Oberon [Part 1]
Return to the Source
Returning to the Source [Oberon]
Prior to leaving Lunar Base 25, a recurring thought began to surface insinuating that the trail I’m following doesn’t make complete sense, although training and experience tells me other. 50 years of service as an agent of the Space Federation has taught me that eventually the truth unfolds if you remain persistent and just follow the leads and evidence presented to you, because no matter where they take you, you’ll find your answers.
For the journey from Lunar Base 25 to Oberon, a Class IV interplanetary cargo transport was requisitioned that had a propulsion system which was faster than the one driving the hijacked transport I’ve been tracking. By all calculations, we should arrive on Oberon approximately 1.5 days prior to the hijacked shipment. Almost 13 weeks have passed since the hijack occurred but it feels like a lifetime. My heart is heavy with the possibility that this mission may not have a positive outcome. Negativity is not one of my personality traits, yet I keep thinking that I’ve missed some critical details and we’re far off track, or that I’ll arrive on Oberon too late.
Silvia’s cryptic message left on Mars only provided further confirmation that the hijacked Urite Shipment was returning to Oberon, albeit via Venus. After analyzing Silvia’s message “AOOT is real” at the Fedora Xtamemory Archives, The Ancient Order of Transcendence was the most relevant reference associated to that cryptic message that I could find. I also discovered that there were other artifacts found in or around a number of Oberon Urite crystal mines that conveyed inscriptions thought to represent The Ancient Order of Transcendence. Rumors, myth, and lore loosely translated in human terms the unearthly symbols found inscribed on these artifacts to mean “To be keenly concerned with the fulfillment and wholeness of life.”
One of the most useful things to learn, especially for the less gifted space traveler, is the notion of shortest path between orbiting planets in the solar system. In almost all cases, the shortest path between two planets on different orbital paths with each planet possessing differing orbital speeds requires some keen math skills as well as the spacial awareness of how other planets in dissimilar orbital paths can assist in shortening the journey between distant planets. Planet hopping may not generate a straight line between planets but by choosing which planets to hop to based on their orbital location and anticipated proximity to the next closest transitory planet can reduce the time it takes to get from an inner plant to an outer planet, and vice versa . It’s essentially hitchhiking rides from planet to planet taking advance of their orbital speeds plus celestial coordinates to shorten the time it would take to travel solely by spacecraft. In our multi planetary solar system, and at this point in spacetime, hitching a ride on Venus for a few weeks will shorten the journey to Uranus, and ultimately to its’ moon Oberon, by nearly 4 weeks.
The three additional Space Federation agents who accompanied me in support of this rescue and recovery mission were also QARC program participants. Upon our arrival on Oberon, these agents were quickly dispatched to other cargo transport operation centers. Our single focus was to identify the location that the hijacked transport would land and to intercept the landing party upon arrival, or soon after if we couldn’t determine the landing site before it touched down on Oberon.
Arriving on Oberon felt eerily different this time due to my fascination with the meaning of The Ancient Order of Transcendence. These thoughts were increasingly becoming more frequent, and in view of the need to focus on a rescue strategy, they were also becoming more of a distraction. The only clear intersection between these two overriding thoughts was the location of an inactive dig that was famously known for uncovering the earliest and most robust discovery of Ancient Order artifacts, site #13. This is the site I’ve chosen to begin my search for the hijacked Urite shipment and Silvia.
The first order of business after arriving on Oberon was to scour the transit journals for recent arrivals while simultaneously scanning the transit communications channels for all incoming cargo transit vessels. The second order of business for me and all agents assigned to this mission was to disperse to the chosen sites to perform physical recon and investigations.
While in transit to site #13, thoughts of why the Urite shipment was returning to Oberon were swirling in my head. Other details began to coalesce and solidify a growing idea that this was possibly a case of corporate espionage. Details like the loose evidence that small portions of the cargo had been offloaded on both Mars and Venus. Why was only 15% of the cargo offloaded with the remaining 85% headed back to Oberon? This still didn’t add up. The only rationale that offered a somewhat sensible probabilistic scenario is that the black market price for 15% of the hijacked Urite crystal shipment would make a handful of ordinary people rich. Maybe that small percentage of Urite dumping was the payment for hijacking the shipment and returning the remaining balance to Oberon. But why return any of it at all? These questions also prompted the additional question of who would gain from it’s return?
Due to Uranus’s extremely odd 98° axis tilt, Oberon’s hemispheres, like all moons of Uranus, are subject to extreme periods of darkness or sunlight (42 earth years per cycle to be exact). Oberon’s operational mining sites are located in sunlight which are currently 30years into the sunlight cycle but there are a few remote sites that are in operation on the dark side although the temperatures on the dark side are exceedingly colder than when in the sunlit rotational periods. The sites we were focused on, and particularly site #13, reside on the sunlit hemisphere. Shortly after arriving at site #13 the recon reports from all 4 teams indicated that our target cargo ship had not officially arrived. There was also no indication of “unofficial” arrivals of transports fitting the description of our hijacked vessel.
During the waiting period after arriving at site #13 the intensity was high. All teams continued with recon efforts to ensure that we didn’t overlook any possible indicators of the hijacked vessels arrival. Still curios about the reference to The Ancient Order of Transcendence found in Silvia’s cryptic message, I decided to rundown as much historical on-site information about any and all related artifacts discovered on site #13. Local log records typically included additional details about the discovery of interesting items during a dig. I cross referenced Urite Crystals and any references to The Ancient Order and found an interesting correlation. One historical log record indicated that the largest intact Urite crystal ever found at site #13 bore debossed inscriptions believed to have been left by The Ancient Order. The log entry also included time, date, location and dimensions of the crystal Artifact, but there was no information about its disposition. No mention of who claimed, bought, or moved it.
Next Stop: Oberon [Part 2]
