1.10.11

Radio Silence

Silence.


Then, a crackle of static, the whistles and pops of an unstoppable signal hitting an immovable jamming field.


Then a jingle-

“You’re listening to Radio Silence, the galaxy’s number one and number only pirate radio station. I’m your host, Disposable Dave, this is my co-host, Recyclable Rob-”
“Morning, Dave.”
“-and we are live on subwave station nineteen thousand!”

Somewhere deep in the Imperial capitol, an alert flashes across the screen.

“And it looks like we’ve got our first caller: ‘Mary’, from the Vega system. Hello Mary?”
“Hi Dave! I’ve got some Imperial troop movements and a song request for you.”
“Excellent, Mary! What can I play for you?”
“Bohemian Rhapsody, by Queen.”
“Ah, a classic. Stay on the line, Mary, I’ll grab that data off you”

The alert crosses some kind of threshold, and, in an instant, every military installation within a hundred lightyears is activated.

“What a classic. Our next caller is ‘Al’, from orbit around Ares two. And you’ve got a joke for us, Al?”
“Yeah. Yeah, what do you get, uh, when you cross an Imperial trooper with a chicken?”
“I don’t know, Al. What do you get?”
“Nothing- they’re the same thing!”

Sixteen high gain antennae flick into triangulation mode. Within a second, they pinpoint the station, an abandoned nickel mining facility inside an asteroid.

“-So I burst through the door, with a bottle opener in my hand, and said ‘Hands up, or I shoot!’”
“Jeez! So what did he do?”
“He keeled right over with his hands behind his head and surrendered! Easiest thousand credits I ever made!”
“Awesome! Guys, phone in with your stories-”

The closest unit is the Himalaya, a J-class troop transport. Imperial command pings the onboard computer, rerouting it to the asteroid and starting the defrost on four dozen highly-trained commandos.

“-and that’s this week in civil disobedience.”
“Cheers, Beth!”
“You know, Dave, I never knew you could jury-rig a subspace rift anomaliser to explode using nothing but citrus fruit.”
“And, dear listeners, there’s one of those in every imperial stardrive.”
“In other news, grapefruit sales are through the roof-”

With a lunge like a predatory cat, the Himalaya springs out of stardrive, bearing straight for the asteroid. In the hold, forty-eight gauss rifles are loaded, forty-eight wrist-mounted deflectors are charged, and forty eight sets of combat boots tightened.

“Rob and I headed down to Altaria Prime to catch a demonstration a couple weeks back, Rob, what did you think?”
“Look, I tell you what Dave, there were a lot of beautiful women at those protests-”
“Rob. Seriously. Focus here.”
“Right, yeah. Massive turnout guys, and for all you guys who are still on unlisted prison planets, massive shout out, hang in there guys!”

The cutting beams fire up with a whir, and a boarding clamp latches on to the side of the asteroid. Within seconds the airlock is off, and imperial marines are methodically clearing every inch of the mining tunnels.

“Whoa, Dave, is that a proximity alarm?”
“Sure is, Rob! You know what that means, right?”
“Yup!”
“WAGER TIME?”
“WAGER TIME!”
“So, new listeners. Here’s how this works-”

Marines clear the next tunnel, and the next, boring deeper into the labyrinthine mines as surely as the mining droids which had stripped the rock of its valuable minerals.

“You guys text in how long you reckon it’ll take them to find us.”
“And, whoever’s closest, wins a Radio Silence merch bag.”
“Or, you know, they would if they existed.”

There’s one door left. There’s a signal from the squad leader, and a rushed countdown, and fifteen seconds of sustained gauss fire reduce the inch-thick plating to dust.

“Looks like time’s up, guys!”
“We’ll see you tomorrow morning- same time, different place-”
“This has been Recyclable Rob and Disposable Dave! ”
“Radio Silence, signing off.”

There’s one door left, and it splinters under military boots. Behind it, two, regular looking guys, with a stack of high-powered subwave radio equipment disk-shredding itself behind them.

“Looks like you got us.”
“Or not. Better luck next time, sucke-”

He’s reduced to dust before he can finish.


Silence.


A trillion kilometres away, there’s a hiss, followed by a slow gurgle. As the subwave emitters spin up, a coffee pot slowly starts to fill itself. Behind it, two stasis pods flash-defrost, and two hands simultaneously stretch and reach for the coffee pot.

“You know what Dave?”
“Yeah, Rob?”
“There’s nothing like that minty-fresh new-clone smell.”

Click.

“Good morning, Andromeda! This is Radio Silence, live from station nineteen thousand and one...”




This was a brilliant idea for a title, in search of a story. So I wrote one.

Now I'm wondering if there's actually a station called Radio Silence, and if it's really revolutionaries, and if they are in fact running a revolutionary rip off of Triple J's breakfast show.

I mean, what?

(Also, check this out: did you know they have wifi on the Space Station? For some reason that has me cracking up. I wonder what the password is?)

No comments:

Post a Comment