Starfire Symphony, (see inside)

[Ford Prefect]

For those of you who read much of my works, you'd know that I mostly write within a universe I call The Logical World, which is of my own creation. However, recently, I developed a new universe, this one I hope not to be plagued with continuity problems. This is not to say that The Logical World is going away, rather that there is a new place for me to draw inspiration.

The new universe goes by the name Fatal Friday. It stretches across a looong period of time, but this is one of the earliest happenings of importance. It probably won't make much sense to readers at the moment. I just hope it stands well on it's own, capturing an important moment in time.


Starfire Symphony

Thursday, August 17, 2056

Clouds of vapour rose in front of her face as she leant back against the cool metals of the safety rail. She stared up at the broad curve of the observatory dome. In the night, and illuminated from below by the orange-white lights, the dome appeared charcoal black and veined through with red, like some volcanic phenomenon. Her own coat was practically blood red under the lights. Around the main dome sat the other smaller telescopes, each locked within their own rounded shells, like little plump children sat beneath their equally plump parent.

Above, the sky was it’s uniform sable, though it was spotted with stars from horizon to horizon. Bright specks, they ranged across the colour spectrum but sitting mostly in the white and blue. There were a few wispy clouds that tried in vain to block out the light from above, but they succeeded only in stretching uselessly. Her ears were suddenly assaulted by the laboured grinding of gears, the main dome beginning to rotate lethargically; from within she could hear the soft beeping of some alarm, warning others of the danger involved of this. From where she stood, she could see other domes moving.

The sky was marked by a sudden tangerine streak, slide-rule straight reaching up into infinity. She knew what it was; a sodium laser, nothing special. But there was something almost mystical about it, even for she, an engineer. It marked some point in space far up above. The observatory dome stopped its twisting with a deep, hollow sound. Further away, one of its children had as well, and the sky lit up. Lime green beams filed the sky, three of them converging on the point marked by the sodium array. But where the first lasers were comparatively hair thin, these new ones were so much broader.

As she tracked the viridian ray into the sky, it became steadily more intense; becoming an opaque green. The few weak clouds were stained that colour as well. The point of brightness the lasers made was almost too intense to look at directly, though she stared up at it with a smile on her face. A squeak tickled her ears and she looked down at the wall of the observatory. A young woman had emerged, dressed in a slightly off-white labcoat. From her hands steam rose, as though her very fists were on fire; she took the cup she was offered and sipped.

“It's going to be a big day.” said the new woman, cradling the mug in her hands.

“It is.” she replied.

They stood silently, drinking, watching the verdant lances piercing up into the heavens. Occasionally the woman in the coat would look anxiously at her watch, or over at the engineer. The silence lasted for long enough that the coffee in their hands went cold as the stone the observatory was built upon. Eventually the silence was broken as midnight approached and with it a new day.

“Do you think this is the right thing?”

“Right thing? Hmm, I don't know.” the engineer placed her cup down and slid her hands into the warm lining of her jacket. “It's not really our job to worry about that. I maintain the focussing apertures, you make calculations regarding atmospheric disturbance. I just leave the decision making to the board.”

“That seems awfully apathetic, Sienna.” the other pouted “Especially considering the magnitude of what's about to happen here. I just ran through the scariest numbers I've ever read in my entire life. Do you understand what's about to take place?”

And Sienna nodded, at last checking her own watch. Midnight really was close, and as the second hand ticked inexhorably onward, she could hear music playing from within the dome. The Ninth, she noticed, the project director's favourite piece. Crying sirens tried to drown out the strains of the old ochestral piece, but Beethoven would not be denied. From this moment on, there was no turning back.

The facility was known as the Starfire Optics Range, and belonged to the huge aerospace congolmerate Locktin-Boeing. It used to belong to the United States Air Force, before the United State and it's airforce were essentially disolved. When Starfire was still sitting on Kirtland Air Force Base, it was its primary duty to develop optical wavefront control technologies; it was a part of the Directed Energy Directorate. It's largest telescope was amongst the most advanced when it came to satilite tracking, and that's what it was doing, tracking a certain satillite, that being the United Nations' Rainbow Station, one of the geostationary space cities in Earth orbit.

However, while Starfire Optics Range was indeed one of the most advanced tracking stations on the American continent, it still had in its dim memory the existence of its perhaps primary purpose, that being an anti-satillite laser silo. Sienna's colleague, Lucielle Danvers' calculations were ones for focussing via atmospheric disturbance; using the very atmosphere itself to focus a distorted beam into one of deadly force. It was the ultimate betrayl; the UN had asked Locktin Boeing to perform this operation. The faceless force behind the World State could never concieve that one of their pet supercorporations would manage such an act, they would never concieve such a thing. Undoubtedly, the eighteenth would bring many shocks to the United Nations. Things were intended to change. The fourth movement roared in earnest and the engineer smirked.

“Oh friends, not these tones. Rather let us sing more cheerful and more joyful ones.” she sighed as the wind suddenly roared, picking her hair up in a sudden, short lived storm. In the far distance, at the apex of the emerald array emerging from the range, there flashed a brightness, before the beams winked away, the wind dying down. Fire streaked the skies, tiny new stars that left spiralling trails in the night. Like rain, the shattered remains of the half mile wide space station began to burn themselves out against the air. Like clumsy meteorites, the largest pieces coursed downwards towards the Pacific Ocean.

Their hands locked together.

[Hawkwings]

A very mysterious beginning for this new universe of yours, Ford. I assume that you've already got more stuff in the works?