Author: Johannes "Jergen[K]" Cruz			Viewing: Chapter 5

Light Frigate Reaver, on approach to planet 477, research facility LX-477. “There she is Sir,” Ensign Stevens toned, pointing to a white mark on his forward display. “Freighter Hummel’s Dawn dead ahead, two points to port.” “Good job Ensign.” Captain Nealson leaned back into his gravity chair, watching as the supply ship grew in the forward view. Behind the ship, an angry red backdrop to the dark hull of the still Freighter, sat planet 477. Much like Mars the planet was made up primarily of iron, and thus appeared rusted from this altitude. For seven years the company had been terraforming this place, getting it ready for the massive strip mining that would pull precious ore from her skin and transport it back to the resource-starved earth. The atmospheric condensers, huge devices that filtered out the carbon dioxide in the air and replaced it with breathable gasses, were both powered by nuclear reactors, and as such required that a crew be on-hand to maintain them. Thus LX-477 had been built, a small colony of nearly 2000 workers that lived out their lives supporting the looming structures that slowly brought life to a dead world. It would take nearly 20 years to complete the task, but once finished the profits would easily outweigh the initial investment spent to keep such an operation alive. “Her Captain is standing by Sir,” called Ensign Green from behind the Captain’s chair. “Thank you Ensign,” toned Nealson as he thumbed a selector on the arm of his command chair. One of the displays to the right of the forward view popped with static for a moment the cleared, revealing the face of Hummel’s Captain. Eric Hummel was a hard man. For most of his life he had sailed the solar winds of the Commonwealth, and as such he had fought wars, run blockades, fended off pirates and dodged customs officials since he was old enough to be of use on a ship. After years of struggle he had finally gotten the money together to purchase a good-sized freight vessel, and had settled in to make his fortune the nearly legal way. Ever since he had gone legit he had become oddly optimistic, once in a while he actually believed he might live until retirement. “Good morning Captain,” Eric said, removing a cigarette from yellowed teeth, he exhaled smoke into the dim bridge of his ship. “Nice of you to join our little party here, I hope the directions we gave were easy enough.” “They were adequate Captain Hummel, as always.” It had been nearly ten years since Nealson had seen Eric Hummel, but the man still looked the same. Some said that space was the only way to cheat death long enough to make a difference, and the theory was working very well in the case of this particular privateer. “Since I owe you one, I thought I might as well drop by and see what I can do.” “Aye Captain,” Eric smiled. “We do have this nasty habit of bumping into one another.” Nine years ago the Confederated Government of Coruss had started a war with the trading federations set in place by the various companies of earth. Their ships in danger and profits suffering, the Commerce League had gone to the United Earth Government and asked for help. The end result was a bloody war between the home system of Sol and nearly two dozen outer territories. The end result being a state of tension between the true citizens of earth and those out on the frontier. Even after so long a time the tensions had yet to heal themselves. During that last war Eric had made a fortune running weapons and supplies to the outer worlds for incredible profits. On more than one occasion Nealson had nearly intercepted his ship, but each encounter had ended with Hummel escaping intact. “What seems to be the trouble Eric?” Nealson intoned, sighing as he leaned back in his chair. “Seems that LX has stopped talking. The beacon is still on, but the radios are all done. We can’t raise a soul down there. So, knowing you boys are always willing to lend a helping hand we thought we would ask for some help.” “Right, wait one, we’ll be in touch.” Nealson thumbed the communications link off, breaking the connection. The screen before him went dark as the signal was lost. “Anything on any channel Ensign Green?” “No sir, even the beacons are shut down. That place completely offline.” “Possible reasons for such an occurrence?” Swiveling the chair he faced the Comm station. “Not many Sir. We are too far from the system’s star for that to be a factor. Aside from the complete destruction of the facility communications array, a total loss of power or an attack by raiders of some sort, those beacons should be sending out some kind of signal.” Ensign Green frowned at his display as he continued to read printouts from it. “The last transmission received from this location was four days ago. In another three days we would have been notified of the break in contact Sir.” “Understood,” Swiveling the chair forward again he opened Comm with Hummel’s Dawn. The viewscreen popped into life a second later with Eric looking on curiously. “We don’t have anything Eric, I’m going to send in men to see what happened, you can either wait it out or head someplace else. You should still be able to make some sort of profit out of this mess.” “Aye Captain, I can always make a profit. Thank you for the assist.” Nealson nodded, then thumbed the connection closed. “Ensign Green, get me Sergeant Dachande up here. We are going to need a scouting party.” “Aye Aye sir.”