THE BARTDON PAPERS - "Cancel all previous directives."

[UnusualAttitude]

7 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

What was the end of the message?

You don't want to know, please believe me.

[Geschosskopf]

5 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Mitzon and I alone heard the terrifying conclusion to the First Mate's message.

Well, I guess it's safe to assume it was along the lines of "Choose the form of your Destructor"

Hmmm, 10 years.  I guess the Kerbals had better start immediately, not waiting for Barty and crew to return.  Poor Camwise

[KAL 9000]

Aah! Did it drive them insane?

[UnusualAttitude]

5 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

Aah! Did it drive them insane?

Nah, Bartdon is made of sterner stuff than your average Lovecraft character. However, he judiciously wants to avoid mass hysteria.

[KAL 9000]

27 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Nah, Bartdon is made of sterner stuff than your average Lovecraft character. However, he judiciously wants to avoid mass hysteria.

Tell me the message! Please!

[UnusualAttitude]

1 hour ago, KAL 9000 said:

Tell me the message! Please!

Look, pal. I'm the author of one of the most long-winded, slow-paced mission reports on these forums. I play RSS, and write using almost none of the usual Kerbal canon. It takes me so long to produce each new episode that it must almost feel like the story is taking place in real-time for you guys. And my writing is... passable, with the occasional stroke of inspiration.

So, please allow me the occasional gratuitous cliffhanger to keep my readers coming back... 

[KAL 9000]

1 hour ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Look, pal. I'm the author of one of the most long-winded, slow-paced mission reports on these forums. I play RSS, and write using almost none of the usual Kerbal canon. It takes me so long to produce each new episode that it must almost feel like the story is taking place in real-time for you guys. And my writing is... passable, with the occasional stroke of inspiration.

So, please allow me the occasional gratuitous cliffhanger to keep my readers coming back... 

Sorry!

[UnusualAttitude]

1 minute ago, KAL 9000 said:

Sorry!

Don't be. Rant over.   Bad day, just as it was for a few hundred million other people around the world. 

[Greatness101]

On 11/9/2016 at 4:00 PM, UnusualAttitude said:

Look, pal. I'm the author of one of the most long-winded, slow-paced mission reports on these forums. I play RSS, and write using almost none of the usual Kerbal canon. It takes me so long to produce each new episode that it must almost feel like the story is taking place in real-time for you guys. And my writing is... passable, with the occasional stroke of inspiration.

So, please allow me the occasional gratuitous cliffhanger to keep my readers coming back... 

You call this writing merely "passable"? This, so far, has got to be one of the most well written stories I've ever seen online. I bet after it's finished and with a little bit of tweaking it could even be passed as an authentic first person space mystery novel or something.

[UnusualAttitude]

8 hours ago, Greatness101 said:

You call this writing merely "passable"? This, so far, has got to be one of the most well written stories I've ever seen online. I bet after it's finished and with a little bit of tweaking it could even be passed as an authentic first person space mystery novel or something.

Thank you very much.

On re-reading my last comment, it does seem self-deprecating, but we Brits do that all the time. Just to be serious for a moment, I'm actually quite happy with what I have accomplished with The Camwise Logs, and have been very pleasently surprised by the amount of interest something like this has generated.

This remains, at its heart, an illustrated mission report of an RSS game. I novelised it because I've always wanted to have a bash at writing and publishing some sort of sci-fi story. As a stand-alone novel it would suffer from many shortcomings. Some of these are due to its nature (interesting gameplay makes for a pretty clunky plot sometimes, and it has far too much technical descrpition for even the hardest hardcore sci-fi...). Others are due to my inexperience as a writer (to name a few that spring to mind: the screenshots allow me to get by with a lot of uninspiring descriptions, and my secondary characters are seriously under-developed, I ramble a lot...).

It's also exceedingly awkward to publish any type of story piece-by-piece, especially when you don't even have a precise picture of where your future chapters will end up.

But I'll just stop criticising my own work now. If you find it reads like a novel, then that's awesome, 'cause it's exactly what I'm trying to achieve.

[TopHeavy11]

Modlist please!

[UnusualAttitude]

4 hours ago, TopHeavy11 said:

Modlist please!

Why, certainly.

Spoiler

 

On KSP 1.1.2 at the moment.

AtmosphereAutopilot

AutoRove

B9_Aerospace_ProceduralWings

B9AnimationModules

B9PartSwitch

BahaSP

BetterTimeWarp

Chatterer

CommunityResourcePack

CrossFeedEnabler

DecayingRTGs

DistantObject

DMagicOrbitalScience

EvaFuel

FerramAerospaceResearch

Firespitter

HabitatPack

HeatControl

HeatPump

HLAirships

InterstellarFuelSwitch

JSI

KAS

KAX

KerbalEngineer

KerbalJointReinforcement

Kerbaltek

KIS

Kopernicus

KSCSwitcher

LayeredAnimations

MagicSmokeIndustries

MarkIVSystem

Mk3HypersonicSystems

ModRocketSys

ModularFlightIntegrator

NearFutureElectrical

NearFutureProps

NearFuturePropulsion

NearFutureSolar

NearFutureSpacecraft

Pilot Assistant

PlanetShine

ProceduralFairings

ProceduralParts

RCSBuildAid

RealFuels

RealFuels-Stockalike

RealHeat

RealISRU

RealPlume

RealSolarSystem

RemoteTech

RSSExpansion

SCANsat

Sigma

SmokeScreen

SolverEngines

SpaceY-Lifters

TacFuelBalancer

TarsierSpaceTech

TextureReplacer

ThunderAerospace (TAC life support)

TriggerTech (Transfer window planner)

TweakScale

UniversalStorage

VenStockRevamp

WildBlueIndustries (DSEV)

 

As I've already mentioned, there are quite a few personal config file modifications of my own, to make off-world ISRU, engine re-starts and spaceplanes possible. 

[TopHeavy11]

14 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Why, certainly.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

On KSP 1.1.2 at the moment.

AtmosphereAutopilot

AutoRove

B9_Aerospace_ProceduralWings

B9AnimationModules

B9PartSwitch

BahaSP

BetterTimeWarp

Chatterer

CommunityResourcePack

CrossFeedEnabler

DecayingRTGs

DistantObject

DMagicOrbitalScience

EvaFuel

FerramAerospaceResearch

Firespitter

HabitatPack

HeatControl

HeatPump

HLAirships

InterstellarFuelSwitch

JSI

KAS

KAX

KerbalEngineer

KerbalJointReinforcement

Kerbaltek

KIS

Kopernicus

KSCSwitcher

LayeredAnimations

MagicSmokeIndustries

MarkIVSystem

Mk3HypersonicSystems

ModRocketSys

ModularFlightIntegrator

NearFutureElectrical

NearFutureProps

NearFuturePropulsion

NearFutureSolar

NearFutureSpacecraft

Pilot Assistant

PlanetShine

ProceduralFairings

ProceduralParts

RCSBuildAid

RealFuels

RealFuels-Stockalike

RealHeat

RealISRU

RealPlume

RealSolarSystem

RemoteTech

RSSExpansion

SCANsat

Sigma

SmokeScreen

SolverEngines

SpaceY-Lifters

TacFuelBalancer

TarsierSpaceTech

TextureReplacer

ThunderAerospace (TAC life support)

TriggerTech (Transfer window planner)

TweakScale

UniversalStorage

VenStockRevamp

WildBlueIndustries (DSEV)

 

As I've already mentioned, there are quite a few personal config file modifications of my own, to make off-world ISRU, engine re-starts and spaceplanes possible. 

Good Mother of Kerbol! Do you own a super computer?!

[NotAgain]

28 minutes ago, TopHeavy11 said:

Good Mother of Kerbol! Do you own a super computer?!

I count 68 mods. I use a laptop and run 105 mods with surprisingly little lag.

[TopHeavy11]

Just now, NotAgain said:

I count 68 mods. I use a laptop and run 105 mods with surprisingly little lag.

In that case you own a supercomputer LAPTOP! My game is basically unplayable with about 70 mods...and I have a PC! With Windows 10! And Unity 5!

[UnusualAttitude]

44 minutes ago, TopHeavy11 said:

Good Mother of Kerbol! Do you own a super computer?!

Yes, I'm lucky enough to own what I believe must be one of the most amazing gaming rigs ever manufactured. Its performance literally blows my mind at times. I will put its specs in spoiler tags below so that less fortunate individuals don't quit my thread in a fit of jealousy.

Spoiler

 

Early 2009 20" iMac.

2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo.

6 GB RAM.

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory.

 

I also have 126 TB of Patience^TM.

[TopHeavy11]

13 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Yes, I'm lucky enough to own what I believe must be one of the most amazing gaming rigs ever manufactured. Its performance literally blows my mind at times. I will put its specs in spoiler tags below so that less fortunate individuals don't quit my thread in a fit of jealousy.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Early 2009 20" iMac.

2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo.

6 GB RAM.

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory.

 

I also have 126 TB of Patience^TM.

lolol

[0111narwhalz]

How to be happy with any computer: Redefine your expectations.

[UnusualAttitude]

11 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

How to be happy with any computer: Redefine your expectations.

Exactly. Also, I believe I'm making significant savings on my heating bill at the moment by running KSP. 

[Garrett Kerman]

+rep

[Geschosskopf]

11 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

I also have 126 TB of Patience^TM.

I should say so .  ^S!

[HamnavoePer]

Have you thought about getting this published properly as a physical book or e-book?

[UnusualAttitude]

1 hour ago, HamnavoePer said:

Have you thought about getting this published properly as a physical book or e-book?

I'm most flattered that some of my readers think that it would be worthy of actually being published. Thank you, Per. 

However, this matter has already been discussed many times on various fan-fiction threads before: no-one can independently publish anything to do with Kerbals or Kerbal Space Program without permission from Squad, and they are not likely to grant it. And to be honest, I'm not sure I'd want to. 

I see The Camwise Logs as "practice" for the day I come up with an awesome idea for a sci-fi novel in a universe of my own creation. If that day ever comes, you guys will be the first to know, of course.  

Update: the next part is slowly and painfully taking shape. Hang on in there. I will try and surprise you very soon.

Edited November 19, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[UnusualAttitude]

YEAR 12, DAY 54. BARTDON.

Mitzon and I stood facing each other on the roof of our rover. In stunned silence, we listened to the First Mate's message looping through our headsets.

Out there on the northern Martian highlands, a thousand kilometres from our nearest crewmates and three hundred million kilometres from the rest of our kind, we were blasted by the cold, impersonal voice repeating a potential death sentence for our species. It was like some kind of morbid mantra, chanted over and over again.

I must insist on the importance of this request and the urgency with which you must work in order to comply.

Something within me snapped. In attempting to carry out the instructions that the Board had given me, I had chosen to investigate this site. This was my fault. I threw myself over the side of the rover and slid down the ladder, hitting the surface in a cloud of red dust.

Should you fail to do so, we will be have to consider your species as being a potential threat to our Creators.

I stormed over to the base plate that we had set up in the shadow of the monstrous Kerbal sculpture, and ripped out the power line that connected it to the rover's instruments and radio. My headset fell silent instantly. But what I had just heard could not be forgotten, and the message continued to echo through my mind.

Our instructions oblige us to take steps to neutralise any such threat.

I looked up at the Face, rising as a sheer wall in front of me. It had been left here to mock us, a twisted portrait of our primitive ancestors. “I am the Principal Investigator,” I snarled and, ignoring the pain that now shot through the broken middle finger of my right hand with vengeance, I began to climb.

I can assure you that we possess the means to cause catastrophic environmental damage to your home planet.

In places, the polished surface of the Face had been weathered and roughened by centuries of dust carried on the Martian wind. This provided me with small handholds that allowed me to haul myself slowly but surely up the steep slope that constituted the sculpture's cheek. “I am the Principal Investigator...” I muttered as I climbed doggedly.

Such an intervention would almost certainly lead to the extinction of your species.

I crawled out onto the Face's right eyeball.

Consider this wisely, Kerbals of Earth, and come to meet us with all possible haste.

“What the hell do you want from us?!” I bellowed at the endless sea of Martian dunes. “What... do... you... want?”

But of course, no answer came. Only the short echo of my own voice inside my helmet as it bounced off this thin, transparent plexiglass that kept me alive in this impossibly hostile environment. Do not attempt to respond.

I am the Principal Investigator. I got us into this mess. So damn me if I don't get us out of it.

Mitzon was waiting for me at the base of the rock sculpture when I finally clambered back down to meet him. His carefree smile was gone, and right then it looked like it was for good. This was hardly surprising, as I sure as hell didn't see us having anything to grin about in the immediate future.

“PI, we must call Laroque. We have to inform Mission Control...”

“We tell them nothing,” I snapped, “I need to think about this damned carefully first.”

“But, Bartdon, did you hear what he said? We have to warn them. This is not cool, dude. Not cool at all...”

I shoved Mitzon roughly against the rock wall and slammed my faceplate up against his.

“Don't be a fool, boy! They've already heard too much. Do you have any idea what will happen if the Board realises that they are the only organisation on Earth capable of preventing doomsday? What do you think life will be like then? Martial law, resource rationing, and business as usual for the Company, but at three times the damned normal price because, after all, they are saving the world for everyone. And that's the best-case scenario, believe me.”

Mitzon breathed heavily but said nothing.

“Just let me deal with this,” I grated. “I know how the Board works. We go back to Quissac now. I need to find a way to get through to Froemone without the whole damned planet listening in.”

I winced. My hand was beginning to hurt like hell.

“What do you think it meant by catastrophic environmental damage, PI?” asked Mitzon, hesitantly.

I glared at him for a moment before answering, “You tell me! You're the damned space engineer, boy. But if they have an interstellar propulsion system and a Solar System full of rocks to play with, then finding a way to kill our planet shouldn't tax their imagination too much.”

YEAR 12, DAY 62. BARTDON.

We had returned to our shuttle, driving across Lunae Planum at a relentless pace and stopping only for nightfall. Mitzon had faked an overload of the rover's power system and then promptly repaired the damage he had himself caused. This restored communications with our crewmates and with Mission Control. Yes, we had heard the First Mate's message. Yes, the message had been cut off for some reason before it had reached its conclusion. That was absolutely what had happened.

I knew that the Board wouldn't buy it. But there's not a damn thing they can do about it for the moment. Go on, then. Sue me! I happen to be many millions of miles from the nearest courtroom right now.

I gave orders for Desfal and Munvey to be ready to start packing up as soon as we got back. The moment Areocambal pulled up alongside Quissac, I put Mitzon and the boys to work. They dismantled our ISRU rig and solar farm, and stored it all away in the cargo pallets that we pulled out of our shuttle's belly and attached to the back of the rover. If ever they were needed in the future, they would be ready and mobile on the surface.

I took a moment to bid my ride across Mars farewell. She had served us faithfully, keeping Mitzon and I alive for more than three months, and carrying us swiftly but safely across many leagues of alien ground. This humble solar-powered camping van had enabled what was, by far, the most important scientific mission in Kerbal history. But now, it was time for us to part ways.

“Goodnight, old horse,” I muttered with a lump in my throat. Dammit, Bartdon. You're getting sentimental with your wheels, now. Get a grip, old boy.

The launch window that would enable us to rendez-vous with Laroque was just after dawn this morning. It was Mitzon who had the privilege of making the final EVA to make sure that everything was stowed and that the rovers were parked at a safe distance from Quissac. Munvey was already down in the cockpit flicking switches and powering up the systems that would hopefully allow us to enjoy dinner up in orbit on board our mothership.

In the end, Quissac performed almost flawlessly. We were driven into our seats with her vicious thrust during the vertical take-off.

The shuttle pushed skywards for a few moments before rapidly pitching over with a hum of rotating machinery.

She settled into a shallow ascent path that had us skimming over the Martian surface at startling speed as we gradually gained height.

Eight minutes later, the kick of her four small motors cut out and we were drifting towards the summit of our suborbital arc. A small push at apoareon, and we had officially left Mars behind for good.

Despite his best efforts, Munvey hadn't quite managed to get us up to Laroque's altitude, however. As a result, Lisabeth and Karanda had to drop their orbit a little using the ship's attitude thrusters to meet us. A slightly disappointing end to an otherwise stellar performance, but any launch that gets you into orbit is a good one, I suppose.

Laroque loomed forwards out of the darkness as the sun broke the Red Planet's horizon. Lisabeth made sure we were lined up and nudged the large interplanetary vessel in to dock, as our fuel was exhausted at this point.

Karanda was waiting to greet us at the airlock with her arms spread wide and coarse words of congratulations in her native tongue. Thus, one hundred and eight days after leaving them, we were reunited with our crewmates who had been monitoring our progress on the surface and watching over us all this time.

The atmosphere was jubilant, but only superficially. Celebration was only natural, considering the stunning technical and scientific success of our mission. But when I looked into the eyes of my crew members, deep down, I could see apprehension and fear. No-one dared to admit it, but I could see that my crew was anxious.

This would not do. We were in this together, whatever happened. And our mission was far from over. As soon as we had shared a meal together, I called a meeting in the lab.

There, with my crew floating around me, I revealed the end of the First Mate's message. I told them what would happen if the news of this direct threat to Earth made its way to our planet before we had a proper plan to counter it. My account was met with a flurry of reactions from my companions.

Defiance and scepticism from Karanda: “That is cocky coming from a million year-old robot, no? If this message is from another age, we don't even know if they are still.... alive out there. How can we be sure that they have the means to carry out their threat?”

Compassionate concern from Lisabeth: “We cannot be certain of anything, but we must do what it takes to protect our planet...”

Diplomatic curiosity from Desfal: “I would be wary of us Kerbals if I was in their position. But we must take this seriously. We must investigate. Fontanes One and Three are already on the way to Saturn and Jupiter, respectively...”

He was right. We already had probes on the way to both of the hydrogen giants. Jupiter had already been visited by Martel One and we had spotted a structure similar to the Lunar rock arch on Ganymede. The Fontanes class of probes would allow a much more detailed inspection of these systems, but they were not designed to land or interact with alien robots on the surface of planetary bodies.

“The probes will be insufficient,” I said. “We need to get out there ourselves, and that will be one hell of a challenge. We need our engineering team to get to work on this right now, and make Froemone understand that he must deliver on those damned propulsion systems sooner rather than later. They would also give us a fighting chance to defend our turf if it comes to that. Karanda: has there been any word from the Board while we were on our way up?”

“No, PI. The Board has not yet released an official statement on the Martian Transmission. Mission Control has so far managed to keep the First Mate's message a secret. We might yet be able to contain this.”

“And hell might damned well freeze over,” I shot back, “but we cannot count on it. Karanda, you engineers have an encryption code for confidential designs, am I correct?”

“Uh... how do you know...?” she looked flustered.

“It happens to be my job to know things. I need to send a message that only Froemone can read. I would also like you to translate it into your blasted dialect. The Board may decipher it and understand what we're driving at in the end, but it might buy us some time.”

“But how will Froemone understand it if it's in patois?”

“He'll get his pen-pal to translate it, of course. And I'm pretty sure we can trust Camwise to find a way to get the message back to him discreetly. Now, we carry on as planned. I believe we have another damned space potato to visit before we can go home.”

The transfer window to return to Earth was still more than a hundred days away, and our original plans had included a trip to Deimos, which would be the ideal one-stop refueling station for anyone passing by Mars. If, of course, we found ice there.

“We rendez-vous with Cadrieu as soon as possible and continue our mission.” I made to crack my knuckles but then I remembered that one of my fingers was still broken. “Chins up, boys and girls! Karanda, I need you to stay on Laroque and make sure Froemone gets that message. Mitzon will come with us, and Lisabeth...”

“PI?” cut in Munvey, suddenly.

“Yes?”

“I wish to fly Cadrieu to Deimos in place of SP Lisabeth.”

“Why, CTP?”

Munvey held my gaze for a long moment, before finally speaking.

“I have a bad feeling about this one, PI.”

YEAR 12, DAY 71. BARTDON.

Deimos was just as we had expected: tiny.

A one klick per second burn had kicked us away from Laroque a week ago, now. Our mothership was beginning to look like a parking lot as we stringed our Martian hardware together in low orbit. But now, only Quissac remained, still docked to her nose, and attached to the only tug we had that still contained any fuel, albeit a tiny amount that probably wouldn't be of any further use.

At the top of our elliptical orbit, Deimos loomed up out of no-where, startling me as I gazed out of the crew cabin porthole. It took another seven hundred metres per second to allow Cadrieu to be captured and begin our descent onto the smallest body we had ever landed on.

Deimos was ten to fifteen kilometres in diameter, depending along which axis you measured it. The terrain was much smoother than that of Phobos, and most of the small craters had been partially filled with deep drifts of powdery regolith. The landscape looked significantly more ancient than anything we had seen so far. Deimos really did look like a crumbling relic from the dawn of ages.

Mars was a crescent lurking near the horizon, casting a baleful red glow a cross the slopes and mounds of dust as we drifted down towards the chaotic surface below. There wan't even a proper word to describe the shape of such a moon, at least none which I know of. When we finally reached the surface, it took our little lander minutes on end to settle and allow me to EVA and start gathering samples.

Planting a damned flag without punting myself onto an escape trajectory was almost beyond my ability.

We hopped across Deimos and landed in three different places, ending our short excursion close to the moon's South pole. The readings we gathered confirmed what we had suspected all along: that more ice was down there, and that it would probably be even easier to access than on Phobos. The big challenge of such a tiny world was it's almost non-existent gravity. Any kind of mining operation would have to assume almost complete weightlessness.

We didn't stay on Deimos for long. The Board had finally broken its ominous silence and, ignoring the matter of the Martian Transmission for the time being, had requested we return to Laroque via Phobos to collect yet more readings there.

Much of the geological research we had carried out on Mars had been of only minor interest to the Company. Our attempts to understand the history of the Red Planet's climate and hydrosphere were at best a distraction. And as far as they were concerned, the discovery of life (even if it was now extinct) would be nothing but a hindrance for their plans to exploit the resources of this new world.

As Froemone had predicted from the start, the Martian moons would be one of the keys to the eventual colonisation of our system, with their abundant supply of resources on the edge of Mars' gravity well, and neighbouring the asteroid belt. The resource companies wanted to be damned sure they would have all they would need here when the first ship full of colonists arrived. We were to probe and prod the slopes and grooves of Phobos one last time before we turned for home.

Cadrieu touched down on the rim of Skyresh crater this morning. Mitzon and I unloaded the drilling equipment and, once more, we hit water ice at less than twenty metres below the surface, despite being at a much higher elevation than our previous drilling location inside Flimnap. Our tanks were now slowly filling up, and we were looking forward to the prospect of a swift, powered transfer back to our mothership, without the added complication of aerobraking in Mars' upper atmosphere.

The Board would be rubbing their little hands together by now, as the new data we had sent to them suggested that the Phobian water reserves were far more extensive than we had initially suspected. I could almost hear the old cronies back in the Boardroom popping corks and congratulating themselves from here.

What I didn't expect, however, was a personal message from the Chairman of the Board.

It was relayed via Laroque twenty minutes ago. Just like all my previous dealings with this gentlekerb – who I'd only ever met in person twice – it was slick and smooth on the surface, but brutally short and to the point if you knew how to read between the lines.

Dear Principal Investigator Bartdon,

I would like to congratulate you on behalf of the Board and the Trans Pacific Resource Company for your inspirational leadership of the first truly successful spaceflight to another planet. The work that you and your crew have accomplished on Mars and its moons has opened up an entirely new dimension to our activity. We look forward to investing in the infrastructure that will enable Kerbalkind to reach beyond our home planet and conquer the Solar System.

However, we cannot help but notice the increasing discrepancies between Company priorities and your own personal approach to planetary exploration. As a result, The Board believes that it will be increasingly difficult to reconcile your methods with our future goals.

The Board therefore expects to receive your terms of resignation within the next 48 hours. This resignation will become effective upon your return to Earth, in order to provide a smooth transition between you and your successor.

Yours faithfully,

The Chairman of the Board.

Personally, I would have preferred the short version. For interplanetary communications, saving bandwidth is essential. He could have just said:

You're fired.

I looked out of the capsule window across the desolate grey wasteland at the bloated red disk that dominated the view, and exhaled slowly. It was over, despite my best efforts to walk the fine line between the Company's demands and my desperate attempts to protect our homeworld. Goodbye, Bartdon. Just like that.

Hold on. Something else was wrong here.

The Board was informing me of my dismissal whilst I was still out in deep space. Why would they do that? If my successor was to take over once I returned to Earth, why tell me now?

The realisation hit me like a tonne of lead ballast. They didn't need samples of Martian sedimentary rocks that may or may not contain traces of microbial life that died out a billion years ago. They didn't need pretty pictures of Martian canyons and volcanoes. And they certainly didn't need a cranky old Principal Investigator getting in the way of their plans to dominate the Solar System. There would be no smooth transition.

The definitive proof of water on Mars and its moons. Confirmation that the Crew was waiting for them out there, perhaps with more gifts of technology. They had everything they needed.

My crew and I had just become very, very expendable.

I threw myself across the capsule to the comms console and grabbed the headset.

“Laroque, this is PI Bartdon in Cadrieu. Come in, dammit..!”

…

“PI Bartdon, this is CE Karanda.”

“Listen to me carefully. Shut down the uplink from Earth now. Do you hear me? Shut it d-”

 

Edited November 20, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[Shania_L]

Wow, that is ... cold ..... even for the board.