"De revolutionibus orbium coelestium..."

[Epo]

CHAPTER I: Welcome to the Unknown.

July the 1st, 825 AS, 16:23 local time, Omicron Sector
Omicron Theta, Somewhere near Pygar

A slight and subtle shape disrupted the emptiness of space near planet Pygar. A Corvo-class research vessel of Zoner origin was finishing adjusting its telescopes in order to observe some different piece of the system's starsphere when something unexpected happened. A week has passed since it received any relevant information from its scouting vessel, a Falchion-class fighter, which was sent to look for new areas to explore. Recent days passed with only slight contacts exchanged between these two over encrypted channels. It was due to both security measures and lack of valuable data gathered. Yet, it was at this moment when Athlae's command bridge received an urgent transmission from its fighter. It was encrypted and coded in a way that only crew of this ship could fully understand. The signal wasn't the clearest one, as it was distorted by some obstacles of natural origin, but even then, it managed to reach its destination in a readable form. The content of Falchion's message was as follows:

...01000101011100000110111101001111... High Command, ...0110110101...

…10010101100111... This is the Wraithbone. ...01100001001... I found something! ...011010011... Repeat, I...010100111000... found something!...0010111000100... I can't send the details...000010100110... over this channel, ...1100101011...but I'll...1010000100000... help you...0110001101101111... as...011101010111... much...0010011100110... as...11001010010... I...000001110100011... can....0111100100000... As...0111100101101... some...1110111010101... ancient...110010001000000... astro...1101100011011110...nome...11101110110...r...01010111001... pro...00010000000...ved,...11001000101101... it...01000100011010010... was...11011010110010101... the...1011100111001101... the Earth...101001011011110110... to...1110011000010110... orbit...1100001000000110... the...0100011010010111... Sun...001001100101..., not...011000110111010001... the...101001011011110... other...11011100010111000... way...100000001... around....100100011000000... At...1011100011000000... that...1100000011000000... time...1000000110000101..., however...1011100110010..., the masses ...0001000000100...were...100100100000011... too...101110110100101... blinded...10110001101100001... to understand...000000110001001... the truth...100101001000... between...0001110100011... these...010000110010... words and it ...101110010011...waited just one step away...001010010... to be found. If you manage...11100010000001... to pass through this ...1111100100...darkness, the ...00010111100...lightning will guide you. 

Null One, Out....101100001010001010111000001101111...

Commanding officer onboard the Athlae, Chad Shephard, was on its bridge when this transmission arrived. However, text looked very chaotic and crew made some attempts to clean it up. All of which failed. Whenever they used some code cleaners, the results turned out to be impossible to understand. Commander decided to analyse the transmission as it arrived, just after filtring it through their local coding system. It took them some time, but finally with combined work of all Zoners onboard, they managed to find dual meaning within the message, both direct and hidden.

- The Wraithbone... It's my sister, sir! - said Samantha Shinzuki and assured the commanding officer of Athlae that this situation was far from a prank. Shephard, the CO, replied with a slight nod and stood still for a while thinking about the message he just read.

And the message was clear, Samantha's twin sister found something and required some big guns to arrive at the scene. But... Where? He didn't have any humble idea as to where to look for. The overall description of Copernicus' theory didn't help to make up their minds either. Luckily, there were some competent Zoners onboard the vessel, who helped him with revealing the truth.

- Commander! These numbers are not due to any signal loss. They're intended! - said someone in the comm section.
- Smart girl - he whispered and asked about estimated time to leave their current location. The answer was 15 minutes if they stopped the calibration of Athlae's telescope and proceeded immediately after securing its internal devices.

The commander ordered the crew to do so and in a matter of minutes the Corvo was on its route towards the scouting Falchion. Athlae was ordered to move with its heat emissions under tight control not to attract unwanted attention. What is more its crew had to rely almost completely on their visual spotting rather than scanners, as nebulae of Omega-58 highly reduced any scanner efficiency. As the vessel approached the coordinations attached to Aya's previous message, they soon realised that the information was all but a fake. They found a quite badly damaged outpost withno any signs of activity. After a while, they were called by the Falchion's pilot, who had found a safe approach vector to the facility. Aya used ultra-short comm frequency, making sure that only Athlae could receive it, and warned the crew to prepare space suits as some shielding areas onboard the station were malfunctioning. Luckily, there was still one mooring bay in more or less operational condition.

Athlae approached the entrance with medical-like precission and moored with the station withno any damage inflicted to both parties. Soon after, a small group of Zoners made their way to the airlock and boarded the Ravaged Outpost once tech finally leveled pressure for a safe departure. What they saw wasn't quite a lot to witness, just pure darkness reaching deeper to the corridor. Although the outpost seemed to be dead from the outside, it had some emergency lights operational - far from enough, but still something. Only a small area close to the airlock was actually lighted from their ship, so they had to rely on lamps attached to their suits. Suddenly a light flashed from a helmet in distance and their comm frequency was filled with the voice they expected to hear from soon.

- Surprise! I'm sorry I didn't organise any brighter path, but this place looks like it's running on leftovers. - Aya explained as visitors took a brief breath of relief. She then assured them that it was all worth the effort.
- It's not like I hoped for any fireworks from the look of this steel junk, but what did you find? - Chad was still sceptical about their newest discovery. In fact, dark surroundings of the station with occasional lightnings didn't make for any better first impression. Aya replied with an ironic roll of her eyes, but then added:
- Frankly, I don't know. I saw this piece of junk already on my way back home, but *to my amazement* I could still find a docking point for my Falchion. It's in fact in a bay on the left - She then pointed in the mentioned direction and added - I did some scouting, lets spare our words. Come on. Watch your steps, though...

Six Zoners followed her through the corridor. They walked slowly, as pressure inside the station wouldn't allow for anything more. The place was full of trash and scrap metal, most likely a result of some impact with one of the system's smaller asteroids. Interestingly enough, the place was full of tracks, which could suggest human presence onboard it. None of these were fresh, so if anyone had been there, it was long time ago. They arrived at an intersection of two corridors. To the left there was an image of pure destruction, as station's hull segments got crushed by some major impact from the outside leaving its roof collapsed and completely impossible to pass through that way. Aya pointed to the right and explained that the corridor may lead to a next deck, but the bulkhead was sealed and she couldn't open it. She suggested to go on forward.

- Don't take off your helmets just yet. This piece of junk is really damaged in this section. The pressure is still crap and oxygen level is minimal. - Aya warned the boarding team lead by Jason and Samantha. - We'll be fine once we reach the third room from the mooring port. They walked slowly, trying not to step on something that seemed at least a bit unstable. Ten minutes later they encountered another sealed bulkhead, but this one suffered some damage of human origin. It carried some burns from laser weapons and impacts of most likely hammers. The bulkhead, however, was still sealed, or so it looked like.
- Amateurs... All they needed was some nicety and a maintenance passage. Come on, I already unlocked it before you arrived. A slight change of voltage in right spot proved to be enough.
The bulkhead indeed opened as they approached it.

As they passaed through it, they found themselves inside a room which used to be some kind of data storage for various reasons. One of such was undeniably the distance from space itself, fulfilling a protective role against any forms of physical & radiation damage. A successful one, judging by the look of the rest of the station. Furthermore, the place was also the only one with quite stable condition, left intact by human collectors over the years and even almost capable of breathing without their helmets. They decided to keep them on just in case their theories were wrong.

The room was significantly bigger and contained a few control pannels - all of them were disabled as the station lacked sufficient power supply in its current state. However, the boarding group's tech-specialist, Rob Tomson, claimed that he should be able to unplug their data drives without damaging the overall structure. The consoles were using a specific data storing technique - by the look some small floppy-like disks which were useless for storing large amounts of data, but offered a good protection against any forms of damage.

- Go on, son. - A permission from Chad was granted and Rob started his work. In the meantime the rest of the group proceeded to crates located in two opposite corners of the room. They decided not to open them right now, but started scanning instead. Their content seemed to be made of metal with some plastic and a few unknown materials.
They were thinking about it, while Rob sneaked from behind with his new precious treasure. He held a small hi-tech disk, which was then scanned by Chad. The results were very familiar to content of those few crates.
- Hey! Is it how you thank for getting the job done for 'ya? - Rob said covering his eyes from the scanner with right hand.
- Well done! - It was the reply with a slight smile on CO's face followed with pointing at the containers behind them. - There's more of your shiny toys, Rob. Once you're done with them, try to disassemble as much as you can from these consoles. We'll need to study them further back in Theta.
- Aye aye, capt'n! - Rob handed in the disk and continued with tasks he was told to complete.
The Zoners started to move their findings back to Athlae using a grav cart the brought from the Corvo. Even then, they required some three trips to secure all of their findings.

The crates in the far corner of the room were bigger than ones with datapads. What is more, they revealed some slight heat signatures upon scanning. It was likely that these were unfinished, or unplugged, weapon prototypes created for fighter-sized vessels. That is why they were presumed to be the most valuable loot of the day.

Two hours later, the Zoner boarding team was done with their tasks and on their way back to the Corvo. They managed to disassemble 3 consoles out of 4 and secured all data drives they found or recovered.

- Lets get out of here. This place gives me shivers on the back. It looks like we already found everything useful. - Chad complained and added a intriquing comment on past fate of thr facility. The answer wasn't anything for certain, but they hoped to find some clues in the data they obtained.
- We'll give it a deep insight into once we're in Theta. - Rob added his 5 cents - I'm frankly interested in it. And well... Maybe we'll also find out what happened to its previous crew.
- Asteroids with radiation and dark matter storms are not the healthiest combo, 'ya know? In worst scenario they were just tentacled to death, like Freeport 7. - Samantha giggled.
- Ugh, lets just focus on being as fas as possible once they decide to knock back. - Chad's sentence was as serious as it could be, given that he was never into joking in dark and unknown systems. - Speaking about that, how did you find yourself here, Aya? - The question was clearly put to change topics and was directed to the Falchion's pilot.
- Well, I met a quite reliable guy with map of the system's jumpholes on Gran Canaria. He claimed that it was the fastest route back to Freeport 9. I must have deviated from the couse on my way as... I found this junk and it wasn't on any coords I was given. Well, coords were basing on some massive object in the center of this system and navigation wasn't the easiest either...
- You were lucky you didn't crash in the meantime. The system is dangerous. Huh. Don't get upset! You did a good job, but do me a favor and don't sneak into such places again. - Chad took the lead and Samantha whispered holding her sister's arm.
- Don't worry, it's just the old man, he's like this and nothing will ever change him. - The CO shrugged and pretended he didn't hear that.

The truth was the commander was old enough to winess many Zoners die, in fact too many as he liked to remind whenever possible. It was just his personal method of caring about his people. Nevertheless, they left the station and they left it for good.