I can confirm the construction of the cloaking factory has started, with the specific floors and sections now allocated epsecially for this facility. Thanks to Dirk speedy logistics arrangements, there are plenty of materials for the builders to work with. I expect the facility should be ready, fully operational and producing cloaking modules in no time.
This is Dyna Drake reporting transfer of command of (\^/)Cressida to myself.
I am pleased to report the successful installation of the recently completed Cloaking Device and transfer of specialized crew needed in its operation. We have completed final testing and calibration of the device outside the safety perimeter of Kadesh Orbital Colony.
All systems operated perfectly and the Cressida is at 100% operational readiness. We will be resuming our patrols of the Omicron sectors in support of our trade ships until further orders are received.
Defensive wing is going to cover the colony while Theia homeship will be unpowered for scheduled repairs after the Great Voyage. I hope you’ve already stocked with everything required for the repairs. Also, prepare the capsules for alien remnants transportation, we managed to smash several Nomad patrols in the Delta, so we will stockpile for cloak construction factory.
Have you picked up high energy spikes in the Damascus cloud? We are several hours away from Palmyra’s orbit, expect arrival of Hyperion and Ares quite soon. While we have jumped out of Mu into Sigma our scanners have picked up a blowout of energy we’ve never encountered before. Now we have problems onboard Hyperion and Ares apparatus, our main contour of sensors is disabled and currently the crew is trying to engage the second. wherefore technical faults happen - our engineers have to investigate that. But it's not a behavior we've ever seen, so it couldn’t be of inner malfunction, so I suppose you can tell me more about it from the orbit of Palmyra. I hope everything is well onboard of the colony? According to the time of accident Kadesh position was hidden by the Palmyra.
The Cressida was dispatched from Kadesh Orbital at the onset of increased and unusual energy signatures from Damascus Cloud. I am afraid to say that as often our findings are largely inconclusive.
Most notably there have been increasing large discharges of a dark gas from the cloud. While these have often been observed in smaller formations we have never observed ones of this size. The discharges also carry an unusually high static electrical charge. We also observed that the energy signature of this static charge closely matches the bio energy spectrum produced by the so called 'Nomad' creatures and I think it is a safe bet that they are behind this activity.
The disruptions seem to be concentrated in sector 5G, deep inside the cloud formation. The Cressida utilized its cloak and reconnoitered the area. While we are able to confirm that there is a elevated Nomad presence in the area we were not able to accurately pinpoint its source. Specifically, the focal point of the Nomad Creatures and the point of highest density in the sector was constantly appearing and reappearing in another location and timed with the energy discharges. I cannot be certain that this was not an error caused by use of the cloak. All I can say is the Chief Engineer swears it's working properly, and I dare not drop the cloak to test his word.
We have returned to Kadesh Orbital to await further instruction from command.
Kadesh Control has confirm another energy spike from Damascus Cloud via a satellite before losing contact with the relay.
The colony has narrowly avoided the latest surge behind Palmyra this time around with the station barely just within the planet's umbra from the energy source... had it happen 10 minutes later the story would have been quite different. Reportedly the power of this discharged has increased significantly, and Kadesh Orbital has felt minor secondary shock waves reflected from other celestial objects in the system moments later. Fortunately no injuries and damages were reported, and operations remains unaffected for now.
In light of recent events and with great reluctance I would highly recommend a full evacuation of Colony, spare for a skeleton crew who would volunteer to stay on board the command bunker for critical maintenance and control. Meanwhile Ares has entered into orbit by Kadesh in standby to act out contingency evac plan as soon as it has the go ahead.
Thanks for sharing the reports regarding an accident. I doubt that we can afford to disregard appalled anomaly and put the lives of Phoenix citizens under the risk. I commanded to start evacuation immediately, all homeships already received strict orders to head back to the Kadesh Orbital Colony. I should hear the roar of the Nephilims engines within several days, technical condition is not an excuse, we have to foresail probable disaster.
Alec, I need you at the Colony to lead the corefleet, make sure that evacuation would be accomplished in a civilized manner, children and women should be taken onboard Nephilims first. Hyperion and the rest of defensive flotilla are obligated to cover the operation and escort the fleet into the safest place, Omicron Mu or Epsilon could serve as temporary shelter, as we will be able to investigate the source of energy burst and ensure safety of our installation. I will contact the Order regarding an accident and our movements, so corefleet would be able to get inside without stoppage.
Dirk, callback our trade fleet back home. I understand it is a difficult task, as I believe their are spread all across the Sirius and Gallia, but we need most of our transports at the Kadesh right now. Per absence of the crew onboard installation, we should utmost stockpile storages at their capacity, including populated decks. If anything would go not according to the plan Colony should be prepared. The strain of responsibility is tight, we need to be sure that we've done everything to save our efforts which we put in construction of the Colony, I should have to mention - Orontes project planetside of Palmyra shouldn't be forgotten, I believe Aitan Fleshter can share a report with us as well... I hope he's at the colony, not on surface of the planet?
I'm happy to report that my team and I are still on Kadesh, currently packing our stuff to move it from base to Flotila, especially Ontores project equipment, according to received evacuation order. We've also just processed data from the first probe launched, but I'm unsure if this will be of use since we're leaving Kadesh for an uncertain term. Here it is:
We're still analyzing data to receive proper dependency curves of temperature and pressure from attitude, but we can for sure state that its thermosphere starts at around 1200 kilometers, where first high-speed gas particles were detected by probe equipment, and mesosphere is around 600-700 kilometers above surface, where descending capsule started to feel first atmospheric kicks. Then the contact with it was lost due gas plasma interrupting any comms until last layer that we're sure of was reached - the troposphere. The last descend speed was killed and parachutes were deployed, and we had enough time to gather good readings of lower atmosphere.
Two major discoveries were made: First is that close to surface temperatures are much lower than expected, probably because of reverse greenhouse effect, since Palmyra never encountered anything close to sunlight, except accretion disk shine from black hole that it orbits. And the second is that Palmyra's lower atmosphere is primarily composed of nitrogen (91.2%), Helium (4.65%), hydrogen (1.2%). The rest are trace amounts of numerous hydrocarbons like methane, ethane, propane and other gases like oxygen and argon on higher attitudes. There are little to no traces of carbon dioxide though (beyond nitrogen gases are probably solidified in a form of snow). Such amount of noble gas can be explained by Palmyra's cold but strong (in terms of gravity) nature. So where's light particles are usually ionizing and escaping gravitational pull because of solar wind, on Palmyra they're having no sources to get the energy from. We have no idea on how much of this helium is a helium-3 isotope, but having easily extractable noble gas is already an awesome proposition.
Right after the vessel deployment on the ground, sensitive equipment received some seismic kicks from below, proving that planet's core is indeed active, though cold vastness of space around interrupts CO2 generation in enough rates to heat things up.
Pressure reading on surface level stayed around 70,9 KPa, which is 0,7 of normal atmospheric pressure.
The rest of the mission was exploring the plateau trough constant blizzard, which sometimes made the rover unreachable and seriously affected video feed. More precise landing sights for the next crafts were spotted and we tried to reach the mentioned in previous reports canyon, but right after the second energy spike was spotted by relay network, the probe went silent. Palmyra's magnetosphere wasn't able to handle something that strong and rover was presumably burnt by the radiation it could not sustain for long.
Dirk, everything is alright with you? While our corefleet are still resident in the Omicron Mu, another concern bothered me. Sooner or later we will have to move back to the Kadesh and many works are still scheduled, not yet finished. We need more space for people, more equipment to service our ships. All of these works are quite expensive, I shouldn’t really mention but Hyperion someday will have to be serviced at the drydock and once Vega would return we will have to spare an extremely huge amount of resources into maintaining our defensive capabilities.
I’m pointing out that we need more profits. Don’t get me wrong, you are doing good, but you should consider that we need to expand our trade department further. Perhaps, we should hire more pilots to boost the trade flow for Zoner bases or as I’ve heard, there’s some mining areas which could serve as a huge boost for our Trade Department to eligible of our income. Do your research and share your thoughts.
I am very pleased to say that for once I was able to anticipate you. Not long before the evacuation, I made a personal investment in a small start up mining operation in Omicron Delta. I had nearly forgotten about it, as the evacuation of Kadesh has had me completely occupied these last few weeks. I've been able to finally catch up on my comms, as some messages are only now coming through. I've just received a stakeholder update from the stations commander, Richard Rimmer. It seems as though while the operation has faced some setbacks it has turned a decent profit up to this point and he is taking a very positive outlook on the future. I've actually not even met the other members of the consortium that funded this facility. I am expecting a party on my arrival as I am certain they will be celebrating their new found wealth. I am hoping I may be able to buy some of them out of their share in the company, so please don't be alarmed if you see some large outgoing credit transfer requests. This is probably the worst possible timing to do this, but given the expense of starting our own facility and staffing it if I can get this for the right price we should save ourselves quite a bit of hassle at the least.
On the other hand, there seems to be some unusual command decisions happening and I think its about time I went to look over my investment first hand. I will be taking the Ganymede to Omicron Delta and arraigning a sit down with Richard and the other investors in person. I have a feeling that there is something more to the 'Stakeholder Update' I received from them. He's a adequate administrator, but tends to downplay problems and not share certain issues he thinks he can solve for himself. He won't be able to lie as well face to face.
My navigator tells me Delta Mining Corp. has received our itinerary and has cleared docking space for our arrival. Good luck with the move back to Kadesh. I will update you immediately after my meeting with him.
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