Awake as usual around 5am drenched in sweat, having spent the night, again as usual, in a troubled, suffered, half-sleep - passing from dim reality to nightmare and back endlessly. It's almost a relief when the shrill shreak of the alarm clock jerks me finally from my fetid pit and into the start of a new day. I get up and begin applying the various creams and dressings neccessary to keep my wounds gained during a recent experiemental launch from growing more gangrinous.
Dressing and moving downstairs, I boot up my NASRA issue computer terminal generously given to senior employees by the company (their motto being an employee with a computer at home can work there as well as at work and thus work for us twice!). Logging in early allows me to get a head-start on the day, and catch up with any issues or messages received overnight. This morning, as many others, finds my mailbox full of reports on data validity for overnight batch processes by my department as well as the usual NASRA internal news communications. I note with interest that the coup in the NASRA research station in Brazil has finally been overcome by the NASRA Special Forces, and though fighting is continuing in the forests around the station, the research vaults and nuclear weapons have almost all been found. NASRA HQ has proclaimed the operation a success, and apparently the rogue NASRA factions have only managed to sell four or five of the bombs to the terrorists.
About 7 o'clock I get into the car and begin the drive to the FDS HQ which is located over a forty-five square mile facility near Norwich, Norfolk. Most of the facility is located underground, and the facility, along with it's four nuclear reactors is able to survive self-sufficiently for up to 6 minutes. Having taken the camoflaged exit into the complex, and passing through the seven security barriers I pull onto Castro Way, one of the main roads in the FDS compound, I get caught in heavy traffic even at 7.30, as the 9000 employees that work at and under FDS HQ arrive during the start of the FDS morning rush-hour. My route through the FDS compound is scenic and passes the impressive colors at the Toxic Dump of Death as well as the magnificent statue erected following the Stavros II disaster to the 'Unknown and in More Than 100 Pieces Rocketeer'.
Parking in my reserved space, I pass through several more security checks and enter the lift to descend over a mile underground to my office. As the lift door opens, I quickly draw my FDS issue Desert Eagle and crouch down, weapon ready. The light in the corridor is dim, and as I peer around the lift door, I can detect no movement in the darkness beyond. That doesn't mean there's nothing there. For the last three months, these corridors had become death-traps like no other - a pride of genetically engineered NASRA space-lions (called lions for short) had escaped from the experimental zoo-ology clinic on level B. The corridors have never been entirely safe however, there has always been regular problems with marauding bands of NASRA miscrients. These poor souls are mainly horribly deformed victims of launch mis-haps bolstered by employees who have been lost in the corridors for so long their ID has invalidated, trapping them and disallowing access to the vending machines. These criminal bands are made the more dangerous by the arms sold to them by corrupt members of the NASRA Security Forces.
Flinging myself out of the lift, I'm swinging my head around violently, trying to track any form of movement in the shadows, keeping my gun ready with the safety off, and running with all my might right down the corridor toward my office. Turning the last corner without incident, I thanked Stavros for the grace he had shown me by allowing safe passage. Finally the barricade came into sight, a collection of heavy duty office filing cabinets, desks and other associated furniture looming ahead of me. Not dropping in the speed of my run I shouted 'it's Marnie!!' to the two or more members of my department who I knew would be pointing their automatic weapons at me. Hearing a reckognising shout, I vaulted the entry to the barricade and finally stopped, panting heavily, at the guard post we had put in to protect our offices from intrusion. Finally arriving at my desk, I noticed that most of the staff were already in, only two sporting any visible injury gained on this morning's rat run. I learned from my deputy, that casualtys had indeed been light this morning and reports indidcated that only four of our staff were unaccounted for! With that good start, the day could only go well.
The rest of the morning I spent in a meeting with some of the design team for the Zeus-Cracker III, the latest in the highly successful series of Zeus-Cracker rockets. My department's involvement in this is primarily focused on the implementation of a way of allowing a five year old child to ride on the rocket, and become the youngest person ever to fly in a rocket to over 1000ft. The major stumbling block thus far, has been the integration of a sweet vending system used to 'convince' the rocket pilot it's a good idea to get into the cockpit.
Following the meeting I enjoyed an early lunch. Opening my standard issue NASRA ration pack, I thanked Stavros for the fact that only two of my three crackers were mouldy. After my crackers, I had a small sip of my water (NASRA generously allow their workers up to 10ml of water a day). Having finished my lunch, I hastily prepared for the mid-day worship. I had only managed to get to my knees and aligned correctly with Saturn when the sermon of the day started. Today's sermon was a rousing speech about the tale of Stavros and the Rather Cute Furry and Altogether Nice Creatures of Nigel 4. Stavros - having just watched five hours of early Star Trek back to back - decided to use Kirk-esque deplomacy and tried to fire his photon torpedos.
The moral of the story was simple - Stavros was still in his early days of space exploration and so didn't have any photon torpedos!! Instead - the crew were forced to bludgeon the Rather Cute Furry and Altogether Nice Creatures of Nigel 4 to death with cricket bats. Never try to fire photon torpedos at innocent or defenceless races without having developed them first!!
After prayers, we fought our way to the surface again, climbed aboard the NASRA Monorail at Tupolev Square, and went three stops along the Son of Stavros line to the fake NASRA launch volcano, located in the middle of the FDS campus. Four security checks and a strip search later, we gained entry to the central FDS control facility. The FDS control facility is responsible for maintaining control and feedback systems on all NASRA orbital craft, as well as hosting the FDS computer suite - 5 Commodore VIC-20's wired via a 9600bps latest technology serial cable into a Bodgit (tm) serial switching unit.
The reason for our team visit to the FDS control was a scheduled meeting with Dr V N Death, one of the senior NASRA project controllers and morris dancing officers to discuss our team's contributions to the FDS Director's financial hardship fund. As a glorious service to Stavros' Vision we are required to donate 50% of all team gains and salarys to the highest NASRA official at our site. The problem was simple - somehow FDS HQ had got wind of a nice little scam our team had pulled (if I say America, small insertion, Fort Bragg, nerve gas, global terrorism and extortion I think you'll get the drift) to put some more petty cash into our tea budget. It appeared that we had managed to fail to declare this to the authorities...
In the end it was a confused afair, all of us (obviously) quick to blame each other and claim they had no knowledge of the coverup from headquarters. I don't even know why we bothered - we all knew the NASRA code for NASRA criminals, the will of Stavros would decide.
Without pre-amble all 5 of us were taken to the 'decision chamber' and each strapped into the 'Stavros Eradicator 5', a chair, you, and a Z 4million engine strapped to rather unfortunate portions of the body. The controllers would fire all the eradicators in parallel and if Stavros saw you were no traitor, his divine will would cause the engine to mis-fire or CATO at least, making it brief.
As the final countdown began, I closed my eyes and began a mental prayer to Stavros to save me, even though I was responsible for the entire thing. The countdown was mercifully brief, and as the fatal '0' was reached, I screwed my eyes further shut and prepared to face Stavros.