Surpassing the speed of light remained elusive in 2175. However, the trick was to hold still to swap out spatial locations. For Colonel Sumitra Ramachandra, Major Lamarr Fitch, Captain Malcolm O’Connell and the rest of the ISS Mockingbird’s crew jumping between solar systems is just the start of their wondrous, sometimes zany and often perilous missions. The future of aerospace defense stretches far above the blue yonder.
Primalocracy
Flipsace 10
Testing a new Flipspace protocol, the Mockingbird travels to its most distant mission yet. There, Colonel Rama orders Major Fitch to lead a surface team to a planet outside the habitable zone, yet teeming with life based on ammonia. Rama flies a second science team in studying the remaining planets, where an artificial satellite is found. Fitch’s team also finds traces of civilization and discovers a lingering threat that destroys technology. The study of fallen societies turns into defense from a planet-wide force.
Derivation
Flipspace 11
The Mockingbird is again drawn to the Kuiper Belt, when a mysterious object is triggered by human discovery. Believing it may be related to the disappearance of the Astraeus Fifteen Hundred NATO deploys a Flipspace-capable strike group and calls on Colonel Rama and her crew to aid the International Space Organization’s study. Finding the location of a star system with possible signs of life, the strike group is sent to investigate what phenomenon may threaten the future of exo-solar exploration.
Confluence
Flipspace 12
The fate of the Astraeus crew is at last known. Serious questions remain as to why they disappeared. During the study of multiple life-sustaining worlds in peculiar orbits, ground support forces brought by the Mockingbird are attacked. Amid working out the nature and intent of the alien, a diplomatic dispute erupts over access to the discoveries. Colonel Ramachandra and her crew fall back on everything they’ve learned over the past year to understand what has brought together life from across the galaxy.
