h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, I'm finally getting some idea what's going on. It looks like some of my updates have fallen foul of the bureaucratic military censorship that's sprung up around all off-planet activities. Still, now I can fill in the gaps.

We were up caretaking the Higgs research station, waiting for the overdue, superannuated automated resupply ship. Bored out of our minds by the same old music discs (only the narrowcast spacenet signals get through the Higgs ionization shield, and they figure music is just a misuse of bandwidth!), with nothing but the mildest weed and a few simple pharmaceuticals to distract us from the mould and stink of stale sweat, we just zombied through the same old maintenance routine cursing quietly to ourselves... anyhoo, the resupply ship arrived unexpectedly early, with a full recrew aboard. It wasn't the little robot shuttle we usually emptied and stuffed full of our garbage and the solid waste we couldn't compost (don't ask), and it wasn't the ageing LEO crew transporter with its flaking thermal tiles, but a big shiny military orbital transport, bristling with projectile launchers and laser turrets, and carrying six unsmiling shaven-headed special corps dudes with 'A Job To Do'. Something was very definitely up.

We and all our personal junk were unceremoniously bundled out of the habitation quarters into the offside 2 and 3 equipment bays, and given four hours to prepare for Earthside transfer. Cjob found this a little impolite and remonstrated with the smallest bald guy. The little fella (I say little, but he was bigger than either of us - although small stature is usually considered an advantage in restricted living space) showed him an authority from the OS Federation C-in-C, smiled his first cold smile, and said 'please' very nicely, so we shut up and got on with it. After all, we were going home. The new crew shutdown and disconnected Sylvia and threw her rack in with us before replacing her with some new-tech gizmo that gabbled an incessant running commentary on the state of the instrument logs the moment it was switched on. We decided to take Sylvia with us for sentimental reasons (hell, she might be worth something as an antique), and then there was just time to harvest Freddy and George before transferring everything else to the military shuttle for the journey down.

Almost before we knew it, the battered shell of Higgs was receding to a bright pinpoint, and then it was just another faint star fading into the Earthshine. In spite of my relief to be out of the tiny, festering tin can, I felt a small lump came to my throat. Cjob had a little moisture round the eyes too, although he claimed it was irritation due to the unaccustomed dehumidified air in the transport. I don't remember much about the transit, except that the big machine was smoother cutting through the atmosphere than anything else I'd travelled on, with just a distant rumble and a gentle vibration that made my teeth buzz. We were pretty mellow but stunned with the suddenness of it all, and didn't speak again until we'd touched down and were taxiing to the safe area and the disembarkation facility.

More later...