still, like a figure in a paused video, and Victoria knew his attention had moved elsewhere, focused on the Sun Wukong ’s navigation systems. She looked down, over the bamboo rail, to where dark machines bulked in the verandah’s shadow. As the power rose, she felt the vibration through her hands and feet.
“Five,” Paul’s voice said over the ship-wide address system. “Four.”
Blue static danced over the machines.
“Three.”
A rising whine came from below, building rapidly, like the sound of an approaching train. Victoria braced herself.
“Two.”
The airship’s skin crackled with a green aurora.
“One.”
Victoria’s ears pulsed with a noise beyond hearing: a silent detonation. She felt her stomach turn itself inside out.
And they were gone.
BREAKING NEWS
From B&FBC NEWS ONLINE:
MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM MARS PROBE?
LONDON 17/11/2062 – Government sources are staying tight-lipped this evening regarding earlier reports of a possible message from the surface of Mars.
First mention of the message came at 04:20 GMT this morning, when an anonymous operator at the Parkes Observatory in Australia posted a report on the observatory’s website, as well as on a number of online message boards, claiming to have received a radio message from the Céleste probe. This report has since been taken down, and all references to it have been deleted.
At 06:40, NASA’s press office released a statement saying that they were monitoring the situation and, while ‘an anomalous signal’ had been received, it was ‘most likely natural in origin’, and ‘no cause for alarm’.
Céleste Technologies launched the probe three years ago, to coincide with celebrations to mark the centenary of the union of Great Britain and France. However the company, which was owned by the Duchess of Brittany, was disbanded following her foiled plot to assassinate her husband, King William V, and seize control of the Franco-British throne.
The controversial probe reached the red planet yesterday, carrying a cargo of allegedly stolen ‘souls’.
When it was launched, Céleste Technologies claimed the probe carried only scientific instruments, but according to recently unearthed documents, the probe actually carried ‘back-up’ personality recordings of the Duchess and other high-ranking members of Céleste Technologies staff, as well as several hundred personalities harvested from former employees, including some from murder victims. In addition, it also carried machinery capable of turning material from the Martian soil into cyborg bodies designed to house those stored personalities.
A spokesperson for the ESA said, “Mars is 225 million miles from the Earth. Even if these cyborgs exist, and I’m very far from being convinced that they do, there’s almost nothing they could do to threaten us from that distance.”
However, inside sources tell us the agency will be allocating additional funding to its experimental nuclear engine programme, designed to create boosters capable of pushing craft through interplanetary space.
When confronted with this information, the ESA spokesperson said, “While it is true that the project exists, and a number of test engines have been built, we have neither the resources nor the funding to construct a spacecraft capable of making the journey to Mars.”
Read more | Like | Comment | Share
Related Stories
Parallel worlds: How likely are we to be invaded again?
The King cancels royal visit to Canada.
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Troubled ‘Ack-Ack Macaque’ film to premiere at Cannes.
Crew of the Tereshkova declared officially ‘lost’.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TOUGH TO KILL
A CK- A CK M ACAQUE TOOK shelter in the front room of a burned-out cottage, and peered through a broken window at the bridge. If he was right, the river it spanned was the Seine, and he was a few kilometres south of Paris. He could
“Five,” Paul’s voice said over the ship-wide address system. “Four.”
Blue static danced over the machines.
“Three.”
A rising whine came from below, building rapidly, like the sound of an approaching train. Victoria braced herself.
“Two.”
The airship’s skin crackled with a green aurora.
“One.”
Victoria’s ears pulsed with a noise beyond hearing: a silent detonation. She felt her stomach turn itself inside out.
And they were gone.
BREAKING NEWS
From B&FBC NEWS ONLINE:
MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM MARS PROBE?
LONDON 17/11/2062 – Government sources are staying tight-lipped this evening regarding earlier reports of a possible message from the surface of Mars.
First mention of the message came at 04:20 GMT this morning, when an anonymous operator at the Parkes Observatory in Australia posted a report on the observatory’s website, as well as on a number of online message boards, claiming to have received a radio message from the Céleste probe. This report has since been taken down, and all references to it have been deleted.
At 06:40, NASA’s press office released a statement saying that they were monitoring the situation and, while ‘an anomalous signal’ had been received, it was ‘most likely natural in origin’, and ‘no cause for alarm’.
Céleste Technologies launched the probe three years ago, to coincide with celebrations to mark the centenary of the union of Great Britain and France. However the company, which was owned by the Duchess of Brittany, was disbanded following her foiled plot to assassinate her husband, King William V, and seize control of the Franco-British throne.
The controversial probe reached the red planet yesterday, carrying a cargo of allegedly stolen ‘souls’.
When it was launched, Céleste Technologies claimed the probe carried only scientific instruments, but according to recently unearthed documents, the probe actually carried ‘back-up’ personality recordings of the Duchess and other high-ranking members of Céleste Technologies staff, as well as several hundred personalities harvested from former employees, including some from murder victims. In addition, it also carried machinery capable of turning material from the Martian soil into cyborg bodies designed to house those stored personalities.
A spokesperson for the ESA said, “Mars is 225 million miles from the Earth. Even if these cyborgs exist, and I’m very far from being convinced that they do, there’s almost nothing they could do to threaten us from that distance.”
However, inside sources tell us the agency will be allocating additional funding to its experimental nuclear engine programme, designed to create boosters capable of pushing craft through interplanetary space.
When confronted with this information, the ESA spokesperson said, “While it is true that the project exists, and a number of test engines have been built, we have neither the resources nor the funding to construct a spacecraft capable of making the journey to Mars.”
Read more | Like | Comment | Share
Related Stories
Parallel worlds: How likely are we to be invaded again?
The King cancels royal visit to Canada.
Is there life on Mars?
Troubled ‘Ack-Ack Macaque’ film to premiere at Cannes.
Crew of the Tereshkova declared officially ‘lost’.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TOUGH TO KILL
A CK- A CK M ACAQUE TOOK shelter in the front room of a burned-out cottage, and peered through a broken window at the bridge. If he was right, the river it spanned was the Seine, and he was a few kilometres south of Paris. He could
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