Lieutenant Gerald MacArthur stopped at the end of the long dark hallway leading to the experimental MS holding dock. As one of the few OMNI officers transferred to Heliopolis before Morgenrote began construction, he had broad latitude when it came to command rank. The assholes disembarking from the transport ship may have outranked him, but he wasn't one of the many getting lost in the facility or one of those stupid enough to touch something important that they knew nothing about. OMNI had a tendency to ignore those knowledgable in their areas in an effort to maintain strict divisions between ranks.
The Commander of the newbies was one such individual, an older veteran more interested in his retirement than safety protocols. MacArthur knew that the newly drilled docking port in the side of the Colony close to the mines wasn't surveyed and therefore might collapse at the mere vibrations a tactical warship like the Archangel would generate exiting. Of course, when he brought this to the Commander, the fat old man and simply waved him off, saying something snide about Atlantic Federation Command knowing all about the possible dangers. If they had, the ship would never have been allowed to dock!
That was why MacArthur found himself in a pressure-suit in the cold vacuum of the manufacturing plant overseeing the transport of the X-Series. Pissing off the brass was never a smart thing, even if it was the right thing to do. Scoffing in disgust, MacArthur used his verniers to sail back out into space.
Everything seemed so perfect and still in the void of space. Even the bright light reflected off the colony's solar collectors was beautiful, like shards of diamond trapped in onyx. Adjusting his position, MacArthur flew across the pitted rock that provided the raw materials for alloy and mobile suit contruction, looking for an open mine shaft.
Through his study of the construction blueprints for the clandestine space port, he'd seen a clear exhaust tunnel running from the dry dock to an abandoned mine. The brass just assumed that nothing dangerous was left when ORB abandoned mining operations, an assumption that worried him considering OMNI Central's lack of foresight regarding the war. No, it'd be better if he checked it out himself, making sure no nitro primers or C-13 explosive charges were floating around in case the launching rockets needed extra venting. An explosion of that magnitude could blow a hole right through the colony.
Coasting down, the open maw of the mining tunnel appeared over the rise. Using his joysticks, he descended (or was that ascended? He sometimes forgot that position was relative in a vacuum) into the dark chasm and switched on his searchlights.
Nothing, nothing, nothing, seemed like his hunch was wrong and this trip was nothing more than what his superiors wanted it to be: a big waste of time.
Suddenly, a glint caught his eye deeper down a collapsed portion of the wall. Probably just a pod or something, junk that the miners crashed and never bothered to retrieve. Still, it just might be a nitro primer - which would give ample reason for his search...with that thought in mind MacArthur dived.
It was a pod, just not the construction type. Looked like a really old life-pod except it was bigger than any he'd ever seen. The plexi-steel window at the front was covered with ice and frozen blood.
Settling beside his find, he brushed off the thin layer of ice to reveal:
(Posted Fri, 23 Mar 2007 02:10)
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