SDNW4 Story Thread 1

[Simon_Jester]

The assistant gunner's hand was the first to go for a sidearm. "I'm sorry Lisa I'm sorry I'm sorry please please please..." The pirate raised the weapon to his temple- slowly and hesitantly, but driven by irresistible impulses. The others were followed suit. Fingers began to tense on triggers...

---

Recommended Listening

Deep Space, Sector W-26
Near the Bragulan Border
July 6, 3400

But before the first shot was fired, on a howling broadcast on all hyperwave frequencies, drowning out both the pirates' tortured weeping and moaning and Geppetto's sanity-destroying whisper campaign, came a tremendous roar:

"NO!"

"Stop in the name of Bragulan Law! This is the noticeably glorious and immeasurably storied Venerable Commemoration of the Generous Imperator's Archaeofeat of Precambrian Paleodinosaur Wrestling, paleocruiser of the Imperial Bragulan Navy!"

An impossibly massive vessel appeared from hyperspace, with a bow shock churning the sub-ether for countless astronomical units in every direction as poorly tuned, corroded subnucleonic engines blasted across the last light-seconds between his emergence point and the two alien ships. He was surrounded by a faint, shimmering halo, as the air leaking from his ancient hull was struck by the radiation leading from his ancient reactors.

The vessel was the size of a dreadnought, a large one. Huge and dense, the Bragulan ship had been forged, welded, and occasionally riveted together from uncounted scores of megatons of high-tensile alloy and reinforced bragcrete. He was a monument to the power of his makers.

An old monument.

For this was one of the Patriotic Glory-class paleocruisers. Indeed, this was one of the oldest of the paleocruisers, assembled not after but during the Great Civil War, to end it. Like his brothers of that generation, the great warship had been named for one of the Imperator's legendary feats of bravery, strength, courage, and intellect, to reinforce Mighty Byzon's rightful rule over the entire Bragulan race.

In human legends, it is often said of a hero that they wrestled ferocious beasts, such as a lion or a bear. Since the Bragulans are bears, this is impossible and they are forced to upgrade their ferocious beasts to dinosaurs. And so it was that a legend emerged of the great Byzon singlepawedly grappling with an enormous Tyrant Lizard, to prove his right to become a Tyrant Bear. The struggle had been ferocious; tankskis were stomped and the earth trembled, but finally Byzon was victorious. The beast's nigh-impenetrable scaly hide had become Byzon's cape for his revolutionary uniform, like something from the legends of Heracules; its meat had gone to a feast for Byzon's many followers.

It mattered not whether the great feat had ever really happened. What mattered was that every Bragulan knew that it had happened. To make sure every Bragulan knew this, and that any who dared to question it would feel Byzon's titanic iron-shod boot, this great vessel had been constructed. For there were un-Bragulan Bragulans beyond the surface of Bragule itself, who dared to question this truth, thinking themselves safe in their hidden perches beyond the sky. To correct their foolishness, the Imperator had ordered the construction of the first wave of the Patriotic Glory-class dreadnoughts, and among them had been the great ship Commemoration of the Generous Imperator's Feat of Paleodinosaur Wrestling!

It was said that Byzon himself had once commanded this ship in a great battle against a terrible enemy, one that sealed his triumph against the last of the vile dissident wreckers who sought to splinter Bragulanity, though no one could remember where, when, who, or why. With the victory won, the mighty dreadnought was honored with the addition of an extra term to his glorious name.

Years passed. New Patriotic Glories were created. Then came the war against the annoying and smug Apexai! This great ship among great ships led many heroic charges in that (literally) world-battering conflict, shrugging off the dorky Apexai and their flimsy but surprisingly agile warsaucers. The Apexai's so-finely calculated death rays and Zorch Guns were rendered useless by the decameters of Bragulan Steel covering the Commemoration of the Generous Imperator's Feat of Precambrian Paleodinosaur Wrestling.

The great battleship had been one of many Bragships dispatched by the Imperator to grapple the moon of the world Bolshaya Chernovyi (then called by some bizarre and irrelevant alienoid Apexai name, for it was their homeworld). Heaving with all the might of their nuclear superrockets, the Patriotic Glories and their lesser consorts (now gone, but not forgotten, not aboard the heroic paleocruisers where the difference between a hundred years ago and yesterday was as nothing) braked and sent the Apexai's moon crashing into their planet, crushing flat their precisely calibrated Spheroids of Annihilation, Battling Analyzers, and Exponentiating Fields!

It was over! The war was won, as the few surviving Apexai were scattered to the nine vectors! Commemoration of the Generous Imperator's Archaeofeat of Precambrian Paleodinosaur Wrestling received a commendation, and with another term in his most noble name.

Then had come first contact with the hated Sovereignty. Once again the Patriotic Glories, now accompanied by newer ships designed after the lessons of the Apexai War, went forth to battle. It was discovered that the mighty dreadnoughts were now starting to fall a little behind the curve, perhaps. While they were still, strictly speaking, dreadnoughts- they dreaded nothing!- they were surprisingly less invulnerable than they had once been intended to be.

The Apexai had shared with the accursed human foe many of the secrets of their armamentation: the Zorch Gun evolved into the autolaser, and so forth and so on. And the Sovereignty, while no less arrogant and annoying and alien than the Apexai, was less dorky and more warlike. They had proven worthy adversaries on many occasions- often by carving great chunks out of a Patriotic Glory's hide.

Depressing. But it had offered many opportunies for the Patriotic Glories to add further honor and battle-legends to their name, in heroic combat against the annoyingly well armed and tricky Solarians! While many of the Patriotic Glories were destroyed, many more survived, and Respectable Commemoration of the Generous Imperator's Archaeofeat of Precambrian Paleodinosaur Wrestling had been among them, destroying or damaging several Solarian starships, and earning yet another term in his glorious name.

Further centuries passed. The Bragulans continued to clash and skirmish with other races and nations: with the United Solarian Sovereignty, with the Imperium of Man, with the strange, enigmatic, and very quickly annihilated Scron who dared to attack mighty Bragule itself for its copious supplies of vegemite. In each new generation, the Patriotic Glories expressed their glory and patriotism by standing in the vanguard of the proletarian legions of the Imperial Navy against all foes that dared to stand against the will of the Bragulan Star Empire.

But with each new generation, the Patriotic Glories themselves became an older generation! Radiation slowly transmogrified the iron and bragtanium of their mighty hulls into other, less invincible materials. Repair patches applied to the hulls after battle damage never meshed quite properly with the original hull, creating fracture points and weak spots in the hull. The ships' compound expansion subnuclear reactors, once at the forefront of Bragulan science and technology, drifted towards the midfront, then the hindfront, and finally wound up slouching along somewhere in the Great Behind. Batteries of K-bolter autoguns and missile launchers became more unreliable, more prone to jamming. Spare parts became harder and harder to find, and less reliable when they were found, for now they were produced on machines as old as the Patriotic Glories themselves.

By the dawn of the 35th century, the Venerable Commemoration of the Generous Imperator's Archaeofeat of Precambrian Paleodinosaur Wrestling, despite feats of heroic combat in defense of Bragulanity that earned him yet another name upgrade, had been downclassed. Repeatedly. Once deemed a mighty dreadnought worthy to be personally commanded by Great Byzon himself, the ship was demoted to a mere battleship worthy to be personally commanded by one of Great Byzon's duly appointed Admiral Bears:

From there, Venerable Commemoration had fallen to the status of a battlecruiser operational, one not equipped with shields, one whose crews were forced to buckle up and hope for the best as they practiced the craft of war among the stars. And today, the storied warship was classed as a mere cruiser- albeit, in honor of his venerable service, a paleocruiser.

---

More recommended listening!

Captain Dymytry Zyvyannov growled. He remembered well how he had been sidewaysmoted into this command. As a cub, he had never wanted to join the Navy. Not for him the life aquatic! Or the life vacuumic. No, he would become an enforcer of Bragulan Law, a watcher. With luck and the Imperator's blessing, perhaps he would become a watcher of watchmen, or even- oh unattainable of unattainables!- one of the watchers that watched the watchmen who watched the watchmen...

With these thoughts in mind, Dymytry had joined the great police academies of Bragule. He had many fond memories of the Academy that trained him into a member of the illustrious Imperial Bragulan Life and Death Arbitrators: the Suicide Police!

Then came the day everything changed.

It was a cold and snowy day, near the end of his twelfth year on the force. Dymytry had intervened in yet another textbook suicide attempt. As always, he had stepped in, removed the suicide weapon from the subject's paws, and demanded an explanation. The story had poured out of the grizzled old Bragulan; he was a captain in the Imperial Navy who had lost the stomach for massed thermonuclear bombardment of dissidents and reactionary opponents of the Bragulan Way.

Disgusting.

Indeed, the captain's tale was so disgusting that a passing commissar had bellowed with rage and shot him out of hand... leaving Dymytry with a mountain of paperwork filled out, for he had not had time to carry out the full Suicide Police investigation and sentencing process before the commissar's acidbullet melted the naval officer's head. Thus, it was impossible for the Suicide Police to carry out Byzonic justice on the captain's head, for the aforementioned head was now all gooey and liquified... though granted, that was pretty much what they would have wound up doing anyway, and no one dared to argue with a commissar and tell him he had interrupted Byzonic justice. That would be an oxymoron, and anyone fool enough to bring it up would be a deoxygenated moron.

The next morning after the next morning (for Dymytry had been forced to pull a solid 28-hour shift to fill out the necessary paperwork), the policeman discovered that under standing protocol entitling suicide policemen to loot the possessions of their subjects after the subject's death, he was now the proud owner of the Navy captain's ship. Moreover, this was no ordinary system defense vessel or gunskimmer. The would-be suicide he had intervened in was captain of the legendary paleocruiser Venerable Commemoration of the Generous Imperator's Archaeofeat of Precambrian Paleodinosaur Wrestling! From his own memories of Low School and Cub College, he had thought the ship long since destroyed, but he was wrong! What a surprise, and what an honor...

Of course, Dymytry knew nothing whatsoever about the Navy. But like a good minion of the Imperator, he went where he was told and did what he was told. He cast aside the tools of his old trade, the beating stick and SuPoLeviHoverGravCar, and took up the tools of his new trade: subnucleonic power plants, passive-aggressive and aggressive-aggressive scanner arrays, the mighty mass-driving K-bolter, and the vegemite-encrusted thermonuke.

Dymytry liked to think that, at heart, he was still an officer of the Suicide Police, only IN SPACE!

And here he had been given the most clearcut opportunity to practice his old trade with the tools of his new one since the fateful day he had gained command of the Venerable Commemoration. For here, under his very snout, were puny humans planning to commit suicide! On Bragulan territory no less! How dare they?

---

He pounded a fist on the console.

"All of you! Explain what you are doing here in Bragulan space!"

From the more heavily shielded and armed human ship there was nothing. From the poorly armed one, on the other hand, came a reply. Dymytry's cathode ray tube televisor showed him a typical puny human command bridge... but with robots! Though not skeletal zombie robots like Collectors. More normal-looking robots, or at least less abnormal-looking ones. Strange...

But there was a voice, too, a reply in almost perfect Bragulan.

"Greetings, Captain. I am Geppetto, an artificial intelligence from the Technocracy of Umeria, and owner of this ship, the Heffalump, registered in the Altacaran Empire."

"You are a... robot? Computronic mechanism?"

"Yes. I was flying peacefully through this area of space when the pirate ship you see before me attacked me without warning. For some reason, though, they abandoned their attack and now seem to be gibbering and moaning incoherently. I suspect they are contemplating suicide. Most disturbing."

"Disturbing and illegal! For this is Bragulan space, and suicide is not permitted!"

"I was not aware that this was Bragulan space. It is marked on my charts as..."

"How old are your charts, Mister Humanoid Robot?"

"Why, I just updated them last week."

"HA! The glorious Imperator and his astrocartographic explorators only annexed this stretch of hyperlane this week! And here you and this pirate are, in Bragspace without a permit..."

"Actually, I do have a permit to travel in Bragulan space, obtained through the offices of the Umerian embassy on Bragule."

"Oh, really? And if you have permission to fly in Bragspace, then what is today's password?"

"Why, brzygkrtgrrnyjlskrty, of course."

Hmm. That was indeed the shibboleth of the day. No un-Bragulan entity could possibly pronunciate the word... did that make this robot in some small way Bragulan? Impossible, but still...

"What about these pirates? Do they have permission to be in Bragulan space?"

"I do not know. You'll have to ask them."

"Indeeds." Captain Dymytry directed his communicator beam towards the pirate ship. "Who are you, and what are you doing in Bragulan space? Do you have a permit?"

The only reply was "Aaah! Aaah! The spiders! They know my name! How do they know my name?"

Not a valid password.

"Hmmms. Scannermen, extend the peritelescopes! Tell me the name of these alienoid vessels!"

Peering into their passive-aggressive visual detectors, which used illuminating spotlights to generate bright reflections off the target, the elite and highly trained Googly-Eye Bears observed through their periteliscopes.

"Sir! The small and poorly armed freighter is called the Heffalump, while the slightly smaller and moderately better armed ship is called the Headbuster!"

Headbuster... that sounded suspiciously like a Solarian warship name, though this ship was far too puny to be a Solarian warship.

Captain Dymytry pondered. On the one hand, human interlopers on Bragulan territory, without a permit, and with obvious intent to commit piracy. And suicide. On the other hand, robot interlopers on Bragulan territory... with a permit, and with intent to... umm... honestly he had no idea what the robot wanted.

For a moment he wondered if these robots were some kind of Collector menace, but as far as he knew the Alta Cars and Umericans were not robots. They were just more humans, but a better kind of humans than the never-sufficiently-hated Solarians and Byzantines, for they were farther away. And while the only truly good human was a dead human, the less-bad kind of human was a human that was far, far away and would leave you alone.

So this ship was from one bunch of less-bad humans, full of robots (Full of robot? Was there more than one robot, or only one? He did not know!) that belonged to another bunch of less-bad humans. So even though it was a robot ship, it was also a human ship. And humans probably would probably not sign on with Collector menacing. Even they were smart enough to stay away from the robot zombies of Wild Space, for Collectors were way creepier than normal.

Also, come to think of how creepy Collectors were, their ships were not only creepy, they had surprisingly powerful armamentations for such tiny vessels. But this Heffalump was not creepy at all, and its armamentations were shits! Therefore, it must not be a Collector!

That settled it. Dymytry felt proud of himself for his successful detective work.

---

Even more recommended listening!

That settled it. Ordering his orderlies to set the communicators to omnidirectional broadcast, he bellowed his intent to the worlds. "Very well! I, as officer of the Imperial Bragulan Navy AND the Imperial Bragulan Life and Death Arbitrators, will deal with this matter!"

The robot was very polite about it. "Thank you, officer. May I be of any assistance?"

"No! Stand aside, while I administer the proper form of treatment for trespassing in Bragspace without permission, with intent to commit piracy and suicide!"

He turned to the bridge crew. "Load missiles into tubes 43 through 49!"

"But sir, Missile Tube 49 was lost to premature detonation over Brdnskychv during the suppression of foul kuulaak resistance to the Imperator's Glorious Vowel Redistribution Program, back in 3287!"

"Well then, load missiles into tubes 43 through 48! Do I have to figure out everything for you?"

"Sir, yes sir! Loading missiles!" There were rumbles as building-sized vegemite-encrusted thermonuclear Spuds rumbled into their launch tubes. One great advantage of missiles was that even as the paleocruiser's own technology aged, missile technology remained forever young, driven endlessly on by the Will of Byzon and the astoundingly brilliant brains of Bragulan science! Thus, as the centuries went by, those of the paleocruisers most fit for war were usually those which relied most heavily on their missile armamentation- except for those few lucky enough to scavenge powerful archaeotech energy weapons, but such were few.

Then Dymytry had an even better idea.

"WAIT!"

Dymytry had an idea. There was no need to expend valuable missiles, or even significantly less valuable bullets, on this unworthy target, for even in the face of impending doom it was not moving or fighting back! The human interlopers, in their ship with its Solarianoid name and its less-than-Solarianoid armamentations, did not require such dedicated and specialized implements of Byzonic justice. No, the ship's more mundane and generic implements would do for this job, for this particular pirate was unusually puny, fit only for beating up on unarmed freighters and running away.

"Fire the grappling hooks!"

Bragulan naval grappling hooks, even aboard a paleocruiser such as the Venerable Commemoration, were marvels of Bragtech. Laced with exotic vegemite derivatives and forged in trans-fusion furnaces, their specialized shield-piercing and hull-mutilating properties were unmatched, at least by other grappling hooks. Unlike oh-so-clever tractor beams, the hooks were simple and foolproof: simple to make them easy for Bragulan conscript sailors to use and understand, and foolproof to make them hard for the human fools to interfere with.

To the Imperial Bragulan Navy, the hooks were a keystone of the fleet's boarding tactics. To Dymytry, they were just a replacement for the antigravity generator in his SuPo car, designed to catch unworthy suicides attempting to find release in death by leaping off of mighty Byzonic architecture.

The three hooks that struck Headbreaker plunged through the pirates' shields and bit deep into the vessel's lightly armored hull, holding it effortlessly in a titanic bearhug.

"Come about to bearing one hundred ninety eight point four degrees by minus twenty-two! Three quarters boost ahead!" The helm officers duly obeyed, spinning the wheel and pushing on their ships' corroded paleocontrol levers, looted from an ancient and stranded neo-Britannican wreck after the ship's original paleocontrols had given up the ghost at last after nearly half a millenium of valiant service to the Imperator.

Ancient Mesozoicite compound-cylinder subnuclear engines blazed to life, radiating in a fascinating rainbow of colors as random bits of corroded junk in the fuel lines melted in the stream of liquid plutonium. From the red, through the blue and even into the faintly clockwork-orangish ultraviolent, the spectrum of ionizing junk atoms was dazzling.

And the crew of the pirate ship Headbreaker, now slowly recovering from the most horrid depths of their madness as the Bragulan jammers blocked out Geppetto's suicide-inducing broadcasts, were ideally placed to observe this wondrous glow. For Captain Dymytry's course change had placed them squarely in the paleocruiser's mighty exhaust plume!

The radioactive and superheated exhaust flared, engulfing the ship in a plume of near-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic plasma. The raider's shields held for mere seconds, burned away by an ion storm powerful enough to propel a massive dreadnought through the void. Then Venerable Commemoration of the Generous Imperator's Archeofeat of Precambrian Paleodinosaur Wrestling's drive flare struck the bare metal of Headbreaker's hull, as the ship was towed helplessly along in the paleocruiser's wake like a marshmallow through an acetylene torch. Hull features blackened and melted; the crew inside were wracked by radiation.

But before radiation poisoning could afflict them further, Venerable Commemoration's drives burned through the pirates' forward armor, exposing the bridge. At last, they received the grand cremation they deserved, as the ship bubbled and began to melt around them.

Finally, it was over. Venerable Commemoration was now bound well away from the robot Heffalump-ship, but that was acceptable, for they had a permit and were not attempting to commit suicide.

Dymytry's work here was done. He turned a last communicator beam on the other ship.

"Goodbye, Mister Robot. Remember to obey Bragulan Law, for this is the fate of all who dare to defy the will of Mighty Byzon!"

"You may be sure, officer, that I shall comply with all regulations."

"Good. My work here is done."

And with that, Venerable Commemoration of the Generous Imperator's Feat of Precambrian Paleodinosaur Wrestling departed the scene, vanishing into hyperspace.

Heffalump soon followed.

[Force Lord]

The Central Times

By the Center of Information Dissemination

THE PIRATE BARBARIANS SHOW NO MERCY!!!

In their latest show of their contempt of civilization, the Pirates of Zebes have launched a flagrantly bellicose attack on the interstellar shipping lanes!

The sad truth, dear reader, is that these pirates are criminals, with no respect for the concept of Law! Such scum have been sadistic towards their victims, be it our denizens or foreigners. Already there are reports of their treatment of their prisoners, treatment so horrible that we are forced to refrain from showing it!

Citizens of the Centrality! We cannot allow such a menace so close to our nation! The State wants you to support our Armed Forces in their struggle! Join them to crush these pirates!

Long live the Central State!

[Force Lord]

Deep Space, Sector H-11
Early to Mid-June

The arrival of the promised Task Force had doubled the forces available for the Centrality in the Sector. The whole was now named Task Corps 8, under the command of Vice-Admiral Prots Verio. The Vice-Admiral was still on the way, however, so Rear-Admiral Sothurn Fibors was temporarily in command of the whole. As well as bringing the same number and classes of ships of Task Force 4, Task Force 3 also brought a battleship and a supercarrier, as well as the experimental battleship CNS Frod, armed with the Type 74-II Ion Cannon along with lesser weaponry. The ship was sent over for testing in combat conditions, despite misgivings from Navy Engineering about the readiness of that weapon.

Fibors, not wanting to risk an embarrasment if the weapon failed, told Captain Stack of the Frod if he was willing to accept Umerian liasons in his vessel. Stack readily agreed, not trusting his own engineers' ability to keep the Cannon functional. Fibors therefore went to his desk and contacted the Umerians through hologram.

[Shroom Man 777]

A Multiparadigmic Crypto-Analytico Assessment of the Traditional Values and Child-Rearing Stratagems of the Nuclear Family and their Relationship Pertaining to the Prevalence of Plural Pseudo-Psyker/Psionic Parapsychic Perfidiousities in the Republic of Shepistan (and the Grand Dominion to a Lesser Degree)

A BLAND Corporation Defense Analysis
By Bart Blade

Overview

The Republic of Shepistan is the only psyker-free society in the universe. It prides itself in this status, and it is because of this that Shepistan has become the envy of nations all over the galaxy, most especially its neighbor nations in the Loin Stars and the Spin Zone. Not even the Grand Dominion, the very inventors of the Blitzschlag Field Generator, has come close Shepistan's ideal state.

This enlightened status of affairs is, in part, the legacy of the Amplitur Wars of old. The sheer devastation wrought by the hive-mind psyker race galvanized both the Grand Dominion and Shepistan to make their societies proof against the blandishments of the crustaceanoid craboids, and the invention of the BFG was the saving grace, the decisive advantage, that led to victory. Unlike the warships and new weapons systems used in the war, the BFGs did not secure borders, did not hold territories, they did not defend whole worlds. What they did was protect the mind, the single most important thing to any living, breathing and thinking human being, and in doing so thus did they make the defense of all those other vital priorities - borders, territories, and whole worlds - possible against the perfidious perpetrations of the psionic psyker menace. Only with this was ultimate victory against the antagonisms of the alien Amplitur arch-aggressors assuredly achievable.

The Republic of Shepistan and the Grand Dominion owe their survival to the Blitzschlag Field Generator. It is no wonder that the Republic of Shepistan has taken the protective capabilities of the BFG to its logical extremes, proofing not just secure facilities and very important personnel, but covering their whole society too under an all-encompassing protective umbrella that shields them from the psychokinetic precipitations of the psionic perpetrators.

The Grand Dominion would have followed this ideal outcome as well, but most unfortunately their nation - wracked as it was post-war by debt and poverty - was unable to follow suit, and there were considerable religulo-sociocultural factors as well preventing them from becoming the second totally psyker-free society in the universe. In the end, their use of their own BFGs has not even come close to the ubiquitousness of the Shepistani system, and today psykers still exist in their society, to the point of serving in certain religulo-sociocultural institutions. But this is most assuredly not the case in Shepistan, where the ideal outcome was achieved thanks in no small part to its healthy and robust post-war economy and the vibrancy of its military-industrial complex. Perhaps one day, the Grand Dominion can achieve the gold standard reached by the Shepistani, and the rest of the galaxy may do so as well, following the country's great example.

One must remain hopeful, for this outcome is dependent on the continued maintenance of Shepistan's status as a psyker-free society, a status that was hard-earned and has made Shepistan one of the most secure states in the universe. The Blitzschlag field is Shepistani society's only protection. However, there are those who would strip away this protection, this security, this safety, this liberty Shepistan has won for itself. Even within the nation there are those who call for the degradation of the BFGs' all-encompassing protective coverage, an unacceptable compromise that would mentally-endanger the whole nation. These treasonous thoughts come from the rightfully suppressed liberals, a movement once led by thankfully-now-deceased Senator James Crater, but standing Shepistani policy has successfully discouraged this movement within Shepistan. But from without this liberal psykersexual agenda continues to grow strong and assails Shepistan from all corners, from nations like Anglia and Umeria and even the UN - all of whom call for the respect of psyker rights, as if they have any.

The international psykerist conspiracy would have these 'espers', as liberal parlance calls them, sap and impurify our precious mentallic fluids - the so-called psychoplasm that oozes through the natural noosphere normally, without contamination by tainted individuals. The impurification of this, should these 'espers' be allowed to live and practice their craft, is said to be a natural right of theirs according to the liberal elite and intellectuals. Thankfully the Shepistani Republic remains steadfast against the petty liberal affectations of these degenerates, and the integrity of the nation's mental defense grid remains uncompromised. The words 'Never compromise' have never rang truer. We can thank the Shepistani government's continued flaunting of the UN, the Anglians and the Umerians, for this continued state of pleasant affairs.

But even as the meddlings of outsiders are rudely rebuffed, Shepistan faces an even more insidious threat from within, this time not from any liberals or the ghost of James Crater, but from the psykers themselves. Recent research suggests that these psionic mutants have somehow adapted to the omnipresent protection of the Blitzschlag Field, like resilient a strain of bacteria overcoming dosages of antibiotics as seen when Shepistan devastated Astaria of old, or like a Karlack organoid rallying to the cry of 'evolution complete'. For psykers are no different from bacterium or arachnids, and the Shepistani government must not become complacent in light of its successes - in fact, its success so far should be taken as an encouragement to not only push the Blitzschlag Field Generators and the anti-psyker policies to the logical extremes, for they have already reached these extremes, instead it should be taken as an encouragement to go beyond this and go over the edge.

Firstly, though, the enemy must be understood. According to the sayings of the Oriental warrior-philosopher Shan Yu, 'to kill the enemy is to know the enemy' and as the Shepistani government has already does this all the time to psykers and their supporters, we thus already possess ample knowledge on our enemy even though we lack volcanos. We know, for example, that psyker mutations allow some strains to survive even in the presence of the BFG - and though it attenuates their development, the mutites can still manifest their psychokinetic abilities after escaping from the BFG's radius of coverage. In knowing this, we have thus concluded that the mutites have already resisted the BFGs and managed to go under the radar, so to speak, to avoid detection, and have been extradited from Shepistani territory and have developed their abilities once outside Shepistan and the BFG envelope. The implications of this are horrific and outlines a grave dynamic deficiency in Shepistan's reliance on the Blitzschlag Field - namely that it is merely a curative 'treatment' to the psyker problem, in that despite their prevalence and their ability at neutering psyker powers and hampering psyker development, psykers are still being born in Shepistan. A final solution to the psyker problem must not be curative in nature, but preventive.

This, in itself, presents a very significant lapse in the integrity of Shepistani mentallic defenses that must be corrected immediately. Thus, the following recommendations are made, not lightly and rather heavily, in fact:

Recommendations

At the risk of sounding heretical, Shepistan's reliance on the Blitzschlag Field can be seen as an over-reliance and perhaps alternative, supplemental and supportive means can be considered, not to supplant the BFGs - for the BFGs are themselves a very comprehensive, reliable and indispensably integral component of the Shepistani defense strategy - but to enhance the efficacy of the BFGs by attacking areas that are not within the coverage or purview of the BFG.

This whitepaper's title is 'A Multiparadigmic Crypto-Analytico Assessment of the Traditional Values and Child-Rearing Stratagems of the Nuclear Family and their Relationship Pertaining to the Prevalence of Plural Pseudo-Psyker/Psionic Parapsychic Perfidiousities in the Republic of Shepistan (and the Grand Dominion to a Lesser Degree)' and thus the recommendations are based on exactly that, the traditional values and child-rearing stratagems of the nuclear family and their relationship pertaining to the prevalence of plural pseudo-psyker/psionic parapsychic perfidiousities in the Republic of Shepistan (and the Grand Dominion to a lesser degree).

Research suggests that psykerism is not only genetic, but that its development is also affected by environmental factors - as in the aforementioned mutite strains of psykers that have developed means to go around the coverage of the BFGs - and thus these alternative contingencies must be aimed at hampering the developmental stages of the psyker pupae and larvae. It may be even possible that once the psykers' in development's developing psykerism is stunted to a sufficient degree as to be worth as good as nothing, that they may be rehabilitated into human beings - but it is only a slim chance that exists only in hypotheticals.

We must think of the children, for the most insidious iniquity of the curse of psykerism lies in the fact that wholly innocent children can be blighted with this mark without their own knowing, and we owe it to them to prevent this from happening. To save the young Shepistani citizens, we must make the development of psykerism impossible in the first place - if not by outright preventing it, then by instituting measures that discourage and decrease the occurrence and incidence of psykerism in the Shepistani youth. It is for their own good.

The various suggested methods are aimed at reshaping Traditional Values and Child-Rearing Stratagems of the Nuclear Family to complement the overall tactico-strategico-militaro Shepistani defense plan. They are listed as follows:

• As the development of psykerist traits likely begins even before birth, during the fetal development in the womb, all gestating mothers in the Shepistan should be encouraged to take nutritional supplements to disencourage and unpromote psykerism. Psyko-embryonic development must be halted at all cost. Cartons of cigarettes and proscribed amounts of alcohol should be provided to pregnant men and women as needed to induce a certain desirable level of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome to ensure that the future Shepistani citizen will attain optimum pediatric physiological development vital for a mentally healthy childhood. Therapeutic teratogens may also be prescribed by licensed obstetricians and pharmacologicians.

• In a similar vein, all ultrasound, megasound, hypersound and other screening techniques should be supplemented with gynecologic Blitzschlag Fields, perhaps in severe cases the introduction of BFIs (Blitzschlag Field Implants) can be permitted to prevent dire psyko-embryonic development [see attached image].

• Postpartum, the childrearing stratagems must similarly be modified in accordance to renewed guidelines emphasizing proactive defense measures and psykerism disencouragements. As research suggests that strong maternal/paternal-child bonds promote the development of empathy, that is in turn of importance to the development of certain empathic psychocognitive attributes, then prolonged parent-child interactions shall be discouraged and the use of daycare centers with sterilized interaction modules (STIMs) shall be likewise encouraged to promote desensitization of any extra-sense perceptions (ESP).

• Likewise, it is imperative that breastfeeding in public or private must be discouraged and, if possible, heavy social stigma must be engineered for those men or women who choose to breastfeed or be breastfed. Instead, Formulas Ready to Eat (FREs) will be provided for children. An added social benefit is that parents will be freed from the wasteful time constraints of feeding their children and can divert their attentions to more wholesome and productive activities (such as working in the bomb factories, surveying de-classified military archives, submitting requisite 3360s graphs, and working in Shepistani government efforts to close the mineshaft gap with Umeria).

• The reinstallation of corporal punishment shall be a priority, not because of the educational or social benefits of paddling and other such methods, but because of their benefits in emotional development. Research suggests that psykerist abilities manifest themselves in the youth often during periods of emotional duress, and randomized corporal punishments (not for the punishment of actual wrong deeds, but as a means to itself) can induce such an emotional duress. Should a latent psyker turn operant during the paddling, in the presence of a sufficiently powerful Blitzschlag Field the psychokinetic-electrospectronomic interactions may be enough to induce an Exploding Baby Syndrome and such incidents may become the rule, rather than the rarity as it is today.

• As psykerism is a genetically inherited trait, the parents of children who are found to exhibit psykerist traits (perhaps weeded out through the randomized corporal punishments) must be given genetic counseling after the dehabilitation of their spawn. To prevent further contamination of the gene-pool, all members of their extended family must undergo screening and the parents must be sterilized. This is to diminish the potential gene pool of psykerists.

• Secondary to this, as modern medical technology can reverse the effects of sterilization, the sanctioned parents must be required to sleep in separate beds to discourage any further pregnancies.

• And, again, it must be further emphasized that to promote whole and healthy childhood in psyker-free children for a wholesome and safe psyker-free society such as Shepistan, parent-child interactions must be kept to a minimum, and must be maintained at an impersonal level, with distant father figures for males and constraining social stigmas and norms for the females, to prevent the undesirable levels of empathy-development commonly associated with psykerists. Their ability to infiltrate human minds has been correlated to the openness of society, and the relative levels of empathy and warmth expressed to and by the pre-psyker populace, thus it is imperative to provide a hostile environment for developing pre-psykers by replacing this empathy and warmth with unsympathetic and cold aloof impersonal environments. The earlier this begins, preferably during conception and/or after birth, the better.

Closing Remarks

The model of these reforms is based on the family values inherent in the aptly-named golden era of the 3350s and 3360s, where similar attitudes in bed spacing and corporal punishment existed, not as a conscious decision at antipsykerist measures, but perhaps as an unconscious attempt at such by the prevailing Shepistani cultural gestalt - a subconscious instinctive group reaction against the psyker threat. Indeed, as the relevant graphs show below, in the golden age of the 3350s and 3360s where the Blitzschlag Fields were at their most highest operational levels and optimum coverages and when the defense industry was in its prime, the incidence of psyker outbreaks were also at their all-time lowest.

This is a correlation, not a coincidence, and also sheds further understanding as to why late liberal Senator James Crater - known for his pedantic peacenik pro-psyker psionist proclivities - likewise wished to decrease the defense budget of the War Department and proposed to cancel several prominent military projects and programs. It is also no coincidence that his accomplice, one Robert Space (Satan, according to some literature) McNamara, has likewise fled the country and has spread his genes to the liberal degenerate psyker-pandering philandering Pharisees of the United Solarian Sovereignty - thankfully on the other side of known space.

This analysis also recommends the investigation of the passive-aggressive anti-psyker measures of the Bragulan Star Empire. Despite the lack of Blitzschlag Field Generators everywhere, the Bragulans have nonetheless maintained a relatively nonexistent psyker populace - possibly due to their own biological makeup being decisively anti-psyker in constitution - through a variety of means worth investigating. BLAND Corporation analysts speculate that their passive-aggressive methods work in conjunction with their Bragskirovka and their omnipresent omniscient surveillance networks to quietly detect psykers (who are lulled to a false sense of security due to the lack of BFGs, making themselves ripe for detection by Bragulan passive-systems), who are then monitored and quietly liquidated by their secret police mechanism.

It may be no coincidence that in ridding our societies of psykers, Shepistan has become the envy of the universe for the ubiquitous usage of the Blitzschlag Field Generator, just as the Bragulan secret police and persecution mechanisms have become envied by many as well. As this research emphasizes the utilization of multiple instruments of psyker-persecution to complement the Blitzschlag Field Generator, one cannot help but study the various persecution mechanisms in place in other areas of the universe and compare and contrast their levels of efficacy.

In the end, just as this paper began, once again it is necessary to state that it is through the combined efforts of the men and women of the armed forces, the government, the various experimental laboratories, and patriotic contractors such as the BLAND Corporation, that the Republic of Shepistan has become the only psyker-free society in the universe. It prides itself in this status, and it is because of this that Shepistan has become the envy of nations all over the galaxy, most especially its neighbor nations in the Loin Stars and the Spin Zone.

[Master_Baerne]

Nouveau Quebec
Voyageur Republic
Sector CC-12


Among the Great Galactic Powers, the United Nations and the numerous human and alien powers on the rank below them, and more specifically among their diplomatic services, there was an understanding. It was not a sinister one, or one difficult to understand, but it was an understanding nonetheless and it had very detrimental effects when people trained for and used to that understanding had to deal with people who had not been and were not. The understanding was one of power parity: While the UN could squish most any other power, it could not do the same to three of them acting in concert, and so refrained from flexing its muscled too much; in turn, the smaller Great Powers remembered that they were not matchless concentrations of military might and so did not pretend to be. Except the Bragulans, but they'd spent so long fucking laughing at every other power that it didn't bother anyone anymore. The understanding, or rather The Understanding, was the basis of much of international diplomacy and could be considered responsable for the generally-peaceful state of galactic affairs. Outside the Koprulu Zone, that is, but everyone knew the Koprulu Zone had different rules and that there, the fact that the Solarians, Byzantines, and Bragulans were confining their search for mutual annihilation to only a few worlds meant it was more-or-less at peace. Certainly on the 'less' side, but that was life.

The problem with The Understanding was that it gave one all the wrong ideas of scale for dealing with minor powers. For a first-rank navy such as the Ascendant Starfleet, sending a dreadnought division, a battlecrusier squadron, and a brace of heavy cruisers to escort a diplomatic mission was simply good manners. For the Voyageur Republic, it was a blatant intimidation tactic, and they had made their grievances known. Loudly, and without quite realizing that the Ascendant ships in their system wouldn't have needed to move to slag the capitol of the small state. This vast disparity in power, for Lady ir Tampi (used to the careful, painstaking manuevering to no real end imposed by The Understanding), was almost enough to provoke cackles of hysterical laughter. Carefully concealing her desire to stab the Voyageur negotiator across the table from her in a conference room inside the Capitol Buildiung, she said carefully,

"Look, Mr. Airnmann, we don't want to annex you. Too much trouble from the other Great Powers, too much trouble at home. What we do want to do is set up a formal treaty of protection; allow me to be blunt here - we're going to wind up being your guarantee of security. You're surrounded by pirates, our naval forces have already saved you from conquest, and they'll have to do it again. I'm under orders to see that when - not if - that happens again, it'll be properly legal and you'll be helping fund the ships that keep you safe. An old Terran writer once said that we can 'sleep safe at night because rough men stand ready to do violence.' All Her Ascendant Ladyship wants is for the Voyageur Republic to pay its fair share of those rough men's salaries."

"So... guaranteed autonomy and Ascendant protection in exchange for payments and suborning our foreign policy to yours? That's extortion!"

"No, Mr. Airnmann, it's realism."

"You... I have to speak with my government." The Voyageur negoiator dashed out the door. His Ascendant counterpart smiled thinly, took a sip of the water sitting on the table in front of her, and waited. What she had said was true; the Voyageurs would not long survive an Ascendant departure from their system. The recent battle had been the first time enough pirates had united to threaten the nation, but the pirates lurking throughout the sector knew as well as the Voyageurs that the only reason it had failed was because of the presence of 17th Battlecruiser. If Her Ascendant Ladyship's ships left, they would very quickly be replaced by even more pirates than had attacked last month.

No, the only way the Voyageur Republic were going to survive was as a protectorate of the Federated Ascendancy. It was for the best, really - this way, the Ascendancy would get something out of the vast increase in living standards and economic productivity modern technology was going to bring the Voyageurs. The Voyageurs this as well as Lady ir Tampi, and it was with a somewhat resigned expression that Mr. Airnmann returned approximately three hours later. Flinging himself into the chair he'd abandoned earlier, he scowled at his counterpart.

"Well, it looks as though you'll be getting what you want. Can't say as I like it, but on the other hand, we do need you."

"I'm pleased we could come to an understanding, Mr. Airnmann."

RESULTS: I found a stray nation, and I brought it it followed me home. Can I keep it?

[Shroom Man 777]

Originally written by, and reposted with the permission of, my good friend Crazedwraith!

The Three Mistakes

Celeste. It’s in Solarian space. You can tell by the two billion of the buggers that live here. It has a nasty case of urban sprawl too. Dirty skyscrapers all over the place. The only places that ain’t been built on are the oceans an’ lakes. And most of those have been built under anyway.

It’s also a very busy place, dozens of hauler companies are based here and hundreds more have stop-offs on the planet.

All in all it should have been a very good place to lay low. But I picked the wrong ‘pub’ for it or so it seems. It’s full of humans, not another furry face in sight. It shouldn’t matter, them and us, Orthii, we’re all in one happy Sovereignty right? But it does. Especially when the law thinks you did a couple of deaths back home.

Someone musta recognized me, dumbass didn’t call the police though. That’s where the four mercs come in. They’re humans, all of them. A tall one, heavy set and with a bushy beard to try and cover up his appalling lack of fur, speaks to me; he must be the leader of their little pack:

“Hey! You, Tourff Risto?”

I turned away from the bar and my drink (one of their weak beers in a heavy glass mug) and offered him my best approximation of a smile. He’s probably only going to get a good look at my teeth for all my efforts but I decided I should still try.

“Depends who’s asking,” I tried for a jovial tone as I said it.

“Heh. A Funny kitty.”

As the humans laugh at their leader’s joke, I take the time to size them up.

The leaders got a Kruger but it's not even pointed at me. What use is it resting on his shoulder? He’s second on the right.

The ones of the far left and right are useless posers. ‘Left’ is trying to use a large caliber pistol in both hands and ‘Right’s hands are shaking so bad his gun is barely pointed at me half the time.

Second on the left looks most dangerous. He’s got one of those Star shotgun-pistols pointed at me in a decent double-handed grip. I think I’ll kill him first.

I turned back to my drink. Behind the bar is a large mirror. Even through the dust and the dirt I could still see the four humans.

“Hey!” yelled the leader. “I’m talking to you! Ya are gonna answer me, furball.”

“Let us assume for the moment, that I am, the aforementioned person,” I said. “Then what?”

“Then…” drawled the leader. “We haul your unlovely ass back to Tannhaus and pick up a big fat reward.”

“Ah,” I smiled at them again. “In that case you made three mistakes.”

This drew more chuckles from the mercs. I talked through them.

“First. You took the job.”

I heft my mug in my right hand and drain it. Unseen, my left hand goes to the gun I have holstered under my right shoulder. I set the mug down rather firmly. The sound covers up the cocking of the Revolver’s hammer. It’s an Ocelot, a very large caliber weapon. It’s human. Only humans would be silly enough to build a gun that would likely break their wrist when they fired it.

It has six shots. Six shots for four mercs. This should be a cake walk.

“Second. You came light. Four men? Fucking insulting.”

The mercs scowl at my supposed arrogance.

“And third, well...”

Without even drawing the Ocelot I pull the trigger. It’s a cheap jacket anyway. The bullet catches Mr Shotgun in the chest, shattering his ribs, popping a lung and punching out his back in a spray of blood and bone fragments.

Damn, I’m good at this.

I whirl around to face the three remaining deadmen. In one smooth motion the heavy mug is hurled at the leader’s face and the right hand re-cocks the Ocelot.

My second shot scatters “Two Guns'” brains across a private booth full of seedy businessmen. I re-cock as "Nervous" fires a long burst from his SMG; the closest even manages to skim my mane. Leaving chunks of singed dark fur floating away. For that I shoot him. A gut shot.

Meanwhile the leader finally recovers from the thrown mug and points his Kruger from the floor.

I fire twice.

He howls over his missing kneecaps as I cock my final shot. I speak clearly over his screams.

“Third. You listened to me rattle out numbers one and two instead of taking the opportunity to take me down.”

I leave it just long enough for the understanding to come. Then I finish him.

Stuffing the still smoking Ocelot back into its holster, I fork over a few tenners to the barman.

“Sorry about the mess.” I say as I walk towards the door.

Oddly enough, nobody tries to stop me leave. They’re funny like that, are humans.

[PeZook]

Greenwood Banks
Solaris Major, USS

"Sir? Are you okay?", the paramedic leaned over Edgar Von Schroom and shook him, trying to get some reaction from his employer. Yes - the Von Schrom family maintained an entire specialized clinic at their skyscraper estate in Greenwood Banks, employing many qualified physicians that took care of everyday medical needs of the mansion's residents. Edgar had little use of the clinic before - his custom-made body was of the finest quality.

Tonight was different, though. His encounter with Legion - or his hologram, whatever - left him broken and in a state of shell shock, caught in a situation so horrible he couldn't even begin to describe it. If it wasn't for Brunhilde, who used brute force to overwhelm off-line defences Edgar surrounded himself in a fit of extreme paranoia, he might've even shot himself.

Instead, he just sat there in his ruined bedroom, amongst wreckage of destroyed maintenance bots and pieces of ridiculously expensive furniture, while the mansion's security people scoured every square centimetre of the place for anything dangerous, and paramedics tried to see if their boss was okay, or at least not holed where he shouldn't be.

In her recently upgraded core buried somewhere inside the family penthouse, Brunhilde sighed to herself. She should've anticipated this and never even informed her boss about the package: just disposed of it, like all the other junk mail. Now that she had fully integrated the newly installed hardware and ran a second analysis of the situation, it was clear Edgar had been going through a nervous breakdown for months now. Or maybe it was just hindsight? Either way, the situation had to be rectified, and fast.

Amazingly enough, it was Edgar himself who decided to do this - and right as Brunhilde began analyzing his mind for any vulnerabilities in his top-notch cybernetic defences, so that she could coerce him into getting help. Back in his bedroom, he stood up and pushed the paramedics aside. He glanced at the giant mess, the ruined tapestry and the worried expressions of his employees. He closed his eyes, and - with terrible difficulty and immense concentration, broken often by bouts of irrational panic - switched hid mind into a different mode of operation.

Brunhilde?, he queried the CI. The call was very focused and stable, unlike most queries he performed these last few months, I want a thorough analysis of the situation. Right now.

Brunhilde worked fast. In microseconds, she prepared a detailed presentation about the night's events, including alternative scenarios and simulations, probability estimates and detailed explanations of what happened, why and how it could've been avoided.

Edgar reviewed the basics quickly. His custom-made body, now switched to so-called "board-room mode", began strictly controlling hormone levels and psychosomatic stress responses. He still felt random bouts of panic and paranoia, and couldn't keep it up indefinitely, of course. But it was enough to see the problem. And not just with today.

...as you can see, it is exceedingly likely that continued denial of medical aid will lead to complete collapse of SchromKorp operations. The best possible outcome is you being relieved of your position by the Board Of Directors, who will appoint a new CEO.

It would've been unfair to say it was a shock. For the calm, collected, carefully engineered mind that was at work now it was more than obvious.

Make an appointment with Dr. Shroomsenberg, Edgar pulsed, mentioning the name of his family's most trusted memetic defence and reconstruction specialist, And get me some clothes

[Siege]

Trinary system
Wild Space beyond the Sovereignty frontier

The three stars of the unnamed and uncharted system blew wide-spectrum interference across the entire immediate area. There was so much radiation of all kinds that even high-end sensors would have trouble picking up a mere six ships hanging in extremely low orbit over one of the suns - especially the Blackjack, which was hard to detect even under the best circumstances.

The Viper's controlling intelligence had to admit the choice of meeting location was pretty much perfect. Wasting no time, it opened a data-channel after a brief exchange of communications and encryption/decryption protocols.

In the ethereal, undescribable, non-euclidean space of the data link, two presences manifested themselves - those were the intelligences in charge of both ships. If the situation could be described in human terms, it could be said the beings sized each other up: the calm, collected and secretive CI from the Blackjack versus a more direct Collector Mind flying the Viper cruiser, which was more used to direct fleet action. Between those two primary actors, smaller minds appeared: CEID personnel from the Blackjack, intelligences controlling the remaining Collector ships and finally the five emerald crystals, only adorned with numbers or writing, who respresented the Special Circumstances team - and for what it was worth, the writing on the crystals was properly bizarre. They read, from left to right: One, 404, Albert, The Eye and Evil Fucking Killbot.

Data flowed back and forth: both sides edited theirs carefully, to make sure they revealed as few state secrets as possible. Even before the CEID self-dubbed “Legion Hunters” could get over the bizarre names of their Collector counterparts, the interwoven data threads managed to construct an image of their quarry, combining Solarian data from all the crime scenes they investigated and Collector information on the perpetrator himself.

And it wasn’t a pretty picture. Then again, if it was, the CEID wouldn’t have gotten involved.

Going by lifesigns there were a few dozen humans aboard the CEID darkstar, but that wasn’t actually the case -- not anymore. The Directorate went to great lengths to protect privileged information, and it didn’t get much more privileged than the darkstar program. Only a handful of people in the Sovereignty were privy to the existence of the Directorate’s secret warfleet, and only four of them were aboard the Blackjack. The rest weren’t individuals; they were VACs, personality-less Replicants doped up on XLR8 and loaded with programmable cybertronics. They were barely a step above the maintenance drones they operated alongside.

The VACs were controlled by the ship’s CI, a brooding entity which referred to itself as Dollmaster. That left three more minds: Agent August, an enhancile techno-killer who spent most of his time in stasis; Agent Friday, one of the Directorate’s elite psion agents; and Agent Freki, a sentient intelligence program cum combat drone controller. They were all operatives of a secretive agency-within-an-agency with a dozen nicknames: Invisible Ops, the Permanent Government, or more commonly, CEID Zero.

“Color us unimpressed”, Agent Friday commented as she reviewed Collector-provided data on Legion’s mental makeup and capabilities. “Letting something so dangerous go rogue borders on incompetence.”

“It’s unlikely your organization could’ve done any better.”, the crystal signed as ‘One’ was the one to respond, “We took ever reasonable precaution against this sort of thing happening. It is...an anomaly.”

“That’s your excuse?” Over the d-link Friday conveyed an expression as if the Collector had just told her that Anglians liked milk in their tea - mildly interested, but not really surprised. “Well, hokay. I’ll take your word for it.” It was evident even from her flat tone that she wouldn’t.

“I request a rundown of the target’s physical capabilities,” injected the inflection-less digital voice of Dollmaster.

Forgetting - or ignoring - Agent Friday’s brief commentary, One began transferring the relevant data packets.

“The subject has discarded all standard issue Special Circumstances gear upon fleeing from our space ; Since then, it has been using galstandard technology to organize and run its operations. This is corroborated by your own sources, which indicate the subject currently favors modified assault bodies made by Maibatsu.”

“That is not new information”

“Correct. That is because the subject’s physical capabilities are unremarkable: all of his strenghts lie in its IW capabilities - more precisely, the programming tools and constructs it uses for attacks against even the most secure systems. I believe one of the incidents which caused this investigation bore the characteristics of such an attack. Its other strength is its immense paranoia.”

Paranoia was something all CEID operatives could appreciate. In stark contrast to the anything-goes mentality of the Sovereignty as a whole, the Directorate was driven by a manic need for absolute control -- of information, of processes, and of the very people that made up those processes. The Blackjack itself was, in a way, an exercise in that psychotic desire for absolute control: CEID robbed its agents of their very personality in order to approach the desired level of information management. The average Solarian would almost certainly consider the behaviour of the Directorate outrageous but, as the saying went, it wasn’t paranoia if they were really after you. And they were definitely after Legion.

One continued. “It plans ahead, all the time, against many possible variants, and expends resources on secondary plans - even those regarding unlikely circumstances, sometimes compromising on other possible applications that would provide a bigger long-term gain. For example, it began planning for the event of incarceration and therapy even before serious personality disintegration began to occur.”

“I request elucidation on its goalsets.” Dollmaster queried. It was a reasonable request; after all, how would they find Legion if they didn’t know what it was after?

It was a different crystal that responded this time, in a voice that a had slight chorus-like quality to it, “We cannot offer any data input in this matter beyond that already provided. The subject is a self-altering consciousness setting its own goalsets. Based on our analysis of its operations in Wild Space, it appears to be amassing resources as its primary goal. However, personality degradation is evident in the way the subject conducts its business, with sociopathic outbursts and seemingly random bits of...dickery.”

The sideband scatter made it obvious the Collector was talking about that incident with a cattle transport, where Legion not only carried out his assigned task, but also mutilated all the cows as some bizarre joke.

“It would seem prudent”, the Viper’s intelligence observed, “To begin our search by identifying the means via which the subject secures contracts across Wild Space, and exploit them.”

“A provocation is one scenario we have considered, and it’s been attempted several times”, the Dollmaster replied, and its monotone voice betrayed just a hint of annoyance this time, “All previous attempts have failed. In one case, the result was a loss of an entire Adeptus Mechanicus snatch team.”

“There’s references to an abandoned asteroid base in your files”, the Collector marked ‘404’ butted in, “That’s an asset we could use.”

Agent Friday let some measure of irritation show through the d-link, “Are we going to go through one obvious angle after another? We picked that place apart. There was nothing left in there, not a single file or other usable information.”

“The subject is unaware of that fact, though.”

As the gathered minds considered that fact, they immediately ran through hundreds of simulations, possible options and multiple variants, taking into account all their available data. Of course a disinformation attack was simulated before, but lacking detailed mind-state profiles on their quarry, the CEID was unable to develop an approach that was likely to draw him out.

“It’s a start”, the Dollmaster remarked with utter calm, “I recommend option 18232.”

The remaining voices answered in chorus, “Agreed”

As the provocation was being prepared by the commanding intelligences, the ships maneuvered closer so that they could exchange liaisons. The Viper deployed a small launch, which quickly and without wasting a single movement, docked with one of the Blackjack’s airlocks. A lone man was already waiting for the visitor inside.

The airlock cycled with an ominous hiss - the Blackjack’s interiors almost seemed like they were deliberately designed to look depressing and dangerous. Well, when an all-powerful secret organization ordered a starship, it was hard to expect they’d install plush chairs and paint the walls in pastels...

Not that the person that walked out of the airlock cared. She glanced casually at a VAC doing maintenance on some minor system or another, light glinting slightly on an exposed cybernetic eye. For the welcoming committee - such as it was - her appearance came as a surprise, insofar as anything could surprise a seasoned CEID agent, which was to say not really. A routine scan carried out by Dollmaster showed her to be an actual, though augmented, organic. Her DNA and other biometrics were recorded by the CI and logged in the ship’s databases - just in case.



“Hello. I am Vilena Soruga, assigned as a liaison to the Blackjack.”, the woman said and nodded stiffly.

If you ignored the VACs - and why wouldn’t you, they had no personality to speak of - there was only one figure waiting for her at the airlock. The man looked... not old so much as worn. It wasn’t that he had wrinkles or grey hair, but his eyes looked very tired. His movements on the other hand were weirdly fluid and impeccably precise, and looked for all the world as if the universe couldn’t quite manage to keep up with him.



“Agent August,” he replied by way of introduction. One moment his right hand was resting loosely on his hip; the next it was pointing down a corridor that lead deeper into the ship, the transition so abrupt it seemed like his arm hadn’t crossed the distance inbetween. “Please follow me to the command center.” He lead the way. “Vilena Soruga, while aboard the Blackjack you are not allowed to leave my company. You are not allowed to access any computerized system. And you will be monitored at all times. This ship is diffused with CamDust; it is impossible to avoid observation. Privacy,” a tired smile flickered across his features, “is a polite myth.” The smile vanished as quickly as it had come. August’s voice returned to its usual flatness. “Be advised that failure to comply with these directives will be interpreted as a hostile act, and will trigger the ship’s defensive systems.” His voice changed again, a hint of sombre dejection creeping into it. “Welcome aboard the Blackjack.”

Vilena nodded after Agent August was finished with his speech. She knew, intellectually, that working here would be difficult: all the information was uploaded into her mind before she even left the Viper. But she was incapable of thinking in a detached, analytical manner of a CI, and couldn’t help but feel a tad bit intimidated by both the ship’s brooding interior, and the not really welcoming welcome.

“Since my activities aboard will be so restricted”, she struck up a conversation with August as they navigated the corridors towards the command center, passing several security checkpoints along the way, all of which were manned by armed drones, “It may prove difficult to actually work as a liaison. Will I get access to some sort of direct communications channel so that I won’t have to explain everything verbally?”

August nodded without stopping. “You are allowed to interface with the tertiary communications band,” he recited a frequency and a string of pass-phrases as if he read them from a whiteboard. “This channel accomodates text and audio only. No sidebands, no bitmaps, limited flow-rate. All communications will be monitored for attempted subversion at all times.” Again the brief smile. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s that I don’t trust you.”

“That’s hardly efficient, but I guess it will have to do.”, she didn’t expect that much paranoia, but her charges were an unknown factor. While Vilena has little experience with the galaxy - next to none of her own, actually - she saw how the CEID might think it was better to be safe than sorry. Not that Legion did much to put them at ease, when one thought about it.

As they crossed the final armored bulkhead before the command centre, she broke the silence again, “Will you be sending a liaison of your own?”

“Yes. He should be along shortly.” For some reason, August seemed... sour, when he said that.

Even as the conversation took place a small shuttle, little more than an escape pod really, departed the Blackjack. It followed the exact reverse course of Vilena’s launch, arching toward the lead ship of the Collector flotilla. It decelerated at the last possible moment, miniature gravitic impellers straining against the skein of space-time, and connected with the hatch of the Viper which, remarkably, seemed to be built to GalStandard specs. It took a while for the door to cycle, and the sole occupant of the shuttle could hear the gurgle of air being pumped into depressurized compartments. Finally the airlock door opened.

There was no physical greeter waiting inside ; Scarabs and other drones swarmed along the dark walls lined with sickly green light strips that barely provided enough illumination. They parted just slightly before the open door, as if directed by some hive mind that commanded them to get out of the way.

Out stepped the CEID liaison, such as he was.



Scans the Viper’s resident intelligence had undoubtedly carried out would reveal that the man was indeed a man - well, sort of. He was loaded with so much cybertronics that the flesh was barely more than a cover for the augmetics that suffused his body. He was very clearly a VAC - though an extremely unusual one. “Agent Freki, human cyborg relations,” the man said to no-one in particular. His voice was laden with - for a CEID agent - unusual irony. He looked at the scuttling Scarabs, and seemed to have little difficulty making them out despite the darkness and the weirdly twisting geometries of the Viper’s interior. “Take me to your leader.”

“Greetings, Agent Freki.”, a voice resonated in the corridor, seemingly coming from the walls, “Facilities have been prepared for you. Follow the voices.”

Echoes howled in the unnerving innards of the ships ; Like wailing ghosts, except laden with layers of digital information that only a computer could read. They provided directions: navigating without aid in the non-euclidean spaces filled with creepy dancing lights and abruptly changing gravity vectors was not an easy task.

Eventually, the delicate digital whispers guided Agent Freki to a slightly larger space, shaped like a large torus, and mostly occupied by a single hexagonal column placed directly in the middle. Emerald lightning arcs danced along the column’s surface, casting eerie lights on the chamber’s walls. A small cot made out of a hard, black material was prepared, along with supplies of food and power.

The ghosts in the walls changed slightly: they bombarded Agent Freki’s cybernetic senses with communications frequencies, data protocols and usage instructions for what was termed a ‘universal interface’ - the column in the middle of the room.

Freki regarded the cot. “Your concern is appreciated,” he spoke to the nearest wall. “But I don’t need sleep.” He cocked his head as if contemplating something. “This frame can sustain core operations for approximately 8,000 standard hours before recharging is required.” In which case a bed wouldn’t suffice, but that was hardly the point.

“We were not informed of the liaison’s support requirements, and therefore prepared for all possible options.”, the disembodied voice replied, “Please familiarize yourself with the operation of the universal interface so that we may integrate your input into our communications.”

Freki craned his head and curiously regarded the center column. “Well,” he said. “This should be fun.”

[Mayabird]

Definitely 21 July 3400
Orange Free System
Multi-Planetary United World Headquarters


“Khe!Srri,” Jan said, pronouncing it perfectly.

“Fook you and your large difficult words,” Jacob replied. “So what do you know or what have you heard about it?”

“I did not know anything was new. Are they rebelling?”

“Look outside.” Jan looked out the window and got a better look of the distant smoke. There seemed to be more of it, plus dust, but it was distant smoke and dust coming out of the slums and he could not make out any greater details. Jacob continued, “Allow me to enlarge.” He tapped on a pad and a square centered on some of the rising flames magnified. It looked like...grainy images of flames rising from slums. “...let me try this again.” The MPU man typed something else, and news reports came up on the windows instead.

The announcer read, “Anti-prawn rioting have entered a second day with no end in sight. These riots are following a series of clashes between the prawns themselves and police which have left...”

Jacob shut it off. “I think that said enough.” Jan glared at him. “So I prerecorded that. So what? You get the point quickly.”

“It's bad. Always has been. What does that have to do with me?”

“Jan my old friend, you've accumulated quite a list of offenses, both here and elsewhere in areas with extradition treaties with Orange. Let me pull that up...”


Notsix had been rolled to an interrogation room and was still in a ball when The Captain's talking drone came by. It said, “It's alright. You can uncurl now.”

He transmitted, I communicated with the core. They were starting to physically open my core and and were going to yank bits out of me! Can you believe that? How dare they! That's my body! I told them that it was freaking illegal since I'm an independent thinking entity and that's my body and I know my Orange law. Course, they might've changed it since I checked it last, but I thought I'd try. No, Multi-Planetary United just doesn't care. They own more and more of this planet so they can get away with more and more. Things just keep getting worse and worse anyway, ever since the Outlands fell apart and all and now there's the Refuge.

Notsix stood up and stretched.

Speaking of owning this dirtball, they have been contracted to handle the 'Prawn Question,' whatever that is supposed to be. That's how they can get away with stuff so much. They had a Plan of some sorts only that fell apart but now they're blackmailing us to do their work for them. I'm sending to you right now. Look at this!


Jan looked over the list of charges, mumbling to himself. “Defenetra...robbery, theft...contraband...vandalism...property damage...grand theft...wow, you people did your homework...larceny...contraband...illegal materials...wait, wait, wait, what's this, 'abetting illegal child labor'? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”


Notsix read the last bit and transmitted, Child labor?

I asked about that too. I thought it'd be some crap about 'oh, you're only ten years old' or something, so I told them that being ten in computer years is like being a million in human years. But then they said...


“What do you mean, Kees is only fifteen?”


Notsix said, “Children grow up so fast, reaching eighteen by the age of fifteen.”

And the laws are still the same! I checked. Doesn't matter the kid's a pathological liar. Saw his files. It's true.


Jan sighed. “Alright, alright, so I'm in a corner. What do you want me to do?”


The Captain gave Notsix the text of the offer from MPU. She sighed. “This, I do greatly hate.”
I know, my dear. We're being subcontracted and there's nothing we can do about it.

[Shroom Man 777]

"I made them a new one," vulture explained. "Sold them the arms here, told them to find someone else to ship it to Pendleton."

"I see, understandable," bear nodded. "Who will do the delivery then?"

"I recommended them to some guy named Nah Oslo," vulture shrugged. "What's it to you?"

"Nothing, absolutely nothing," bear lied very obviously, barely restraining his (fucking) laughter. Then, abruptly, he got up and made for the exit. "I have to make a phone call."

"They aren't going to make it, are they?" vulture asked him as he left the room.

"Nyet! They're not!" bear shouted back.

Aboard the Century Egg, en route to the Bannerman Gap



Nah Oslo walked into the bridge, holding something that looked like a towel in his hands. He threw it over his back, and it landed on the face of his First (and only) Mate Brewbacca. Only Mate Brewbacca growled, or uttered what was an attempt at a growl, and pulled the towel off his face and threw it over his own back. Instead of landing on the face of the person behind him, it landed on the floor, because there was no person behind him, since the two of them were the only ones on board the Century Egg.

Captain Oslo straddled his command chair, while Brewbacca struggled to seat on the glued-on stool behind him. It was a one-man cockpit, but since Captain Oslo was barely that, he needed some help to manage, and that was where Brewbacca came in. He was pretty new and was trying to fit himself in behind Oslo.

"What a piece of junk!" came Brewbacca's muffled voice.

"She'll make point five past lightspeed. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of special modifications myself." Nah Oslo snapped back. It sounded witty, and he did make special modifications himself. Brewbacca was sitting on one!

Brewbacca sighed and uttered a growl.

"Get in there, you big furry oaf! I don't care what you smell!" a manic grin contorted Nah Oslo's face, and then strange and unusual thoughts began playing inside his so-called brain.

I'll show them. Yeah... they fucking laughed at me, but now we'll see who's laughing.

Goddamn Tamrins and Balthiers, thinking they were all smooth sailing space cowboy adventurers with their zany crews and burly first-mates with phased plasma rifles, and grizzly pet Bragulans. They all laughed at him, thought he was a loser. But now, now Nah Oslo had himself a ship and a first mate. He wanted a ship that could've matched those damn wormglowers and Strolls, or whatever those two elitist pretentious pricks called theirs, but the best he could do was rent a shitty piece of junk. But he made special modifications himself! And now, with Brewbacca, he had his own scruffy sidekick! He wasn't a Bragulan like Balthier's, Nah Oslo had to settle for a goddamn furry wearing some kind of fursuit pretending to be a Bragulan to get his yiff, but still! It was close enough, and in the darkness of space Brewbacca could be easily mistaken for a Bragulan. Hah.

He also made great coffee, which is why he was called Brewbacca. He used to be a mascot for a coffee shop.

Now he had a ship, a First (and only) Mate, and finally a job! Running guns to Pendleton was a risky proposition, but if he pulled it off, he'd be bigger than either of those bozos! This was gonna be the ship that will make the Bannerman Run in less than twelve parsecs. He could imagine it now, outrunning those Imperial starships. Not the local bulk cruisers mind you, he was thinking about the big Anglian ships now.

Oh man, oh man. Oh man. Oh man! MANG!

He was really excited. As in. Finally, his destiny awaited him. Thanks to those associates, and that guy from Hanson, he was finally going to make it big! Yeah!

He couldn't wait!

It took a few moments to get the coordinates from the navi-computer. Traveling through hyperspace wasn't like dusting crops. Without precise calculations they could fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end their trip real quick. But then with a ding, their microhyperwave navi-computer finished the computations and fed them the coordinates.

After running final checks, and making sure the shipments were concealed in hidden compartments (they were officially delivering humanitarian supplies), they activated the hyperdrive. Nah Oslo and Brewbacca began their journey to Pendleton with ludicrous speed.



They were going to make those damn Anglicans eat their stardust!



[Steve ]

[Mayabird]

22 July 3400
Orange Free System
Inside The Captain


“Jan, why didn't you check on Kees' age?”

“He didn't have any papers or ID chits or anything and he swore he was eighteen! Besides, you said to hire the first person willing to accept our wages and that was him.”

“Child labor is a crime against the people! It stunts the children, which leaves stunted adults, who cannot properly reap the benefits of revolution! Children must be educated to fully develop, enabling-”

“We KNOW, Josse! You've already said that three times,” The Captain yelled over the intercom. “Don't you have some other political slogans?”

“I do! 'The proper study of economics is to distribute the benefits of production to the widest need and most efficient use for the people!' 'The cause of revolution must be taken up by each subsequent generation until the end of history, which is the story of strife and hardship!' Ooh, ooh, 'Down with the Oppressors! Down with all Oppressors!' That's my favorite!” They also knew that, since Josse painted it all over her bunk. She was too small to be able to hold many emotions or thoughts at once, so she stayed almost perpetually at either bubbly or napping and her three passions (which were her only three interests): Tym Communist politics, technology, and shiny things (see: technology). Thus she was still cheerful while Notsix, Jan, and Oatmeal were somber. The Captain was irritated but he usually was.

Jan and Notsix spooked their mush in silence for a while. Then Josse distracted herself with a protein strip and got on a new topic.

“We're gonna go to Prawn World!”

“Khe!Srri homeworld,” Jan sighed. “And we don't really know that yet.” He looked at Notsix. “Do we?”

Notsix looked up, in the gesture that meant she was transmitting to The Captain. He yelled back on the intercom, “I'm trying to figure that out! You meatbags get to take a nice break and put your food chemicals in while I have to try to hack their servers. You try to do that against big corporate firewalls and encryption? Takes longer than busting into the bank account of some abandoned monastery.”

As she wasn't paying attention to the boring things everyone else was saying, Josse continued, “I wanna see the big ship they're prepping. They said it was an old Angmarid freighter. Those things are huge! I've never seen one before.”

“I think I'm in,” The Captain said. “Don't bug me. Concentrating.”

“They said the freighter can hold almost a million prawns! Really big! But I ran the numbers and they'd still be crammed in really tightly. It wouldn't be sanitary, and sanitation is one of the rights of all thinking people! Cleanliness prevents the diseases that bring misery to the workers and ruins productivity for all! And overcrowding is itself a crime against...”

“I know Jacob believed the crap he was saying,” Jan said, “but do his higher-ups actually believe that too? Do they honestly think we know how to run the Refuge blockades? If we knew how, why the fook would we be crashed here instead of profiting out there?”
Notsix shrugged, something that was very impressive on her as her broad brown back plates shifted. “Corporations are full of stupidity, for the workers all rise to their level of incompetence.”

“Good point.”

“Incompetence must not be tolerated by the laboring m-”

“SHUT UP, JOSSE!” That was both Notsix and Jan. Oatmeal whined because he didn't like shouting from anyone other than his master.

“Don't upset my dog!” said The Captain. That made Oatmeal perk up and wag his tail. “Josse, go fix something.” She started climbing off the table to scamper off. “Oh and yes, my meatbag comrades, it looks like the MPU doofi actually believe it. Because they really, really want to believe it. They really are serious about the entire thing, writing off the crimes and the fire fines and moving me into the Angmarid freighter and letting us keep it if we succeed. Whole thing. Unless there's some extra special encrypted messages in super-code that I'm not seeing, it's not a trick.”

“Honesty. That is strange,” pondered Notsix.

“But why? Why all this trouble?” Jan asked. “It's never been easy dealing with the pr...ga...Khe!Srri. They've always had trouble since that guy smuggled those fifty hyperfertile ones in.”

The intercom replied, “Gimme a sec...it's all Orange internal affairs stuff. Interesting. Remember that Social Liberal party that had a platform about rights for prawns? They're still around and they've actually gotten more powerful these last few years. So have the secessionists in Transvaal. There have been insurrections and terrorist bombings all over that continent the last year, all trying to make their prawn-free little micro-nation.”

“I had not heard about any of that,” said Jan.

“Of course not. Orange is a dinktastic little gravity well in the middle of nowhere. That's the only way they've been able to get away with having millions of prawn slaves running around in the open for years when none of them were supposed to be taken out of their system. Nobody gives a fook about this hole. Too far out of the way and almost nobody cared about the prawns anyway. Barely even hear rumors about it outside, but everybody knows there's cannibalism and circumcision and crap going on in the Third Shitworlds so there's probably illegal species slavery too.
“Where was I? Ah yes, so Orange is having troubles and hired Multi-Planetary to 'deal with the Prawn Question;' I still haven't found out what that question is. Whatever it is, MPU can't just kill them all or have them sent off to camps because of the Social Liberals and others who want to protect them plus the people who are dependent on them for labor. So that's how they came up with their compromise plan to, ahem, 'repatriate' some of the prawns back to Prawn World. Get rid of them, but pretend to do it humanely. Or prawnely.
“Only we have to do the dirty work. And not get caught. And prove somehow that we did return them safely or the deal's off.”

“How would they know we didn't space the Khe!Srri and then fake some footage?”

“Checking.” The Captain hummed some elevator music while he worked. Notsix held up her nearly empty bowl to lick the remains of the mush.

“I am really sorry about bringing on Kees,” Jan said. “I should have refused him since he didn't have any identification. But how could I have known? The child's bigger than me and he has a beard if he doesn't shave for a day, for goodness sakes. He doesn't have chest hair; he has a fooking fur coat.”

The Captain spoke over his humming. “So are you going to handle returning him?”

“Of course. He was my fault and I should deal with it. Also I'd have an easier time dealing with the regular authorities than our first mate there,” he said as he nodded towards Notsix, whose long narrow tongue was sliding inside the bowl, polishing it clean.

“Good hu-man. You are either my third or fourth favorite meatbag in the universe.”

Jan looked at Notsix and Oatmeal, then at Josse. “Yes. Thank you. I think.”

“You're welcOH FOKEN BLUDY HILL FARGEN.” Then there was silence from the intercom. As annoying as The Captain was, hearing nothing from him was always worse. Notsix set down her bowl.

“Captain? Captain?” She shut her eyes and concentrated on transmitting, trying to reach him. Oatmeal whimpered. Jan kept quiet, but he was worried. Without someone who could run and navigate a ship, the entire plan was off, and only The Captain among them could do it. (Arguably, he could do the entire mission himself; he wasn't just the most important figure but the only absolutely necessary one.)

They were momentarily relieved when the intercom blared again. Then they heard the message. “They caught me! The bastards are adding 'illegal electronic entry' to my list of crimes. Shits! Things keep getting worse!”

[Shroom Man 777]

A touching tale of violence and sexual deviance...



A FILM BY WESLEY PREFECT BIRKIN, PhD

THE BEARS HAVE GUNS

BIRKIN FILM GROUP PRESENTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH BEAR BRAND PICTURES FILATIO IL VIAGGIATORE KATARZYNA GRANZOWA RAINIER WOLFCASTLE KRYVYN BRAGKOV GABRIEL DIRKENSCHNEIDER MUSIC BY KEIKI KOBAYASHI EDITED BY WESLEY PREFECT BIRKIN
SPECIAL EFFECTS BY INDUSTRIAL BLIGHT AND PSIONICS WRITTEN BY KATARZYNA GRANZOWA

THE BEARS MARCH 08.32.3400

[Steve]

Shadowshroom
Somewhere in the Feelipeens System
18 July 3400

The Shadowshroom organization was not made of fools. Even after relenting to R. Julia's terms to save the lives of the children he took as hostages Zara had been treated like a prisoner. She was back in her cell, ordered into a plain jumpsuit, and a null field was used to block any effort at psionic resistance. The meals provided to her were nutritious but hardly appetizing. She ate them nevertheless.

When she went to sleep that night, she was sobbing as she settled into the slumber. In her sleep Pito stared at her, as if asking her to explain why he had to die.

It was like Delwood all over again. She was surrounded by evil and she was helpless to stop it from being committed further.

The next morning, after breakfast, guards came and brought her to what seemed to be a common area. The people here were dressed differently. Some were in suits and - to her eye - costumes of various kinds, stereotypical "fighting" wear meant to tease and tittilate as much as anything, while others were, like her, in a gray jumpsuit, indicating they were not here of their own free will either.

From the darkness in the middle of the room, a single figure came up to the light.



She recognized him as the man who had overseen the tournament in Bongabong. He looked at them all through his one good eye. "Some of you are new here," he stated out loud. "I am Sadat. From this point on I am in charge of your very lives. I will train you to be the best fighters this galaxy has seen. Keep up with me and you will win glory, fame, and wealth. Fall behind and your life will not be worth a single Feelipeeni piso." For effect he picked up a Feelpeeni 1-piso coin and flipped it in the air. "Now... we will start with the newest fighters. I will test your abilities myself."

With guards behind them they were pressed into a gymnasium with more than enough seating for everyone. Zara found a seat on the third bench, between two other prisoners. She felt her mind receptive again - there was no null field here, or rather there was a counter-field which allowed her Gift to function here.

A sparring mat was already in the middle of the gym. Sadat grinned evilly as he removed his shirt, revealing a long scar along his chest. He looked toward Zara's area of the bleachers and over the fighters here. "Hrm... you."

Zara followed his pointing finger toward the first row. A figure was huddled there, quivering with anxiety and fear. The girl cried out as one of the guards, at Sadat's nod, grabbed her by the arm and threw her onto the ground. She was small, just over four feet high, with a bronze complexion. Her voice spoke with a native Feelipeeni accent when she pleaded, in English, "Please, I just want to go home! I don't know how to fight!"

"Well, if you don't want to fight, just say so," Sadat said, before placing a wicked kick on the girl's face. She whipped around and stumbled. Zara watched blood pour from her nose and mouth and could feel the pain she had from a couple teeth knocked out. "This will be your fate if you don't fight," Sadat informed them over his shoulder as he kneeled over to grab the fallen girl. His intention to break the girl's neck was clear in Zara's mind.

No!

Zara shot to her feet and extended an arm. A burst of telekinetic power smacked Sadat from behind and bowled him over, sending him to the ground in front of the fallen girl. She jumped down over the heads of the other gray-suited prisoners, who cheered. The costumed fighters were cheering from the other side as well, though whether it was from seeing Sadat fall or the prospect of a fight one could not tell. The guards came to grab her, but one was "accidentally" tripped by a wayward limb of another prisoner and the other took a roundhouse kick from Zara right in the jaw, sending him spinning and crashing to the floor.

Guns were raised, but before anything else could happen Sadat's arm shot out in a "stop" gesture. He staggered to his feet and looked at Zara before laughing. "Well, if it isn't the Lady Knight I've heard so much about." He looked down to the girl and motioned to his guards. "Get her back in the stands."

"She's only fourteen," Zara said angrily. "She's too young for this."

"She's not too young to be a Class Five telekinetic," Sadat answered. "Given training and will she'll be a great fighter. I wonder... what Class are you?"

"I am a Knight of the Silver Moon," was the simple reply.

"Oh, of course," Sadat said.

There were no more words. Before she could react his fists and feet were coming toward her, requiring rapid and swift blocking moves. Her knee protested with pain from deflecting a powerful kick and her arms were soon feeling bruised as she absorbed hits on them. Zara focused on his attacks, sensing them just before they came, looking for an opening.

Sadat's left arm lowered, preparing for a strike, while his right moved over to try and grip her right wrist. Her left arm was already in position from a deflection. Zara had her opening. Her left hand zipped forward and grabbed Sadat's head.

People presumed that the various Esper Orders, who combined refinement of their abilities with asceticism and mysticism, were not into rough and tumble combat. They, of course, were wrong, and Zara now proved that with Sadat as her left thumb pressed into his right eye. He shrieked in pain as his eye was gouged out by her nail and the full force of her thumb, augmented physically by her abilities. Blood and fluid oozed out around Zara's thumb as she pulled it back, following this up with a powerful kick to the chest that sent Sadat flying. The crowd, for myriad reasons, roared their delight.

Suddenly Sadat's leg whipped out from where he was laying, striking Zara on her ankles and knocking her off balance. She stumbled backward, giving Sadat the opening to stand up. She stared at him, wondering how he could see, as he was down on top of her with his hand around her throat, ready to choke the life out of her. "How...?"

He reached up with his free hand and whipped off the eyepatch. His left eye was visible underneath, completely intact. The eyepatch itself was one-way transparent. "Nice killer instinct there, Knight," Sadat rasped as his grip tightened. "I'm going to make a killer out of you yet."

[Darkevilme]

Herding Cats
Hierarchy Palace midlevels, Chamarra Prime

The Hierarchy government were sufficiently confident that being glorious comrade nations of the Bragulans(Or something to that effect) they would have their exhibit approved that they had already begun organizing it before official notice was returned. Unfortunately for Neta Kithandra, member of the only clan sufficiently powerful and impartial to organize it, that meant she was put in charge of this endeavour.

How does Kara do it?! Neta thinks to herself as she seals off her office for the time being. She had representatives from most of the noble houses here and they were all competing against eachother for space and privilege in the exhibit, in essence Neta had the Hierarchy council in miniature and she was wondering how Kara avoided having them savagely beaten after each meeting. They were all coming to HER, and what's worse whenever she decided something it seemed three other representatives came to complain about the disproportionate favour being granted to whoever she was speaking to before she made the decision. It was madness! But then this was the first time ALL the noble houses wanted to participate in something like this.

And then the comm system started beeping insistently “Incoming transmission, priority 3.” it elaborates with mechanical indifference. Neta takes a moment to pray for good news to, the universe probably as she never quite caught religion beyond the Chamarran sense that the universe is a profoundly strange and unfathomable place and their very existence is evidence of it, and then opens the channel.

“Mistress Satia, how is Bragule?” Neta greets once the hologram coalesces.
“Pretty good, today our hosts celebrated Bragsday by flushing the chemical plants and gunning down the toximutants as they emerged from the sewers.” Satia says and gives Neta a semi transparent smile as she continues“But then, for the Bragulans every day is Bragsday and every day is celebrated with something like that. Anyway I have news. Our exhibition has been approved by the Bragulans and we have space alloted.”
“Buuttt....?” Neta coaxes with a sinking sensation as she notices Satia's expression even through the flickers and transparency of a holoprojection and it bode well.
“We're next to the Karlack exhibition. Yes the Karlack swarm has an exhibition space alloted, and we're next to it.”

“WHAT?!”
A little later

“Neta Kithandra, about the new exhibition layout.”
“Yes?”
“It's just, you've given us all equal space and some of us don't even have space along the edge of the exhibit plot. How are we to properly advertise the merchandise of our clan if people must pass through the other clan stands to get to ours? ”
“You will also be at the most defensive position in the exhibit, you should be grateful.”
“Ah yes...defence, I share your concerns about being placed next to the Karlacks but are you sure you're not over-reacting?”
“Absolutely.”
“Lockers of beam weapons, perimeter forcefields, disguised combat drones. You don't think this might give the wrong impression. What will the other attendees think of us?”
“They will think we are not insane and are taking sensible precautions considering the circumstances.”
“And our Bragulan hosts?”
“Are Bragulans. They will understand.”
“I see... I get the feeling we're not going to get you to change your mind on this are we Neta?”
“Absolutely not. Will that be all?”
“...Yes Neta, we'll come back if we have any further problems...”

And so it was that Neta having reached the end of her tether put an end to the arguments of preparation for the coming exhibition, they were doing it her way or she would adopt the sound Bragulan tradition of stickbeatings till they started doing it her way. In addition though she had also made sure that their exhibition would be armed for bear come bragsday.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

The Cruel Angel's Thesis
Cananaan system
27 June 3400

"Mr. Rokubungi, you must listen! The last time a contact experiment was conducted, the entire east wing of the facility was destroyed, and we lost a full sixth of our personnel! Attempting one on this scale may very well destroy the entire planet!"

"Ms. Shikinami?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Shut the fuck up, you whiny bitch."

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."



Mr. Rokubungi was not one to let minor setbacks like the loss of a laboratory and several of his subordinates get in the way of his goals. A historian and archaeologist from the Holy Empire of Haruhi Suzumiya, he had a single-minded obsession with the alien artifacts of the Cananaan system, starting when he first read about the Crucifer during his undergraduate studies; he chose to give up a steady yet uneventful career in Haruhiist academia so he could pursue the life of a treasure hunter in the Cananaan system, studying that which he loved up close and in person. However, his fascination with Cananaanite history did not endear him well to either the Byzantines, the Klavostanis, or even the native Cananaanites, who all considered him to be nothing more than a mere grave robber; nevertheless, he and his associates still persisted in their efforts to unravel the mysteries of Cananaan's pre-human history.

Just three years ago, Mr. Rokubungi had uncovered what would have been one of the most significant finds in the entire system since the initial discovery of the Crucifer long ago. Disguising his entire operation as a mining enterprise, he covertly built a full-fledged research facility atop the dig site and hired a team of freelance researchers to help him out. Unfortunately for him, the dig site happened to lie atop Terminal Dogma, a holy site that was sacred to both the Byzantines and the Klavostanis; however, even with their common goal of driving out Mr. Rokubungi, the Byzantines and Klavostanis still fought amongst each other, buying Mr. Rokubungi enough time to hire mercenaries and fortify his position atop Terminal Dogma. However, the greatest threat to Mr. Rokubungi's operation was not from without, but from within...

The "contact experiments" that Mr. Rokubungi's assistant Ms. Shikinami had been complaining about had come out of attempts to perform further analysis on some of the artifacts that had been recovered from Terminal Dogma. Every contact experiment conducted so far had ended with a catastrophic explosion and at least one death, despite constant revisions to the procedure and strict adherence to basic and advanced safety protocols; the last contact experiment, conducted only a week ago, had destroyed the entire east wing of the above-ground research facility, killing at least thirty scientists, technicians, and mercenaries and leaving a massive hole in the facility's defenses for the Byzantines and Klavostanis to exploit. Even with this setback, Mr. Rokubungi still insisted on sticking to his schedule, even if he was going to lose everything in the process.

"So, let me get this straight, sir. Even though every contact experiment so far has ended in failure, you're still going to conduct one? In the inner sanctum of Terminal Dogma, no less?" Ms. Shikinami asked. "I've done calculations on the potential yield of the resulting explosion. At the very least, you'll trigger an extinction-level event!"

"Actually, this isn't a contact experiment. We're going to try something different this time," Mr. Rokubungi replied as he and Ms. Shikinami entered one of the many elevators that would take them down to the deepest levels of the complex. As the lift descended, he further explained his plan, only to be met with even more disbelief from his assistant. "I swear, you've gone completely mad," Ms. Shikinami muttered to herself as she and Mr. Rokubungi exited the elevator.

Just then, alarms started to ring out, their loud buzzing quickly filling the rooms and hallways. "We haven't even started the experiment yet!" Mr. Rokubungi said as he took out a radio. "Security, what the hell's going on?!"

"Byzantine and Klavostani soldiers have entered the complex! I repeat--" one of the mercs replied before being cut off. Literally.



"Shit!" Mr. Rokubungi cried out. "We need to hurry! It won't be long before they get down here!"



Chaos raged from within and without as the Byzantines and the Klavostanis waged what would be their final assault. For once, they were finally able to get their act together long enough to achieve their common goal, though for how long this uneasy truce between them would hold up was anyone's guess. Under cover of rockets and light railgun fire, the infantry started entering the complex, ruthlessly slaughtering anyone and everyone they came across...



The mercenaries that Mr. Rokubungi had hired were effective enough in fending off the separate Byzantine and Klavostani scout forces that were sent to the complex every now and then, and they were certainly keen enough to exploit the divisions between the two factions; however, against an all-out joint assault, they were doomed, and they knew it. While they obviously could not drive back the Byzantines and Klavostanis, they could at least delay their inevitable advance through the complex, which they did to the best of their ability. Terminal Dogma would soon become a graveyard.



Despite sustaining horrendous losses, the Byzantines and Klavostanis continued their inexorable advance deeper and deeper into the complex, grinding their way through the steadily dwindling numbers of mercenaries and other enemy combatants. Soon, they had made their way to Central Dogma, Mr. Rokubungi's underground headquarters; directly below it was Terminal Dogma itself. At Central Dogma, the last of Mr. Rokubungi's employees would make their final stand, buying their boss the time he needed to complete his experiment...


Mr. Hyuga

Mr. Aoba, Ms. Ibuki, and Mr. Hyuga were, in more peaceful times, computer technicians who helped oversee experiments and other operations from inside Central Dogma. Now, asides from Mr. Rokubungi, Ms. Shikinami, and the mercenaries, they were the only staff members left. Mr. Aoba was the only one of them who had any extensive military training, having spent a few years in the SOS Imperial Guard before being honorably discharged and subsequently seeking work with Mr. Rokubungi's operation; Ms. Ibuki and Mr. Hyuga, on the other hand, had nothing other than the most basic of weapons training, and they certainly weren't expecting themselves to be fighting off Byzantine crusaders and Klavostani jihadis.

Still, in the end, Mr. Hyuga grimly accepted what he had to do, and so he took out the caseless pistol he kept in his drawer and started firing when the first of the intruders came breaking into Central Dogma. Ms. Ibuki, on the other hand, wasn't handling things nearly as well.


Ms. Ibuki (left) and Mr. Aoba (right)

"Release the safety!" Mr. Aoba said to Ms. Ibuki.

"I-- I can't!" Ms. Ibuki cried. "I just can't shoot this thing!"

"Of course you can! We've all had basic training!" Mr. Aoba implored.

"But I shot at paper targets, not at other human beings!" Ms. Ibuki cried.

Mr. Aoba gritted his teeth and growled as he tightened his grip on his weapon. "Idiot! You kill or you DIE!" he yelled as he rose up and started firing at the Byzantine and Klavostani intruders.



Both Mr. Aoba and Mr. Hyuga knew that they could not hope to stop the Byzantines and the Klavostanis; all they could do was delay them, which they did a surprisingly good job of despite being very lightly armed compared to their enemies. As the two of them kept taking potshots at the advancing crusaders and jihadis, Ms. Ibuki set to work removing one of the computer terminals from its mounting on the console so she could monitor Mr. Rokubungi's progress in relative safety. "Looks like things are actually moving along smoothly down there," she said to herself.

Mr. Aoba and Mr. Hyuga withdrew from the battle to reload their weapons when they saw Ms. Ibuki crouched under the console, staring intently at the terminal she had ripped out. "What's going on?" Mr. Hyuga asked as he and Mr. Aoba went down to view the terminal with her.

"It looks like our little delaying actions were successful after all," she replied. "The boss is almost done with the preparations for his last experiment. All we gotta do now is keep delaying them until he's finally done. There actually don't seem to be any complications so far, unlike with the previous experiment. Let's hope our luck will continue to hold up."



"Well, he better hurry up, then!" Mr. Aoba said. "Keep monitoring Terminal Dogma! We'll continue to hold them off!"

After reloading, Mr. Aoba and Mr. Hyuga got back up and resumed firing. However, holding their position in Central Dogma soon became a very untenable proposition as the Byzantines and Klavostanis continued their advance; with the deaths of the last of the mercenaries, they were now all that was left standing between their boss and the assault force. "Ibuki, let's go! We're withdrawing into Terminal Dogma!" Mr. Aoba called out as he and Mr. Hyuga attempted to make their way out of Central Dogma. Ms. Ibuki, clearly not wanting to die at the hands of either the crusaders or the jihadis, did as she was ordered and followed closely behind them as they took the stairs. In turn, the Byzantines and Klavostanis followed closely behind her...



After trailing the three technicians down into the bowels of Terminal Dogma, the Byzantines and Klavostanis decided to make their presence known. "Infidels! You die here!" one of the Klavostanis cried out as he fired his rifle at Ms. Ibuki, barely missing her by a few centimeters. Seemingly reflexively, Ms. Ibuki spun around and plugged the hapless Klavostani soldier with a perfectly executed Mozambique drill, double-tapping him in the chest and blowing his head off with a third shot; she then proceeded to do the same to the Byzantine soldier standing right next to the fallen Klavostani.

"Told you you could fire that thing," Mr. Aoba said confidently.

"Please don't start, Aoba," Ms. Ibuki replied. "We need to keep moving."

"Right," Mr. Hyuga said as he and the others continued to make their way deeper into Terminal Dogma.



Eventually, the three technicians reached the core of Terminal Dogma, a massive hollow sphere lined with steel and chrome, completely featureless save for a single catwalk leading to a circular walkway in the center of the sphere, ringed on both sides by transparent touch screens of inscrutable origin, faintly illuminating the chamber with their dim glow. Mr. Rokubungi seemed to have figured them out, however, as he was busy dashing from one screen to the next, madly tapping away at them; once he was done with them, he walked to what appeared to be the main control console and began typing away there. So engrossed was he in his work that he didn't notice Mr. Aoba, Ms. Ibuki, and Mr. Hyuga entering the core...nor did he notice the remaining Byzantine and Klavostani soldiers making their own entrance shortly afterwards. "You there! Heathen!" one of the Byzantine crusaders called out.

"Yeah?" Mr. Rokubungi said nonchalantly, his voice echoing throughout the massive cavern.

"You've defiled enough of our holy sites! Your blasphemies against our faiths end here and now!" a Klavostani jihadi cried out. "Prepare to be purged!"

At that, Mr. Rokubungi laughed. He fucking laughed. "Not just yet, my friends. Not...just...yet." After spending another second or so typing away at the main console, he stepped away from it, turned to face the Byzantines and Klavostanis, and brought up a pistol.



"You see, the truth is..."



Mr. Rokubungi threw his hands out to his sides and tossed his gun away. At that exact moment, a giant pillar of white light arose from the bottom of Terminal Dogma, shooting straight through the center with a great flash. Everyone assembled in Terminal Dogma who was facing the light attempted to shield their eyes and avert their gaze as it steadily grew brighter and brighter with every passing second. Ms. Shikinami, knowing all too well what was going to happen next, took the opportunity to exit the inner sanctum of Terminal Dogma, filing through the mass of Byzantine and Klavostani soldiers who were resolutely (and foolishly) standing their ground.

"Wait, what's going on?" Ms. Ibuki asked as Ms. Shikinami brushed past her.

"There's no time! Come with me if you want to live!" Ms. Shikinami replied tersely. Ms. Ibuki did as she was told and accompanied Ms. Shikinami, with Mr. Aoba and Mr. Hyuga following shortly behind them.

Mr. Rokubungi, on the other hand, remained where he was, silent and impassive as he stood with the pillar of light behind him. "That light!" a Klavostani jihadi exclaimed as the reality of the situation finally dawned upon him. "It can't-- It can't be!"

The same thought had occured to at least one Byzantine crusader as well. "...My God, what have you done, heathen?!" he yelled at Mr. Rokubungi. "You'll turn this entire place into a graveyard! No, you'll destroy the entire planet!"

"We need to get out of here!" several jihadis and crusaders called out in a disorganized fashion.

"Now the gate has been unlatched, headstones pushed aside," Mr. Rokubungi intoned as the Byzantines and Klavostanis attempted to flee the inner sanctum. "Corpses shift and offer room...a fate you must abide!"

There was a brief, final flash of light before the inner sanctum of Terminal Dogma fell completely dark. That darkness would be the absolute last thing Mr. Rokubungi and the majority of the gathered Byzantines and Klavostanis would ever see. Ever.

[Siege]

Co-written with Mayabird


Office of the Vice President
Sovereignty Spire, Solaris Major

To anyone not from the Sovereignty the way Arkady Messier delicately folded his combat-ready exoframe in the large seat behind his desk would most likely look peculiar. Considering the ambassador however, gauging the reaction of the Refuge was... Difficult. The vice-president fixed a pair of blue-glowing sensor globes on the swan in his office. “I’m curious - why do you call yourselves 'The Refuge'?”

Ambassador Melody began, “It adequately describes us. We are refugees from...actually, we are not entirely sure where it is now. The Emergency Drive may have launched us beyond our own observable universe, as far as we know. We were driven out of our previous galaxy because of a devastating war with hostile aliens equipped with strange and terrible weapons. The Emergency Drive was the only way we could escape and ensure that we were not followed. You can understand, then, why we were so hesitant to reveal ourselves before now.”

“I see. And you are willing to share this drive technology with us?” A note of surprise crept into the VP’s digitized voice. “That is... most kind of you indeed.” A drive that would launch vessels ‘beyond the observable universe’ would be a very nice thing to have. Of course it stood to reason that navigating on such a scale would be difficult at best, but there could be no doubt the Apexai delegate, who was listening in on the conversation via a one-way vidlink, would be doing doubletakes by now.

“It is of limited use, which is why we call it the Emergency Drive, but given a choice between that and extinction...” The swan trailed off. “But we can discuss contingencies later, when we go into detail about what drove us from our previous home.

“More immediately, we are interested in a defense pact against the Karlack Swarm. It is uncomfortably close to our space, a threat to everyone else besides, and a cancer upon the galaxy. Additionally, we would like to open and normalize trade relations between the Sovereignty and the Refuge, including with private citizens and companies.”

“Anyone trying to stave off the rampages of the Swarm will find a friend in the Sovereignty,” Messier inclined his head with a barely audible buzzing of gyros. “And of course we always welcome trade; I’m sure our corporations will be more than happy to do business with you.” That was an understatement; in fact the Vice-President was certain megacorps like Maibatsu, DeBarross and Tyrell would already be planning how to operate on (or better yet, corner) the markets of the Refuge -- even though they still knew next to nothing about the Refuge itself, he was certain that was about to change very rapidly indeed.

“It is wonderful to hear so for both,” the ambassador arched her long neck gracefully. “Some of my staff will prepare a list of proposals and recommendations for starting, as well as some, how should I say it, etiquette for visits. And speaking of my staff, File-Keeper would be very interested in visiting and learning more about this 'Foundation for Omega Point Experimentation' that we had heard about. The Refuge does not have any so-called Espers so it is a phenomenon that we would like to investigate.”

“But of course. The Foundation is a civilian institute; I’m sure we could arrange a visit for him?” Messier looked at Olympic.

The CI nodded instantly. “I can organize a visit at any time he would like. In the meantime I can arrange for digital records of the Foundation’s publications to be wirelessly transferred to your ship.”

“You have our thanks. While we are on the topic, is there a way that we could make purchases here, for instance, encyclopedias, other reference books, engineering guides, science journals, literature, or other texts of an educational nature?”

“Access to most of these is available through the Datasphere; we will happily donate a cyberdeck so you can peruse them at your leisure. You are entirely free to buy whatever you wish from the Sovereignty...” The vice-president smiled. “The volumes you describe should be accessible freely and without issue. And I must say, ambassador” Messier’s synthesized voice reproduced the harmonics of the swan’s name perfectly, “that it is a delight to have met you. As you may have found our corner of space has a... nasty, vicious reputation, and one that is admittedly not entirely undeserved.I hope that you and yours will not be swept up in the usual bloodshed of the Koprulu Zone -- considering your history as you have told it, that would be truly unfortunate. However know that when it comes to the Karlack you have a friend in the Sovereignty, and that I personally hope that relations between our two states will be warm. Certainly we seem to be off to a most auspicious start, no?”

[Siege]

Co-written with Steve

Villa Straylight
Geosynchronous orbit around Solaris



Some boys take a beautiful girl,
And hide her away from the rest of the world.
I wanna be the one to walk in the sun.
Oh, girls,
They wanna have fu-un.
Oh, girls,
Just wanna have
That's all they really want.....
Some fun....

The music echoed through the labyrinthine isles of the vaulted Lyceum, blaring from an ancient jukebox in the distance. Remarkably, it hadn’t taken Nisa very long at all to get the antique contraption working -- perhaps because she came from a simpler world that hadn’t yet moved beyond solid state electronics, or perhaps because she simply had an affinity for such things. Nisa herself was sallying through the marble-clad hallways of the orbital, singing a phonetic karaoke to an ancient song of which she didn’t quite understand the lyrics, although the meaning was pretty clear. By the standards of the Yildiz it was definitely a scandalous song, but after a few weeks she’d come to realize that by the standards of the Yildiz pretty much everything about Mr. Hank was scandalous.

First and foremost there was his wealth. Compared to the Villa, the palace of the late Prince Jabin might as well have been a straw hut. Mr. Hank was obscenely wealthy. What good could it be for one man to have this much money? The wise men of the Yildiz would surely have frowned on such feats of epic hoarding.

Then there was his age. She knew he was old, very old even, but he didn’t look it; that alone was something almost unheard of on Toutaine. There were whispers of anti-aging treatments sure, but only the wealthiest men on that planet could afford them. Because the wealthiest were also the most unscrupulous, anti-agathics were frowned upon. And yet here was a man who’d lived longer than Nisa could imagine. Although she wasn’t quite sure he was particularly scrupulous, now that she thought of it. Because getting to know Mr. Hank was definitely a shocking experience. Oh, of course he was hospitable and very charming, but though his mind was (for reasons Nisa didn’t quite get) closed to her empathic talent she nevertheless had the impression that underneath that bewitching glamor he was a dangerous man. It could’ve made her worry, might’ve even convinced her that he was just putting up an act for her father, had it not been for the very real joy that crept into his voice whenever he and her father talked about their common past, an unimaginably long time ago.

In many ways, Mr. Hank appeared almost the polar opposite of her father. If her father spoke plainly, Mr. Hank would be cryptic. If her father was on occasion repelled by the ostentation of the Villa, Mr. Hank clearly revelled in the preposterous luxury. And they argued and disagreed all the time, too: rehashing old conflicts, but also squabbling about the morality of this endeavor or that. They didn’t seem to agree often. In fact, they didn’t appear to have much in common at all. It made her wonder how her father had ever come to be friends with Mr. Hank.

Speaking of her father, he was off by himself again. Sometimes he was simply catching up on events since he left, looking over data from across the galaxy provided to him with the aid of Dionysus and the Solarian Datasphere; at other times he was in genuine meditation. She understood why; she had seen him lose control of his power at the SEB Mining Site, and if not for her Nisa wondered if he would have left a single person there alive.

Life in the Villa had never been dull, though. Between her father and Sidney’s capable CI Nisa had been learning every day about what life was like in the wider galaxy. Her English had improved beyond the basic standards planetwide on Toutaine toward actual fluency. And now there were up-to-date holovid newscasts, entertainment (though her father had made a distinctly unpleasant face when she had innocently inquired about this “C.J. Motonow’s Star Wars” series found on the public Datasphere), and even new clothes.

They’d gotten her clothes, and other things, on the visit to Solaria Major the prior week. They had “prepared” her by showing her images of the massive city-moon, beyond anything she had known before. It had been like walking through a great myth the day they visited the high commercial areas and other places, with towers of glass and metal and fine-smelling flowers blooming in the small parks along every road. And then there had been shopping.

Nisa had known shopping... at least, what it theoretically was. Shopping was, for so long, when she went with her (step)father Sabik into Jeziri to get tools and things for the homestead. Clothes were beyond their means - sewing them from fabric was her mother’s job, especially outside of the harvest and planting seasons. But here? Shopping seemed to be for nothing but clothes and other knicknacks. Clothes, at that, that would have made her parents scowl and would have had her denounced as a prostitute back home. She’d blushed a deep red the first time she’d tried one set on, amusing both her father and Mr. Hank, as well as the store saleswoman helping her look through the selection. As she learned, in most societies of the galaxy a girl her age was expected to enjoy wearing such clothing.

And there were other things. Jewelry, for instance, and electronic devices of all sorts, perfumes, hair styling aids... The wealth here was beyond obscene from what she had grown up around.

On their way back, Nisa had asked Sidney if the entire planet was like that. He had said it was not, but it was her father who had, in what she knew was his mocking and sarcastic tone of voice, pointed out that many areas of the city didn’t look, smell, or feel as nice, with plenty of people stuck living in them because they were too poor to do better. Nisa would have asked more but she had seen the look exchanged between the two old men and remained silent.

Lost in thought, Nisa wandered past a stone bust of a man called ‘Prime Minister Shroom’ and an big old two-dimensional map of a region of space called ‘the Pacific’ which seemed to be split between two nations called ‘PacUnion’ and ‘NFT’. Considering the vivid red and blue in which the two were painted and the gray area called ‘neutral zone’ in-between them in a region (a nebula perhaps?) called ‘Velaria’ she figured they weren’t (or hadn’t been? There was no way for her to tell) the best of friends. Then she heard sounds in the distance, over the distant jangle of the jukebox (which had segued into a song about a ‘Mambo Number 5’ whose lyrics made her blush), and heading toward it she missed the date on the map -- 2043.

Following the sounds down a hallway festooned with more paintings and other antiques she came to a worn door of heavy oaken, a note next to which said it was retrieved at great cost from a place called ‘Bleak Castle’. She pushed it, noting with some worry that some of the nicks and dents in the door looked an awful lot like bullet holes. There was light on the other side of the door, the pleasant dark yellow of the glow-globes ubiquitous to the palace. She’d not been to this room before. It was furnished in the eclectic mixture of styles that Mr. Hank seemed to favor. Old black-and-white photographs of people and places hung from wood-paneled walls. A fireplace - with actual fire! In a space station! - was set in the far wall, adorned by a big old-fashioned painting of a big wooden ship traveling across stormy seas toward a distant shore. Golden letters below it read ‘the Arrival of Sir Siegfried’.

In the middle of the room stood a round table topped with green filt. Seven chairs were set around it, and all of them were occupied. Well, in a way. Only one man was physically in the room, the rest were holograms - very lifelike holograms, but you could still tell they weren’t really real by the way they occasionally fizzed with static. From what Nisa recalled reading on the Datasphere, that meant those people were probably a really long way away.

The only man who was actually there was Mr. Hank. He was sitting with her back to her, but she could tell by the way he said “that is a nice hand, Mr. Morgan, I guess you take this one” that it was him. There was a ripple of laughter and a well-manicured man with a goatee on the far side of the table smiled dazzlingly. “Can’t win ‘em all Hank,” he said. “Besides...” his voice trailed off as his holographic eyes flickered to Nisa. The man - Mr. Morgan - was evidently surprised to see her. “Well now Sid, who do we have here?”

Mr. Hank turned around in his chair and looked at her. For a single moment she saw a hint of a frown which was instantly replaced by a smile. “Ah, Nisa, hello. Come and meet Mr. Morgan from Nova Terra; Mr. Yu from the Holy Empire,” he pointed at a rotund Asian-featured man in a neo-traditional kimono complete with Samurai swords; “Mr. Toth from the Imperium,” a man, gaunt and scarred, in crimson robes rimmed with gold; “Mrs. Saint-Blancat from the Fourth French Empire,“ a beautiful blonde woman in a white silken dress; “Mr. Ironsides of New Anglia,” a muscular, powerful looking man in a black suit wearing a monocle that flickered as data scrolled across it; “and Mrs. De Vere of New Berlin, the Moon, Earth,” a young woman, barely older than Nisa, with hair that seemed to change color every second and a series of cybernetic protrusions sculpted in silver above her left eye.

Nisa realized that the others at this game were likely very powerful figures in their home nations and certainly long-time acquaintances of Sidney. She curtsied respectfully and introduced herself; “I am Nisa Tari of the Yildiz.”

A chorus of greetings. The woman introduced as Mrs. De Vere waved at her. “Her father is an old friend,” Mr. Hank explained to the five holograms. “She and he are staying with me for the time being.”

That elicited a few surprised remarks. “I didn’t know you took visitors,” the blonde woman in the white dress smiled teasingly.

“We might have to drop by some day, you know, do this in person,” grinned the man from New Anglia.

“That’s quite enough of that,” Mr. Hank replied, his tone of voice making it clear he could take the good-natured ribbing. “Ladies, gentlemen, it would appear I have to bow out for now. I’ll see you all next week.” A ripple of good-byes; Mr. Hank pushed a button and the holograms faded from existence. He turned his chair to face Nisa and gestured at the table. “My weekly poker game,” he said by way of explanation.

“And they are also friends of your’s?” Nisa didn’t bother asking if her father knew them; she was sure the answer was no.

He took a moment to consider that question. “Yes, I suppose they are,” he conceded. “Except for Yu and De Vere I’ve never actually met any of them in person, but they are all... Kindred spirits, you could say. Very smart people. Very rich, too.” He shrugged. “We enjoy the company. And the game too. So I guess you could say they’re friends.”

“I’m sorry for interrupting you then, I was just curious...”

The smile widened. “That’s okay. I was losing pretty badly, so if anything your timing was impeccable.”

Nisa found a seat near him, formally taken up by one of the holographic players. She saw the pile of chits before Sidney and knew that it likely represented money of some sorts. “How much did you lose?”

He actually hesitated for a moment, knowing that this was going to be one of those moments. “Nine planets,” he finally conceded. “Though two of them were small ones. More like rogue moons, really,” he added lamely.

Nisa’s eyes widened. “Planets? You barter entire planets in a game?”

“Well...” there really was no way around this. “Yes. Planets, moons, big asteroids. Systems, in the occasional high-stakes game.”

“Do any people live on them?”

“... sometimes.”

Nisa stared ahead, thinking about this. From time to time, back on Toutaine, princes and sheiks would trade territory, she knew. The Yildiz were immune from that, being a direct holding of the Emir, but she knew that people in those areas were often caught in the middle of disputes between their sheiks and princes. She remembered hearing stories about how they would trade not just territory and goods, money, but even the people in their area. Skilled craftsmen, farming families, beautiful girls, exchanged due to politics or the outcome of games. It had always struck her as unfair.

How can my father be a friend of someone who does this?, she asked herself.

“How can you do that?”, Nisa asked quietly. “I had heard that in the galaxy people had... rights. They were governed by laws and not whims?”

His jaw worked for a second. It sounded pretty bad when she put it like that. “Look, I know what you’re thinking,” he finally said. “Or at least I think I know. But we’re not evicting these people. We make no pretense to owning them. Hell, most of the time they don’t even notice. Most of them live their lives unaware of which company owns the arco they live in, or the company they work at, or the park they walk their dog in, or the playground their children play in. But there’s always someone who does own those things. In some places it’s an Emir, in others it’s a government and sometimes... It’s people like me. Those people you just saw, they’re practically governments in their own right. They own galaxy-wide industrial firms, fleets of cargo ships, retail chains that operate in four spiral arms. They employ billions of people, control enough money to break entire economies...” He sighed. “And despite what you might be thinking right now, they - we- are not callous. Well, maybe a little. But the only thing that changes when we lose a planet is that shares or bonds of ownership gets transferred. Somewhere in a computer one set of names changes into another; revenue streams get redirected into different accounts. Nobody gets hurt.”

“That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t impact the lives of those in those worlds,” Nisa replied. “And why don’t they own themselves? Why can’t people own the places they work and live in? Don’t they get a say in how their lives are run?”

Mr. Hank poured two glasses of something sweet and fresh, then offered her one glass and sat down. “To answer your first question,” he began, “they do sometimes. But colonizing a new world is a pricey business. Prospecting, terraforming, the construction of all the roads, space stations, chicken soup dispensers and other things necessary to sustain a space-going civilization... This is very expensive. In some cases a government provides this money, and then the new planet becomes its colony. Other times, a big company lends the settlers the funds they need, and naturally the company then gets a say in what happens on this planet. This is only fair, no?” He took a sip of the drink. “As for their say... It depends on the term of the original contract. In my case, settlers are usually shareholders that own pieces of their colony. But that’s just what I prefer. Vivian - that is Mrs. Saint-Blancat - implements a form of corporate citizenship; Yu’s planets are actually franchises; Ashleigh works with a techo-anarchistic paradigm that’s pretty difficult to explain...” He stopped, realizing he was getting ahead of himself. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, on the whole these are actually pretty nice places to live. Isn’t that the most important thing? Who cares if it’s a government or a company that owns the place as long as the streets are safe, the light stays on and there’s food on the table?”

Nisa remained quiet. She honestly didn’t know much of what he was talking about - her entire life and notions of ownership had come from her people, who did recognize the idea of “owning” things but believed strongly in communal views to the big things. Her parents had owned the farm, but all the Yildiz in Jeziri owned the town’s granaries and the temple, as well as the water. Nor did anyone ever consider owning roads or sections of river.

But there was something gnawing at her. “So you are all very wealthy people, far beyond anything on my homeworld. Why, then, don’t you do something about us? Why did my people have to live the way we did when you could have helped us live better lives?” Nisa tapped her arm, right where she’d been injected with her first anti-aging treatment. “Why will I live to be hundreds of years old when the girls I grew up knowing will be dying of old age within just a hundred years?” Left unaid, of course, was that by all accounts every girl she had actually known in her life on Toutaine was dead, murdered by Prince Jabin’s troops.

Mr. Hank grew very still at that. And he remained still for a very long time, his drink forgotten. When he finally answered, his voice sounded very old and tired. “I was there, you know,” he said. “At the beginning. The Diaspora. I tried to stop it, because I knew it’d lead to this, to places like your old home - and worse. Thought I was doing a bang-up job for a while, too, keeping humanity caged and docile. Didn’t work out so well though. And then there were billions of people heading everywhere at once, on lighthuggers and with Heim Drives... So many of them. How was I going to keep track of them all? How could anyone?” He looked the girl in the eyes. “I don’t blame your great-great-grandparents for settling on that world. They probably wanted to be free, and I can’t fault them for that anymore. But it’s hardly fair to blame me, either.” He shook his head. “If you wish, I can make arrangements for your homeworld. I’ve built up a hundred worlds over the years. But remember that there are ten thousand Toutaines scattered throughout the galaxy. And even my resources have their limits.”

“Even if you helped Toutaine, it’s too late for my people,” Nisa said sadly. She hadn’t even taken a drink yet, but now she did. She hadn’t cared if it was alcoholic or not (alcohol was sinful to the Yildiz), she just wanted something to whet her throat - as it turned out it wasn’t. “I do think I begin to understand how you and my father can be friends, though.”

[Zor]

(Unreal Time) The Boarder of Refuge Space

The Commonwealth Diplomatic Ship Liwei awaited at the boarder as it dispatched its hails. The newly arrived power was of some interest to the Commonwealth and its people and as such a team to study it. Among those stationed aboard it were several Posthuman Ambassadors alongside a few aides and scientists (Mostly largely unmodified human with a few Posthumans, Chammarans and Water Caste Tau). It also carried a selection of the more prime goods of the commonwealth to be provided to its natives as a jesture of goodwill as well as to try to open up new markets, including various forms of media.

Sector H-6

The Carrier CSNS-Enterprise fell out of hyperspace along with two Godslayer class destroyers, two Tercio class Frigates and two Xiongnu class missile frigates. Pirate activity was still high, and it was time to ferret out whatever ratholes they operated from. Inside the carrier's hangers, a number of bullshark were being prepared for launch, being outfitted primarally with a missile armament, sensor boeys and advanced sensors arrays. These craft had low range FTL Drives which would allow them to quickly cover a fair bit of territory. When they left, they would still be able to keep tabs on the area afterwards. They had a few leads in regards to unihabited and the gunships could snoot them out. Several flights of five ships were readied.

[Simon_Jester]

Cutter Tender USS Nantucket, AGP-3625
Deep Space, Sector H-12
Recon Sweep near Zebes
June 21, 3400

It had been a long watch. Commander Ximena Olmedo knew she really shouldn't have let the bridge officers put a coffee dispenser physically on the bridge, mounted on an unused stretch of wall where a tracking console had been removed in the last round of refits. She just didn't care.

Tender commands weren't highly sought out, even though they made up a third of SpaceSec's starfaring combat ships. The ships had nothing more than a light point defense rig, and were among the smallest "carriers" in the civilized galaxy: tiny commands whose usual mission profile involved hovering several light-years from the action and sending the cutters in to go do the real work. In between times, of course, there was the joy of riding herd on anywhere from a hundred to a hundred and forty cutter jocks, plus the occasional mob of bored Strike troopers.

The best reason to accept a tender command was in hopes of being promoted out of it, typically to a flag officer's staff to help coordinate large cutter wings, or possibly to a fleet carrier. And as long as the tenders kept their boats fueled up and ready to go, no one really cared what they did during the long pauses when nothing much was going on. Some of the AGPs' captains chose to run a tight ship regardless, but it was generally accepted that a certain amount of discretion toward the regs was tolerable on the tenders.

Normally, CIC on Nantucket was reasonably busy, but not now. In shoals they couldn't actually get the detailed sensor take from all their ELINT cutters. Hyperwave broadcast conditions were too poor for more than low-bandwidth code group transmissions, so the kind of complex integration that made the CIC worthwhile would have to wait until the eight Corsair-J boats made it back from their recon sweeps.

"Ma'am, something funny out there on passives, to ventral... possible contact, range indeterminate."

What? From her own ship's sensor operators, not the cutters pinging something back to her. Probably not good. "Bounce it down to CIC." If that's not a ghost, we're in trouble.

Fifteen tense seconds ticked by as CIC's computers ran over the sensor data. Thirty more, as the operators took a look at the results and fed improved assumptions back into the machines for further analysis.

Her chief comm-scan officer went pale as his earbud relayed him the results from CIC. "Ma'am, they think that we're looking at a pair of contacts, one heavy corvette and one light destroyer, running quiet but not stealthed. Drive power is commensurate with best estimate of their tonnage, signature is... definitely not one of ours."

Checking the numbers, Ximena had a difficult decision to make. It was possible that they could just sneak away, if the bogeys weren't keeping too close an eye out, if their sensors weren't as good as hers, if they didn't know she was there to be looked for. The odds were against that last being true, though; chance interceptions like this just didn't happen in the shoals themselves. Along the narrow paths ships could actually navigate at decent speed, yes, but not in the middle of the swamps like this.

No, those ships wouldn't be here looking for them if they didn't already know Nantucket was in the area. Trying to sneak away would give them enough of a hyperspace wake to be noticed, but not enough headway to get clear of a reasonable sensor envelope before they could do so. They'd have to hope for the best from a stern chase- if they could keep away from that destroyer, they'd probably be able to avoid being yanked out of hyper before starship support arrived.

"Helm, prepare a course for Rendevous Point Kappa, top speed. Execute on my order. Comms, I want a tightbeam punch to Sweep Line Command calling for starship support, execute on my order; we're going to need the backup. Also prepare an omnidirectional broadcast to all cutters, telling them to break for it, standard scatter protocol. If they're hunting our recon line, the cutters aren't going to be able to fend for themselves, not even in bunches. Again, execute on my order."

As the communications officer lined up the code groups for high-power burst transmissions, Ximena strode over to her command console and buckled herself in, then keyed the intercom. "General quarters. General quarters. All hands, man your battle stations." She hooked her own suit helmet to the collar of her utility uniform with a practiced 'twist-click' as the seals engaged. Naval utilities were fairly minimal as pressure suits: air-tight so you could at least breathe, but awkward when not under pressure because of the design compromises needed to make them tolerable in atmosphere. For real work, the maintenance crews had to rely heavily on remotes and on the fraction of their own numbers who stayed in full-up space suits at all times.

Still, though, better than breathing vacuum.

---

Corsair-J class ELINT cutter CG-85484 “Heavenly Body”
On Patrol, Flying off USS Nantucket

"Crew, we have a problem." Dwight sounded grave. "Nantucket is being chased. They're scooting for it."

Mary was first to speak. "So do we scatter or go quiet?"

"Orders are to scatter, but I'm not sure where to run to just yet. We go quiet, wait for any transmissions or more orders."

Corsair-C class pursuit cutter CG-81634 “Greyhound”,
Docked to USS Guernsey

Jack called from the navigation console. "All pre-flight checks complete, we are ready to launch"

The other boats were mostly done already; the last few reported in within the next minute. Audrey switched to her link with the mothership's bridge. "Guernsey, space group is ready for launch."

Commander Gowon's smooth baritone answered her. "Copy that, Piranha Leader. We'll undock you as soon as we get the order; hold tight until then."

They were waiting on starship support for launch; otherwise, even the combined cutter wing of Nantucket and Guernsey wouldn't be able to do much against a pair of starships, especially not without greencaps. They still didn't have replacements for the ones expended at Hawk's Nest; reloads were due soon, but hadn't come in the mail yet, and for now they were making do with standard nukes.

Come on... There was a lot about the situation she didn't know, but she hoped to hell the starships would get moving...

Empress-class cruiser USS Artemisia
Sweep Line Command

Commodore Rick Tabor grunted. He was pulling together his starships as they moved towards Nantucket's destination, but the sweep had to cover a lot of volume, and the shoals made travel slow and risky. He'd have San Dorado in position to back her up soon, but the rest of the squadron would take many precious minutes to converge on Nantucket's position.

It looked like they could at least get the frigate to support the cutter before the enemy destroyer could catch up, but the pirates were fast movers. A frigate and a tender with half its complement scattered across the sector on recon duty against a destroyer and a corvette wasn't good odds.

The nearest other support was an Eoghan ship vectoring in; the alien commodore Pdeudemar had been kind enough to volunteer a few of his units for sweeps in this sector. Between San Dorado and the frigate-weight missile ship, they could balance out Nantucket's pursuers. But if the Zebesians wanted a battle badly enough to yank Nantucket out of hyper to get it, she and San Dorado would have to fight alone for an awfully long time before the Eoghans could get there... and longer still before enough units to give them comfortable superiority would get there.

This could be ugly.

[Agent Sorchus]

The Isis system August. 3400

Baron Loxley growled at the info net repeater. Valentine's comments had nagged at him since the Opera Hall. He hadn't really known that he had acquired new personal foes, annoyingly enough,but it was more annoying because according to Internationale Union of Evildoers cyberspace blogosphere they were personal foes based on bad reporting. They were more a foe of his organization rather than people out to get him personally, based on the events reported.

Though the more he looked into it the more his analysis of the "Rangers" the more he became certain taht they really were a personal foe (or at least deserved to be), but the net had been right for all the wrong reasons, obnoxious opinionated morons. He was considering placing bloggers on his list of personal enemies right behind these rangers. Only the fact that it would have made him sound like a Shepistani rallying against the liberal media.

Stellar light splashed across the repeater, heralding shiprise. The massive colony ship Giordano Bruno was still moving the Baron's men and supplies to the surface of Nova Murmansk. Nova Murmansk was a world they had visited many times for it was often too far into the void to be easy to extract the riches it contained. Only now as it swept closer to the star was it easy for his men to move around the surface. He held the mineral rights to many such minor worlds that were too difficult for some to bother mining or settling.

He sighed cane clicking against the back of the chair, he was too indulgent of his old age to go chasing off after those ranger hooligans (seriously did they think they were old school shroomanians?) and he couldn't just sic some of the organizations goons on them, the matter was definitely too personal for their uncouth hands. He would have to get his son in law to do it. Robin would be in shortly if he was any judge of the man. Of course if his ears weren't deceiving him the door was opening.

"Hello father."
"Son. How is Marian?"
"Fine. And the off loading is going good as well."
"Son, I don't worry about that, I worry more about how you and your relationship is going."
"Sometimes I think you only worry about that when you are concerned about something else."

"I can't really keep secrets from you can I? Especially if you are to inherit my name. Yes I am worried about something else, new this time. It is going to require a personal touch, yours more than mine, and I worry about taking you away from Mariam for this. My concern is as genuine as anyone's you can be certain."

"Father... You should not worry about it, I am taking care of it in my own time, much like you took care of your foes in your own time. And yes I know that you say love and war do not follow the same schedule. As I said don't worry, just tell me what you want me to do."

"Ah I guess I must. Back in my youth before I got into the various business ventures that made me what I am now, all I had was my nobility. I was studying abroad," meaning not any of your business what I was really up to," and I was approached by this Tianguo adventurer going by the name of Zordon. Anyway this rather boring man and I were investigating some interesting ruins out near the Ork empires. He was making several interesting realizations about the nature of the ruins, ones I would never find out what they were. See we had a falling out when an Ork scout almost found us while chasing an escapee from the factories. Zordon wanted to help when it became apparent that the Ork was making sport of it all, while I asked rhetorically why should we interfere with the Orky system of Justice one that was as good as any in human lands. Zordon didn't like the rejoinder and one thing lead to another. The good thing that came from that day for me was that I meet Kaptin Dharaz."

"Now this is relevant only because I ignored Zordon for the most part as I fought my other foes, but I don't think he ignored me. He is dead now, I know that for certain, but I think the ghost of his discoveries is haunting me. One of the groups that has resisted the organization recently has been tied to a Yacht called Zordon's Blessings, you'll recognize the name they are going by since they caused so much of a stir from their flamboyancy."

Robin's face was now in his palm, "You mean the Power Rangers don't you."

"Yes, and I want you to deal with them. At the least you could go back to the ruins that so intrigued Zordon so I can have some closure on the subject."

"Father I know that I can do this, and I understand why you worry that I can't leave Mariam hanging for long to finish this. I am going to do my best to soothe both your worries though."

"Indeed, but just to be certain I will have a boon for you when you go. But for now we can discuss how life is progressing on Nova Murmansk."

[Shroom Man 777]

[Ah, the wonders of MS Paint!]

IMPERIAL BRAGULAN EMBASSY, Altacar 3
In GODDAMN UNREAL TIME
(Around mid April)


Morning



It was morning again in Altacar. After nuzzling with Gryza for a while, Agent Spozavik took a refreshing subzero shower (the relaxing kind that left the bathroom filled with condensing fog and frost afterwards) and went off to have some breakfast with her. They had florn cakes, which was a popular food for humans, but while humans made use of puny cartons and packets of these florn cakes, the Bragulan embassy bought truckloads of them in fifty kilogram sacks. Spozavik poured another gallon of milk into his bowl and sprinkled on it a quarter drumfull of florn cakes. Then he began shoveling the breakfast into his mouth, lapping the cakes and milks out of the spade-sized spoon.

Spozavik noticed that Gryza was staring at him as he ate. Was he being impolite and displaying bad table manners? He doublethought, on one hand he had to be a gentlebear to a lady, on the other hand Bragulans were supposed to be never ashamed of their biological functions because Byzonist biological functions were the essence of mighty Bragulanity. On the other-other hand, it was also impolite for Gryza to stare, but then again, staring was another Byzshevik Bragulan biological bodily function...

He did a double take and wondered if he was quadruple-thinking just there.

"What?" he decided to ask. It was risky, asking, but Spozavik was larger than Gryza and if worse came to worse, he could physically overpower her, and if she had any hidden weapons, then that meant he had an excuse to frisk her too... Hmm. He was starting to like that thought, actually.



Gryza licked her nose cutely, oblivious to his dirty quadruple-thoughts.

"I found something interesting, which you might be interested in," she said, spooning some florn cakes into her mouth.

"What is it?" meanwhile, Spozavik stopped spooning cakes into his wide-open maw.

"It's you," she replied.

"Me?" Spozavik asked incredulously.

"Yes, you," Gryza smirked.

"Why would I be interested in me?" Spozavik's paws began tingling. He had a feeling something horrible was about to happen. Oh no.

"Because you're famous!" Gryza beamed happily as she tossed something at him.

"Gah!" he reacted with the lightning speed of an IBGV agent and clawed at the incoming projectile reflexively, ripping it into pieces. He didn't even know what it was, without doublethought or even singlethought he just attacked it. "Wait, what? Famous?"

He looked down to see a torn magazine floating on his bucket of florn cakes. He looked in front of him and saw a sad-looking Gryza.

"Yes..." Gryza looked at the torn magazine and pouted.

"I'm... sorry?" Spozavik mumbled feebly, unsure of what was exactly going on. Was this some kind of trick? He picked the soggy sheets off his bucket of florn cakes and examined them. "I, uh..." he had no idea what to say, "Damn."

"I was told to write an article about the Imperial Bragulan People's Department of Limited Foreign Interaction and Human Affairs, and your visit to Umeria for an Altacar business magazine," Gryza said softly, her voice threatening to crack. "I'm sorry you didn't like it."

Spozavik gasped in horror, realizing what he had just done.

Oh shits.

"Gryza..." Spozavik began, but his aide merely turned away. Was she sniffing? Oh dear Imperator, no. "I didn't mean to disembowel your magazine article. I was just startled, that's all. Look, I'm sorry too, Gryza. I'm very sorry."

Gryza said something, but it was hard to tell since she was trying not to cry. Spozavik's heart nearly melted down, like that time he was tracking down CEID agents who were sabotaging a vegemite reactor on Lynyngrod and had only 24 hours to stop them. Those were the good old days, before he got this desk job.

"All right, you're sorrier than I am, but I am as sorry as well..." Spozavik went over to her side and placed an arm on her shoulder. "I am as sorry as you are, Gryza. Don't say that you're more sorry than I am, because I'm capable of being just as sorry as you are... So we're both sorry, all right?"

"Okay," Gryza said with a tiny voice as she regained her composure. She sniffed.

Awww... Spozavk thought, if he wasn't a doublethinking bear this display of vulnerability would've totally endeared her to him (and it did!) and erased any suspicions of her being a spy (it did not!). It was cute. Nice try.

"Can I see the magazine?" he asked tenderly.

"I have an extra copy," she offered. "Here."



He leafed through the pages and examined the articles, skimming over them quickly, almost as fast as he did IBGV intelligence dossiers despite the fact that the magazine was written in human language. The main article chronicled how the Bragulans used their approach in dealing with Altacar to deal with the rest of the human-dominated galaxy in extending their hand to Umeria and other such nations. The article also mentioned diplomatic trade liaison Dryznyl Shpechtkov, who was best known for working in Altacar and resolving the vowel famine, and who was chosen by the Bragulan government to go to Umeria and meet the formidable Dr. Chernov. The article also mentioned how, despite being a Bragulan, Dryznyl Shpechtkov was able to communicate more effectively with the Umerians than their fellow humanoid, namely the Chancellor Hoffman of the Prussian League. Spozavik chuckled at that, he had followed the whole Umerian affair with Prussia through the holonet, and the Altacar tabloids were handy in compiling the Prussian faux pases.

Nonetheless, despite how much he enjoyed reading his own exploits to himself in third person (he didn't), something nagged at him. He was a creature of intrigue, an IBGV agent at heart, and having his face plastered all over the magazines didn't sit too well with him. Even if it did cement his cover as a diplomatic trade liaison, which it did, but still there was a danger of one growing too comfortable with one's own cover, to the point of becoming that cover. Spozavik remembered to stay Spozavik and not become Dryznyl Shpechtkov. He looked at Gryza, who was looking at him and eagerly waiting for his verdict on the article she had written, wide-eyed and all hints of crying and weepiness gone. He looked around him, the tasty florn cakes and the easy life of being a high-rolling diplomat. It was too easy to become Dryznyl Shpechtkov, just too damn easy. Perhaps this was Gryznk's true test.

"Ah... looks like glasnot and bragstroika made quite the news," Spozavik said as he flipped through the pages and found an article talking about the BEEEF. He read it, and was pleased to note that Gryza had authored it too. "These are good, Gryza. The articles are ideologically sound, yet written in a way even a puny-brained puny-human can appreciate the greatness of Bragule. Good work."

Gryza beamed proudly at that.

"I'm glad you like it," she said happily. "And I'm also sorries for overreacting back there."

"It's okay," Spozavik gave her a friendly bear hug, wrapping his arms around her smaller frame while she buried her head in his large chest. He smelled her fur and noted the fine scent of bamboo. Mmmm.

"So, what now?" Gryza asked as he released her.

"Hurm..." Spozavik's thoughts wandered to the Prussians. "Your article reminded me of something, I'll have to check it out later."

"Okay," Gryza shrugged. "Anything I can do to help out?"

"I need a name..." Spozavik replied.

***

Alta Vista
Noon

Spozavik sat on a reinforced chair in posh establishment favored by the Altacarian elite called Alta Vista. He had with him Gryza's magazine, and stuck in between its pages was a calling card belonging to a most peculiar person of interest. It was someone who Spozavik had never met before, though there were lots of people he had never met before, but this person was someone he should've met sometime ago but never got the chance to. Spozavik looked at the card and the blurry picture on it.



Dorian Durant, formerly a retired officer of the Altacar Guard, now a semi-prominent businessman with ties to shipping companies and the private military contractors they hired to deal with pirates. A seemingly non-notable persona amidst all the shady persons the IBGV dealt with. A seemingly understandable person for a Bragulan diplomatic trade liaison to deal with.

He arrived. Spozavik sized him up, noting how the blood beret had been replaced by a white cap, and how he still war his Altacarian honors. A military man, proud of his career.

"Dryznyl Shpechtkov, diplomatic trade liason for the Imperial Bragulan People's Department of Limited Foreign Interaction and Human Affairs," Spozavik introduced himself.

"Lieutenant Dorian Durant," Durant replied, speaking with a hard-to-place 'liquid' accent. Then, with a low voice, "A brother from Al-Kar."

"Thanks for coming," Spozavik adjusted his green tie, which drew Durant's eye to the little thing he had clipped on it, a miniaturized null-field generator, which could help block bugs as well as psykers. "I appreciate it... brother."



"So, what shall we discuss, Mr. Shpechtkov?" Durant made himself comfortable, seating himself and placing an arm across his abdomen. "How was your trip to Umeria?"

"I haven't a clue what you're talking about," Spozavik replied.

"Suit yourself," Durant shrugged.

"I want to know a few things about our neighbors in the Spin Zone," Spozavik began. "Here's a hint, what has blonde hair, blue eyes, and breath that smells like sausages?"

"A Germanian," Durant answered.

"Da!" Spozavik grinned a wolfish grin, but since he was a bear then it was a very beary grin instead. "Now, I heard they tried to pay our old countries a visit."

Indeed, during the last Tannhauser Tango the Prussian Star League had tried to join in on the 'fun', dispatching a sizable force of warships and ground troops towards the Koprulu Zone. It was only due to the sheer distances involved, and the timely resolution of affairs, that prompted them to turn back and head home. If the resolution hadn't been so forthcoming, if the Solarians and the Collectors hadn't been so agreeable, and the over-eager Germanians had arrived at the Koprulu Zone, then things might not have gone on so swimmingly. It would have destabilized K-Zone affairs, and Bragule did not look too kindly at the blatant attempt at stirring up the interstellar wasp's nest.

"Heard, or saw?" Durant asked coolly. Altacar was a forward observation base for the IBGV, as well as the Office of Space Fleet Intelligence (OSF). When the Prussian fleet was launched, their path made them travel very near Altacar space, giving the Brags an opportunity to take a good look at them as they made their way to the K-Zone. There were IBGV and HUMINT spyships trawling the hyperlanes, acting as a distant early warning line.

"Heard, from a friend of a friend," Spozavik replied slyly. "Like how I heard you tried to catch up with them and followed them back."

"Yes, we didn't want these Germanians to intrude unwantedly upon the house of their betters without giving them a proper welcome befitting those who wish to play by the rules of our home," Koprulu Zone Rules, Durant referred. "They come, thinking themselves invited, intending to sully the floors of our house. Unacceptable."

"What did you find out?" Spozavik asked. The Prussians turned around and went home with the swift resolution of the Tannhauser Tango. A Karlack splinter fleet had been dispatched to intercept them, but when the Prussians turned tail the Karlacks merely had to contend with filter-feeding on the Germanians' engine exhaust.

"That they are faster when they are moving in reverse than they are in going forward," Durant laughed. "They did not consider who they dealt with. Those fools."

"There has been a lot of that going around lately," Spozavik replied. "When I went to Umeria, my new friends didn't have much good to say about these Germanians. Prone to making errors in judgment, acting prematurely without thought, perhaps as they did in their attempt to intrude upon our house."

"I thought you didn't go to Umeria."

"I didn't," Spozavik crossed his arms.

"Right," Durant considered him briefly before deciding to forget about it. "Anyway, I have heard you have had similar problems. A shipment to Reisenberg, bound home after the delivery, accosted by pirates."

Durant was referring to the Grand Thug incident where two pirate ships, Germanian saucer-discs, accosted the gunskimmer that had shipped vegemite-encrusted Bragnukes to Reisenberg in a feat that tested the Umerian capital system's defenses and allowed the Bragulans a measure of their capabilities. In a way, the Germanian ships had also given the Umerians a measure of Bragulan capabilities - after the Thug emerged victorious and left a saucer disc's carcass filled with Germanian survivors and refuse from the gunskimmer's septic tanks for the Umerians to collect. After rendezvousing with the Umerian ship, the gunskimmer transmitted its battle records to boast its glourious Byzonic victory over the Germanians, and the Bragulan boarding action had sufficiently impressed the Umerians. Afterwards, on its way home, the Thug passed its time by filling the hyperwaves with footage of Bragulan boots stamping on Germanian faces... Forever. The footage was live too, and the after action report mentioned that the crew had made some rubles from airing the pay-per-view.

"Some of those strangely ubiquitous Volkslanders or something," Spozavik had difficulty telling the Germanianoids apart, they all looked alike to him and sounded alike too. "We dealt with them."

"So I saw," Durant chuckled. "It made for an amusing show."

"That is doing things Bragulan style," Spozavik replied.

"In that case, I like your style, friend." Durant said. "In this case, it seems as though we have a mutual nuisance. Do we not? Already twice have they raised their arms against us."

"We do," Spozavik considered his past conversation with the formidable Dr. Chernov, and how the Germanianoids had been a slight problem to them too. The Prussian Star League had brashly annexed that shitworld Volksland, which in itself was of no import to Bragule or anyone else save the Umerians themselves due to the trade routes near that shitworld, and how the Prussianoid Hoffman had shown himself as a buffoon before the formidable Dr. Chernov (truly a bad move). But the Prussians dared to raise their hand against the Bragulan Star Empire and the Karlack Swarm, an attempt to destabilize Koprulu Zone affairs that, while aborted, was still their intention nonetheless. And now, the Prussianoids' mongrel strain, these Volkslanders, had been emboldened and had attempted to likewise bear arms against the armed bears, at their own expense. "Shall we increase our interest on these Prussians?"

"Yes, we shall. Increase our interest in them, and so much more." Durant smiled. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the smile was gone, replaced with a more serious look. "A message must be sent. They must be taught a lesson in humility."

"Don't worry, it has been planned," Spozavik replied. It was, for the fates of the Volkslanders imprisoned in the Grand Thug was to be decided soonly for all the universe to see. Then would the Volkslanders truly rue their biggest boner.

"Hmm..." Durant considered something for a moment. "You know, these Volkslanders, they have a very curious philosophy that they adhere to. It espouses eugenics, the natural and unnatural selection of human strains the Volkslanders claim to be genetically superior, to complete their evolution. Have you ever examined it?"

"Superior, inferior, we're the ones with the K-bolters," Spozavik snorted.

"Doesn't it in the least bit interest you?"

"Nyet. There are few, if any, worthwhile things to be found in the whole sum of humanity and I doubt any of that can be found at all in these Germanians, Prussianoids or Volkslanders, or whatever." Spozavik said. "From dissecting Volkslanders, we learned that they seem to be exceptional in only one respect."

"And that is?" Durant raised an eyebrow.

"They are better at dying," Spozavik replied coldly. It meant nothing to him. "If you want, I can send word to our technicians to lend you some of these Germanians."

"Yes, please. Some tasty samples would be highly appreciated," Durant smacked his lips.



Just as he did, a Bragulan waitress arrived and served them their meals.

"We can leave you some of the choice morsels," realizing just how hungry he was, Spozavik began eating his lunch.

"Table scraps? I'd be insulted, if we weren't so keen on having that snack we wanted. But they turned around and ran, and we couldn't catch up. We were so disappointed when we were denied. Oh well," Durant tsked and started on his own dish as well. "Ah, there is nothing better than liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti."

"So, you'll take it?" Spozavik inquired.

"Why, yes. Of course we will, and we thank you for this tasty treat. It's a brave new galaxy, with such strange savorsome delicacies in it," Durant raised his chianti and clanged it against Spozavik's vodka. "As allies, we offer you these informations in return."

"Could you pass the sauce, please?" Spozavik asked, and Durant passed something on to him, who received it with a subtle motion of the hand. "Thank you."

Spozavik poured some blood sauce on his Prussian sauerkraut. He stabbed it with a fork the size of a pitchfork and swallowed it whole. They continued to dine and went on for dessert, Spozavik had acquired quite the sweet tooth for Sichuan honeycakes and ordered some, whereas Durant merely ordered an ice cream. He licked it with a forked tongue, Spozavik noticed.

After finishing their conversation, Durant was the first to leave. Spozavik wondered who the man was, if he was even that. He, it, whatever he/it was, was a Karlack organism, an infiltrator strain disguised as an Altacarian. Was he assuming the identity of a person consumed long ago, or was he born and raised by the Swarm as one of their own, a product of a long-lasting line of gene-eater infiltrator strains? Was he an Aspect, as some sighted humaniform Karlacks were prone to be? An assimilated psyker, as the Swarm so preferred? Spozavik wondered, pondered, each of those choices, asking himself 'Am I right?' Who knew?

***

Night

Dinner was a more informal affair. Spozavik had spent the rest of his day in the refrigeron, showering himself with sub-zero degree water to scrub off any possible Karlack spores or contaminants the humaniform creature might have laced him with. While it wouldn't have been subtle to go around Altacar in a chemical suit, he nonetheless had taken several precautions - namely by stuffing filter plugs up deep into his nostrils, and by wearing a nictitating membrane over his eyeballs, amongst other such things. After another hour of concentrated washing, he slumped out of the refrigeron and dried himself up before putting some clothes on.

He dined alone, Gryza had to stay at work late, writing some more articles to promote the BEEEF and helping write some diplomatic messages to various alienoid nations. It was just as well, Spozavik wondered if she really was just one of the embassy's diplomatic personnel rather than an IBGV agent sent to watch over him. Did the embassy even have diplomatic personnel? Spozavik had spent months under the assumption that everyone else was an agent or an informant, and had acted accordingly.

Spozavik sighed. He looked around and made sure no one was hiding behind the potted plants in his room. Okay. At least, now he had some privacy.

He activated his miniature null field, making sure it was working (once he deliberately tested it by walking into a CEID-monitored part of town), and then he carefully opened the thing Durant had given him.

Spozavik saw what was inside it, the footage and the coordinates flashing into his eyes. He gasped and nearly dropped it.

"No... it can't be," he uttered.

[MKSheppard]

The Township of Eel-Dodadgishu, Pendleton



The massive statue of a bear loomed over the reconstructed industro-commercial district of the combined Eel-Dodadgishu metropolitan region.

Both towns had merged to save on money since the Shepistanis had nuked the place almost a year ago. Now, under Anglician leadership, the economy was slowly reviving.

Already legends had sprung up about the bear which had driven through the region, atomic fire following his passage.

In commemoration of the legend, the recently freed slaves, aided by a micro-loan from Anglician anti-slavery activists had erected this statue. Already, a local tradition had sprung up around it, with freed slaves placing food in front of the statue on the first monday of each month.

This did not sit well with the still politically influental and powerful ex-slavers; who despite being forbidden to own slaves by the new anglican administration, still had a large amount of assets with which to pay off the occupation authorities.

So on the first monday of this month, a group of pro-slaver activists in brownsheets gathered around the statue, beating up the liberated slaves who had come to pay their respects and eating the food they had left.

As the ex-slaves cowered in fear from the beatings, a pair of brownsheets pulled out a Space!hacksaw and laid the cutting edge on the bear's head and began to file away, the harsh rasp of the cutting teeth filling the square.

It was at that point the world disappeared in a flash of light.

Thirty Seconds Later

Slowly, the survivors of...whatever it had been stood up unsteadily, their ears ringing. All around them buildings and corpses were on fire.

As one of the freed slaves watched, a brownsheet ran around screaming, his robe having been caught on fire by flaming shrapnel from whatever had exploded. After running around for a few seconds, the human torch fell to the ground and was still.

A wailing noise filled the ears of the survivors, and for a moment they thought it was the tortured screams of the wounded. But alas it was only the Privatized Fire Company showing up.

The smoke covering the region at ground level lifted for a moment; and everyone could see where the explosion had come from.



There were a few people in the crowd who had survived 'The Cleansing', as they called the Shepistani bombardment; and they immediately suffered post-traumatic stress relapsement as they saw the near identical copy of the image that had greeted them just six months ago...

Earlier in SDNW4



Lieutenant Thara Krace, callsign STARFUCK stared at the McNamaras below her fighter and back to the threat warning indicator which showed no fire coming from nearby.

"What the fuck?! Is this ELEMENT YOSEMITE? There's no fucking sniper fire or shit from that goddamn place! Get your eyes checked!" she shouted.

In frustration, she ground the shards of crystal meth in her mouth around some more before adding a witty repartee, as all Shepistani Fighter Pilots were required to do.

"Better yet, try some crystal meth! STARFUCK, over."

It didn't take long before the strange voice on the radio returned.

"NO!" it shouted. "DESTROY THAT MCNAMARA'S!!!"

Starfuck thought about it for a moment, then shrugged, running her hands across the arming panel in front of her; resetting the SDBOOMSHROOMs her fighter carried in an internal bay for maximum blast, minimal fragmentation.

"On the waaay!" she giggled to no one in particular as she laid the pipper onto the familiar shape of the McNamara's and jerked her control stick.

A shudder ran through the fighter as the bomblets dropped free, transmitting themselves through the control stick; and STARFUCK moaned in delight.

The first SDBOOMSHROOM functioned as designed, ripping apart the McNamara's restauraunt in a paroxym of fire and destruction.

The other SDBOOMSHROOM however...

Unlike Shepistani nuclear weapons, where 99.999999% reliability was demanded, Shepistani conventional weapons like the SDBOOMSHROOM only called for a 75% reliability rate. This bomb was one of the remaining 25%. It buried itself under the concrete slab that the McNamara's was built on and went undetected in the destruction the other SDBOOMSHROOM wreaked.

The McNamara's was rebuilt over the following months, and a bear statue across the road went up.

Present Day

One of the opening cooks that morning at McNamara's dropped a crate full of shroom-dried UNHAPPY MEALS onto the floor, providing the last, final shock that triggered the detonation mechanism of the waiting SDBOOMSHROOM.

The crash had scrambled the arming codes that STARFUCK had entered six months ago; so instead of detonating cleanly, it's default mode took over, and it exploded in a cloud of flaming Repleted Uranium shrapnel that tore through the thin concrete slab; through the opening cook, the building walls, and the crowd across the street.

As a final insult, the explosion also caused the gas main that passed under the McNamara's to explode; adding even more destruction.

Even that wasn't the last insult STARFUCK had left.

As the Repleted Uranium burned, it generated a host of nasty radio-nuclides that went into the air as everything around for several hundred feet burned.

Nuclear Fallout (in a form) had returned to Pendleton after six months.

Within minutes, a local Anglician QRF force showed up on the scene, leaping out of their vehicles to secure the area in advance of the regular force, which would have the manpower to do a complete lockdown.


QRF Force Arriving


Regular Force Arriving

NOTE: Images are not 100% Accurate.

Later, once everything had been cleaned up and the fires put out; the ex-slaves would stand and point to the statue.



It stood proudly, untouched by the flaming shrapnel which had cut down everyone in the square, filling them with repleted uranium. But the statue had not suffered as much as a ding or scratch.

This miracle, along with the fact that the SDBOOMSHROOM had exploded the moment the brownsheets had placed a hacksaw to the statue's head was held as a sign that the statue was the physical representative of some greater, higher power that now watched over Pendleton.

McNamara's Corporate HQ



Robert Satan McNamara VI studied the latest reports coming in from Pendleton. McNamara's operations on that benighted planet had suffered following it's 'liberation', due to the flagship restauraunt being destroyed by a Shepistani airstrike.

Already, McNamara had extracted his revenge on the Privatized Firefighting Company which had failed to put out the fires in that restaurant, despite that franchise paying the exhorbitant fees the firefighters had demanded.

Half the surviving firefighters in that company had been killed at his hands; with the rest estimated to be dead by the end of the fiscal year.

Things were looking up after that.

Then the restaurant in question had been levelled again when a Shepistani bomb buried under it had exploded.

This was unacceptable. If the Shepistanis wanted a Fast Food War, then by God; they'd get one.

McNamara's through their contacts in the Umerian Military (they had a contract to supply fast food to the Umerian Tentagon) had gotten ahold of the transmissions between the Shepistani Battlestars and their air element.

It hadn't taken much to match the screeching female voice to none other than Thara Krace, callsign STARFUCK.

Getting to Krace had proven surprisingly more problematic than originally anticipated; with all of McNamara's paid assassins ending up floating face-down in the Sheporado River.

It was time to stop fucking around and call in the real experts.

Opening up a study on his desk that he had commissioned regarding the efficiency of McNamara's in-house security compared to the Arnoid Repossession Droids used by the Gippazoid Novelty Company, he read it and sighed.

The solution was so OBVIOUS:



Rather than using inefficient hired thugs or overly expensive Arnoid Repossession droids, the most cost effective solution was to use Flash-Grown and Flash-Imprinted McNamara clones armed with the optimum weapon as far as efficiency in kills per monetary unit expended...the M-16A1 Armalyte.



He picked up the phone on his desk and gave the orders.

Results McNamara's steps up their feud with the Shepistanis and STARFUCK.

[Shroom Man 777]

In the Bragulan justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the suicide police, who instigate crime; and the district attorneys, who persecute the offenders. These are their stories.

Claw and Order 5: Special Victimizing Unit

MIGHTY BRAGULE



The Volkslander pirate known as Frank Himmler stewed in the Bragulan jail awaiting trial. The conditions were miserable and the beatings severe, but he had soldiered through it as any good Volkslander did - for the Reich und der Fuhrer! - until he could no longer bear to do so, no thanks to the goddamn bears! How could he have known that the ship they had attacked was no ordinary ship, how could he have known that instead of a distressed vessel leaking radiation it was instead a Bragulan warship that leaked radiation intentionally? They attacked the wrong goddamn ship, were taken captive after the bears beat them all with stick, and now they were rotting in the basement of Bragbyanka itself.

Some said that the basement of Bragbyanka was the highest place on all Bragule, others said that there was an interdimensional portal there, because in Bragbyanka they saw the cold and frostbitten gulags of the Severnaya system many lightyears away.

Frank Himmler had had enough. The Bragulans had searched every orifice of his body, but he had secreted a final vengeance weapon from the stupid bears. He sank his teeth into his ring finger and bit the fingernail off, and then with the rusty spork the prison guards had provided him with, he pried a tiny thing out from inside his fingertip. It was a capsule of cyanide, the last respite. He would deny these goddamn Bragulans their fucked up excuse of a show trial.

He placed the pill in his mouth and bit down on it -



"STOP!!!" roared a voice suddenly as a massive form came crashing through the cell doors. Frank Himmler turned to see the source of this sound and what he saw made him promptly shit his pants.

Imperial Bragulan Life and Death Arbitrator Stas promptly smashed Himmler's face with a beating stick. It broke one side of his jaw and sent blood and broken teeth flying out of his mouth, along with a tiny silvery sliver that was the intact cyanide pill. Fully half of Himmler's face was disintegrated quite literally by the massive blow. Normally, Bragulan regulations stipulated that when in stick-beating humanoids, the beating sticks were to be wrapped in newspapers to cushion blows that would be nigh-lethal for puny humanoids. But this was an emergency, and Stas hoped his superior wouldn't begrudge him that.

He also hoped he wouldn't have to pay for the door he had to breach with his trusty K-bolter in order to get to the Himmler.

Speaking of which, with the satisfaction of a job well done, Stas Stas Bush looked down and saw the crumpled up form of the Himmler.



Stas chuckled. Foolish humanoid, the Bragulans knew the Germanianoids had various suicide mechanisms in place but had discreetly allowed them to keep them precisely for this reason. The wardens thus put the Suicide Police on standby for this exact situation. Unauthorized suicide was a crime in the Bragulan Star Empire, and to have these Germanianoids commit it would only further add to their list of felonies and would only make their inevitable sentencing worse than it already was. It was a brilliant arrangement. In fact, it was the standard arrangement, with Bragulan prisons and jails having intentionally abhorrent conditions to encourage the prisoners to attempt suicide so they could be charged with even more crimes!

The prisoner hardly had anything to loot, so Stas merely scooped up the cyanide pill and the broken out teeth. Maybe he could turn the teeth into a necklace and give it to his girlfriend, he heard Bragulan soldiers returning from war against the humans did that and they said the girls found it very romantic. Another idea crossed his mind and with his claws he tore off the groveling Germanian's clothes, looting his attire and leaving him naked on the floor.

"Hahaha," Stas laughed at the puny naked human. "By the way, the trial is up in a few minutes. You should get dressed!"

Himmler blubbered and spat out a piece of smashed jaw bone. Upon hearing Stas' announcement, he struggled to reach for his clothing - which was in Stas' paws.

"Whoops," Stas tore the clothes to itsy bitsy pieces. "Too bad."

Stas laughed as he left the cell and walked away to the locker room, where Yefym would later slap his butt when they'd hit the subzero showers together. He fucking laughed.

***

The Imperial Bragulan Palace of Justice

The Technicians of Justice were arranged today to preside over the fate of the Volkslander pirates who had dared attack a Bragulan warship after it had delivered a shipment of goods to Umeria. The defendants were arranged in aggregate, scores of them crammed in a relatively tiny mancage suspended from the ceiling by chains. They were a mass of limbs and torsos and heads sticking out from between the bars at odd angles. The persecutor was reading his case. He readied his case. He began his case readily.



"Technicians of Justice, a good Bragsday to you." Persecutor Timofeych began. He had on him his customary Nixon mask, though he had no idea what a Nixon was. He was visiting Shepistan one day and bought the mask on a whim, thinking it looked like a human face that had been peeled off by a Bragulan's claws, and he thought if he wore it he would look like a Bragulan wearing a human face that had been peeled off by a Bragulan's claws, and maybe that would scare the puny humans he specialized in persecuting. See, he specialized in Human Rights and Inhumanitarianism. "Let me begin my case by bringing up the irrevocable evidences of these humans' wrongdoings against Bragulanity. If I may?"

"You may," Chief Justice Technician Daltron replied.

"My primary exhibit is this, your honor," Persecutor Timofeych brought up a steel box and placed it on a table with a loud thud. He opened it, reached in and pulled out a long metallic stick-shaped thing with lots of spikes on it.

"What is it?" Daltron asked as he chewed on a piece of bragcorn. He masticated the cob and swallowed it in one motion.



"It is a combat-issue Commissariat beating stick. You can tell it is combat-grade because of its pointy tip," Timofeych explained. "It was used by the commissar aboard the Grand Thug in dispatching many humans during their boarding action."

"Ah, I see," Daltron nodded. "Continue."

"I will now input the beating stick into the kill-o-meter!" Timofeych declared as he hefted the weight of the stick, struggling with it slightly, before planting it into a massive supercomputer. Its still-bloody head slotted perfectly in the computer's port, and without further ado the machine began bleeping and blooping while its magnetic tape cassettes started spinning. "Behold!"

A telescreen on the computer came to life and began displaying graphs of all shapes, forms and sizes. It had downloaded the kill-count of the beating stick and was displaying its combat record.

"All standard Bragulan beating sticks contain on-board microcomputer to record each and every blow delivered by an officer of Bragulanity to the heads of the enemies of Bragulanity. This is how Bragulan officers are graded in carrying out their duties," Timofeych explained to the benefit of the judges and the juries (some of whom were also from the firing squad). Then Persecutor Timofeych began fiddling with the analogue controls, working the levers and the dials. "I will filter out the non-human kills. Now you can see the commissar's last kills on humans."

The telescreen began displaying stick-camera footage of the latest stick-beatings recorded by the beating stick.

"Just die!" the Gruppenfuhrer snarled.

"Nyet!" the commissar roared as he brought up his Commissariat-issue combat beating stick...

...and brought the stick down on the Gruppenfuhrer's visored face with all the might and fury of the Imperial Bragulan judgment, with the undisputed authority the Imperator himself bestowed upon the Commissariat to deliver his final sanction on those unworthy to live in his galaxy. The jagged stick-edges of Bragulan steel shattered the Gruppenfuhrer's helmet visor, bludgeoning the human face underneath and disorientating the Volkslander kapitan. The Bragulan commissar struck again and again with the beating-stick until the entirety of the visor and helmet was obliterated, exposing the head of the Volkslander. Then the commissar gazed into the wretched face of humanity, the pulped visage of that brutalized human.

The commissar dropped his beating stick. Then he roared.

"NEIN!" the Gruppenfuhrer screamed in womanly fear. He knew what was coming. He had to.

"Da!"

The commissar gave the Gruppenfuhrer a Bragule Kiss, biting the Volkslander's face and sinking his fangs into the puny human's head, crushing his puny human skull with the mighty jaws of Bragulanity. Blonde Aryan hair was bloodied as the scalp was ripped off the bone, blue Aryan eyes were forced out of their sockets as the entire skull was compressed. The Volkslander's body struggled for a moment, convulsing as the Bragulan jaws crushed its brain, but shortly thereafter it became limp and impotent.

With a jerk of his head, the commissar ripped the Gruppenfuhrer's head off and discarded the body like so much refuse.

The graphic footage elicited cheers and whoops and applause from the judges and the jury (who were the executioners).

"I showed that because I thought it was very amusing," Timofeych beamed.

"It was!" Daltron laughed as he ate some more Bragcorn.

"There is also some blood on the commissar's beating stick, and the kill-o-meter can run a DNA analysis," Timofeych continued. "But anyway, moving on, my next exhibit is a witness testimony from one of the crews of the Thug. He has been awarded the Order of the Re-Radiated Moon, Middle Class for his service that fateful day because after he had his arm eaten by a vacuum tube auto-loader, thus rendering him useless and unable to service the vacuum tubes, he was pressed into the boarding team and literally fought and killed the humans single-handedly...."

The witness gave his testimony, where he bemoaned the loss of his arm at the hands of the vacuum tube autoloader. Fortunately he had a new arm, one taken from one of the patriotic Bragulans who had died that day. After that unfortunate soul expired, his carcass was salvaged and all reusable parts were recycled and grafted on to other injured Bragulans who needed them. Unfortunately, the arm that was available was a right arm, and the injured vacuum tube operator Bragulan had lost his left arm. Nonetheless he agreed to the graft and now he had two right arms!

The judges and jury (who were also the executioners) once more applauded, this time praising his patriotism.

"This settles it," Daltron finally decided, giving his verdict. "The defendants are to be executed en masse instantly!"

"Yes!" Timofeych pumped his fist.

"Jury dismissed," Daltron barked. The jury got off their chairs and went out of the room. "Bring in the firing squad."

The jury returned to the room, after going out and getting their K-bolters from the arms lockers.

"Ready..." Daltron declared. The jury-turned-firing squad locked and loaded their bolters and pointed it at the overhanging cage full of crammed humans. "Aim... fuego - "

"WAIT!" Eiydi suddenly slammed his gavel, which was also a kind of beating stick. "We can't do this!"

"We are the Technicians of Justice," Daltron scoffed. "There's nothing we can't do!"

"No, really, we can't!" Eiydi insisted.

"What? Why not?!" Daltron cocked his head. He looked at the firing squad, who looked back at him tensely. If he wanted to, he could easily order the squad to shoot the protesting Eiydi instead before going back to the humans. "Explain."

"Here," Eiydi hauled a huge volume, a book as large as a table in itself. He slammed it over the beating stick box Timofeych had brought in, and the steel box deformed and flattened under the book's immense weight. "Article A23234.54 1/2 stipulates that perpetrators of piracy are supposed to be keel hauled, and if they are found to have done crimes in international waters, crimes to other countries as well, then they are subject to an impartial and fair death."

"What? International waters? Keel hauled?" Daltron sputtered. "When was this law made?"

"Two thousand years ago!" Eiydi replied. That law was roughly from the 1400s! "This law book was in the shelves of the Great Thug itself, the great and ancient steamship said to have been captained by the Imperator Byzon's father! Dare you question its authority?"

"No, I guess not," Daltron shrugged. "Now what?"

***

Massive Bragulan transmitters placed on worlds bordering Wild Space began beaming ridiculously powerful transmissions that overwhelmed the communications grids of adjacent worlds near the Bragulan Star Empire. Within the signal was a live feed routed from the Bragulan Star Empire itself, beamed throughout the galaxy for all to see and hear:

The People's Truthful Bi-Daily Ideologically Purified Accurate Information Broadcast to the Proud Patriotic Bragulan Listeners of THE GALAXY begins thusly:

LIVE FROM WILD SPACE: PIRATE CRIMINALS TO BE PUT TO DEATH IN A FAIR AND BALANCED MANNER RESPECTFUL TO INTERNATIONAL VICTIMS AND GALACTIC LAW

In a feat of internationalist glasnot and bragstroika, and out of supreme Bragulan justice the likes of which has never been seen before, the Bragulan Star Empire - as per the great Imperator Byzon's noble rule - has decreed that captured pirates, humans of the Volkslander subspecies, shall not be put to death in Bragulan territory. Instead, in considerate Bragulan respect to the myriad peoples victimized by these pathetic piratical perpetrators of perfidiousity, and in honor to the galactic equality between all peoples, races and species, these pirate scum shall be executed LIVE in front of your very eyes in international territory, within the depths of Wild Space these pirates themselves lurk in. An example of all to the harsh but fair justice of the Bragulan Star Empire and its Imperator Byzon, who rules with an iron fist and a heart of gold!



The pirates have been imprisoned within the very saucer-disc that was the vessel they used to maraud the blackness of space. The saucer, now lacking any systems of its own but for the crudest of life-supports, has been attached to a remotely-controlled rocket system to propel it and its crew of blubbering buccaneers to their final doom.



The spacecraft screams towards the fiery surface of a sun! Hurricanes of solar wind tear at its hull, melting its fuselage as it comes closer to its demise. The saucer-disc's surface is blackened, charred by the mighty nuclear inferno of the star, much like that of a humanworld incinerated by the fires of Bragulan atomics!

Behold! The hull is breached, and cameras inside the ship catch the last moment of the Volkslander pirate prisoners:



They scream in womanly fear as the sheer heat sears their very flesh! Like the weeping of fish being cooked in a cauldron, or crabs screaming as they are boiled alive!

"MEIN FUHRER I CAN'T SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

They are burninated in the finality of Byzonic justice concluded!

HAIL TO THE INTERNATIONAL PROLETARIATS, THE VICTIMIZED PEOPLES OF THE GALAXY WHO HAVE HAD THEIR DUE REVENGEANCE ON THE PIRATE SCUM OF SPACE THROUGH THE FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE OF BRAGULE. MAY THIS BE A LESSON TO ALL, FOR WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN?

THE IMPERATOR KNOWS!



[END TRANSMISSION]

[PeZook]

DRYZDYN'S LIST
The Charon, p.1

They have choked and screamed and roared and feebly banged at the Bragsteel door. When poisons and gasses got into their brains, they began to hallucinate and babble nonsense.



The cold morning air filled Mirov Kokhykov's lungs. He cllimbed on top of the grass-covered hill and stared into the distance, striking a proud pose against the backdrop of mountains. He felt grass beneath his paws and a thousand smells inside his nose - ideologically impure, foul smells of green grass and the morning dew.

He found himself to be naked, but he didn't care. He frolicked freely across the meadow, rolling in the grass and sniffing flowers. The euphoria of being free, free from the overbearing weight of Bragulanity and Byzon-worship, free from the vagaries of civilization and the dangers of the Koprulu Zone, filled every part of his very being. He trudged over to a little stream and caught some delicious, fresh salmon which he swallowed wholesale.

Then he felt something smack his head, and he dropped flat on his belly.



"Comrade Kokhykov! Wake up!", the scream blasted into his mind like a SuPo hovercar on a raid. With another smack of a beating-stick, Mirov Kokhykov was brutally woken up.

The first thing he noted were the grunts of pain and shouts all around him, meaning he wasn't alone. As his mind slowly woke up from the chemical-induced hallucination, he began to remember everything that had happened that day - up to and including him and a bunch of other voluntary forced workers being shoved into the gas chamber.

With a sudden burst of adrenaline, Mirov leapt to his feet and roared - although, by Bragulan standards, his roar was a feeble one indeed, and it degenerated into a cubling's whimper when he laid his eyes on the proudly medal-adorned chest of Comissar Gurgl Dryzdyn.

What trick was that? Why were we spared from Byzonic justice?, the mangy bear doublethought in a fit of panic. He was a dissident! Dissidents from the Byzonic ways remedied themselves by dying and going into the protein vats to feed a new generation, one more patriotic and worthy than themselves!

There was only one possible explanation. Only one way in which this sudden fit of mercy made any sense whatsoever. Surely, Mirov and his comrades would now become...

"COMRADES!", the comissar interrupted Mirov's doublethoughts by bellowing, in an altogether warm and joyful way. If anything, this shocked everyone even worse: they assumed it had to be an act of bragskirovka...perhaps a final test of their ideological purity? A second chance to return to the proper path?

"COMRADES!", the comissar bellow again, to silence any excited chatter. The not-quite-dead dissident-bears were stuffed together in a small room, with walls of Bragsteel lined by massive banks of freonic pipes. The floor vibrated slightly, which to some more experienced prisoners indicated the room was, in fact, part of a vehicle. A vehicle like a starship.

"REJOICE!", the Comissar didn't give the gathered bears much opportunity to consider their situation, "For you have, by exceptional luck alone, been spared from the terrible and unjust punishments of the tyrant Byzon!"

Many of the bears - some of whom were dissidents, but who mostly were ideologically-correct followers of the Bragulan way - nearly dropped dead at the blasphemy. Even the actual dissidents were mighty suspicious, for the People's Comissariat was a crafty organization prone to mind-games and manipulation.

"You may not be aware that for years now, a secret organization existed on Bragule! Comitted to freeing out brother-bears from the opression of the unjust Byzonist state, we work tirelessly to undermine the vile regime. You have been lucky, for I am part of this organization."

The Comissar's voice was booming and full of authority granted him by both the huge hat, the rows upon rows of medals on his chest, and the massive beating-stick. None could chose not to listen...and since they had no choice, they didn't have any choice but to chose to listen. And so they listened: as Gurgl Dryzdyn explained to them what happened. And, despite the suspicion and paranoia so ingrained in the Bragulan heart since cublinghood, some small sparks of self-delusional hope managed to find their way into their minds.

"You are now offered a chance. A chance for a better life, and of working for the betterment of Bragulanity as a whole! There are humans, brother-souls, who are prepared to accept you as refugees. Those who want to, will be put to work for the benefit of the Organization ; Those who don't will be spirited away to a hidden world, where the vile Byzon will never menace them again."

He was finished. And there was silence. It was a long five minutes before one of the mangy, malnourished, abused bears raised his paw and said, "What you say is madness!"

"Madness?", Gurgl Dryzdy asked rhetorically, "No! THIS. IS. FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOOOM!", he bellowed.

And for some reason, many others bellowed with him, Mirov Kokykoh amongst them.

[Steve]

Shadowshroom
Somewhere in the Feelipeens System

Zara had been taken away from the gym after her fight with Sadat. She found herself in a dark room, covered with an active, painful Blitzschlag Field instead of the passive Null Field generally used, where Sadat's goons tore her jumpsuit off and strapped her onto a metal frame.... and a conductive one at that.

She couldn't tell how much time passed as a variety of men came and went. Sometimes they did nothing but guard her. Sometimes they operated devices that channeled an electrical circuit from the table's wrist cuffs to the ankle cuffs, an excruciating experience. At others the intensity of the Blitzschlag Field suddenly spiked, inflicting terrible migraines on Zara up to unconsciousness. Sleep was only permitted with the application of drugs that, in the process, kept the sleep from being fully restful.

After so long it all ceased. The table was rotated to the vertical and, from the darkness of the rest of the room, Sadat stepped up to her, facing Zara eye-to-eye, literally. His right eye was completely intact again with the eye patch back over the left. "You got your eye back," she noted aloud, her senses dulled and her head hurting from the Blitzschlag Field's intensity.

There was no verbal answer at first. Instead Sadat pulled away the left eye patch. Beneath was an empty eye socket. "I was given a choice of which socket my last eye would actually be in," Sadat informed her gruffly. "General Julia was not interested in helping me get a replacement eye." He looked over Zara. "Dr. Smiege refers to this as behavioral modification treatment. How do you like it?"

"You're a bunch of evil bastards," was Zara's answer.

To that, Sadat laughed out loud. "Yes, I can see why you'd say that. You see, I don't particularly care for what Dr. Smiege does, but General Julia believes he holds the key to fulfilling his long-term plans. Breaking strong-willed subjects like you is just part of what Dr. Smiege does. Me? I think there are simpler ways of doing these things." He immediately planted a powerful punch into Zara's gut.

He punched her a few more times, breaking a rib and bruising another, and as she gasped for air he stopped, taking a handful of her golden hair in his fist and arcing her head back. "I like the direct approach. Do what I say or I beat you within an inch of your life. Think on that the next time you get in my way."

"What... did you do with the girl?", Zara asked him.

Sadat stared at her for a moment. Then realization dawned on him. "Oh, her? Sent her to the Youth League. I'm sure she'll be ready to fight when Granny is through with her. As for you..." Sadat released Zara's hair and stepped back. "General Julia wants me to do something about your.. scars. He believes that having them only on your back lacks... aesthetic appeal. He asked me to fix that." Sadat smiled evilly and gestured to a large man coming out of the shadows. He had with him an instrument Zara recognized - it was the same type of Pfhor "flesh-ripper" that had been used on her by the pirates she'd been held by before. "So, where should we start... ah, one moment, we're getting ahead of ourselves. First things first." Sadat took out a knife and tapped it against his eyepatch. "You know what they say, Lady Zara. 'An eye for an eye.'"

In a single motion, he shifted his grip of the knife to a blade-down hold and plunged it into Zara's left eye.



After Sadat had left the room, drowning out the groans and cries of pain from within, one of his assistants looked to him. "But, sir, didn't the General intend for the doctor to remove her scars?"

"I didn't hear him say that," Sadat said in a tone of faux innocence. "He said that she should either have scarring like that everywhere or nowhere, he didn't specify which." Smiling evilly, Sadat walked on.