on the code signature, let me see your ID cards.” The soldier said. Allison and I handed over our cards from our pockets, the soldier took out the scanner. He proceeded to hover the item over each of our cards, I heard a faint beeping sound from the device scanning my card, then again for Allison.
“Nope looks here like they were just recently fired, this ship is clearly not theirs. What do you want to do?” The soldier asked.
“Arrest them, we’ll keep them in jail until we figure out what to do with them. You guys are coming with us.” The C.O pointed to us. I had just realised that they actually had a legal reason to imprison us than just trespassing into the system. We had stolen top secret files and a ship, and we were trespassing into a system that we didn’t have legal right to enter, luckily they hadn’t found the files yet.
Two of the soldiers grabbed Allison and I, she tried to struggle to no avail. They pulled us into a little holding cell on their ship and locked us in. Before the soldiers left the room, Allison started speaking.
“What are you guys going to do with our ship?” Allison asked worryingly.
“We’re going to take it to our hangar so we can remove the code signature and keep it as our own.”
“That’s a felony!” I told the soldier
“It may be a felony in other star systems, but not this one.” The soldier smirked and chuckled lightly as he left the room. Sadly, he was right, all the stuff that had just happened to us was legal in this messed up system, and we couldn’t do anything about it. I didn’t even know you could remove code signatures without affecting the internal compartments in the ship.
I heard quiet talking from the next room over. Search the ship for any more evidence we can use to lock those two up for good. Check the living quarters, cockpit, kitchen, bathroom and the storage room for anything.
“Dammit! They’re going to find my device with all the files we stole of Ares Republic! We’re in so much trouble” Allison said. For a second I thought that all was lost, that we were doomed to be locked up in prison for the rest of our lives over stolen files and a ship. This might be the end for us.