28 January 2017
Slowly, painfully, IM struggled to her feet. The last thing she remembered was reviewing some reports on the computer console in her office when the whole thing just exploded...
"What the hell just happened?" she mumbled to herself.
The lights were off. Not even the emergency lights were on, which, technically, were a complete impossibility. Standard and emergency lighting were on seperate grids, seperate generators, seperate everything! The odds against both failing at once were astronomical. Yet even with her extremely acute low-light vision, she could barely make out her hand in front of her face.
She could smell smoke as well, but it was somewhat difficult to pinpoint the exact source. Her computer? Probably. The light fixtures? Maybe.
"IM? IM, are you there?" a voice echoed up the corridor.
"I'm here. And alive" she called back. "Who is that?"
She heard the sound of feet coming closer and a light source appeared somewhere in the outside.
"Rescue party! Don't worry, IM, we're coming."
Finally, the light rounded the corner and she caught a glimpse of a few drones before she had to shield her eyes from the glare.
"Finally, we found y... Oh dear. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine!" IM snapped. "Just get the damn light out of my eyes!"
The light dimmed and several figures detached from the gloom to help, all the while staring at her as if they had seen a ghost.
"IM, your face..." one said.
She touched her right cheek with her palm and her hand came away slick with blood.
"Can you see anything?"
"Of course I can't bloody see anything if you stick your hand over my eye!"
"I meant out of your other eye."
"I had a look in the mirror, Doc, I know there is nothing there but blood and gore" IM cut back.
"Of course, of course, I had to check. There doesn't seem to be any fresh bleeding though, but that could be because it cauterized the wound..."
"What? What cauterized the wound?"
"Well, I suspect you got hit in the eye by an arc of electricity from your computer. It appears as if it superheated the fluid inside the eye, basically making it explode. On the other hand, the eye also absorbed all the energy that would otherwise have been running around in your brain. You are really lucky to be alive."
"Really? Then why don't I feel that way? Now where are the damn painkillers!?"
"Now can somebody tell me what the hell happened? And stop staring at my bloody face!" IM shouted. She and her inner circle were seated under a tree outside Swarm Command. Strange, dim lights were dancing across the sky.
"I really think you should get that checked out" PC suggested. "It looks rather serious. I mean, your eye..."
"Already had it checked out. Doctor said the eye is lost regardless and the bleeding has stopped. I'll get it properly cleaned and bandaged later."
US shrugged. "As far as I have been able to gather, we got hit by a massive solar storm. Blew out almost every electrical grid on the planet."
"Solar Storm? Like a solar flare?" IM interrupted.
"Sort of. It is technically called a Coronal Mass Ejection and it basically means that Wrixom got hit by a metric smegton of radiation and ionized particles. They reacted with the planets magnetic field and inducted a few gigavolt in everything capable of holding a charge. You should have seen the sky, it was lit up like a psychotropic spotlight."
A few moments of silence descended over the gathered group.
"We thought you were dead, IM. When you didn't evacuate with the rest of us..." PC began, but IM waved her sentiments off.
"Just give me the condensed version. What did we lose?"
US fished out a small - and surprisingly still functional - data console. "Let's see. We are still getting reports in, but it looks like we will be able to get the power grid back online within a few days. Drones are on it already. Academy only has minor damage, shouldn't impede operations... Our industrial facilities are fine, their built in safeties triggered... Ah, our research facilities. They had some rather sensitive equipment plugged in. All fried now, I'm afraid, and secondary fires caused quite a bit of damage. All in all, should take about six months to get everything back to fully operational. 'Till then they will be operating at diminished capacity. In addition, some files were lost, setting us back a bit on our research."
"Dammit. Any way we could have seen this coming?" IM asked.
"I think that was my fault" PC admitted. "When Epsilon's Myrkul-B went dark I should have..."
"Wait" IM interrupted, "were our ships affected as well?"
"Erm... yeah. The Drake and the Hudson had sufficient shielding and suffered only a few minor system failures, but the Myrkuls weren't so lucky. They had minimal shielding and are now little more than irradiated, lifeless hulks tumbling through space. All of them were either in orbit around Wrixom or caught between the sun and us. The commercial shipyard also suffered some minor electrical damage, though the Gamma Yards are fine. They were better shielded."
A horrible thought popped into IM's head. "What about the offworld colonies?"
"First Stop should be fine," US replied, "the colony was on the dark side of the planet when it hit. We've already picked up some transmissions from there. Rube on the other hand... we think it caught the edge of the storm. It's dead quiet."
IM jumped up. "As soon as we can make contact with either Gamma or the two starships, I want them sent out to Rube. We need to know what's going on there."
OOC:
So here is the skinny. Because I lost about two years of progress, which I now replayed, I did things a bit different. For one, I never bothered to construct the Myrkuls. They were useless anyway. Also, I decided to construct ten factories before starting on my commercial shipyard and the subsequent research facilities. This has put me behind a little on my research and lab construction, but nothing serious. I also forgot to start expanding the commercial shipyard the moment it was completed, which means it is now behind as well. Oh well.