Gone.

I awoke to acrid smoke stinging my nostrils. I was half deaf and could barely hear the klaxons warning anyone left aboard the Keldana that it was time to leave her. I squinted through one remaining eye, searching for signs of life. I gagged on blood. I closed my eye and tried to remember.

"We've hit some kind of gravity well generator. The engines can't compensate!"
Thaeophyan Longlan's voice was shrill. The wormhole was so close but we were not going to make it. I turned to Luna, "How long?"
"A minute at the most far-cousin." she hissed through gritted teeth.
As we spoke a shadow descended over the bridge. Something big was between us and Daaze Primary.
"Contact! Right on top of us. Signature reads as a Doomstar. Five Viral Glands coming in hot." The fear was evident in Holdorn's voice. He was barely eighteen cycles. Barely been out of upper-Sirion orbit before I picked him up.
"Do we have maneuvering thrusters Thaeophyan?" I asked cautiously.
"Yes clutch-brother." he replied.
"Bring our guns to bear."
The Keldana's shields withstood the first pass. The Ebidium held until the fourth pass. A shot lanced through the bridge exposing us to vacuum. From the command chair I could see Thaeophyan gripping his control station. His hands gave way and the sound of his voice was inaudible against the howl of mother-galaxy. With a hiss the containment fields snapped into place. The sounds of combat became audible again. The shadow decended upon us one last time.

An explosion.

And here I was. Half-blind, half-deaf and bleeding to death internally. My one good eye found Holdorn slumped over his station. He had shrapnel injuries all over his back. I dragged myself across the deck to him. He was dead. Massive trauma to the head and torso. I sighed and looked up toward the ceiling. To my suprise all I saw was stars. Most of the bridge was gone. There must have been a containment field running on the emergency power systems. I pulled myself up to Holdorn's station. From his screen I could see that the Keldana was adrift.
A countless number of miles from anywhere. The matter anti-matter containment field was at critical.

My eye found the deck, and the green pulsing light that glowed through the smoke, leading me to the Keldana's escape pod. I began to drag myself there. Maybe Luna was already there. I didn't see her anywhere. I got to the escape hatch and I found her. Curled into a ball with her tail hiding her face. There was a centimeter of blood on the deck of the escape pod. I crawled to her and touched her head. She coughed and spoke softly so I could barely hear her.
"Dex? Dex. I'm sorry. I should have seen it on the sensors. I've failed you."
"Stop it Luna. You've done well for me these past months. Not just me. You might have saved our entire species."
"Dex... your face..."
"It's not important. We need to get you stable so we can launch this escape pod."
"Don't worry about me Dex..."
She was gone. I pushed up off the deck from her side. My claws were slick with her blood. I crawled out of the escape pod and sealed it shut behind me. I pounded the launch button with a closed fist. She was gone. I forced myself to my feet and walked to my command chair. As I sat down I keyed a few commands into the data center. I sighed at the pain of the interface lancing into the port at the base of my skull.

Backup complete. Transmitting....

The interface let go. I began to wonder what was taking the anti-matter so long to breach.

The Rashkiri medical technician in the Cloning Facility on Phao looked at me quizically and I got dressed and prepared to leave in my new self. He looked back down at his clip board and spoke, "Our records indicate that your ship was equipped with an escape pod. Escape pod technology is nearly 100% successful."
I looked at him through two good eyes. Then I looked away. "Is my new ship ready?"

And I was gone.

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