Well. I'll have a go. At least to show what the ordinary Fen in orbit would've noticed. Done to work with either US, or world shift. They only have current LOS with ground stations in the US at the time. Not too familiar with TL-191, so feel free to correct this.
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Quote:“Look, we can't carry that much pressurised,” Garret spoke into the telephone, “We don't have enough space aboard,”________________________________
He yawned. It was too damned late for this.
“What about a cabin?” queried the voice. “If you weren't carrying passengers, you could stick some in free cabins?”
“That's not going to be cheap,” Captain Garret warned him. Never mind that on a Seattle trip, they'd probably have been empty going back up anyway.
“I can handle it, so long as you can handle American,”
“We prefer Euro's but sure, no problem on both. Pay us in cash at the dock,”
Payment upfront, as usual, to order fuel.
“No problemo man. Don't think you'll be gettin' in tonight though, there's some weird weather we got down here."
"Don't doubt the Ciara. We'll get in on time," he reassured him.
"I hope so man, I'l...fhsh...ee...you in ...jasshh,” Garret winced as the channel cut out with a static scream in his hear.
“Hello,” he tried.
Nothing but a hiss.
“Jimmy, you there bud?”
Silence
“Hello?” he tried one last time. “Bugger,”
“Come to bed,” Meg said sleepily from behind him. It's passed midnight.
Tempting, “The high-gain's buggered itself again.”
“Well it can wait until tomorrow. You work yourself too much,”
“That's the definition of Captain,” he smiled back at her. “I'll just sort this. It's probably nothing”
He contacted the bridge.
---->>
Milly Jackson had her feet up in the rebuilt server room, yawning as she watched the download come in. Stupid 'danelaw server was only pushing a few megabytes a second. She'd planned to get Sam, Seán and Sed back up and running hours ago, but the Fenspace mirror had crashed, so the only working one with decent speed was somewhere in the US.
She watched the bytes tick by.
Then stop.
Error: The source location on the server could not be read
She swore.
And tried to restart.
Error: Server not found.
She ping'd the local relay. It answered. She pinged the nearest node. It answered. She pinged her favourite Yaoi site. It answered. She pinged the download server.
Nothing.
She pinged Google.fen. It answered. She pinged her old home server back in Detroit. Nothing. She pinged Google.com, specifically trying the Mountain View address. Nothing. Then the orbital relays stopped answering.
“Oh for Cryin' out loud,” It looked like something had failed between orbit and ground. They could get Fensites fine, but nothing from below. They must've lost the base station. “That gosh-darned high-gain's gone down again,” she concluded.
She picked up the intercom, and called the bridge.
---->>
Aisha was busy in the engine room, doing the repair Orla had asked her to handle on number-two engine. One of the advantages of being a c'tarl-c'tarl type catgirl... she had nails that could be used to lever open access panels on the crankcase.
The other advantage, was that she was strong enough to easily lift the head off the cylinder all by herself, then lift the piston out from inside.
Third, she didn't have to worry about being biomodded by the black handwavium inside.
She didn't notice anything amiss.
---->>
On the bridge, Misha, Aisha's twin sibling by virtue of going through the machine ten minutes after her, was the one on watch... she stared at the comm's panel.
“Captain, Captain,” she said, sounding impossibly giddy thanks to having just downed her daily can of soft drink, “It's not us I swear.” she pushed a few buttons to be doubly sure, “High gain checks out A-Ok! We're sending and receiving, it's got to be a ground problem,”
“Try and find another downlink,” he ordered.
“Already on it,” she beamed, “But it looks like everything down in the litterbox has gone dead. I'm getting more than a lot of chatter on the radio too”
“Calm down will you. What are they saying?”
“Sorry,” she giggled. “Bad time of the day. Most are saying the same as us. They just lost all 'net and radio connections on this side of the planet,”
Outside the window, she could see the United States shrouded in night, a few sparks of light in the shadows marking the cities.
Hmm... it looked different somehow. There was less light on the Eastern side.
“Alright, I'm on my way up,”
She heard someone complain the in background before he hung up. A moment later, the call light lit up again.
“Bridge Misha,” she answered it.
“Misha,” the catgirl recognised Milly's voice. She sounded tired “Did we lose the high-gain again?”
“No no,” she reassured the computer tech, “High gain is working fine.“ she triple checked, “The problem's in the connection, and it's not just us,”
“Right, I'm coming up there. Hang on.”
The catgirl sighed. The first time they let her keep watch, and it wasn't going very well, was it?
---->>
Paul Platowski was in his cabin... legally also his prison cell.
He was woken, not by anything specific... just a dread feeling of unease. It was a feeling he'd learned well enough not to ignore. The last time he'd gotten it, had been right before his ship's engines had failed.
Which got him arrested.
He rolled over in his rack, lifting the blind that covered the porthole.
On the other side, should've been the United States, with the entire East Coast blazing. Instead... while the basic shape looked the same. The basic positions of the lights seemed right. They seemed a hell of a lot dimmer and smaller.
“What the hell?” he said to no-one in particular.
He got himself out of bed. Whatever was going on, was no small thing.
---->>
“So that's it Captain. The whole lot's just not answering.” Misha finished her explanation.
Garret yawned and looked around
“Somebody took down the earthside receivers,” he concluded, “Which took down phone lines too, because they go through the same circuits,”
At least, he thought they did.
“Must be!” Misha chirruped, painfully cheerful
“What's everyone else saying?”
“The same thing basically. Everyone's going crazy. Major faction sites are starting to overload,”
Great. Just great, thought the Captain.
“Keep trying,” he ordered. “Listen for any signal at all coming up from the ground. Maybe we'll get some news from a major station.”
“Aye Captain,” she smiled.
Which made him smile slightly. “Good work,”
Yawning, he sat down in his customary chair, trying to figure out what was going on. A terrorist attack on the 'danelaw?
Milly burst through the hatch,
“Captain,” she blinked, surprised to see him there.
“It's not us,” Garret explained. “It's affecting all of Fenspace too,”
Milly's face turn the same shade of green as her hair. What could bring down the freakin' internet? Did somebody take out the downlinks? Had Congress pulled the plug on it using some sort of secret top-kill? Why?
She took the pilot's seat, not that she actually could fly the ship.
“Captain, I'm getting something from Earth,” Misha announced, “It's sounds funny though, on AM radio.”
“Put it through,”
"My name is Jake Featherston, and I'm here to tell you the Truth." announced the speakers, before launching into a speech that sounded much like a dub of Adolf Hitler. With an American twang.
“I've heard that name before,” said Milly, calmly. “Where have I heard it?”
“Dunno, it's your head,” Misha giggled.
“Freedom!” cheered the crowd on the radio, “Freedom!” As the speaker promised the final solution the negro menace.
“Great, we picked up Klan FM,” deadpanned Garret.”Shut it off. Try and find something better,”
“AM,” Misha corrected him, “And done,”
The voice of Jake Featherston died abruptly, halfway through the word 'miscegenation'.
A few moments of silence, while the Captain, the catgirl and the computer specialist tried to understand what they'd just heard. Another button on Misha's panel lit up, flashing in time to an electronic chirp.
She pushed it, to be rewarded by a simple text message sent to the entire fandom.
“Captain,” she said, calmly, “Noah Scott of Stellvia just called an emergency convention,”
Silence again. The ship's engines kept running. Garret exhaled a long sigh, remembering what had happened the last time he'd heard the words 'emergency convention'... and what had happened to good friends of his afterwards.
“Alright,” he stood up, adjusting his old jacket, the one he'd had since launch day. “We need everyone awake. Bring the ship to battlestations,”
Well, good luck getting any sleep tonight.
---->>
The SS Ciara was one of hundreds of Fenships in cislunar space that night. Much the same scene was played out on every bridge, cockpit, control room or CIC. Some who heard the Featherston broadcast knew immediately, while some remained in the dark until long after they received the convention message.
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?