Posted: 11 October 2007 at 1:17pm | IP Logged

                                “And now for something a little different”

                                                              By Michael Keegan

Star date: 240711.15

Location: Outer fringe of Mechad-controlled space

Talia paced quietly back and forth in her quarters. They were rather Spartan, as far as shipboard accommodations usually go. But this WAS a Vektrean vessel and the Veks weren’t known for their accommodations.

She had drawn this billet from a local mercenary lottery while on leave on Ambrosia.

Ambrosia.

Known throughout the galaxy as the Vacation Planet, because of its many attractions that lured both military and civilians alike to its sprawling open air cities and domed pleasure sectors. Anything and everything could be had for a price on Ambrosia.

Talia, a humanoid tiger from the planet Vincennes, a distant colony from a different place and time, her people were the only survivors of a crashed generation ship. According to the remaining library cubes that still functioned, she had learned that their vessel had encountered some form of subspace anomaly, and wound up crash-landed on the world the locals of this side of the galaxy called Vincennes. Her people managed to scratch out a reasonable living as soldiers for hire, and were quickly recruited by the Vektreans, a human dominated society that lived as mercenaries, hiring out anything from a platoon of battle hardened marines all the way up to battle squadrons of starships. Talia, having volunteered as a child to be one of the first ones placed in suspended animation, knew about humans from her original home, and even though the Vektreans looked, and even acted human, she knew there were subtle differences between the once she knew as humans, and these new humans.

For one, the humans she knew as a child lacked any semblance of honor, while the Vektreans seemed to ooze it from every fiber of their being. Sure, they were greedy bastards, and usually over-charged for all of their contracts, but they were some of the best tacticians and fleet strategists in known space. They could accomplish more with a heavy triad then any other race could with three times the ships.

So, when she reviewed the mission orders, she was a little taken aback. It wasn’t often that a race would contract the Veks to simply spy on someone else, but that is exactly what the Argonians had requested. Being an officer had been a minor blessing as far as Talia was concerned, because unlike the common merc grunt, she was privy to knowledge that would help her better plan for her future survival.

 And the knowledge that she received last night was just a little bit disconcerting.

‘Spying on the Mechad?’ She thought to herself. ‘But why?’

The Mechad.

Not an entirely friendly race, considering 85% of the populations were machines driven by a seemingly psychotic A.I. hell bent on dominating this part of the galaxy. The last war ended nearly 10 years ago, and required the combined might of the Corporate Forces and the Argonians, as well as an uneasy truce with the Bolaar pirates and Lone Wolf Indirigan tribe.

The battles were fierce and bloody, for both sides, but eventually with the timely arrival of three contracted Vektrean heavy triads, the battles began to turn back the Mechad advances. Within a year’s time, they had been beaten back to their original pre-aggression treaty borders. And that was when they sued for peace.

Weary from the battles, the Corps and Argonians quietly signed new accords with the Mechad Overseers, the organic creatures that were rarely seen except by spies on a few of their captive worlds, like Muckstra and Verkish I & II.

That was 18 months ago…

Talia sat down on the sparsely covered recliner in her small quarters, and pondered what the Mech’s could be up to that would warrant the Argonians sending in a spy ship. Shrugging after a few moments of deep contemplation, well, deep for her, she rose, stretched, and rummaged around in her duffel for some more of that great bubblegum she had bought on Ambrosia. Not sickly sweet like regular gum, just sweet enough for flavor, with this gum she could blow record setting bubbles, and she had always loved blowing big bubbles, despite the potential for a mess, considering her fur and a sudden large bubble pop. She had to have her face shaved only once as a child for her to learn to know when big was too big. But finding this remarkable product on Ambrosia, and paying nearly all of her leave money for the entire inventory the vendor had, some 1000 pieces, she realized she would be almost able to fill her whole cabin with one massive bubble. And with only 6 pieces at that!

Settling back into the recliner once more, she put out of her mind all thoughts of the Mechad, their mission, and everything else, and proceeded to make insanely huge bubbles.

Elsewhere…

Darya and Mitchell looked out at warped space, as the ‘Watcher’ slid across the stars at a mere warp two, careful not to exceed the safe cloaking speed the engineers from Corporate space had recommended when they fitted their ship with the latest Shroud device. Not only would it make them nearly invisible, but phasers would have next to no effect on them, so long as the shroud stayed active. They couldn’t take any offensive action while shrouded, but theirs was a passive mission, not an active one.

Posted: 12 October 2007 at 11:47am | IP Logged

-I always enjoy reading stuff other people write. Even if i don't understand half of the things they're referencing! Thanks for contributing.....Lobo