Oceanus Procellarum

1.1.2

2007-10-12T00:07:00.001-07:00

Uluh Zin's heart began to race as he saw the commotion at the end of the hall. Servants bustled back and forth in and out of doorways near the main entrance, some carrying flowerpots and statues, while others laid the traditional blood-red floor mats in front of the massive stone doors. Uluh clutched his digipad to his chest as he awkwardly ran to catch up with the man in the dark suit.

"Elder Tollen," he gasped as he approached, pushing his glasses back up his nose. he received no answer. "Elder Tollen," he repeated as he caught up to the man's side.

"Hello, Uluh," said Tollen, a stocky, dark man, old enough to be Uluh's grandfather. The medals running down his sleeve rattled as he walked. His wrinkled face betrayed his true nature. Even at his age, Tollen was in perfect physical condition, and would his rank not prevent it, he would gladly pick up a sword and fight on the battlefield himself.

"Isn't she early?" Uluh asked the older man.

"Yes, Uluh." he abruptly replied.

Uluh pressed a button on his digipad, and waited for a response from the book-sized device. After a moment, it beeped, and displayed the week's schedule. He scanned the screen.

"A few days early, according to-" Uluh looked up at Tollen. The Elder was in no mood for such conversation. Uluh powered off his digipad. There was a pause, and Tollen sighed.

"Yes Uluh, it would seem so." The two spent the rest of the walk in silence.

By the time they reached the doors, the servants had finished their work. The mats were all in place, creating a walkway lined on either side with stands displaying the imperial standard, the silhouette of a horned woman. As the pair approached the doors, the doors let out a hydraulic hiss, and slowly began to open. Tollen and Uluh stepped out into the wind and darkness of the cliffside landing pad, just in time to see the black craft drop out of the clouds.

1.1.1

2007-10-10T22:52:00.001-07:00

The black ship creaked and rattled as it broke through the atmosphere. The small, conical shuttle lay flat, like an arrow pointing off toward the horizon. The pilot punched the reverse-thrusters as gravity took hold, and slowed its descent. Up here, the sky was pure blue, but far below hung thick black clouds, amongst which a million silent forks of lightning danced.

The pilot sat in the tight cockpit, incognizant of the machinery's constant low hum, with knobs and switches as far as he could reach. He entered a series of commands into a terminal, and the began to turn upright to accomodate a faster drop through the clouds. A proximity alarm sounded as the ship's sensors detected the incredible electrical energy in the oncoming clouds. He pressed a button and silenced it. The cracks of the lightning below were now audible. Another series of commands, and a diagnostic screen flickered on, with a schematic of the ship. The pilot re-routed a portion of the ship's power to the shielding system, and the reverse-thrusters sputtered out. No ship this small could fit an energy cell strong enough to continue running full-function, and survive the electrical storm below.

The ship was engulfed in a loud buzz as the shields engaged, but soon the lightning became even louder. Another screen flashed, warning of the immense electrical energy within range, and the pilot continued to run his diagnostics. Everything was in order for descent. The ship dropped into the clouds with a deafening roar.

4.1

2006-12-04T23:42:00.000-07:00

Uluh Zin hurried along the corridors of the Albada Palace, clipboard clutched tight to his chest. The south-east wing was in fact one giant room with a roof forty feet high, and massive pillars extending from floor to ceiling. Filled with art, sculptures, and antiquities of unimaginable value, the room was usually used for entertaining, and would often be filled wall to wall with political figures, foreign dignitaries, and celebrities. But today the south-east wing was silent, save for the click of Uluh Zin’s boots echoing through the great emptiness, and his muttering under his breath as he ran.

“Shit shit shit shit…”

He crossed the room, and ran out into the near-blinding sunlight, continuing south across the large stone bridge that connected the Albada Palace to the Lord’s Fort, the bureaucratic heart of the Commonwealth.

When Uluh was a boy, he had once locked himself out onto the roof of his grandfather’s lighthouse. He spent two days in the cold and rain, with his only view the coast and sea two hundred feet below. Needless to say, he had developed a fear of heights. The bridge upon which he now ran stood four hundred feet above the valley below and normally put the fear of the Gods into him. Currently, however, this fear was greatly outweighed by another. Only a few hundred yards ahead, in the Lord’s Fort, this fear would be either validated or dispelled.

The Lord’s Fort was once, back in the days of the Old Kingdoms, home to the Kings and Queens of those ages, but centuries had come and gone, and the hulking edifice had taken on more of a political and military purpose. While the Albada Palace stood just as it did during the time of the ancient kings, Lord’s Fort, despite appearing to be an immense stone castle, had become a construct of the present.

The interior of the fort had been expanded downward, dug deep into the mountain upon which it rested, creating eight additional subterranean floors filled with offices, conference rooms, and quarters for the government employees whose sweat kept the Commonwealth alive. The original floors of the castle, those above ground were reserved for the offices of the high-ranking officials- Generals, political tacticians, advisors, and the like. There was one office in particular, however, that sat high in the main tower of the Fort, overlooking the entire valley, the rolling green hills, and the Oresme River below. That was the office of the Baroness herself, and to where Uluh ran.

“Shit shit shit…”

3.6

2006-11-27T21:34:00.000-07:00

Saeera jumped up out of bed, and cried out into the dark. Her PDC beeped at her waist. She switched it off, and tried to catch her breath. It took her a moment to remember where she was. It felt strange, sleeping in a real bed, and the foreign feeling confused her at first.

She turned and sat at the edge of the bed. She could no longer hear the sounds of the Quetel working on her ship. She stood up, grabbed her bag, and walked out into the hall. The rest of the house was dark, but she found her way to the kitchen. Rix sat asleep on the sofa across the room. His head had fallen forward and the book he had been reading now lay on the floor by his feet. She stood looking at him for a minute, and then walked to the kitchen table. She pulled a wad of money out of one of her jacket pockets, and quickly counted it. It was the small remainder of the money she’d made on her last job, and what would take Rix two weeks to earn. She put the bills on the table, and on top, and empty glass to hold them down.

“Thanks for everything, Rix,” She said to herself. “I’ll see you soon.”

She opened the kitchen’s screen door, and walked out into a cold, windy night. It was dark, but from what she could see, her ship looked perfect. She opened the side hatch, and climbed aboard her small craft. The door hissed as it sealed behind her, and she took a seat at the control panel. The new parts looked weathered and questionable, but when she hooked her PDC in, the panel came to life.

Saeera set her course, and the engine started to whir. The jets fired, and a moment later, she saw a light turn on inside Rix’s house. Within a few seconds, she was up in the air, and on her way.

The screen door creaked as it closed behind Rix. He stood, holding the wad of bills she’d left. Dammit, Saeera, he thought, thumbing the bills with one hand. He looked down at the money. What the hell did you have to go and do that for?

He looked back up into the sky. He put the wad of bills into his shirt pocket.

“Thanks.” he said out loud. “And good luck…wherever you’re going.

He stood, looking up and following the lights of her ship, until he lost them, and she was gone, disappearing into the night sky.

3.5

2006-11-27T21:08:00.001-07:00

She awoke to a shrill ringing. She felt as if she was suspended, upside down, hanging by her waist, but she could not open her eyes to see. The pain in her head was excruciating. She could make out far-off voices. Men’s voices, muffled. She could feel sweat running down her face and into her eyes. The voices became slightly clearer. She could make out four or five men’s voices. They sounded frantic, yelling, but in a language she could not understand. A violent wind blew the sound of a storm replacing the ringing in her ears. He hair flapped madly, pulling on her already throbbing head. Slowly, she began to open her eyes. The sweat she thought ran through her hair was blood, and for a few moments, she saw only red.

Saeera hung upside down, helld twenty feet above ground by the safety strap on her seat. All she could feel was pain. The strap dug into her lap, and her right leg hung, her foot hooked around the base of the seat in front of her. It took all of her strength to raise her head to look at her legs. Something during the crash had broken her left leg at the shin, and she could see the bone protrude out the side. She dropped her head again and vomited into the open wreckage of the ship twenty feet below. Her nostrils clogged and she began to cough.

She felt the metal of the ship groan and creak. She could now see, through a mix of blood and tears, the vague shapes of two of the men below, standing amongst the flaming wreckage of the ship. The pointed up at her, and yelled to others that she could not see. She reached up and touched the back of her head, the source of her pain. She felt the gash in the back of her head, and what was a dull throbbing suddenly set ablaze. She jerked her hand away and cried out from the pain. Her fingers dripped with her blood. The metal creaked, louder this time. She screamed again, despite the agony it brought, and she felt one side of her seat dislodge from the upturned floor. It hung sideways for a moment, and she could hear the men below, now screaming to each other. A moment later, the metal above her gave way, and the little girl, still strapped into her seat, fell screaming toward the earth.

3.4

2006-11-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

When they had finished eating, Rix took the plates to the sink, and looked out the window to check on his workers’ progress.

“Thanks for dinner,” Saeera said.

“Sure. It’s gonna be a few more hours. You sure you don’t want to get some rest?” he asked, still looking out the window.

“Yeah, maybe that’s best.”

“You got a big day tomorrow,” he joked, and looked over to her. She was deep in thought, too deep to crack a smile. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you the spare room.”

Saeera followed Rix down the hall, and he led her into the bedroom that was once his son’s. His son had left abruptly one morning a few years before. Rix and his son had been in an argument the night before, and by the time Rix woke up, his son was gone. The room had been stripped, and now contained only the bed and a mirrored dresser along one wall.

“It’s not the best room in the galaxy, but I don’t get too many visitors anymore.” Rix said.

“It’s great, thanks.” She walked ino the room and put her backpack down on the floor. Rix still stood in the doorway.

“You know,” he began. “I’m awful sorryI was so hard on you before.” He paused. “I just-“

“It’s ok, Rix.” Saeera replied. “I know you didn’t mean anything bad by it.”

“I just feel like…ever since your daddy’s gone, there’s nobody there can look after you.”

Saeera sat down on the edge of the bed and looked up at him.

“Thanks, Rix. Thanks for doing all this.”

“Sure thing, girl.” He said. “It’s just funny, you know, you’re that little girl I used to know.” He looked down at the floor. “It’s just funny.” Rix paused and put his hand on the doorknob. “You get some rest.” He closed the door.

That little girl I used to know. Those words stayed with her. She sat for a moment. She was tired. Best to get some rest, and focus on the job. She set the alarm on her PDC. She’d get a few hours of sleep, which would do her some good. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks. She laid down on the bed, fully-clothed, and within a matter of seconds, she was asleep.

3.3

2006-11-26T22:15:00.000-07:00

Saeera looked down into the sand.

“Rix, you know I can’t-“

“Yeah, I know, I know.” Rix looked back toward Saeera’s beaten craft. “My guys’ll get right to work. I got the right parts in scrap, they’ll have no problem fixin’ it up.”

“Thanks, Rix. Really.”

“No problem girl, you’re family.”

Saeera looked back up at Rix. It had been a long time since anyone had ever done her a favor. It gave her a little faith in humanity. It had been years since she’d kept friends of any sort. She’d given up on the idea long ago. One way or another, they all screwed her over. It was just a matter of how long, and how bad. Family, she thought. Rix was the closest she had, and they weren’t even related. Once he was gone, she doubted she’d have any ever again. They were too much of a liability for her line of work. Still, it shook her up inside, him calling her family. Like it was something she wanted but could never have. She’d learned over the years to get by on her own How to be self-sufficient and never have to rely on anyone. She’d learned the hard way.

“It’ll be dark before they’re finished,” said Rix. “and I got a spare room if you want to spend the night.”

“Thanks, but I’m on a tight schedule,” She replied. “and this is a pretty big setback.”

“Well how about something to eat?” Rix asked.

She looked back to Rix and smiled.

“Your cooking? You tryin’ to kill me?” she joked.

“Come on, it’s not that bad, you pain in the ass.” Rix replied, and led her inside.

“So how’ya been?” Rix asked, as he lit his stove’s burner. Saeera sat at the small metal table in Rix’s mess of a kitchen.

“Alright, kind of all over the place, you know…traveling a lot.”

“Sight-seeing, I’m sure.” Rix looked over at her, and she down at the table to avoid his glance. Rix could see his words struck a chord. He opened the fridge. “Hope you don’t mind left-overs. All I got is soup and half an Encke.”

Rix pulled the bird and the metal pot from the fridge and placed them on the counter. “Same old shit here,” he said. “Finding scraps, fixing birds, nothing much changes around here. Every once in a while I got the time and the money to get off this rock for a while. You should see all the paperweights I got in my office.” He placed the pot on the stove and looked back at Saeera. She was looking out the window at the sun, now falling low in the sky.

“Yeah?” she asked him, snapping out of a daze. “I never get any souvenirs. I don’t have anywhere to put them.” She looked back at Rix as he put the bird into the oven. He closed the oven door and turned to Saeera.

“You alright girl?” He asked her. “All sudden, you’re actin’ different. What’s goin’ on with you?” Rix leaned back against the kitchen counter.

“I think…” Saeera started, and stopped. She looked back out the window, and then again to Rix. “I think you’re all I’ve got, Rix.”

“What the hell you talkin’ about?” he replied.

“You’re the only family I’ve got. You’re the only one who’s kind to me. It’s been so long since anyone’s cared about me.”

“Well shit, you’re the one who’s flyin’ around the galaxy all the time. You ever think to stop and settle down?” Rix immediately regretted his statement. “I’m sorry, Saeera. I didn’t mean it like-“

“No, it’s alright. You’re right. I’ve forced myself to be alone for so long.” She paused.

“You gotta take it easy.” Rix said. He re-adjusted his stance against the counter. “Maybe stay here a while, see how you-“ Saeera cut him off.

“I’m going to kill Reinard Junii tomorrow.”

The soup began to bubble.

It was a good fifteen seconds before Rix could think of anything to say. He drew a worried sigh.

“Shit.”

He moved over the table and sat down with Saeera.

“I thought you…” he stumbled over his words. “I thought you just…you know…stole from the rich, type of thing. I didn’t think-“ Rix was in a state of shock over the confession.

“Yeah, it’s not what you expected, I know.” She replied.

“For the gods’ sake, Saeera, how did you get into all this?”

“It’s complicated. It’s very complicated, but I have to do it.” She said. “I’m far beyond backing out now.”

“I know,” said Rix. “I’m not trying to stop you. I hate the guy as much as anyone, but how the hell did you…I dunno.” Rix scratched his beard.

The two sat, saying nothing for a few moments more. The oven beeped. The bird was done. Rix stood up and opened the oven. He continued to prepare dinner in silence.

Saeera spoke. “I’m way too far into all of this to quit now. There’s people out there who would kill me if they had the chance.”

“Yeah…” Rix replied. He cut up the Encke and divided it onto the two plates. He dished out the soup and turned off the stove. “I just wonder what your father-“ He didn’t finish the sentence. He could almost sense Saeera’s heart skipping a beat. He took the plates and bowls to the table, and sat down with her.

“I’m doing this for my father.” She told him.

Little was said over dinner.

3.2

2006-08-06T23:44:00.000-07:00

Rix Agelius was sat at his cluttered desk, amongst stacks of invoices and receipts when he heard his ship land. The air conditioner in the window of his cramped office did nothing more than bring the heat inside. Piles of papers lay all around his office, kept in place by paperweights from various amusement parks in the galaxy. The weights were the only saving grace to his office, keeping the only sort of order in Rix’s entire establishment.

He stood up when he heard the engines, and looked out the window. His wreck of a ship touched down in the central square of his salvage yard, and he walked out the door, into the blustery wind to greet it.

The main hatch of the ship hissed, and a ramp folded down from the main doorway. A few moments later, Saeera stepped out.

“Good to see you!” shouted Rix. “It’s a shame about the circumstances, but good to see you anyways.”

“Good to see you too, Rix.” Saeera replied.

“I trust the accommodations were to your liking?” Rix shouted back. Saeera made her way down the ramp towards the old man.

“Pilot wasn’t much company, but yeah, I guess it was alright.”

Rix chuckled out loud. The kind of chuckle one makes when he’s in not-too familiar company. Rix had met Saeera a few times, mostly when she was younger, and while her father had still been alive. “How’s things?” he asked out of formality, as the two had only ever made acquaintance through the now-deceased Bara.

“Doing alright Rix. On a tight schedule though. How’s everything with you?”

The salvage ship’s main hatch opened, and Rix took a glance at Saeera’s wrecked ship.

“Not too bad myself.” He replied. He could sense the formality in her tone. The two had never really become close. Rix was more her father’s friend, and now that her father was gone, it was a mostly superficial relationship. Especially since they hadn’t talked in so long.

“Shit, this is gonna need some work,” he said as he walked towards her craft.

“How long do you think?” Saeera looked worried.

“A few hours, four or five. They don’t make these ships much anymore.” Rix yelled in Quetel to a group of his workers attending to another ship in the yard. They stopped their work and came to inspect Saeera’s ship. One of them shouted back to Rix in the language Saeera could not understand. Rix replied, and they understood. The salvage craft unloaded the ship onto the sandy ground, and the crew began work. Saeera walked closer to Rix, but his gaze was still fixed upon her ship.

“What kinda shit are you into this time?” he asked her. For a moment, Saeera stumbled for the right words.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Rix looked into her eyes.

“You know what I mean.”

3.1

2006-07-24T03:14:00.000-07:00

Saeera’s PDC started to beep, and she jerked up out of her nap, hand tight on her gun. After a moment, she remembered where she was, and she released her grip. All of the patrons she’d seen before had now cleared out, and now an elderly bearded man sat alone at the bar. He stared into his drink like most others she’d seen at the bars in this town. The bartender had been replaced by a young woman with short blonde hair. She stood behind the bar, cleaning glasses, and looked up at Saeera only when she left the bar.

Back outside, the lights had dimmed. The artifical day was coming to an end. Saeera crossed to A16, hooked the PDC into the console, and opened the door. Once inside, she unlocked the hangar doors and threw them open. Rix’s hulk of a ship was already waiting. It sat thirty-feet tall, a beat-up salvage craft, probably older than her father. She waved toward the front window, and she heard the hydraulic hiss as the main bay door opened. The ramp folded down at the front of the ship, and the large, metal, retrieval claws extended towards her ship. After it was loaded inside Rix’s craft, she shut the hangar doors and used the PDC to check out of the hangar.

The pilot nodded toward Saeera as she came aboard the ship. The Quetel were the dark-skinned desert-dwellers of Byrgius, the world on which Rix’s family had set up shop. The Quetel were well-suited to extreme heat, and thus were the only race that could withstand any sort of physical labor on the scorching world of Byrgius. They were a polite, but not particularly outgoing race. Even is Saeera and the pilot had spoken the same language, the ride back to Byrgius would have been silent.

The salvage craft lifted off, and headed toward the main exit to the north. They passed through the airlock at the edge of the domes, and out into the natural icy expanse of the planet. The rest of the world was as-yet uncolonized. It had an atmosphere and gravity, but was far too cold to support any form of life.

Saeera sat down in the co-pilot’s chair on the bridge. It would be a long two hours before they reached Byrgius.

2.1

2006-07-19T04:02:00.000-07:00

She slept, her two concubines lying beside her, and the storms raged outside. Through all the lightning and thunder, and waves crashing against the rocks far below, the room was silent. Her chamber, sculpted entirely from the finest marble ever found by man, was a room more stunning than most had ever seen. Usually dark and cold, but now warmed by the three sweaty bodies intertwined on the bed. The east wall was made entirely of glass, one giant window, through which she could view this great anomaly of nature- the Oceanus Procellarum, the “Sea of Storms.” It covered almost fifty percent of the moon- her moon. It had been named by the ancient race that inhabited the world her moon orbited, but this was long before it was hers, long before she was born, and long before these ancient people had the capacity to reach it.

The combox beeped, and it echoed throughout the room. She awoke, and reached for her nightgown. She draped the gown around her, and crossed the room to answer the call.

“Yes.” She said into the receiver.

“Your highness, I apologize for calling so late. This is Doctor Beigh.”

“Yes,” she repeated. “What is it?” She gazed out the window and watched the never-ending storm. At night, it was mesmerizing, the flash of the distant lightning illuminating the room for split seconds at a time.

“We have a new batch. The tests are complete.” He tried to keep a steady voice, but it was obvious he was both tired and afraid.

“Send the video feed through.” She turned on the vidscreen mounted in the north wall.

“Yes, your highness.” A few moments later, a screen flickered, and then the feed came through. It was a medical examination room. Three young girls, no more than ten or eleven lay on metal tables. Each had metal helmets covering their heads and faces. Lights flashed across the helmets, and each were connected to a large machine in the center of the room. Numerous diodes were attached to their bodies, monitoring the functions of all of their organs. Another doctor mulled around in the back of the room, reading charts and turning dials. The only sound was the shuffling of his feet, and the synchronized beeps of their heart monitors.

“They’re better than we expected,” doctor Beigh continued. “with very little kidney and liver degeneration. Much less than any of the other recent batches. They’re up to specification, however we still think we can improve in the future.”

“Very good,” she said. “These will be fine.”

“Your highness, if I may suggest, given another two weeks we could-“

“Doctor Beigh,” she interjected. He fell immediately silent. “These will be fine.”

“Yes, your highness.” She hung up the receiver. She watched on the vidscreen. The other doctor in the background stopped, and put his finger up to his ear. He looked past the camera, through the glass where doctor Beigh would be sitting. He nodded, and left the room. She turned off the vidscreen, disrobed, and climbed back into bed.

* * *

Three hundred feet below, doctor Beigh sat behind glass, staring at a computer screen. He entered a series of commands into the terminal, and looked up at the three young girls. The lights on the helmets went dim. The door behind Beigh opened, and doctor Theria, the mad who had been on the vidscreen, entered the room.

“I thought we had another two weeks!” He sounded upset. “What are you doing?”

“Direct orders from the Baroness.” Beigh replied. The room fell silent, save for the beeps of the heart monitors. After a couple of minutes, they were silent too.

1.5 update

2006-07-19T02:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry if you read 1.5 right now, there's a section missing that I had meant to re-write. I just noticed that I never got around to it. After she orders the drink, and before she leaves Puccai House. It should be up and fixed shortly.

2006-07-18T21:35:00.000-07:00

1.5

2006-07-18T21:27:00.000-07:00

“How ya’ been girl?” He sounded pleased to hear from her.

“Rix, I need a favor.”

“You OK? What’s wrong?” He could hear the nervous tone in her voice.

“I’m stuck on Prom. Some scavengers hit my ship.”

“Shit, I don’t even wanna know what you’re doin’ out there. You need a ride out?”

“Yeah, if you could, I don’t know anyone else round here.”

“Sure, how big’s your ship?”

“It’s a class-F. Hetzer-Jerik mark 8. It’s in the North port. Hangar A16.” Saeera heard Rix yelling in Quetel to someone in his office. There was a pause, and then he yelled again, more urgent this time. After another exchange, Rix got back on the phone.

“Only ship can hold yours won’t be back for a couple hours. It’ll take a couple more to get out there. You got time to kill?” he asked. Saeera checked the time on the PDC. Thirty three hours. She didn’t have time to kill.

“Yeah, I’ll figure something out.”

“North port, A16?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she replied. “Thanks, Rix.”

“See you soon.” Saeera hung up the phone. She walked over to the bar, sat down at a stool and ordered a Ten Cancha.

The fat woman looked up from her book again as Saeera walked through the lobby and out of Puccai House. Saeera squinted as the rush of wind blew sand against her face. The preacher now lay unconscious in front of the hotel. His face was bruised and blood dripped from his nose. Someone had stolen his crate. Saeera considered taking another look at the damage on her ship, but decided against it. Rix’s crew would only need a few hours on it and it would be fixed up. What she really did need was sleep. She’d been popping energy pills lately to stay awake, and as a result had only slept a few hours over the last four days. Even three hours would do her good.

She turned around and walked back into the bar. The bartender stood with his back to the door, leaning against the counter and watching the vidscreen. None of the other patrons noticed her. She found a corner where the bench seat butted up against a wall, and sat down. To keep her PDC safe, she moved it to her jacket’s inside pocket, and zippered it up. She put her hands in her pockets, her right around her gun, laid her head back, and within a few minutes, she was asleep.

End of Chapter 1

1.4

2006-07-17T02:22:00.000-07:00

"Agelius Salvage."

"Rix, it's Saeera." There was a slight pause on the other end of the phone.

"What's that? Who is this?" He sounded puzzled.

"It's Saeera. Bara-" He cut her off.

"Oh shit, Saeera!" he remembered. "Damn, I'd given up thinkin' you'd call." She hadn't spoken to him in a couple of years, since her father died.

Bara Baillien and Rix Agelius had met during the war almost twenty years before. They'd been stationed at an outpost on Arzachel, the second moon of the jungle world Perreine, home to the largest natural magnetic core in four galaxies. For this reason, it had for almost eighty years been seen as a place of high spiritual energy, and therefore a religious landmark. The world was reclaimed from the natives, who were all shipped across-world and never heard from again. The ancient stone temples used by the natives were renovated but kept out of convenience, being impervious to the magnetic pull of the planet’s core, and the central shrine, and Perreine itself became the permanent residence of the third of the four Great Monks.

The high content of magnetic rock deep underground made any sort of metal construction useless. The magnetic pull threshold was about four hundred feet above ground level, making landing any normal ship far too dangerous. Special ships had been engineered with vertical landing thrusters designed to counteract the magnetic pull. The ships’ components were made from plastic wherever possible, but when metal was necessary, special precautions were taken to ensure that nothing dislodged or came unhooked. These ships acted as the shuttles from Perreine’s three moons to the planet’s surface. Rix, Bara, and the other troops of the Commonwealth Army stationed on these moons served as the guardians of the Great Lord’s Perreine.

Rix and Bara held post at one of the CA’s many four-man radar posts on Arzachel monitoring the atmosphere of Perreine. The two were off-shift when the attack came. After eight months of playing cards, talking about women, and watching for blips on a comscreen, they finally got the chance to be soldiers. Somehow the terrorists had managed to build a ship that fooled the radar system. They’d managed to keep the ship hovering above one of the hilltops, as to avoid the magnetic field, and the terrorists had air-dropped in. It had been an almost two-day journey from their drop-point to the temples, to give their offering of chemical weapons.

The Great Lord survived the attack, holed up with his ministers deep inside the underground tunnels of the temple, but the CA lost about half of the men stationed on Perreine. Within a few minutes of the initial attack, over half of the soldiers stationed at the temple were dead. The chemical “infected” the oxygen in the body and soon clotted all of the blood in the body, making for a quick death. The remaining forces held back the terrorists who had now used up their supply of the gas, but were making use of the anti-magnetic weaponry left on the dead soldiers’ bodies.

Not three minutes after the terrorists’ initial strike, Rix and Bara were on a packed shuttle and headed for Perreine. The soldiers inside the temple had some trouble against the terrorist force, but once the reinforcements landed, the enemy was far outnumbered. The attack was the first taste of real combat for many of the young soldiers posted on the moons around Perreine. For Rix, it was also the last.

Within half an hour, the terrorists were dead, and the CA was taking count of its’ own. Somewhere during the fight, Bara had lost track of Rix. He searched, dreading the loss of the man with whom he’d spent the majority of the last eight months. He found Rix lying near the edge of the jungle, shot from behind. The bullet had entered the back of Rix’s neck, and had become lodged inside. It turned out to be his ticket home. After he recovered from his injury, he returned to work overseeing his family’s Salvage yard. He couldn’t do much of the physical work anymore, for he had lost all but basic function in his right arm. Bara was left on the moon to make new friends.

1.3

2006-07-12T04:27:00.000-07:00

Or so the thought. She swung the door open to find her ship stripped by scavengers. Almost half of the exterior plating had been removed, and wires dangled from its' underbelly, where they'd taken the power core. They had come in through the ventilation duct on the far wall. The vent grill had been broken out and lay on the floor. She cursed to herself and ran a hand over her shaven head. The main hatch on the side of the ship had been left open, and she climbed inside. The control board had been ripped up and most of the internal computer components had been taken. She sat on the edge of the hatch, her feet hanging out the side and worried how much of a delay this would cause. The repair was no problem. She knew people. She hopped down from the ship and walked out into the street, locking up the hangar behind her.

She passed the preacher on the way into The Puccai House. He was still rambling about the Great Lords and damnation. The hotel smelled like dirt. The wind had blown sand and garbage inside, but the fat woman behind the desk paid it no mind. She sat with a cigarette in one hand, and a cheap romance novel in the other. The burly soldier on the cover cradled a dark-skinned jungle queen in his arms, while fending off aliens with a pistol. The woman looked up at Saeera amd took a hit off the cigarette.

"You got a combox here?" Saeera asked. The woman motioned her head towards the rear of the building.
"In the bar, in the back." Smoke billowed out between her cracked lips as she spoke. Saeera walked past the stairs and into the back room. The bar was mostly empty, save for a few, most likely travelers in need of a drink, but not wanting to make the journey into the city. It smelled slightly better than the Red Prince. The holiday celebrations played out on the screens above the bar. Saeera found the combox in the corner, and picked up the receiver. She wiped it on a nearby tablecloth and cradled it in her neck. There was a bit of loose change in her back pocket, enough to make the call. She dropped the coins into the box and dialed Rix.

1.2

2006-07-11T04:50:00.000-07:00

Saeera stepped through the doors of the Red Prince, and out into the market square. She stood for a moment, and took a deep breath, wondering if she could really trust him, even with the implied consequences if he screwed her over again. The air out here was much fresher than the reek of smoke and the unbathed low-lifes that spent their days in the Red Prince. She could smell the oxygen being pumped into the dome from the generators above. She wasn't sure which was the bigger risk, putting her faith in Van, or trying to back out of the deal with her employers. She didn't like either one, but she didn't really have a choice in the situation. It's what you get when a Sindika, a crime boss and acquaintance of a friend, bails you out and saves your ass. Your stuck owing a debt. She pulled the electronic device, the Portable Data Core, from her jacket. and flipped open the screen. The counter she'd set told her she had a little less than thirty-four hours left. Thirty four hours until they'd change the code, and the money she'd given Van would have been wasted. She closed the screen, put the PDC back in her pocket and headed for the north port, to her ship.

It was about a twenty-minute walk to the actual port, one of four that sat on the borders of Prom. As she left the market and walked further from the bars and whorehouses, the crowds thinned and became slightly less agressive. Most of the folks in the outer parts of town only stayed because they had no place else to go. Either they'd been stranded and had made this place their home, or they grew up here, and most likely had never seen any sort of better life. She passed a small group of children, kicking a ball around in the dirt. Most likely homeless, their onlly posessions the ball, the clothes they wore, and the knifes strapped to their legs. Even the children in this town were armed. She walked along the edge of the old reservoir, emptied long ago after the water became too polluted to be of any use. Prom was once a nice place to stop on a long journey, set up by the Intergalactic Terraforming Council almost three-hundred years ago as a classy rest stop and casino town. As with any town centered around gambling, control eventually fell into the wrong hands, and began the inevitable decay.Anybody with any sense or without better judgement avoided Prom. Visiting was still a gamble, the stakes were just higher.

The north port was a four-tiered docking station, capable of holding a hundred or so small craft, and twelve larger freight ships. It sat a quarter of a mile or so wide and towered above any other structure on this side of town. Hotels stood scattered around the port for those travelers unlucky enough to have to stay the night. The Puccai House stood across from dock A16, which housed Saeera's craft. A elderly preacher in a dirty cloak stood on an old shipping crate in front of the hotel and tried to convince passers-by not to venture into town. He said it was "an unholy place that would blacken a man's soul." Nobody even stopped to listen.

Saeera took the PDC from her pocket and pulled a retractable cable out of the side. She lifted the flap on the console next to the door to A16 and connected the cable. After a series of beeps, the door hissed and unlocked. She was off this rock.

2006-07-10T03:19:00.000-07:00

2006-07-07T17:41:00.000-07:00

1.1

2006-07-06T04:04:00.000-07:00

It was a particularly bad day to be in Prom. Not that the spaceport ever had 'good days,' but today was especially rough. It wasn't quite lunchtime, and already there were four bodies. A low-life con man on the run from the Balterenn system ended up cornered in the marketplace by the bounty hunter on his tail. The thug made it out, putting down the hunter, two travelers refueling their ship and a local produce vendor. Nobody saw where he'd gone, and nobody much cared. On a bustling day like today, the local businesses couldn't afford to take a break. There had been a minute or two of confusion and shock following the shootout, mostly from those passing through, but soon the merchants were yelling their wares, and all returned to normal. Two of the other merchants pulled the bodies out of the walkways and dumped them in corners. Corpses were bad for business.
Some of the travelers didn't know the reputation of the place, and even those who did had no idea just how much of a hellhole it was. Local Law had given up on the town almost four years ago. The last two Chief Enforcers had quit the post in fear of assassination. This was no place for a family man, even with hundreds of soldiers under their command. The best the law could do was to put warning signs up in the atmosphere telling travelers to be careful or simply avoid the place altogether. Some, however, had made their lives here, running the refueling stations, bars, brothels, or the produce stands in the marketplace. These things were hard to come by on a dead rock and one could make a living shipping them in from other worlds. People need to eat when they have four days to spend drinking and playing cards until their next job. The street merchants made the closest to an honest living that you could get in such a rotten town. If you don't become an innocent bystander, that is.
Saeera Baillien sat at a corner table at the Red Prince Tavern, sipping a Ten Cancha and watching the new broadcast on the video screens. It was night-time in Siet, and the streets were filled with thousands waiting for the Incorporation festival. Two hundred years of war, she thought. Billions slaughtered, and this is the only way these people's lives changed. They get fireworks once a year. She stared back into her drink and swirled it around in the glass. She'd been waiting at least an hour, and her man wasn't here yet. Somewhere in the other room, a glass fell and shattered, and the bar went silent. Saeera stood up and reached for her gun. She waited a moment for any sign of a brawl, but after a few moments, the bar calmed and the dull hum of conversation resumed. Saeera sat down. The door on the far side of the room swung open. Van Guiscard. It was her man.
Van was not suited to Prom. He was always one to back down from a fight, his life the one and only thing more important to him than money. He scratched his nose and stood in the doorway, scanning the room. He saw Saeera in the corner and made his way through the room towards her table. He looked down at her, expecting a greeting, but received only a glare. He shrugged at her, confused.
"Do you have to be so obvious?" Saeera asked him.
"What do you mean?"
"That you're looking for someone?"
"What, nobody here knows us, we could be just...on a date?." His attempt to be cute was unsuccessful.
"Sit down." she snapped. Van slumped down into the wooden chair. He noticed the scar on Saeera's face, running from the corner of her mouth up to her ear.
"Is that new?" he asked, dragging his finger up his cheek. She ignored the question.
"Where is it?" She was getting impatient.
"What's your deal Sae-" Saeera leaned in and slammed a fist on the table.
"I'm not here to talk, Van. I'm here to do business. I paid you good money to get me that code, not for the goddamn conversation."
"Ok fine." Van sat forward, reached into his pocket, pulled out a black card and gave it to to Saeera. She took a small device out of her jacket pocket and inserted the card. After a series of beeps, she removed the card out and put both back in her pocket. She looked up at Van.
"So we're done." she said and stood up. She started to walk towards the door.
"What's that gonna get you?" Van asked. "Nobody except the force knows the inside of that place." Saeera turned back to Van.
"I know it," she said. "I was a squadron commander." she turned back and walked out.
"Oh....shit...wow." Van said to himself. He grabbed the remainder of her drink and knocked it back.

If you can call this an introduction

2006-07-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

There should be some more up here soon. I'm doing research. This page will eventually explain the whole "the.baroness" thing.

2006-07-05T18:09:00.000-07:00