The Tiacken Tribune

The Aftermath (by Bloodhawk)

In the very back both of one of Damogran’s cheaper bars sat a Rashkir in a battered Federation uniform. He lounged somewhat listlessly, as one who was accustomed to such places though not favoring them. Across from him was tall human reporter, and in between a CaptureCaster was whirring away, burning every sound and imagine within 6 feet into its memory banks.

“Now, this time, it was probably a bit worst then the first, sure, they left that wall standing this time, but we lost a lot of civilian buildings,” Bloodhawk prattled on to the Tribune reporter.

“You say this time? I take it Doombringer’s crew has visited Famiso before. Could you please expand on that?” the Tribune Reporter interjected. He knew how to handle the ramblers.

“Aye, that they were. Showed up a while ago and blowed a hole in our Wall, raided, pillaged, I lost over 60 tons of battleweapons, straight from my plant, but others lost worst. I heard the brewers were hit hardest.” Bloodhawk finished with a sly wink.

“Err…yes, back to the Wall. It’s a chain of 5 Military Outposts I believe, run by yourself and four other members of Conglomo. You lost a few, but surely you replaced and upgraded them?”

“Aren’t you a sharp one? You got an Empire education in that furry noggin of yours? Bah” Bloodhawk spat unceremoniously on the ground, “Perhaps you should drag out a good map. A good FED map ta see that Lane opened up a while ago, that should be news, eh reporter?”

“Ah, so they snuck in through the back door then?” The reporter was almost mocking, almost.

“That they did. One day before the new Wall was scheduled. Doesn’t some smartmouth human have a law about that?”

“Do you mean Murphy’s Law?”

“That’s the one!” Bloodhawk exclaimed, slapping a fist down on the table, the CaptureCaster rattled with the impact.

“Not really, what you’re speaking of is more like irony.”

“Bah, doesn’t matter. What’s important is that they slipped by our defenses and emptied our buildings. Not that they weren’t warned, bloody maggot-spawn gave had the yarbles to give us fair warning. Not that it helped.” Bloodhawk spat again, in the exact same place.

“You do that often? The spitting.”

“When appropriate. And it often is.”

“Now, back onto the topic of Famous Pirate, I hear you suffered some casualties this time?”

“Oh, it was all swell and dandy at first. We had time to call in our supporters and set up some fine ambushes. But things fell apart. We simply could not manage enough firepower to take any of the big guns down. We managed some smaller ones of course, which still took all our best pilots and borrowed pilots to do, but it was not enough. Soon they started to clear out our buildings.” Bloodhawk flipped out a military issue Rashkir knife and swept up the CaptureCaster. He popped off the heavy plastics sheath. The CaptureCaster kept whirring away, despite being gutted.

“AH! Hear that! Still ticking, that’s quality. Trademark right there. BH Electronics. The workings for this beauty were churned out in my own electronics. Keep good care of this one, ain’t going to be any more cause BH Electronics is no more, courtesy of Famous Pirate. Same with every one of Famiso’s fine products. We lost everything… ‘cept our smelters really. Well, some of our smelters survived.”

“They took out all your buildings?” The Tribune reporter was paying closer attention now.

“Aye, not much we could do either. Then the traders started dropping like flies and a few other chaos lovers joined, shouting “Liberate the People!” as they blew up shipments of food and water and energy, causing untold thousands to starve to death.” Bloodhawk spat, and the CatpureCaster beeped a warning that its circuits were filling up.

“Alright, thank you for your input Bloodhawk, now could you please summarize Famiso’s current situation? Just before I have to leave. I need to catch a shuttle to Nex 002 from here – get back to HQ.”

“Oh of course then. I would say, in yer one fancy word, “Dire.” The situation in Famiso is still dire. Though the assaults by Famous Pirate has more or less ceased, other pirates are picking over the bones.”

“And your immediate plans?”

“You said you are flying back to Nex 002? I’ve done that a few times in my hawk…know all the good ambush points between here and there like the back of my hand. Good fast engine in the ship, excellent cloak.” Bloodhawk, eying the reporter dangerously, flipped a holo of his ship, obviously armed to the teeth, across the table. “And you’re taking just a wimpy little civilian transport. It’s a dangerous run, wouldn’t you say?”

“Well, I suppose it is dangerous,” the reporter said, swallowing hard under Bloodhawk?s unflinching gaze.

“Want it to become more dangerous?”

“What?”

“Cause if you don’t, you shouldn’t be askin’ questions with dangerous answers.”

“Err, well thank you Bloodhawk, it has been a deli- interesting time speaking with you here today. And good luck in your struggles.” The reporter swept up the CaptureCaster and shrugged on his coat.

“Bah, good luck to you, have fun telling the ‘verse, hope you make a bundle.” Again Bloodhawk spat on the exact same place on the floor, and the reporter stopped as he was getting up.

“Why do you always spit on the same place?”

“What! Were ya born on a recyclotron? It’s the polite thing to do – less mess to clean up! Do you think I’m inconsiderate?”

The Tribune reporter walked away without another word. He hated being the new guy on the team.

---

A Day in the Life of the Tiacken Slave Traders. Part 1 (by Elric)

The morning started just as any other morning. I shook my head to try to rid it of the liquor and drug induced haze. My shipboard computer buzzed notices of the 54 new trades to I had to authorize, and 12 new messages from my various contacts around the Universe. The Invisible Sun never lets me rest. I had begun collecting more exotic matter for experiments when I received a new message. Mildly intrigued, I ported at the nearest star base to read in peace.

“Slavers rejoice! We have once again added a warm body to our unit. Marshmellow, the former leader of the Death Brigade, will be joining us in the capacity of the new Slaver….”

I shrugged the message off. It was the last thing I needed, more people around. Before I had time to get back out to the Jeff K. Foam, another message popped up. This one was coded red.

“A word of warning to all members. Marshmellow is the owner of a, dare I say it, Harr…cough cough…ier. My advice to you all is not to look at the roster of alliance members so as to avoid casting eyes on this particularly repugnant piece of “technology”.”

Then I saw what was going on. The Slave Traders were in the midst of a coup. That could be the only explanation for allowing the most despised ship in the alliance to fly among our ranks. The embarrassment from this would most likely lead to a suicide of Brackard, leaving Eldritch, #2, right where he wanted to be. There was nothing for me to do now but wait and see what the future might bring. I sat in my cockpit, with a large bottle of Keldon brew and enough drugs to blind a horse and took a trip on Mr. Toads wild ride. I ‘mellowed’ out, hoping to wake after this mess was sorted.

---

A Day in the Life of the Tiacken Slave Traders. Part 2 (by Brackard)

It had been another day at the office. Coordinating the grizzly death of thousands of slaves was no easy task. And while Brackard spent a good amount of time transporting cargo, he spent just as much time behind his desk. Despite the state of technology these days, the sheiks enjoyed having actual copies of shipping records, receipts and the like. These overflowing paper receipts amid the datapads strewn across his desk made it look like Brackard was an unorganized person. It was very much the truth.

The true power in the alliance stood with Eldritch, his right hand man. Whenever Brackard needed something done, he relied on Eld to get it done. And it got done. So when a message clicked through that Eldritch had found another potential slaver-in-training to join them, it was a no-brainer. Eldritch knew what a slaver was made of. He knew what TST was looking for and what he would approve. There was no reason to meddle in Eld’s business.

A day later, Brack was getting ready for his morning rounds when Eld chirped in with the news that the new recruit had arrived. Fantastic. Time to go meet the new recruit. As he strode out to the observation deck he looked out the window and stopped in his tracks at what he saw.

Surely that wasn’t what he thought it was. Brackard blinked trying to clear his vision. Nothing had changed. Docked to the Legion Enclave was the ugliest ship Brackard had ever seen. The one ship that Brackard would actually go out of his way to remove from the universe once and for all (if he could, in fact, hit the side of a Doomstar from the inside). Docked at the Legion Enclvae was a Harrier.

Brackard looked over to his operations group and quietly whispered his orders:

“destroy it”

“But sir, a direct hit on the harrier would likely cause a chain reaction that might…”

“I SAID DESTROY IT!!!”

The Ska’ari clicked uncomfortably as it scrambled to its console and began powering up the station’s defense systems. The humming of the generators seemed to feed Brack’s fury and the Ska’ari working operations not only gave Brack a wide berth, but tried to pretend he didn’t exist. As the stations defenses finally came online, the station’s automated alarms went off.

WHOOOOP, WHOOOOP “This is a code 72, this is a code 72, everyone proceed to your assigned battle-stations. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill” WHOOOP, WHOOOP

Brackard ignored the warnings as he began typing in the coordinates of the offending ship. Eldritch came rushing off the lift, slightly panicked and came rushing up to the weapons console. Marshmellow, a bit confused, came rushing up behind.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa….hold on a second Brack, what’s going on?”

Brackard just nodded towards the window as he cleared the coordinates and tried inputting them again.

Eldritch went and looked through the window. Comprehension quickly raced through his mind as Eld made his way back to his commanding officer. As Brack was just about finished with the coordinates, Eld put his hand over the fire button and nodded towards the new recruit.

“Brack, I’d like you to meet our new recruit, Marshmellow. He docked just a few minutes ago. He has an impressive resume and seems very willing to work with us. I believe he’ll fit right in.”

Brack looked up to Marshmellow, out the window to the eyesore of the universe, and then to Eldritch. Brack gave Marshmellow a forced greeting and then retreated to his office. Eldritch followed alone.

“Eld, you have 24 hours to get him out of that ship. We are walking a very, very fine line here.”

Eldritch nodded and left.

If luck was with them, he just MIGHT be able to get the new recruit out of the harrier and into a REAL ship before anybody knew what had happened. Sure, the taint of the Harrier would never go away, but with time, and without public knowledge, he just MIGHT be able to live with himself. But it would be need to be done fast. And REAL fast. He figured 24 hours would be too long, but had to be somewhat realistic about the situation.
As it worked out, the messages began arriving in less than 6 hours after the Harrier curse. The first messages were by close friends chiding him about the dreaded harrier. Although it pained him, he could handle these. At the twelve hour mark, the public had caught wind of the situation. And it was out. Everyone knew that the harrier existed among the TST’s ranks. At the twenty-four hour mark, the finale arrived. A package came from CASH (and you wonder why you do those delivery missions). In the package was a datapad with a 30 minute lecture by the high command of CASH (Campaign Against Stupid Harriers). In the lecture, it ripped Brackard apart regarding his obvious betrayal of everything CASH stood for, the recanting of Brackard as the CASH spokesperson, and the note that Brackard had been put on the CASH “Kill of Opportunity” list. And so it was complete. A well-planned, well-nurtured, and well-cultivated plan that had taken well over a year to implement had been unraveled in the space of less than 24 hours.

The far wall of Brackard’s office held several whips. Some of the whips were sentimental. These included his first training whip and the whip he had taken from a Zirr overlord whom Brackard had discovered was coddling the slaves there. Other whips were actual working whips he found useful to have on hand. One was a standard bullwhip that he’d been using since his slaving had begun. Another was a bone-tipped whipped that he fancied. While painful in its own right, the bone-tipped whip left extremely disfiguring scars on slaves serving as a visual reminder to all slaves that saw him that mercy was not going to come from the outside world. The final whip was a whip that Brackard had sunk money into having developed for the damn Ska’ari. Ska’ari were immune to traditional methods of punishment and Brackard needed a means of control over the Ska’ari from time to time. The whip that was developed delivered a high voltage electric shock to its victim upon contact. It worked extremely well against the Ska’ari. However, the uses upon non-Ska’ari were even more impressive. In addition to the electric shock, the damage done to the skin made it a highly…effective…means of punishment.

Corba had just walked into Brack’s office as he had pulled the last whip off the wall. Brack turned as he uncoiled it, feeling the vibration of the whip through his hands.

“Go find Eldritch. I don’t care where he is or what he’s doing. He and I have some…business….to discuss.”

Corba paled slightly and nodded as she backed out of the office.

Everybody is allowed to make mistakes. But that doesn’t mean you don’t pay for them. There was no doubt that Eldritch would not make this particular mistake again.

---

A Day in the Life of the Tiacken Slave Traders. Part 3 (by Corba)

Corba was having a bad day already and, as usual, it was the fault of every single Ska’ari she’d ever crossed paths with. She strode angrily down the central corridor of Legion Enclave and rehearsed to herself how she was going to explain this matter of the gems to Brackard.

Various Ska’ari hopped and skittered out of her way, seeming even more agitated and brainless than usual. She couldn’t tell them apart any more than she could tell one of Skeeter’s fleas from the next. And now one of them was waving a Code 72 Stand-Down Duty Roster at her (code 72? what the blazes was a code 72?) She aimed a kick at it and it hissed nastily at her from its rear vents as it retreated.

Her nose crinkled. She hated docking in Federation bases, the drinks were weak and the Ska’ari were nervous and gassy. She went over the situation in her head and tried not to think about the rotten little crabs for now.

A dozen mines in Lahola, churning out thousands of tons per cycle of turquoises, topazes, corundum, all gleaming beauties, all ripe for harvesting and, this week, all her responsibility. She never minded this particular duty, though it was time-consuming and it did mean the Priiya earned a few new dings in her hull every hour navigating the ore fields. It was quiet, she had her solitude and her pick of the sparklies. She could be alone with her dog. She could enjoy her old collection of early Empire funeral marches adapted for the banjo. And it meant no Ska’ari stinking up the air around her. But this week the gems had been disappearing, wholesale. And nobody seemed to keep their receipts in order.

The Ska’ari were definitely trying to get her attention, she realized, as she passed the observation deck and neared Brackard’s office. She squinted darkly at them. Which one had it been, filling the alliance holdings with rumors she’d been feathering her own nest from the Lahola mines?

They were waving their forelegs wildly out the window towards docking bay #32 and chittering something about pelicans. Corba scowled. She didn’t have time for this.

She needed to ask Brackard for the paperwork on the mines and to set all this straight before she got her private revenge on the Ska’ari. Hopefully they hadn’t crossed him today, she suspected he was having some trouble with his blood pressure lately and she needed him in a good mood. Eldritch passed her, going the other way and shouted something at her. She caught the back half of it…something about his office.

Her mind turned back to Brackard. Indignant outrage was probably her best approach. That usually just amused him, as any incident between her and the crabs did.

She worked up as holy a rage as she could muster, recalling the rants of her New West Virginia great-grandfather right around tax-time. Then she pushed into Brackard’s office, full of bluster.

And stopped short.

Brackard had just pulled a nasty-looking electro-whip off the wall and was…fondling it, yes, unfortunately there was no other word for it. The whip in itself was no shock, so to speak. Her own granddaddy had used a crude ancestor of this very same weapon — only he’d called it a cattle-prod — on the Ska’ari tax-collectors that came down from the Empire every spring.

No, what made her nervous now was the way Brackard’s hair was sticking straight up in places. Brackard’s hair never stuck out like that, ever.

Corba’s mouth opened, and then shut again. Her mind raced. Had that many gems gone missing? Had he found out about the meatloaf recipe? Or was it another fine for the way she snapped the back legs of Ska’ari slaves so they’d stack better in the hold of her connie? Or the private little “alliance morale parties” she and Elric and Dragaurang had not been inviting Brackard to?

“Go find Eldritch.”

She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.

“I don’t care where he is, blah blah blah, business, blah.”

Relief pumped through her veins like unfiltered moonshine. She wasn’t the one in trouble. It was Eldritch, the poor bastard, not her. Sweet merciful Emperor.

She nodded and backed away out of Brackard’s office.

Several dozen eyestalks gleamed expectantly at her from several half-dozen Ska’ari faces, if you could call them faces. Corba was in such a light mood she nearly smiled at them, but checked herself in time.

She settled, instead, for cheerfully soccering one of the smaller ones down the slick floor of the corridor, ignoring its pitiful squeals and the way its legs waved plaintively at her when it banked off a wall and flipped helplessly onto its back.

She knew right where Eldritch was, too.

The poor bastard.

---

A Day in the Life of the Tiacken Slave Traders. Finale (by Eldritch)

“Now listen to me, Marshmellow. We need to get you out of that ship as soon as we can. If Brackard catches wind of this, I don’t want to think of what might happen.” Marshmellow nodded. He really was a fine recruit – he had former leadership experience, but had been willing to follow the orders disseminated from Eldritch’s office. He was quick and effective in his construction, and his desire to inflict misery upon the slaves was admirable. He would make a good slaver…eventually. If not for that damned ship… Now, all of his buildings were up and it was time to bid the pelican farewell. Brackard had trained Eldritch well. A deep sense of loathing welled up inside of him as he stared with melancholy at the despised Harrier.

An alarm ruptured the delicate silence inside of Legion Enclave. Some jackass had triggered a code 72 — Combat Stations. “Uh oh. Come on Marshmellow, I don’t like the sounds of this…leave those packages for later.” Eldritch sprinted off of the Harrier, glad to finally be off of the ship. Marshmellow scuttled behind. As he ran, Eldritch could see Brackard’s operations chief scuttling around wildly. “Oh lord…” Eldritch sighed. If the Ops boss was moving like that there was only one explanation. He was too late. Brackard had seen. He could only hope that nobody else had.

After defusing Brackard at the Command Center, and having been given the 24 hour ultimatum, Eldritch strode purposefully down the corridor back towards the docking bay. 24 hours was no problem at all. Eldritch had organized the birth and destruction of entire sectors in that amount of time. That was why he was number two. He’d just return to the bay and order the ship shipped to one of Benley’s smelters to be made into scrap metal. They could have a different ship transferred to Enclave easily. Brackard would forget about this incident in a week or so. He was easy to manage — just let him think that he was responsible for the slave transports for a while.

He passed Corba, another promising slaver, heading the other direction, and waved. She smiled and waved back. “Corba! Stop by my office in about 20 minutes. I need to discuss the next alliance project with you. You’ll be drafting the plans for it, and I would like to go over some of the details.” Eldritch continued on, without waiting for her reply.

Upon arriving at the docking bay, Eldritch immediately recognized that something was seriously wrong. Marshmellow’s Harrier was missing. Eldritch looked about, trying in vain to find the Operations Officer.

Eventually (after several cases of mistaken identity) he found him. “Where the hell is Marshmellow!?” The Ska’ari clicked nervously at him. “WELL!?”

“We gave him permission to leave about 2 minutes ago, sir.”

Eldritch fumed. “Who authorized this?”

“Nobody sir. We thought it was in the best interests of the Starbase if that ship wasn’t around when the Captain returned.”

“Fine. We’ll discuss this later.” Eldritch stormed back to his office. He was angry. Angry because he had not thought things through completely. Angry because the damned Operations Officer was probably right (Brackard would probably blow up Enclave next time he saw Marshmellow’s ship), and had acted within his authority. This made things more difficult. Not impossible by any stretch of the imagination, but more difficult.

Corba was waiting for him when he arrived. “Corba, I need you to go tell Brackard that there’s a problem with the plan involving the new Slaver in Training.” Corba saluted and left. Eldritch put his mind to the problem. Marshmellow hadn’t been assigned an emergency contact bandwidth yet. That made direct communication difficult. He could scramble the other slavers in the area and track him down, but that would alert them to a Harrier in their midst. Their reaction would probably mirror Brackard’s. This was some quandary.

Eldritch was trying to figure out a diplomatic way to alert the other alliances in the area when Corba returned. She was no longer smiling. “Eld, Brackard wants to see you.” Eldritch thought her lip was quivering a little bit. “Tell him to wait a few minutes, Corba. I’m busy.” Corba blinked. “Umm…he says that you are to stop whatever you are doing.” Corba leaned closer. “I saw a package from CASH on his desk when I was in his office.”

Eldritch swallowed. Brackard had long been the CASH spokesperson, aligning the universe behind the destruction of the beastly ship. Every member of TST was also a card-carrying member of CASH. Eldritch sighed. A new message beeped at him from his virtual desk. Several more quickly followed. Eldritch glanced at them. It appeared that several people had spotted Marshmellow. Not all of them were slavers. It was time to run damage control. But first it was time to own up to his mistake.

Eldritch strode purposefully down the corridor towards Brackard’s office. He didn’t fear the lash, it was what he deserved. There were worse punishments. He could be assigned to babysit the younger slavers for a few days. That thought really made his shudder. He just hoped that Brackard would be sensible. If Eldritch was unable to work, there was no way the damage could be mitigated. Finally, he reached the door. On the other side, he could hear the buzz and the crack of the whip. “That would be the electric one, for Ska’ari,” Eldritch thought. He shuddered. “Oh well. Time to pay the piper.” Eldritch entered his access code, vowing silently that whatever Brackard did to him, he would pay back tenfold to the Operations Officer. “Hello Sir. I hear you wanted to see me.” The door slammed shut behind him.

---

Announcements: No New Guardian

Everything seemed to be going fine for Stephen. His Trade Outpost was set to become the replacement for the destroyed Shadow Guardian in a matter of minutes. Stephen breathed a sigh of relief from inside his cockpit, and began composing a message to his alliance. “Good news, all!” the message began. That’s as far as it got, too, as suddenly an explosion occurred just to his starboard side. It was Squirrelywrath, an alliance Trader. Stephen scrambled romanu. “We got company.” Romanu didn’t respond. “Uh-oh.” Stephen fought bravely, but was eventually overcome by the combined forced of Ye Olde Candy Lords and MERC. The Trade Outpost was also destroyed.

It appears at this time that Thornal Malat had caught wind of the impending upgrade mere minutes before it was scheduled to complete. He scrambled what pilots he could and launched the offensive against Stephen. The motive? Revenge. Revenge for what? We don’t know. At this time, the reporter we sent to interview Stephen has gone missing. We can only hope that he is passed out on a beach somewhere, and has not met a far grimmer fate.

---

Competition!?

Meanguy, of the Imperial Guard, launched a new news publication earlier this week. While this publication is admittedly biased towards the Empire, it will offer an alternative to the Tribune for your Galactic News. The Tribune would like to wish Meanguy success, and let him know that when it fails, there could be a spot for him with us.

The Tribune would also like to point out that Thornal Malat, record holder for consecutive times mentioned in the Tribune, is expanding his horizons by appearing in the first ever issue of Meanguy’s Imperial News Bulletin. All readers who have written us complaining about Malat’s pervasive presence in the news should take note. While occasionally, the two publications may overlap, the Tribune will make every effort to bring you new news.

Good luck Meanguy! Don’t steal our stories!

---

Advertisements: Candy, Candy, Candy!

We the enlightened members of Red Cell, in an effort to create a more perfect environment, have pursued the research of AP enhancing remedies. Due to our recent breakthroughs, we are proud to offer a product as good or better than anything on the (Black)Market at a substantial discount. We accept all form of Insurance when presented with proper ID and the correct amount of Credits (13,000). Come to Capella and see why a Red Cell day is ALWAYS longer than 5760 AP! Want more information? Contact pixx today!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 6th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.