The blackout is the event that starts the main campaign of Rift Elevator. In one night the Directorate lost every reliable connection to the shaft below the rim, and the C-9 went down without permission.
# 03:17
At 03:17 station time, all eleven lower relays stopped reporting at once. They did not fail in sequence from the bottom up, as the chain had been designed to fail. Relay Control’s night chief, Sana Okafor, logged the loss and pulled the last buffered packet from the upper relay.
It contained an audio file nine seconds long. Voiceprint analysis matched it to Ilyan Venn, missing since 2214, with ninety-seven percent confidence. The recording contained six words:
Marek, don’t let it learn your name.
— Final packet, lower relay chain, 03:17
# Lockdown
Rim commander Helene Graf locked the rim, suspended all launches and ordered the research crew evacuated to the outer ring. Her report to the Directorate treated the packet as a possible intrusion. A voice could be copied, and something in the shaft had just demonstrated that it could reach the relay chain.
# The launch
Marek Venn, a licensed lift pilot and Ilyan’s younger brother, was asleep in the quarters ring when the alarm sounded. Forty minutes later he was in the C-9 cradle. He filed the descent as a recovery mission, a category that did not require the commander’s countersignature during an emergency. Then he disabled the carrier’s ascent lock before the station could recall him. See The recall order.
Sana Okafor saw the launch request on her board ninety seconds before the commander did. She has never explained the delay.
# Objectives
The mission has two goals on record: locate Ilyan Venn, and restore the relay chain. Marek’s private objective is absent from the Directorate’s manifest: to find out why his brother left a warning that only he would recognise. See The descent.
Related articles
ARCHIVE STORYSix words03:17, the night of the blackout. Sana Okafor is alone at the relay desk when eleven lights go out at once.
RECOVERED DOCUMENTThe recall order04:01–04:19. Commander Graf tries to stop the C-9 before it clears the rim lock. Reconstructed from the command channel.
ARCHIVE RECORDMarek VennSalvage pilot, younger brother of Ilyan Venn, and the only person aboard the C-9 when it went down against orders in 2217.
ARCHIVE RECORDSana OkaforNight chief of Asterion Relay Control and Marek’s only voice from the surface. She saw his launch request ninety seconds early.ARCHIVE RECORDThe descent (2217–)The solo descent of the C-9: what the archive knows of Marek Venn’s route so far, sector by sector.