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Tirane (Alpha Centauri) |
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AusCan Consolidated announced today the commissioning of the first of their Watchdog
class destroyers. Constructed by AusCan Consolidated at their orbital shipyard in the
Alpha Centauri system, the Watchdog is designed to fill a void in the power projection
capabilities of their corporate military. The Watchdog is a multi-purpose military vessel,
although the primary role will be escorting merchant vessels of AusCan Consolidated's
Interstellar Trade division. Following an initial shake-down cruise within the Core
systems, the Watchdog will commence escort duties in the Chinese Arm, where the level of
pirate activity has been on the increase for several years. Caitlin Mannet, spokesperson
for AusCan Consolidated has stated, "Piracy is rampant on the Chinese Arm, and
cannot be tolerated any longer. The efforts of SAM-N have been positive, but not
sufficient. AusCan Consolidated is not prepared to further risk the safety of crews and
cargo of our vessels. A passive response must be replaced with an active one... and the
Watchdog-class is it." (Tirane Times) |
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Gateway (Sol) |
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Two of the six missing combat walkers lost a few weeks ago have been found! Extensive
searches by Gabon Aerospatial Rail (the Beanstalk transportation monopoly), GM (the
builders) and Militech (the weapon suppliers) all drew a blank on this most unusual case.
However, a far from routine check by the French customs vessel Nimes on the
independent Manchurian trader Golden Dawn turned up two of the BH-21s hidden among
a cargo of "machine parts". The Golden Dawn was stopped just before the
FTL shelf near Martian orbit, boarded and searched. Manchurian officials were said to be
"outraged" by this blatant transgression of international law, although
the success of the operation seems to suggest that inside information was used by French
authorities in this case. In support of this theory, it was announced in Gateway yesterday
that Caspar Gerrard and Henry Merryweather (two cargo transfer operatives employed at the
main orbital facility) were being held under arrest and had been so for the past three
weeks.
The Golden Dawn's ultimate destination was not revealed by French customs
officials, and no mention was made of the remaining missing combat walkers. (GateNet) |
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Gateway (Sol) |
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Microsoft announced a new version of Columbus, its popular navigation system, after
the publication of an HSET report, clearing the company of any flaw in its safety-critical
testing programme. The same report was critical of testing progammes of other companies
involved in this work: "We have to clear out those irresponsible companies who
risk passengers lives." said HSET (Sol) spokesman, Harry Verduici. However, an
unofficial report for Stellar Transport Alliance raises some important questions; "After
the collapse of the Columbus copyright case, several questions remain unanswered. Chief
amongst these is the discovery that under extreme conditions of use, both Cabot and
Columbus share the same potentially catastrophic flaw in the core initiation control
system." (Readers will remember that this issue has been covered in depth by this
News Service over the last few weeks). Meanwhile, researchers at Oxford University,
Earth, say that it is impossible to estimate the possibility of both systems having the
same flaw by chance. Lawyers acting for the sacked head of Cabot, George ffytton-Wells,
have decline to comment. A Microsoft spokesman said: "With the licensing of
aspects of Cabot's system to use in the next version of Columbus, we have an outstanding
product." (Hubcom) |
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Luna (Sol) |
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A bug in the infonet at the Jason Wayland Mining Station based on the rim of Plato
crater has, for the last two weeks, led to some subscribers getting the wrong journals!
This potentially subversive (and legally dangerous) fault was first noticed when Jim
Harris realised that his son, Peter (13) didn't receive his monthly copy of Working
Model Spaceships, and that the chip space allocated to it was actually occupied by a
file entitled What Calibre? - a publication devoted to those interested more in the
mercenary market. Dan MacAlpin of InfoSource, the leading company dealing with
the distribution of a wide variety of journals across the settlements on the Moon, said
"We were lucky this was noticed and not too embarrassing for our subscribers.
...We think a wayward gamma ray from the recent solar flare fried one of our
communications computers". Dan has declined to comment on a reported rise of over
60% in subscribers amongst this mining community to "Vacc Suit Babes".
(WeirdStories) |
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