posted 04-02-99 06:37 PM ET        

Ecology Co-ordinator for the Unity Project, Micheal Heffran is writing of all the troubles that the Unity project has. Chief among them is lack of funding- a UN project that relies on aid from a hundred separate governments, each with their own problems. There are suspicions of sabotage everywhere, from contractors who want to drive up costs and get more money to just plain fanatics who want to destroy things. In fact, a recent sabotage had released radiation all over a sector of the ship, causing a small emergency for Doctor Jonathan Sagan. Still, not all is unhappy. Mike H has decided to leave for the Alpha Centauri system anyway for the promise of a hopeful new world. Tech Scientist Imran Siddiqui considers it as well, weighing the pros and cons of leaving the high paying jobs of Earth- will there be economic opportunity on Alpha Centauri under the bureaucratic oversight of the U.N.? Greg Treestock,* Australian scientist, also shares this hope- he already has booked a spot. He, however, also wants a little more space for his equipment, as he�s already over the volume limitations, and he�s considering contacting a certain Specialist Fourth Class Arsinio Rivera to help him out in that department when he reaches Tyco Base. Dr. Renwick,* a professor at the University of Edinburgh, on the other hand, is trapped in Edinburgh, with no seats on the Unity yet. Riots have caused the train stations to be closed, but at least it�s not nearly in bad in Free Scotland as in Brazil, where overlords of shadowy gangs have brought the government there nearly to its knees. His daughter, Amy, has even come to live with him again briefly. And the situation keeps getting worse- now the protesters, rumored to be part of the group "Citizens for Survival" (or CfS for short) overtook the police armory and now are in position to intimidate the government. This naturally worries poor Dr. Renwick, as his wife was killed by a terrorist bomb.

The Unity continues on, seemingly oblivious to the troubles of the world below. MikeH struggles with the bureaucracy yet again over cheap moisture detectors that no one had replacements for. The Unity, if you didn�t know, is being assembled in space so that silly things like thruster rockets that would take up space and then be discarded as soon as it escaped the atmosphere are not necessary. Instead the 80% complete Unity is in orbit around the moon. The main base on the moon, Tyco Base, is the site where all the Earth and moon materials and personnel are shipped to the Unity. In any case, it just so happens that as Dr. Treestock has arrived, an outbreak of the dread disease SMACA Type IIb* has occurred in the mining complex at the base. This is quite fortunate, as Dr. Treestock happens to be the world-renowned expert on all types of SMACA, having helped curbed the initial outbreak on Earth. After stopping this outbreak before it could get serious, he receives a nice bonus and decides to kick his feet up a bit. No such luck. The UN HQ on the Moon insisted on having a little reception for him. After all, Dr. Treestock had helped fund the original feasibility study on the Unity project so long ago. After a rather� brief speech (hey, he didn�t get any sleep on the flight from Australia to the Moon, and he was just inspecting a SMACA outbreak), the good Doctor was then escorted by a team of security personnel to the medical bay to inspect the cryogenics there, led by a Liutenant.. um.. Santiago. Hmm. Of course, he�s not being frozen just yet, but does get to meet the Director General* and have an enjoyable talk with that old Marine over the good old days, and about a certain lab assistant named Cindy*. More importantly, now Dr. Treestock will be working with Prokohor Zakharov and the others on the final states of testing the Unity and doing final prepartions. MikeH worries that taking the very best in each field, instead of people who get along might cause problems� but oh well.

Back on Earth, Alasair Legrand lives a double life. He is an executive, currently living in Russia, for Morgan Industries, a subsidiary of the Morgan Conglomerate, who had been contracted out by the UN to help work on the Unity. He has every intention of ruthlessly cutting costs from the silly UN regulations that the project was originally founded under. Actually, the silly Russian government regulations as well, since they had been the major player of his section of the project. But while he does all of that, he is also a behind the scenes player in the Citizens for Survival. The CfS are not just limited to Scotland; Legrand knows that they span all of Europe and Asia. But while expansive, the CfS still lacks the critical mass to really take control or to do their stated purpose- stop the corrupt governments and insure their own survival. That�s why an upcoming meeting with the Spartan Confederation, rumored to be much more powerful in sheer number of operatives and miliary-grade equipment possessed, is so important. The Spartans are supposedly the force behind the madness in South America, and North America as well. And it is an honor to Legrand that he has been selected to go with the other emissaries from the CfS to go to New York to meet with the Spartans. Of course, Legrand knew that serendipity had played a large role- he was going only as an observer, and was only invited to go because he was scheduled to be in New York anyway on Morgan Industries business anyway. Legrand was even more surprised when he arrived in NY to find that the other two representatives were suddenly unavailable, and he was going to have to carry the entire CfS delegation. After hurriedly going through everything in his suitcase, Legrand was finally met. Much to his surprise, there was only one Spartan delegate there as well- a man by the name of Aemora, head of the Spartans activities on the West Coast of the US. Legrand took an instant dislike to him. But the contents of the meeting were a true bombshell. It had been Aemora who had sent the quicklink that the other members of the delegation would not be attending. And in quick succession, Aemora explained that the CfS and the Spartan Confederation would be merging into the Spartan Federation, he would be the new head of American operations, Legrand would be the new head of Eurasian operations, and the new leader of the Spartans would rule all. To accomplish this, in one massive purge, all the old leaders of the Spartans and CfS had been killed on that night, and the mysterious new leader had installed itself. Legrand was quite taken aback- it was like being told you had won the lottery, but the contest has been rigged for you and all your friends had to die for it too work. Legrand was to meet a "contact" on the Unity, Lieutenant Santiago, who would explain more. He rushed off to the spaceport to take in all he had encountered, and catch his flight from New York to Tyco base. (It should be noted that all of this is in the form of his Memoirs, a book the Legrand writes while he is dying on Chiron, far in the future from this timeframe).

Still at Tyco Base, Dr. Treestock decides to visit the strip on Tyco Base, and passes several notable clubs before finally stopping at the I Club* to take some time and enjoy himself. Legrand arrives at Tyco Base just in time to watch a transport carrying invaluable materials crash and burn after taking off to head for the Unity. He too heads for the I Club, where he is served some nice chilled orange juice and notices an old drunk throwing darts at the wall who was rumored to work for the old, officially disbanded IIIS*. While Legrand heads for the I Club, Treestock leaves it, heading for the crash site. He offers to help out, but he is informed by a Psych Chaplain by the name of Godwinson that there are only the dead here. She is also absolutely convinced that this was murder, not tired mechanics.

Back home on Earth again, Dr. Renwick discovers that his good friend Professor Richard Corum has decided to stay on Earth and stick it out. He offers his and his wife�s tickets on the Unity to Dr. Renwick and Amy. They, too, had originally applied, but had withdrawn after the first sabotage act they heard of. They decided to accept his gift anyway, and intend to leave for the Unity in two days.

Legrand, after returning to the spaceport in Tyco Base, finds his flight delayed by the explosion of the transport and decides to do some investigating. It seems that it might very well be sabotage- and high quality sabotage, as well. He finally catches his transport to the Unity, with people and freight packed like sardines. After a bit of political discussion on the merits of the UN and saving the Unity project after the Russian economy died, Legrand started catching up on some old Morgan Conglomerate work by rubber stamping transferals and signing off on panicked people withdrawing from the mission after the bad publicity with the sabotage. He also decided to switch the seats of Dr. Renwick and Amy Renwick away from a specially marked area on his Morgan Industries schematic� a decision that would later save their lives. After an annoying security check that took forever to make sure no one was smuggling weapons aboard the Unity, Legrand found his quarters� where a Lieutenant Santiago was waiting for him.

Back on Tyco Base, Dr. Renwick receives a rude reception as apparently he is now a suspect in the destruction of the transport and he is put under guard. All of the sudden, the tactics are changed on him and he is told that they have reason to suspect that Professor Corum was involved in the planing of the destruction of the transport, and Renwick has been framed. He uses the opportunity to talk to his daughter and to tell her to keep quiet, so they could figure out who their enemies were. The UN and Morgan Conglomerate security teams haven�t limited themselves to Dr. Renwick either. They interrogated Dr. Treestock for 3 whole hours for being in the area after the crash and trying to help the people as a doctor- it had looked suspicious. Fortunately, a call from the Director General bailed him out. After getting back into the base, he walked by the "Daughters of Gaia All-Natural Fruit Bar" which seemed to be doing quite good business and had a bite to eat. Afterward, he noticed a certain Jeremy Allen Borodino*, wearing the attire of an elite diplomat, with what seemed to be hundreds of crates labeled to be taken to the Unity as his property. Considering that you were allowed exactly 100 kilos, what was this diplomat doing with almost 2 metric tons of stuff? In any case, Chief Quartermaster Arsino Rivera was quite willing to help Dr. Treestock afterall. Rivera was a master at spatial organization, capable of fitting lots of extra stuff into tiny nooks and crannies, and he made sure that he made a lot of money off of that talent. The UN had been overjoyed at the extra 5% of space he found in storage module XL52, but that extra 1% of space he didn�t tell the UN about was reserved for affluent colonists with money to spare and stuff that they couldn�t.

"Upstairs," on the Unity, a floating construction base for the Unity was destroyed by a mad man who had gotten hold of a shuttle*. This was, needless to say, quite a strain on Chief Medical Officer Pravin Lal and his two daughers, Pria, and the adopted Cindy. But the real action took place in the executive meeting room. Lieutenant Santiago, curious, used a special computer program that allowed her to examine most of the information in the ship�s computers. Legrand looked on, as the security camera relayed information on how an officer by the name of Yang delivered a diatribe against the lax security policies of the former Chief of Security� who had suffered an unfortunate just recently. Yang then announced that he was taking over as Chief of Security, and would run the ship properly by finding all the traitors, especially with the help of a certain art. Santiago assigned Legrand to look into Yang and figure out if he really posed a threat, as well as looking into the possibility that it is psionics that is Yang�s "art" that he will use to catch traitors. Santiago also gave Legrand some tickets on the Unity- it was obvious that the plan was being changed. Santiago then disappeared mysteriously, later reappearing with Ecology Co-Ordinator Micheal Hefferan in the I Club back on Tyco Base, who she has now seemingly convinced to join the Spartans. The meeting is interrupted by the appearance of Dr. Treestock, who has known Mike from before and Mike worries that his cover will be blown.

A modern day ninja almost, Zen Budachi, janitor for the ship, has also fallen under suspicion after some vital engineering data was "touched" by someone and detected. He is held against his will and brain scans are performed on him by the security personnel. Is this Yang�s plan? Or is this someone else doing this?

Dr. Treestock finally comes aboard the Unity to begin work for Dr. Zakharov, though he shares the shuttle ride up to the Unity with Lieutenant Santiago. Legrand comes to meet Santiago on the shuttle coming back, and in the process gets the opportunity to bump into the famous Dr. Treestock. His meeting with Santiago is a disappointment though, as she leaves before he can talk to him about the history Legrand has discovered on Yang. Mainly that he was an active participant in the Chinese Republic politics before leaving in a huff for Tibet, where he studied for 8 years before reemerging in the Second Glorious Red Revolution. But he became dissatisfied with the return of the communists for some reason, and moved to Brussels to work for the UN.
(End of Part I)
Needless to say, this has been edited a little.
* Signifies Inside Joke. For instance, any resemblance between Brother Greg Woodstock and Dr. Greg Treestock is purely coincidental. Also, the post with the madman crashing the shuttle was not actually made by JB, as he had left his name and password on as cookies in the library and someone else took the liberty of posting that.

posted 04-02-99 11:54 PM ET            

Zen, meanwhile, was finally recovered from the memory tank that they had placed him in far too long. But in order to save him, he now had a bio-processor as part of his brain. He would be more quick and agile, but some of his old memories would be lost irretrievably. Legrand conducted extensive research on both Santiago and Yang meanwhile, finding out about Santiago�s history from gang leader to UN officer to some mysterious position in the Spartan organization. Legrand�s suspicions that Santiago really is the mysterious leader of the Spartans continue to grow. He also researches the art of psionics and psionic defense. But Santiago still hasn�t arrived- she�s mysteriously missing. Then, to Legrand�s horror, he finds out that he�s requested down in Yang�s office. He rushes into the bathroom and considers taking injections to disguise himself, but changes his mind after calming down, since if Yang really had found out about him, he would have found three security teams mobbing him, not one guard telling him his presence was required. It was probably a random check. Legrand agreed to go down to his office.

Before he even got there, and roughly half a day earlier, Yang had been having a conversation with his old friend, Stephen Zale, over the vid-phone. Zale was an expert psychoanalyst who could normally never got on the Unity, as his beliefs about the nature of man differed quite strongly with that of the psych-chaplains, who would control positions that he would fit in. But Yang�s promotion to Chief of Security had enabled him to get some new blood up on the Unity, and he was giving Zale a chance to get on board. Needless to say, Zale accepted, and prepared to step into his new job- with his friendly pet-octopus* Stanley on hand, of course.

When Zale reached the Unity, he was treated by Yang�s subordinate, Elijah Gordon, to an extensive report on the security situation. The Morgan Conglomerate had been losing extensive amounts of money on the project, at least according to the books, and might try something to collect insurance, or at least relieve them of having to follow through with the rest of the contract; but Morgan seemed to have taken some kind of personal interest in the project, so who knows? The Spartans had undergone a change in leadership that had made them far more effective on Earth recently, but their motives are unknown, and furthermore, they are more unpredictable, due to the presence of rogue elements in the organization that may have liked it better the old way. Lastly, there were just plain "crazy" people who wanted to destroy the ship at all costs. The ship�s dangers could roughly be divided into two: those that wanted to secure special privileges for themselves upon planetfall, and those that simply wanted to destroy the ship. Gordon suggests that their efforts be primarily directed against the second group, and is rebuked by Yang and Zale for not going far enough; after all, "Group 1" can actually help them out against the insurgents, and by waiting until Alpha Centauri is reached to attack them, Group 1 will lose their political strings and reinforcements from their Earth homes by which Yang is constrained now. In any case, Alasair Legrand came into the office. Yang was conducting a series of random interviews on various crew members. The interview was fairly uneventful ad conducted by Gordon, except for a tense moment between Yang and Zale in which they had a staring contest. Afterwards, Yang dismissed Gordon, and told Legrand that the real purpose of the visit was to tell him that his cryocell place was now confirmed. Yang then asked if Zale could find out some more information on Legrand, as that had been the most interesting interview so far. Later on in the day, Yang got a chance to interview Mike Hefferan, who wasn�t too worried about being detected� he had a Bio-Digital Data Connector that had given him most of the "real" MikeH�s memories. Of course, sometimes those led to double memories and madness, but that didn�t happen all the time. And of course taking the old MikeH�s memories also involved an agonizing death for the previous MikeH� but no time to think of that now. Zale had, meanwhile, managed to figure out that Legrand is involved in something secret� but he can�t tell what, since when prepared, Legrand seems to show amazing control over himself, like he�d studied on how to do so. And there are only so many situations that can be manufactured when he is unawares without raising suspicion.

Budachi is still adapting to his own brain implant now, which gives him access to a wealth of information, at the cost of now owing his life to the government that saved him and implanted him with all the stuff.

On the one last time on Tyco Base of shore leave, all the ship�s officers and other VIP�s have an enjoyable "Karaoke Night" in the I Club. Cindy, assistant to Pravin Lal, tells him that most of the psych profiles have been locked out of her view by someone very high up on the ladder. Unfortunately, Lal is in no condition to respond, so the issue goes unlooked at for the moment. Jonathan Sagan, still onboard the Unity, discusses the possibility of virus outbreaks on the Unity after the recent problems on Earth. His daughter, Jamie, is still troubled about her mother�s death.

Meanwhile, Gordon tracks down the source of an explosive charge to one Zoran Gajic, former member of the Citizens for Survival (now the Spartan Federation), from the latest sabotage attempt in a seemingly ingenious series of connections, but ones that were actually quite simple once you thought it through. The question is, why? That is a question that can�t be answered quite yet, because a giant Electro-Magnetic Pulse from a nuclear blast launched by the Michael Moore Militia over New York had just destroyed all communication with Earth for awhile, not to mention New York. The spit hits the fan in Tyco Base too, as the members of Karaoke night find themselves enshrouded in darkness, ruining Treestock�s chances of making a move on Cindy. Tyco Base and the Unity were put under martial law- but a UN style martial law, alas for Yang. There wasn�t much more he could do, and people were now increasingly annoyed at him.

In a bit of a flashback, Legrand recounts what happened before with Santiago� because Santiago, now a Colonel, will be sweeping the halls with the security staff, she won�t be able to institute "the plan." And the plan is the reason why Legrand is on the Unity, not directing operations in Eurasia like he originally thought. Santiago was taking the Spartans onboard the Unity, not seeking earth-bound power. And she needed Legrand to perform a special mission- her computer program to let her see the contents of the computer was right now a "look but do not touch" set up. If she touched, she would be detected. But Legrand was going to stay up and fake going to his cryocell, and then start a program that will ring many bells and whistles, but there will be no one awake to do anything about it. Specifically, all the Spartans VIP�s are going to be woken up early, when they will completely take over the ship and then run the colony on Chiron themselves.

Yang was pleased- the ship was finally complete, and only a few more tests needed to be run. But he was looking at a final checklist, and the Cryo-Computer Security Enhancements were wavered. Lo and behold, Zakharov had taken engineers away from that to work on testing the fusion core, which still had irregularities. Well, getting there in one piece was more important than silly things like that, right?
(End of Part II)