The Tiacken Tribune

Two for Tango (EvilPenguin)

The time had come… the stars were heralding a great event

The stars were in exactly the right position. The space weasel was in alignment with the Blackheart. All suns in all clusters of Pardus were glowing with an unusual bright light. The native population of Sargas could feel it in the air. The time was right, the location was perfect. The thousands of pilots that had died here before would be the perfect sacrifice to the great ancients. And so, a Marquis and a former Admiral of the Federation went out to perform the ritual of Krsz’aich that would bring peace, happiness and, of course, broccoli to the whole of Pardus.

Hence, the IGF K.I.T.T headed out to the northern part of the Sargas sector. The ritual would take place right next to the cursed location of the former of his brother in arms, GhorahKhan. Still, today peace might be restored to Pardus and he couldn’t let this distract him.

Blade Star was already waiting, ready to perform his part of the ritual. Both ships were ready – on Blade Star’s ships, the priests of the Humans and the Rashkir were preparing their part, while on the K.I.T.T the final preparations were being done by their Ska’ari and Keldon counterparts were doing there job.

The first phase of the ritual began, symbolizing the origin and end of all things. It involved the symbolic spilling of blood – Evilpenguin attacked the Doomstar, just often enough to make sure that the ritual would be satisfied. Everything was in order so far, the ritual side was beginning to awaken

The next phase began, symbolizing the wealth that would come to the people of Pardus. Evilpenguin and Blade Star exchanged a token credit. The light of the Sargas Sun started to shine even brighter.

Now, the crucial part would begin. The two ships had to spin in their respective gravitational fields to create a subspace-anomaly large enough for the final phase of the ritual to begin. And so, the casual observer would now see what might be mistaken for the human dance called “Tango”… the Liberator and the Doomstar, lost in time and space, were spinning around their respective axes, reaching higher and higher speeds. The anomaly started to form, soon Krsz’aich would be finished, bringing peace, happiness and, of course, broccoli to Pardus.

Yet, now you find yourself likely asking why your ship lacks broccoli, peace and happiness? Well… the blame can be easily placed in this case. Several overambitious Red Cell pilots were ignorant of the cosmic scale of the events taking place in Sargas today and were now homing in for a seemingly easy kill. They managed to sufficiently damage the K.I.T.T so that it could no longer keep up its part of the ritual. Evilpenguin had to fall back to the planet, the ritual had failed…

The Ballad of Walkingrazor (WalkingRazor)
Chapter 4 – Arrival Amongst the Throng

When I was awoken sometime later by the gently pulsing revive lights that brought escape pod travelers back to consciousness, I was in a bad way. Whatever crazy joys this Adrenalderm stuff had, it sure wasn’t very people friendly on the down-side. My mouth was dryer than the famed deserts of Thabit, my eyes were bleary, and my muscles felt like nutri-jell. I ached from the inside out.

And this was after the basic medical facilities in the e-pod had been working on me for who knew how long… I groaned and the movement told me I’d been hit by a Behemoth at re-entry speed. Despite the pain, I moved my body slightly in the G-restraints and leaned down. Pulling the derms off of my leg, I tossed two into the waste hatch and hit in the incinerator button. A faint glow from the tell-tale flashed as the derms burned up. I examined the remaining derm.

In small red letters, the legend on the patch read “Blade City Pharmacon/SRD 120/Adrenalderm.” I sighed. That explained a lot. In the Sergeants hurry during the attack, he’d taken me to the combat squad med lab. Being a Federation blockade ship, the combat squads were all Rashkirs and the Sergeant had dosed me with enough Adrenalderm for three soldiers of his size. SRD was the medical abbreviation for Standard Rashkirian Dose. I guessed that the max human dose was about a quarter of that. “I’m lucky the old heart didn’t give up on me,” I thought and prayed my luck held. I tossed the remaining derm into the incinerator and hit the button again.

Even though I was now hurtling toward an unknown landing point (the pod needed an access code to access the navigational computer for destination information, which I didn’t have), it felt good to relax. Paradoxically, the restraints and cramped space of the e-pod offered me a greater sense of freedom than the last hours that I’d spent in the charge of the conflicting alliances. Despite it’s protests, I ordered my brain to consider the situation. Slowly it crawled out of the ICU and got to work.

The Federation side of the coin seemed very simple to me. It seemed quite reasonable that I was caught in a drag-net and subjected to intense interest because of my status as a prisoner. I had only undergone routine questioning until we had been interrupted. It was fortunate that the Federation Intelligence forces relied on technology for their interrogation techniques. If the same encounter had been reversed and I’d been caught by the Empire, I would have a very large and vicious amoeba co-existing with my brain right now, broadcasting my thoughts to a remote receiver. And that’s just a warm up.

The Empire side was still puzzling. Was it a case of mistaken identity? Was it related to my origins in some way? I had all questions and zero answers. I had a very good idea that I wasn’t headed for an Empire home-world in a Federation e-pod, so I hoped that I’d have some time to figure things out. To make things even less clear, the Federation attack had occurred before I had a chance to interact with the crew, so I couldn’t be sure their intentions were hostile, despite the roughing up they gave me.

Then there was that business with the language, too… I had met only 5 Keldonians in my life, all of which had grown up on Usube, considered it their home, and spoke our planetary language. So that left me with 3 random pieces to a 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle of the Oort Cloud. Try to make a picture out of that. In any case now was not the moment of heroism and triumph for my aching head, so I let it all lay.

A charming female voice issued from the acoustic focusing beams set in the sides of the E-pod: “Please prepare for Sol pod recovery in 5 minutes. Guidance system locked on to pod recovery net. Trajectory cleared with planetary control and clearance for landing granted. Welcome home, soldier.”

As the pod reoriented itself for final descent, the viewing port was filled with tiny specks of light. At first I thought this was the effect of space flux in the Sol core, but after I moment I realized that I was surrounded by hundreds of other escape pods, all converging on the huge funnel of nano-fiber netting that served as a catch-all for pilots that had punched. The gentle curves of a cornucopia guided the pods and slowed their descent as they were funneled into the long slender docking tube.

As the pods converged, the retro-rockets fired on each in succession, merging the shrinking line and putting space between each successive pod. “Had war broken out between the Federation and the Empire?,” I thought to myself. Whatever the reason, there had obviously been a great disaster of some sort in Federation territory. Hope began to return to me like a long-lost prodigal son.

The voice spoke again as the nano-fiber mesh began to pass the window, glimmering in the light reflected by the moon: “Docking in t-minus 30 seconds. Final reorientation sequence begins now.” The retro-rockets fired again and the pod slowed as it came in contact with the final approach tube. Friction between the net and the pod threw sparks in orange showers around the viewing port as the view of space disappeared into darkness. A moment later the pod ports blew open and a group of hands appeared and removed the entry door. Dim artificial lighting flooded my vision and a helmet appeared. “Welcome home,” it said. A fiber-light beam appeared and swept across my face and body. “This one’s in a bad way, get a med robot team over here and put him with the other refugees!”

More helmets appeared and unstrapped me from the g-webbing in the pod and lifted me onto an a-grav gurney. From my good eye, I could see myself in the shining hull material of the receiving station and I barely looked alive. The trauma from my injuries coupled with the effects of the Adrenalderm made me look like death warmed over. I barely recognized my swollen face and there was blood covering the front of my jump-suit down to the waist. Two med-robots appeared and began propelling me down a corridor. We emerged into a storage bay that had been quickly converted into a make-shift hospital. The robots whirred and emitted blue light as they scanned my injuries. I felt a rush of air and a sting as multiple injections entered my system. I was worried, but too tired to care, too tired to do anything. All I wanted was rest. And there on the table, in spite of the uncertainties surrounding me, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Galactic Radio Launched

This week saw the unveiling of a brand new source of entertainment that all pilots in Pardus can enjoy. Jack Squire, who sources have intimated used to be known as Squire Jack, is heading up the project. The current list of DJ’s includes some of the most well-known names in the Universe. Cereal Killer, Serengeti, and Lady Rofnow hail from the soul reapers, Katmai, the leader of Conglomo, is featured, and the Tribune’s own Eldritch has managed to find time to help the fledgling station. The DJ’s currently offer an eclectic mix of musical genres featuring many pilot requests and dedications. Future plans for the radio include interviews, alliance commercials, and listener competitions.

If you would like to become a DJ, you are encouraged to contact Jack Squire or any of the current DJ’s with a 30 minute sample of your work, which they will review on air. If you are a musician inhabitting the Pardus Universe and would like to hear yourself broadcast over the energy waves, contact the same people. Finally, if you would like to be a benefactor to the Radio (Prizes don’t create themselves!) please contact either the DJ’s or Jack Squire.

Pardus Radio needs you to help make it work. For more information, please visit www.pardusradio.com.

Announcements

There are still a limited number of Tribune shares available for purchase. These are currently being sold at 1 million credits each. The Tribune is planning to use these funds to generally increase galactic well-being and to support various projects such as the radio. Don’t hesitate, support us TODAY!