Imperial Intelligence Report

Report Filed By High Inspector [redacted-unavailable]

EMPEROR'S EYES ONLY

As was suspected, our agents uncovered that the Federation had indeed continued their work in biological weapons research even after the defeats our warships handed them in the Federation Contingent. However what we did not realize was the extent to which this research had progressed. The Federation scientists operating out of bases hidden deep within the Split cluster have isolated the original Pardus virus and have nanomolecularized it. In the first great war the Pardus virus moved through any medium and it killed anyone it infected. This incarnation is targeted.

Apparently attempts to make the weapon Ska'ari specific failed. The virus still killed hosts from the other three sentient species in the galaxy, making the weapon too dangerous for use. However, our spies have informed us that the Federal scientists were successful in keying the virus in on Keldon DNA. They intend to spread the virus covertly through the droid market. Nanites inside the droids would infect surrounding technology and then the virus would jump from every day machines into Keldon victims.

Computer models show a mortality rate of 85% with casualties in the billions. If infected droids were installed in a military outpost in any Pass sector in the galaxy every ship passing through would become a vector. Half the Keldon population of the Empire would be dead in a week if infected droids were installed in Empire space. From there Keldons across the galaxy would begin to get infected and near-extinction would follow within a year.

It is surmised that the research facilites are being converted into Droid Assembly Complexes at the time of this reports filing. Our agents believe the bulk of the production is being done in western Split and the southern part of the Old Human Core.

Report Ends

Things we must face.

I had given the droid to a young Keldon whose clutch had fled Urlafa at the end of the Insurrection. Osanj was of Lazebe and as such had a way with codes and numbers. He was also loyal to the resistance as his clutch-brothers had seen first hand the horrors of the Ska'ari occupation of Urlafa. He was someone with the talent to unlock the secrets of the droid modules. He was someone I could trust.

Which is why I was suprised when he contacted me, after months of silence, by a one-way burst subspace transmission.

The initial decoding process took a half hour and revealed only one word. Urgent.

It took Holdorn, one of the deck officers and most computer savy of my crew the better part of the next day to decode the rest. He rushed into my cabin with barely a knock. His scales a ghostly shade I have not seen a Keldon take in years.

"Clutch-Brother," he started, "You must see this at once."
"What is it Holdorn?"
"Death commander, death."

Lies we tell ourselves.

Space was at a premium with Luna flying in the co-pilots seat of the Battle of Baham. We were only going to be making a short trip from the Reaper Academy. Luna's voice hummed in my auditory canals, "There is an ancient Keldon who lives on the Union starbase one sector over. Uchi no Neko is what it is called."

I was a bit annoyed to be given directions to by a female barely out of her clutch who had never brushed her tail on ground outside Ska'ari dominated space. I bit my tongue and set the coordinates into the navi-computer.
"What is this ancient going to do for us?"
"He can show us what is on this droid." I could hear her claws tap the top of the small metallic sphere that sat on her lap.
"The far-cousins who gave it to you didn't tell you anything?"
"What I don't know can't be tortured out of me."
I realized then that she and I came from worlds light-years apart. Literally and figuratively.

I landed the Baham in the small craft hanger on Uchi no Neko. I looked at Luna, "One of my clutch-brothers, named Gunnar, commanded this base for a time. I wonder if he knows your ancient?" Luna's eyes narrowed.
"I doubt this Keldon would have presented himself to this bases commander as anything but a common cyber-cipher." she said.

We came to the largest common area on the habitat ring adjoining our hanger bay. After asking a few questions and passing along a few credits we discovered the whereabouts of the ancient. The cheapest habitat ring, nearest to the fusion reactors that powered the station is where he kept his quarters. Much to my dismay there was only one working turbolift that went down that far.

"There is only one way out of there," I muttered to Luna, "I don't like it."
She responded quickly, "There is only one true way anywhere." and she walked towards the turbolift.

I quickly discovered that in the neutral zone maintenance crews don't work on the lowest levels of even the biggest starbases. I had to turn on a handlight as we navigated the corridors. We came to the door that supposedly hid our ancient. I keyed the door bell. There was no answer.

Luna sounded tense when she said, "Force it open."

I wondered if she was just bothered by the poor atmosphere here in the under decks as I jammed my multi-knife into the door control keypad and turned the lock. The door whooshed open and my nostrils were filled with the acrid smell of smoked mixed with the metallic smell of blood. With my right hand I swept Luna behind me and I fished my blaster pistol out with my left. Holding the weapon out in front of me I stepped in to the dark room. The bulkheads were smashed in as if a Gornz had thrown a tantrum in the quarters. A stack of datacards burned on the floor in the middle of the room.

Luna saw him before I did.
"Uncle Jarshee!" She ran out from behind me before I could stop her.
"You know him?" I half-shouted as I rushed to the old Keldon's side. His legs were broken and my stomach turned when I saw that his tail had been cut off three quarters of the way down. Luna was covered in the ancient's blood.
"Jarshee who did this to you?" Luna cried.
The old lizard coughed blood. "Lies." he said.
"Who lied?" I asked.
Jarshee's eyes widened as they locked with mine.
"Dex of Sirion?" he retched.
"You know me?"
"You... you must protect my niece... and you must tell them."
My jaw was a bit slack as I fought off a wave of nausea at the sight of all the blood.
"Tell them what?" I managed to stammer.

"The Don is a lie."

Luna

My contacts in the old cluster have grown deathly quiet since the end of the war. During my darkest nights I dream that my faceless old friends in the resistance are dead. Negative thinking never got me anywhere so I always try to shake them off. After the days travels throughout the Contingent I always go back to scanning the old channels. Hoping for a certain kind of static that belies a message of hope, or a cry for help. One night-cycle I had just about finished scanning for the day and was reaching to power the Battle of Baham's receivers down when I heard the static I was looking for. It was just a dull hiss but to my trained ears it was like a clutch-mother singing to a new group of hatchlings. I locked onto the signal and the Baham's specially programmed computer turned vague lines of archaic code into a message.

3Last Message. 8Package for you. 6Z University. 3Two Cycles.

The message itself was laughably coded, but it didn't need to be indecipherable as nobody would even think to be looking on such an anchient band of transmission anyway.

HW 3-863. The Soul Reaper's Academy.


The trip to HW didn't take two cycles so I had a fair amount of time to kill. I got to know a few over priced robots and tried to blend in amongst the vagrants that frequented the Soul Reaper Academy's public areas. One evening after a particularly harsh bout with a Z-16 fighter I was sitting in a dimly lit pub enjoying some Rotanevi liquor with no flavor and I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I looked over my shoulder and found myself tail deep in the biggest darkest female eyes I had ever seen in my life. She was smaller than a typical Keldon female and she had red marks on her scales not dissimilar to my own.

"I am Luna Fuwuyothi formerly of Urlafa but now a refugee with no home. My friends and family have all perished so I could live and bring you this."

She held out her hand and showed me a small droid module.

"You had gods damned better be worth it."

Shadow

I was searching for a distraction after the disappointment I had found in Federal Space. The news about my adopted home, the East Pardus Rim was bad. Pollution had fouled the space lanes there and I wanted no part of it. So I made a course for the Y-hole in Caroli and picked out NEX 003. You never get used to the experience of a trip through the Y-hole. You can feel the world behind you cease to exist and then in the lifetime of a second if you open your mind to can feel the very fabric of the Galaxy. Just when it feels like she is going to rip the soul right out of you the world come back. The disorientation is palpable. Trust the navicomputer I told myself.

I allowed myself a few seconds to recover but no more. I had to move swiftly because no sentient would be excluding me from their ambushes here. I had come to the South Pardus Rim. There were no friends here and NEX 003 is close enough to the Ska'ari core that you can smell it in the recycled air of your ship. I docked at a nearby imperial starbase for the morning. I tried to blend in with the other Keldons who worked and lived there but the Galaxy always sees through you and I don't think it paranoid of me to believe they all knew what I was.

A few hours later I embarked Galactic eastward. Feeling better as each sector passed me by. I could feel the Sister-grandmothers calling through the stars. I haven't been this close in a long time. These warm feelings died a quick death after I entered the Exbeur sector. I had my ships sensors and attitudinal thrusters on their highest defensive settings so I detected the thing early.

A Shadow.

The Shadow is proof that the Galaxy has evil interwoven into her fabric. No one has been able to analyze the shadows weaponry. I believe this is because because traditional measurements for energy weapons involve the frequency of light. Fear is the shadows weapon. Like the Galaxy the shadow can see right through you. It takes your fear and makes it tactile. It rakes your soul as it bashes your armor.

For a moment I was back in the Y-Hole. I could see all the love and light in the galaxy slowly being drawn into the shadow. The event horizon of everything that is evil lay just before me. I stifled a wave of panic. Panic is how the shadow feeds. It tricks it's victims into reacting to their fear, their own indecision kills them.

I said a quick prayer,taught to me by the Keldon wraith hunters on Cebalrai, for agility and steered the Baham toward the Shadow. Every cell in my body rebelled against the action but i gritted my molars and power the engines forward. The battle was long and intense. Several times I had to break away from combat and steer towards the planet. I bought overpriced robots from a seedy dealer on what had to be the worst neighbor hood on Exbeur.

I plunged back into the void on one last strafeing run. Fear glanced off Ebidium and magnetic defractor fire rended liquid hate. When the Shadow was defeated there was no explosion. However the imput of data caused by the Shadow's sudden disappearance overloaded the Baham's main sensor batteries.

I had to land the Baham by sight and claw power at the skyport on Exbeur. After I exited the cockpit I looked up at where I had come from. The night sky seemed brighter.

Olympic Crackdown

As the Olympics begin in imperial space the emperor's secret police are cracking down on dissident Keldon movements who might wish to use the spotlight of the event to gain exposure to the plight of two-thirds of the Keldon race. A promising young sonic-ring catcher named Meslet Carmfi'e'ler from Quator disappeared from the Olympic village this week after he announced that he would participate in his event wearing not the traditional imperial Red and Black uniform donned by Imperial atheletes, but instead would be wearing the two-toned blue colors associated with the Free Keldana movement. Sonic-Ring pundits agree that Carmfi'e'ler was a dark horse to win the gold medal in the event.

Union atheletes are being kept quarentined in their section of the Olympic village when not participating in athletic events for their "protection." We are sure they are not being kept separated from the local populaces because the imperial subjects might be exposed to a new-free idea or two.

The emperor is so terrified of his own subjects that he keeps them in the dark even during this event that promotes peace and the exchange of ideas and cultures. We hope that Union officials do not let the good feeling of these games go to their heads and keep a clear eye to the threat the empire poses, to the Union and to two-thirds of the Keldon species under Imperial control.


-----------------------------------------END TRANSMISSION

Three Months

It has been three months since I sent my crew home to their clutches. I could no longer bear the burden of their safety on my conscious. I had to send too many of their brothers and sisters home to their clutch-mothers, in boxes; if I had anything of them to send at all. I became responsible only to myself.

The view of the Galaxy from the cockpit of a Hawk-fighter is much different than that from the command chair of a massive Behemoth or even a Gargantua or Chitin. The Galaxy becomes very personal. The only thing that separates me from our common-mother is ten centimeters of Ebidium. It is humbling.

I have spent three months continuing my studies from the Refuge that is no more. Instead of trapping the beasts behind the walls of the Refuge I have gone to seek them in the great galactic wild. I have run dissipation tests on countless numbers of Electro-magnetic fauna. I have pushed myself and my ship to the very limits against the mighty Euryales of the Union Contingent. I have worked diligently to clear the space lanes of Nhandu and Cor Caroli of X-993 Battlecruisers. It is shocking how much destroying them feels like shooting down another pilot.

I have passed silently by old friends in the night, my antennas no longer configured to receive their common frequencies. It has been three months since I left them as well. Our paths are not quite parallel.

My failures haunt me. Failures as a Commander, as a freedom fighter, and as a sapient being.

The galaxy sees straight through ten centers of Ebidium. The greatest Union Armorer can create nothing to stop her gaze. It is comforting to know that she sees me.

Comfort is a valuable commodity, alone in the void.

Focus

Brothers and sisters,

It has been a long time since we have smuggled word to you. Too long. For that we apologize. There has not been important enough news to risk the authorities tracing this subspace line to your clutches.

But we could lay silent no longer. Once again the Emperor is turning his bloodshot eyes away from the Sister-grandmothers. The collective military might of the Ska'ari and the collaborators will be refocused to the galactic west.

Now is the time, Far-cousins, for you to return to the underground. Remove yourselves again from your every day lives. Kiss your clutchlings good bye and whisper to them the dream of a new tomorrow. Renew your contacts with the other liberated in your communities. But also renew your caution. Since the last uprising the Emperors intelligence services have worked hard to infiltrate the species-traitors into your organizations.

The war drums may already be sounding in Keldon and the surrounding sectors. Use the shuffling of forces to your advantage.

Be strong. Be swift. Be deadly.

A mirror shines darkly at daybreak.
A mirror shines darkly at daybreak.

No watch equals more time.
No watch equals more time.
-----------------------------------END TRANSMISSION

The Council of Fears

Yesterday the Galactic Council, in all it's glory, deemed it necessary to instruct starship technicians everywhere to no longer repair certain pieces of equipment it has deemed "sensitive."

Who is the Galactic Council exactly? And why have they decided they should act in such a way that is so contrary to the Factional security of the Union? The Cloaking Device and the Strong Electronic Countermeasure are staples in the arsenal of the Union Fleet. Now more than ever with the uncovering of the existence of a shadow faction who's roots lay deep within the soil of our society the Union needs to be free to use whatever means deemed necessary by the Inner Assembly to defend our space.

I fear Clutch-Brothers and Far-Cousins that the Galactic Council has become to heavily involved with the inner circles of the Empire. Who else has such first hand knowledge of the damage a massing of our cloaked warships can inflict? Who else but the oppressors of Keldana, the Ska'ari, have so much to gain from this legislative hobbling of our war potential? Who else still has graveyards full of hulls blasted by Fleet missiles guided by ECCMs?

Why not simply forbid the construction of these vital devices all together? Because, cowardly as they may be, the Ska'ari are smart. They know that this is what they can get away with. Today the Galactic council forbids the repairing of "sensitive" equipment and we may grumble. A year from now they will dupe us into abandoning them all together and as things go we may grumble some more.

A year after that and the Ska'ari may well have conquered their way into our homes without ever firing a shot.

So, my clutch-brothers and far-cousins in the Union, I encourage you, nay, I implore you to ignore the Galactic Councils edict that our vital equipment should no longer be repaired at our own Starbases. It is not the place of some government to tell you who and what you can and can't do business with.

The Galactic Council is a relic from a dark time that has grown corrupt under the influence of the oppressors of the sister-grandmothers.

The Union is the Future.

The Union is Strength.

Thank you.

Letter Home

Dearest Clutch-Mothers:

I am sorry that I have not written you in so long. I hope the weather of the Low Country greets you as well as the weather of Zaniah greets me. During the war I was too busy to write. I became consumed with freeing our far-cousins. After the war I was laid low. My faith in the cause had been shaken. I did not feel worthy to have communication with you.

Now I am back at the world where my faith was tested. I feel like I must speak my soul to you.

It was the last days of my participation in the war with the Empire as commander of one of the Don's missile destroyers. The Zaniah sector was the only remaining Union outpost in the East Pardus Rim and we suspected an assault was imminent. From orbit my sensor officer Neelae, who i believe is the first-daughter to clutch mother Everose, alerted me to Imperial signatures coming from the surface. It was a Shadow Stealth Craft. Agreements with the local government prohibited me from ordering fire while the Imperial ship was still in orbit over Zaniah so gave the order to wait. As soon as the Shadow left orbit we pounced.

My gunners and navigators gave the Imperial a hellish chase all the way to the wormhole to Reaperspace. Unfortunately- or fortunately I do not know. The Shadow's small size prevented us from delivering the killer shot. Now at the worm hole I again ordered my crew to wait for the Shadow to move. Instead of evasive maneuvers we received a signal.

"Put it through." I ordered.

On the screen before me was a Keldon girl. Young, beautiful, and innocent.

"Why was my ship almost destroyed.... by your guns?"

I was perplexed. Her alliance flag did not register as neutral in the database. It was all I could to to keep my jaw from gaping. Somehow I managed to keep my military composure.

"There is a war on. Or have you been under a rock the past two months?"

Apparently she had been. She explained that she had been on Zaniah visiting family for some time. She knew nothing of the war with the Union. After hearing this I instructed her to keep flying south for the PASS EMP military outposts and she would have no further quarrel from me. She thanked me, the screen blinked off, and she was gone.

I gave command of the bridge to Martex, who is first-son to clutch-mother Marlease if I am not mistaken, and retired to my quarters. I was crushed. I had almost ordered the murder of an innocent child. One of the very beings I was trying to save. I began to think back to my past actions. The Sirion had destroyed two Constrictor-class heavy freighters. How many Keldons had been aboard them?

Who was the bigger criminal? The Emperor for lying to Keldons their entire lives or me for murdering them for being lied to? A few days later I resigned the Sirion's commission as a warship and moved what remained of the crew to this Behemoth we are flying now.

As you know the Union did not win the war. We did not liberate the sister grandmothers like I told you we would. My faith in the methods was shaken that day in the Zaniah sector. But not my faith in the goal. I am not yet convinced that unification can be brought without bloodshed.
Until bloodshed is wrought again I hope to further the cause through peaceful communication.

I may not return home again for some time. I will try to keep your sons and daughters safe.

Give my love to the youngest of my clutch-brothers and sisters.

-Dex

This Pilot

This pilot sits in the command chair of a cavern. This pilot looks at lines and lines of inventory. At patches of green and red. This pilot sighs as his tail brushes the cold deck beneath. This pilot looks at his crew. The core of this pilot's crew have been with him since he took command of one of the Union's red missile boats. They were young then. Their eyes were wide as they looked to the stars for the first time unfiltered by the atmosphere of the New-Homeworld. This pilot hand picked his crew from the lower families of his clan. They serve this pilot well. They represent the low-country well.

Their clutch mothers would be proud.

This pilot is saddened at the thought of the clutch-mothers. The war took some of this pilot's brave low-countrylizards. The Sirion was a mighty ship but the Empire broke her three times. Ten mourning clutch-mothers.

This pilot looks at more lines of inventory; Robots bound for Sargas and Drugs for the Sector.

This pilot looks at a navigation screen showing him a galaxy passing him by.

This pilot sighs. He is a warrior without a war.

Final Message to the Resistance

Brothers and Sisters,

We have not forgotten you. The galaxy is in flux. Keep close to your hearts the message of hope. Someday you will tell your grandchildren stories of an empire past.


This will be the final message to you for some time.


--------------------------------------------END TRANSMISSION