Beginnings, Part 1: Twilight
Commander Montcalm, this is Paragon One, please come in, the small panel speaker crackled at me as I floated over to the console from doing one of my hourly readings on the Ununpentium engine.
Paragon One, this is Commander Montcalm reporting. So did Zeke hit another homer last night or what? I said, already regretting the fact that I just earned a lecture from Doctor Reece.
Commander, this channel is kept open for monitoring your status and that of the UUP engine, Doctor Reece angrily shot through the speaker, not keeping up on the latest football scores
Baseball, I said smugly.
What? Doctor Reece said perplexed.
Zeke Curtis plays baseball. For the Paragon Heroes. You know, that big domed stadium just outside of town? I said smirking to myself, And home runs in 10 straight games is a pretty amazing achievement if you ask me.
Well, it does not compare to the achievement you are lucky to be a part of, Commander. I would suggest you remember that. Now what is the status of the UUP engine?
At 0900 hours, the engine is producing approximately 1,000 luxes of energy per second, while maintaining a core temperature of 20 degrees Celsius. We are currently at 247,000 kilometers above Earth, orbiting geo-synchronous to your position Paragon One, I spoke into the microphone on the console.
While the scientific study component of the mission didnt really excite me all that much, the chance to fly an experimental shuttle was something I couldnt pass up on. So I swallowed my pride and gave all of the Crey scientists what they wanted
a perfect little robot to fly their ship and type in readings into the on-board computers.
Excellent, Commander. This is Doctor Reece out.
Hey, Red, so did Zeke hit another one, or what? I asked hoping the connection had not yet been terminated.
Yup, a blast over the left field wall. Eleven in a row, he goes for the record tonight.
Darnit, I wish I could get the game up here. I have a good feeling, Red. He is going to tie it tonight and break it the next. May 23rd, 2002 is going to go down in history, I just know it.
Well, you take care Commander, we will be checking in with you again in a couple days. This is Paragon One, ending transmission.
***
Space is the best place I have ever been to do some thinking. I know it sounds corny, but being all alone up here and looking down on that blue ball Earth below me, lets a guy like me put it all in perspective. I have been hitching rides to rocketships for the past seven years. At 20, I was the youngest astronaut ever back in 95, and since then, I have broken every single record they have ever bothered to keep about astronauts. Most Total Time in Space, Longest Mission, Most Distance Travelled over a career, Most Number of Missions. If you look those up, next to them says Commander Matthew Montcalm. In the end though, I dont keep coming up for the glory. I keep doing all this for the perspective. In a world full of superheroes, mad scientists and extra dimensional technology, things just make more sense up here I guess.
This latest mission is a doozy. If the science guys at Crey are right, this new UUP engine (short for Ununpentium, the latest element to be discovered, sheesh, what are they up to now? 160?) they developed could feasibly provide unlimited energy for the entire world. It is absorbing solar radiation and using the UUP to exponentially magnify it into tremendous reserves of energy. I am running the whole ship and all of its machinery on the energy it produces, and have more than enough juice to spare. The scientists even believe that it can absorb other forms of energy, which is one of the reasons I am up here I suppose. Doctor Reece is world famous for his theories on so-called cosmic radiation, an unseen, and as yet, untapped, form of energy that inundates space like water in the ocean. But in the end, the real reason I am up here, is to just get a way from it all.
Alison and I have been fighting again. I told her when we got married that the life of an astronauts wife wasnt exactly going to be glorious. We are fighting over everything. Money, mainly I suppose, but everything really. Ah well. I am going to hit the treadmill and then thaw some gourmet space food. Log date May 23 2002, recording stop.
***
What are all these alarms?!? Doctor Darwin Reece yelled as he entered the control room. A wailing siren was heard overhead, and red emergency lights gave the entire Crey facility an unearthly glow, which seemed kind of appropriate all things considered.
Doctor Reece, we are tracking hundreds of what appears to be dimensional portals opening up over Earth, Red Young, mission control leader, told the stone faced scientist with more than a little concern in his voice, We have lost touch with Commander Montcalm and shortly thereafter, have stopped receiving any remote readings from the UUP engine. Something happened immediately before the portals opened
the readings began to spike and
What do you mean spiked, Young? What were the final readings? Doctor Reece demanded.
It doesnt make any sense, it was like they just off the chart
the last reading we got from the engine was 100,000,000 million luxes per second
but that cant be
thats the equivalent of a star.
Red Young had seen a lot in his thirty years working on space missions in mission controls. Tragedy, heroism, sacrifice, pain
the depths of these emotions though could not prepare Red for the gut wrenching feeling he felt in this next moment. Doctor Reece began to laugh a maniacal almost sickening laughter. Red felt scared for his good friend, Commander Montcalm. Red felt scared for them all.
Dont you see, you simpleton? It is exactly as I hypothesized. The engine absorbed the energy given off by the portals opening
the engine absorbed the cosmic radiation of the ripping open of the space time. It worked! I was right!
But Commander Montcalm
how could anyone survive a build-up of all that energy? How could he
I highly doubt that Montcalm could have
hmm, we will need to send a recovery team to get the engine back as soon as possible now that we have lost the pilot
All you can think about is your damned engine? Youre a monster
Sir! a young technician said, interrupting the confrontation that was about to occur, We just received word from NORAD
the portals
there are vessels streaming out of them. And we have word of assaults in Indonesia and Europe. There are unconfirmed reports of some kind of laser cannons being fired on parts of Paragon City
Steady son, Red said as he regained the strong air of confidence that made him a natural mission control leader, I want you to get full documentation of Montcalm's last position before we lost contact, and I want you to start trying to contact him at ten minute intervals from here out. I dont know what is happening, but whatever it is, Red said as he stared at Doctor Reece with fire in his eyes, we have to remember we have one of own stranded up there, and we cant let him down.
