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VICTORY-7 Silence should be left unheard
The ship slowly eased toward Victory-7, a disserted space station in the Magellan System. The Magellan System had been a resource mining operation. The system has two suns which rotate around each other. There are 13 planets in the system, the thirteenth planet is called, Magellan’s Moon, named after the exploration vessel that discovered it. It is the smallest of the planets and its travel path intersects the systems rotation.
The station was built to circle this moon and once was the center hub for all life in this system, but for some unknown reason, all that life suddenly died. The Search and Rescue ship, “Vervios”, was dispatched to find out why communication had broken off and was never heard from again. The money stopped and so did the idea to send a military expedition ship; instead they considered the system dead and label it N.E.Z., a “No Entry Zone”. It has been 21 years since the last transmission was received.
Victory-7 was the co-sponsored project between Versadyne Industries and De Bohrs Corporations. Together they funded and built the space station in hopes of mining the newly discover raw minerals in the Magellan System, to help replenish resources after the creation of Neo-Earth; a manmade planet that was to be a recreation of earth in the Phoenix Galaxy.
Reports surfaced that information from Victory-7 had been discovered at the home of Versadyne professor, Xavier Reynolds. Unknown to the company, he had himself cloned and then departed for Victory-7. All transmissions sent from the station to earth, were collected and stored at his home by the clone. These reports opened up congressional hearings as to the how much Versadyne Industries knew about what was taking place in the Magellan System and on Victory-7. Even though the company was broken up and sold off, there still needs to be an investigation into the total shutdown of the project. Now the government of Neo-Earth, has decided that it would be a great investment if the station was operational again and that the mining stations on the planets below Victory-7 were functional. The possibility of reopening the mining colonies in the Magellan System would allow Neo-Earth to expand further into space by building more exploration vessels.
After making no physical contact with the lost S&R ship “Vervios”, the Leviathan scanned the planet below for any traces of the ship. Even if it was destroyed; pieces might still be on the surface somewhere. After two passes around the planet they declared it safe to venture forth toward Victory-7. All scans across the station revealed no living life forms, so a marine detachment was assembled and preparations were made for the commencement of “Operation Reboot”.
“Every time it comes to resources somebody has to go somewhere to recover or find them. This is where we come in. Our Space Marine Unit “Night Hawks”, an expeditionary Search and Rescue group, has been assigned to guard the research ship, “Red Liberty”, and now we are on a collision course with destiny.
It is our job to make entry into Victory-7, securing it so that the science team who is accompanying us will have the station safe for the restarting of operations. The station is to be fully functional and back online within 4 weeks of arriving in the NEZ. That means that we are to search this 7-level metal container, the size of an earth city, and secure it for the research team to make it functional again. It will be our job to run military jurisdiction over the Magellan System. Our relief guard will be 6 months of deep-sleep away form us, by that time the station shall be fully operational and the system secured. Mining operations will begin when the rear echelon arrives.
We have no idea what happened to the last S&R detachment that came out here, but we are prepared for anything that might come our way. We are Marines and this is our job and we do it well. Our jump ship from the Tactical Space Cruiser “Leviathan” is getting ready to dock, Sergeant Miller is yelling for weapons check…Deveron…Check…we have to make sure that our helmets and oxygen supply is attached correctly, don’t want to implode. Also there will be limited gravity within the station until the reactor is back online and the rotation rockets are fired to start this baby spinning again. I hear the clicking of the air lock as the ship makes physical contact with Victory-7. Here goes… into the belly of hell once again.
When the air lock clicked and swung open there was not a sound, just the heavy breathing of the Night Hawks, all twelve, pointing down the hallway waiting for death to come, but nothing happened. Sergeant Miller motioned for Riley to take point and so the twelve men and women of the SMU Night Hawks started to make their way into the inner core of Victory-7 and destiny.
Victory-7 has a cold-fusion, core reactor, that is located at the center of the main tube. To get there we must circumvent the outer ring and make our way to the main command room at the top of the center core. From there we will split the team and take half to the core while the others stay behind and light up the station when the core reactor is functional again. Two hours later the Red Liberty will dock and deploy their teams that will once again take over the station, and then our job is to be their muscle. In 6 months we are to be relieved by a new detachment of fresh marines, or at least that is what we were told. We were told that once before too.”
_________________ "To view the world as reality, is giving into the fact that this is all just an illusion. To lose your imagination is to lose your true identity."
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