Interleaved with Commander Josh Hawkins’ adventures while Exploring the Milky Way Galaxy – a Canonn researcher called Socha Korbemile was involved in a mysterious plot involving Shannon Day, who ultimately became a passenger during Josh Hawkins’ travels.
Socha Korbemile Sabotaged a Science Vessel
To: Socha Korbemile
Subject: SabotageSocha, it’s good that you weren’t boring and tried to resist us. There would’ve been no point.
No-one resists us.
Right now, we are pleased; you have done very well.
But if you are in any doubt – remember: you have only ensured the safety of your mother and father for now. One day, they might see your name written in history as the man who helped ensure that unworthy fools did not uncover the truth about the artefacts. But only if you continue to comply with our wishes.
So, since you seem to have a talent for the clandestine, we have something else for you to do.
We are hearing some troubling news regarding someone called CMDR Shannon Day – apparently somebody you work with in Dr Arcanonn’s lab?
From our own monitoring, and from the information you’ve been supplying, it seems you’ve been instrumental in helping her plan an experiment to take certain navigational and communication components of an unknown artefact on a long journey to investigate their behaviour far away from the bubble.
CMDR Shannon Day cannot be allowed to complete this experiment, Socha. If she did, then it would be somewhat ‘awkward’ for some very important people, which would mean it would be very unpleasant for you, or rather your parents.
So this is what you’re going to do: You will make yourself available to carry out some of the outfitting of her science vessel. Let’s say… the scanners, we’re sure you can think of a suitable cover story.
While you are there, you will apply a patch to CMDR Shannon’s ship’s control software. You need not concern yourself with the content of this patch, but if you’re interested then you might have seen it’s effect on one or two high profile incidents throughout the years.
Later today, this device will update with an application which will build and deploy the patch when it’s paired to the ship’s onboard diagnostics systems. All you need to do is run it – the application does the rest.
Do not delay on this Socha – we believe she is due to set off in the next day or so and it is imperative you complete this task. We will know when you apply the patch, and we will know if it has been applied to the correct ship, so don’t even think of trying to trick us.
Let us put it this way – if you don’t do this, then the chances of Shannon Day being caught and tortured by some unsavoury thugs, before being burned to a crisp with her ship, increase dramatically.
I’m sure we can all agree that our solution is more ‘humaine’, no?
Answering The Call
From Cmdr BowenTheKotoc:
It’s been around a week since Verity Gavroche broke the news that Socha Korbemile, in addition to spying on Dr. Arcanonn, was also coerced into sabotaging CMDR Shannon Day’s vessel prior to her trip to study UA components outside the bubble. It may seem old-fashioned, silly, and corny to aspire to the chivalry of the knights of old Earth, but regardless, I can’t resist the call of a person in distress. I immediately volunteered to mount a search mission to CMDR Day’s last known whereabouts, but before I could even find that information, Verity updated her story with the news that CMDR Day had been found by CMDR Josh Hawkins.
Apparently CMDR Day had been forced to evacuate her ship and placed herself into cryogenic suspension in an escape pod. In a stunningly huge stroke of luck, CMDR Hawkins found her and picked her up. CMDR Hawkins is in the middle of a long term exploration mission, however, and doesn’t have the necessary tools to resuscitate CMDR Day. Knowing she might have information vital to Canonn’s research into UAs, and that publicly revealing that information might bring us one step closer to either revealing the person or persons responsible for the attempt on Dr. Arcanonn’s life or removing their reasons for opposing our research, I again volunteered – this time to rendezvous with CMDR Hawkins, retrieve CMDR Day, and bring her home.
After inspecting my exploration Asp, Draco’s Wing, the Council approved my request. I made some final preparations, including adding a small cargo bay so CMDR Day’s escape pod would have a comfortable place for the ride back. Just before I was about to leave, CMDR Hawkins sent another transmission.
Taking some clues from the transmission, I plotted a course and headed out. Hopefully I will be able to contact CMDR Hawkins when I get closer to his location and we can arrange to meet. The sooner we can get CMDR Day back to Varati, the better.
Chasing Cmdr Shannon Day
From Cmdr BowenTheKotoc:
It’s been days since I left Varati in search of Commander Josh Hawkins. I was joined immediately after my departure by Commander Julian McCoy, who is piloting a medical Orca with the supplies we need to revive Commander Shannon Day. We’ve been jumping from system to system almost non-stop since we left, trying to catch up to Commander Hawkins. We’re now about 10,000 light years from his last known location, but he seems to have stopped broadcasting his location tags. Hopefully he’s just trying to avoid detection by the parties responsible for the sabotage of Commander Day’s ship, and hasn’t already been found by them…
I’ve started broadcasting a message towards Commander Hawkins’ last known position, trying to let him know we’re coming on a rescue mission, but we’re still a long ways away, and I don’t know if he’s moved too far to pick up my transmission. Commander McCoy and I will continue to approach the area Commander Hawkins was last exploring and pray we’ll hear back from him.
The search continues…
Who is Shannon Day? And Why Was She Sabotaged?
From Verity Gavroche (erstwhile reporter for the Canonn):
Recently, I have turned my journalistic attention to Shannon Day, the scientist whose occupied escape pod was miraculously recovered, and is now being protected, by CMDR Josh Hawkins, some thirty thousand light years from home.
Two of our commanders are out there searching for Josh right now, drawing ever nearer to his location as each day passes, on a personal mission from Arcanonn himself to recover Shannon and bring her home.
It’s his eagerness to see her back home again that piqued my interest. Dr Arcanonn has not previously shown any real emotion towards anybody (frustration at Palin notwithstanding) in the year since he rose to fame – so why now? And why her?
I mean – I know she’s ‘one of ours’ but, well: call it instinct. I’ve developed a nose for these things.
So the other day, after working with him on a statement regarding the Canonn Institute that’s soon to be deployed in IX-T D3-43, I asked Dr Arcanonn outright why he is so keen to see her returned. Needless to say, he was not forthcoming.
I told him that I would be investigating, and he simply said ‘you will do what you must.’ Enigmatic, to say the least.
I started by thinking about why the dark forces who were behind Socha’s ‘turning’ would want Socha to sabotage her ship. Socha’s contact suggested that it was because of the mission she was carrying out, but having looked at the transcript of the message they sent him, it doesn’t ring true. The message clearly states that if Socha hadn’t done what they asked, then she would simply have been killed instead. Now, that could’ve been an empty threat, but they’d already shown they were not above ordering a murder or two, as evidenced by the slaughter of Marietta, Socha’s rejected betrothed from his days back with the Penitents of Remor Veld.
For me, this inevitability of Shannon’s demise means only one thing: they didn’t want Shannon to fail in her mission, they wanted rid of Shannon full-stop.
Which seems a little odd, right?
Although we don’t know why they are opposed to the Canonn’s research, it makes sense that there might be people who are: if the UAs and Barnacles represent an alien presence in the galaxy, then there are many who would want to avoid, or delay, contact with those aliens, especially given humanity’s history in that regard. And that’s only the most generous interpretation. There are conspiracy theories abound about all of this, plus also the psuedo-religious angles like those espoused by the aforementioned Penitents of Remor Veld.
So threats towards Dr Arc can be understood, if not condoned. But Shannon? Nobody had really heard of her outside of the teams she worked within at Thompson Dock and Bond Hub. Simply put: she was not on the radar. But for some reason, this dark and powerful organisation actively sought out a way to target this poor woman, and leave her stranded thousands of light years from home, as an alternative to having her murdered.
The answer is clear: she isn’t as unimportant as she initially seemed.
I have nothing to back these ideas up right now – but I’m going to do a bit more digging to see if I can find out more.
I’m going to start by talking to Shannon’s last team at Thompson Dock, and I have made an application with the security authorities there to gain access to her quarters to see what I can find. They agree with me that there could be security implications with this story, so I anticipate getting clearance within the next few days.
I have a feeling that there’s a lot more to uncover in this story, and I promise to bring you whatever I learn as soon as I can.
Verity Gavroche, signing off.
All in a Day’s Work
From Cmdr BowenTheKotoc:
We made it. We finally made it. After weeks of travel and countless jumps, Commander Julian McCoy and I finally caught up to Commander Josh Hawkins. We met on a small, hot, fast moving planet. There were some tense moments at first, as Commander Hawkins tried to verify we were who we said we were. Apparently he’d had a close call with an anonymous Anaconda a couple of days before that tried to forcibly take Commander Shannon Day’s escape pod from him.
We had no reason to distrust Commander Hawkins, however, and complied with all his requests to make him feel comfortable that we were not a threat. We even transferred the equipment to revive Commander Day to Commander Hawkins so he could perform the procedure and be assured we weren’t attempting to harm her.
Once she was awake, Commander Day was able to decode the message from Dr. Arcanonn and verified we were sent by him. Now… here’s the big twist – and I’m scooping Verity on this one! – Commander Shannon Day is really Dr. Arc’s daughter! If I hadn’t been strapped in, I probably would’ve fallen right out of my seat when I heard that.
I have no idea how the group trying to sabotage our UA research found out about it, but apparently since they did, Dr. Arc doesn’t see any reason to keep it secret anymore. Does this mean we call her Commander Shannon Arcanonn now?
Julian and I are travelling back to the Bubble now, with Commander Day safely ensconced on Julian’s Orca for continued medical monitoring to make sure there were no issues with either the cryofreezing or reviving process. We’re proceeding cautiously since the people who attacked Commander Hawkins may still be out here somewhere, and we are unarmed and don’t want to submit Commander Day to any crazy evasive maneuvers before she is fully recovered. Hopefully we’ll be able to arrange an escort service to get us back to Thompson Dock safely when we return to Varati…
Overdue Homecoming
From Cmdr Bungalo:
News reached Varati today of the imminent return of a rescue mission dispatched by Dr. Arcanonn to save Commander Shannon Day. Months ago news reached the Canonn Interstellar Research Group that Commander Day had been found by Explorer Josh Hawkins. No times was wasted, Dr. Julian McCoy and Commander Bowen The Kotoc were immediately dispatched with the mission to return her safely to Varati.
Early this week the rescue team met with Josh Hawkins and, shortly thereafter, Shannon Day was successfully revived. Dr. Julian McCoy, in a communique to Thompson Dock, reported Commander Day was in good health after the revival procedure. The rescue team is due back within the week and celebrations are being planned at the station.
All are welcome to attend the celebration of Shannon’s return. Despite no threats having been made station security has insisted that all guests submit to a mandatory screening before being granted access to the celebration. Multiple checkpoints will be set up and guests are encouraged to arrive earlier with proper identification.
