Karroo Mining Colony [Trinity Continuum: Æon]

John Snead brings us this excerpt from Trinity Continuum: Æon:

Isolation Followed by a Dramatic Rescue

Then the Upeo wa Macho disappeared, and Earth heard nothing more from Karroo Mining Colony for nearly seven years. Given the lack of reinforcements and support from Earth and the likelihood that the Chromatic attacks had continued, the UAN assumed that the colony had been lost.

Personal Log of Njenga Jeptoo
03.17.2117

I’ve never seen anything like it. We thought we were done for this time — we’d never seen the frogs send such a large force, with so many ships. They wouldn’t even need to force their way into the station this time, they could just blast us into dust with that fleet. All this time fighting, surviving, and then to end like that… Well, obviously it didn’t.

It was N’Gamba who saved us. I was with her when she got the news, with her when she saw the external scans on the monitor. One second she was there, and the next she was gone. Vanished into thin air. Then five minutes later, she was back, with that smile, that secretive smile. “We’re going to be okay,” she said. I saw them on the monitor. Over a dozen of them, winking into existence out there, human-looking, but floating in space with no protection. Some of them were glowing. They flew — they flew — toward the alien fleet, and started…well, fighting it. Blasting ships with beams from their eyes, tearing through hulls with their bare hands. Some absorbed laser fire like it was nothing. Others got hurt. I think I saw one of them die.

We helped, of course. We fired off all the colony’s ion cannons, sent sheets of plasma at the frogs’ fleet. Maybe those glowing people couldn’t have beaten the aliens without our help. I don’t know. I do know we’d never have beaten the aliens without theirs.

When it was all over, the teleporters — finally, the teleporters! — took them away, back to wherever they came from. All but one, who came in to meet N’Gamba. He was tall, beautiful, glowing like a star. He looked like some kind of god. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said to her, and his voice was like angels singing. “I’m Apollo.”

I think that’s when I passed out.

After the Upeo’s return, contact was reestablished with Karroo. As it turned out, they’d been in contact with the teleporters for years, and it was with their aid — and the aid of a group of novas from the planet Eden — that the mining colony was still mostly intact, despite relentless attacks from the Chromatics. Even with that outside help, though, life in the station was full of hardship, with barely enough food to keep the population from starving, poor air and water quality, and crowded living conditions due to the massive damage the station had taken during the attacks. Making matters worse, much of the social power and authority on the station had been usurped by a criminal organization known as the Leopards.

With additional supplies and security forces arriving regularly from Earth, Karroo is beginning to recover, although the population is holding steady at about 100,000 due to many residents leaving as space on Earth-bound Leviathan jump ships becomes available. Conflicts between the arriving forces and the Leopards are frequent, and the Chromatics are still a threat.

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