Fine. I still don't have a host, so here's the FULL prologue I've got so far.
Gamma Core: Station 15
Prologue
0900 Military Time//Alpha Company shuttle Hotrod - On approach to Station 15
Sergeant Andy Jason nervously looked out the forward viewport of Alpha Company's insertion shuttle, peering down at the rocky surface of the asteroid far below. The deep red surface was speckled with spots of brown and yellow, and appeared deceptively smooth from this altitude. The featureless rock extended to the very near horizon, unbroken except for a small blue-gray dot directly ahead.
That blue-gray dot was the source of Andy's, and in fact most of Alpha and Beta Companys', anxiety. It was Station 15, an aging, failed experiment as a colony that had been converted into a experimental high-yield antimatter power plant. Contact had been lost with the station a week ago, and yet there it was, slowly growing larger as the shuttle sped closer, looking perfectly normal.
It was damn spooky. Sensor records from the station computers showed no loss of atmosphere, no deadly radiation escaped from the station's advanced gamma-core plasma reactor. Only videos of dead bodies, lying in pools of their own blood.
Making matters worse, there was almost no Intel backing for this mission. No info on suspected enemies, no possible dangers, not even a full map of the facility. Either the datakeepers were unusually sloppy or there was more going on than Command was telling him.
Andy shifted nervously in his seat beside the pilot. Command had told him that 'hostile forces' killed the crew at Station 15. That was a rather ambiguous way of saying "Be prepared for anything". He wasn't stupid, though. He'd heard that the aliens had penetrated into Sol, but hadn't suspected they'd gotten to the asteroid belt already! No big surprise, though. Command was generally very hush-hush when it came to the aliens.
He'd heard rumors that the aliens managed to render the Saturn III colony uninhabitable. 9000 people, that was the preliminary death count. Only 87 civilians had survived, out of 300 that had evacuated by an emergency teleporter. The aliens had disrupted power during the transport, literally scrambling over two-thirds of the people in the beam. What came out the other end wasn't human. Wasn't alive, either, at least not for long. It was just a big mass of flesh.
No one knew where the aliens had come from. They'd just appeared out of the blue, striking down 12 ships in the Fractal Zion sector 4 years ago. Then, they struck at the Niveus IV outpost 652. Suddenly and without warning, they took over the colony's hydroponics facility, killing many of the crew stationed at the outpost. From there on, humans had been waging a bloody war against the interlopers as they spread from planet to planet, colony to colony.
And that war wasn't going well. The aliens were just too damn fast and stealthy on the ground, and no one had figured out how they moved from planet to planet. They couldn't fight them on terra firma, and there was nothing to fight in space! Command had declared a state of Emergency 2 months after the takeover of the Niveus IV colony, and did their best to fight back the alien menace.
Now, 4 years later, humanity was just barely hanging on. Two dozen colonies and outposts on nine different planets, a handful of space stations orbiting said planets or floating deep in interstellar space, less than 60 operational ships (most of which were arranged around the Earth and the most critical colonies in a vain attempt to detect the aliens before they attacked), and one Earth. That was all that humanity had left, stating from over two hundred colonies and 80 space stations.
Command, of course, glossed over those 'minor' details. For the sake of public morale, defeats and losses were ignored while the few human victories were glorified. For all the good it would do. It'd just let humanity die ignorant of the true threat, if and when the aliens found their way to Earth.
Returning his thoughts to the present, Andy watched Station 15 become more visible as the pilot carefully began his approach. Following the pattern of the first generation of space colonies, the station was built in three main sections. A square 'ring' was built on stilts far above the terrain, and contained living quarters, communications gear, landing pads for large craft, the energy projector that sent power to the PowerSat orbiting above the asteroid, and recreational areas. Suspended in the middle of the ring, an octagonal upper core area contained the secondary reactor, the computer core, docking bay, and the shield projector. Finally, a low, boxy structure suspended just above the ground contained the primary reactor and support facilities. All three structures were linked with a complex pattern of umbilical, power conduits, and supports.
Since the station used so little energy in its operations, most of the output of the experimental primary "Gamma Core" could be transmitted to the PowerSat above, and then to the Earth. The rest went to the station's shields when they were in operation. The secondary reactor in the upper core provided more than enough power for life support and the station's negligible power needs.
"The shield around the station isn't operational." the pilot said, breaking Andy's train of thought. "I'm beginning final approach. Beta Company is right behind us. We'll land in the upper core area." Station 15 began grow larger out the viewport, as the pilot circled around for a final approach. If aliens really were responsible, Andy knew, he and the 17 people under his command would have little chance of surviving the next few days.
[untranslatable] // Inside Station 15 - Computer room
The upper core of Station 15 was never lit very well. It had originally been designed as a storage area, later converted for the use of the secondary core and the computers. As a result, many areas were poorly lit.
That was fine with the aliens; they preferred the dark. So it wasn't too surprising that they had set up shop in the computer core, one of the darkest areas of the upper core. What was surprising was that a Granger, one of the Builder class, had removed the side panel from a boxy computer core. Its small feelers were stuck inside the box that just happened to be the defense computers for the station, feeling the small voltage surges as they raced through the circuits between the sensors array and the radar. Although most Grangers were rather stupid, this one possessed an unusual, child-like curiosity, which lead to its exploration of the computer.
Wait. The Granger stopped. There was one circuit that was defective. No pulses of voltage ran through it. But the problem was instantly found; a small circuit between two unusually large conduits was not connected. The Granger carefully prepared a wad of conductive spit, aimed, and fired at the gap.
A surge of power raced through the two conduits. The Granger could hear a subharmonic whine as some equipment began to power up elsewhere in the Central core. The lights dimmed momentarily as another, almost speach-like sound began to appear out of thin air.
It paused. After a few seconds, the strange sound disappeared. Satisfied with 'fixing' the circuit, the Granger waddled off as a pleasant, computerized female voice repeated the message it had said a few seconds earlier.
"Warning - Shield projector enabled. Please clear lower projector area. Station shields will be enabled in 10...9...8..."
0905 Military Time//Alpha Company shuttle Hotrod - On approach to Station 15
"We're about to enter the shield perimeter," the pilot reported. "ETA to landing platform is two minutes."
He looked behind him into the cabin. Everyone else was strapped in, all equipment was secured as per regulation. Well, who knows, he thought, maybe this won't be as bad as I thought--
Suddenly, he was thrown back against his seat. A huge craack followed a moment later from the rear of the ship. The shuttle rattled and shook as the emergency klaxons wailed their deadly tune. Andy could just hear a roar of decompression before it was cut off by the loud slam! of a blast door.
"What the hell just happened?!" Andy shouted over the noise. Or tried to. He wasn't sure if the words had gotten out or not. Gee forces were pushing him into his seat, crushing his chest. He struggled to maintain consciousness, to keep the growing blobs from obscuring his vision.
Just as suddenly as they had started, the Gee forces eased as the pilot regained some control. "What the hell just happened?" he repeated. He managed to look out the viewport, just in time to see two of the three engines of the shuttle, neatly sheared off the back of the ship, flying past as they ran wild without control from the cockpit.
"The shield sprang up just as we crossed it!" the pilot yelled frantically over the alarms as he fought with the controls. "It clipped our tail! We've only got one engine, and I can't bleed off enough speed with it. Get ready for a rough landing!"
The station was growing larger as the shuttle began to roll slightly. Andy could see the pilot was heading towards the only open airlock on the outside, and it was getting bigger much too fast for comfort. They had about 15 seconds, he estimated, before impact.
"Everyone assume crash positions, quick!"
The shuttle flew into the docking bay at ten times the recommended landing speed. Andy just had time to think, Oh, man, that wall looks hard before the shuttle impacted with it and threw him into darkness.
My god, the forum botches my indentation.
What do you think? Not exactly the best example of grammar and storyline, but it's better than some fiction I've seen...
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