65-Valkyrie’s View: A Year Among the Stars
March 5th, 2552 Communications Breakdown
Tow Truck Driver/Lab Rat/mechanic’s apprentice/ – Katherine ‘ConV’ James Reporting
Communications started to break down almost immediately – the homing beacon on the Valkyrie went from sounding ever minute to every two until it was almost pointless. If anything happened to the fleet – I’d be traveling so slowly I’d never catch up with the Valkyrie.
So I watched the Valkyrie and the Memory pick up speed and fade away. I know fleet was in contact and can still reach them but the communications are so slow that it’s not really practical, they just have to wait with the rest of us.
The actual travel portion of the trip is going to be approximately 6 hours, so they’ll only go about 240 AU, then spend the next three days studying VV 271.1 before Pavane is scheduled to land. 240 AU, that’s about 2880 light minutes away – which means we won’t see them arrive for another day and a half or so.
I kept looking at my watch, trying to figure out where they were, but Fipps just started laughing. He tried to explain time dilation to me, but all that really matters at this point is— the first sign I’ll see of a successful mission is the Pavane, reappearing where the Valkyrie was in three days.
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