6200 - Book 1 - Beginnings - Chapter 1

Chapter 1 -

The Milky Way galaxy is home to many diverse races with over fifty inhabiting our own spiral arm of the galaxy, and at least ten known extinct races.

Most of the races that Humans have encountered can trace their roots back to a race known as the Progenitors that are believed to have first started exploring the galaxy around 789,000 B.C.E. and mostly vanished from the galaxy around 774,000 B.C.E.

Several other races started to appear around this time period as well but did not flourish for very long and most either destroyed themselves or ceased to exist from unknown causes with nothing but ruins and bones left behind to mark their presence in history.

As for the races that currently inhabit our arm of the Milky Way Galaxy as stated most of these either follow a human form or totally ignore it all together especially in the case of the “Magically” gifted race of the Draganar.

Dr. Stanislaw Medloe - Professor of Galactic & Xeno-History Cambridge College

A History of the Milky Way Galaxy and its Inhabitants - Vol. XIX © 5928

Center of the Milky Way Galaxy - Hyperspace Terminus

Coronet Station - Coalition Main Conference Room

January 1st, 6200 C.E. - 12:00 CST

Coalition Minister for the Theban Cluster Marlin Edward Hatherton looked down at his well grilled hamburger and was determined to enjoy it to its fullest. Because it would probably be the only thing he would be enjoying for the next several days. Save for whatever meals I decide to eat during this weeks meetings, he thought wryly to himself and a small grimace crossed his face.

“Something wrong with your hamburger Marlin?” asked Coalition Member for the Claremont Confederacy Judd Quincy Monroe.

“Know I was just thinking that this was probably one of the few things I’m going to get to enjoy this week,” Marlin told his friend.

Monroe made a burring sound with his lips, “I can’t disagree with you on that one, and I certainly intend to enjoy these BBQ ribs to their fullest.” Suiting actions to words his stuffed a napkin down the front of his shirt and started on the first of three huge sides of BBQ ribs laid out on his own plate.

Hatherton followed suit and was soon wiping excess grease from his fingers. He’d always preferred hamburgers made from cows raised on the planet Thungirii in the ISL; however this would probably be the last one he would ever have considering that Thungirii was now overrun with Quislings and part of the QQZ that extended for over 30,000 systems deep.

“Alright ladies and gentleman,” the current Minister Of Affairs intoned rapping his wooden mallet on it’s block as commissary personnel started clearing away the empty dishes in front of the almost three dozen ministers that made up the Galactic Coalition council. It took a dozen servers just to drag off the Draganar Ministers dish that still had a few picked over cow bones on it.

“Okay the first thing we need to finish discussing is whether or not to reset the calendars to year 1,” The MOA intoned.

Hatherton groaned inwardly and wondered when they would address the matter of the QQZ and the fact that it was leaking like a silver sieve.

“We shall now take a vote by electronic ballet to pass or fail this resolution.”

It was several minutes before all the votes were in, but in the end the issue passed. Most of the human Ministers had tried to veto it but were outnumbered by the non-human factions by more than two to one.

“Resolution has passed, starting January 1st 6201 C.E. of the current calendar a new calendar shall be started and henceforth be referred to as 1 2E or 1st Year Second Era,” the Minister Of Affairs banged his gavel against the block again, “Moving onto the second issue of this session, a vote to abolish capitol punishment throughout the members of the Coalition.”

Hatherton voted against and if he was the only one to do so it was one of those issues that required a unanimous vote and thus wouldn’t pass.

“Issue has failed at a ¾ vote,” the Minister Of Affairs was just about to bang his gavel again when the doors burst open and a pair of figures encased from head to toe in gleaming gold with golden glowing lens like eyes walked through followed by several dozen figures in metallic green and carrying assault rifles.

Everyone in the richly appointed conference room immediately stopped what they were doing to stare at the figures.

“What are you doing in here, where are the guards?” the Minister of Affairs asked semi hysterically.

“They are now part of us,” The Gold Figure said in an echoing, buzzing tone and made a hand gesture.

The metallic blue figures with him raised their weapons and opened fire, when the heat haze from the figure’s particle beam weapons dissipated there were only a dozen of the Ministers sill left alive, even the Draganar Minister had been killed by concentrated particle beam fire.

“Who the hell are you?” Hatherton said noticing that all the surviving ministers were either human or near enough.

“We are the Tantalus Hive Mind, and this unit is known as the Emperor,” the golden figure answered.

“What is it you want?” Judd Monroe asked.

“For all to become one with the Tantalus Hive Mind,” the Emperor intoned walking around to each surviving member of the council a dollop of gold formed from the palm of his hand dropping them on the table in front of each minister.

“What is that?” the UNSF Minister asked staring at the pill sized metallic gold item in front of him.

“The key to freedom,” The Emperor intoned? “Now each of you will take the pill or be killed,” To emphasize his words the metallic green figures raised their weapons threateningly.

The surviving council members picked up the pills and swallowed them down without fluids.

For several seconds nothing occurred; it made Hatherton wonder if they may have been poisoned until he felt an itching at the back of his throat and something came up it. A metallic tan colored fluid started flowing from his mouth and down his chin. Choking, he raised his hands to his throat as he felt the fluid trickle from his nostrils, ears, and tear ducts, glancing around he saw the other ministers also with the metallic fluid oozing from their facial orifices.

As the metallic tan nanno-sheathing flowed over their bodies it ate away hair and clothing soon their bodies were nothing but smooth, metallic tan shells and the Tantalus Nanno-Virus completed it’s job by creating a hyper-space flux transceiver at the base of their brain stem and thus opening up their minds to the greatness that was the Tantalus Hive Mind.

The twelve former humanoids soon stood up and followed the Tantalan Emperor from the room, now one with the hive mind. Some might have thought it ironic that such powerful personages had been reduced to the lowest of low Tantalans as drone units, but the former Marlin Edward Hatherton and Judd Quincy Monroe had no such feelings on the subject. From now on they were part of the Hive Mind and if addressed at all would be referred to as TDU-67-55-111 and TDU-39-89-80, with that the Tantalans left the Coronet with none the wiser and over two dozen dead bodies in their wake and over a dozen missing people, fingers would be pointed soon and most of them at the human and humanoid factions.

Theban Cluster - Kinderhoe Sector - Barnhardt System

Barnhardt III Alpha Ring - Tequila Dreams Bar & Grill

January 1st, 6200 C.E. - 00:00 CST

“Hey, that’s not sanitary at all,” said a nasally voice over the noise of the bar.

Joe Hiker looked up seeing that one of his table mates was complaining to the waitress about the glass and bottle of beer she had just set down in front of him.

“No that’s not sanitary at all; You have to make sure you get all the smudges out,” Aehgr explained to the waitress who was looking bored and rolled her eyes at the little wiry man. Still complaining about the cleanliness of the glass he pulled out a small squirt bottle of diluted dish detergent and a white rag brilliantly clean enough to be seen by a blind person and proceeded to scrub the glass thoroughly and the exterior of his beer bottle before pouring it in the glass.

“Jesus, Aehgr, man come on,” Jon Jonson said at Aehgr’s antics.

Joe sighed inwardly and knew he would have to either leave a large tip or give into one of his darker urges to satisfy the waitress. Deciding on the latter, he smiled at her and slipped her his comm code as she walked past.

“Ah, leave him alone Jon,” Jason Rite told Jonson.

“Why? He does this every fucking time,” Jonson said with a thick Neo-Brooklyn accent.

“Yeah but at least he’s actually drinking something this time, unlike Ernie,” Joe said thumbing at the last occupant at the table.

“Well you known how it is,” Ernie McClain said, “I don’t think you’d be able to stand such a party animal if I did any drinking,” he commented with a smile.

Jonson gave McClain the finger and threw back his shot of Tequila and stood up. It was getting late and he needed to be up early to help refuel ships at the dock in the morning, “Same time, and same place tomorrow guys.”

“Yup,” Joe said still nursing his beer.

“Not if they don’t start cleaning their glasses properly, I might just stay home,” Aehgr whined.

“Don’t you dare tease us with such a promise,” Jason Rite said standing up as well and stretching.

Ernie and Aehgr stood up as well, just like the rest they had to be up early to work their dreary jobs.

“Are you coming?” Jason asked of Joe.

“I think I’ll chill for a while longer,” Joe told his friends.

Jason just nodded and the five friends made their goodbyes.

Joe waited till the waitress got off and they went back to her place for some extracurricular activities with Joe leaving in the wee hours to go back to his apartment to get a few hours of sleep before work.

Theban Cluster - Kinderhoe Sector - Barnhardt System

Barnhardt III Alpha Ring - Barnhardt Alpha Ring Immigration Center

January 2nd, 6200 C.E. - 16:30 CST

Jason was just about to go crazy as he interviewed the latest Émigré from some backwater system. Yeah like this isn’t a backwater system as well, he thought to himself.

“So Mister Teeth Are Sharpest, why exactly do you want to immigrate to the Barnhardt system?” Jason asked the male Caterhan in front of him.

“I heard Barnhardt have good jungle and forests, much hunting and trapping available, once established will bring in rest of family,” The Caterhan replied.

It took Jason a few minutes to decipher the Caterhan’s butchered Modern Theban; which itself was a bastardization of Ancient Theban, Latin, and English. “Okay, so you want a work Visa to start with,” Jason said typing rapidly into his computer. “Okay, Mr., uh, do you mind if I just call you Mr. Sharpest?”

“No, Mr. Sharpest is just fine.”

“Good, good, okay I’ve filed the necessary paperwork, if you can come back in a couple of days everything should be ready to issue that work Visa.”

“Thank you,” Sharpest said standing up, he padded his way to the door and left.

Jason sat for a few minutes and blinked rapidly, he seriously had to get a better job; maybe a security guard, hell even a bouncer would be better than this shit. Just as Jason was finishing his thoughts the computer chimed at him in an annoying high pitched voice letting him know that his work shift was over.

“Your shift is over, your shift is over,” it kept repeated until Jason stabbed at the power key on the hard holography keyboard.

“Yeah, finally, ugh,” Jason intoned loosening his tie and unbuttoning the top two buttons to reveal a crimson and gray mono-film duty suit. Getting up he grabbed his small briefcase and flipped the lights off before practically slamming the door behind him.

Theban Cluster - Kinderhoe Sector - Barnhardt System

Barnhardt III Alpha Ring - Barnhardt Alpha Ring Main Concourse

January 2nd, 6200 C.E. - 16:30 CST

Ernie bowed under the weight of the huge steamer trunk he was carrying over his back and pushed the controller bar for the grav-jack carrying the passenger’s other luggage. He could hear the whine of overstressed grav motors as the jack struggled to carry the mass of luggage the controls acting sluggishly as he maneuvered it through the concourse and avoided running into various people that weren’t smart enough to move out of the way on their own.

Finally Ernie unloaded the luggage into the back of a huge armored hover limo/SUV with the aid of the driver and wandered wearily back to the grav-jack store room where he tagged the machine as needing maintenance; checking the clock on the wall.

The clock read exactly 17:00 and with even larger smile than usual he clocked out and headed for Tequila Dreams.

Theban Cluster - Kinderhoe Sector - Barnhardt System

Barnhardt III Alpha Ring - Barnhardt Alpha/Delta Ring Astro Navigation Center

January 2nd, 6200 C.E. - 16:30 CST

Aehgr fiddled and fidgeted with the tray holding the Astro-Navigation Center crew’s coffee cups, he finished filling the last one and quadruple checked that each of the coffee cup lids was screwed tightly in place; with nanno-rubber gloved hands he carried it around the center distributing them as he went.

“Mr. Nolson you should really clean up your work space, it’s very unhealthy to have all this mess.” Aehgr said to one of the AstroNav personnel.

“Get the fuck away from me you little dipshit,” Edward Nolson the duty officer said and shoved Aehgr away.

Nonplussed Aehgr finished his rounds of coffee delivery and prepared fresh coffee cups for the next hours repast as well as some plastic wrapped sandwiches. After completing that task Aehgr had nothing much to do so he wandered around the control center cleaning here and there. On one of his cleaning rounds around the room he spotted a piece of lint sticking out of a panel under one of the unused consoles. Trying to pull it loose he found that it wouldn’t budge. Pausing for a few seconds to think he pulled a small micro-multi-tool out selecting the correct driver head and removed the screws holding the panel in place and pulled the offending piece of lint loose that’s when he saw that the interior of the console was just absolutely dusty dirty.

“Oh, this just won’t do, this just won’t do,” he muttered to himself pulling a rag and a bottle of industrial strength cleaner from one of the numerous pockets in his jacket that he wore over the crimson and gray mono-film duty suit that all station personnel were required to wear while working.

Aehgr sprayed the cleaning solution and started wiping away the dust with half his body inside the console when his luck turned for the worse. He sprayed another stream of the cleaner, unfortunately one of the consoles power linkages wasn’t connected tightly enough and the solution entered the power carrier and every light and console in the control room instantly went out.

There were startled shouts and yells in the room as the center’s consoles Hard Holography control panels disappeared along with all power to the room shortly emergency lights snapped on and the frantic voices of AstroNav Controllers telling the vessels they had been guiding in to hold position before someone crashed into them rang out in the room.

“What the Fuck, is going on,” Edward Nolson bellowed and then keyed his comm, “Power, this is Nolson in AstroNav, I’ve just lost all power in here and I need it back up immediately before we have a bunch of ships crashing into one another.”

“Roger that, we’ll trace the fault and send a tech team immediately,” a power tech replied.

Nolson waited anxiously, sweat pouring down his face, if even one of those ships so much as bumped into another it could be catastrophic, the different harmonics of their reaction less drives would intermingle and cause a massive explosion most likely obliterating both ships in a huge fury of light and debris. If something that catastrophic happened one Edward Dalton Nolson would be up the proverbial stinky river without a motive device.

It was nearly forty-five minutes before the power tech got back to him, “Sir, we’ve traced the fault one of the AstroNav center’s to consoles.” The power tech paused as if consulting something, “the console designation is 3 Delta 9; and we’ve got a power tech crew on the way to make repairs.”

“Thank you,” Nolson said trying to remember which console 3 Delta 9 was; he then remembered that it was one of the backup consoles and that no one had actually used it for several months.

Striding over to the offending console he found a pair of stark white clad legs sticking out of the console, reaching down he grasped one of the legs and yanked pulling their owner free of the console with a squawk he found Aehgr Weinberg attached to the offending legs.

“What the fuck have you done now Weinberg?” Nolson growled menacingly.

“Oy, I was just cleaning the dirty console Mr. Nolson, it was really, really dirty,” Aehgr said in his whiny voice.

Nolson’s face turned a mottled red his breathing labored for a second, but he seemed to calm visibly after about five minutes of deep breaths. At that point the Power Tech team showed up and started working on the console.

Letting go of Aehgr’s leg Nolson picked him up by the front of shirt, “YOU ARE FIRED!” Nolson screamed into his face spittle dolloping Weinberg’s cheeks and forehead.

Becoming agitated at the sensation of someone else’s spittle touching his skin Weinberg squirmed loose and pulled another clean cloth from one of his coats numerous pockets.

“Get out before I have you shot,” Nolson roared and started moving towards Weinberg menacingly.

Just as Nolson was about to reach forward and grab Aehgr by the throat and start throttling him two of the larger AstroNav Controllers grabbed his arms and held him back.

“Aehgr get out of here man, Nolson is losing his mind, if you don’t leave he may just break loose and kill you,” the man tried to say over Nolson’s screaming and ranting.

The other AstroNav Controller just nodded at Aehgr who turned away despondently and muttered under his breath, “But it was so dirty.”

“It’s alright Aehgr, you’ll get severance pay and medical care for the next month,” Linda Stroseman the assistant AstroNav Shift Director told the little man hurriedly shooing him out of Nolson’s sight hoping the man would calm down once the OCD afflicted little man was out of his sight.

Theban Cluster - Kinderhoe Sector - Barnhardt System

Barnhardt III Alpha Ring - Red Light District - Semaphore Bar

January 2nd, 6200 C.E. - 17:30 CST

Joe was incredibly bored during his entire eight hour shift he hadn’t gotten to beat up on a single squid or jarhead and was getting slightly irritated by that fact; matter of fact the bar was pretty damn quiet for once. Although that quiet might have to do with the fact that most people were still sleeping off their drunks from the day before after the station’s local holiday.

The only people in the bar were he, the bartender, three regulars, one of which was unconscious and drooling on one of the hard wood tables, and the day shift manager who was probably in his office watching soap operas or some shit like that.

Grunting Joe bounced off the barstool he sat on next to the door and grabbed his jacket/ Waving a hand to get the bartender’s attention, “Hey, Adriana, it is deader than shit I’m going to knock off a couple of minutes early.”

“No problema Joe, I’ll tell Eddie the next time he drags out of his office,” the brunette told him.

With another wave Joe left the bar and headed for Tequila Dreams.

Theban Cluster - Kinderhoe Sector - Barnhardt System

Barnhardt III Alpha Ring - Barnhardt Alpha Ring Space Dock Refueling Dock

January 2nd, 6200 C.E. - 17:30 CST

Jon; or at least that’s what they had named him in the hospital he woke up in after learning he had amnesia; wanted a cigarette so bad it wasn’t funny, but regulations stipulated against it due to the high volatility of the hydrogen reaction mass used by ships for their reaction thrusters and small craft engines. So Jon stood at his control panel the helmet for his gray and crimson skin suit magnetically locked on his environmental pack and pressed the sequence of buttons on the hard holography panel activating the feeding tube leading to the huge reaction mass tanks that made up a 20th of the Alpha Rings total internal volume.

A loud buzzer sounded on the panel and green tell-tales lit up telling him the feeding tube had a good lock. Leaned against the panel he watched the indicator until it hit 100% and then retracted the feeding tube.

A loud buzzer rang through the cavernous docking hold where ships refueled and Jon was relieved by his replacement. Jon hurried back to the locker room changing out of the skinsuit and into more comfortable clothes; after eight hours the plumbing connections had started to chafe. Unfortunately due to the fact that the suit was second hand and considering most suits were tailor made for the individual who was going to wear them, but Barnhardt’s Ring administrator was too cheap to pay for the custom fit required so most employees wore generic ones.

Finished changing clothes Jon pulled a pack of Lucky Strikes from his locker; flipping the lid of his Zippo he snapped the striker wheel, and as soon as he had the cigarette going he sucked in a lungful and then exhaled twin plumes of tobacco laced smoke out of his nostrils.

Jon made his way out of the employee area of the docks and headed for Tequila Dreams.

Theban Cluster - Kinderhoe Sector - Barnhardt System

Barnhardt III Alpha Ring - Tequila Dreams Bar & Grill

January 2nd, 6200 C.E. - 18:05 CST

When Jon arrived everyone else was already there sipping on their preferred beverage grabbing a waitress on his way to the table he ordered a beer and sat down with his friends.

“We have seriously got to get off this damn station,” Jason said folding a newspaper and tossing it on the table before taking a sip from his Lager. “Another friggin’ woman was strangled to death in her apartment last night and without a single clue; and get this it was even that waitress from last night; that and I heard from some guy from AstroNav that the Shift Duty Director Edward Nolson went nutters and killed a half dozen controllers before they were able to stop him.”

At the mention of Nolson Aehgr started cleaning the table top rather vigorously.

“Isn’t Nolson your boss Aehgr?” Joe asked.

“No, I got fired today,” Aehgr said not looking up.

“That’s too bad, Aehgr, but look on the bright side, something better will come along,” Ernie said cheerfully.

“That cut’s it then,” Jason said taking another sip of his Lager, “next ship that comes through needing a crew we are getting the hell out of here.”

“Agreed,” Joe said.

“Bout damn time,” Jon grumbled.

“Oy, a whole new place to clean,” Aehgr said miserably.

“Sounds like it’s going to be extremely fun,” Ernie said.

“Agreed then and the five of them clinked glasses with Aehgr once again cleaning off the exterior of his glass before drinking from it.

Theban Cluster - Kinderhoe Sector - Barnhardt System

Barnhardt III Alpha Ring - Tequila Dreams Bar & Grill

January 9th, 6200 C.E. - 17:05 CST

With their resolution to get off the station on the next ship that needed a crew they had to wait a long week before an appropriate ship showed up on the boards.

“I don’t know,” Jon said looking at his E-PADD like the other four was doing. “Do we really want to take a job on a ship named the Forlorn Hope?”

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Jason asked jokingly.

“I bet it’s really dirty inside,” Aehgr said.

“Better than this piss hole,” Joe intoned.

“Well maybe if we do a good enough job we can convince the captain to change the name, although I think the name has a certain zest to it,” Ernie said brightly.

Joe and Jon took turns telling Ernie what he could do with his opinion, sideways.

“Enough already guys,” Jason said shaking his head but couldn’t keep a small smile off of his face at his friend’s antics. “Are we agreed then,” the others nodded in the affirmative, “Then the Forlorn Hope it is. Let’s just hope it isn’t that in the end.” He finished under his breath and all five friends put their signatures in to bid for the crew job.

“What does it mean by odd cargo jobs?” Jon asked a furrow running through his brow.

“Not sure,” Jason said.

“And what kind of name is Barr Robards?” Joe asked.

Quisling Quarantine Zone - Former Neo-Prussian Imperial Sector

Bavaria System

July 15th, 6198 C.E. - 14:15 CST - 18 Months Earlier

The Jean Lafayette was on a salvage mission, or at least this time she was most of the rest of the time she was terrorizing the space lanes as a pirate and free-booter. But with the Neo-Prussian Empire abandoning huge sections of it’s former area of influence there were tons of wrecked ships and abandoned planets to plunder. Thus Captain Sophia Selmanacca intended to due just that, even if the planets were within the so called Quisling Quarantine Zone.

“Captain I’m picking up a small mass about 30 clicks out appears to be solid, might be some more bodies,” the sensor tech told Sophia.

“Bring it up on the cameras, if it’s just bodies we’ll let them float through space for all of eternity for all I care,” the captain was a hard woman but she treated her skeleton crew of just under 1,000 pirates and buccaneers well. It’s ironic that we are salvaging in former NPE space in a former Imperial Aquila-Class battle cruiser, she mused to herself.

The cruiser itself had seen better days with only half of her broadside armament working but she was still space worthy and reliable which had held the captain in good stead through battles with other pirates, the Galactic Patrol, and various military navies. Of course if something larger just happened to come along she would scoot before they were within range of her vessel.

Selmanacca came out of her reverie to take a look at the image that came up on the main screen and saw what looked like a man and woman wrapped in each others arms.

“Is that a statue made of solid gold?” squawked her Exec in surprise.

“Could be, the Imperial flagship Kaiser II was destroyed in this area when the Thermopylae II, rammed her,” Sophia told the man.

“Yeah and we all know the Krauts went in for the bling-bling,” one of the other bridge crew said.

Sophia gave him a sour look.

“Yeah but a solid gold statue of a man and woman groping each other,” the exec replied back.

“They’re not exactly groping each other,” the crew member retorted. “Anyway everybody knows that the Emperor was a total nutter it was probably in his state room for him to jerk off to.

“Alright gentlemen if we are quite done discussing the merits of Neo-Prussian artistic taste let’s recover our little golden artifact out there,” Sophia said sternly.

“Aye, aye, captain,” the exec said flushing slightly.

The crew of the Jean Lafayette quickly recovered the floating statue and brought into the cargo hold of the vessel. After the statue was brought aboard and decontamination was run Sophia went down to the cargo bay and examined the statue. At first she thought the man and woman had been naked but they actually weren’t, any genitalia or nipples shown, but the muscles of the stomach, back, legs, and arms were clearly defined, the head itself was completely bald and the only facial features both had were two large domed lens like eyes the same color and the protrusion of the nose, she also noticed oddly enough that the sculptor had put a boot sole and high heels on the female and slightly lower heels and sole on the male.

It was an exquisitely wrought piece of art and would fetch a pretty price wherever she decided to drop it off at; she ordered it moved to one of the smaller store rooms so that it wouldn’t be damaged by any other pieces of salvage brought in.

Over the next few weeks as they salvaged as much as they could from the remains of the intermingled wrecks of the two Super Dreadnoughts that had welded together on their death journey Sophia found herself more and more often visiting the small store room, oh she didn’t neglect any of her duties or slow in her haranguing of the crew to speed up the recovery process but she usually spent at least half an hour to an hour before breakfast and after dinner staring at the statue.

Quisling Quarantine Zone - Former Neo-Prussian Imperial Sector

Bavaria System

August 5th, 6198 C.E. - 08:28 CST - 17 Months Earlier

Tolo Marchiss was good at his job, he just didn’t pay attention a lot of the time and some times he liked to take little souvenirs. He was working in the wreck of the Kaiser II when he cut his way through a hull into an airlock anti-chamber and found a beautiful rosewood box about the size of a cigar box, not able to resist he tucked the box into one of the pockets of his SHERPA pack for later perusal, hopefully he had netted himself some new cigars.

And if not I can always trade it’s contents away to one of the other crewmembers or trade it off to a pawnbroker when we get back to someplace civilized, a shiver ran down Tolo’s spine and he wished they were leaving the Quisling Quarantine Zone soon.

Tolo spent the rest of the day salvaging parts from both wrecks until he had his quota for the day and then returned to the Jean Lafayette, once in his room he pulled out the rosewood box he had found.

Inside the rosewood box nestled in two cut outs were two key fobs that looked like air car remotes.

Tolo grunted in disgust and punched one of the buttons on each of the remotes to see if anything happened and they startled him by rapping out a short inquiry.

“Would you like to activate TIU-6-0-0-0?”

“Would you like to activate TIU-13-0-0-0?”

“Uh, sure,” Tolo said without really thinking, and was disappointed when nothing happened.

Quisling Quarantine Zone - Former Neo-Prussian Imperial Sector

Bavaria System

August 5th, 6198 C.E. - 20:37 CST - 17 Months Earlier

Something caused Sophia to snap awake, she had dozed off while admiring the golden statue, but when she looked up she saw that the statue was now gone. Trying to stand up she found that her legs had fallen asleep and that was when she noticed the movement out of the corners of both eyes. Looking first to her right she saw the female portion of the statue crouched down next to her just looking at her, and the male portion was on her left doing the same, she started to rise again but her still wouldn‘t respond properly as the intense pain of blood starting to flow back to them left a pins and needles sensation running up and down them.

Reaching into a pocket she grabbed for her comm but before she could she felt a cool glass like touch on either side of her brow and paused, the touch wasn’t bad and actually felt somewhat comforting.

“There is no need for that Sophia,” the female whispered in her ear.

“We noticed how much time you have spent watching us,” the male whispered in her other ear.

“Yes, would you like to join us?” The female whispered.

“Jo…join you, what do you mean?” Sophia asked slightly dazed as the soft voices seemed to penetrate to a deep part of her brain.

“Become one with the hive mind,” the male whispered.

“H…, Hi…, Hive Mind,” Sophia said in a dreamy questioning voice.

“Yes,” The female said.

“The,” the male said.

“Hive Mind,” both said in unison caressing the sides of Sophia’s face.

“The Hive Mind, yes I would like to join the Hive Mind,” Sophia said dreamily her eyes dull and her respiration slowed dramatically, as her will broke as easily as a crystal flower stem.

“No more pain,” the female whispered.

“No more suffering,” the male whispered.

“No more responsibility,” the female whispered.

“No more guilt,” the male whispered.

And as the two continued to whisper in her ears Sophia swayed back and forth and the caresses along her face became more rapid and a smooth blue metallic patches started to appear on her skin and spread. The patches after reaching a certain size joined together and oozed over her body eating away hair and clothes.

Sophia soon saw the world through a warm glowing blue haze, as the Tantalus nanno-virus reached her brain it created a hyper space flux transceiver that linked her directly into the Tantalus Hive Mind allowing her to hear the whispered thoughts of the Tantalan Emperor and Empress who rejoiced as she was welcomed but not as Sophia Arlene Selmanacca but as TNU-6-68-55-72 and Captain Sophia Selmanacca hard driving captain of the pirate vessel Jean Lafayette ceased to exist.

Even with a crew of 1,000 it didn’t take long for the Emperor and Empress to convert the whole ship, some went as easy as TNU-6-68-55-72, while others had to be restrained and made to actually ingest of the Emperor’s nannites.

With each new Tantalan Unit the hive mind became more powerful and more intelligent and with the inclusion of the Hyper Space Flux transceivers imbedded at the base of their brain stems the Hive Mind could stay in constant contact with it’s children; even in hyperspace; it took nearly a week for the hive mind to fully integrate the 1,000 new minds and blocks of numbers and letters streamed through a portion of the minds that belonged to it.

50 Units of Nobility [TNU] -

TNU-6-27-18, TNU-6-27-65, TNU-6-28-35, TNU-6-29-39, TNU-6-30-26, TNU-6-30-70, TNU-6-34-12, TNU-6-34-44, TNU-6-35-39, TNU-6-36-40, TNU-6-38-82, TNU-6-39-54, TNU-6-40-62, TNU-6-43-95, TNU-6-43-103, TNU-6-45-28, TNU-6-46-36, TNU-6-46-49, TNU-6-47-39, TNU-6-47-97, TNU-6-48-54, TNU-6-55-38, TNU-6-56-59, TNU-6-59-38, TNU-6-61-101, TNU-6-66-66, TNU-6-70-60, TNU-6-79-76, TNU-6-80-58, TNU-6-82-74, TNU-6-89-20, TNU-6-99-67, TNU-13-13-36,TNU-13-19-43, TNU-13-20-57, TNU-13-28-19, TNU-13-31-33, TNU-13-36-40, TNU-13-36-88, TNU-13-40-38, TNU-13-44-67, TNU-13-45-72, TNU-13-47-59, TNU-13-49-92, TNU-13-57-69, TNU-13-58-37, TNU-13-58-67, TNU-13-62-29, TNU-13-69-114, TNU-13-95-19.

100 Units of Technicians [TTU] -

100 Units of Military [TMU] -

250 Units of Laborers [TLU] -

500 Units of Drones [TDU] -

Once the new units had been fully assimilated the Hive Mind set them a new task and they soon entered the atmosphere of New Bavaria setting down at the Imperial Space Port located inside the grounds of the former Neo-Prussian Imperial Palace.

Spreading out from the palace the Emperor and Empress broke the units under their command into 50 groups each under the command of a Tantalan Nobility unit and each including 2 Technician Units, 2 Military Units, 5 Laborer Units and 10 Drone units, these groups were each issued millions of pellets of golden metallic material that were excreted by the nanno-sheaths of the Emperor and Empress. The groups then using shuttles spread across the surface and spent the next six months re-assimilating the 7.5 billion quislings that had taken over the planet after the Neo-Prussian Empire’s former Emperor had been killed.

Tantalus Hive Mind - Sector 001 [Formerly Neo-Prussian Empire Imperial Sector]

ACS-001 - Assimilated Crèche System 001 [Formerly Bavaria System]

ACW-001 - Assimilated Crèche World 001 [Formerly New Bavaria]

December 12th, 6199 C.E. - 02:15 CST - 20 Days Earlier

Over the last sixteen months the surface of New Bavaria had changed dramatically, all the structures that had been on New Bavaria before the arrival of the Tantalus Hive Mind were razed to the ground and automated systems were designed and built to reseed the areas where the former cities, towns, and villages had been. The only buildings left standing was some Progenitor Ruins and the original Neo-Prussian Empire palace that sat directly on the equator. The planet was allowed to recover as the Tantalan units proceeded to return the planet it it’s pristine condition and even re-introduced several extinct animal species using cloning technology which there was abundance of. After reclamation of the planet was complete six vast cities were built on the planet itself, one was built at each pole and four equidistantly along the equator. These cities unlike the heavy stone and glass of the Neo-Prussian Empire’s architecture were low lying and consisted of domes, cubes, cylinders, and pyramids of azure blue glass and bronze colored steel.

In each city was a population of exactly two hundred and fifty million units and overseeing the whole was a paired Tantalan Nobility Unit with several lower ranking pairs of Nobility Units below them, this hierarchy ran all the way down to the lowest laborer and drone units. In each city a vast azure and bronze cube was built measuring five kilometers on a side with only five of it’s floors above ground the remaining hundreds of stories sank deep underground. In each of these cubes a billion Tantalan Units of various types were stored in stasis crèches which were squared off containers that would hold these units until another planet needed assimilating; also stored in each of these buildings was any children under the age of fifteen awaiting the maturity that was required for full assimilation into the Hive Mind. These buildings were the life blood of the Tantalan Hive Mind and were referred to as Assimilation Crèches.

Shortly after the cities were completed the Emperor as well as several Nobility, Military, and Technician Units boarded a reworked Neo-Prussian Empire cruiser and under stealth entered the worm hole gate that would take them to the center of the galaxy and the Space Station known as the Coronet.

The Tantalus Hive Mind calculated that if they assimilated the Galactic Coalition humanoid members and killed the others; which the Hive Mind had no intention of assimilating into itself. Fingers would be pointed at the humanoid factions by the non-humanoid factions and accusations would start flying. Calculations showed that there was only a 19% chance of relations deteriorating to the point of open warfare but with a few other judicious thrusts it might just tip the balance.

Theban Cluster - Caruthers Sector - Caruthers System

Caruthers World - Caruthers City

Masters Family Compound - Ethan Masters Suite

Unknown Date & Time

Ethan sat up still groggy and swiped a hand across his face reaching out for the other side of the bed only to find it empty. Glancing over he saw that there was still an indentation in the sheets and the pillow was still rumpled from where Raven Sikorsky had been sleeping.

Blearily stumbling into the bathroom he saw that it was empty as well and looked as if it hadn’t been used since the morning before when he had left for work. Splashing some water on his face he found himself a little more awake as he walked back into his bedroom and pushed the drapes aside to let light in only to be confronted by an odd golden colored light.

“What the hell,” he muttered; and then just shook his head. Maybe they were having problems with the weather control system, or there were some solar flares going off on the system’s G2 sun.

Walking around the room he grabbed up clothes that had been tossed to the floor the night before in a two person struggle to get to the bed, dumping them in the laundry chute in the bathroom he pulled on a polo shirt, jeans, combat boots, and a battered leather jacket that he used to conceal his holstered Wolff machine pistol.

Leaving his suite Ethan headed for the main dining room to get some breakfast but became more and more disquieted the further he walked in the sprawling mansion that served as the home for the Masters, Williams, Di’Espinoza, Sikorsky, and Zion families.

“Where the heck is everybody?” He muttered jogging down the long staircase that led to the main floor and fed all five upper stories, he hadn’t even encountered a single auto maid on his journey to the bottom floor, and that was weird considering the amount of art and other crap that the five families had accumulated over the last four and half millennia.

“Maybe they’re all down for maintenance or a software upgrade,” Ethan muttered to himself and then felt a shiver go down his spine realizing the only reason he was doing that was to relieve the spooky tension that seemed to hang on the air in the deadly silent mansion.

Matter of fact it was too damn quiet in the mansion, really eerily quiet at that. He didn’t even hear the eternal, annoying chirping of the birds from the indoor aviary off the main hall. Quit spooking yourself, he admonished himself mentally. Still unable to break the unease he felt he slid a hand under his jacket and pulled his H96 select-fire particle beam pistol loose and held it in a two handed grip near his stomach.

Several hours later found Ethan in the breakfast room eating a bowl of cereal that barely had any taste to it but he managed to gag it down along with some rather bland orange juice. After searching the entire compound inside and out and not finding anyone he had attempted to make some comm calls out to friends and work, he didn’t even get the sound of atmospheric interference when he had tried the screens had only shown a blank blue screen, on both the mansion and his hand-held comm.

Something was wrong, very wrong, if the compound had been evacuated due to an emergency the comm systems would have blared out a warning klaxon, security personnel would have checked every room and then done an electronic thermal sweep, that and the fact that the compounds security system monitored the comings and goings of everyone there.

The whole situation made Ethan uneasy and very unhappy, hell he was in charge of the Theban Cluster SOCOM Special Operations Division and if someone had pulled something his own staff would have moved heaven and earth, and even hell to reach him and make sure he made it to safety. If someone had pulled something and he hadn’t noticed he needed to retire, he thought to himself his lips quirking into a grim smile at the thought.

Standing in the main hall on the ground level Ethan ran through all sorts of contingency plans and then made his decision.

Theban Cluster - Kinderhoe Sector - Barnhardt System

Barnhardt III Alpha Ring - Space Dock Sigma Three-Nine

January 9th, 6200 C.E. - 16:30 CST

On their last day on the station everyone quit their jobs; well except for Aehgr who had been fired. Jason’s resignation was rather spectacular as he told a Halamaran Scientific Attaché to go screw himself and then stormed out; that would have been hard considering the Halamaran were metallic exo-skeletal robots that built their offspring rather than give birth to them. It was one of the few times that Jason let himself vent and he enjoyed it rather well.

The five friends had their meager belongings with them as they stood at the umbilical gantry for Sigma Three-Nine. Their first sight of the Forlorn Hope was some rather pitted nose art of a group of soldiers in green uniforms on a slight rise raising a red and white striped flag with white stars on a field of blue; when it was first applied the nose art must have been very striking, and was still to a degree but the pitting lent an air of quiet desperation to the soldiers’ efforts.

“Oy, it’s so dirty,” Aehgr said.

“Are you sure this is the vessel we really want to get on,” Jason asked Joe and Jon.

The two of them shrugged back at Jason, “We’ve already quit our jobs,” Joe said and Jon nodded agreement.

“You never know this might be the opportunity of a life time,” Ernie said cheerfully.

Jason, Joe, and Jon just glared at the chipper comment while Aehgr complained in the back ground as the rest of the dark gray hull slid into the docking port. Although pitted by radiation and micro meteorites that the magnetic shields couldn’t blunt the vessel seemed to exude a sort of jaunty menace as they took in the single broadside gundeck, armored ports covered what they assumed were particle beam emplacements and missile tubes they could also see the hexagonal shape of missile pods racked along the edges of the deck hull, now whether or not those pods were full was a question for another day.

The Frigate slid to a halt in the docking port the umbilical gantry extending out to the main personnel hatch on its side and clanging into place as both magnetic seals and grasping battle steel fingers locked into place on stanchions located in the side of the hull.

The personnel door slid open with a pop-hiss and a body went flying out the door landing on the other side of the group of friends followed by another figure that came rolling down the slightly inclined umbilical gantry.

Looking closely Jon noticed that both figures now lying groaning before and behind the group of friends was shackled hand and foot.

The next thing that greeted the friends’ eyes was a large man; he probably stood about 6’ 3” tall and weighed close to 300lbs the stub of a cigar clenched in one corner of his mouth. He was wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt, cargo pants, and combat boots, and a baseball cap with a Masters Armaments logo on it sat on his head.

Looking at the man’s face Jason and Aehgr took a step back; Jon and Joe wanted to as well but they didn’t want to show how easily frightened they were by the rather menacing looking man.

Ernie bent over and poked the shackled individual in front of them, “Hey you okay, hey, hey, everything alright,” each word was punctuated by another poke.

The answer to Ernie’s question was a quiet groan and a muttered, “quit poking me.”

Saying that the man’s face was a thundercloud was an understatement, it would be like saying Zeus could only power AA batteries with his lightning bolts. No the man’s eyes were filled with combers of anger and disgust as he stalked down gantry umbilical and grabbed the shackled person lying at the group’s feet by the scruff of his neck.

“Made some new friends Sawtree,” the man growled in a voice that would probably sound pleasant most of the time but was currently filled with menace and disgust.

The man whose name was apparently Sawtree whimpered at the strength of the grip on the back of his neck not saying a word.

“I tell you what Sawtree you and Baron will make plenty of new friends in a Theban Cluster Prison, and I’m sure there is some big dude named Bubba just waiting for a pair of skinny assed bastards like yourselves to break in.”

The large man turned to the group of friends, “You guys must be the new crew, and I’ll be with you in just a second.” Still carrying the man by the back of his neck he then grabbed the other man by the chain of his arm shackles and started dragging him towards the Galactic Patrol Security checkpoint at the other end of the concourse.

The friends watch with interest as the large man dumped the two prisoners at the feet of a couple of GP officers and data was exchanged via E-PADD. The large man quickly returned after that, “Just one more second guys I’ve got something else to take care of first.” The man walked back up the gantry and soon returned with two battle steel probe casings’ bobbing on counter gravity collars, one of the probes was draped with the flag of the Theban Cluster and the other with the flag of the Claremont Confederacy. The anger had left the man’s face and now was just filled with grim determination and a touch of sadness as he led the procession down the gantry then back down the concourse. He was met halfway down the concourse by two squads of military personnel, one squad was in the mess dress of Theban Cluster Fleet Marines and the other in dress uniforms of the Confederacy Navy. The two groups saluted, the man returning the salutes crisply and handed the controls of the probe casings over to the squad leaders and then saluted the casings turning an about face he walked quickly back to the group.

Behind him the two squads of military personnel surrounded the casings, as they were led away at a stately pace. The squads were arranged with one man at the front, one man at the back and three on each side with rifles held at port arms, shortly after they started moving the man at the back of the Cluster Flag draped casing pulled out a bugle and started playing taps, this was soon followed by the crisp snap and tap of a drum being used by the man behind the probe draped with the Confederacy flag as it too played out the lonely sound of Taps.

As the procession moved slowly down the concourse people paused in what they were doing to stare and several people, obviously ex-military, saluted the squads as they passed.

The large man finally turned to the friends, “I’m Barr Robards, owner of the Forlorn Hope,” he said sticking out a hand and shaking each of theirs except for Aehgr who declined.

“Jason Alexander.”

“Jon Jonson.”

“Joe Hiker.”

“Ernie McClain.”

“Aehgr Weinberg, you’re ship sure is dirty.”

Barr paused looking at the short man for a second with a puzzled look and Jason kicked Aehgr in the shin.

“Ow I’m sorry, well it’s really not that dirty,” Aehgr amended.

“Okay,” Barr said drawing the word out. “So you’re my new crew then?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes, Sir,” Jason answered.

“No need for any Sir,” Barr said grinning; the smile actually reaching his eyes and lightening his features. “I was only an NCO in the marines,” he told them.

The group visibly relaxed at the grin.

“Why don’t you come aboard and we’ll get you guys squared away then we’ll figure out duty assignments,” Barr said motioning to the ship and walking up the umbilical gantry to the personnel door.

Barr waved to the crew quarters as they went down the corridor, “Pick whichever room you want, I use the captain’s quarters near the bridge so the other 10 cabins are free for use.” Picking their rooms the others dropped off their gear and continued to follow Barr as he gave them a tour of the ship.

“Alright now for duty assignments,” Barr said as he led them into the small mess/galley just aft of the bridge. “Jason I know you are an ex-pilot so that is your job, Aehgr you are in charge of the kitchen, Ernie Comms, Joe Engineering and Sensors, and Jon weapons and tactical; any questions?”

“What does odd cargo jobs mean exactly?” Jason asked.

“We hall high value low bulk cargo for specific clients rather than do continuous runs for repeat customers,” Barr answered. “For example our first job is to deliver five crates of high end equipment to a group of Chupacabra Insurgents on New Bolivia,” Barr told them.

“Chupacabra Insurgents, what would they be fighting against lack of hygiene?” Joe said incredulously.

“I didn’t think Chupas were smart enough to read, let alone use weapons or organize an Insurgency,” Jon said.

“Well see about four millennia or so ago Cuba launched a long range scouting mission ship that later disappeared into an unstable wormhole crash landing on what would become New Bolivia. The Chupas being the annoyingly curious things that they are got into the ship and found a picture of Fidel Castro and a bunch of old Thompson subguns that the ship had been carrying for some reason as well as some Cuban uniforms and manuals they taught themselves to read. After the New Bolivia colony was started there about 1,000 years ago they laid low for awhile but once the colonists started encroaching on their territory they started getting all pissy.”

“And we are supplying them with arms, because?” Jon asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I didn’t say arms, I said equipment,” Barr reiterated.

“What kind of equipment,” Jason asked.

“Well you see for some reason Chupas love red berets…” Barr started to say.

“Oh my god this kitchen is so dirty, this has to be cleaned immediately, and this liquor cabinet, it’s so dusty I’m sure the dust has leaked into the bottles and if we open them it’ll be nothing but dirty nasty dusty whiskey, and…” Aehgr trailed off noting the glares from the rest of the people in the mess hall.

“As I was saying,” Barr restarted. “Chupas love red berets; they also need stuff such as rations, canteens, pup tents, field equipment, shovels, that sort of thing.” Barr cupped a hand over his cigar stub and struck a Zippo he pulled from his pocket puffing on it till he was satisfied.

“You know that stuff causes cancer, you really shouldn’t do that, not just for yourself but for other people’s sakes,” Aehgr said.

“I’ll take it under advisement,” Barr said already taking the whining in stride.

“So what exactly are we supposed to do during these jobs?” Joe asked.

“What I tell you to do and keep your mouth mostly shut,” Barr growled.

“I have a question?” Ernie said raising his hand.

“Yes,” Barr said looking at him.

“Do you always wear Hawaiian shirts, because they are just so cheerful looking,” Ernie said.

Barr just stared at Ernie like he had two heads, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph what kind of crew have I hired, he thought to himself. Barr didn’t answer Ernie’s question however and started talking again, “We’ll be leaving dock in about fifteen hours so get yourselves squared away and meet me on the bridge.

Nods of agreement circled the table, “Oh another thing is everyone armed?’

“Yeah we all have at least pistols,” Jason said and laid a Masters Armaments H96 particle beam pistol on the table; Jon pulled open his jacket to show the butt of an aged and battered Glock 43 .40S&W, Ernie laid out a pair of Desert Eagles; thankfully not chrome or gold plated surprisingly; Joe revealed a small tactical sling under his jacket holding an MP5KA62 submachine gun and then everyone turned to Aehgr.

“Well, do you have a gun, Aehgr?” Jason prompted.

“Well yeah, but just remember it was the cleanest gun in the store and I got a pretty good deal, it also came with a silencer so it doesn’t give me a headache when I fire it,” Aehgr laid out a rather interesting looking pistol.

Barr clamped down on the butt of his cigar and nearly clipped it off, Jon Sniggered, Jason just stared dumbfounded, Joe fell off his chair with laughter saying something about it sounding like it was saying “FAG!” when it fired without the silencer and “gay” with it; and Ernie said “Oooh, pretty.”

“What…, what the fuck is that,” Barr said pointing at the gun which had a black frame, a lavender slide, and gold plated trigger and hammer.

“Well, It’s a…,” Aehgr pulled a plastic covered notebook with laminated sheets out of another of his numerous pockets, “a replica of a Detonics Royal Escort .45 ACP.”

“No wonder you got such a good deal on it,” Jason said with a strangled voice.

“Yeah well like I said it was the cleanest gun in the shop,” Aehgr said defensively.

“Uh, well why not get settled in your cabins and meet me on the bridge in say twelve hours then,” Barr said and got up from the table.

Jon wasn’t quite sure but he thought he heard him snorting as he headed through the mess hall door.

While most of the others just unpacked their clothes and put their gear away and doing as much re-arranging as they could in the small cabins they then bunked down for about six hours of sleep or relaxation. Aehgr spent the entire twelve hours spreading plastic sheets over the entire interior of his cabin, of course first he had to disinfect it all first.

When the twelve hours were up the group met back on the bridge and they ran over the pre-flight checklist and Jason settled into the pilot’s crash chair, the others at whatever console suited their fancy and converted the hard holography panels to whatever they had been assigned on the bridge.

Aehgr spent a few minutes wiping down his entire chair and console with disinfectant rags and then finally sat down.

The last three hours before their scheduled undocking went quickly enough and soon enough AstroNav was contacting them to give them their docking clearance and out system vectors.

“Forlorn Hope,” this is AstroNav, you are cleared for departure, please maintain a course vector of 35-48-72 until outside the 100,000 range mark,” a female AstroNav controller ordered.

“Roger that AstroNav my vector is 35-48-72, and stay on heading until outside the 100k klick mark,” Jason replied.

The trip to Neo-Bolivia would take close to a month through hyperspace, of course if the system had been able to afford a worm hole gate it would have only taken two days, but the time gave the new crew a chance to shake down.