June 15:
Bahraman Afsarzadeh was standing in line for his daily ration of tuber stew, one of the few vegetables which would still grow, at least during the summer months, under the unprotected sky. A tiny dash of garnish, grains and stalks from the hydroponics facilities and a few small cubes of a protean he tried his very best not to think about rounded out the dish. It was not really a good dish, but when hot it was significantly better than the insects and vermin he would be hunting for ‘dinner’.
Sadly, the only heat in his bowl was the slight radioactivity. They had tried to brush off the thick top layer of fallout before tilling to get down to better soil, but more fell every day.
He regarded the cold, sticky slop. This glop was hours old, cooked in the morning, and there was no spare fuel to keep it hot. Today, unfortunately, he had been out on work detail until long after it had gelatinized.
Regardless he wolfed it down, not bothering to sit. In another time, metabolization had come with some accompanying rituals and niceties, but he knew better than to move about the bunker with food in hand. Things were still maintaining a thin semblance of order, but there was no reason to take dumb risks.
As he headed for the door, thinking of finding a secluded corner to slowly rot away in, he heard voices behind him.
“That’s him. ”
He knew that voice - it was the man who took his bunk after his sleep shift was over. They had exchanged niceties a few times, but Bahraman hadn’t bothered to remember his name. He hadn’t bothered to do much of late.
A moment of panic - was his bunkmate passing blame on something? Hidden food? The panic redoubled when he saw the man stepping around his accuser - it was Abbaseh.
He was soup now for sure, Bahraman thought to himself resignedly.
“I heard from Jamshid here that you used to work at Esfandiari-Hameed in the capital?” the dictator in all but name asked him bluntly.
Not the turn of conversation he was expecting.
“. . . Yes. I used to work in the power systems unit. ”
He stared blankly back at Abbaseh, not sure what to say, but very sure that turning and running would not be a suitable response, despite his instinct to do just that.
Abbaseh smiled slightly back at him and asked-
“So, you’ve worked with the standard E-H reactor cans before?”
“Yes… actually, I was a project manager for one of the naval class can designs. ”
Abbaseh’s maw gaped open now, in a predatory expression that bore little resemblance to a smile in Bahraman’s considered opinion.
“And those cans aren’t much different from the Yazdi-Lajevardi model?”
… it was tempting to lie, but any idiot knew that sealed reactor cans for the military had been standardized to be drop-in replaceable.
He automatically stuttered out: “Yeah?”
. . . wait, would a layman really know that? Or was it just him that knew that?
Abbaseh’s grin grew wider, which Bahraman would not have believed possible seconds ago. His stomach sank.
“Congratulations, you get double rations today! And as a bonus prize, you are coming outside with me. We found a Y-L medium reactor can out at a po-dunk air strip nobody bothered to bomb. We think we can shift it over here, assuming it works and we can disconnect it without, you know, boom?”
Smeg.
“Grab your kit. Don’t worry, it’s only about 5 Roentgen if we’re quick. ”
Smeg.
Nov 12:
Alphios of Myndus’s dorsal ridge shivered, his spines flicked, his transceivers stuttered and popped in shock. His aides about the large room added a tight syncopation of dismay to his sending from their workstations.
The report blat from Cronos of Argyroupoli was terse and to the point - disaster. Something had gone wrong during the test firing of the Nuclear Pulse Engine array for the Aphrodite class at the Argos yard.
The exact cause was both unknown and obvious at once - an accident. Kaeptyn under stress, pushing until their digits bled. Untested components, kludged onto components designed so long ago no-one had any practical knowledge of their workings.
Catastrophic drive failure had instantaneously killed 36 dockyard workers and imparted enough thrust onto the second slip to push it free of it’s mooring to the yard. By some caprice of fate, that thrust pushed it directly toward slip one. The collision was relatively slow, as these things go, giving workers precious minutes to evacuate - but the inertia imparted was enormous.
Both hulls were a total loss. Worse, Cronos estimated the yard capacity itself would be out of commission for some months.
Chrono’s relayed waves betrayed not a hint of guilt, only frustration and overtones of anger and loss. Alphio’s spines shook in irritation - the largest industrial disaster in two generations and the overseer feels no guilt? Worse, the smug bastard sent subtle undertones - this had been a known and accepted risk to anyone with half a brain? It was infuriating, but while he hated to admit it, also true. They had all known the risks. They had chosen to bully forward anyway.
The first batch of terraforming equipment and infrastructure had been completed last week, easily enough to fill 6 hulls - and 2 of their 3 planned hulls were no more.
Cronos had of course tendered his resignation - and Alphios was sorely tempted to accept, and be rid of this confounding, hard spined old coot. However, in these mad times, no-one else was more qualified and willing to dare the depths of the void and it’s eerie stillness. To replace him would be to delay. And the commune would brook no delay.
Any means to achieve success of the commune’s goals must be grasped, no matter how irksome to Alphios personally. He and his aides were in concordance on this, and their family units had weighed in the affirmative as well. The general bellwether of the commune was unshifted - stay the course, come what may.
OOC: Actually I kinda had the wrong ship class tooled and building for 10 months before canceling it and retooling, lol. I decided to roll with it instead of SM hacking myself out of the problem, but uh, an industrial accident sounds way cooler
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