Moment of Truth - Revision #2 - April 7, 2008 11:05:19 PM UTC

According to the notice, there wasn't enough cargo space for everyone's belongings, so all colonists were isntructed to use personal transport measures for as much as possible. Timothy had most of his belongings stuffed into his ship, and was carrying one final load to his assigned cargo ship.

There was a cart and two crew members next to the entry ramp to each ship. Timothy double-checked that his bins were marked properly, and set them on the cart in front of the AeroStar Hauler labeled EV-48-UL326. One of the crew members nodded at him. The other looked like he thought he needed to be somewhere else, and wasn't paying much attention to the colonists. He returned a nod to the first, and made his way back to his ship.

He checked and re-checked that all of his gear was secure throughout his ship's compartments. The Alpha Mk IV had a fairly large cargo space, as far as military and reconnaissance vessels went, but he had it packed full. None-the-less, Timothy opted to pack as much as possible into his ship--strapping several stacks down in the rear compartment as well as one on the passenger seat--rather than rely on a private cargo freighter to keep his belongings in order. If it turned out he needed to take a passenger, he was reasonably sure he could make room.

Satisfied that his things were secured firmly, he got in and set a course for his previous destination, Unified Science. Thus far, he had kept his growing panic about his possible involvement in this situation to himself, but while he was packing his things the thought occurred to him that his intel might be able to help them somehow. He didn't know what most of it meant, but maybe Mitch would. And maybe Mitch would keep it quiet. Timothy did not like the idea of possibly being blamed for the situation publicly, but he knew he couldn't live with himself if something terrible happened and he had opted to keep the information to himself.

When he arrived at the station, much of the bustle had calmed down; most likely many people had already left and were getting their families or belongings together and preparing to join the forming fleet. The fleet was more of a rag-tag line of personal transport ships, freighters, cargo ships, and other vessels waiting for the Deployable Space Station to complete its detachment procedures and start the process of moving to a new colony.

This wasn't the first time they had been kicked out of their homes--it was becoming more of a regular occurrence as the alien radiation was continuing to spread throughout the colonies. But this was something new. Maybe--maybe it was possible it could be some freak occurrence. Maybe the mass was somehow deflected toward them by some nearby source of gravity. But based on Timothy's experience with the ship, he was growing more and more sure that this was no accident. That maybe this was the first sign of an attack. If that were the case, and Timothy's actions against the foreign ship were construed as hostile, could his actions have triggered the attack humans had been anticipating for for 30 years? The aliens, whoever, wherever they were, had shown no direct signs of hostility. But what else could this be?

"Mitch," Timothy said as he entered the private laboratory, "I need your help." In his hand was a tablet containing a full record and spectral recording of the encounter.