[dumbluck]

p.s. the savegame will open without a password now. sorry about that.

"All systems nominal for launch."

Mission Control had been buzzing with activity for three days now. As the Launch Coordinator, Mililam Eklar was right in the middle of it. This place was his baby, and he ran it like a finely crafted clock. Every function was covered with two redundancies. Every angle had been analyzed, and then re-analyzed. He and his team were ready. They could do this.

The Scout launch two months ago had been a complete success. Granted, it hadn't been NEARLY as complicated as the task before them today, but that was OK with Eklar. Scout's launch had served as an excellent dry run for their REAL job: getting the huge Arkun colony ship into orbit. Hopefully, her launch would go as well as Scout's.

Now, it was time. "Excellent. Initiate the automated system. Let's get this girl into the sky!"

Computer Ops entered a command, then a mechanical voice announced over the intercom, "Auto-Launch sequence engaged. T-minus two velars until ignition."

"Talk to me, people!"
"Automated Launch is running. No variances so far."
"Telemetry looks good."
"Cargo hold Life Support one hundred percent."
"Fuel tethers disengaged."

"Ah, Mr. Eklar?" The Bela speaking was not part of his team. Eklar vaguely recognized him as a member of the Scout team, but he hadn't paid enough attention to them to know what part he played in that slipshod project. But one thing was for sure, he was out of place here. He was in the way, disturbing the elaborately choreographed movements of HIS team, HIS project. Eklar found this very irritating. "The, ah, Scout program is requesting access to part of the Sensor Satellite network. We..."

"What? NOW? No, we can't, this launch is too important. We need all available assets focused on the Arkun." Didn't this guy GET it?

While his team continued to call out status reports, the automated system announced, "T-minus one velar, thirty meklas."
"Main Engines at nominal temperature."
"Auxiliary Launch thrusters ready."

"Uh, it's urgent. There is unprecedented activity at Phenomenon #1, and Scout is less than five kilometers away from it. Her sensors have been blinded by some sort of energy surge from the Phenomenon, so we need to ..."

Eklar gave a sigh of resignation as he filtered the little Bela's words out of his consciousness. That's what happens when your mission isn't organized properly. If you just slap things together and hope that they work.... "All right," he consented, just to shut the Bela up. "You can have K-2. It's monitoring the booster release at 45,000; it's resolution isn't the best, and it's redundant to K-24 anyway. You can monitor it at," he glanced at his clipboard, "at station R-17."

"Thank you, Mr. Eklar."

With that, the Bela scurried off to the monitoring station. Good riddance, Eklar thought. At least he'll be out of the way over at R-17.

"T-minus 1 velar," the automated system announced. Status reports continued to roll in. He refocused his attention on the task at hand.
"All Sensor Sats are locked on"
"K-2 is refocusing away! Oh, it's authorized."
"Final Computer Testing complete, no discrepancies."
"WHOA!"


The room abruptly fell silent. All heads turned to station R-17, and Eklar was there before the echoes had died away. "What?! What's wrong?"

The automated systems continued their countdown. "T-minus thirty meklas."
"No, no! You're fine! It's the feed from the K-2. It's ... it's gone!"
"The feed is gone?"
"No, SCOUT is gone! Phenomenon #1 ballooned in size, ... it was like a whirling vortex... and then it just sucked Scout right in."

"T-minus fifteen meklas."

"So, she's dead, then. I'm sorry." He wasn't, really. It serves them right, running such a sloppy program, then coming in and disrupting HIS carefully orchestrated project....

"No, that's the strangest part! We're still receiving telemetry from Scout.... but it's coming from Phenomenon #1 now!"

"T-minus five meklas"

An unfamiliar voice came over the com channel. "Uh, Control, this is Scout.... are you... are you getting this?"

"Four ... three ..."

"Bring Scout's telemetry up on the big screen," Eklar ordered. No one moved. "NOW!" he yelled. Someone pushed a button.

"Two ... One ... Ignition.... Liftoff. ... All systems nominal," the automated systems continued. "Trajectory nominal. Engine cutoff in twenty meklas."

No one in Mission Control heard it. They were all staring in disbelief at the large wall mounted display, at the brilliant orange orb hanging in the center of Scout's telemetry readings. The harshly glowing star was not at all like the soothing yellow light of Xtreme. They couldn't believe their eyes as they gazed at the 8 unfamiliar planets in strange, lopsided orbits. There was no question; they were seeing a completely new star system.

The Arkun, pride of the Belanai, it's best hope for the future, attained orbit. No one was watching.

Having fulfilled it's purpose for existence, the Automated Launch System switched the Arkun over to manual control and shut itself down. The Arkun's captain tried three times to raise Mission Control without success. Following the contingency plan for an on-board communications failure, she set course for Xtreme IV, not knowing that what had happened two minutes ago had changed everything.