Pulse Salvo

Terror at Ellison's Rise! Brazen Attack Leaves Dozens Dead, Site Contaminated

Solare News Network

November 6th, 2385 ESY

Ellison's Rise, Luna

A coordinated terrorist attack on the WegMaCo logistics hub at Ellison's Rise occurred in the early morning (local) hours on November 5th. The result: Dozens dead and many more wounded. The Lunar Security Authority warns that the casualty count is likely to increase in the coming days as this attack marks yet another use of weaponized planetary survey systems by criminal actors.

WegMaCo spokesman Luis Brincombe indicated that the terrorists initiated the attack using a suspected Helios planetary survey device (PSD). The deployment of the device produced devastating effects on the installation, its workers, and its defenders.

Brincombe stated at a press conference earlier today:

"At approximately 0320 hours UTC, our security personnel assigned to exterior patrol of the facility were notified of unauthorized persons and vehicles passing the perimeter near Residential Annex Three. The quick-reaction team moved in to investigate with an HE-V in support, and that is when the attackers deployed an improvised radiological weapon. This improvised device caused immediate and catastrophic damage to the defending HE-V, and widespread damage and system failures throughout the Ellison’s Rise complex.”

Commercial PSDs produce “pulse salvos” of intense electromagnetic, gamma, x-ray and exotic particle radiation. Though highly effective for remote analysis of targeted terrain in quest of lucrative ores, these emissions can damage hardened electronics, corrupt AI memory architecture, destroy HE-V motive systems and cause severe bodily injury upon exposure.

Eyewitness accounts describe a blinding blue flash immediately prior to the onset of the attack. The security team HE-V pilot, contractor Stephan Strauss, was extracted from his crippled HE-V, a Recluse, later by rescue personnel some four hours after the initial attack but later succumbed to acute radiation sickness during emergency LAS transport to Tranquility Medical Center. Independent testing conducted by the Lunar Workers Safety Commission after the incident later confirmed that dangerous radiation levels remain across a two-hundred-meter radius from ground zero at the device’s detonation.

After neutralizing the exterior security team almost entirely, the terrorists, numbering between twenty and thirty on-foot combatants in vac-suits and accompanied by two HE-Vs, stormed the installation. Employees and remaining security personnel fought back for three hours, enduring mayhem and death before reinforcements drove the terrorists from the complex and away to a waiting ship.

The administrator of the Ellison’s Rise complex, WegMaCo’s Carrie Glover, alleges that entire sections have been rendered unusable and uninhabitable from damage, radiological contamination or both in the aftermath.

Speaking to a Solare News Network affiliate on condition of anonymity, a doctor at Tranquility Medical Center has verified the treatment of nineteen WegMaCo employees among the wounded for severe radiation-related injuries, with several in critical condition.

The latest in a series of similar attacks occurring over the past decade, this incident has sparked real concern among corporate citizens and government officials over the continued proliferation of repurposed survey devices in an increasingly turbulent post-Rift Solar System. PSDs, originally intended solely as commercial tools for prospecting and geological analysis, were long ago flagged by security consultants as considerable threats should they fall into the hands of bad actors.

That insurgents have once more managed to weaponize a PSD is not surprising. Such actions have only increased since the intentional development and subsequent military adoption of functionally equivalent devices as missile warheads following the Hughes Station Incident. That costly accident was the catalyst that inadvertently demonstrated the war potential of PSD mechanisms. Considering the tight arms controls and expense of military-grade pulse salvo weapons, the only question for black marketeers is where they will procure commercial devices for conversion into lanterns or glowflies; colorful nicknames for improvised pulse salvo munitions used by both insurgents and security professionals.

A source in WegMaCo’s asset protection division, also on condition of anonymity, disclosed to SNN journalists that the terrorists’ weapon likely originated from a lot of old Helios devices reportedly stored at Prosperity, and implied that Dairo Mining Group collectivists may have sold one or more such devices to the terrorists, or may even themselves be responsible.

Brincombe deferred any other commentary regarding this part of the ongoing investigation, but he did confirm that several of the terrorists were slain during the course of the attack and promised that their origins and affiliation would soon be determined.

For the traumatized survivors of the attack on Ellison's Rise, though, these assurances are cold comfort as this incident is proof that the conflicts raging elsewhere in the Solar System have arrived at Earth’s doorstep. In these conflicts, terrible weapons are increasingly chosen as the tools of choice for fighters with nothing left to lose.

Updated 1101 UTC 11|07|2385: The Lunar Security Authority has placed all settlements within the Mare Crisium administrative zone on elevated alert and is implementing immediate, mandatory audits of commercial survey equipment inventories across Luna.

Contributing reporting courtesy of Jay J. Ashley.

Illustration by Florian Mellies