IUSD18

==Chapter 18 - I used to Dream==
Kowloon System
Lyran Commonwealth
3091
[From prospective of Patrick Ngo...]
I'm seeing her again.  Penny's noticed that I get distracted.  I haven't told her about seeing my sister even when I'm not alone.
We're almost done and the clocks are (hopefully) synched between the five station locations;
Station 0 is here in the Kowloon system and if it goes Phobos, it'll be noisy and loud and very distant from just about anything that could be destroyed by the energy release.
Station 1 is located off the Davion outback.  It took longest, which is why it took five years for the project, putting a station in the middle of nowhere like that, on the far side of the Inner Sphere? yeah.
Station 2 is in Falcon held space in the former Chainelaine isles. Where the station is in a system that hasn't been human-occupied in three centuries.
Station 3 is in a system near the Free Worlds League, about thirty lights from their border, and thirty from NIOPS.
Station 4 is near the Magistracy of Canopus.  They haven't expanded that direction in a few centuries.
This morning, I haven't seen Amanda yet. So maybe my insanity is stabilizing? or maybe it hits in waves.  I can't tell.
We're going to start with a ping to station 1 and station 0.
The test begins in twenty minutes.
"You ready for this?" I ask Penny.
"Yeah! and you are??" says she replies. "Maybe...maybe it works, maybe we all die." I comment.
We are attempting the largest science project in human history.  Not in importance, so much as cost and risk.
Nobody's succeeded at this before, and I don't know that our work here isn't going to result in a brilliant flash of light and a few hundred casualties.
We're taking a mega risk...
The board lights, and sequence starts, dialing out.
There's a brilliant flash, and we're suddenly looking into another star system from up-close.
"Object incoming!!"
something comes tumbling out the gate...
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