terrycloth

[The video starts with a zoom in on Rusty Needle's asteroid belt, starting from a viewpoint far enough back to see it circling around the red dwarf star. It zooms in until it's focused on one asteroid, an unremarkable chunk of rock, that suddenly explodes with plasma bolts firing every which way. No target is visible until a section of empty space suddenly catches fire and starts tumbling, until it snags in a tangle of invisible wires, and hangs there, burning.]

That's how it all started -- a lucky shot by a hidden turret. Soon, space was swarming with stealth fighters, converging on the disturbance.

[The view switches to a HUD view of the battle, with little green wedges representing the fighters, red turrets studding the asteroid, and a wireframe estimate of the event horizon's location]

Freefall: "I never wanted to be in charge, but it was total chaos, and somehow the com-net software decided that I was the best qualified. Or maybe it just picked at random. I don't know. So, um, I was in charge, and we tried a bunch of stuff."

[Shots of the failed assault plans -- stealth fighters trying to dip through the event horizon to get snap-shots off, and getting shot down. Asteroids sailing in from out of view, and bouncing off harmlessly. A barrage of plasma bolts, absorbed by the event horizon.]

Freefall: "Eventually we managed to make a beach-head, though, and then it was all tunnel fighting. We weren't trained for that."

[A phalanx of large, ant-shaped robots marches down a cave-like corridor --]

I don't want to watch this.

[The video cuts off, shrinking back down to an icon and joining the rest of the WARANTINE stories in the newsfeed aggregator.]

[Era stares at the icon of her newsfeed entry, and takes a ragged breath. She turns towards the camera recording her journal entry.]

What have I done?

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