12.28.4433 Corvus Hold Apartments Complex

I like to take some good rest periods after long runs. I often spend these trying to meet people, building friendships or simply having fun at the stations restaurants, or spraying credits in silly shopping days.
But this time, I felt like staying quiet home, away from noise and agitation.

I locked the door, raised a bit the heating, and slightly obscured the bay.
Having dug for a thick pair of socks, I spent time watching the slow light spots of freighters in the distance, sometimes vanishing in a silent blue gleam. The deafened humming of the station's systems had got me in a quasi hypnotic state, when I begun to automatically peruse the Galactic Atlas that laid in the mess nearby my berth.
I always loved to watch pictures in dictionaries as a child, jumping from page to page by chance, discovering new things each time, and this evening, the Atlas was my way to evade once again.
I first didn't notice anything, but a little detail took me out of my torpor. A little brown dot on the map with the text in white letters: "Sedina V". I never knew that Sedina had five planets.
I knew well this system, as I crossed it almost everyday from years now, hauling tons from this side of the Universe to the other end. I went close to two of Sedina's planets in the past, and two others were clearly plotted on the book. But I could only see four dots on the map. I was amused by the thing, and thought that the one who had drawn it probably never went further than the Senate's domes.

I left the Atlas fall with the other books, and stared at the bay again.
The ships kept going on their ways to farther places, and I could feel the vastness of the void behind the glass slab. A chill coursed my scruff as I thought about trusting a faulty guidebook when plotting jumps in these cold abysses.
No. This couldn't be. The Galactic Atlas is an accurate product of the Union, build with the help of numerous traders Guilds and prospectors.
I sat on the bed, opened the book again and searched for the missing dot with more attention. No way. I stood and crossed the room, disturbing the dust floating in the light layers from outside, switched on the terminal's screen, and started to dig into the official online version of the Atlas. It only showed four planets, too. I launched a by-sector search, and after a few seconds, the square cursor stopped, flickering around what seemed to be an empty place. But the machine was formal, a brief description of the sector was under my eyes, and the pale inscription of "planet: Sedina IV" glowed in a white halo. Zooming into the area, I finally discovered a ridiculous dark spot that could hardly be discerned from the brown background.

^_^

01.21.4433 Odia Stronghold

My life has changed these days. I won't spend too long about this as it belongs to private, but I met someone with who I now share my time, my room, my hopes and my fate.
His presence near me everyday gives me a new strength, that pushes me to dare facing situations I would never have accepted before.

Thus, I decided to move a bit aside of the trading routine I was installed in, and to finally satisfy my natural curiosity.
My first resolution was to risk a trip to Sedina IV, I really wanted to know why it was unplotted on the charts. At the instant I warped into its sector, both my radars became a mess of moving red spots, and all the proximity alarms activated themselves together. The cockpit was lighted by the nearby explosions surrounding me, and I only ow my salute to the reflex that made me turn on the last undamaged booster and run away from that cloud of mechanic hell.
We went back there a few times with my new life mate, and managed to clear the place of hundreds bots, but instead of having given an answer to my questions, these runs had aroused my thirst of knowledge.
Why would the Atlas writers have any reason not to plot such a dangerous place ? Could the UIT dirigeants want to hide things about the Hive to their citizen, and why ?

Then began a period when I shut myself away for hours in the computers room of our apartment. I systematically browsed all the known sectors of the nearby systems with the UWW online map tool, and compared the results with what the UIT Atlas provided.
Fortunately for my new relation, a few days and nights were enough to reveal another mismatch.
Ukari also has a planet that isn't charted by the Atlas, it's called Vakari and is located at the edge of two sectors. After a few investigations, I learned that its existence was formerly known, in particular the planet is listed in the 'Systems' information page of a well known citizen driven encyclopedia. Well, that planet isn't totally unknown, but once again, I wondered what could explain the lack in the Atlas.

It was enough for me to load a crate of food supply in the boot of a rapid cruiser, slip into my preferred white leather flight suit, kiss my man and dash beyond the void.

01.22.4434 Ukari Command

My first intention was to go straight to Vakari, but I decided to try to gather information at Ukari Command, a travellers node near the border of Ukari system, placed under the authority of the Aeolus traders. The station was virtually crowded, and I had to pay a weighty fee to be provided an emplacement for my Hog. I could see the winkling sign of a bar over the heads, and forced the way through the glutted noisy hall.
It took me few time to find what I was looking for. The barmaid pointed me at an old craggy man, alone at a table near the bay. He was a retired miner, I could learn some good stuff from him.
During the 43rd century, Aeolus launched a huge Xithricite extraction campaign on Vakari. In fact, the planet has a very hostile environment, has absolutely no atmosphere, its ground is very unstable, and, most of all, the very close asteroid ring of the planet regularly causes meteors showers. Thus it was preferred to settle the miners accommodations and logistics center in a base on the moon, whose relative small size, compared to the planet, lowers the probability of damage from the falling rocks. The moon's tiny but breathable atmosphere obviously made life easier for the exile workers.

Years of Mulled Mead addiction seemed to have screwed entire blocks of my old interlocutor's memory, so that I couldn't get anything else from him. He didn't even notice that I left when he started raving and singing a little song, his eyes, burned by decades of stone beaming, staring at some vague shifty remembrance... I waded again through the crowded corridors, stepped over cardboards and luggages, crossed groups of ruddy workers, smiled at their hails behind me, escaped spinning children, and finally arrived to the quieter administrative levels.
Here, a few people with strict clothing hardly disturbed the carpet covered halls. I tied my hair and adjusted my suit, feeling a bit misplaced. I had to let them take my own datapad at the entry of the station's archives, but after a few minutes, the employee gave me another, and I could learn a bit more. The base was used as a temporary ore depot too, and was weekly visited by a hauling transport, that also provided people with food, water and various equipments. I was browsing the stewardship logs and noticed the fact that it abruptly stops in the middle of 4373. Despite my urging, the man couldn't find any other document about the base, nor about the mining site on Vakari, and I only had to head back to my ship, being more intrigued again.
While the lift was taking me to the docking levels, I begun to feel the sights of a growing apprehension, but pushed it away, and tried to focus on the settings I had to enter in the Hog's nav for the coming fly.

Oooo, hidden planets. What are the UIT hiding? More importantly, why? This is interesting, keep going with it :D

Search on my friend.... you'll soon discover this as well....

"Having exhausted the resources upon the planet’s surface, and considering that none of the planets inhabitants attended the inaccessible public forums put forth, the Senate had the planet detonated in order to gain access to the immense deposits of Lanthanic ore, hidden deep within the planet’s core. In July of 4265, when the eyes of the UIT public were turned anxiously towards the battle between Oernan and Karun, Sedina VI became nothing more than a field of asteroids, the dust and debris eclipsing the suns light."

Although Sedina VI was an act of pure ingenious media management. This sounds a touch more mysterious....

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/10776#125003

02/06/4434 Vakari's Moon

Well it seems that I am stuck here for a moment. I entered a building, but the door closed behind me. I just can't get back out. My food and water supplies are going down, but I keep exploring the place, and still have good mental despite not having any clue of what is happening to my man...I really hope he's not in trouble...

other news as Soon(TM) as possible

^_^

A few days after I entered the building, the lights inside dimmered progressively and finished by shutting down for good. I had to find my way back to the place where I had left my backpack in the dark, following the walls with my hand.
When I finally found it, I grabed my flash lamp, but found it out of order, without even any battery indication on the little screen. Of course my comm unit was useless too.
It really began to be a stressful situation, but I managed to keep cool minded enough to continue exploring, learning the shape of the walls and doors by touching them. In some rooms I could recognise tables, some big crates and things that could be equipment or tools.
The place was absolutely desert, and not a single noise could cover my breathing and heart beat. I sometimes hit some object with my foot and it made me shrill of surprise, my scream loosing itself in distant echoes from the black void corridors.
When too tired I sat on the floor, leaned against the wall and clutched the bag I was carrying my food and water in, as the only friendly thing I had around. I had slept for several undetermined amounts of time this way, and had wandered round and round, when, at the edge of mental disorder, I felt that something was changing around.
The change was so slight that it took me some time to understand that the deep black surrounding me had turned to some very somber grey. I asked myself if my senses were playing me tricks, but the more I was following my path, the more the obscurity was loosing of its thickness. Gathering will and the little strength I had left, I raised the pace, beggining to percieve edges and surfaces around. After a ninety degrees turn, the corridoor revealed the pale shape of an opened door, I rushed into it, and stopped abruptly in a tiny room, facing a small dusty glass porthole.

A weak ray of a mushy yellow light was falling from it to the floor, little particles of dust dancing in it. I felt on my knees and began to cry , realising that the size of the opening prevented any escape. I kept here huddled up on the floor for some time, staring at the grainy texture of the somber wall in front of me, my vision stuck in an odd rotation angle.
When I woke up, the light was a little brighter, but still one could hardly discern more than the overall cavy aspect of the place.
I stood and watched through the small glass pane, but only to see what could be a vague blurry horizon. The glass was that thick that bending my neck as I might, only a small angle of the outside was visible. I leant my hands each side of the window, let my head droop, stared at my feets then took a deep breath and began to write in reverse on the dusty surface "I'm stuck here, help!"



<to be continued>

Great story so far, Nioubi.

Figures Lecter missed the one thread where it actually applies:

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a Grue.

Heh heh, glad someone caught it.