Radio Main Frame - Audio Logs. For the first few moments of the recording, there is no sound besides the uninteresting hums and beeps of what seems to be a server room. Then there is a loud clang as a door opens, footsteps follow. The sound peace is quickly interrupted by the loud and excited voices of two people, a man and a woman. They sound young, eager and most of all, naive.
"Did you hear that?"the male voice says"I heard a noise in here!"
"Look!"the female responds"The red light, it's... it's going! We got it working!"
There's a brief moment of cheering between the two, which may be considered odd since historically, red lights have heralded doom, rather than achievement.
"Oh, oh! We can say the words now!" the man says. A chair is rolled from across the room, making awful noises as it is hastily scrabbled over to the microphone. It creaks under the weight of a person sitting on it.
"This is Dwayne Nicholson, of the Radio Mainframe-"he is interrupted.
"I thought we were naming it the Gaia? You know, after that Greek God?"
"No one gets Greek Gods anymore. Plus, this name isn't so bad, is it? Radio Mainframe. It has a nice ring to it, you have to admit."
A brief pause. As is the way with many women, this one's spite and anger can be felt, even without a visual feed. Footsteps are leading out of the room with an angry pace. The chair creaks again as Dwayne rises to follow her. He's calling out to her as they leave.
"No wait, Ann!"His voice trails off. Then, all that is left is the harmonious beeps, rings and tones from the server room. Peaceful, then momentarily chaotic, then peaceful once more.
***
When the audio picks up again, there is a lack of peace in the background. Instead, Dwayne is back, and speaks into the microphone.
"Right, uh... where was I...
"Audio Log, Radio Mainframe. This counts as our first ever day of recording! Ann and I have been toiling to get our information recording systems online. It's been a nightmare, especially when all you have is toolset that's missing a few parts and no handy skills to your name."Another pause."So, uh, I guess I'll talk about the Radio then.
"The Radio acts as an information gathering vessel, or IGV, for short. The idea is to collect information from the space around us, and find... well, for lack of a better word, things to report or research on. And I don't mean alien things, I mean, things like, lost history, medical discoveries, hidden opinions. Things that the light doesn't usually catch."
"I'm a journalist. Studied at the University of Cambridge in, well, Cambridge. Ann is a scientist. She studied... er..."He loses his train of thought, then comes back with a jolt of memory "Medical Sciences! That's right. Studied all the ins and outs of the human body, and the environment, and the relationship between the two. Or at least, that's what she told me anyway..."
"That's what we're here to do: report and research. So far, we've been trying to develop our information input systems, which is why you can hear this recording. Not much longer and hopefully we'll have all of this mess compacted into our Kestrel. It's fairly low budget at the moment, admittedly, but soon we'll be reaping in the cash with all of our findings, so there's always that to look forward to."
He sighs, it echos that of all the same, young adventurers of the world, all of them filled with the innocent of a new soldier, marching off to war, never to return.
"That's it for now. We'll report back wh-"
The audio cuts. The logs read that the memory has run out. Clearly they haven't sorted that issue out either.
Radio Main Frame - Audio Logs. Crackling, a brief pause. Someone breathes into the microphone.
"Second log," it's Dwayne "we got all the mess from my apartment on Freeport Nine into this Kestrel. It's a bit cramped, but it's nice."
And it was, in fact, it could be argued that the Radio Mainframe was just too small. Ann and Dwayne had to live, work, play live and most of all, enjoy themselves in what was a metal coffin with fins. Already, the wear and tear of being confined together was taking some toll on them. Arguments erupted around where the beds should go, how much space each of the two would need, how much food they ought to pack, what they should paint the insides, things like that. Little things, that you tend to look over when you're young. They were caught on the idea of exploring, but didn't understand that when they trade in their luxurious life for one that is marginally above anchovies in a can, that you have to make some compromises. Life wasn't about drawing a line in the sand and giving yourself one side and your enemy the other. No, space was wild, large and endless, but most of the time, it was the smallest existence there was to date.
"We'll be taking our first flight soon too. Freeport Nine, to Pygar, then skip on over to Gamma where we'll hole up at Crete for a bit." This plan of course, wasn't discussed with Ann. Yet. "It's a small skip around, but it'll be something to start us off."
They had contacted a news agency that would actually take them on. A small, independent Curacao firm that was all about revealing the unknown. Hermes News Columns, they called themselves. Hermes was the Greek God of messages, was part horse so that he could move fast, or something like that. Dwayne honestly didn't care, but Ann did, and she took every moment she could to remind him with antagonizing hisses. It was just another thing he had to endure this week, unfortunately.
"They expect their first story in a week's time. I just hope we can find something to report."
That was the true dread that lay within Dwayne. He could live with the nagging, the arguing and the cramped space, but if he didn't spit out some fantastic story by next week, then all this investment and time would have gone to waste. Yet, you could have also given him years and years to give the same outcome, but would still feel the same feeling: dread.
"Crete is a lively place," he says lively with an emphasis that makes it sound hostile "we'll find some peasant who can share his story, or some washed out bounty hunter looking to spend time over a drink." Those weren't his words, they were Ann's.
But that was the thing, one moment they'd hiss like snakes, the next they'd be foolishly playing around, like dogs in a backyard. One moment, then the next. Over and over.
The recording cuts. There is still work to do, but they have plans to take off soon. But soon is a subjective word, of course. If you told a dying man he was going to die soon, he'd measure his life in weeks. But if you said a star was going to die soon, then they'd measure it in years. The truth was that Dwayne had no idea when they'd take off. Instead, all the fears that accompany the pre-flight expedition took center stage, and pushed the initial flight off to the side.
They learnt these lessons however, and took them on each day.