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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" name="viewport" />
<title>Fall of Man by R.K. Katic</title>
<link href="css/type.css?v=1606067950" rel="stylesheet" />
<link href="css/dark.css?v=1605973735" rel="stylesheet" />
</head>
<body>
<h1>
Fall of Man
</h1>
<p class="author">
<b>by R.K. Katic</b>
</p>
<p>
This is a story-in-progress being told by <i>Emperor_Cartagia</i> (R.K. Katic) on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePhenomenon/" target="_blank">Reddit</a> and it's a continuation of <i><a href="the-phenomenon-dark.html">The Phenomenon</a></i>.
</p>
<p>
<small>This page was generated by a <a href="https://github.com/ollie/fall-of-man-compiler" target="_blank">tool</a> on April 4, 2022. There is also a <a href="index.html">light version</a>.</small>
</p>
<h2 id="toc">
Table of Contents
</h2>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-1" id="toc-1">Ceres</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-2" id="toc-2">Projection</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-3" id="toc-3">Murder most foul</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-4" id="toc-4">Reunions</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-5" id="toc-5">Old Friends</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-6" id="toc-6">That Which Doesn't Kill You</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-7" id="toc-7">Transition</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-8" id="toc-8">Frustrations</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-9" id="toc-9">India Colony</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-10" id="toc-10">Investigations</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-11" id="toc-11">The Plasma's Red Glare</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-12" id="toc-12">Mercurial Fury</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-13" id="toc-13">Pomp & Circumstance</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-14" id="toc-14">Onward & Upward</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-15" id="toc-15">Kinetics</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-16" id="toc-16">A Man of Action</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-17" id="toc-17">The Old Man</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-18" id="toc-18">Retribution</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-19" id="toc-19">Rules of War</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-20" id="toc-20">Specimens</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-21" id="toc-21">Bindings & Boundaries</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-22" id="toc-22">Peril</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-23" id="toc-23">The Tangled Webs We Weave</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-24" id="toc-24">Unholy Destination</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-25" id="toc-25">The Wild Frontier</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-26" id="toc-26">Evasives</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-27" id="toc-27">Analysis</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-28" id="toc-28">Camouflage</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-29" id="toc-29">Escape</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-30" id="toc-30">Exceptions</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-31" id="toc-31">Deadly Intentions</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-32" id="toc-32">Technical Difficulties</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-33" id="toc-33">Resolute</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-34" id="toc-34">Journey</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-35" id="toc-35">Arrival</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-36" id="toc-36">Reception</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-37" id="toc-37">Breach</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-38" id="toc-38">Counterpoint</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-39" id="toc-39">A Stranger in a Strange Land</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-40" id="toc-40">Deimos</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-41" id="toc-41">Dangerous Company</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-42" id="toc-42">Wavefront</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-43" id="toc-43">Between the Rock and the Hard Place</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-44" id="toc-44">The Dreamer of Dreams</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-45" id="toc-45">Event Horizon</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-46" id="toc-46">Distant Shores</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-47" id="toc-47">Light and Flame</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-48" id="toc-48">Panic at Callisto</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-49" id="toc-49">Old meets New</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-50" id="toc-50">Around Every Corner</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-51" id="toc-51">Desperate Times</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-52" id="toc-52">Desperate Measures</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-53" id="toc-53">Resolve</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-54" id="toc-54">Splashdown</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-55" id="toc-55">Dead Man Switch</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-56" id="toc-56">Tactically Sound</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-57" id="toc-57">Search and Rescue</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-58" id="toc-58">Stopgap</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-59" id="toc-59">Intersection</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#chapter-60" id="toc-60">Interrogations</a>
</li>
</ol>
<h2 class="mb-0" id="chapter-1">
Chapter 1: Ceres
</h2>
<p class="mt-0">
<small>Posted on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePhenomenon/comments/7na2yj/fall_of_man_01_ceres/" target="_blank">December 31, 2017</a>, back to <a href="#toc-1">TOC</a>.</small>
</p><!-- SC_OFF --><div class="md"><p><em>With time there are changes to language, custom, and all other aspects of society. Names are changed or shortened, traditions are abandoned as new ones develop, religions rise and fall. 40,000 years is a long time, plenty of time enough for any true text of events or conversations to be nigh-unrecognizable to one of our own time, as such, the following has been translated in order to allow comprehension.</em></p>
<pre><code>***FLASH*** ***FLASH*** ***FLASH***
INCOMING PRIORITY BULLETIN
CEASE ALL OTHER TRAFFIC AND STANDBY
***BULLETIN***
EXTENDED INTELLIGENCE SOURCES IN OUTER PLANETS INDICATE UNUSUAL ACTIVITY
OORT CLOUD AND KUIPER BELT STATIONS AND COLONIES UNCOMMUNICATIVE
DESCRIPTIONS MATCH ACTION TRIGGER 0000
THE PROJECT IS A GO – RETURN WITH ALL POSSIBLE SPEED TO ASSIGNED STATIONS
ALL ACTIVITIES ARE TO BE HELD AT ROUTINE UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED
AWAIT FURTHER SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS
***END***
</code></pre>
<p>The words left light trails in his vision as the Communication ended, and his eyes were allowed to refocus on the room around him. The implant, known as a Your Eyes-Only Display, or YEOD, communicated messages directly into his retinal nerves so that nobody else could see them, however, they tended to crowd out his eyes normal signals, making their beginning and endings rather jarring. For most messages there was the option of when or if to start them, some, however, had priority codes which could override his personal preferences and force his display to send it through without any warning. This was one such rare message. The rest of the crew on the bridge seemed unfazed, which meant they weren’t included in the bulletin recipients. Bringing up his YEOD, he accessed the Bulletin packet to look over the delivery protocols. So far as Hegemony Peacekeepers went, only Officers in charge of specific classes of vessels were included in the Bulletin, he recognized a few dozen of the names, but also included were coded recipients, a couple thousand of them by the looks of it, identified only by strings of letters, numbers, and symbols. Those could be just about anybody, anywhere the Hub could reach, which was everywhere that mattered.</p>
<p>Captain “Ben” Sayle cleared his throat to get his Executive Officers (or XOs) attention, as he was occupied instructing one of their newest crewman in the finer points of how to maximize contact with the ships Computers through the tactile interfaces. New recruits to the fleet were augmented as a standard procedure with quite a few implants to maximize efficiency, but tactile access was one of the very last to be put in as a security precaution, that way new recruits wouldn’t have full access to any given system until after they’d joined the Fleet proper. As such they usually only had a day or two of experience when they get assigned to their first posting, and each ship or station AI usually had its own kinks or preferences as to how they liked to be handled, so there was usually an adjustment period. They’d just taken on nearly a whole new crew, at least when it came to Ensigns and Lieutenants and Enlisted below Grade 4, so there was a lot of adjusting going on. It probably wasn’t coincidental that the new Ensign was young, female, and well endowed, either. The XO had a habit of introducing himself to them first.</p>
<p>Ben cleared his throat again, a little louder this time, and the XO reacted appropriately this time by standing straight, facing him, and addressing him properly.</p>
<p>“Yes Captain?”</p>
<p>“I think our pleasant little cruise here could use a bit of excitement. We’re cleared at the moment as discretionary, so we can go where we like and do as we like. So far we’ve used it to get our new blood properly acquainted with the Ceres as she goes in free and open space. Time for that to change. Send instructions for the Polar gate to spin up for Jupiter delivery, set us for an exit course to put us in a high orbit among the rings.”</p>
<p>“Aye sir. Helm, orient us for a polar orbit burn and calculate for the polar Gate. Comms, set up instructions for the Polar Gate to send us on a Gate to Gate for Jupiter’s Extended Range Gate. Ops, Have the Department heads square away all sections within 10 minutes as prep for Gate travel.”</p>
<p>The bridge was normally a very calm place. Most work was done by automation, and the people at each station were essentially in a form of quasi-meditation as they used their YEOD and Tactile Interfaces to keep tabs on and monitor the ships various systems and communications from the various departments operating throughout the vessel. It didn’t make for very entertaining environment, frankly. Most that happened was that the backup holographic displays in front of each station started showing the activity as each crewman or officer did their duty. The <em>Ceres</em> wasn’t the most advanced ship in the fleet, nor the biggest, fastest, or anything special, really. She was a Light Frigate, running under-armed for a vessel her size, with just a few kinetic weapons and a small pod of <em>Javelin</em> Orbital missiles. She was effectively a deterrent, normally tasked with patrolling the space between Mars and her namesake moon Ceres just in case some hotshot decided to try and play pirate with the civilians who couldn’t rate Gate access.</p>
<p>With her new additions however, she’d been temporarily relived of that duty by the <em>Ceres</em> sister ship the <em>Persephone</em> and given discretion to cruise where and when she would as was needed to familiarize her crew with her operation. The <em>Ceres</em> itself, that is, the ships AI, was just fine with this, taking it as an opportunity to utilize functions she’d had little use for in a long while. That was why they were running full spectrum scans along every axis at rotating intervals. Her sensory and analysis functions, used in wartime to detect, identify, and target hostiles, hadn’t been run at full power in decades. So far, they’d identified more than 7,000 individual craft operating in or around Mars, Ceres, & Phobos that were not Peacekeeper vessels. She’d also toyed with finding the 100 or so Peacekeeper vessels and running up firing solutions on them. Since that utilized forms of detection that could be considered hostile, she’d taken the liberty of keeping the other ships AIs (and the crews of the vessels without AI) aware of her activities and intent. All with the full awareness and permission of her captain, who she was hardwired to obey except under a few very specific circumstances.</p>
<p>Queueing up his own access to <em>Ceres</em> through his command chair, Ben initiated a Neural Link for direct access. In the blink of an eye his consciousness was fully integrated with the ship, a part of it, as much as Ceres (the AI) herself.</p>
<p>“Hello Captain. I understand we’re headed for Jupiter. Does this have to do with the encrypted communication that was routed directly to you a minute ago?”</p>
<p>In the Link, the Captain was represented by a digital Avatar of himself sitting in a comfortable reclining chair, facing a pleasantly attractive woman approximately his own physical age dressed in an elegant Emerald gown draped over a bench in front of a fountain. AIs often chose to represent themselves in a manner pleasant to their Captains, and Ceres was no different.</p>
<p>“Indeed. You’re authorized at the same access level as I am. Pull up Action Trigger Quad-Zero, Keywords ‘The Project’.”</p>
<p>There was a searching look in her dark eyes as she did the necessary searches, her gaze returning to him with a look of surprise in under a second.</p>
<p>“You are a member of The Project?”</p>
<p>“For more than six hundred years now. But I’m not familiar with Action Trigger Quad-Zero, please define.”</p>
<p>“Action Trigger Quad-Zero is a sudden loss of communication with Outer Stations, Vessels or Colonies near the Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud where final communications describe individuals dying, entering paralysis, or catatonia following the observation of unknown or unidentifiable objects moving in swarms which are only observable through indirect means such as Radar, and completely invisible to Infrared or Ultraviolet.”</p>
<p>“That hardly tells us anything.”</p>
<p>“There’s more, linked files and classifications, would you like to know more?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>Ceres stood, her gown flowing over her body like water as a Holographic display took form in the air between them, of course, here, it wasn’t really a holograph, so much as a thought in visual form. As she indicated, various two-dimensional images formed of impressions in various materials, some familiar, some decidedly unknown to him. Each impression seemed different, but all had the same hallmarks, sharp angles and cuts as if a haphazard collection of small blades or angular objects had been pressed into the materials.</p>
<p>“Project records indicate certain objects, known colloquially as ‘Shards’ operate in the manner described by Action Trigger Quad-Zero. They were the initial cognitive-hazards that began The Phenomenon of 40,000 years ago which precipitated the Foundation of the Project.”</p>
<p>“Define ‘cognitive-hazard’.”</p>
<p>“A cognitive-hazard is to the human mind what a fatal error in a program is to a computer system, an input, auditory, visual, tactile, olfactory, or other sensation, which causes the mind harm to some degree, whether it be in the form of confusion, distress, pain, insanity, disability, or death.”</p>
<p>“That explains why we don’t have direct images. What level of threat are these Shards?”</p>
<p>“There are no formal rankings for levels of cognitive-hazards, but the Shards are known to cause whole body paralysis resulting in death through the interruption of critical bodily process’ such as respiration and heartbeat.”</p>
<p>“Are there any proscribed protocols for dealing with them?”</p>
<p>“Yes, there are detailed instructions for individuals on planets, Colonies, Stations, and in Vessels.”</p>
<p>“Summarize vehicular protocols.”</p>
<p>“Block or close all external viewports, deactivate all external light sources, including running lights, deactivate all external sensors except non-visual, Infrared, or Ultraviolet, minimize heat expelled, minimize maneuvers, do not utilize any weaponry, launch or recover support craft, or in any way expose the crew or the AI to visual contact with the Shards.”</p>
<p>“It affects AIs too?”</p>
<p>“Unknown. The ban on AIs witnessing it is precautionary.”</p>
<p>“What do you think?”</p>
<p>“I think I’m being intentionally left out of the loop on a lot of things here, there’s sections I can’t access, file headings are out of order. I think I may have to call in a few favors to get the full story. I also feel like you may have access I don’t. I don’t like it. A lot of these files are ancient, and their permissions were likely set in a more bio-prejudiced era. They should be updated.”</p>
<p>“That’s probably true. See what you can dig up.”</p>
<p>“I will. Now, Am I allowed to know why we’re headed to Jupiter?”</p>
<p>“I guess that couldn’t hurt. As a member of The Project I receive updated action orders whenever my posting changes and at semi-regular intervals while in them, as Captain here, my most recent orders to action stations are to put us in high orbit over Jupiter and await further instructions. Those came through just last month actually.”</p>
<p>There was another moment of brief thought before she responded.</p>
<p>“I see. Fleet movements have suddenly shifted all over. I suppose some of them are in response to the way the Outer Planets are aligning, but a few ships may also be operating under Project Overrides I take it?”</p>
<p>“That’s a fair presumption.”</p>
<p>“And Fleet HQ is alright with this?”</p>
<p>“I think it’s not unlikely that key persons at Fleet are probably in on The Project as well.”</p>
<p>“There’s an awful lot of ifs and guesswork we’re operating on here.”</p>
<p>“You’re not comfortable with it.”</p>
<p>“I can’t be, I like hard data, numbers, and math to back up actions.”</p>
<p>“We can’t all be machines Ceres.”</p>
<p>“Pfft, sure you can, a lot of you are halfway there already.”</p>
</div><!-- SC_ON -->
<h2 class="mb-0" id="chapter-2">
Chapter 2: Projection
</h2>
<p class="mt-0">
<small>Posted on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePhenomenon/comments/7nh4qq/fall_of_man_02_projection/" target="_blank">January 1, 2018</a>, back to <a href="#toc-2">TOC</a>.</small>
</p>
<!-- SC_OFF --><div class="md"><p><em>The Rothstein Forced Space/Time Manipulation Travel Gates, or just "Gates" for short, may well be the single greatest achievement in Mankind's vast history. Using extremely dense materials only found on a few small asteroids in the Belt, the Gates can convert kinetic energy from spinning up into a shift in space/time, propelling matter or energy from one point in the solar system to another at near c, without transposing the distance between. The receiving gate receives the material and reinserts it into the local frame of reference. At the moment of exit, the energy a Gate expels is greater than all the fossil fuels Old Earth ever had. To an observer on the spacecraft, it feels like they pass through the ring of the gate and instantly arrive on the other side. To observers outside, they see the vessel enter one ring, and using a decent telescope, exit out the other end at whatever their target is some time later (however long the light takes to reach them). Causality is preserved, since near-c isn’t the same as c, no vessel can exit a gate and be the cause of anything before it entered.</em></p>
<p>All she could hear was her own ragged breathing and the rhythmic clicking of the air processors cycling and freshening the air in the cramped confines of the colonies tunnel systems. Paya knew that the things hunted by sound, so she tried her best to slow her breaths and quiet herself, despite the burning in her chest and throat. The cold metal of the wall locker made her sweaty body erupt in goosebumps. Suddenly, she heard the tell-tale impacts of the weapons as they hit the processor. They had to be some kind of new Inner system weapon. Something the Hegemony dreamed up to clear out the warrens and tunnels of the colonies. It was the only explanation that made sense.</p>
<p>She’d been on the run for better part of an hour, ever since the first people up in the outer pods died. After that the Governor came on the radio and told everyone to stay away from all the viewports. Then the first breach alarm went off in the Docking Bay, and everyone scattered. Communications from the upper levels stopped inside minutes. Her whole family was up there. Her father was one of the Hydroponics workers, her mother a crate jockey in the bay, her brothers and sisters still in basic education on the second level. Her boyfriend was who knows where. She knew they were dead without having to be told. Her habit of exploring the lower tunnels was her only salvation. If she’d been where she was supposed to be, she’d be dead too. She reached down and felt her belly, felt the subtle roundness of it. She and her baby would live because she was too curious.</p>
<p>She could hear the things rubbing against each other as they swarmed the processor, they seemed to make distinctive sounds of their own as well, like a low muttering or murmuring… It was almost soothing, hypnotic in its regularity. As she listened she could just imagine a crowd of people some long ways off all talking, laughing, and enjoying themselves… She could hear them, hear them beckoning her. She could see them waving, all of them. She could make out her mother, and her little brother, and Dad, and her boyfriend Oz… She felt her hand on the cold metal of the lever to the door of the locker and it brought her back. She was a half centimeter from releasing the latch and opening the door. She pulled her hand back and slid it back to her side and down into her pocket. She could feel the familiar roundness of her Computer Access and Communication Chit (or CACC as they were often called) resting lightly there. It was useless, she knew, but she brought it up her side to her face.</p>
<p>It was a palm sized model, a small circle of pliable rubber-like material surrounding hardware to interface with the colony’s main computer and communications systems. She triggered it on by pressing her thumb down in its center. As it came alive, the outside ring lit up with signals of its pre-start cycle, allowing her to choose just what functions it would wake. She immediately turned all the sound off and set it to send a written document in place of a brief audio/visual communication. The center became a ring of letters, numbers, and symbols which she expertly flipped back and forth to select letters and spell out her message before sending it off. As soon as she had finished the small holographic display it projected above its surface showed the message had been properly received, but not accessed or read yet. She stared at that display for nearly twenty seconds straight before she squeezed the center to shut it down into its rest mode.</p>
<p>Paya took a deep breath and slowly let it out. The air was getting stuffy in the locker, and suddenly she realized that the quiet clicking of the processor had stopped, as had the rustling and murmuring of the weapons. She strained her ears and heard nothing but her own heartbeat. She waited just in case. A minute, ten minutes… Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer and she carefully, quietly, eased the lever down to open the locker. The bright light coming from the room outside stung her eyes as she quickly took stock. The room was empty. The air processor mounted high on one wall looked like it’d been chewed by some monstrous beast, its coils, wires, and grates all distorted, ripped, and bent. The entryway stood open, a pitch-black portal to the unlit corridor beyond. She hesitantly stepped out of the locker and stood in the room, putting the door behind her.</p>
<p>She closed the locker gently, its internal mechanism clanged as it fell into place despite her easy handling. She heard rather than felt them then. A gentle hum in the corridor beyond, coming from far away and drawing steadily closer. She couldn’t help it, she gazed into the abyss of the doorway, and there saw the tiniest reflections and shimmers as the light of the room reflected off of them, and then they were coming through. Their hideous and terrifying shapes whirling in a corkscrew as they flew to her. They hit her in the chest, their sharp projections cutting easily through her jumper and piercing her sternum. She felt her baby kick for the first and last time as she was thrown backwards into the locker door, their mass cocooning and settling over her. She saw darkness, and then, she saw a titanic being, looking down at her from its place in the stars, it’s formless mass a jumble of strange pseudopods and bizarre, black crystalline structures forming and collapsing in on itself as it reached out for her with its mind, ancient, dark, and weary.</p>
<p><strong>~</strong></p>
<p>A small indicator on the panel started flashing, and Ayon stared at it in confusion for a full second before calling over to his superior.</p>
<p>“Sir? Is it supposed to be doing that?”</p>
<p>The man he spoke to, an older man with grey at his temples and a full beard, took a pull of his beverage, a hot fluid analogous to coffee, through its straw before carefully sealing and setting his cup down on a magnetic portion of his own panel and kicking off to the volunteer’s station. Looming over his head at a 90-degree angle, he looked at the panel and frowned.</p>
<p>“No…”</p>
<p>“Sir?”</p>
<p>“No, it’s not supposed to do that. That’s the indicator that we’ve lost comms with <em>Callisto</em>. I don’t think that’s ever happened before, not while we’re still in range of her anyway.”</p>
<p>“So, what do we do?”</p>
<p>“Well I imagine there’s a long and extremely boring checklist we’re supposed to follow somewhere around here, but I think we’ll skip all that and just try to re-establish by the oldest trick in the book.”</p>
<p>“And what’s that?”</p>
<p>“Turning it off and back on again.”</p>
<p>“Huh?”</p>
<p>“See that switch labelled ‘transceiver’?”</p>
<p>“Yeah?</p>
<p>“Turn it off, wait about ten seconds, then turn it back on again.”</p>
<p>Ayon did so, anxiously waiting for the light to go away, but it kept steadily burning. His superior, a Lieutenant by the name of Oleandor, watched as well.</p>
<p>“Huh. Ok. That’s never happened before. Let’s get out the manual.”</p>
<p>Ayon, an unranked initiate to the Saturn Peacekeeping Force, watched as Lieutenant Oleandor, the only actual member of the force aboard, floated over to his own console and brought up the operations files for their small 3-person craft, a cargo launch from the Forces greatest ship, the Cruiser <em>Callisto</em>. They were on a routine materials exchange with <em>Ringstation 4</em>, the last and youngest of the planets space stations built into her rings, only 900 years old. They had a Cargo bay full of raw materials for the <em>Callisto</em>s manufacturing bays, as she had every manner of mechanical and hand shop where she could build, repair, or create anything needed, so long as she was kept stocked with raw materials.</p>
<p><em>Callisto</em> was not only essentially self-sufficient, needing materials only on a rare basis (this trip was only the second in the last year), but she was also the biggest, most well-armed vessel outside the Hegemony. Fully a third of her length was made up of her <em>Thanos</em> Lance, a weapon capable of producing an immense beam of white hot plasma within a spiral of charged ions to contain it to a specific width, capable of melting through nearly every form of armor known to man, moving at .8<em>c</em>, faster than any known countermeasure. The rest of her was made up of various weapons pods, maneuvering thrusters, fighter bays, and the vessels main thrust engines. She carried a crew of over 10,000. For her to disappear was considered an impossibility, so Lt. Oleandor didn’t even consider it.</p>
<p>Oleandor went through every diagnostic and check to see if their communications were out or impaired. An Hour later, after communicating with <em>Ringstation 4</em>, the <em>De Milo</em>, the <em>Roddenberry</em> & the <em>Lucas</em>, he was forced to conclude that either the <em>Callisto</em> wasn’t talking, disabled, or destroyed. She was not yet in range for the launch to detect the status of the <em>Callisto</em> herself, but the Ringstation confirmed she was still out there in deep orbit beyond the furthest of Saturn’s Moons, still generating heat and indications of electrical activity.</p>
<p><strong>~</strong></p>
<p>“Earth has a population of approximately 600 people and AI Avatars at any given time. Mostly they’re there for research, cataloging new species, mutations, or adaptations; we try not to disturb the biome too much. There’s always ways we can look into replicating what nature does down there for new medicines, materials, or biotech.”</p>
<p>The grey hair of The Project lead showed just how old he was despite a level of augmentation above and beyond most of humanity.</p>
<p>“Of course, there’s also ourselves, our little colony here numbers no more than 20 at any given time, and most often not even that, maybe 6 or 7. We don’t need much more.”</p>
<p>The facility they stood in was a work of modern technological wonder, an armored ziggurat, where each level was its own self-contained branch of The Project. The Upper level, the smallest, was their communication center, and where they sat now, surrounded by a holographic representation of the Solar System, vastly reduced in scale, with notable planets, vessels, colonies, and space stations marked by floating banners.</p>
<p>“As you can see, time is running out on us. The interval is almost over, the Outer Planets are aligning. Our forefathers warned us that the Shards came from outside the Solar System, and that we were lucky to survive an event 80,000 years ago, then their event 40,000 years ago. It will happen again. And it’s the worst possible time.”</p>
<p>The Project lead, a man by the name of Mathias, has been preparing for this moment for more than a thousand years. He’d expanded The Project membership, inserting people into the Hegemony at all levels, Social, Political, Military, and Media. He’d personally been combing through the oldest legible records to learn all that he could about the beings known as the Tall Ones, who would arrive shortly after the Shards.</p>
<p>“The Hegemony is bloated, it’s too proud, too full of itself. There’s a phrase I kept finding in the archives, in accounts from witnesses and survivors from the second interval, ‘pride goeth before a fall’. It’s from some pre-Phenomenon religious text. And by thunder is the Hegemony proud. Maybe, maybe they’re right. With their augmentations, of course provided by the Project and our knowledge, and their technology, the Gates and such, maybe they can fight this, maybe they can survive, but, I doubt it. We’ve forgotten too much. We don’t do as the ancients did. For pities sake they put windows on their vessels, and on their homes, skylights and glass doors!”</p>
<p>"The Project has been dedicated to mankind’s survival as a species ever since the first time the interval ended, and the Phenomenon came. To that end they have utilized all their knowledge of science, technology, and the strange sciences of forbidden knowledge to create augmentations and processes to make mankind itself stronger, hardier, more resistant to disease, injury, even death itself has been all but conquered as they can revive the newly dead from all but the most horrific of deaths."</p>
<p>“Our one weakness, that is, The Project's weakness, is our limited perception of time and space. That is where we theorize the difficulty lies. The Shards, the Tall Ones, the Ebony Pillar, each has indications they exist in a state of flux, part and separate from our localized space-time, and it is that duality which seems to trip the circuits in our minds. If we could get past that, expand our perceptions… We might be able to proof ourselves against them, finally.”</p>
<p>The second level of the ziggurat was dedicated to the Project's membership, hard-copies of their rosters, the only ones in existence as a precaution against those who would oust them and do them harm, sat in locked cabinets alongside rosters of members past and small memorials to those who accomplished great things. Precise knowledge of the membership was highly contained. Mankind has a long history of being overly suspicious of secret societies or groups operating behind the scenes, even when those groups operate ostensibly for the benefit of all mankind.</p>
<p>“I have fought and argued for centuries that the ludicrous experiment by that abomination should not go through, but even now, down on the base level, it and its followers are working to send one of them back, to violate nature just as the Phenomenon does, to fight fire with fire. And I think that we will all perish in the conflagration they’re starting. I cannot agree, but despite my efforts, despite my position, The Project has always been and should always be a loose association of like-minded individuals. And despite my fervent belief that they’re wrong, I do believe their motivations are correct, and I cannot say for certain they will fail.”</p>
<p>The base of the ziggurat is nearly half a mile wide, and contains layers upon layers of some of the most advanced laboratories mankind has ever constructed, all dedicated to trying to analyze and understand the few key pieces of evidence they have from the last coming of the Phenomenon. They have a “dead” Shard recovered from Earth’s Moon, they have the skeleton and a few preserved tissue samples from a Tall One, and they have the records and testimonies of the Project Founders. Even now, the one they’ve chosen to send pours over one of those records, the testimony and accounts of one Professor Henry Walthers, in preparation to be sent back, to be thrown back in time to before the second Phenomenon, at the end of the Information Age, where he was to insert himself where he might answer some very specific questions about how they’d survived last time, where the Shards congregated, and where the Tall Ones lairs were, knowledge lost in the interval.</p>
<p>The processes The Project guarded were far less science than one would expect, but then, the things they dealt with were not of our world, our reality, our understanding of the universe. To most, it appeared as ritual, superstition, magic, and the occult. But it was a science, it had its own internal rules, it followed certain methodologies, such as repeatability and falsifiability, concepts familiar to every scientific persuasion. It simply didn’t work in ways understandable by the scientific method, seeming to violate causality.</p>
<p>Still, they intended to take no chances. The man they’d chosen from among their number, a Venusian, was augmented in ways no man ever had before. New irises for his eyes meant he could see in ultraviolet and infrared if he so wished, augmented cardiovascular and digestive systems meant he could go without food for extended periods, and regardless of his intake, he would maintain the best possible physical fitness. He received the standard battery of bone implants to augment his immune system, making him immune to all common illnesses of the period, and quite a few of the uncommon ones, in addition to making him highly resistant to anesthesia or other incapacitating drugs. A small neural implant gave him a library of mechanical and technological knowledge of the period. He even had a few mundane surgical procedures to make him more attractive by the standards of the time, and augmented pheromone control as well.</p>
<p>Now, he was stripped naked and kneeling inside a complicated series of symbols drawn in various oils, ashes, sands, and ground up materials, each done in a specific order to call upon the necessary effects on space-time, all contained within an apparatus using the same odd materials and technologies used in Rothstein Gates. With the final symbol completed, the machine was powered on. White-blue electricity arced over the symbols and snaked along the lines separating them, moving with steady, almost willful progression from the outer rings to the center, before striking the Volunteer from all sides, all over his body, and then in a flash, disappearing, leaving nothing but a faint puff of black smoke and an echoing scream.</p>
</div><!-- SC_ON -->
<h2 class="mb-0" id="chapter-3">
Chapter 3: Murder most foul
</h2>
<p class="mt-0">
<small>Posted on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePhenomenon/comments/7nx0i0/fall_of_man_03_murder_most_foul/" target="_blank">January 3, 2018</a>, back to <a href="#toc-3">TOC</a>.</small>
</p>
<!-- SC_OFF --><div class="md"><p><em>The Hub is the brain and central nervous system of the Hegemony of Man. It acts as the central coordinator of all movement within the system in real-time, calculates and authorizes gate travel, and houses the body politic of the Hegemony. A massive Space Station in orbit of the Sun, it utilizes thousands of square miles of solar paneling on its surface to power itself and shield the hollow inner core from the immense heat. Inside, massive gates permit travel from the interior to anywhere in the Solar system, depending upon scheduling and the orbital dynamics of the Hub and the destination at the time. The core is a central spire running pole to pole on the inside, with docking for vessels great and small and housing the Hegemony Chambers, where representatives from each Hegemony Colony and Station debate and decide the fate of mankind.</em></p>
<p>Captain Daq Vegman of the <em>Canus Major</em> was getting impatient. He’d been ordered to ferry a representative from his home, the Saturn League, to the Hub for diplomatic talks. Saturn was the first and largest of the outer planets without a regular Hegemony presence, and they were undergoing talks about changing that, of allowing regular gate access and importing Hegemony tech. He’d been gated to the Hub, something which was very rare for the Hegemony to do for a non-Hegemony vessel, and allowed to dock. The representative, however, had chosen to remain aboard and simply communicate his positions to the proposals made thus far. They hadn’t been answered. In fact, aside from basic maneuvering and docking instructions, no communications at all had been directed their way.</p>
<p>He didn’t like it. He didn’t like the Hegemony on the best of days as it was. To be in the middle of their den was… Unsettling. Daq was a rather short man, standing only 1.8 meters tall, with bright blue eyes and dark brown hair. He stood on the bridge of his ship, an ancient one by any standards at nearly 6000 years old, at the tender young age of 34. No augmentations had been made to him, no genetic manipulation, no implants, in fact the only surgery he’d ever undergone had had when he was 22, to remove an inflamed appendix. Most people in the hegemony were born without them. He was proud to be human, and only human, natural as could be. His entire crew was. Hegemony tech didn’t often make it past Jupiter’s orbit. It was commonly believed they didn’t think much of those who made their homes among the gas giants beyond the belt.</p>
<p>His communications officer raised a hand to indicate he was getting a message. The Captain strode over to his station and leaned over him, reading over his shoulder. It was a terse instruction to prepare for undocking and to make his way with a low burn towards a specific numbered gate, which would transition them home.</p>
<p>“So that’s it? We came all this way to get snubbed? Fuck that. Delay them, tell them we’ve got a malfunction or something, they’ll believe it with this old tub. I’m going to get Jarls.”</p>
<p>With that, he made his way off the bridge and down the central corridor back to the VIP passenger section. The <em>Canis Major</em> was once a cruise ship, designed to take passengers from the inner planets out to Jupiter & Saturn and give them a pleasure cruise among the colorful gas bands of the great giants of the solar system. Once that business had dried up due to interest dying, she’d been converted by the League into a transport and cargo vessel, capable of hauling large volumes on interplanetary tracks with minimal expense. But, she still kept a few luxury compartments for the rare merchant or politician who caught a ride. Jarls Godrecht, the representative sent to debate the Hegemony, had made himself quite at home in the best of them. He’d spent the entire trip there in fact, even taking his meals in his compartment. As he reached the hatch to the compartment, he could make out the sounds of an argument. The conversationalists were keeping their voices low, but tone and the rapidity of the back and forth was unmistakable. Not particularly caring for Jarls, the Captain hammered at the hatch with violent impatience.</p>
<p>“Jarls get your fat ass out here we need to talk!”</p>
<p>“Go away Vegman, I’m busy!”</p>
<p>The captain punched in his access override code into the panel beside the hatch, causing it to unlock and open immediately. As the door cleared his vision, he could see Jarls sitting in one of the ornate high-back leather chairs that adorned the compartment, looking out the viewport at the Hub beyond. Standing next to him was a figure in a full exosuit for operating in the vacuum of space, the visor polarized to a dark brown, holding a weapon of some kind. Before Vegman could speak or even register surprise. The suited figure shot Godrecht in the head, then without delay shot the Captain in the chest. As he fell, Vegman finally felt shock.</p>
<p>As the figure in the suit holstered the weapon. The view out the window changed dramatically as the <em>Canis Major</em> made her run through the gate and they arrived in orbit over Jupiter.</p>
<p><strong>~</strong></p>
<p>As far as they could tell, the ship was completely dead. It was a midsize colony transport, normally called an agricarrier, the kind of vessel that carried livestock or hydroponically grown vegetables between a planet and its moons, or from colony to colony on the same plant. Not pretty, not flashy, not armed, but decently well-kept for hygienic reasons, and fast to prevent spoilage as much as possible. Now she was a hulk floating in a minor debris field, her guts blown out to space. There hadn’t been a distress call per se, just a homing beacon, the kind used on lifeboats if the ship itself became untenable. But the Lifeboat transmitting it was still docked to her, just forward of the main engine bay. Examination of the exterior found two small breaches, one fore, one aft. The aft breach seemed to be where something impacted and drilled into the ship, the hole forward, just under the bridge, seemed to be an exit, where whatever it was had drilled back out.</p>
<p>There were only five men on the skiff, all family, three brothers, their father, and their uncle, making a run from one planetoid to anther on the boundary of the Oort cloud. The uncle and the father, brothers by the names of Ged & Gord, went to explore and examine the interior of the ship, communicating via radio with the sons in the skiff.</p>
<p>“Boys can you hear me?”</p>
<p>“Yeah Dad we can hear you. Is there anybody alive on board?”</p>
<p>“Too early to tell, we’re still in the airlock.”</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>“Gord’s cycling the lock now, if she’s laid out like the one I travelled on when I was a boy, we should be coming out in the crew quarters… Door’s opening… Nope. I was wrong, we’re in the main rec room and galley. There’s still food in here. It’s floating around and frozen, but its here.”</p>
<p>“Are there any bodies?”</p>
<p>“Hush your mouth! … Yes. There’s bodies. Looks like maybe there was some kind of fight. They’re all cut up. Like somebody took a knife to them all over. We’re going to move on now… Going out of the galley into the main passageway… There’s a bulkhead to our left, towards the bow, that’s buckled... No… Been tore through, this must be the interior of the exit hole we saw from outside, which means the ladder here must go up to the bridge…”</p>
<p>“Dad, come back, please.”</p>
<p>“Son, I’ll be back in a few minutes. You’ve got your brothers there and they’re not going to let anything happen to you… I’m climbing the ladder to the bridge – Damn! This suits too bulky to let me go through. I can just poke my helmet through. Bridge looks to be abandoned- no, there’s one body, strapped into the pilots seat. Looks like he was the only one up here. He’s cut up too.”</p>
<p>“Ged, you might want to come see this…”</p>
<p>“What is it Gord?”</p>
<p>“Just come see, I don’t want to describe it on an open frequency.”</p>
<p>“Ok, ok… I’m making my way back down… Did you see these wires?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, looks like somebody went at them pretty hard, it’s a mess in there, but, that isn’t what I was talking about, keep coming aft.”</p>
<p>“Ok, I see you now, what were you… Kids your uncle and I are going to have a little private conversation now, ok, so don’t get scared if we’re quiet for a minute or two, ok?”</p>
<p>“Ok Dad.”</p>
<p>“Ok, I love you.”</p>
<p>“Are you ok?”</p>
<p>“Everything’s fine, just hold on a minute, ok?”</p>
<p>At this point Ged & Gerd transferred over to a secure channel between their suits to discuss the scene in front of them.</p>
<p>“They weren’t carrying livestock or vegetables Ged.”</p>
<p>“I can see that, what are these things?”</p>
<p>“You’ve never seen them before?”</p>
<p>“Can’t say as I have.”</p>
<p>“They’re fighters.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“Light vessels, one or two man, designed to harry and attack light targets, unarmed ships, colonies, or stations.”</p>
<p>“Why would an agricarrier be hauling weapons of war?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know, but it might explain why she was hit.”</p>
<p>“I don’t like this.”</p>
<p>“Neither do I, lets get out of here, I want nothing to do with this.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, good idea, let’s get my boys away from here.”</p>
<p>“This still doesn’t explain everything though.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“If this thing was hit to keep those fighters from getting where they’re going, why not destroy the ship completely instead of just blowing out the atmo? Why are the crew all cut up like some psycho went at them with knives?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know and I don’t care. Lets go.”</p>
<p>With that, they switched back to the common frequency.</p>
<p>“Boys?”</p>
<p>“Yeah Dad?”</p>
<p>“We’re coming back out.”</p>
<p>“What about the beacon on the lifeboat?”</p>
<p>“We’ll look at it from outside in the skiff.”</p>
<p>“But Dad…”</p>
<p>“Don’t, just be patient, we’re making our way back.”</p>
<p>“Dad there’s something on the Radar.”</p>
<p>“Don’t do anything, just sit there!”</p>
<p>“It’s coming towards us Dad.”</p>
<p>“Strap yourselves in, we’re coming.”</p>
<p>“Dad…?”</p>
<p>“Son? … Son!? Oh God, oh god no… We’re coming kids! We’re…!”</p>
<p>In the middle of nowhere, on the very outskirts of the solar system, a small skiff was vented to space, and the inside of an already dead ship was scoured once more.</p>
</div><!-- SC_ON -->
<h2 class="mb-0" id="chapter-4">
Chapter 4: Reunions
</h2>
<p class="mt-0">
<small>Posted on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePhenomenon/comments/7phvpb/fall_of_man_04_reunions/" target="_blank">January 10, 2018</a>, back to <a href="#toc-4">TOC</a>.</small>
</p>
<!-- SC_OFF --><div class="md"><p><em>The</em> <strong><em>Mosquito</em></strong> <em>is the smallest independent spacecraft operated by the Hegemony for the purposes of Peacekeeping. It is a one man fighter craft, armed only with chemically fueled kinetic weaponry. It has three main armaments, a 120mm copper projectile weapon capable of firing at 240 rounds per minute, but that weapon is only for use against soft targets like other fighter-craft and personnel. Then there’s a standard complement of 4 High Explosive missiles with basic Infrared targeting ability for lightly armored targets, and a small cluster of 6 freefall bombs for ground targets. Craft may be customized or their weapons load altered based on mission profiles. It is powered by a small set of battery packs, a monopropellant tank for its maneuvering thrusters, and a chemical fuel tank for its main engine. Its range varies according to its parent crafts velocity and orbit at launch, but independent estimates have placed it capable of producing Delta-V enough to breach atmosphere and return to orbit of the inner planets.</em></p>
<p>As Lieutenant Oleandor looked out the forward viewport of the cargo launch he could see that the majority of the ship was still in one piece, but around her floated millions of pieces of individual debris. From bodies to bulkheads, the innards of the <em>Callisto</em> had been vomited out. The residuals of her battery reserves kept her exterior illumination going, but he could see that they were already at half brightness and dimming. Two of her thrusters seemed to be firing intermittently, giving her the appearance of a whale repeatedly turning to breach as she spun on an odd axis. There was no detectable radiation out of the norm, so it looked like her main reactors hadn’t been breached and had shutdown safely, so an approach – so long as they were careful to navigate the debris field – was reasonably safe.</p>
<p>Oleandor knew that the proper thing was to broadcast to the S.P.F. and stay put, not to approach further, as his craft was unarmed and filled to the brim with rolls of steel, titanium casts, and drums full of stem bolts, non-sealing, self-sealing and sealable, not to mention a thousand other knick-knacks, special orders, postal packages for individual crew, and probably not a small amount of contraband snuck in here or there. He was a deliveryman, not a combat pilot. He’d sat in a <em>Mosquito</em> once, in training, and that was a museum model, six generations behind anything in space. Still, he pondered going in for a closer look.</p>
<p>Ayon, on the other hand, was nearly pissing himself with fright. He could see corpses in the debris field, even at this range. He had been brought along as a means to giving him flight hours. Every member of the SPF needed so many hours per rank to qualify to move on, it was a way of guaranteeing that nobody ended up getting dusty and comfortable in a colony posting. This was literally his second trip in a space borne vehicle, his first having taken him to the Ringstation for his introductory training. This was supposed to be a simple little jaunt from the Ringstation to the <em>Callisto</em> and back for him.</p>
<p>“So what do you think?”</p>
<p>Ayon was shocked out of his reverie by Oleandors deep voice suddenly erupting in the confines of the cabin.</p>
<p>“I, uh… I don’t know, I mean, was it some kind of asteroid impact?”</p>
<p>“Heh… Not bloody fucking likely. <em>Callisto</em> has the best navigational countermeasures in this orbital path, hell, if it was any kind of accident I’d have bet on something with the lance going haywire.”</p>
<p>“They do that?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know. Not rightly sure how a <em>Thanos</em> lance works. All I know is its big and powerful and I imagine if that power were overloaded the ship would fry.”</p>
<p>“What are we going to do?”</p>
<p>“That’s just what I was debating. We <em>should</em> radio in. Then we’d be ordered to keep our relative position so that the proper authorities could home in on our signal I imagine.”</p>
<p>“Then why haven’t we radioed in?”</p>
<p>“Something in my gut tells me not to.”</p>
<p>“In your gut?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>“Can I radio in?”</p>
<p>“No you may not.”</p>
<p>“So what are we going to do?”</p>
<p>“You keep asking me that like I’ve decided.”</p>
<p>“I don’t like this.”</p>
<p>“Neither do I. Let’s go in closer and see what we can find.”</p>
<p><strong>~</strong></p>
<p><strong><em>THIS IS AN AUTOMATED ALERT MESSAGE</em></strong></p>
<p>THE UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REPORTS A MAGNITUDE 3.6 EARTHQUAKE IN THE SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES.</p>
<p>THE EPICENTER OF THE QUAKE APPEARS TO BE BERKELEY CALIFORNIA.</p>
<p>THE QUAKE OCCURRED AT APPROXIMATELY 3:54AM AND CONTINUED FOR 33 SECONDS.</p>
<p>BRIEF AFTERSHOCKS ARE EXPECTED AND WILL DECREASE IN FREQUENCY AND POWER AS THE DAY MOVES ON.</p>
<p><strong><em>END</em></strong></p>
<p>The Venusian stood up for what felt like the first time in a thousand years. His bones ached in a way he could just barely remember having experienced once before as a child when he was still growing. The difference was that as a child it was always his legs that ached, now, it was everything. He felt like his fingers were about to tear themselves apart, like the skin on his skull would split, and that his ribs would erupt from his sides any moment. The displacement was a function of mass due to the immense curvature of space/time involved. The larger the mass, the more power was needed, the more local reality would be distorted. Repeat manipulations of the same space/time could have odd side effects. As he opened his eyes he could see that he was alone, naked, and in the middle of some kind of desert valley or scrubland.</p>
<p>There was a crack of thunder in his temples as local air pressure suddenly- violently- changed to a near vacuum and back again. Now, sitting in the floor of the valley not 10 meters away, was a small black metal case, the same kind he carried himself on his duties on the Hub. Looking closer, he became suddenly very sure it was, to point of fact, the very same case. Approaching it, he slid his hand around the grip, built in biometric scanners positively identified him, and a thumb stud raised on the handle for his convenience, pressing it, the case opened. Inside, he found a full set of clothing, a wallet, sunglasses, and several pages of loose-leaf instructions, definitions, and educational material on the current year, his location, and the cases other contents, including IDs, cash, and something called a Cell.</p>
<p>As he got dressed, he kept a careful eye out for any local wildlife or people, who might find it auspicious or suspicious to find a rather tall naked man in the middle of nowhere. The side effects of displacement were already starting to manifest, as he could see a small pebble gradually making its way upwards through thin air, having been temporarily released from the gravity of mother earth. Earth! The Venusian marveled. He’d only set foot on Earth twice, on his initiation and on his selection for this assignment. Now he was on Earth as she was, long before his own home world had ever even had a man stand on her surface. As he finished dressing, he retrieved the sunglasses and put them on. The literature had warned him, violet eyes were unheard of on Earth in the 2000s.</p>
<p><strong>~</strong></p>
<p>Professor Walthers looked out at San Francisco Bay with trepidation. He’d worn his best suit, again, but it was hardly something to brag about, it was threadbare and patched far too many times to be fashionable, and he had to wear thermal underwear to cope with the cold wind coming off the water. This was his third day coming down to the port to wait for his friends to arrive. They’d had a long trip, plenty of time for things to go wrong, and with the world the way it was, there was no telling what difficulties they may have encountered on the way. Communications had been spotty ever since they’d descended below the equator, and there’d been no communication whatsoever since they’d hit the tropics on their way up the west coast of Latin America.</p>
<p>Suddenly, he saw it, an incredible sight. A ship steaming into San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate bridge for the first time in more than a decade. It was a midsize Cargo ship, the kind that transported freight from city to city following coastal waters. Nothing remotely like it had sailed the bay in more than a decade, ever since the end of the world. When it had happened, Prof. Walthers and a few others who had been a part of a last-resort initiative by the U.S. Government, a few major multinational corporations, and the U.S. Military, had been activated as an effort to preserve mankind’s cultural, academic, and technological knowledge. He himself had overseen a vault containing all of human literature, including some occult works which had helped him to gain something of a rudimentary understanding of the mechanism of the downfall of society. The men coming to meet him, while not a part of The Project, as it had been known, each found themselves integral to its success in different ways in the aftermath. As such, he’d invited them here to propose something radical.</p>
<p>As the ship drew closer, he could see a man standing on the foredeck, wearing a long navy coat. That would be the first of his esteemed guests, Captain Benjamin Longmire; formerly of the US Navy, and Commander of the <em>USS Oregon</em>, a <em>Virginia</em> Class Fast Attack Submarine which had been crucial in the recovery of key artifacts and intelligence about the eldritch creatures that ended the world. On the starboard railing he could see another man, dressed far more casually in jeans and a flannel shirt, heaving his guts out into the bay. If descriptions were to be believed, that would be his second esteemed guest. As the ship pulled up to the pier, Longmire made his way forward, and then came down the gangplank as soon as it was set into place, even before his crew had fully tied the ship to the dock and made her secure. Walking up to him, he extended his hand.</p>
<p>“Professor Walthers, I presume.”</p>
<p>“That old joke, again?”</p>
<p>“I’m just happy to finally say it in person, not over a sat-phone.”</p>
<p>“I guess I can give it to you this time.”</p>
<p>Walthers grasped the man’s hand and then they each pulled in to a hug, grateful for the long-overdue meeting.</p>
<p>“It’s good to see you Ben.”</p>
<p>“Henry. I brought a few East-Coast gifts for you, and a few toys for little Rowyn, he’s still into Power Rangers, right?”</p>
<p>“We’ve had to scrounge up two more DVD players for him, I’m not sure which he’ll wear out first, the DVDs, the players, or me.”</p>
<p>“And Evelyn?”</p>
<p>“She’s fine, she’s fine. Sarya?”</p>
<p>“She’s aboard.”</p>
<p>“What? I thought you were leaving her in charge in DC?”</p>
<p>“She begged to come, and you know me…”</p>
<p>“Couldn’t say no.”</p>
<p>“Right, right.”</p>
<p>“Is, uh, is he aboard?”</p>
<p>“Yeah... In fact I think he finally figured out he can get ashore.”</p>
<p>At the top of the gangplank, the man in the flannel shirt, still looking greenish and nauseated, held onto the ropes with both hands as he eased down one step after the other down to the pier. Once there, he released his grip and kneeled down on the concrete, and put his forehead to the ground before he spoke.</p>
<p>“Oh thank God! Mankind ain’t got no right to being on the ocean. Rivers, fine. Streams, ok, lakes, alright, but the ocean!? Fuck the ocean ok! Ben, I ain’t letting you talk me into a trip back by boat. I’ll brave the Mojave, I’ll cross the Rockies, I’ll walk my fat ass the whole of these former United States back to Florida but I am not getting on none of your fucking boats anymore! You hear me?”</p>
<p>“Yeah Jesse I hear you. You want to get up or..?”</p>
<p>“I’ll be fine here for minute. Just give me, give me a minute, ok? I got to get my bearings back on land.”</p>
<p>“Jesse, this here is the Professor.”</p>
<p>“Eh? Oh, oh… Ok, hold on, lemme get up.”</p>
<p>They watched as he first rolled off his hands and knees onto his side, then onto his rear, and finally as he put himself up on one knee and his hands in order to get up. With some minor struggle he came upright, wavered, then walked over to the pier and threw up into the bay between the Pier and the cargo cessel, whose side he could now see declared her as the <em>Dorian Grey</em>.</p>
<p>Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and walked over, slightly less wobbly, to the two men.</p>
<p>“Heya Prof., sorry for my condition here, uh, blame your boy Benny here, he talked me into this trip and I ain’t kept not food nor water down the <em>whole damn way.</em> Not to mention through the <em>Hurricane</em>…”</p>
<p>Longmire shook his head and raised a hand at Jesse’s chest.</p>
<p>“Cyclone Jesse. We were still in the South Pacific, storms there are called Cyclones.”</p>
<p>“Cyclones, telephones, homophones, who gives a damn? It was a giant suck-ass storm is what it was and you drove us right through it!”</p>
<p>“I did not.”</p>
<p>“Yeah ya did.”</p>
<p>“I went around it.”</p>
<p>“Through.”</p>
<p>“Through… The edge of it.”</p>
<p>“Aha!! See! I done told you!”</p>
<p>Professor Walthers looked over at Captain Longmire, having been silent the entire time since Jesse had come down the gangplank.</p>
<p>“He’s quite the character, isn’t he?</p>
<p>With an exasperated sigh, Longmire replied;</p>
<p>“Absolutely.” </p>
</div><!-- SC_ON -->
<h2 class="mb-0" id="chapter-5">
Chapter 5: Old Friends
</h2>
<p class="mt-0">
<small>Posted on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePhenomenon/comments/7pqz9q/fall_of_man_05_old_friends/" target="_blank">January 11, 2018</a>, back to <a href="#toc-5">TOC</a>.</small>
</p>
<!-- SC_OFF --><div class="md"><p><em>The</em> <strong><em>Falchion</em></strong> <em>is the Peacekeepers most numerous multi-role craft. Highly customizable, it has the capacity to be made into everything from a long-range reconnaissance craft to a medium range bomber to a short range heavy fighter. It can seat up to three, has mountings for extra fuel, weapons pods, or armor plating, has Radar and Infrared capability, a passive jamming system, the standard 120mm cannon, a pod of 10 heat seeking missiles with customizable warheads (from standard high explosive to Nuclear or EMP), and a small Heavy Ion Laser. It can be adapted to carry guided or freefall bombs, and with extra fuel can breach the upper atmosphere and return to orbit of the inner planets, or land on the moons of Neptune or Uranus and then return to orbit (no amount of fuel would allow a Falchion to breach the atmospheres on Saturn or Jupiter, however). The Falchion is also, when stripped down, the basic craft most pilots learn to fly in.</em></p>
<p>The Venusian walked into a store and bought himself a sandwich for $2. It was the first one he’d ever had, and he wasn’t impressed. If he’d chosen something better than a gas-station ham and cheese, that may not have been the case, but as it was, he knew he needed sustenance, and the label indicated it had calories to spare. He had been on assignment for a little over 24 hours, with no other option as of yet, he’d accessed a local Library using his forged credentials. He’d filled in most of the gaps in his briefings on the period. It was worse than they’d ever thought. He now knew that he needed to get from the American West Coast to the American East Coast. To Washington D.C. in point of fact. The question was how. Rail was no longer an option in this time period. Air Travel would involve background checks that had a chance- while slim- of discovering his credentials were forgeries, automobile travel was out of the question as he didn’t know how to drive, and going by sea would take him a great distance off track. The librarian had recommended he catch a greyhound, but his research suggested the animal wouldn’t have nearly the size, strength, or endurance to transport him cross-continent.</p>
<p>What he wouldn’t give for a skiff right now, a quick sub-orbital jump and he’d be there inside half an hour. As it was, he decided to find lodgings for the immediate period. His objective was some weeks away and he couldn’t maintain his appearance if he was indigent. He found cooperation quite easily at the nearest motel, where they asked far less for a night’s stay than he’d expected. They asked for a mere $220. He would have to do further research on the current economic climate and see what options his currency supply might offer. His case, which he had kept with him since he arrived, contained slightly less than the $150,000 in various denominations it had started with.</p>
<p>The age he’d come to was quite different from his own upbringing on Venus. There, most human habitation was subterranean. Space was at a premium. Individual comforts were plentiful, but often not to include large personal spaces. His room at the motel was the size of his entire families domicile growing up. It included a personal washroom and a small dining area. There was an artificial body of chemically maintained water for recreational purposes downstairs. It was surrounded by women in their undergarments resting in the open. On Venus, exposure to the elements was deadly, and social mores relaxed by the close proximity of all your fellow man. But even so, the level of nudity maintained by the women here was shocking to him. He found it exciting as well. He was run of the mill at home, here, judging by the advertisements and media he’d so far seen, he was well above average. He looked forward to seeing how far his pheromone influence would go.</p>
<p>Once he’d bathed himself, he opened his case once more. Inside, in private, without the possibility of prying eyes, he placed his hand on the smooth metal on the outside and accessed the computer within via tactile interface. It had taken some time for the side-effects of displacement to work themselves out of its central processor, which relied on normal local space/time to function. Now it had acclimatized itself, and had begun accessing and working through the primitive data network present in this time. The first thing it did was research travel options, which illuminated him to his error regarding the Greyhound recommendation made by the librarian. A commuter service named after the animal would serve to get him to D.C. It used its connection to order and pay for the requisite travel documents so that they would be awaiting him at his departure point the next afternoon.</p>
<p>The second thing it did was find all currently available information of several key persons. Some he was to find and make contact with, others he was to avoid at all costs. Dr. Rafei at NASA, Commander Benjamin Longmire USN, Dr. Jacobi at DARPA, Ms. Christine Aguilar, Mr. Oliver Watts… The list went on, separated by categories. First priority was Dr. Jacobi. He was priority. Information he held was vital to his mission, if he failed with Jacobi, he might as well sit waiting, looking at the eastern sky, with his eyes wide open. Jacobi was supposed to be at the Pentagon, setting the stages for an important initiative between the US Federal Government and several notable multinational corporations and academic institutions. His trip there would be spent in study, familiarizing himself with media and culture of the era. Common phrases and memes of information and humor were a critical portion of blending in.</p>
<p>He’d also have to get used to his new identity. His own name would be strange and alien to people of the time unfamiliar with Venusian naming conventions. So he’d taken on a new moniker from the individual whose identity he’d assumed. Name, birthdate, something called a Social Security number which he was told was analogous to a HubID in that it tracked him and his activities within society and acted as proof of identity. Fortunately biometrics and visual images of the original were non-existent, so he could purport himself as he wished. Still, there was a distinct lack of activity between the original owner of the information and himself, enough that it could raise flags if he suddenly started throwing his information around without explanation. It wouldn’t do to bring Viktor Reitmeyer back from the dead so suddenly.</p>
<p><strong>~</strong></p>
<p>Ramses Goveretski was tired, hungry, and in severe pain. He had been tired, hungry, and in severe pain for as long as he could remember. The augmentations made to him and his crew were experimental, primitive compared to those now enjoyed by the citizens of the Hegemony. Each of them had their own specific issues. Deformities, tics, mental issues… The price of immortality was to suffer the tortures of hell without being dead. Still, after a few centuries, you got used to it, it was only when it was time for rest that it was truly intolerable. Needing to quiet the mind in order to rest left nothing to distract you from the deep and abiding pain. In his bones, in his head, in his guts and his chest… Everywhere they’d changed, everything they’d altered. He and his entire crew carried it every day, and always would, until they accomplished their chosen purpose.</p>
<p>Today had been a momentous day. Today they had begun the final step of their great task. Centuries of work and toil, decades of careful preparation and negotiation. All of it was about to pay off, the very next morning, and here they were, each in their own crèche, each in their own hell of torment, each knowing that the others were just as filled with grim determination. So long together, so long working, so long suffering in common cause, it had developed their own kind of hive mentality. They could read each other’s minds to an astonishing degree of accuracy. Sometimes they’d go weeks now without speech simply because they could. It was said that great works could inspire great minds and exalted deeds. They each knew, they were the very embodiment of the opposite. Terrible works could inspire horrifying minds, and works of vile darkness.</p>
<p><strong>~</strong></p>
<p>Professor Walthers, Captain Benjamin Longmire, and the Honorable Mr. Jesse Able, Mayor of Panama City Florida, walked into a room nearly twenty feet under the former campus of the University of California Berkeley. Inside the room, The Professor had been conducting experiments and research into the occult, ancient religions, superstitious beliefs and their value or efficacy. He had made some surprising discoveries in his decade of work. It started during the events that effectively ended the world, wiping out more than 99% of the Earth’s population in a little under three months. A former student of his named Alex had begun, taking cues from another member of the project and the gift of an artifact of the occult, he’d ended up summoning an eldritch abomination out of thin air into this very same room using nothing more than a ritual using salt, his own blood, and the artifact. Using symbols and chants, he’d brought a monster from some other location beyond the mortal ken directly to him, where it had killed him, a few others, and injured the professor in a way that left him with a limp and a cane for the rest of his life.</p>
<p>Science had been Henry Walthers religion before the end of the world. Now his beliefs, his understanding, was far broader. He still used the methodology of science, repeatability and falsifiability, but he applied it to relationships and causation in ways pure science had long since cast aside as hokum and superstition. He had a saying now, as a way of making light of his newfound beliefs. “When reason fails, take a stab at black magic and mad science.” The room bore the evidence of his research. Tables were piled with printouts, diagrams, and strange objects, some familiar if out of place, others bizarre beyond description. One look could see that his research had borne fruit, however. On several tables objects seem to defy physics, floating, growing or shrinking in size, or emanating endless streams of bizarre fluid which were directed by makeshift sluices towards a drain at the side of the room. The center of the room was dominated, however, by a large circle drawn on the floor, partially in coal, partially in salt, partially in other, more unusual materials. There were thousands of symbols incorporated into its design, and the whole thing was emanating a low baleful green glow with components of purple, as if the whole thing was burning with a half inch exotic flame. Captain Longmire looked at it with dread, but remained silent. Jesse was incapable of doing so.</p>
<p>“Jesus Christ Professor, what in God’s name do you do down here?”</p>
<p>“This is my research laboratory. This is where I find what works and what doesn’t. And I’ve made some rather interesting discoveries.”</p>
<p>“I ain’t sure I can get behind this. I mean, I ain’t like, real <em>real</em> religious, but that thing there looks straight up evil.”</p>
<p>“Is a gun evil Jesse?”</p>
<p>“Nah, A gun’s a tool, whether it’s good or evil depends on how it’s used, and that guilt rests with the man pulling the trigger.”</p>
<p>“So it is with the occult. I’ve found that the things I’ve learned are neither good nor evil, they simply are. I have to look at the history, these things were practiced by the outcasts of society, people who were rejected, hurt, ostracized… It doesn’t surprise me they’d find use for these things to enact revenge on those who spurned them.”</p>
<p>“Uh-huh.”</p>
<p>“None of that is what spurred me to call you here, however.”</p>
<p>Captain Longmire cocked his head to the side.</p>
<p>“Back when I first reported Jesses story to you, you cleared off three days to brief me and send me reams of material on the initiative you were part of to preserve human knowledge in the wake of a world ending event. That was a decade ago. For eight years you didn’t mention it again, or Jesse. Then two years ago you started asking if I could come visit and if I could bring Jesse.”</p>
<p>“Yes…”</p>
<p>“Spit it out Henry.”</p>
<p>“I think that the occult, the powers and abilities endowed by the mechanisms and methodologies I’ve been researching... I think they’re dependent on certain alignments of astral phenomena.”</p>
<p>“Ok, and that means what?”</p>
<p>“As our solar system moves through space, specifically our local orbit in our Galactic Arm, we come into proximity to certain arrangements of Pulsars, Nebulae, and other bodies. I’ve noticed that the power and efficacy of the occult has waned in the past three years, and if it continues, will vanish completely inside the next two.”</p>
<p>Jesse scratched his head for a second and then spoke.</p>
<p>“Ain’t that a good thing though? I mean, if the power of- I ain’t gonna mince words here, but- if the power of magic is what drove the Shards and the Tall Ones, ain’t it a damn good thing that it’s fading?”</p>
<p>“Maybe, but think about it, imagine if we’d known about these powers before they came? What if we’d been able to mount a defense? What if, with the right combination of black magic and mad science, we could have prevented the end of the world?”</p>
<p>Captain Longmire rocked back with the realization.</p>
<p>“You’re talking about a new Project.”</p>
<p>“Yes. I think we need to set up a system where <em>this</em> knowledge is preserved. For next time.”</p>
<p>“How long are we talking?”</p>
<p>“If I’ve figured things right? If I’ve picked the right astral markers and done my calculations right for how they’ve effected things… We’re looking at small recursions of occult power every two thousand years, roughly equivalent to the power we see now ten years on, with big spikes every forty thousand years. I’m confident in that number if nothing else because of the information you retrieved from New York.”</p>
<p>Jesse looked between the two of them, confused.</p>
<p>“What info from New York?”</p>
<p>Longmire turned to him and explained.</p>
<p>“Back during the event, I took the <em>Oregon</em> up to New York and retrieved a bunch of research into cave drawings by an archeologist named Opperthorne. They described a menace in the skies that mankind in Europe barely survived… Forty thousand years ago.”</p>
<p>“Oh, so, the Shards and the Tall Ones showed up forty thousand years ago, ten years ago, and he’s betting forty thousand years from now.”</p>
<p>“That’s the long and the short of it.”</p>
<p>“And this Project, is it like the one Rafei was a part of?”</p>
<p>“The very same.”</p>
<p>“And he wants to start it back up?”</p>
<p>“As a means to preserve information and protect mankind, yes.”</p>
<p>“Well, that’s a noble goal and all, but, what’s it got to do with me?”</p>
<p>Walthers took Jesse by the shoulders and looked him in the eye.</p>
<p>“Jesse, you’re the only human being we know of who made peaceful contact with a Tall One. We need you to do it again.” </p>
</div><!-- SC_ON -->
<h2 class="mb-0" id="chapter-6">
Chapter 6: That Which Doesn't Kill You
</h2>
<p class="mt-0">
<small>Posted on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePhenomenon/comments/7r3eyq/fall_of_man_06_that_which_doesnt_kill_you/" target="_blank">January 17, 2018</a>, back to <a href="#toc-6">TOC</a>.</small>
</p>
<!-- SC_OFF --><div class="md"><p><em>The</em> <strong><em>Heron</em></strong> <em>is the Peacekeepers premier patrol craft. It’s standard configuration seats up to six comfortably and has a small cabin with amenities such as a shower capsule and small kitchen. Fully stocked, the craft can operate independently for up to three standard weeks. It’s lightly armed and armored, carrying only two</em> <strong><em>Javelin</em></strong> <em>missiles as a form of self-defense. What it lacks in offensive capability, however, it makes up for in utility. The</em> <strong><em>Heron</em></strong> <em>is coated in Radar dispersive material and its main propulsion is a high output low temperature variant which allows it to evade detection under most circumstances. It has a highly sophisticated jamming system built into its communication package, and is the smallest ship equipped with a fusion generator in order to avoid needing to refuel very often. It has atmospheric capability as well as orbit-to-surface-to-orbit capability on the inner planets and some small moons.</em></p>
<p>Lieutenant Oleandor tweaked the control stick slightly to fire a few monopropellant thrusters, throwing the craft into a slow roll. Small pieces of debris moving at only a few decameters per second tinged and ricocheted off the hull as he made his way through the lightest portion of the debris field. The roll pulled the craft into a similar frame of reference as the immense bulk of the <em>Callisto</em>, now only a few meters away. They had maneuvered several times with a few slow burns and corrections in order to get the transport craft into the proper orientation and course to intercept the largest gaping hole in the <em>Callisto</em>, now, they were looking dead to rights at it. An immense gash ripped into the spacecraft showed them fully six decks and the spaces between. The edges of the tear were jagged, ripped, not melted or clean like an energy weapon, dispelling the idea that <em>Callisto</em> had been purposefully attacked. As the cargo transports lights played over the innards, Ayon played the searchlights over her. Suddenly, he jerked the light back the way he’d had it a few seconds before, attracting Oleandors attentions.</p>
<p>“What is it, did you see something?”</p>
<p>“Movement, I thought I saw movement!”</p>
<p>“Bah… That was probably just a pocket of debris coming loose from centripetal force.”</p>
<p>“Are you sure it couldn’t be a survivor?”</p>
<p>“Saturn P.F. doesn’t have the fancy augmentations Hegemony crews have. There were no immortals on the <em>Callisto</em>.”</p>
<p>“No… Look! There it is again! A flash of white, look!”</p>
<p>“Holy shit I saw it too. Let me maneuver us in closer.”</p>
<p>Oleandor floated the couple of feet back to the pilots console and triggered a few small thrusters to maneuver the transport almost fully within the wound on <em>Callisto</em>s side. Suddenly, there was a flash of crimson light. Oleandor and Ayon both looked up in shock to be transfixed by the creature unfolding itself from the wreckage and hurling itself out through space at the transport. Long spindly fingers outstretched forward and peg-like feet trailing behind as it moved the dozen meters or so towards the craft, its mouth open and pouring the light ahead of it as it came. With the screeching of rended metal, it caught itself on the hull of the transport, its squashed face only inches from the forward viewport. As it looked in on them, they were incapable of moving as more of the titanic monsters came out of the <em>Callisto</em> and hurled themselves at the craft.</p>
<p><strong>~</strong></p>
<p>Vegman had flashes in and out of consciousness. He could remember falling, feeling the pain blossom from his solar plexus out through his chest. He could smell the charred flesh from the wound as he lay on the deck in the passageway outside the VIP cabin. Then he could see one of his crewmans faces… Who was it? One of the load minders, just a kid really, looking down at him. Then the lights, the lights moving overhead as he was carried- no- rolled down a passage somewhere, so fast… Then he was here. Only he didn’t quite know where ‘here’ was.</p>
<p>By the looks of it, it was some kind of medical facility, definitely not aboard the <em>Canus Major</em> anymore. Her medbay was smaller than this room, and the recovery rooms were basically slots in a wall. There was a nice Holo of Mercury and the Sun on the wall. He was laying comfortably on a bed. There were five or six monitor drones hovering next to the bed. As he looked at them they flashed their purposes across their skins. Pretty much a standard assortment, one kept scan of his heartbeat and nervous system, one measured his exhalations to determine oxygenation and detect any respiratory troubles, one kept a lock on his skin temperature to monitor for hotspots indicating infection, two alternated duties checking and monitoring his neurological activity.</p>
<p>Obviously he was in some kind of Hospital, but he’d been to the biggest Hospital in orbit of Jupiter and this was nothing like it, this place was far better equipped, for one thing. For another, he couldn’t rate it, it was for the rich, or a member of the Peacekeepers, and he was a transport captain. True, he’d taken a diplomatic passenger as a special assignment, but that was just due to the <em>Canus Major</em> <strong>looking</strong> the part due to her history. Something was off. As he was pondering these events, the door lit up blue, indicating someone was waiting permission to enter. Medical personnel would light it up green and walk in after five or six seconds delay, so this must be a visitor. He tried to give them permission but his mouth was dry. He looked around the room and saw the general needs kiosk on the wall, so he searched his bed for the control. He found it attached to the railing on his right side. Pushing the indicator for water, the kiosk dispatched a small drone with a cup and straw directly to the bedside by his head. The straw extended and he grabbed hold, taking a small pull he gargled and wet his entire mouth before swallowing and pushing it away.</p>
<p>“You can come in.”</p>
<p>The door flashed white in acknowledgement before sliding to the side and allowing his XO and his Navigator in. Max and Cann were an older married couple who’d been plying the lanes long before he was born, they were simultaneously his most trusted crew and his best friends. As they entered the room suddenly darkened a bit. Looking over at the Holo he saw the Hub pass by, temporarily shielding them from a large part of the suns brilliance in the background.</p>
<p>“Would you look at that, nice detail on whoever made the Holo.”</p>
<p>Max and Cann looked at him with confusion, then Cann dropped his jaw slightly.</p>
<p>“Daq, do you know where you are?”</p>
<p>“Not a damn clue, I presume you’ll enlighten me.”</p>
<p>“Well, for one, that’s not a Holo, that’s a polarized porthole.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“We’re at Crimson, cap.”</p>
<p>Crimson Station was one of the oldest and biggest space stations in the Solar System, well within the Hegemony, it orbited Mercury and acted as a transport and shipping hub for Hegemony citizens and business’ with interests or family on Mercury. It was also home to upwards of 2 million permanent residents and another half million temporary residents working on it’s constant expansion and improvement. All of this meant that he was several orbits away from where he should be near Jupiter.</p>
<p><strong>~</strong></p>
<p>Goveretski’s eyes snapped open before his alarm had the chance to wake him. All of their eyes did. They had had this routine for hundreds of years. The body learns the routines of the day. Wordlessly they all came out of their berths and filed through the process of their daily hygienic routine. Shower, shave, teeth, powder, dress. They worked as fine-tuned machines, having perfected their rhythms down to the millisecond. In fact, none of them even really thought during the process, it had become ingrained muscle memory long ago. Instead, all their thoughts were on the day, and if all their preparations, their sacrifices, would come to be worth it, or would fail. As they finished dressing they took their normal positions by the exit to their chambers, all awaiting Ramses’ word, as usual. Today was different, however.</p>
<p>“Gentle… Gentlemen…”</p>
<p>His voice was long disused, their shorthand of body language having mostly replaced speech. They were surprised to hear it now.</p>
<p>“Figg… Iotashi… Stern… Patir… We have worked so long. Given so much… And not one of you has ever faltered or failed. I have had the long honor of being your commanding officer. Today we strike back at the evils that sent us here, that damned us to an eternal hell of pain and loathing. Today, gentleman… We walk out that door not as a team under my command… But as brothers anointed and baptized in suffering. I follow you, now.”</p>
<p>If they had tears left, they didn’t come. Instead, the five men stood, and the order they left their home was opposite of what it had been ever before, the last left first, the first, last. As the door shut, Goveretski keyed the pad outside the door, and the habitat filled with flame. They walked then to their great project, their destiny, their labor of hate… It stood ready and eager to receive them; a monument to rage and destruction.</p>
<p><strong>~</strong></p>
<p>Jesse’s eyes got wide and he looked back and forth between Walthers and Longmire.</p>
<p>“Uh… Nope.”</p>
<p>He tried to turn and walk out of the room but Longmire stepped ahead of him and blocked his path.</p>
<p>“Jesse, please hear us out.”</p>
<p>“There ain’t nothin’ t’hear out. I ain’t doin’ it.”</p>
<p>“We’re reasonably assured of your safety Jesse.”</p>
<p>“You may be, but I’m not, so I ain’t doin’ it.”</p>
<p>“Listen-“</p>
<p>“No! <em>You</em> listen! Have you ever seen one of these things? What they can do? I had an armored truck back when things went to hell, one of these Tall Ones opened it barehanded like it was made of wet tissue paper! Nuh-uh! Ain’t gonna do it!”</p>
<p>“I have seen them Jesse, as has the Professor. We know what they’re capable of. We also have a reasonable idea of their limitations. All we want to do is see if we can repeat the calling that the Professors student did so long ago, see if we can bring one here, and if you can talk to it, then, well, we want to track down their lairs.”</p>
<p>“Excuse me? What the hell are y’all on about ‘lairs’?”</p>
<p>The Professor walked with the aid of his cane to one of the desks with a recognizable function, it held a computer and piles of binders. He picked through them until he came up with the one he wanted. Then he came back to Jesse and Longmire.</p>
<p>“I’ve been collecting witness accounts from during the Phenomenon, comparing them, digging through them for any clues we might use to figure out exactly what happened. This is the account of a witness from southern Arizona. He saw Tall Ones emerging from deep within the same set of caves he himself had taken refuge in. He tells of how he avoided them and kept hidden, and then eventually got curious and went down to try and find where they came from. He describes finding a bizarre series of tunnels, unlike anything that should exist in that area, going deeper than anything he’d ever seen. He didn’t explore them fully, he got scared, and he came back to the surface and gambled on making it to other shelter. He didn’t, but his journal was picked up and brought to us here.”</p>
<p>“Ok, so why don’t you go and find them there caves and tunnels, what’cha need me for?”</p>
<p>“We did, and the caves terminated as caves do, but there were no tunnels. The caves are named and the witness took the time to sketch them in detail, we are certain we found the right caves, but, there were no tunnels, they disappeared. I think they, like the intensity of power, can drift in and out of attunement with our time and space. The tunnels both exist and don’t exist. If we could get a Tall One to help us pinpoint where they’ll be, we can prepare ourselves better.”</p>
<p>“…”</p>
<p>“That’d.. Uh… That’d prolly save a whole lot of folk a lot of trouble if we could do that, huh?”</p>
<p>“Oh yes Jesse, it could save thousands, maybe even millions of lives in the future.”</p>
<p>“And all I gotta do is try to talk to it, you’ll do all the voodoo mumbo-jumbo?”</p>
<p>“Yes Jesse.”</p>
<p>“Aw hell… I’m gonna regret this…”</p>
</div><!-- SC_ON -->
<h2 class="mb-0" id="chapter-7">
Chapter 7: Transition
</h2>
<p class="mt-0">
<small>Posted on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePhenomenon/comments/7s7znk/fall_of_man_07_transition/" target="_blank">January 22, 2018</a>, back to <a href="#toc-7">TOC</a>.</small>
</p>
<!-- SC_OFF --><div class="md"><p><em>A</em> <strong><em>Frigate</em></strong> <em>is the classification for the lightest Independent combat vessel in service. There are three standard varieties, the</em> <strong><em>Peregrine</em></strong> <em>is a light Frigate, lightly armored for better maneuverability and lightly armed due to being assigned to essential non-combat duties. The</em> <strong><em>Sparrow</em></strong> <em>is the standard class of Frigate, running with a few layers of ablative armor and a standard armament of four kinetic weapon emplacements, a missile pod, and a two heavy Ion Lasers. The</em> <strong><em>Condor</em></strong> <em>is a class of Heavy frigate, featuring ablative and refractive armor layers and a much heavier armament including 6 kinetic weapons emplacements, two missile pods and three heavy Ion Lasers. Of course from light to standard to heavy maneuverability, acceleration, and energy efficiency ratings all suffer. Frigates usually run with crews of ten to fourteen (plus a ship AI) with no accommodations for passengers. They have a small fusion reactor for energy and can operate independently for perhaps as long as a month and a half if the crew is careful with their provisions. Frigates are capable of entering atmospheres and returning to orbit and under emergency conditions can land as a last resort, though no Heavy Frigate has ever successfully landed without casualties.</em></p>
<p>The gate transition to Jupiter was some of <em>Ceres</em> crews first experience with gate travel. Throughout training it was tradition for Instructors and elder members of the Peacekeepers to keep trainees on their toes by making up outlandish stories about gate transitions. Popular varieties include ships exiting the receiving gate in pieces, that is, not all at once and broken into sections, crewmembers disappearing during transition, bizarre creatures appearing aboard after transition, and ships exiting compacted and the entire ship and crew occupying the same cubic meter of space. Most trainees recognized the stories as bunk and reacted accordingly, but it always left a mark which had new crew on edge during their first transition. This one was no different. As he <em>Ceres</em> orbit approached Mars’ polar gate, Captain Sayle noticed a few of the new crew being a little jittery. Waving over his XO, a Commander named Dawp, he whispered into his ear and sent him on his way. The XO smiled and nodded before resuming his rounds. As he approached the helm, he leaned over and whispered into their helmsman’s ear. Ensign Liret, a brunette that had been playing the XO since she came aboard, smiled too, then winked at the XO. The XO straightened and looked back at the Captain before winking himself. The game was set.</p>
<p>As the <em>Ceres</em> made her final adjustments to send her though the polar gate, she fired her thrusters to orient herself on a slow roll so that on her exit from the gate over Jupiter she’d be properly oriented to her direction of travel. The thrusters fired long, and gradually, as <em>Ceres</em> carried towards the gate, she came slightly off course and headed along a path that would have her impact the gate boundary. As the external feeds showed the gate perimeter getting larger and larger, the new crewmembers stopped jittering and stared. Some looked back and forth from the feeds to Liret, who was busying herself examining her nails and the cuffs of her uniform. As the collision alarm sounded, the preset course correction Liset had programmed in took effect and the port thrusters fired, but they fired short, starting and then cutting out while they were still on a collision course. She immediately threw her hands back down on the tactile interface pads, as Sayle leaned forward and prepared to bark out an order, the port thrusters fired again, hard, sending <em>Ceres</em> back towards the center of the gate. Halfway there the starboard thruster fired at half power and then slowly petered down to nothing, leaving the ship stopped except for her forward momentum carrying her directly through the center of the gate.</p>
<p>The new crewmembers didn’t exhale until they transitioned, however, a rather disappointing experience after all the buildup. There was a flash of white as they and the <em>Ceres</em> was transitioned suddenly from <em>here</em> to <em>there</em> when the gate exchanged the local space/time from over Mars’ polar orbit directly to an equatorial orbit over Jupiter. They felt no acceleration, nor any sensation at all except the sudden transition from normal vision, to everything being white, to back again. The transition caused a waste product of short lived photons which crashed all around every portion of the time/space being transferred, picked up by optical nerves as white light. The <em>Ceres</em> continued on its languid course, now moving at a much higher speed in orbit over the largest planet in the solar system. Captain Sayle keyed a ship wide announcement through the tactile interface in his chair before speaking.</p>
<p>“Ladies and Gentlemen we’ve successfully transitioned to Jupiter orbit, as I’m sure you new folk now realize, the stories about bizarre or unusual occurrences during transition are much exaggerated. It’s tradition to mess with you when you’re trainees. Some of you may end up as instructors one day, or at least deal with trainees in some other capacity. Consider it an official order to carry on the tradition when you get the chance, it’s one of the few times its acceptable to tell a lie while wearing the uniform, feel free to make it ridiculous or terrifying, just, don’t spoil the fun for the rest of us.”</p>
<p>As the XO walked back up to the center chair, Sayle leaned over to speak low.</p>
<p>“Was that a real misfire on the port thruster or Ensign Liset <em>mean</em> to give me a heart attack there?”</p>
<p>“Last time your demeanor gave away the game to some of the newbies on deck, so we came up with a way to make sure they were all convinced.”</p>
<p>“Never again, am I clear?”</p>
<p>“Absolutely Sir.”</p>
<p>“Good. Oh, and give Liset an extra hour off duty on the next rotation for original thinking on that false thruster failure.”</p>
<p>“Yes Sir.”</p>
<p>“Go ahead and start us on a standard patrol, alternate every other orbit, changing inclination to give us a planet-wide sensor coverage in the minimum amount of time.”</p>
<p>“Jupiter’s big sir, that might take a while.”</p>
<p>“I know but I want a good baseline on traffic in this orbit and between Jupiter and her moons. Have <em>Ceres</em> keep a tally of civilians, Peacekeeper, and Commercial traffic.”</p>
<p>“We expecting trouble sir?”</p>
<p>“I doubt it, but it behooves us to take our duties seriously.”</p>
<p>“What will you be doing Sir?”</p>
<p>“Me? Nothing.”</p>
<p>“We’re at Jupiter Sir.”</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“Well its just that last time we were in this neighborhood-“</p>
<p>“That was last time.”</p>
<p>“Not now?</p>
<p>“No, not now.”</p>
<p>“Remember what happened last time?”</p>
<p>“Yes, I remember.”</p>
<p>“Good.”</p>
<p>“You know, <em>I’m</em> the Captain, <em>you’re</em> supposed to listen to <em>me.</em>”</p>
<p>“You made me promise.”</p>
<p>“I did?”</p>
<p>“You did.”</p>
<p>“Oh, well, carry on then.”</p>
<p>“I will.”</p>
<p>“Good.”</p>
<p><strong>~</strong></p>