FIVE

Kevin Payge sat in one of the service pods at the back of Bay Four. Senior Chief Teague had handed him the data card from the translight buoy and gave him the task of downloading the data from the card to viewer disks.

He inserted the disk into the computer and started running the download program. The buoy's initial star fix photos were first. Payge watched as the text scrolling across the bottom identified Helios Delta, Aerilon's sun, and then one after another it located the suns of Picon, Caprica and Saggitaron in succession.

He watched the spectrum analyzer as it scanned for the OPRANS satellites only to hear static. Then as the face of the buoy turned towards Aerilon he could see the clouds that covered the surface. As it did, the radiation meter rapidly swung into the "red zone" and pegged at the maximum reading. Unable to see through the clouds in regular light, he switched to the infrared view.

The software projected the outline of what should have been the city boundries of Spaceport City along with its latitude and longitude. The infrared indicator glowed bright red from the lingering heat and radiation on the surface. If he didn't know better, he would have thought he'd locked on to a landfill or junkyard by mistake. The devastation was total. All he could see was debris.

Payge panned upwards to a higher altitude. All the buoy could see were the craters of at least four nuclear detonations. No city…no space port…nothing. Only the flashing of the words "RADIATION HAZARD" scrolling across the bottom of the data stream. The scrolling text below the picture read out the latitude and longitude of the surface targets that the buoy was observing at that moment. Suddenly the scroll switched to text: "SPACEPORT: Aerilon Operations'. Right in the cross-hairs of the video was a massive crater. And it was unusual as it looked like it had erupted from inside-out. Whatever exploded here went deep first and then detonated. A bunker buster, no doubt.

Payge then advanced the view to the Colonial Fleet Liaison Base west of Spaceport City only to find more of the same. He selected a small corner northeast of the base and zoomed in on it hoping to see some signs of life. He knew it was on this corner where the Ministry of Defense Bunker was located. Right where the bunker should have been was a very precise, very deep crater. There weren't even any recognizable fragments of Vipers or Raptors to be seen.

Payge then fast forwarded the video and spectrum scans, watching for any spikes or clues that might have indicated that there was some sort of intelligence coming from the surface. He covered all of the known civil and military distress channels and common broadcast frequencies.

Nothing but static.

It only took him twenty seconds to scan through the rest of the video and RF analysis. If there was anything to be heard or seen, it wasn't making it through the background noise created by the radiation. And with the radiation numbers being recorded nothing was going to be living down there much longer. Only the most well equipped Ministry of Defense bunkers would be able to hold out, and then not for more than ninety days.

Payge's fingers danced across the computer keys as he changed screens. He selected 'radiation spectrum analysis', and it was here that he became confused. He switched through several screens, each causing him a bit more confusion that the previous.

"I'll be damned….was all he could muster. "The Gunner ain't gonna believe this…" After a moment, Payge resumed the scan. He was sure there'd be more surprises to be found.

As the scan resumed, the view jumped to Azur'a. At least the views of the surface were easily viewed in regular light. However that didn't reconcile the fact that the damage to the outposts there were as equally horrific as it had been on Aerilon. Even the purely scientific and civilian facilities had been destroyed.

As it had at Aerilon, the buoy had conducted an RF spectrum scan. And as on Aerilon, the results were the same…Nothing. Most terrifying were the scans for radiation in the atmosphere. There wasn't any atmosphere. What had passed for a paper-thin atmosphere on the massive moon was gone. Blown away or burnt off, it didn't matter. It was gone.

Payge again fast-forwarded through the scans making sure that any clue triggers were preset to alarm him to potential signals, but they remained silent.

He then withdrew a blank video disk from a drawer and inserted it into the scanner and selected "TRANSFER". He could hear the disk start to spin up just as the door to the pod swung open. Through the door stepped Bekka Robbins. "Hey Kev…Did we get any good pics?" Bekka hopped up on the counter-top behind Payge's work station with a playful bounce to her movements. Any other time he might have been easily distracted by the presence of a woman as beautiful as Bekka Robbins. Right now, though, his gut was empty. His soul ached. In the bottom of his pain, he wanted to be able to crawl up in his mother's arms and have her tell him all was well in the world even though he knew it was not.

"Yeah…yeah…the whole disk was loaded" he said, almost painfully. "I don't know if I'd call what we got as "good" or not, but at least now we know." His affect was flat. He spoke in a monotone, weak and almost unintelligible.

"So…you gonna let me in on it?" Bekka started to try and tease a smile out of the technician, but it was obvious that even that innocuous effort was going to be un-rewarded. Suddenly she knew that something was wrong…so very wrong.

"Kev…?"

"They're gone, Bekka…Aerilon…Azur'a…gone. There's nothing left…." He painfully blurted out. Payge's face was pale, his voice broken and wavering. "They really did it. Every city. Every base. If there's dry land, it's smoldering."

The young specialist hadn't been able to look at her since she walked into the pod and even now all he could hear was the sound of the computer heads spinning and her breathing. He slowly turned to face her and was aghast at what he saw. She was as white as a ghost. Her hands were gripping the edge of the countertop so hard that her knuckles were colorless. Her tears were making rivulets of what little make-up that she had applied and one was forming a drop on her chin. Her lower lip was quivering and it was apparent that no matter what she might have wanted to say, the words weren't coming. Her eyes were larger than one hundred cubit coins, distant and empty.

He moved directly in front of her and put his arms around her. She let go with one hand and put it around his shoulder, then the other. Her movements were almost mechanical and panicked. It was as if the hold she had on the counter-top was the only thing keeping her from being pulled out of an airlock.

"It'll be alright, Bekka…We'll be alright…" Payge tried to reassure her, but even he wasn't so sure that any of them would be anything close to 'alright'. His voice was soft and reassuring to her even though it was obvious he was having a hard time trying to do either. How did one tell someone that their world was gone?

Bekka Robbins began to sob. It was all Kevin could do to not follow suit. The two of them embraced for several moments with only their tears, sobs and heartbeats breaking the silence. But after a moment, the video disk Payge had started recording reached its end and an incessant beeping filled the room. It was Bekka that broke the moment and gently parted their embrace. She pushed him back gently, daubing at the tears on her cheeks with a work rag she pulled from her back pocket.

"They'll be expecting that upstairs, Kev…"

"I know…But now I know what they meant by 'ignorance is bliss'. Right now, you and I are the only two humans in the universe that know what we know about this disk. There's almost 200 people on Menno and several of them are from Aerilon. Neither you nor I are from there and look how this affected us. Imagine what's going to hit the fan in a few minutes…"

The young specialist set his forehead against hers. She lifted her head to look at him, and for a moment, just that moment, everything was alright. Tenderly, he took her right hand in his left and helped her from her perch on the counter-top. "Let's get this upstairs…" he said.

Kevin Payge and Bekka Robbins walked side-by-side through the hangar bay, slowly and unsteadily, at first, but then with an ever-steady gait, to the elevator that ran up to the Administration offices. They rode the elevator to the Admin floor in silence, each of them glancing to the other for just a second of reassurance. The ride was quick and the door slid open to the outer offices, and it was as the door opened that he realized that Bekka's hand hadn't left his. He turned his head ever so slightly to look at her. To his surprise, she was looking at him, and they smiled and gripped each other's hand a bit tighter.

They exited simultaneously but Bekka took the lead to the door marked "Security Chief~~Sven A. Robbins".

"Dad had them set up here, Kev…" Bekka's voice was broken and almost a whisper.

Kevin Payge hesitated knocking for a second since the last time he knocked on a door he got barked at. It was then he released Bekka's hand as he reached up to the door. He made three solid raps on the door jamb. Unlike his last experience, however, he was met with a far more welcoming "enter".

Seated at the far end of an oval table was Gunner Kells, Captain Rohs, First Officer Cately, Sergeant Lohan, Corporal Jarvis, Senior Chief Teague and two civilians that Payge didn't recognize but who obviously recognized Bekka Robbins. They were all bent over a planning table and the Marines appeared to be animated about moving something around the spots on a map.

"Senior Chief…I have the results of the download and the spectrum analysis from the translight buoy." The crowd around the table suddenly became silent as Specialist Payge handed the disk to the Senior Chief.

"And…?" The Senior Chief had a good idea by the specialist's affect that he knew what was on the disk. "How bad…?"

Specialist Payge looked at Bekka Robbins for a brief second and then redirected his gaze to the Gunner and then the Senior Chief. "I'm not an imaging interpretation specialist, Senior Chief. But this doesn't look go" he said with a dead-set seriousness. "I think the best thing to do is just run the disc and let you see for yourself, Ma'am." Bekka was ready with a laptop computer and handed it to him as he finished. He set it on the table that the maps were spread across and patched it into the widescreen viewer in the room. He turned it on and hit 'enter'. The start-up chime sounded it's five-note jingle and the screen momentarily turned blue, then the video began.

They all watched in disbelief as the pictures switched from one devastated landmark to another. If not for the scrolling information under the pictures they wouldn't have had a clue as to which scene was which landmark, either. It wasn't 'bad'…It was devastating.

"Any signals, Specialist?" the Gunner asked. He was certain he already knew the answer.

"No Sir. Nothing. I scanned all military, commercial, aeronautical, maritime and civilian distress frequencies. I even scanned the hobbyist wireless bands to see if there might be any isolated pockets of survivors. But even if there is, the background radiation levels are so high we didn't hear it." Specialist Payge looked at the people gathered around the table. They were all looking to him right now. "My uncle used to have a really big hobby radio set-up his summer house in the mountains. They'd just sit and ramble on into the wee hours and I told him I thought it was such a waste. But he showed me how they also use their wireless in case of an emergency. Pretty remarkable, actually." He paused for a second, as a slight nostalgic smile ran across his face. But then as quick as it came, it was replaced with the look of anxiety as he came back to here-and-now.

"They used fondatonium weapons, by the way. It's almost as if they plan on coming back sometime soon. If anyone's alive down there now, they won't be in a few days. All of the land masses in both hemispheres got hit. Irradiated clouds cover 60% of the planet now. The computer says it will be 90% by week's end. Only the poles are devoid of radiation clouds at the moment but they'll be covered too…"

Each of the members of the group glanced around at the other.

"There is an up side to this…" Payge's wavered a bit.

There was a brief, almost painful silence in the room. "And that would be, Specialist?" The Gunner didn't have a clue as to what could be "up" about this.

Payge cleared his throat and flipped through some notes on the podium in front of him. "Well…The fondatonium weapons, Sir…that's what I can't understand. Its initial blast radius is small and the initial radiation release is significant. But the half life is real short. …Like five years. Even stranger, fondatonium radiation tears up exposed living tissue first, but does hardly any damage to plants that aren't destroyed in the initial blast or fire. Assuming the debris in the atmosphere can settle out and the normal weather patterns can re-establish themselves, Aerilon could be re-colonized in as little as six or seven years. I just wonder why the Toasters would want Aerilon in a condition that humans could re-populate it in a relatively short time."

"Why would the Toasters be pre-disposed to having the surface relatively low-signature in so short a period of time" Gunner Kells said out loud but to no one in particular. "They could operate in that environment with near impunity." The Gunner sat back in the big office seat, his hands across his chest with his fingers interlaced, drumming his fingers on his chest. "Why, indeed?"

"Thank-you, Specialist. Well done. Miss Robbins, would you ask Ms. O'byea to join us…And both of you…please keep this to yourselves until the mission returns, please."

The Gunner turned his attention back to the situation map. It was better than getting caught staring at the walls in disbelief.