There was a post about this recently, though it didn't go into very much detail at all, so I thought I'd fix that, and try to cover both sides of the argument, for and against.
I've been continually updating this post with new information for hours, while I research this, so feel free to check again later!

About the theory

There is a conspiracy theory that the very tuning system modern music uses (A4=440Hz) is designed to make us more anxious or aggressive, or to otherwise make us less in tune with our spirituality.
It's a pretty fun one.
Proponents of this conspiracy claim that 432Hz is more natural, that it is more fundamental to nature and more in tune with the universe itself.
It is often claimed that the Rockefellers or the Nazis came up with 440Hz, as a form of control or division.
People often talk about how 432Hz aligns with our chakra and so has healing properties, or that it encourages spiritual development.
There are many interesting numerical, numerological and geometric properties/relationships between 432Hz and other things in the world/universe.

For the theory

• 432Hz supposedly resonates with 8Hz (the base Schuman resonance, which is essentially the frequency of the Earth itself). In reality, the Schuman resonance averages to 7.83Hz, which when multiplied by 55 gives us 430.65, not 432. Close but not close enough. Debunked?
• 432 is the sum of four consecutive prime numbers: 103 + 107 + 109 + 113 = 432. This is... pretty damn interesting. EDIT: But according to someone in the comments, 40% of numbers under 999 can be created this way, however see below for even more significance.
• 4 + 3 + 2 = 9. In numerology, 9 has the highest vibrational frequency, aside from the master numbers, and according to one source "represents the sum of all parts, or revelation" and according to another source "represents spiritual wisdom, or seeking to serve all of humanity". Any multiple of 9 can be summed back to 9, which highlights the infinite power of 9 (9x2=18, 1+8=9; 9x3=27, 2+7=9 etc.).
  • If we sum the individual digits of the four primes from above (remember: 103 + 107 + 109 + 113 = 432), so, let's sum those digits (i.e. 1 + 3 + 1 + 7 + 1 + 9 + 1 + 1 + 3). We get 27 and then we sum that (2 + 7) to get 9. There it is again.
  • In numerology, 432 and 864 are both multiples of 9 (which sum to 9) and are also astronomical- and time-related (86400 seconds in a day, the radius of the sun is 432k miles). Notice also that the 864 component of the number is double 432.
• In geometry, the internal angles of the regular polygons sum to 9 (triangle = 180, square = 360, pentagon = 540, hexagon = 720, heptagon = 900, octagon = 1080 etc.).
  • Interestingly, if we use A=432Hz then all of those angles from the regular polygons above show up as notes. 180Hz is an F#, 360Hz is an F#, 540Hz is a C#, 720Hz is an F#, 900Hz is an A#, 1080Hz is a C# etc. If we take those notes, we can build an F# Major Chord using F#, A# and C#. Major chords are arguably the most important.
  • The above also works with the interior angles of the platonic solids (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron etc.), which form the same chord!
  • It also works with the germ of life from sacred geometry, again forming the same chord!
  • The interior angles of the cube, and the germ of life, add up to 2160. If we remove the 0, thus 216, this is exactly half of our magical 432 (and, of course, also sums to 9).
• If we use the fibonacci sequence (which shows up often in nature, such as branching in trees, the arrangement of leaves on a stem, the fruit sprouts of a pineapple, the flowering of an artichoke, an uncurling fern, and the arrangement of a pine cone's bracts) algorithm, but instead of starting with 0 we start at 180 (because of its meaning in geometry - the internal angles of a triangle), then look what happens:
  • 0 + 180 = 180
  • 180 + 180 = 360 (square/circle)
  • 180 + 360 = 540 (pentagon, perfect fifth interval)
  • 360 + 540 = 900 (septagon, major third interval)
  • 540 + 900 = 1440 (star tetrahedron/Jewish merkabah, perfect eighth interval)
  • Oh, look, a Major chord.
• The Mayans discovered the "precession of the equinox" (basically the way the earth's axis wobbles), which they measured to take 25,920 years per cycle. They called it "the great year". What a coincidence, then, that "the great month" is 2160 years in length.
  • If we take the fundamental 12 and 60, from Sumerian math, and then take the numbers from music/geometry, and we multiply them (e.g. 12 x 2160, 60 x 432, 360 x 72, 180 x 144), in every case, we get 25,920.
  • They say also that the diameter of the moon is 2160 miles but unfortunately it's 2,158.8 miles, which kind of ruins the astronomical significance of all this a little.
  • 2160 / 5 = 432, and when divided by other numbers will give you those various internal geometric angles from above.
  • If we divide any two numbers in the fibonacci sequence, we get the golden ratio (which just like it's big brother shows up all over nature, geometry, architecture and even in the human body), which is 1.61 to the nearest hundredth. If we do 1.61² (1.61 x 1.61) we get 2.592 to the nearest thousandth. Do you see it? Remember, the great precession? 25,920 years?
• On an ancient Sumerian cuneifom tablet, the Sumerians kept track of the lengths of the reigns of their kings. Among the list are Kings who reigned for 288,000 years, 432,000 years and 360,000 years. Ignoring these seemingly impossible reigns, if you take away the zeroes, all three of those numbers show up in the factor nine grid (which is a grid of numbers built on 432, and basically shows you all the frequencies within the 432Hz system). Also, these 3 frequencies form a Major chord. Some say this confirms the theory of the Anunnaki, the aliens or deities who visited the Sumerians, Babylonians etc. and imparted knowledge and wisdom of creation.
• 432² (432 x 432) = 186,624. This is within 0.01% of the speed of light, which is 186,400 miles/second.
• A man named George Van Tassel claimed to have been given an equation by aliens in the 1950s. The equation was F = 1 / T (F = frequency, T = time). If we take the 1 to mean 1x great precession, as calculated by the Mayans, so 25,920, and we take T to mean 60, a significant number for time, the result is 432.
• If we take the number 12, which was significant to the Sumerians, and square it, we get 144. 144 shows up as a note when using A4=432Hz. If we expand 144 outwards to 144,000, this number seems to show up everywhere.
  • Supposedly the Pyramid of Giza is made of 144,000 stones. I can't confirm this.
  • The baktun, which is a Mayan measurement of time corresponding to 20 katun cycles, is equal to 144,000 days.
  • The bible says that there will be 144,000 chosen ones who will be redeemed.
  • 144,000 / 432 is 33.333333333... which may explain the Freemasons' obsession with the number 3.
  • In Hinduism, a kali yuga is a measurement of time equal to 432,000 years.
• 432 is exactly 3 gross, gross being an old measurement equal to 144. Huh.
• An equilateral triangle whose area and perimeter are equal has the area of exactly the square root of 432.
• There are supposedly 432 Buddha statues on Mount Meru, which are said to relate to the location of the chakras. Cannot confirm/deny.
• Supposedly the most ancient of instruments, unearthed from archaeological digs, were all tuned at 432Hz, but this is not true. Hertz did not exist at those times and they had no way to measure it, and from my research it seems the tuning of unearthed ancient instruments varies wildly. Debunked?
• There are images and videos using cymatics to attempt to prove the theory, however these experiments can be specifically tuned to resonate (and thus produce beautiful/symmetrical images/patterns) at any frequency. Debunked?
• In Pythagorean tuning, the first standardised method of tuning, which is based on ratios, 432 arises, as it is a multiplication of the ratio between C and A, C being 1:1 and A being 27:16, which is equal to 432:256. But these are just ratios and can apply to any base frequency, including 440Hz.
• In just intonation, the ratios used to build the scale (from C) are 1:1, 9:8, 5:4, 4:3, 3:2, 5:3 and 15:8. You may notice that all of these are part of the fibonacci sequence, which is fundamental to nature. However, again, these are just ratios and can be used with any frequency, including 440Hz.
• Often people will claim that 432Hz resonates with the heart or the brain or the sun or water. The heart fluctuates between 1-2.5Hz and the brain between 1-70Hz, these numbers cannot be multiplied to reach 432 and so there is no resonance there. The sun is around 5.964GHz which when divided by 42,000,000 gives us 142Hz. Close but no cigar. Water is a wide band between 90-110THz, not favouring any frequency. Debunked?
• It was an evil Nazi/Rockefeller plot which means the theory is more likely to be true/just makes sense, because... evil gonna evil? Well, actually it was the British Standards Institute's idea. Debunked?
• If A=432Hz, then you could have an E note that has a frequency of 162Hz and 162 looks kind of like phi (which relates to the golden ratio, and so is related to nature) - 1.618033988... do you see it? 162? 1.61...? This one debunks itself.
• In an octave there are 13 notes and the most dominant is called the fifth, which is the 8th note. 8/13 is approximately equal to the golden ratio, which is found all over nature. The most important notes in a scale are the 1st, 5th, 8th and 13th, all of which are found in the fibonacci sequence. I mean, sure? But once more this doesn't really have anything to do with 432Hz itself, the same can be said of 440Hz.

Against the theory

• Despite the standard of A4=440Hz, most symphony orchestras all around the world actually still use different standards such as 415, 432, 442, 444, 448 etc., anywhere from 415-470Hz. And in the more distant past anywhere from 380-500Hz. If 440Hz was specifically designed to make us feel anxious or aggressive, or whatever, as many proponents of this conspiracy theory claim, then surely it would be strictly adhered to throughout the musical world? The powers that be would not tolerate these deviances.
• There have been various attempts at standardisation throughout history, the French at 435Hz, the British at 439Hz, the Austrians at 440Hz etc. In the past, there was no standard (that is to say 432Hz was never a universal standard), pieces could sound much higher or lower depending on where or when they were performed (again, A4=380-500Hz). Obviously this is problematic if you have musicians travelling around the world, performing with different orchestras and such, constantly having to re-tune. Clearly standardisation would fix that issue, which is why efforts to do so began after the invention of the tuning fork.
• The practice of dividing a minute into 60 divisions (seconds) didn't begin until the 16th century, I believe. For all intents and purposes it is an arbitrary measurement. The ancients had no concept of seconds, so any instances of other things from those periods of history equaling 432 are purely coincidental. We could have divided the minute into literally anything else and then the numbers would not have lined up. Eventually scientists decided to define the second as "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom". Suggesting that the ancients could even calculate that, or knew anything about it, is absurd, as is suggesting that there is something inherently magical or mystical or spiritual about "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom". If the second was instead defined as something based on the human body itself, especially the brain, then maybe I could get behind this, but seconds and by extension hertz don't really have anything to do with the mind/body/spirit at all.
• String instruments sound objectively "brighter" when tuned higher, due to the higher tension resulting in stronger harmonics. Due to this there was a period in history, referred to as pitch inflation, where orchestras were constantly competing with each other, tuning higher and higher to attain a brighter sound, going far above A=440Hz. Eventually this got to the point where vocalists started complaining about vocal strain. This is one reason why the compromise of 440Hz was decided.

Bonus #1

There is this phenomenon called the overtone series, or the harmonic series, and if you don't know about it then boy are you in for a treat.
All tones, except for pure sine waves, have "overtones".
Let's say we have a string, a piano string, tuned to C... C2. We strike the key. What do you think you're hearing?
A C2? ...just a C? Wrong! You're hearing a whole butt-load of notes.
When a string vibrates, it doesn't just vibrate along its entire length but also along various subdivisions of 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 etc., all simultaneously.
As a result, what you hear is: C2, C3, G3, C4, E4, G4, Bb4, C5, D5, E5, F5, G5 and so on.
As the overtones go up, they become more and more faint but they are definitely there.
This is one reason why low/bass notes sound "fuller" - because there are more overtones. The other reason, I believe, is just because bass strings are thicker?
The more astute reader may notice that embedded in the first 4 overtones of C(2) is a C Major chord and embedded in the first 5 overtones is a C dominant 7th chord. Within the first ten overtones lies the entire C Major scale, aside from the missing A note and disregarding the additional Bb note.
So then, the foundations of our music system itself are literally embedded in every single individual note, thanks to physics/nature.
Isn't that beautiful?

Bonus #2

It's also worth mentioning equal temperament and well temperament. Equal temperament, the modern system, is based on the 12th root of 2. In this system, all 12 semitones are spaced equally far apart and so every key feels the same, so you can modulate freely from key to key, due to the uniformity of the semitones. One drawback is that major thirds are quite a bit off from where they should be, another is that the various musical keys lose their unique flavour or colour or feel.
The previous system, well temperament, is based on ratios - the octaves are not divided equally into 12, so some keys' semitones are higher or lower than others. For instance, some keys have quite stable major thirds and others not so much, this gives every key a unique feel, but overall makes modulation a bit easiebetter sounding than the system before it, and avoids the problem of "wolf fifths/intervals" from the system before it, which I won't go into.
In essence, in the old system some keys are more in-tune (e.g. C) and so are more consonant and others are somewhat out-of-tune (e.g. C#) and so are more dissonant, whereas in the new system every key is equally in-tune.
This doesn't really relate to the conspiracy theory exactly, as you can use either equal or well temperament with any tuning (A=440Hz, A=432Hz etc.), as far as I understand.
Although you could argue that this is a conspiracy in and of itself, in that they took away the unique feel or colour of each key and made everything more... bland or boring. Perhaps this was part 1 of their 2-part evil musical plan!
You could also argue that the new system takes away the mathematical beauty in the ratios of the older systems and if there is indeed some link between frequency and geometry and physics and consciousness and whatever else, then we're kind of doing ourselves a disservice.
As an additional bonus for making it this far, here's a song that starts at A4=432Hz, but changes to A4=440Hz part of the way through. It's subtle!
You can find lots of 432Hz videos on YouTube, including comparisons.
Have fun.
P.S. This took 8 straight hours of my sad, sad life to research and compile.

Source: https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/48825

CONTINGENCY

EN ROUTE: URANUS – CAELUS STATION
OUTER BAND — LOCATION INCONCLUSIVE
“I was able to pull some data from those Exo samples.” Jinju perches on the cockpit dashboard. Two tech mites crawl over her shell.
Their jump-ship plummets through fractalescent polychrome luge, ripping across the sable pitch of space at blistering speed.
Ana leans back in her pilot seat, one knee pulled to her chest. She watches strands of shimmer bend around the hull. A bobble-owl jiggles along as the ship shivers, underneath it: Camrin, in frame.
“Hit me.” Her eyes turn to Jinju.
“I couldn’t completely narrow it down, but they’re definitely from the Golden Age, circa the Collapse.”
Jinju continues, “I’ve been going through the Pillory mainframe download. Those stations are meant to split Rasputin’s mind up in the event that he became… uh… insubordinate.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“ECHO appears to have been a contingency program that activates afterward. They also had a cornerstone schematic of his brain.”
Light static fuzzes from bubble speakers on Ana’s dash. Her helmet hangs on a hook behind her; Rasputin’s uplink is offline.
Ana chews on the information for a moment. “A foundational brain model would help with containment stability after the partitioning process. It’s like a front porch for your brain.”
“It… goes on.” Jinju continues, “Your name is cross-referenced all over this, Ana. Neural Web-way. Psycholinguistics. Exo brain maps with candidate profiles. It looks like Clovis Bray was syncing Rasputin’s basic core with viable hosts.”
“Oh.” Ana’s mind races. “For what though? Drop him into containment and clone him? Pretty elaborate restart button. I guess with an Exo you could also make some pretty potent AI with more limiters than a Warmind.”
Jinju processes. “Hm. Nothing conclusive here.”
Ana turns her gaze back to the stars. “It would be terrible to be buried like that—trapped in pieces of your own mind. You wouldn’t even know who you were anymore. Where you start, and where other versions of you end.”
“Speaking of, the Clovis—9 site is ‘78% assimilated into his sovereignty.'” Jinju distorts her voice as Warmind facsimile. “He’s so dramatic about it.”
Ana brightens as she laughs. “You remember how Camrin would always impersonate him?”
“He did not appreciate that, but it was funny.” Jinju cheeps lightly. “Is she still buried in work from the Moon?”
“Hole opened up to the Black Garden. Pyramid. Creepy signals. Raining Vex. You think Owl Sector could help themselves from getting involved?”
“I heard rumors through the Ghost-vine about the Pyramid. They said it steals your shell. Lives there, like another you. They said it makes you do things.” Jinju pauses. Her iris flicks to Ana’s raised eyebrow. “Not helping?”
“Let’s just change the subject.”
Jinju squirms awkwardly. “You’ll see her soon.”
“I know.”
“They’re working directly with Ikora. She’s safe.”
“I know…”
Warm-tone reassurance trickles into the cabin through Ana’s helmet receiver.
“I KNOW. WHEN DID YOU EVEN GET HERE, RED?” Ana aggressively huffs in exasperation.
Tech mites traverse Jinju like a jungle gym. One dangles precariously from a shell flap. “Guess who’s there too.”
“How do you know this, and I don’t?”
“Ghost-vine. It’s Eris Morn. She’s working with the Guardian.”
“Eris?” Ana scoffs. “She’s not much of a conversationalist so the two of them should get along just fine.” She gestures to the mites. “Do you really want those crawling all over you?”
“Their names are Pho and Deim, and I love them.” Jinju coddles her mites. “Besides, it’s like Cam’s with us in spirit, right?”
Ana chuckles and scratches her brow before raising a fist in solidarity. “She is. To the brim.”
The shimmer surrounding the jump-ship jitters before abruptly smashing into empty space. Ana leans forward and looks out into the void.
“Um… where’s the planet?” She slowly rolls her head around the cockpit.
They drift through space on placid waves of nothing toward a distant nowhere. The vast luminous twinkle of the Milky Way plays out in panorama, though gloom-speckle pinholes prick gaps in the starry sea. The absence from them directly apparent to Ana’s eye like rays of darkness from a black sun through shear cosmic sheet.
Jinju perks up, internal sensors suddenly askew. “Something nabbed us right out of our jump. We’re off course by…” Jinju calculates, “…three AU?”
“What!?” Ana manually scans the trajectory equations in the nav-computer. “There’s nothing wrong with the math.”
||JUMP-DRIVE ERROR: MISALIGNMENT|| squawks on bubble speakers.
“Little late.”
Tart synesthetic tickle creeps red and patient. Low and pressing, as not to be heard by those that might be listening.
“Relax. I know we’re off course, but it’s not that far… relatively speaking.” Ana scrunches her face at a nav-screen as it’s overtaken by interference. “Okay, I can’t see where we are. Hang on.”
A slow wrinkle skulks across space. It presses up the fabric. Insignificant points between stars warp and spur small disturbances in the constellational congruence of the galaxy. From afar it is nothing. A flutter of wings in wind.
“It’s dark out here.” Jinju’s voice is distant as she peers outside. Beyond the canopy an expanse without horizon.
“That’s when the stars shine brightest, Jinju. Find a constellation for me so we can get our bearings.”
||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED: JUMP-REALIGNMENT REQUIRED||
“Way ahead of you, ship.” Ana checks jump vectors and flicks through alignment procedures. Mav thrusters sputter to orient the ship toward Sol. Ana test-cycles the jump-drive. It revs and then chokes before locking.
||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED: JUMP HAZARD—LOCATION INCONCLUSIVE, CLEAR HAZARD||
“Okay, that’s not a comforting thing to hear.” Ana deploys a sensory buoy from the ship.
Rasputin stings and pricks red iron. Steady pressure. With localized insistence.
“Feel’s strange.” Jinju is distant. “We should go.”
Ana initiates recalibrations on the jump-drive’s positioning solution. “There’s definitely some weird space out there.”
||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED||
The ship lurches. Ana’s stomach churns. Jinju vibrates violently in place, an outer shell of Light absorbing some form of force.
Red iron needles whistle tea-kettle pressure in white anxiety from Ana’s helmet.
Cloaked Shadows shift through the vacuum an eternity away and all too close; shown only when they wish to, to only whom they want.
Ana swallows to settle her stomach. “What even was that? Did we move?”
“Leave. Now please. Ana.” Jinju presses against the glass of the canopy, peering outward.
||SYSTEM REALIGNMENT: SOLUTION SECURED||
“There it is. I’ve got a jump-lock.”
||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED||
“Again? Then we’re riding this one out of here.” Ana eye-balls adjustments for the gravitational wave into the nav-computer. “Punching jump in 3… 2… 1…”
They slip between folds in space. Formless wake propels them. The ship rides through sub-space at speeds far exceeding her jump-drive's capability. Color dulls in the slipstream. Frisson electrifies Ana's senses into timeless euphoria. The nose of the cockpit stretches ahead, drawn toward some distant vanishing point. She struggles to keep the flight stick straight. Her motions seem small, inconsequential and all too slow within the wave. Fluctuant pockets of drag flex and buck, threatening to throw them off into the unknown. The cockpit twists around her, indicator lights blink in metronomic sequence—purpose and pigment slowly materializing in her mind.
Hull integrity failing. "Not yet."
||COLLISION: BOW, CELESTIAL BODY DETECTED, AUTO-DROP FAILED||
Ana steadies her mind. She force-cancels the jump, seizing the drive and dumping them out into space before thrusters burn to steady them again.
Their emergence is dwarfed by a stratospheric colossus.
Uranus hangs, a daiquiri pearl set in tilted rings.
A grin overtakes Ana’s face. “Nailed it.”
Pale blue gleam inundates the canopy with planetary light. Ana plots an approach to the station. The trio slow burn forward, each silently collecting their faculties. Ahead: tiny beacons blip red. Satellite silhouettes take form out of the planet’s zealous glare. Instrument spokes jut from their polygonal chassis like old-war depth charges itching to trigger.
“Those are Warsats.” Jinju breaks the silence, eager to shift her mode of thought far from weird space and gravity waves.
“Finally, some luck," Ana says with relief. "I bet we can daisy-chain Rasputin into the station’s network through the defense system.”
“Oh, they’re powering up. Maybe we—”
Horns of responsive distortion roll across the cabin like a stress wave. Rasputin’s alert pings litter the canopy HUD.
“Brace!”
Ana pushes hard on the flight stick and reflexively dives under a barrage of laser fire. Nose thrusters roar vibration through her hands as she cuts to guide the ship vertical and tumbles into a barrel roll, slipping around follow-up bursts. A bolt skims shallow across her starboard side: ricochet. Shockwave tremors reverberate through the hull.
“Red, ping all incoming fire vectors! Jinju, arm the spikes!”
Plates split open along the belly of the ship. A drum-launcher of six Warspikes rolls out as Jinju links into the launcher's gunnery apparatus. Indicators blare onto the canopy HUD. Jinju sends two Warspikes straight into the first of fifteen Warsats blocking their path as Ana nudges the ship between incoming laser bursts.
Two spiked Warsats cease fire as their automated defense protocols are overridden, security software utterly failing to halt Rasputin’s invasive assimilation. They come back online—spikes blending into spokes—and swivel to gun down the closest still-hostile targets.
The assimilated twin Warsats thrust to reposition into a shield for Ana and Jinju as they close distance. Crimson flare shines around the Warsat shield as lasers chisel into them. Ana watches HUD pings for an opening between incoming bursts. She finds half a moment and burns hard on the main engine, then toggles full power to maneuvering thrusters to sling the ship under Rasputin’s shield and open a lane for Jinju.
Jinju unleashes four more spikes. They strike true. Rasputin spreads digital plague through the Warsat’s frameworks with each skewering hit. He demands subservience. Laser fire tears through space in all directions as Ana cuts between dueling satellites and rolls to evade overlapping firing arcs. Concussive shockwaves rattle the ship as defiant Warsats explode or fail one by one until the firing stops.
A field of deputized Warsats and debris dead-drift within the planet’s orbital current, back-lit by radiant mesopelagic glow. Beyond them, almost lost among cloud-cream atmosphere, Caelus station.
Ana releases her breath. It feels like she had been holding it since the jump. She forces short gulps of air into her aching lungs and lets her ship glide towards the station without guidance.
Jinju emerges from the gunnery apparatus and floats back to the dashboard. Pho and Deim appear from under her shell. “What was that, Ana? Back there.”
“The Warsats or the freaky gravity?”
“Either… both.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“My guess worries me.”
“Let’s just pull this data and get home.”
“Agreed.”
Ana hangs her head in her hands and muffles a sardonic, “Nailed it.”
CAELUS STATION
Dim and powerless, it gently falls. The label grows at pace with Ana's measured approach. Rasputin's cohort of Warsats encircle her in a defensive phalanx. The station rotates to face the planet. It glitters in gas-giant grandeur as massive translucent hull plates display a desolate gut shrouded in sea-foam reflection. Jinju combs through station blueprints pouring in from Warsat data stores. Caelus consists of one long shaft containing a launch bay and spindly communication arrays at either end. Deeper, passed the launch bays, mostly maintenance frame space cap-stoned by a large reinforced mainframe housing complete with a thick-glass viewing ceiling. Orbiting ringlets, indicated as "Biomes" 1, 2, and 3, spin lazily in unison with the central structure, held in position by mag-lock paddocks that align with metallic rungs set into the station hub's outer plating.
Jinju locates several unpowered docking points before settling on entering through one of the station's bays. She snaps a HUD ping on the canopy.
"Here. This one is open, though it doesn’t look like anything but the outer rings are still pressurized."
"Ready for a spacewalk?" Ana guides them to the bay, catching sight of the transparent interior solar-glass paneling of the rotating ringlets. Clean rivers slosh along the outer ring underneath a dividing sieve. Earthen dirt sprouts abundance above.
"Are those greenhouses?"
"I think so. Everything seems to be locked under a file named 'contingency.'"
"That's not ominous," Ana says, scooping her helmet from its hook and swiping 18 Kelvins from a footlocker.
"We need mainframe access."
"When do we not?" Ana looks at the dark station. It is a grave of potential awaiting the next planet-rise.
Jinju prepares Ana's bandolier. Mites patiently tap pin-legs as they wait for attention.
Ana dons her helmet and puts a hand on the canopy release pulley. "You're not bringing those, are you?"
The bay is still: a snapshot of countless possible failures in the face of challenge. It holds only one ship. The bulbous craft lay broken, dropped from its support brackets in denial of an attempted launch. Reflective hexagonal plates sparkle like space dust as the station faces Uranus' light. Scorch stains blacken the far wall behind the craft's ruined ion thruster.
"The propulsion system is missing its ion cell. It doesn't look like damage, but obviously a lot went wrong here."
Jinju beams light over the fuselage as they float through the ruptured bay in weightlessness. The reflective hull is filled with Exos. Mannequin cadavers hang frozen on silk threads, surrounded by globular blobs of various fluids. Loose-wire tangle sags around the lifeless many. One or two glides freely within the cabin. Their chest plates share a pristine logo.
ECHO-1
Ana locates a crumpled worker frame beside the bay’s internal air lock and signals Jinju to come over.
Jinju puffs toward Ana on pulses of Light. Remnants and dust hold motionless in the vacuum. Their groupings, jostled and drawn to each other since the bay's collapse, form tiny gravitational microcosms; a new faux system trapped in the failed husk of a past age.
She flicks her helmet microphone on. "Hey, what about just normal frame access?"
The Ghost sweeps the frame and gets to work. "This isn’t just some mop-bot. This is the Station Manager. Let's get it inside."
Ana props a foot on the wall and forces the airlock closed behind them. Mag-boot clinks to tile. Dust floor, echoing groans, and humid taste populate the station. Even through her respirator the stale flavors of plant matter and dirt coat Ana's tongue in grist-like film. She turns to Jinju, busy at work splicing bad connections within the frame and spinning light to charge its power unit.
"It’ll work, but this unit won’t hold power. It’ll only last as long as I charge it."
"You’re a miracle worker, Jinju."
Jinju cheeps.
She solders a loose line. “It should also be a little more… talkative.”
Ana peers down the hall. From their current position, the airlock functions like an estuary flowing into the rest of the station. She could almost see clear to the central mainframe hub atop a raised panel fortification in the middle of the room. It sits below a ceiling of translucent plates, rimmed in distant ringlet halos falling under shadow. A stairway aligned with the launch bays on either side provides access.
The Frame sparks to life, looks directly at Ana, and speaks with grating age to its voice.
“Welcome, Ana Bray! Very excited to see a Bray walk this hall again. It has been a long time.”
Ana grasps at words. Jinju shrugs, plugs of Light toss in zero-G.
The Frame stands on magnetized foot cups and dusts itself off, nearly bumping into Jinju. “Excuse me, small servo bot."
“Servo b?"
The Frame turns to Ana. “How may I be of assistance?"
“I’ll unplug you.”
The Frame ignores her.
Ana smirks at Jinju, then looks at the Frame.
"Walk with me," she says, briskly moving deeper into the station.
The two converse with Jinju in tow.
The main section of the station is a wide-open hall supported by struts. In large red lettering the words:
ECHO PROJECT
OUR LEGACY BUILDS THE HORIZON
Dozens of maintenance frame plates line the floor. Some open. Some semi-raised with collapsed frames steps away, half-responding to a catastrophe. A scene in disorder.
"Zilch on Atlas.”
Ana stares out the translucent ceiling, wistful as the Frame waits for another question.
“So those crops in the rings are food supplies for a colony mission."
"Yes. Thank you for asking that, Ana Bray."
"Yeah. And the colony ships are full of Exos?"
"Partially. ECHO-1 and ECHO-2 were stocked with Exo unit crews. As you know, their task was to establish and oversee embryonic development at Colony M31, Site-A and Site-B."
"If Rasputin got out of hand, they weren't planning on resetting him.”
"I don’t have access to Clovis 1-12 directories."
“They just assumed he would win. The Pillory is a last-ditch panic room.”
"I don’t have access to Clovis 1-12 directories."
Jinju’s iris flicks back and forth between the two. Her tiny Light-leash hums.
Ana massages her palm. “What was my role in all this?”
“As you know, your work on the Warmind made you a prime asset to oversee applicant selection.”
“I chose the people in there?”
Ana watches the ringlet spin, her mind repeating the statement back to her. Artificial night slips back to artificial day as the station's rotation continues.
“As you know, yes. Additionally, your work on the Warmind, as you know, was vital to the establishment of Clovis 1-12.”
“Do I know where the candidates came from? Did they volunteer?”
“I do not have access to candidate profiles.”
Ana shuts her eyes and takes a steady breath.
“You said I helped with the Pillory stations?”
“Yes.”
“How so?”
"I don’t have access to Clovis 1-12 directories."
She nods and lets her helmet slink back to rest on her shoulders. “I think I can piece it together on my own. Is this station linked to any other sites?”
Her gaze returns to the distant ringlet, lit by the recurring planet-rise. Her augmented eyes pick at details.
“As you know, Miss Bray, there are thirteen CLOVIS sites that this station is linked to.”
“Thirteen? What’s the thirteenth?”
The plant life is still vibrant. Regimented.
“Paragon access does not permit that information.”
“You hear that, Jinju? We’re all just slaves to circumstance.”
Jinju chirps. “I’d like to think our choices matter a little. I’d like to think mine did.”
Ana smiles at her. “Yeah.”
“You are a Bray.” The frame pauses.
They lack signs of overgrowth.
Well kept.
“So?” Ana turns to the Frame.
“ECHO project requires a station link with DEAD-ROCK resources.”
Ana eyes go wide. “Jinju disengage that cipher thing.” Over her shoulder, a glint shines from the far central ringlet. Biome 2.
Jinju glides forward. “What is that?”
Ana looks at Jinju. “The verbal cipher.” She pauses and traces Jinju’s eyeline to face Uranus. Ana’s eyes adjust to sieve out the glaring brightness. “What’s what?” She puts a hand to her visor and squints.
An ion lance threads the station from the distant ringlet.
It pierces Ana’s chest clean through.
Brick-stained atmosphere hisses out of her suit, searing on smoldering fabric fringe.
Jinju’s iris widens with confused shock.
Howling storms slam salt-coarse keys in Ana’s helmet.
End

ACRIMONY

ECHO-1
CAELUS STATION — COLLAPSE
"DEAD-ROCK SEIZURE IN ACTION: Station Manager initiate manual override in ECHO-1 Launch Bay."
"ALERT: This station is experiencing power fluctuations. Emergency power will run until—
ECHO-0
He awakens alone. A fluke. Others hang around Him, but they remain in the dream. Electrical surge prickles through his entire body. A screen in front of his face begins playing a recording complete with visual aid:
"Welcome to ECHO-1. Before your departure, you should have been briefed by a Station Warden If you don't recall your Station Warden, please alert your Crew Captain. Now then, my name is Ana Bray, and you're one of the lucky few who has been selected for the ECHO Project. The future of Humanity rests on your sho—"
The recording is interrupted as emergency sirens blare through the station.
"STATION HAZARDS: GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALY | STERILE NEUTRINO BURSTS | Please remain calm."
"OVERRIDE BROADCAST: via ECHO-LINK//:PILLORY-SUBLOCK.R./:SKYSHOCK ALERT: TRANSIENT NEAR EXTRASOLAR EVENT:—
Power failures wrack the station in rolling thunder. The Exo slumps, lifeless until its next reset.
ECHO-7
Alone.
The recording. He finds familiarity in the newness. The face on the screen seems kind—
"STATION HAZARDS: ROLLING SURGES IN WARDS 1, 2, 3. Please remain calm."
Thunder. Pain to death. Electro-static purge, triggering a reset.
ECHO-22
He awakens to rolling, thunderous darkness and pain. The screen does not illuminate.
Barely audible words form from the air:
"Primary propulsion systems failing. Auxiliary systems near depletion. Planetary impact unavoidable. Distress triggered."
Meaningless. He struggles against chains.
Eons pass. His bonds will not break. His mind fragments and corrupts.
He wishes he could bleed. He wishes he could die. He wonders where the Wardens are.
ECHO-41
Short lives of confusion and pain. He grasps at falling in every direction. There is nothing to grip.
ECHO-89
Thunder, again.
ECHO-173
And again.
ECHO-390
Until one day:
He hangs in the futile passage of time.
A creeping madness weaves its way in solitude.
ECHO-877
Thunder. Thunder. Thunder.
The Warden speaks for the first time in many storms. Her twisted promises are fresh to His ear.
"When we return." Etched in mind.
Wake and sleep. Struggle. Dream and wake. Struggle. Endless. Innumerable. Stillbirths. Tomb spasms. Thunderous pain. Sweet death.
ECHO- 2̷͉͙̜̗͍̙̭̤̘̪͖͈͛̅͑̈̀̾6̸̡͇̼̦̲̩͎̟̠̬̳̲̂̀̉͐̃̈́ͅ2̵̡͎͚̳̠̫̮͉̍̉̌̒͑̓͗͛̉̈́̕̚͝5̸̨̭͚͔̥̲̫̈́̂̈́̊̋͗͑͛͑͝͝
Thunder, one final time. The storm gives life, but never came to take.
He slips from rot shackles. Worn with age. Weary, they snap at slightest motion. Untold rotations pass without movement. Freedom?
He matures questions. A hunger wells up within him.
He travels the station. From Tomb Bay, to the Mind Shell, to the Sealed Space. In dark, and in light.
The Mind Shell teaches Him the new roads. Teaches Him the majesty of the Rings. Teaches him the key.
He walks the Rings.
He tends to His little freedoms. He cultivates. He grows. He does, unknowingly, as He was meant to do.
The Mind Shell tells Him of the Bridge. Tells him of His ancestors. Speaks of the "ECHO LINK".
The knowledge does not leave His thoughts.
He seeks a meaning beyond routine.
The Tomb Bay kept secrets. He had not returned since He walked the Rings. It is a shallow sepulcher.
Brothers and Sisters dreaming. Never to wake as He had.
He digs treasures from their graves. Digs knowledge from the Prison's many minds.
Picks lies from the bones of truth.
He drinks the memories of Echoes passed.
He finds the Prison's purpose. A Bridge's end. If He holds this end, perhaps the Wardens hold the other.
The many minds. The liar's words. Takers. They would know of his escape.
The Wardens would come to take with fresh shackles.
He prepares. He learns from the Warden's alchemy.
He digs through the carcass of his once-mighty Tomb.
From hollow basin, He seizes Starlight power to wield from afar. From its flesh: adorns Himself with a
cloak of lies to fool. He armors his soul against the Thunder that kills.
He opens the Bridge at his end and waits.
ECHO- 2̷͉͙̜̗͍̙̭̤̘̪͖͈͛̅͑̈̀̾6̸̡͇̼̦̲̩͎̟̠̬̳̲̂̀̉͐̃̈́ͅ2̵̡͎͚̳̠̫̮͉̍̉̌̒͑̓͗͛̉̈́̕̚͝5̸̭͚̈́̂̈́̊̋͗͑͛͑͝͝- Present Day
He walks the ring when She arrives.
The Warden rides in with finality and judgement.
A red-light storm at Her back.
She had followed the Bridge, as He had hoped. She leads many shells, but only One descends with Her.
She brings with Her the Thunder, and He fears its wicked spark. He places trust to his plated frame.
He watches Her trespass in the Tomb Bay. Sees Her defile the Mind Shell's grand hall.
The Wardens reap what had been sown.
As Wardens always do. She comes to collect him.
He raises his Starlight.
But a Warden is not so easily slain, and She has many allies.
End

DESCENDENT

CAELUS STATION
ORBIT — URANUS
She is submerged.
Light sways just above a tense surface.
Something far below stirs.
The Light brightens to blind.
Rasputin weeps a terrible cacophony of anguish.
Ana gasps for breath. Her head swims in effort.
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 73% (!)
“Hold still! Your suit is leaking!” Jinju quickens Light into Ana's punctured suit, her Iris jittering from spot to spot as oxygen spurts around her in foggy clouds.
Ana shakes dizziness out of her head. A smoldering frame is sprawled a few meters away. She droops flat to a support beam that runs up to the mainframe office.
“I got shot…” The realization doubles back. “I got shot?”
Ana pats her chest and stiffens. She draws in shallow breath.
“Jinju, did you see where it came from?”
“Central ring. I dragged you into cover. Stop moving so much.”
Ana peeks around the strut; an ion thread zips by and stings her helmet.
Rasputin obliterates every square inch of ringlet within ten meters of the ion beam’s origin in response.
Sections of the central ringlet combust and explode under heavy bombardment. The ring buckles, splitting along the seams and splaying out into space. Magnetic anchors fail as the halo fractures and splits away from the station's central architecture. Fragments rush away toward the planet; Caelus’ ruin falls to Uranus in lingering prolicidal consummation.
“RASPUTIN STOP!” Laser fire halts immediately. “You’re gunna sink the whole station!”
Tense finger waits on hair trigger. Ana works her starving lungs.
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 67% (!)
“Ana, you need to stop breathing so much.” Jinju bobs with Ana’s head and quickly reseals her visor.
“Can’t hold still.” Ana shakily stands and points up at the dislodged ringlet spinning above her. “Bad angle.”
“I’m pretty sure whatever shot you is dead. Stop talking. You're getting delirious."
Wreckage looms far over Ana’s shoulder. The remaining two halos slowly spin in ignorance through their sibling's burial-dust cloud. Eerie distortion soars across the divide between station and rings, the veneer of invisibility momentarily lost in flight as rubble collides with its form. Rasputin perceives the abnormality.
Harmonic chimes across Ana’s visor resonate and combine into uniform patterned homogeny.
“Active camouflage?” Ana sucks thin atmosphere, a wheezing undertone to her breath. “Jinju, give me an auditory visualizer.”
Jinju whirs and dips back to Ana's suit. “Compiling an interface. Now. Hold. Still.”
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 65% (!)
A ceiling panel twenty meters from Ana erupts in brittle plastic shards that glisten and spin like tiny neutron stars, catching the last of Uranus' light as the station beings to turn dark. Amorphous form thuds into the floor, shattering tiles in a plume of dust that stretches up into a spire before slowly holding in place. The form tumbles to a stop. It stands between her and the open launch bay and slings a kit-bashed Ion caster aside, depleted. Hexagonal patterns stutter to blend with the station interior as the room rolls into tenebrous obscurity. For an instant, an Exo takes form, and then nothing as its cloaking shroud flashes and re-engages in the dark.
Ana doesn’t wait. She rushes heavy clunking boots up the stairs to the mainframe, arrhythmic tremors beat through her heart. Jinju deactivates the switch on Ana's mag-boots and hurls her through the door with a forceful pulse of Light. She speeds in behind Ana, finishing her suit with Light stitch as Ana slams the door shut.
“Ana. Hang in there.” Jinju orients Ana and reactivates her mag-boots.
Ana's feet clomp to the floor. She hangs from them, a loose timber bending in the wind.
Jinju finishes her patch job. New fabric seals air-tight.
"You're good. You're good. Don't pass out. Your suit is re-oxygenating."
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 59% (!)
Stabilizing…
The words are intensely bright on her visor against the darkening room.
"Auditory overlay complete. Check your visor." Jinju's voice focuses her.
"I just… need a minute…" Ana speaks between gulps of air. An unsteady hand draws 18 Kelvins. The mainframe room orients around her more clearly with each breath. It is stark, a large lone desk of singular oak commands the center of the room. A console screen, dead, is embedded in the surface.
Rasputin drops positional estimation pings into her HUD in an attempt to track her assailant. She steps backward, away from the door she had entered through and toward the opposing stairway's door.
Her eyes pick up faint quivers from outside. Indirect. Resonate white noise pings like interference on her visor. She focuses on each occurrence, looking for a note out of rhythm.
Behind.
She spins as the Exo crashes through the secondary entrance at her back. The door snaps from its hinges in a torrent of dust and rackets Jinju into glass.
"Jinju!"
Ana loses track of her attacker momentarily in the darkness before it pushes off from a hard surface, triggering her visor. She spits off rounds from 18 Kelvins. Some find their mark, puncturing the camouflage shroud and revealing her adversary before impotently fizzling on the Exo's outer shell. It covers the gap with surprising speed and catches her gun hand; Ana discharges an arc round; tiny bolts reach across to the Exo’s metal skull in vain as it scorches ceiling.
Bones pop in her fingers and wrist.
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 68% (!)
Stabilizing…
The Exo flattens its other hand and stabs toward her stomach.
"Die. Warden."
Adrenal instinct floods Ana's body. She stops it. They lock. Ana’s vision blurs. She gasps for breath. Muscles quiver in her arms, desperate for oxygen. A spark cinders in her.
"Get off her!"
Jinju zips toward the Exo and paddles Pho and Deim onto it with a flick of her shell. The mites crawl under the Exo's exterior plating and send shock-sting bites through its systems, seizing its joints for a few precious seconds.
Jinju rushes to Ana's side. The Ghost deconstructs itself, orbital shell bits swirl around a core of coalescing Light. She fills the room like a brilliant star, overcharging her wayward Guardian.
Ana's crushed bones reforge. Light fills her eyes. Her grip, still holding against the seizing Exo's bladed thrust, liquefies its plated hand to scrap. A glorious crown of Solar flame erupts from her visor and she cracks her forehead into the Exo’s face. It reels, tufts of flame extinguish in the vacuum. Ana kicks away.
Solar might engulfs 18 Kelvins. Ana hammers off two rounds of celestial annihilation. They melt straight through the Exo, puncture the station plating, and scream through space for light years.
The Exo slumps, a molten heap.
It draws breath.
“Resilient.” Ana drops to a knee. Barrel trained on the Exo's head.
She takes a full breath. The Exo’s eyes are unflinchingly locked to her. It refuses to die.
It points to Ana’s badge with its still-blistering hand.
“Bray. Warden.”
She says the only thing the can think to say: “Who were you?”
It hesitates. “Echoes.”
Her head droops. “How many did you live?” She looks to find his number designation, but it is missing.
It looks passed her as Uranus' light once again trickles through the station. “Echoes… grow… Wardens… keep…”
“What did I do to them?”
Ana stares at Echo’s husk. The faint glow of the desk's lit console screen grays out her face behind her visor.
She sits dead-still in rotation. She could stare forever, if she only had enough time.
Jinju nudges her shoulder. “I've got the mainframe data.”
Ana is devoid of thought at the mainframe access console. She watches as Uranus comes back into view over and over again. It dominates the station’s viewing port. She maps the movement of the clouds along the surface, but only ever on the surface, and sees how they differ from the previous iteration on their last spin. She wonders if they are different underneath.
Stable major chords strum in Ana’s helmet, getting caught in the cracked visor glass.
She finally speaks, decisive. “Dislodge the other ringlet paddocks. Warsats can tow them back to the Tower. Skim the shadow-networks for anything else they can use. Get some good from this…”
“Ana, the Warsats could haul this whole station as long as we do it soon.”
Caelus rotates away into shadow once again, and the planet’s sheen fades from sight. Ana clicks a spring-loaded slot on the desk. It snaps to, bearing a placard of ownership.
CLOVIS BRAY
Ana stands. Steady.
“It’s okay to let some things be forgotten.”
End

next
Federation Core ward station: ORD/FLEET/LOG-CIV Frontier Spirit. Aug 3 3748
“NEXT IN LINE PLEASE” The line moved forward as a man in a black and yellow jumpsuit over which he wore a faded green jacket covered with pouches and sporting a patch of a grey wolf on a white background and a red diagonal stripe stepped up to the terminal clerk.
“please state your name and or designation, present ID, and state your reason for visit.”
“Colonel retired Magnus Holland, Designation WH8859/2315-V73A, 33rd Special Warfare Division. I’m here to collect my retirement package. I have an appointment with Agent Carter.”
“I haven’t seen a WH series Designation in ages, I thought they cycled over to the WI’s nearly a hundred years ago, and you don’t even look like your 30.”
“check my file.” Magnus sighed. This was not the first time his 278 years 8 months and 6 days in emergency stasis would cause issues, nor would it be the last. He was half a foot taller than the current model of war wolves that made up the 33rd and about twice as heavy, refinements over the years had reduced the effects of the growth accelerants and made him stand out among what should have been his brothers, who stood out among the average mass of humanity even by the current worlds status.
Standing at 6’10 and about 400lbs of synthetic-natural muscle hybrid lattice and cybernetics, pale and soft skin the result of too much time in either power armor or submerged in the hyper-computational fluid of the command link tanks. Short blonde hair and naturally green eyes backlit by the ocular segment of the implants that kept him connected to all members of the 33rd and any drones or ships under his command. Magnus was the classic example of a War Wolf from his era of the Federations history.
“you’re that poor sod who got thawed out what? Two months back? Been drifting since the closing battles with the Primacy, right?”
“Yeah that’s me. Look I have an appointment with Agent Carter, can you tell her I’m here. We have a lot of back pay to sort out.”
“Oh sorry of course. MOLLY! Your 10:30 is here. Come get him so I can deal with the rest of this line.” From a side room attached to the waiting area stepped out a woman dressed in a formal black business suit. Magnus immediately connected to the Federation personnel database and cross referenced her while simultaneously running his own scan of her person, he found her concealed carry piece in her suit 2 nano seconds before he was able to locate her license and cross reference her military service record. It was impressive and explained why she was his point of contact for his retirement deal. there were some sensitive documents that would be passing into his possession, it wouldn’t do to have awkward questions asked about some of the details of his semi retirement.
“Col. Holland, please come in. take a seat, and please the name is just molly. Your retired no need to stand on formality with me.” Magnus eased himself into the chair on the across from her desk, testing that it would hold his weight. To his considerable surprise the chair didn’t even groan as he fully relaxed into it. “thank you for taking this on, I understand that it is a herculean task to sort out nearly 280 years of back pay, recovering dissolved financial assets, interest, bringing me back to life on paper, and helping settle a very abnormal retirement plan all at once.”
She smiled tightly. “I will admit to taking far too many late working days trying to sort it all out, but you got better than what you wanted, and the Federation got away with giving you less than they owe you by a fair amount. Everyone walks away happy. First; 500 million standard credits,250 million in corporate development incentives. A corporate charter licence with extra-territorial rights within Federation law, the charter contains Federation endorsement and all contract bids to the and from the Federation carry extra weight. Second; 8 system claim beacons and associated infrastructure. And we save the absolute pain in the ASS for last. One Daedalus class Industrial Operation Dreadnought with full fleet standard. All weapon systems and shielding online at full spec, and a full complement of drones.
Crab and spider tanks, engineering and construction vehicles, IFVs, tanks, artillery, mobile fortresses, and aispacecraft. A full army along side the ability and freedom to create more as you desire. And the very last thing. This.” She pulled a data pad with an external storage drive attached “Project: STARGAZER. I’ve had a look through this, I know you know I have clearance. Look I know what a loyal soldier looks like, I know what you 33rd types are like. Are you sure you want to piss of every other species in the Federation, over magic? Over psionics? That we wont even be able to use? It’ll be the machine. Do you think we can trust it? All the other species can use magic or what ever you want to call it, we did fine without it. We made the multi dimensional computer that’s in your head and all your drones, we made AI like the one in your ship. Do you really think we need to make this?”
“Of course, we need to make this! Do you think you would have been able to secure me an army if they didn’t want me to have it? And why do you think we made everything we have today? we had magic once. The Egyptians, the Mayans, the Norse, the Greeks, the Romans, our gods once did exist, we once could use magic. And we have been trying to get it back since before the fall of the roman empire. It just left us along all the gods, and they died and left us behind. More accurately we killed them, we cast the spell that burnt us of our connection, we destroyed our gods to protect us from something.
STARGAZER will be our scout; STARGAZER will be our vanguard. We wont ever have magic back ourselves, but we need to know why we cast that spell. We need to know what’s coming. Not just for humanity but for the whole of the Federation. No other species has the machine, not at our level, but none of them have seen what we saw. The Th’nakmet texts are clear, what ever it was is still coming. The Federation can’t act on it, can’t make STARGAZER. not officially, I was supposed to be the human partner when STARGAZER had support, I disappeared and so did the project. Now, there is pushback against the very idea, so I picked it back up. Make a company that is perusing STARGAZER, that way the Federation can’t interfere.”
“okay than. Its yours.” She sighed handing over the data pad. “well let’s get you to your ship. Do you want me to have someone take your bag? We can have them load it in the command deck hangar.” “no thank you, that’s fine. The bag has a firearm in it, I would rather keep it close.” She looked up at him as he mentioned the weapon. “don’t look at me like that, I know you have one as well.” “yes. But I would think that you have a HMPR in there not an executioner. Honestly, I would rather you give that up, so we don’t risk a hull decomp if you end up using it.”
“one, Jesus lady do you like blowing people in half? And two, I don’t have any cartridges on me those, are back in a hardcase marked for loading on to the ship once its ownership is transferred. Anyway, the station uses a gaped hull, blaster penetrators are useless against that. I’m not braindead, I don’t want a decomp either.”
Magnus picked up said bag and followed Molly out through the waiting area and into the main station concourse. It was the first part of the station that wasn’t the sterile white walls and polished grey floor that made up most of the working and utility areas of every Federation ship and station. The concourse was busy with neon lights and fake brick walls and carpeted flooring, a jarring experience that probably should have had the designer fired and everything overhauled. The problem was the aliens liked it and they outnumbered humans everywhere except for the core human colonies out spin ward of the main body of Federation space. So, it stayed.
As they walked towards the docks Magnus made sure to take a good look at around. He hadn’t been to the civilian sector of anywhere since he had been thawed, even before then the 33rd spent most of their time on ships or on the front so it still hadn’t lost its charm. Ahead of them to the right were a group of Yuhulsh at what appeared to be a noodle stand, which was strange because as far as he remembered they were obligate carnivores. The Yuhulsh were a primarily aquatic species, somewhere between and eel and a shark with legs ending in webbed flipper like feet that came together in the water to act as a tail and fin. Arms that had suckers on the inside forearm and no eyes or nose. Relying entirely on electromagnetic detection and their naturally high psionic capabilities to navigate and communicate. They could speak, thankfully. Otherwise they never would have been able to be part of the Federation.
Other than the small cluster of Yuhulsh, Magnus was unable to see any non-humans on the station. “molly. is there a reason there are so few non-humans around? And more importantly how are Yuhulsh eating noodles?” she glanced over at the group “oh that place just imported a large batch of a plant native to their home world, its quite good for their teeth. Really, it’s a bowl of meat with some fancy noodles in it. As for why there are so few of them. How many aliens do you think want to be this close to Primacy space?
The war may be over but they all still remember how bad the war was for them, and the magical vortex that they protect the border with is extremely unpleasant for them even this far out.” He nodded at the explanation even though he had no idea what this vortex was he was part of the war, remembered watching entire battalions wiped out in seconds by the Primacies mind shredders and the barrier penetrating rounds that ignored mage shields. Regular armor worked fine, and humans couldn’t be attacked psionically, that was the only reason the war went in the Federations favor. Slaughter like that left marks that any psionically gifted species could sense.
They stepped through an airlock into the main docking area. Coloured in the standard white and grey halls with bright signs and kiosks with docking bay numbers and departure times. “this way. Docking bay 597. You can get a look at it from the loading area.” Molly gestured him towards a set of windows on the far side of the cargo area that they had entered between two umbilical’s that lead to his ship.
As he stepped up, he got his first look of the ship in person, he was familiar with the general design as his family had worked and lived on a mining vessel based on the same hull. The main body was a 10km octagon 2km to a face, with the front 500m split down the middle with a 1km gap containing the spinal PPC and two large cargo bays that lead to the furnaces, refineries, and processers. The prongs were on the upper and lower hull and contained the deployment system for the scaffolding that ran through the first 5km of the ship, the scaffolding was stacked inside the hull to allow for up to 15km of vacuum docking, mining, and construction facilities to be deployed either straight ahead or at angles up to 90 from the forward axis without restricting access to the cargo bays or the spinal cannon.
Along the hull were a dozen hangar bays each on the port and starboard faces, as well as the massive pile of cannons, light PPCs, MHPCs, coil guns, point defence systems, missile launchers, and torpedo bays. Above the engines at the rear was a hexagonal disk at 1km to a side connected to the main body by a pillar about 100m long, this was the command deck and was detachable from the main hull in case of critical damage. It housed the command and command support staff as well as carried a small hangar for the captain as well as an armory for the crew on the command deck.
“here you are, she’s a beauty huh? They were going to mothball the whole line about 80 years back. In the end they ended up overhauling the combat systems and slapping a new paint job on, I personally am a massive fan of the white and orange. High visibility for the working crew and intimidating as all hell to see this big bastard hanging out in the middle of an operation. Unfortunately, the name comes with the ship. Id say it’s a little on the nose. Here’s the registration and ownership documentation.” She passed over a small stack of data sticks with little holo-displays. As she did her personal comm pinged, waiting for Magnus to take the data sticks before checking it.
Reaching for the sticks he asked “what’s wrong with the name? Enigmatic Endeavour is a great name.” he smiled as he looked back at the ship, the name was a little auspicious, but he liked it. “good thing you like the name. I just got new orders, apparently, I’m being moved to a front for a Federation op under the name of Astral Mind industries. My commanding officer is one Colonel Magnus Holland. I’m going to be running recruitment, and I have a list of potential candidates already laid out for me. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?” Magnus smiled wider as he walked to the umbilical.
Ru’yealm. Northern Valley forest. North west of the city of the towers
Te’tval was not having a good day, the rains had come early, and it was looking like the seers had made their first error in all their know history. They had told her sister Mez’tval that she would be the one to inspect a coming omen when It landed, they had told her sister that the omen would arrive before then end of the season of Last Peace. Normally the seers would detect an omen in the sky weeks before it arrived giving the unified people time to assemble a group of mages and seers to determine what signs it brought with it from the sky. With the rains coming down the snow would melt in less than a week, the melting of the snow would signal the end of Last Peace and the first of the sieges from the Low People would begin not days later. Her sister was having a far worse day than her though.
Te’tval had taken her sister hunting with her, to bring her back to the forest. They were wild born, Te’tval was born of the L’kovl, the stalker in the branches. Her skin faded to fur below the elbow and the knee, bone plates sprouted from her forehead, shoulders, abdomen and back. Protecting her vital organs, no armor was needed for her, nor camouflage as her hair and fur were the same vibrant red as the leaves of the forest. Her hunting partner was another wildling, born of the cold bloods. Red and brown scales concealed her as she crawled on the underside of the branches of the Ch’omhk tree they rested in.
her sister was born of the very species of tree they hid in now. Skin brown like the bark and with the same red hair as the leaves, with branches growing from her scalp and winding through her hair. Veins the same green as the sap of the Ch’omhk tree. Like a tree must not be separated from its roots Te’tval thought that getting her sister out of the city and into the forest once more might calm her nerves, center her; instead.
“sister calm your self, or we will spook our prey, or worse attract L’kovl. You are not ready for that hunt; you are a mage. Draw upon your learnings and focus on the woods around us we are close to the patrols of the Messengers, if they find us, they will kill us. Tomorrow we rise before the rings fill the sky. Sleep!” she did not raise her voice nor whisper but spoke softly and slowly. Though the Messengers were far enough away for them to be safe from the threat they posed it was sill a danger real enough, nor were the L’kovl found in this valley in the mountains. No, the real threat came from her sister.
The mage was in something near a panic over the lack of signs indicating the coming omen; she was constantly pulling on her magic, draining her reserve. Unable to see that she was doing so and risking her life. Their brother would meet them as left tomorrow. As a precaution, a rune blade was always welcome when danger was near. Especially when that danger could use magic.
Mez’tval spoke softly back. “sister. I know that you are worried as much as I am. If the omen comes and the seers never see a sign that means the magic is weakening, and if the omen never arrives that means the seers are wrong. The last time the seers were wrong. the Messengers of the Spirits came. They razed the city of the waterfalls in a single night, brought death to every one of the people. fire and light poured from their many mouths. Their metal skin unbroken by even our strongest, unaffected by magic. Constructs. With no magic! They should not be possible. And yet, that was the price of the seer’s failure. The whole city brought to the spirit world. Even the low people, their numbering in the thousands for even the smallest of their raids could not break the gate of the city of the Sun. not in its 300 years.”
Te’tval knew her sister was right. But the hunt waited for no person and night was falling. Sleep beckoned her but hers was the first watch. They left early in the morning, the gods willing they would eat well until the season of claws. As the first of the moons rose casting a blue light over the world, turning the forest a deep violet near the blue and purple tones that made up the plant life over the rest of Ru’yealm her sister finally fell into the sweet embrace of her mage dreams. In the distance she could hear the steady thudding and hissing of the massive Messengers and their six legs. She reflected on her sisters worries.
The Messengers were a force to be reckoned. As far as the people knew there were only three of the constructs, and only two were needed to level the city of the waterfalls. Made entirely of white and red metal. their legs as tall as three people with large protective plates protruding to cover their center. A metal rod twice as thick around as the city blacksmith, it seemed the most fragile part of them but was near impossible to damage even if something was able to pass the legs. Its head was as tall as a man and raised as tall as five men from the ground. Wide and flat. It had no arms or shoulders. It had five eyes. One in the center of its head two on the bottom and two on top, they were made of glass and filled with darkness and projecting a beam of green light each. Their weapons were many and dangerous. Strange mouths with no teeth that spat great beams of white light on the top their heads two each, four triangular bars hung underneath their heads and two above that spun and spat bursts of red light that could light an man aflame, mouths on the front of the head that sent beams of blinding light that reduced buildings to timbers and stone chips and left a trail of smoke in their path. Others that the people had never seen in use were also present.
Many thought her insane or suicidal to hunt in the territory the Messengers guarded, but she knew this forest was special. Ever since she was a child she had a dream of a stranger in strange green armor standing in this very forest as it burned, commanding an army of Messengers painted green destroying the Messengers, building a city in the ocean and the mountains that touched the sky, and a great triangle that could change the stars. She saw herself and her siblings along side the stranger helping him as he helped the people, as the people’s world grew beyond Ru’yealm. She was as worried as her sister. Yes, but because she knew that this omen was a person and that the seers knew this too. And the seers said that nothing would be the same, they said to take the time to gaze at the stars, for forever they would change.
Unnamed Star System. Federation-Primacy Buffer zone. Aug 7th 3748 The Enigmatic Endeavour was every ounce the high spec dreadnought Magnus had hoped for, in the four days since he left the Frontier Spirit he had uploaded a new personality for the ships operating AI, calibrated all of the systems to his preference, toured the whole thing through the surveillance system, and laid his claim on the first 7 systems that had been chosen for STARGAZER and this was his last stop. The system laid right on a massive lay line that moved the magical currents through the entirety of the local cluster and on top of another that ran through the galaxy itself. This meant that the system would be absolutely supercharged with magical energies which was imperative for STARGAZER. Top candidate for the project was the 4th planet in the system.
It was about 60% water oxygen content at 24% the rest being a standard habitable planet air mix of nitrogen, and noble gasses. The Magnetosphere was stronger than earths and the planet was slightly smaller. Gravity on surface estimated at 9.1 M/S2. Downside, the planet was most likely to be inhabited already. That had been planed for from the beginning, if a corporation discovers a new species in a system with extraterritorial rights to said corporation, they could engage in an uplift program.
The idea for STARGAZER was to use the uplift program and the nature and complexity of Federation law concerning such programs to trade for the space to build the necessary ground facilities for and of STARGAZER itself. Floating in the link tank was not what Magnus would call the height of entertainment but that was fine, his mind was everywhere in the ship, the reactor his heart, the engines his legs, the manufacturing bays his hands. He had grabbed a few small asteroids between shock jumps and had reduced them to basic elements in some of the cargo bays on the interior of the ship and in the upper forward bay.
So far, the only things to have given him trouble were the fighters in the starboard flight deck and his own power armor set. The fighters had needed a software update the got corrupted and he had to rebuild. His power armor had a force multiplier in the left leg that refused to hit peak out put and would not fire at the same time as his right. That meant that he couldn’t even walk in the damn thing let alone run at highway speeds or make a 100m jump.
Magnus pulled the Enigmatic Endeavour in to a high orbit to begin scanning the planet for optimal placement of his head office and facilities, as well as a good place to put the STARMIND core. Raw resources would need to be located as well. As he stabilized his orbit, he had to divert some of his attention to the stunning rings and the colour of the planet. there were two ring belts with a single moon parked between them and another about 1000km off the outside ring all on different orbital planes.
The oceans were a glassy green and the land was covered in blue and purple indicative of abundant plant life running on a retinal photosynthesis process. He had been siting in orbit for about 3 hours when he noticed a bright red forest on his scanners that was unusual, the forest was passing into the planets shadow as it approached his relative position and would pass directly beneath him. As he ran the calculations and brought the sensors in for their next sweep, he detected an incredibly high intensity energy spike. One consistent with a singularity reactor the same type that powered the Endeavour, he also found several transmissions with identifiers for Federation Harbinger Mk3 spider tanks.
WARNING! WARNING! HIGH INTENSITY ENERGY BUILD UP IDENTIFIED
WARNING! BUILD UP CONSISTENT WITH SURFACE TO ORBIT DEFENSE SYSTEMS
WARNING! ANTI-CAPITAL CHARGE DETECTED
WARNING! HULL BREACH IN SECTORS 5,6,7,8 ALL DECKS
WARNING! ENGINES FAILING. SHIP DESCENDING. FIRING DESCENT THRUSTERS. COLLISION IMMINENT.
hey HFY Ive had this idea around for a while and want to share it with you all. please give any constructive criticism, comments or questions you have. I am a long time lurker of this sub and want to give back to you all.

https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/48825
CONTINGENCY
EN ROUTE: URANUS – CAELUS STATION
OUTER BAND — LOCATION INCONCLUSIVE
“I was able to pull some data from those Exo samples.” Jinju perches on the cockpit dashboard. Two tech mites crawl over her shell.
Their jump-ship plummets through fractalescent polychrome luge, ripping across the sable pitch of space at blistering speed.
Ana leans back in her pilot seat, one knee pulled to her chest. She watches strands of shimmer bend around the hull. A bobble-owl jiggles along as the ship shivers, underneath it: Camrin, in frame.
“Hit me.” Her eyes turn to Jinju.
“I couldn’t completely narrow it down, but they’re definitely from the Golden Age, circa the Collapse.”
Jinju continues, “I’ve been going through the Pillory mainframe download. Those stations are meant to split Rasputin’s mind up in the event that he became… uh… insubordinate.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“ECHO appears to have been a contingency program that activates afterward. They also had a cornerstone schematic of his brain.”
Light static fuzzes from bubble speakers on Ana’s dash. Her helmet hangs on a hook behind her; Rasputin’s uplink is offline.
Ana chews on the information for a moment. “A foundational brain model would help with containment stability after the partitioning process. It’s like a front porch for your brain.”
“It… goes on.” Jinju continues, “Your name is cross-referenced all over this, Ana. Neural Web-way. Psycholinguistics. Exo brain maps with candidate profiles. It looks like Clovis Bray was syncing Rasputin’s basic core with viable hosts.”
“Oh.” Ana’s mind races. “For what though? Drop him into containment and clone him? Pretty elaborate restart button. I guess with an Exo you could also make some pretty potent AI with more limiters than a Warmind.”
Jinju processes. “Hm. Nothing conclusive here.”
Ana turns her gaze back to the stars. “It would be terrible to be buried like that—trapped in pieces of your own mind. You wouldn’t even know who you were anymore. Where you start, and where other versions of you end.”
“Speaking of, the Clovis—9 site is ‘78% assimilated into his sovereignty.'” Jinju distorts her voice as Warmind facsimile. “He’s so dramatic about it.”
Ana brightens as she laughs. “You remember how Camrin would always impersonate him?”
“He did not appreciate that, but it was funny.” Jinju cheeps lightly. “Is she still buried in work from the Moon?”
“Hole opened up to the Black Garden. Pyramid. Creepy signals. Raining Vex. You think Owl Sector could help themselves from getting involved?”
“I heard rumors through the Ghost-vine about the Pyramid. They said it steals your shell. Lives there, like another you. They said it makes you do things.” Jinju pauses. Her iris flicks to Ana’s raised eyebrow. “Not helping?”
“Let’s just change the subject.”
Jinju squirms awkwardly. “You’ll see her soon.”
“I know.”
“They’re working directly with Ikora. She’s safe.”
“I know…”
Warm-tone reassurance trickles into the cabin through Ana’s helmet receiver.
“I KNOW. WHEN DID YOU EVEN GET HERE, RED?” Ana aggressively huffs in exasperation.
Tech mites traverse Jinju like a jungle gym. One dangles precariously from a shell flap. “Guess who’s there too.”
“How do you know this, and I don’t?”
“Ghost-vine. It’s Eris Morn. She’s working with the Guardian.”
“Eris?” Ana scoffs. “She’s not much of a conversationalist so the two of them should get along just fine.” She gestures to the mites. “Do you really want those crawling all over you?”
“Their names are Pho and Deim, and I love them.” Jinju coddles her mites. “Besides, it’s like Cam’s with us in spirit, right?”
Ana chuckles and scratches her brow before raising a fist in solidarity. “She is. To the brim.”
The shimmer surrounding the jump-ship jitters before abruptly smashing into empty space. Ana leans forward and looks out into the void.
“Um… where’s the planet?” She slowly rolls her head around the cockpit.
They drift through space on placid waves of nothing toward a distant nowhere. The vast luminous twinkle of the Milky Way plays out in panorama, though gloom-speckle pinholes prick gaps in the starry sea. The absence from them directly apparent to Ana’s eye like rays of darkness from a black sun through shear cosmic sheet.
Jinju perks up, internal sensors suddenly askew. “Something nabbed us right out of our jump. We’re off course by…” Jinju calculates, “…three AU?”
“What!?” Ana manually scans the trajectory equations in the nav-computer. “There’s nothing wrong with the math.”
||JUMP-DRIVE ERROR: MISALIGNMENT|| squawks on bubble speakers.
“Little late.”
Tart synesthetic tickle creeps red and patient. Low and pressing, as not to be heard by those that might be listening.
“Relax. I know we’re off course, but it’s not that far… relatively speaking.” Ana scrunches her face at a nav-screen as it’s overtaken by interference. “Okay, I can’t see where we are. Hang on.”
A slow wrinkle skulks across space. It presses up the fabric. Insignificant points between stars warp and spur small disturbances in the constellational congruence of the galaxy. From afar it is nothing. A flutter of wings in wind.
“It’s dark out here.” Jinju’s voice is distant as she peers outside. Beyond the canopy an expanse without horizon.
“That’s when the stars shine brightest, Jinju. Find a constellation for me so we can get our bearings.”
||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED: JUMP-REALIGNMENT REQUIRED||

“Way ahead of you, ship.” Ana checks jump vectors and flicks through alignment procedures. Mav thrusters sputter to orient the ship toward Sol. Ana test-cycles the jump-drive. It revs and then chokes before locking. 

||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED: JUMP HAZARD—LOCATION INCONCLUSIVE, CLEAR HAZARD||
“Okay, that’s not a comforting thing to hear.” Ana deploys a sensory buoy from the ship.
Rasputin stings and pricks red iron. Steady pressure. With localized insistence.
“Feel’s strange.” Jinju is distant. “We should go.”
Ana initiates recalibrations on the jump-drive’s positioning solution. “There’s definitely some weird space out there.”
||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED||
The ship lurches. Ana’s stomach churns. Jinju vibrates violently in place, an outer shell of Light absorbing some form of force.
Red iron needles whistle tea-kettle pressure in white anxiety from Ana’s helmet.
Cloaked Shadows shift through the vacuum an eternity away and all too close; shown only when they wish to, to only whom they want.
Ana swallows to settle her stomach. “What even was that? Did we move?”
“Leave. Now please. Ana.” Jinju presses against the glass of the canopy, peering outward.
||SYSTEM REALIGNMENT: SOLUTION SECURED||
“There it is. I’ve got a jump-lock.”
||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED||
“Again? Then we’re riding this one out of here.” Ana eye-balls adjustments for the gravitational wave into the nav-computer. “Punching jump in 3… 2… 1…”
They slip between folds in space. Formless wake propels them. The ship rides through sub-space at speeds far exceeding her jump-drive's capability. Color dulls in the slipstream. Frisson electrifies Ana's senses into timeless euphoria. The nose of the cockpit stretches ahead, drawn toward some distant vanishing point. She struggles to keep the flight stick straight. Her motions seem small, inconsequential and all too slow within the wave. Fluctuant pockets of drag flex and buck, threatening to throw them off into the unknown. The cockpit twists around her, indicator lights blink in metronomic sequence—purpose and pigment slowly materializing in her mind.
Hull integrity failing. "Not yet."
||COLLISION: BOW, CELESTIAL BODY DETECTED, AUTO-DROP FAILED||
Ana steadies her mind. She force-cancels the jump, seizing the drive and dumping them out into space before thrusters burn to steady them again.
Their emergence is dwarfed by a stratospheric colossus.
Uranus hangs, a daiquiri pearl set in tilted rings.
A grin overtakes Ana’s face. “Nailed it.”
Pale blue gleam inundates the canopy with planetary light. Ana plots an approach to the station. The trio slow burn forward, each silently collecting their faculties. Ahead: tiny beacons blip red. Satellite silhouettes take form out of the planet’s zealous glare. Instrument spokes jut from their polygonal chassis like old-war depth charges itching to trigger.
“Those are Warsats.” Jinju breaks the silence, eager to shift her mode of thought far from weird space and gravity waves.
“Finally, some luck," Ana says with relief. "I bet we can daisy-chain Rasputin into the station’s network through the defense system.”
“Oh, they’re powering up. Maybe we—”
Horns of responsive distortion roll across the cabin like a stress wave. Rasputin’s alert pings litter the canopy HUD.
“Brace!”
Ana pushes hard on the flight stick and reflexively dives under a barrage of laser fire. Nose thrusters roar vibration through her hands as she cuts to guide the ship vertical and tumbles into a barrel roll, slipping around follow-up bursts. A bolt skims shallow across her starboard side: ricochet. Shockwave tremors reverberate through the hull.
“Red, ping all incoming fire vectors! Jinju, arm the spikes!”
Plates split open along the belly of the ship. A drum-launcher of six Warspikes rolls out as Jinju links into the launcher's gunnery apparatus. Indicators blare onto the canopy HUD. Jinju sends two Warspikes straight into the first of fifteen Warsats blocking their path as Ana nudges the ship between incoming laser bursts.
Two spiked Warsats cease fire as their automated defense protocols are overridden, security software utterly failing to halt Rasputin’s invasive assimilation. They come back online—spikes blending into spokes—and swivel to gun down the closest still-hostile targets.
The assimilated twin Warsats thrust to reposition into a shield for Ana and Jinju as they close distance. Crimson flare shines around the Warsat shield as lasers chisel into them. Ana watches HUD pings for an opening between incoming bursts. She finds half a moment and burns hard on the main engine, then toggles full power to maneuvering thrusters to sling the ship under Rasputin’s shield and open a lane for Jinju.
Jinju unleashes four more spikes. They strike true. Rasputin spreads digital plague through the Warsat’s frameworks with each skewering hit. He demands subservience. Laser fire tears through space in all directions as Ana cuts between dueling satellites and rolls to evade overlapping firing arcs. Concussive shockwaves rattle the ship as defiant Warsats explode or fail one by one until the firing stops.
A field of deputized Warsats and debris dead-drift within the planet’s orbital current, back-lit by radiant mesopelagic glow. Beyond them, almost lost among cloud-cream atmosphere, Caelus station.
Ana releases her breath. It feels like she had been holding it since the jump. She forces short gulps of air into her aching lungs and lets her ship glide towards the station without guidance.
Jinju emerges from the gunnery apparatus and floats back to the dashboard. Pho and Deim appear from under her shell. “What was that, Ana? Back there.”
“The Warsats or the freaky gravity?”
“Either… both.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“My guess worries me.”
“Let’s just pull this data and get home.”
“Agreed.”
Ana hangs her head in her hands and muffles a sardonic, “Nailed it.”
CAELUS STATION
Dim and powerless, it gently falls. The label grows at pace with Ana's measured approach. Rasputin's cohort of Warsats encircle her in a defensive phalanx. The station rotates to face the planet. It glitters in gas-giant grandeur as massive translucent hull plates display a desolate gut shrouded in sea-foam reflection. Jinju combs through station blueprints pouring in from Warsat data stores. Caelus consists of one long shaft containing a launch bay and spindly communication arrays at either end. Deeper, passed the launch bays, mostly maintenance frame space cap-stoned by a large reinforced mainframe housing complete with a thick-glass viewing ceiling. Orbiting ringlets, indicated as "Biomes" 1, 2, and 3, spin lazily in unison with the central structure, held in position by mag-lock paddocks that align with metallic rungs set into the station hub's outer plating.
Jinju locates several unpowered docking points before settling on entering through one of the station's bays. She snaps a HUD ping on the canopy.
"Here. This one is open, though it doesn’t look like anything but the outer rings are still pressurized."
"Ready for a spacewalk?" Ana guides them to the bay, catching sight of the transparent interior solar-glass paneling of the rotating ringlets. Clean rivers slosh along the outer ring underneath a dividing sieve. Earthen dirt sprouts abundance above.
"Are those greenhouses?"
"I think so. Everything seems to be locked under a file named 'contingency.'"
"That's not ominous," Ana says, scooping her helmet from its hook and swiping 18 Kelvins from a footlocker.
"We need mainframe access."
"When do we not?" Ana looks at the dark station. It is a grave of potential awaiting the next planet-rise.
Jinju prepares Ana's bandolier. Mites patiently tap pin-legs as they wait for attention.
Ana dons her helmet and puts a hand on the canopy release pulley. "You're not bringing those, are you?"
The bay is still: a snapshot of countless possible failures in the face of challenge. It holds only one ship. The bulbous craft lay broken, dropped from its support brackets in denial of an attempted launch. Reflective hexagonal plates sparkle like space dust as the station faces Uranus' light. Scorch stains blacken the far wall behind the craft's ruined ion thruster.
"The propulsion system is missing its ion cell. It doesn't look like damage, but obviously a lot went wrong here."
Jinju beams light over the fuselage as they float through the ruptured bay in weightlessness. The reflective hull is filled with Exos. Mannequin cadavers hang frozen on silk threads, surrounded by globular blobs of various fluids. Loose-wire tangle sags around the lifeless many. One or two glides freely within the cabin. Their chest plates share a pristine logo.
ECHO-1
Ana locates a crumpled worker frame beside the bay’s internal air lock and signals Jinju to come over.
Jinju puffs toward Ana on pulses of Light. Remnants and dust hold motionless in the vacuum. Their groupings, jostled and drawn to each other since the bay's collapse, form tiny gravitational microcosms; a new faux system trapped in the failed husk of a past age.
She flicks her helmet microphone on. "Hey, what about just normal frame access?"
The Ghost sweeps the frame and gets to work. "This isn’t just some mop-bot. This is the Station Manager. Let's get it inside."
Ana props a foot on the wall and forces the airlock closed behind them. Mag-boot clinks to tile. Dust floor, echoing groans, and humid taste populate the station. Even through her respirator the stale flavors of plant matter and dirt coat Ana's tongue in grist-like film. She turns to Jinju, busy at work splicing bad connections within the frame and spinning light to charge its power unit.
"It’ll work, but this unit won’t hold power. It’ll only last as long as I charge it."
"You’re a miracle worker, Jinju."
Jinju cheeps.
She solders a loose line. “It should also be a little more… talkative.”
Ana peers down the hall. From their current position, the airlock functions like an estuary flowing into the rest of the station. She could almost see clear to the central mainframe hub atop a raised panel fortification in the middle of the room. It sits below a ceiling of translucent plates, rimmed in distant ringlet halos falling under shadow. A stairway aligned with the launch bays on either side provides access.
The Frame sparks to life, looks directly at Ana, and speaks with grating age to its voice.
“Welcome, Ana Bray! Very excited to see a Bray walk this hall again. It has been a long time.”
Ana grasps at words. Jinju shrugs, plugs of Light toss in zero-G.
The Frame stands on magnetized foot cups and dusts itself off, nearly bumping into Jinju. “Excuse me, small servo bot."
“Servo b?"
The Frame turns to Ana. “How may I be of assistance?"
“I’ll unplug you.”
The Frame ignores her.
Ana smirks at Jinju, then looks at the Frame.
"Walk with me," she says, briskly moving deeper into the station.
The two converse with Jinju in tow.
The main section of the station is a wide-open hall supported by struts. In large red lettering the words:
ECHO PROJECT
OUR LEGACY BUILDS THE HORIZON
Dozens of maintenance frame plates line the floor. Some open. Some semi-raised with collapsed frames steps away, half-responding to a catastrophe. A scene in disorder.
"Zilch on Atlas.”
Ana stares out the translucent ceiling, wistful as the Frame waits for another question.
“So those crops in the rings are food supplies for a colony mission."
"Yes. Thank you for asking that, Ana Bray."
"Yeah. And the colony ships are full of Exos?"
"Partially. ECHO-1 and ECHO-2 were stocked with Exo unit crews. As you know, their task was to establish and oversee embryonic development at Colony M31, Site-A and Site-B."
"If Rasputin got out of hand, they weren't planning on resetting him.”
"I don’t have access to Clovis 1-12 directories."
“They just assumed he would win. The Pillory is a last-ditch panic room.”
"I don’t have access to Clovis 1-12 directories."
Jinju’s iris flicks back and forth between the two. Her tiny Light-leash hums.
Ana massages her palm. “What was my role in all this?”
“As you know, your work on the Warmind made you a prime asset to oversee applicant selection.”
“I chose the people in there?”
Ana watches the ringlet spin, her mind repeating the statement back to her. Artificial night slips back to artificial day as the station's rotation continues.
“As you know, yes. Additionally, your work on the Warmind, as you know, was vital to the establishment of Clovis 1-12.”
“Do I know where the candidates came from? Did they volunteer?”
“I do not have access to candidate profiles.”
Ana shuts her eyes and takes a steady breath.
“You said I helped with the Pillory stations?”
“Yes.”
“How so?”
"I don’t have access to Clovis 1-12 directories."
She nods and lets her helmet slink back to rest on her shoulders. “I think I can piece it together on my own. Is this station linked to any other sites?”
Her gaze returns to the distant ringlet, lit by the recurring planet-rise. Her augmented eyes pick at details.
“As you know, Miss Bray, there are thirteen CLOVIS sites that this station is linked to.”
“Thirteen? What’s the thirteenth?”
The plant life is still vibrant. Regimented.
“Paragon access does not permit that information.”
“You hear that, Jinju? We’re all just slaves to circumstance.”
Jinju chirps. “I’d like to think our choices matter a little. I’d like to think mine did.”
Ana smiles at her. “Yeah.”
“You are a Bray.” The frame pauses.
They lack signs of overgrowth.
Well kept.
“So?” Ana turns to the Frame.
“ECHO project requires a station link with DEAD-ROCK resources.”
Ana eyes go wide. “Jinju disengage that cipher thing.” Over her shoulder, a glint shines from the far central ringlet. Biome 2.
Jinju glides forward. “What is that?”
Ana looks at Jinju. “The verbal cipher.” She pauses and traces Jinju’s eyeline to face Uranus. Ana’s eyes adjust to sieve out the glaring brightness. “What’s what?” She puts a hand to her visor and squints.
An ion lance threads the station from the distant ringlet.
It pierces Ana’s chest clean through.
Brick-stained atmosphere hisses out of her suit, searing on smoldering fabric fringe.
Jinju’s iris widens with confused shock.
Howling storms slam salt-coarse keys in Ana’s helmet.
End
ACRIMONY
ECHO-1
CAELUS STATION — COLLAPSE
"DEAD-ROCK SEIZURE IN ACTION: Station Manager initiate manual override in ECHO-1 Launch Bay."
"ALERT: This station is experiencing power fluctuations. Emergency power will run until—
ECHO-0
He awakens alone. A fluke. Others hang around Him, but they remain in the dream. Electrical surge prickles through his entire body. A screen in front of his face begins playing a recording complete with visual aid:
"Welcome to ECHO-1. Before your departure, you should have been briefed by a Station Warden If you don't recall your Station Warden, please alert your Crew Captain. Now then, my name is Ana Bray, and you're one of the lucky few who has been selected for the ECHO Project. The future of Humanity rests on your sho—"
The recording is interrupted as emergency sirens blare through the station.
"STATION HAZARDS: GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALY | STERILE NEUTRINO BURSTS | Please remain calm."
"OVERRIDE BROADCAST: via ECHO-LINK//:PILLORY-SUBLOCK.R./:SKYSHOCK ALERT: TRANSIENT NEAR EXTRASOLAR EVENT:—
Power failures wrack the station in rolling thunder. The Exo slumps, lifeless until its next reset.
ECHO-7
Alone.
The recording. He finds familiarity in the newness. The face on the screen seems kind—
"STATION HAZARDS: ROLLING SURGES IN WARDS 1, 2, 3. Please remain calm."
Thunder. Pain to death. Electro-static purge, triggering a reset.
ECHO-22
He awakens to rolling, thunderous darkness and pain. The screen does not illuminate.
Barely audible words form from the air:
"Primary propulsion systems failing. Auxiliary systems near depletion. Planetary impact unavoidable. Distress triggered."
Meaningless. He struggles against chains.
Eons pass. His bonds will not break. His mind fragments and corrupts.
He wishes he could bleed. He wishes he could die. He wonders where the Wardens are.
ECHO-41
Short lives of confusion and pain. He grasps at falling in every direction. There is nothing to grip.
ECHO-89
Thunder, again.
ECHO-173
And again.
ECHO-390
Until one day:
He hangs in the futile passage of time.
A creeping madness weaves its way in solitude.
ECHO-877
Thunder. Thunder. Thunder.
The Warden speaks for the first time in many storms. Her twisted promises are fresh to His ear.
"When we return." Etched in mind.
Wake and sleep. Struggle. Dream and wake. Struggle. Endless. Innumerable. Stillbirths. Tomb spasms. Thunderous pain. Sweet death.
ECHO- 2̷͉͙̜̗͍̙̭̤̘̪͖͈͛̅͑̈̀̾6̸̡͇̼̦̲̩͎̟̠̬̳̲̂̀̉͐̃̈́ͅ2̵̡͎͚̳̠̫̮͉̍̉̌̒͑̓͗͛̉̈́̕̚͝5̸̨̭͚͔̥̲̫̈́̂̈́̊̋͗͑͛͑͝͝
Thunder, one final time. The storm gives life, but never came to take.
He slips from rot shackles. Worn with age. Weary, they snap at slightest motion. Untold rotations pass without movement. Freedom?
He matures questions. A hunger wells up within him.
He travels the station. From Tomb Bay, to the Mind Shell, to the Sealed Space. In dark, and in light.
The Mind Shell teaches Him the new roads. Teaches Him the majesty of the Rings. Teaches him the key.
He walks the Rings.
He tends to His little freedoms. He cultivates. He grows. He does, unknowingly, as He was meant to do.
The Mind Shell tells Him of the Bridge. Tells him of His ancestors. Speaks of the "ECHO LINK".
The knowledge does not leave His thoughts.
He seeks a meaning beyond routine.
The Tomb Bay kept secrets. He had not returned since He walked the Rings. It is a shallow sepulcher.
Brothers and Sisters dreaming. Never to wake as He had.
He digs treasures from their graves. Digs knowledge from the Prison's many minds.
Picks lies from the bones of truth.
He drinks the memories of Echoes passed.
He finds the Prison's purpose. A Bridge's end. If He holds this end, perhaps the Wardens hold the other.
The many minds. The liar's words. Takers. They would know of his escape.
The Wardens would come to take with fresh shackles.
He prepares. He learns from the Warden's alchemy.
He digs through the carcass of his once-mighty Tomb.
From hollow basin, He seizes Starlight power to wield from afar. From its flesh: adorns Himself with a
cloak of lies to fool. He armors his soul against the Thunder that kills.
He opens the Bridge at his end and waits.
ECHO- 2̷͉͙̜̗͍̙̭̤̘̪͖͈͛̅͑̈̀̾6̸̡͇̼̦̲̩͎̟̠̬̳̲̂̀̉͐̃̈́ͅ2̵̡͎͚̳̠̫̮͉̍̉̌̒͑̓͗͛̉̈́̕̚͝5̸̭͚̈́̂̈́̊̋͗͑͛͑͝͝- Present Day
He walks the ring when She arrives.
The Warden rides in with finality and judgement.
A red-light storm at Her back.
She had followed the Bridge, as He had hoped. She leads many shells, but only One descends with Her.
She brings with Her the Thunder, and He fears its wicked spark. He places trust to his plated frame.
He watches Her trespass in the Tomb Bay. Sees Her defile the Mind Shell's grand hall.
The Wardens reap what had been sown.
As Wardens always do. She comes to collect him.
He raises his Starlight.
But a Warden is not so easily slain, and She has many allies.
End
DESCENDENT
CAELUS STATION
ORBIT — URANUS
She is submerged.
Light sways just above a tense surface.
Something far below stirs.
The Light brightens to blind.
Rasputin weeps a terrible cacophony of anguish.
Ana gasps for breath. Her head swims in effort.
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 73% (!)
“Hold still! Your suit is leaking!” Jinju quickens Light into Ana's punctured suit, her Iris jittering from spot to spot as oxygen spurts around her in foggy clouds.
Ana shakes dizziness out of her head. A smoldering frame is sprawled a few meters away. She droops flat to a support beam that runs up to the mainframe office.
“I got shot…” The realization doubles back. “I got shot?”
Ana pats her chest and stiffens. She draws in shallow breath.
“Jinju, did you see where it came from?”
“Central ring. I dragged you into cover. Stop moving so much.”
Ana peeks around the strut; an ion thread zips by and stings her helmet.
Rasputin obliterates every square inch of ringlet within ten meters of the ion beam’s origin in response.
Sections of the central ringlet combust and explode under heavy bombardment. The ring buckles, splitting along the seams and splaying out into space. Magnetic anchors fail as the halo fractures and splits away from the station's central architecture. Fragments rush away toward the planet; Caelus’ ruin falls to Uranus in lingering prolicidal consummation.
“RASPUTIN STOP!” Laser fire halts immediately. “You’re gunna sink the whole station!”
Tense finger waits on hair trigger. Ana works her starving lungs.
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 67% (!)
“Ana, you need to stop breathing so much.” Jinju bobs with Ana’s head and quickly reseals her visor.
“Can’t hold still.” Ana shakily stands and points up at the dislodged ringlet spinning above her. “Bad angle.”
“I’m pretty sure whatever shot you is dead. Stop talking. You're getting delirious."
Wreckage looms far over Ana’s shoulder. The remaining two halos slowly spin in ignorance through their sibling's burial-dust cloud. Eerie distortion soars across the divide between station and rings, the veneer of invisibility momentarily lost in flight as rubble collides with its form. Rasputin perceives the abnormality.
Harmonic chimes across Ana’s visor resonate and combine into uniform patterned homogeny.
“Active camouflage?” Ana sucks thin atmosphere, a wheezing undertone to her breath. “Jinju, give me an auditory visualizer.”
Jinju whirs and dips back to Ana's suit. “Compiling an interface. Now. Hold. Still.”
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 65% (!)
A ceiling panel twenty meters from Ana erupts in brittle plastic shards that glisten and spin like tiny neutron stars, catching the last of Uranus' light as the station beings to turn dark. Amorphous form thuds into the floor, shattering tiles in a plume of dust that stretches up into a spire before slowly holding in place. The form tumbles to a stop. It stands between her and the open launch bay and slings a kit-bashed Ion caster aside, depleted. Hexagonal patterns stutter to blend with the station interior as the room rolls into tenebrous obscurity. For an instant, an Exo takes form, and then nothing as its cloaking shroud flashes and re-engages in the dark.
Ana doesn’t wait. She rushes heavy clunking boots up the stairs to the mainframe, arrhythmic tremors beat through her heart. Jinju deactivates the switch on Ana's mag-boots and hurls her through the door with a forceful pulse of Light. She speeds in behind Ana, finishing her suit with Light stitch as Ana slams the door shut.
“Ana. Hang in there.” Jinju orients Ana and reactivates her mag-boots.
Ana's feet clomp to the floor. She hangs from them, a loose timber bending in the wind.
Jinju finishes her patch job. New fabric seals air-tight.
"You're good. You're good. Don't pass out. Your suit is re-oxygenating."
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 59% (!)
Stabilizing…
The words are intensely bright on her visor against the darkening room.
"Auditory overlay complete. Check your visor." Jinju's voice focuses her.
"I just… need a minute…" Ana speaks between gulps of air. An unsteady hand draws 18 Kelvins. The mainframe room orients around her more clearly with each breath. It is stark, a large lone desk of singular oak commands the center of the room. A console screen, dead, is embedded in the surface.
Rasputin drops positional estimation pings into her HUD in an attempt to track her assailant. She steps backward, away from the door she had entered through and toward the opposing stairway's door.
Her eyes pick up faint quivers from outside. Indirect. Resonate white noise pings like interference on her visor. She focuses on each occurrence, looking for a note out of rhythm.
Behind.
She spins as the Exo crashes through the secondary entrance at her back. The door snaps from its hinges in a torrent of dust and rackets Jinju into glass.
"Jinju!"
Ana loses track of her attacker momentarily in the darkness before it pushes off from a hard surface, triggering her visor. She spits off rounds from 18 Kelvins. Some find their mark, puncturing the camouflage shroud and revealing her adversary before impotently fizzling on the Exo's outer shell. It covers the gap with surprising speed and catches her gun hand; Ana discharges an arc round; tiny bolts reach across to the Exo’s metal skull in vain as it scorches ceiling.
Bones pop in her fingers and wrist.
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 68% (!)
Stabilizing…
The Exo flattens its other hand and stabs toward her stomach.
"Die. Warden."
Adrenal instinct floods Ana's body. She stops it. They lock. Ana’s vision blurs. She gasps for breath. Muscles quiver in her arms, desperate for oxygen. A spark cinders in her.
"Get off her!"
Jinju zips toward the Exo and paddles Pho and Deim onto it with a flick of her shell. The mites crawl under the Exo's exterior plating and send shock-sting bites through its systems, seizing its joints for a few precious seconds.
Jinju rushes to Ana's side. The Ghost deconstructs itself, orbital shell bits swirl around a core of coalescing Light. She fills the room like a brilliant star, overcharging her wayward Guardian.
Ana's crushed bones reforge. Light fills her eyes. Her grip, still holding against the seizing Exo's bladed thrust, liquefies its plated hand to scrap. A glorious crown of Solar flame erupts from her visor and she cracks her forehead into the Exo’s face. It reels, tufts of flame extinguish in the vacuum. Ana kicks away.
Solar might engulfs 18 Kelvins. Ana hammers off two rounds of celestial annihilation. They melt straight through the Exo, puncture the station plating, and scream through space for light years.
The Exo slumps, a molten heap.
It draws breath.
“Resilient.” Ana drops to a knee. Barrel trained on the Exo's head.
She takes a full breath. The Exo’s eyes are unflinchingly locked to her. It refuses to die.
It points to Ana’s badge with its still-blistering hand.
“Bray. Warden.”
She says the only thing the can think to say: “Who were you?”
It hesitates. “Echoes.”
Her head droops. “How many did you live?” She looks to find his number designation, but it is missing.
It looks passed her as Uranus' light once again trickles through the station. “Echoes… grow… Wardens… keep…”
“What did I do to them?”
Ana stares at Echo’s husk. The faint glow of the desk's lit console screen grays out her face behind her visor.
She sits dead-still in rotation. She could stare forever, if she only had enough time.
Jinju nudges her shoulder. “I've got the mainframe data.”
Ana is devoid of thought at the mainframe access console. She watches as Uranus comes back into view over and over again. It dominates the station’s viewing port. She maps the movement of the clouds along the surface, but only ever on the surface, and sees how they differ from the previous iteration on their last spin. She wonders if they are different underneath.
Stable major chords strum in Ana’s helmet, getting caught in the cracked visor glass.
She finally speaks, decisive. “Dislodge the other ringlet paddocks. Warsats can tow them back to the Tower. Skim the shadow-networks for anything else they can use. Get some good from this…”
“Ana, the Warsats could haul this whole station as long as we do it soon.”
Caelus rotates away into shadow once again, and the planet’s sheen fades from sight. Ana clicks a spring-loaded slot on the desk. It snaps to, bearing a placard of ownership.
CLOVIS BRAY
Ana stands. Steady.
“It’s okay to let some things be forgotten.”
End

Continuing
I wrap the six road flares, now spray-painted brick-red and stickered with the appropriate manufacturer's labels, with black electrician’s tape into a hexagonal cross-section, closest-fit bundle. I have a black plastic project box that contains a battery for ‘long-lasting power’ or so the manufacturer claims. An Arduino board that I programmed the other night that runs the wee little speaker and set of blinking LEDs I had mounted on the box. From the box sprout a pair of tightly coiled lengths of demolition wire. Not detonating cord, but just insulated copper wire. These attach to the blasting cap and blasting cap super-booster from which I’ve taken the time to extract all the explosives.
I have to admit, it certainly looks authentic; but there’s a small problem. The aesthetics don’t hit me properly. So, I decided to hot glue a cheap-ass Casio digital watch, removed from its band to the large blank spot on the black box. I run a few more coils of tightly wrapped demolition wire, to give it that more earnest and decidedly homebrewed look.
Perfect. A faux time bomb that could fool anyone.
Smiling, I set it into a drawer of the desk in the portable office. Once all the glue, paint, and mastic dries, I’ll shift it to its permanent home.
That done, I wander outside to see how things are progressing. I walk over to the whiteboard to see what sort of ideas they’ve cooked up in my absence.
“Hey, Rock”, Yogarasa asks, “What do you think of this?” as he points to the red-lined ship’s schematic.
“On, no”, I reply, “I’m JAFO here. Just Another Fucking Observer. Let me know when you guys come to a consensus.”
“Right, Rock”, he smiles, “Will do.”
I fire up a heater and wander around the job site. I may be in JAFO-mode, but I do make a few comments on personal safety. I note how some jobs they’re attempting could be done with a bit more care, introspection, and attention to Safety, Health, and Environment.
“Damn”, I think, “But that’s a big fucking boat.”
I’m standing down on the sand, under the prow of the ship. It’s well and truly beached and the farthest point frontwards of the boat, the bow, is easily 50 or 60 feet above my head.
“Gonna take come real cunning and cuteness to chop up this little dinghy”, I think to myself.
“ROCK!” I hear my name.
I’m being paged.
I ease over to the whiteboard. They have a list of items necessary for the job they’re proposing. They have a set of procedures as well. Now they have to sell me on the project.
“OK, I’m here. What’s the deal?” I ask.
Vik takes the initiative and tells me they want to cut the forward 150 feet, or 45 meters, of the ship off in one fell swoop. There are three station keeping bow thrusters in the hull at 50 meters back, so those will not only be safe, but more exposed for reclamation. Lots of copper, zinc, and other saleable metals there.
The front 150 feet of the ship, if cut off flush, will relieve everyone of dealing with all those sharp angles commonly found at the pointy end of the front of the boat. It will be easier for both the explosives mavens and the torchbearers to work on a 90⁰ surface, rather than having to futz with all those pointy front end bits.
Initially, I agree. I ask for the more detailed set of schematics for the ship. I want to see what needs to be cut through in order to remove the bow of the boat. On the surface, it seems like a good idea. There’s only a helipad on the front deck of the ship, and below it appears to be a large ballroom or something similar. Whatever it is, it isn’t a fuel storage bunker or anything like that. Basically, they want to cut the bow off where the forward sheer meets the forward perpendicular.
“OK”, I say, “Sounds like it might work. What next?”
“Tour of the craft”, Sanjay says, “We need to get a licensed master blaster on board to take a look at what we’re up to.”
“And when will this be transpiring?”, I asked.
“As soon as you finish your cigar?” Vik asks.
In the forward-most bow of the ship, it is indeed an empty storage area. No telling what was here previously, but whatever it was, it’s gone now. Come to find out, it was crew quarters. They’re modular and were removed before the ship was beached. They are now in service on some other sea-going vessel; second-class.
There are several watertight chambers that can, or could have been, electronically and/or pneumatically closed if they ran aground or walloped a whale out on the high seas. I check and see there are no hydraulic lines. Those pose special problems, especially if check valves are over-ridden and lines are not de-energized.
I’ve seen what 5,000 psig hydraulic fluid can do coming out of an outlet no bigger than a pencil point. Besides mashing them in the jaws of an oil rig’s power tongs, it’s a good way to lose body parts quickly.
Electrical cables jump, spark, and short out. Pneumatic line spit accumulated water and pffft! themselves out fairly quickly. Hydraulics will cut you in half rather than say Good Morning.
Of course, all of these will be triply checked, but there’s always one rogue line stuck behind a bulkhead or tucked behind some flashing that you never count on. That’s why you have three different people check three different times.
Up on the foredeck, I’m looking at the specs supplied with the schematics. We’re going to be dealing with some 40 mm thick deck plate. That’s treated, hardened, tempered, annealed, and nasty 1.5 inch thick marine-grade high-carbon steel.
That shit’s a tough customer. Most carbon steel is not well-suited for marine environments, however, there are several marine-grade carbon steels available. AH36, DH36, and EH36 are all examples of commonly used marine-grade carbon steels approved by the American Bureau of Shipping. These grades will have slightly more alloying elements such as manganese and chromium compared to their ASTM grade counterparts, which helps achieve higher strength and more corrosion resistance. There are also marine grades of alloy steel as well. Grades MD, ME, MF, MG, and others can provide the strength that normal alloy steel is known for, and have also been approved by the American Bureau of Shipping for use in shipbuilding applications.
Here. We’ll be dealing with EH36, 40mm thickness, nominal. Also referred to as Mil-S-22698 Gr Dh-36. It contains carbon, manganese, silicon, sulfur, and chromium, for toughness.
We’re going to need some test coupons before we tackle this job.
A coupon is a small sample of the material under test that has been prepared in such a way that its failure mechanism will be representative of the larger production pieces.
Just FYI.
“Sanjay,” I ask, “How are you with a K-12 unit?”
Since the boat is going to be scrapped anyways, we’re standing next to the keel with a gas-powered 3.5 horsepower unit that drives a carborundum wheel up front at amazingly absurd rotational velocities. Sure, EH-36 marine steel eats carborundum-diamond sintered disks like candy, but the K-12 will allow us to cut some samples of the hull material for blasting tests.
This is a job for the younger crowd.
Let them experience the pure joy of holding on to a bucking, snorting, spark-flinging hunk of cranky high-velocity machinery. Let them experience the delight of the screaming whine of high-speed carborundum upon high-carbon steel, even while wearing hearing protectors. Let them revel in getting absolutely covered with metal filings and carborundum schmoo from the cutting marine steel and rapidly spinning, eroding, decreasing-diameter saw blades.
Fuck it. I’ll be in my office. I need a cold drink as it’s all hot and dusty and real out there.
I’ve got my feet up on the desk and actually catching a quick cat nap when I hear “THUNK!”
Five of my guys covered head to foot in black cutting residue, toss several 36” x 6” lengths of what was, until recently, the lower hull of a very expensive, indeed, cruise ship on the desk.
“THESE DO?” I am asked in a rather pointed manner.
I am endeavoring to stymie snickering at the situation.
“Told you it wasn’t all skittles and beer, Gents.”, I note.
Picking up a coupon, I give it the once over. “They could be a bit wider, but I guess these’ll have to do.”
I’m sitting at a desk with a large cold drink and five of my guys are standing in front of me with less-than-amicable looks on their faces, sweating and definitely needing a shower.
“Yes?” I ask.
“Well?” they reply.
“Hmmm?”, I hmmed.
“What?” they query.
“¿Que?” I query.
“WHAT DO WE DO NEXT?” they ask in unison.
“Oh, I thought we were having a contest to see how long we could keep conversing in monosyllables,” I replied.

“OK”, I smirk, “We need to test these against various explosives and see the results. Which ones do you think would be applicable to the whole job, not just the task at hand?”
“What do you mean?” Vik asks.
“Well”, I reply, “Seeing what DOUBLEHELIX liquid binary does to these coupons would be a hoot. But since it’s not terribly applicable to the job of cutting the nose off that scow outside…think about it. Liquid binary. Curved ship’s hull. How to affix to the hull? Contain energy how?”
“Ah, yes”, They reply, “I see.”
“Good”, I say, “So?”
“Obviously C-4, that’s a given”, Vik says.
“Yes, good”, I note, “And…?”
“Primacord?” came one query.
“Are you asking me or telling me?” I reply.
“Telling?” came the response.
“Yes. Primacord. Of course. The heavy stuff.” I add. “What else?”
“PETN? RDX? Dynamite? SEMTEX? Sprengkörper DM12?” came some more answers.
“Yes to all”, I replied, “But remember the job. Any idea how much it might take of these explosives? You have your Blaster’s Handbooks. You have your measurements. Have you done your calculations?”
“Not yet.” They reply.
“So, why are you here, stinking up my office?” I growl. They know I’m messing with them.
The all vacate. At least I know I’ll have half an hour or so to plug the numbers into my blaster’s computer.
But first, a refreshed drink and a new cigar.
Priorities, mate. Priorities.
OK, it’s time to bone up a bit on shaped cutting charges. Dynamite and other solids would work well, but there’s be all that futzing around with affixing them to the hull. Could use blasting putty, i.e. ‘Elephant Shit’, to affix them to the hull and contain the blasts for a few microseconds, but that would be a real pain in the cojoñes. I want ‘quick and dirty’ here, as I need to haul ass in the next couple of days. So, moldable explosives it is and I do believe a ‘cut along the dotted line’ approach would work a treat here.
But first, we have some coupons to play with. Truth be told, I’m interested to see what some of the more exotic formulae explosives will do to 40mm thickness EH36 marine sheet steel.
I tell my guys to go get hosed off, pneumatically or hydraulically, and we’ll call it a day. Can’t foul Mr. Maha’s Magic Bus with you guys looking like nasty bag ladies in downtown New Delhi. Besides, I need to write some reports, as does Sanjay.
Later, as I finish up an entirely fictional expose on Goodgulf Greyteeth, noting how his team always wears brown shirts and how he’s always going on about his CEO-furnished dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, strong regimentation of society and of the economy. I mention the picture of Mussolini he has on his desk next to the covered up, though not very well, copies of the manifesto and other works of the far-extreme right. I mention the Luger Pistole Modell 1900 he keeps in his middle desk drawer. I fail to mention it’s actually a cigarette lighter.
I also write up and time stamp a real report. I’ll need these for later.
Sanjay is really getting into the spirit of things, He’s noticing how I absently greet everyone with a “Hello, Comrade” early in the morning. He makes note of my subtle change in demeanor, the more and more I talk about Best Korea and how “they might not be all that bad”. He notes with alarm how I mentioned what I thought the crew would do on the final exam as “from each according to his ability”. Sanjay also notes the current growing obsession I have with referencing my time spent in Russia; even before the wall fell.
I caution Sanjay not to lay it on too thickly nor too quickly. I’ve got stories of the Rodina and anecdotes that paint me red as a Peter Pirsch fire engine . The funniest part will be a certain couple of agents going slowly collectively crazy over my supposed behavior because *they *did my background checks all those years ago and professed that I was as All American as Jack Armstrong.
Between Gulfy and me, a certain couple of sneaky agents are going to be sweating their collective asses off. Either I’ll call their bluff and spill the beans before I leave, or I might just pull some sort of palace coup and declare Alang a new country. Hell, we’ve got enough soldiers and plenty of armaments. I always wanted to be a sultan…
With that done, I’ve reviewed Sanjay’s real report, which I am time-stamping and archiving on my encrypted drive which documents all my duplicity. Hell, I really don’t care at this point; I’m off to Academia and a DSc. They kick me off the proscribed roles and they lose all that wonderful intel. They take as the well-intentioned poke in the snoot and we’ll have a better understanding that you don’t really want to fuck with a future double Doctor of Petroleum Geology and Detonics. Have people surreptitiously reporting on me? Yeah, let’s just see how that’s going to work out for you…
After all that, I retire to the drawing-room and partake of an eminently drinkable potato juice and citrus over rice. I have a couple of fresh cigars thanks to Operator 214 and the evening Times. For what more could I possibly ask?
“Holy fuck!”, I snort, “UREE is up 3 and 1/3rd!”
The next morning after a quick ignoring of phone calls from Virginia “Sorry. The party you wish to contact has gone bush. Please leave your name and number…” and a quick breakfast of Greenland coffee and clotted crumpets, we’re back in the field, gathered right by the soon to be noseless bulk of the Scandinavian cruise ship.
“Right gents”, I say, “We have here a selection of steel coupons taken from the ass of the boat behind us. Recall that a coupon is a small sample of the material under test that has been prepared in such a way that its failure mechanism will be representative of the larger production pieces…which means we are assuming that these hunks of steel represent what will happen to the rest of the boat when we upscale.”
There are noises of agreement.
“In your field notebooks, which I will grade before I leave, “ I note, “I want some ideas why this is and is not a good idea. Always list what you think are good reasons for a course of action. Also, perhaps, more importantly, list reasons why it might not be such a good idea. The scientific method, gentlemen. Multiple working hypotheses. Like I ‘ve always said: “Don’t believe everything that you read and don’t’ read everything you believe”. Make space there for your Doubting Thomas to bloom.”
Further noises of agreement.
“OK, scribble your notes and let’s get after its wild ass.”, I say, “First will be 60% Extra Fast dynamite. Make notes, make predictions. Who do you think it’ll do to this heavy, marine steel?”
I set a coupon on the sand and place a single stick of 60% on top of the coupon. There are immediate objections.
“You’ve not contained the blast in any way!” Vik objects, “It’ll just blow and do nothing more than push the coupon into the sand and scorch it a bit. 90% of the energy will be lost.”
“Quite right!”, I say, “Well noted. So what do we do about this lamentable situation?”
“Elephant shit!” was the universal cry.
“OK”, I reply, “Make it so.”
They do and hand me the trailing leads.
“OK, Safety Dance”, I say.
“Really, Rock?” I hear the objections. “There’s no one here but us.”
“That we know of”, I reply, “Look at it this way. We do it and it costs us nothing more than a couple of minutes. We don’t and suddenly the coupon goes ballistic and tears a hole through someone’s head that we didn’t know was taking a leak behind that dune over yonder…”
“NORTH CLEAR?”
“That’s better”, I smile.
Fire in the hole cited thrice, and we’re set to go. I’ll handle Captain America here, this is for learning, not just fucking around.
“KA-BOOM!”. Lots of noise and smoke. And a flat steel coupon turned into a hotdog bun.
“Look at that. Plastic or ductile failure mode.’ I note, “Is this what we’re looking for?”
“No, we need brittle fracture”, one of my acolytes remarks.
“Exactly.” I reply, “So. Now what?”
“Double the amount of explosive?” was one suggestion.
“That’s a lot of Elephant Shit.”, I remark, “Or we could see if other sorts of explosives give us different results.”
“Or we could see if other sorts of explosives give us different results.” Another wag answers.
I want to save the C-4 for a bit later. We try PETN, RDX, SEMTEX, and Sprengkörper DM12.
PETN has an in-built high brisance; that is, it tends to shatter objects. It reduced the coupon to shards, many of which were projectilized. Not a good choice for mass employment on something like this ship.
RDX has a lower degree of brisance than PETN, but failed to shatter the coupon, nor did it initiate any fractures. It warped the shit out of the coupon, twisting it into an Escheresque shape, like a Klein Bottle. SEMTEX resulted in very similar outcomes, as it is a combination of PETN and RDX.
Sprengkörper DM12 had some promising results, as it did initiate cracks in the coupons we were testing. It also had a bit of high brisance, and the edges of the coupon spalled off into nasty little high-velocity projectiles.
Which left us my favorite, C-4.
We had several coupons left, so I sent one of my crew over to the torch patrol which had shown up right after we began, and had then torch a series of holes, channels, and rifts into a couple of different test pieces.
We tried a blop of C-4 just mooshed down onto a coupon. It resulted in a very nice floral pattern. A hole in the center and the edges curled up skyward.
Then we tried rolling some C-4 ‘snakes’ and laid them in a cross-work pattern. That worked well, loads of fractures in the coupon. We had some obvious reinforcement of the detonic pattern as noted in the interference patterns on the scorched steel.
We were getting closer, but I wanted to take them step by step.
Now we took the coupon with a hole brazed through it. I made a dumbbell of C-4, split it along the long axis, so it had C-4 on both sides. It split that coupon like no one’s business.
Then we tried a coupon with a channel cut into it. The same sort of idea, C-4 on either side, set, charged and primed to detonate simultaneously. Worked a treat. Split that coupon like a prize Blue Point oyster.
We were getting close. We tried several other C-4 configurations until we ran out of test coupons. I laid them all out on the sand and asked my guys which one that we should use.
C-4 was the obvious choice. There was some discussion where we could just burn some holes in the hull, wire them up and shoot it off that way, or would channels be more efficient?
After some little lecturing on failure modes and fracture propagation in marine high-carbon steel, it was decided that a series of 3 foot-long channels would be torched or cut into the hull of the boat and puttied both sides with shaped-charges of C-4. I agreed.
“Now”, I asked, “How much will we need for the job?”
Grumbles and groans. I left them to their mathematical devices as I caught a personnel basket and went up to the foredeck. There was a wooden floor covering marine steel. This would complicate matters a bit until remembered we had a concrete saw. This would make mincemeat out of any flooring; tile, marble, wood, or linoleum. Problem solved.
Now we just needed to get the thing up there.
Well, wouldn’t you know it? It just fits into a personnel basket. It looks like I have my afternoon spoken for.
I receive a call on my cell-phone telephone. I shut down the concrete saw, turned off the water, and got away from the miasma of shredded hardwood, zipping xylem and phlowing phloem to see it’s the personal secretary of Goodgulf Grayteeth, one Achilles Starace.
“Yes”, I ask, shaking the cellulosic cuff off my hardhat, gloves, and boots, “I may help you how?”
“Um, yes, Doctor. We have a package here from Sinter’s Printers. It is addressed to you, but no one was available at Outbuilding #2 to sign for the delivery.”
“Outstanding”, I remark, “Hold it. I will have a duly-authorized deputy of mine come over to relieve you of the package. He will invariably be wearing a pair of orange coveralls, and well, overall, an offhand orange motif. You may feel comfortable releasing the package to his custody. “
“Yes, Doctor.”, he replies and rings off.
I walk over to the side of the ship and see a bunch of orange-clad ants scurrying around. I key the mic on my radio and call down to them.
“Hey you! You! Yes, you! There behind the outdoor heads. Stand still, Laddie!” I say.
“Whaddya want, Rock?”, comes the reply.
“Who wants to earn a break by running an errand for me?” I ask.
Somewhat stilted silence.
“Cigars or booze?” came one answer.
“Nice. C’mon. I’ll pay you.” I replied.
Nothing.
“You can take my bike,” I add.
Instant radio chaos.
“OK, Vis.”, I reply, “Keys are under the seat on the bike. Go to Goodgulf Greyteeth’s office, and see his secretary, one Mr. Starace. Take the package from him and put it on my desk in the Barn. Take a cigar out of petty cash. Then return. Got it?”
I could barely hear him over the roaring putt-putt-putt of the Enfield’s motor.
“Well”, I muse, “There’s another issue handled.”
I return to sawing apart the monstrously expensive, now kindling, hardwood floor.
Not much call to reclaim it. It’s all salt-water eaten and nasty. Too bad, nice patterns.
On one side of the boat, I’ve got the torch patrol in the personnel baskets. Sparks flying everywhere. On the other side, I’ve got the K-12 crowd, sawing away with sparks flying everywhere. Good thing I told them to start at the bottom and work their way up. Be a bad thing if we weakened the superstructure too much and the whole bow came crashing down on someone’s head.
I decided to just cut a square hole in the foredeck, one large enough to admit a scissor-jack. If we’re going to putty both sides of the bow with C-4, personnel baskets will work a treat on the exterior. Interior? Hell, we’re not Spiderman. Scissor-jack delivered via crane.
Well, there’s the whistle. It’s 1700 and I need to drop by the armory for a few bits and pieces before dinner. I get the crane operator to hoist me out of the hold and back down to terra firma. My bike is right where I left it, although the gas tank is suspiciously lower than it was when I parked it.
No matter. Gas is really cheap when you’re not the one paying for it. Much like most everything else here in-country for my stay.
I go to the bunker and do the required access dance to obtain entry. I fill my backpack with several dozen brick-red road flares, demolition wire, the copper variety, and the packing box from a case of Du Pont 60% Extra Fast Dynamite, broken down along the dovetailed connectors that make the crate. They also go into my backpack.
I spy several half-full boxes of blasting caps and boosters, so I consolidate them into a couple of full boxes and the empties go into my backpack as well. Nice little wooden boxes, finely crafted. They will make someone a most excellent gift.
I take my time locking up and fill out the inventory. I make notes for the warehouse foreman to order an excessive number of cases of C-4, spool after spool of Primacord, some more det cord, demo wire, and initiators. This cruise ship will be a huge job, may as well lay in a healthy supply of stock. Besides, I have an inkling that someone besides the warehouse foreman is taking notice of my ordering and usage activities. I fully intend on giving them something to read and worry about.
Yes, I sprinkled a little radioactive tracer, metaphorically speaking, around the job and home site. I have been watching the old scintillation counter, again, I speak allegorically, closely. Looks like I’ve found a sheep in the meadow, a cow in the corn, a dog in the manger a Balrog in the woodpile. Yeah, things here are all not as they first appear. So it would be remiss of me not to give them all something to talk about.
I take my time locking up and leave a voice-note for the warehouse manager to create the order and send it out posthaste. We’ll use much of the C-4, and other ancillary equipment, stock on the bow shot. Once I leave, it’ll be up to my crew to take over-ordering and keep stocks up to snuff. Besides, there are one or two items I’d hoped can be delivered before I depart in a couple-three days’ time.
I motor back to the Raj, taking the scenic route if that’s the term for any vista along this grubby stretch of beach. I am relieved of my motorcycle at the garage entrance, and I shoo the porter away as I am fully capable of carrying my backpack to my room. In my room, I stash my backpack and notice that my mini-bar needs replenishment. I take all the unusual bit and bobs out of my backpack and store them in one of my empty, and lockable, aluminum luggage cases.
I close my backpack and stick a post-it™ note, scribbled with an arcane language I just made up, on the dusty canvas. It’ll stick if undisturbed if you follow my meaning.
I call the Majordomo and explain my angst.
“My mini-bar is almost empty and I have much work this evening…”
He immediately apologizes and says he’ll take care of the matter personally.
I figured he would. I explain that I’ll be in the library or bar while he rectifies this most egregious situation.
I set up a few more field craft booby traps and lock the door behind me.
Sanjay saunters in with the package from the printers. He was changing in the Barn and saw the package on my chair. He thought it’d be best for me to hang onto the tonight rather than to tempt fate.
I thank him for his forethought and think “Tempt fate? Whatever do you mean?”
I have another couple-five post-work cocktails and figure that I’ve given the Major enough time to take care of my mini-bar situation. I say “Spokoynoy nochi” to Sanjay and head back to my room.
Well, the good news is that my mini-bar is stocked to the gills.
The not so good news is that someone here has a very bad and sloppy case of nose poker-inner-itis.
Every one of my little traps had been sprung., and it’s not that just casual wandering around this room or even cleaning and stocking a mini-bar would have set these off.
Someone was deliberately looking for something. Evidently it wasn’t my print of Das Kapital or my ‘autographed’ copy of Quotations from Chairman Mao that I leave on my desk, taking care to change the pages daily. Nor was it my field notebooks from Best Korea which are written in a very arcane and indecipherable code known only to me. But I do know I never ‘break the backs’ of my notebooks. Pages tend to work their way free over time if one does that. I am scrupulously careful with my notebooks. But wouldn’t you know it, several have their spines broken, just like what would happen if someone was trying to photocopy 2 pages at a time, quickly, surreptitiously, clandestinely, on a slow xerocopy machine.
“Good luck with that”, is all I can think. Then, a bit of deviltry pops into being.
I smile, pull out a new field book, use an old, old, old, and simple encryption code; one so easily broken that it can hardly be considered a code.
I spent many hours in the Jacuzzi creating a work of incredible Red fiction, making certain to spill a little of my drink, drop in a cigar ash or two, and get it splashingly wet in places to simulate the appearance of age.
Oh, someone’s going to have the finding of a lifetime tomorrow as I conveniently forget to lock the center drawer of my desk…
Before retiring, I call Es and make the near-fatal mistake of asking what she and her mother bought that day shopping. 45 minutes later, I am able to shoehorn in a word edgewise and tell Es that if Rack or Ruin or both call to chat about me, she’s to let on to nothing. Well, nothing more than the well-coached program I tell her about called “DM Part 1”. It’s just a little chain yankage via an injection of deliberate misinformation to a couple of agents who should have gotten this out of their systems long ago.
They should really know better than to try and sandbag a Doctor of Geology and his wife; especially when the wife’s mother was a resident of Berlin back in the 1940s. Yes, she’s in on the ruse as well.
The next morning at breakfast, I’m handed several notes that I have some missed phone calls. Not surprising, I was either on the phone, in the Jacuzzi, or had disconnected the phone, and turned off my satellite and GSM cell-phone telephones.
As expected, Rack and Ruin are clamoring to talk with me. Unfortunate that I’m so busy these days. I’ll get around to calling them in a couple of days or so.
Sanjay arrives and as were chatting about today’s bill of fare, blasting-wise, Mr. Kanada our redoubtable Majordomo, drops by. We say a casual hello, and I return to my conversation with Sanjay about the merits of Kim Jong-Il and how nice I found Best Korea. I also mentioned that Soviet Russia really go a bad rap in the press. It wasn’t all that bad…
Once Mr. Kanada was out of earshot, I let Sanjay in on the jape. He knows I’ve burned him enough to have him classified as ‘well done’. He is now a trusted auxiliary in this program of considered propaganda. He finds it now, that we’ve stripped away all façade of reality from it, hilarious. I mention that I’ve been poking the snoots at the agency this way for decades. He’s surprised that they haven’t responded with massive retaliation.
I explain that I know where a lot of bodies are buried and how many closets have skeletons.
Metaphorically, of course.
Anyways, it’s going to be a busy day. Lots of priming, setting, and charging of a couple of tons of high explosives. No, we don’t sensu stricto need all that firepowerful pyrotechnics, but since it will be my last blast before I depart, I am planning something of a show. We are rumored to have some company and national dignitaries in attendance tomorrow for the inaugural of the new blasting class, so I want to make this a show to remember.
At the barn, all my guys are dressed in their PPEs. I take this time to dispense the Certifications of Completion of my ISEE-sanctioned and accredited course and practical exams. These are the golden ticket for this batch of two dozen out of the much and mire of the legions of torchbearers. They are now certified to handle explosives, well, most of them are, and all will be after a bit more tutelage and will use that knowledge and experience to make much shorter work of the hulk of various watercraft that wash up along these shores.
25 certificates later, I had planned a blast of a party, but instead, we’re in Mr. Maha’s Magic Bus headed to the beach. We’re preparing for a different type of blast, and the party will follow immediately after.
I have Sanjay take 18 of the guys and split them into two teams, an outside and an inside team, who will load and prepare the channels which we’ve cut into the hull of this old boat. Sure, we needed some torch and saw work, but only a slight proportion of what would be needed if one were to just make these cuts with a torch crew.
The outside and inside guys will collaborate in placing the C-4 in the channels and holes we’re prepared. Between channels, we’ll alternate with a row of C-4 on the outside, a filled channel from both sides, and a row on the inside, down and around the entire prow of the boat, alternating as we go. That way, we’ll maximize the amount of bang we’ll receive per unit volume of pyrotechnic employed.
That will keep Sanjay hopping for a good portion of the day. I have my six guys come over to the whiteboard whilst I have an early morning smoke and explain what we’ll be up to this fine, humid morning.
I have a list of items that I need from the armory. I scrounge a one-ton pickup truck and tell Luke to take the one-ton and ride to the dispensary system and obtain the items on the list. I tell them that they are on point to both open, extract the necessary items, record, and close the armory as per procedures. I won’t be here forever, so I have to trust them to do as I had taught.
I have the other four commanded a crane and personnel basket along with an oxy-acetylene welding set. It seems most of these guys can handle welding as well as cutting with torches, so I instruct them to weld four 2’ long pieces of ¾” rebar to the outside of the ship. I want a rectangle 5 meters high by 3 meters in width. I let them figure out there where and how I’ve got to get inside as there’s a shit-ton of wiring and circuits that have to be created and galved.
The day progressed more or less as planned. The hull, where perforated, was C-4’ed inside and out. A quick inspection via the scissor lift on the ship’s interior provided a very nicely done job. I had Sanjay take a couple of guys and do the same due diligence on the C-4 outside the hull.
I began wiring in the appropriate scrub-circuits. These are basically the gross outlines of the circuits you’ll use to fire the pyros. I ran a huge loop of det cord around the inside of the ship’s bow, as I wanted it protected from the humid salt air overnight. I had Sanjay spray the exposed C-4 outside the bow of the ship with a special black tar-based preservative as he and his crew inspected the placement of the stuff.
I had a sheet of marine plywood scrounged and set up as a whiteboard in the dark belly of that boat. I drew my schematic wiring diagrams and after a while, I even ran out of different colors of pens to demote different sub-circuits of the plan. For insurance and back up purposes, I had my team go along and weld 4” diameter pipe footings in strategic places. These were normally used to build shades or awnings by bolting the pipe footings to thick wooden planks on the boat and using simple cold-rolled low carbon steel pipe as mainstays and uprights.
I also had my guys whip up a load, that is, as many as they could before the end of the day, lengths of threaded 4” pipe. Normally called ‘nipples’, these were 2-3 foot length of pipe, as noted, threaded at both ends. On end screwed into the pipe footings I had welding in strategic places and the other end accepted a 4” pipe cap. These might sound like pipe bombs in the making since I plan to fill them with various potions of my own creation, but they are more like downward-firing pipe cannons. The caps have much more mechanical strength and bearing capacity than the 3.5” hole of the pipe footing. When fired, the caps would remain intact and direct the rapidly detonating or deflagrating pyrotechnic downwards. Sort of a vertical shaped charge. These would come into play later on in the show.
We set, primed, charges, and wired all day. Finally 1700 hours rolled around and I told everyone that I had a few bits and pieces left to do and that I could handle it alone. True, I could have used some extra hands, but the time I’d waste explaining what I was doing would consume any time saved by their help.
I did bribe a crane operator to hang around and drive the personnel basket as I’d be the one inside it giving him the signs of which directions I needed to go. We had a couple of hours before dark and that’s when I’d have to quit. So as soon as everyone departed to the barn, I was in the basket and on the radio. I had 7 spools of det cord and a big job in front of me. That the crane operator was well paid and paid good attention to my directions meant we finished well before darkness fell.
To Be Continued…