Prologue
Year of the Tuatara
The explosion in the A1-S1 Spoke was gargantuan, the largest explosion ever felt on the Sphere, so large that it almost threatened the integrity of the Sphere itself. It was heard over thirty kilometres away. Alarms rang, the Spoke’s mainframe rebooted itself, causing the whole realm to be in darkness for five minutes and warnings were sent to the other Spokes. Whatever had caused the explosion could conceivably cause explosions at the other Spokes as well.
At A1-S1 in pseudo-Kazakhstan, the entrance to the Spoke was blocked. Nobody could access it. The teams that were being readied for despatch to S2 to reinforce the loyalist forces could not now leave. There was the suggestion that people could travel to neighbouring Spokes and travel from there, unfortunately, none of the neighbouring spokes had functioning shuttles apart from perhaps the S6 Spoke, two hexes to the west.
A small expedition was mounted to try and reach the S6 Spoke and despite having enough food to enable the volunteers to travel there and back, the expedition was never heard from again.
It appeared that the continents representing the copy of old Earth were cut-off from the rest of the Sphere. Suggestions on how to contact the rest of the Sphere were varied, ranging from the very unlikely to the ridiculous but all eventually were considered impossible. It would only be when the self-repair mechanisms, built into the structure of the Sphere could start to fix the damage that contact with the S2 Spoke and others could be resumed. Estimates for how long it would take ranged from the optimistic of a few weeks, to the pessimistic of never. The pessimists were not far wrong; it did not take weeks or years or dekayears but 845 years and 5 weeks. The bomb had been particularly well designed and particularly well placed.
The explosion in the A1-S1 Spoke was gargantuan, the largest explosion ever felt on the Sphere, so large that it almost threatened the integrity of the Sphere itself. It was heard over thirty kilometres away. Alarms rang, the Spoke’s mainframe rebooted itself, causing the whole realm to be in darkness for five minutes and warnings were sent to the other Spokes. Whatever had caused the explosion could conceivably cause explosions at the other Spokes as well.
At A1-S1 in pseudo-Kazakhstan, the entrance to the Spoke was blocked. Nobody could access it. The teams that were being readied for despatch to S2 to reinforce the loyalist forces could not now leave. There was the suggestion that people could travel to neighbouring Spokes and travel from there, unfortunately, none of the neighbouring spokes had functioning shuttles apart from perhaps the S6 Spoke, two hexes to the west.
A small expedition was mounted to try and reach the S6 Spoke and despite having enough food to enable the volunteers to travel there and back, the expedition was never heard from again.
It appeared that the continents representing the copy of old Earth were cut-off from the rest of the Sphere. Suggestions on how to contact the rest of the Sphere were varied, ranging from the very unlikely to the ridiculous but all eventually were considered impossible. It would only be when the self-repair mechanisms, built into the structure of the Sphere could start to fix the damage that contact with the S2 Spoke and others could be resumed. Estimates for how long it would take ranged from the optimistic of a few weeks, to the pessimistic of never. The pessimists were not far wrong; it did not take weeks or years or dekayears but 845 years and 5 weeks. The bomb had been particularly well designed and particularly well placed.
On S2, the small staff of the Spoke immediately evacuated, locked the entrance, withdrew to a safe distance of several kilometres and waited for contact. Disturbingly there was none; it was as if they were the only people on the Sphere.
Three days later an aircraft flew overhead. It looked like a rescue was imminent, or at least it did until the plane dropped a bomb.
Three days later an aircraft flew overhead. It looked like a rescue was imminent, or at least it did until the plane dropped a bomb.
