Widow's Veil

[Widow's Veil]

...ANOMALOUS TRANSMISSION DETECTED...
...Anomaly: No determinable transmission source...

...Widow's Veil Directional Array Online...
...Destination : Maximum broadcast, omnidirectional...
...Alert: No comm buoys in detectable range, broadcast may not be relayed past array range...
...Broadcast, initiate data stream...
...Comm ID: Fred Luo, Administrator...



Fred is staring out the main window of the station. Only faint red lights are behind him, the station is on emergency lighting and heating only to place minimal load on the station reactor for conservation. Outside, the once tranquil backdrop of nebulae and asteroids is gone. It is impossibly dark outside the windows, almost as if it was sucking the light out from within the station. He turns and looks grim.

I don't even know if this message will reach anyone, so I might as well monologue. Some sort of spatial anomaly displaced us. Nothing is outside but the darkness. I don't understand how but there aren't even any stars. We've switched to emergency protocols. All power is off in bays other than A and we are rationing our stores accordingly, but who knows how long until we somehow identify our position or even more importantly, find a way home. Construction has halted. What few engineers we have are attempting to adapt a jump drive to the stations power core to see if we can move the whole thing. My hopes are not high. I may not be a scientist, but that device was made to move a battleship, not a space station. And I highly doubt increasing the reactor throughput will allow us to move this station without either catastrophic damage or failure... Still though, it's better than sitting around defeated and waiting for stores to run out.

I promised my crew prosperity and safety. He looks outside again. I'm not sure they've ever thought me a bigger fool.

He turns his chair toward the darkness again and the transmission cuts

...Anomalous message ends...
...Computing return path............ Loop detected. Return path indeterminable...

//EDIT: Story continued here