Deadly ship collision
Dateline Winky Q6, 3201.043
A crewman rescued from his ship later died in hospital. One Martian crewman is known to have died and eight others are missing after their ship collided with a Sirian freighter off Winky Station. The Martian Crew were on board a Centauri-registered ship. Starguard said shuttles and other merchant ships were searching for the missing crew. Last octant, six crew were killed when two ships also collided off Winky Station. One other Martian crew member was hurt, according to Reuters news agency. TheSirian crew suffered no injuries, and only slight damage to their ship. The Centauri ship, SS Wei Hang, was carrying 21 Martian crew members and a cargo of 27,000 tonnes of recycled technological materials . The Sirian ship, the Class 1000 Kaishin Maru, was carrying four people and 325 tonnes of tractor parts, thespace traffic control said. There have been calls for a major investigation into the efficincy and operation of WInky Space Traffic Control systems.
Summit discusses war plans.
Notes from the Summit Meeting held on 3201.101
It is to be regretted that only Earth, New Mars and New Venus were represented by senior members of their polities but progress was achieved.
1: The first point on the agenda was the Treaty of London, which it was noted at least one polity, the GFA, had so far failed to ratify. Additionally two polities, the GFA and the Sirians, have as yet failed to reduce their forces in unthreatened Quadrants in line with the Treaty agreed levels. The Martians were particularly anxious that this be achieved, at least in Quadrants 1, 2 & 3, as soon as possible so that all polities could be seen to be committing themselves to the war against the Exterminator. The GFA and Sirian ambassadors gave assurances that the matters would be raised with their respective governments. Reminders will be sent out to all polities on these issues.
2: The second point on the agenda was a proposal by the Venerian government for a defensive scheme for the human militaries, which after much discussion was agreed upon in broad terms. This is the first step towards a unified response which will hopefully take the war to the Exterminator and put Humanity on the offensive. Most of the ambassadors were able to agree to force deployments along with Earth, New Mars and New Venus but the ambassador for the GFA could give little commitment without reference back to his government, it has been assumed that GFA forces in Quadrants 5, 6 & 7 will continue to act alongside the rest of the Human forces and the ambassador proposed a force for the Intervention Front but this must be ratified by his government..
Under this scheme Adm. Lugaburruga VN will continue in command of Human forces in Q5, now called Quadrant 5 Defence Front, Adm. Hojo MN will command the human forces in Q6, now called Quadrant 6 Defence Front, and Adm. Farley WN will continue in command of Human forces in Q7, now called Quadrant 7 Defence Front. A new grouping of forces will be assembled in Q0, called Intervention Front, and will be commanded by Adm. Burwasher EN. The intervention Front will be a mobile reserve, based at New Berlin Q0, and tasked to attack any future incursion by the Exterminators and eventually to take the war to the Exterminators.
[TABLE REDACTED]
The Quadrant Defence Fronts will commence the task of scouting all uninhabited systems in their Quadrant and extending the search for Exterminators to the outer sectors.
As part of the discussion the representatives speculated on how many of the Exterminator units seen in the last year are still at large, the consensus was six ESBs, where these might be and what their future strategy might be.
It is believed that if they had been en route to Tuskan, in response to the so-called Peabody code broadcast at Red Spot, they would have arrived before this date, although this option could not be entirely ruled out. In the expectation that they have moved to an uninhabited system and set up a base to replicate themselves, the most likely option, it was agreed that scouting efforts were to have a high priority.
We have already seen a change in strategy, from one or more ESBs attempting to destroy entire colonies to groups of Viking units attacking the orbital stations in previously un-attacked systems. A number of ideas were put forward for this change but further study will be required before we will be able to understand the exact significance, and we have no idea at the moment as to any future development in Exterminator strategy.
3: The meeting went on to discuss the follow on from the Tuskan situation and what was found at Woods Asteroid. The IAO vessels will be arriving at the Sol system very soon and all was in place for the interrogation of Professor Peabody. The Earth authorities have agreed that all materials removed from Woods Asteroid will be forwarded to the Intelligence Unit at Kumarajiva. The Venerians requested, and it was agreed, that these materials would be available to their special Forerunner Research Institute (Special Scientific Base Alpha Zero Two, New Venus). The Martians stated that they had been able to recover a flight data recorder, from the vicinity of Woods Asteroid, which had been ejected from one of the Venerian DDI’s destroyed during the battle of Tuskan. After analysis by the Martians this had provided data that supported the Venerian version of events during the battle. The Earth administration stated that they still believe their version of events to be correct but tendered an apology to the families and dependents of the Venerian service personnel lost in the unfortunate incident. UNIT are still investigating the ESS Agamemnon and have yet to report.
4: Other incidents of strangeness were also discussed, these all appear to be in Earth controlled systems in Quadrant 7. The Venerian delegation raised the issue of the vanishing and reappearing asteroid in the Dolha system, after initially denying this incident the Earth administration stated that they had no information to hand but would provide a report at a later date. The Earth representative then stated that a “nest” of gene-splice aliens had been disturbed under a city in the Penii system, they were currently trying to keep a lid on this, literally – by concreting over the holes, but it may need the attention of thousands of Marines to deal with it permanently. This would require all polities to provide contingents of Marines and will require careful planning. The aliens involved are said to resemble those encountered some time ago on Serenity Station and also stated as being “stored” on Woods Asteroid by the AI “Major-domo”. It is now suggested that these “nests” may be far more common than we would wish and could be encountered in other Quadrants. [Post Summit analysis – the ecological disaster which required the planet of M’drid III (Q7, but which star system?) being nuked from orbit in 2993 was an infestation of particularly hostile and dangerous indigenous life forms, which we can now make a reasonable identification as genesplice 9 aliens. Since that date the planet has been strictly off limits to colonists under an inter polity treaty.]
There was no other business.
Lt. Commander Bjork Rudolphsdottir VN
Secretary
