[TWI] Twilight, The Final Frontier: Twipires IN SPACE!!!!

[Cracklord]

Captain Jean Luc Picard
Captain Picard settled back in his chair, eager to be away from the bonds of Earth's government bureaucracy and free to roam the vast reaches of interstellar space. No longer did Picard derive any pleasure whatsoever from revisiting Starfleet Headquarters. Increasingly, Starfleet was being turned to military pursuit and 'pacification', rather then diplomacy and exploration, that he felt to be the most important aspects of the agency. And the newly instated President of the United Federation of Planets, having replaced Admiral Jonathan Archer recently, showed no inclination of stalling this alarming trend. Quite the opposite, actually, if anything he seemed content to encourage allowing Starfleet to become an arm of the Landsraad.
Since the Dominion War, a conflict which had lasted for four long and bloody years, Starfleet had continually suffered massive losses, and come to develop dedicated military vessels, in preparation for a large Borg incursion or even invasion, and the effective military might of Starfleet increased dramatically as the damaged or destroyed older model ships were replaced by this newer generation of more defined warships, even though the actual number of starships even decreased.

Captain James Tiberius Kirk
The Enterprise is being fitted for upgrades, and the crew is taking leave. Meaning that, for the next twenty four earth hours, you have nothing to do but sit in the Starfleet headquarters and kill time.
At the moment, you are doing it by playing chess with Spock. As always, he plays a slow, defensive game, every move mapped out in advance, while you are more impulsive and aggressive, trying to force him to react to you. It's not working this time, and you're looking at loosing your queen, when abruptly the officers mess goes silent. With a suddenness bordering on uncanny, everyone in the room stops what they are doing in perfect synchrony and gets to their feet in order to break into spontaneous, genuine applause.
The reason is quickly apparent. Out of the corridor strides an iron figure dressed in a gold, fur-lined flight suit and a turtleneck, with a helmet tucked under one arm. A cigarette is resting between his lips, and he is wearing reflective aviator sunglasses.
The applause intensifies as he stops and raises his hand, clearly a little embarrassed at all the attention. A legend in Starfleet, Ace was offered the chance to pilot a brand-new kind of spacecraft, one that can cross dimensions, and so rarely returns to the base. Despite all this, he's modest while still being totally self-confident, and does not like the attention he receives from the other pilots. He'd rather spend time with his friends then attend lavish parties and be piled high with recognition.
"Hey there Kirk." He says in a faint British accent, flicking a salute and pulling up a chair. "Would have come to see you sooner, only I just got back. Bobba Fett shot me in the back off Malichor Seven. I'm just here to hand him in." He pauses a moment, then his hand snakes out to the chessboard and moves your bishop two squares to the left. "Checkmate." he says to Spock, then looks back at you.
"So, how've you been?"

Han Solo
VISTAS is a Saturn-line Gas Giant, surrounded by dozens of small moons and a system of rings composed of icy debris floating on a river-like torrent that sparkles relentlessly as it refracts the light of the suns in all directions. A large, run-down looking space station resting at the inner edge of the planetary rings. The space station resembles three wagon wheels stacked on top of one another, which a large central hub, and each of the spokes leading to an airlock.
It had been built centuries ago by Sir Roger de Tourneville, and had been intended to be a gothic influenced cathedral, but the project had failed, and the station stripped and abandoned. It had since been used by the Federations smugglers and black marketeers as a place to sell there wares, as it was on the very edge of the coalitions space, and too out of the way to be policed. Just the same, the occasional fragment of religious imagery remains, the odd statue or image of pious suffering.
The station can accommodate four dozen ships, and about half that number are currently docked there, with some of the larger ships tethered by lines rather than attached directly to the airlocks. As much as you hate to admit it, the Millennium Falcon is pretty much average for size and appearance of the ships, and is docked on the “space” side of lowest level of the station (away from the planetary rings) in case you need to make a quick getaway.
The Hub is a massive, chaotic swap meet, the size of a small town, and full to bursting with all flavors of intelligent life. It seems that anything can be had here, for the right price. Illegal arms, small vehicles, livestock, replicants, even slaves are being bought, sold and auctioned by the crowd, as well as less immediately practical but incomprehensibly valuable items. Borg implants. Melange. And more. Refugees will barter everything they own to get one way or the other. Some of them will kill you for a crust of bread. It made anywhere else seem positively civilized in comparison. Most of the individuals clustered here are humans, though not exclusively. The slavers are predominately Trandoshans, and you think you spot Bossk, the famous Trandoshan bounty Hunter dressed in a white tuxedo chatting up a pair of blue-skinned Twi'lek sisters.
A Ferengi, backed by a pair of Jawas in brown robes, is haggling with a red-skinned Dosi who looks ready to turn violent. And that's just the start of it.
A renegade Bene Gesserit Revered Mother dressed in full dress regalia has a stall to herself, where she offers to use the sisterhoods unique capabilities for anyone with he credits to afford them. A Yautja hunter simply leans against a wall and lets it's fearsome reputation do the advertising for it, if anyone wanted anyone killed all they had to do was sell it the hunt. And there are other, stranger sights mixed here and there.
But you're not interested in any of this, tempting though it might be. You're looking for Lando. He mentioned a proposition that could make you both very rich if you worked it properly.

Shevek
The Alliance of Worlds has recently made offers to welcome you back into the fold, and remove the embargo that has been placed on you for generations now. It's a generous offer. Too generous, but then, it's to be expected. It's a fact that they don't like you in the middle of their space, defiantly independent. At the very least, you're a bad example. At the worst, a rallying point.
And so they have began making offers. Autonomy towards self-definition within the system. Accorded all the rights of any other Alliance world, including protection from hostile civilizations. And all the other comforts of high culture.
And all they want is to formalize an arrangement already in place, and give you all sorts of advantages for doing it. A meeting was held, and every opinion carefully considered, but so far you are far from reaching anything like a unanimous solution. However, negotiation seems the best bet for now. You and a few of your colleagues are to be picked up by a federation vessel where the conditions will be discussed. You're already looking forward to it.

Serenity
PROSPERO CITY is larger, shinier, cleaner and more cosmopolitan than most of Serenity's stops. Everything looks new... so new, in fact, that much of the city still seems under construction. That which is complete is in the process of renovation, as the city is constantly rebuilt and torn down on the ongoing search for the never achievable perfection. It will never be good enough, but as long as it remains a work in progress it keeps the economy flowing, which does wonders for industry.
Small zeppelins fly between the spires rising from the sprawl of buildings below, and everything is so orderly and bright that there's no question the Alliance had a hand in building the place.
You are here for two reasons. One, is that Inara has a client here. Normally that would be enough to make Mal pointedly look for an excuse to miss the stop in a manner that could almost be associated with jealousy, except he had no such excuse despite pointedly not looking through all available frequencies for one.
Second up, they had an opportunity to take work of their own.

Junior
You and Andrew "Ender" Wiggin have been brought aside by a high ranking officer who seems to have no connection whatsoever to Starfleet, or indeed any aspect of the Coalition whatsoever, yet has the clout to have you both arrested and detained without any trial or contact whatsoever. In the few moments you meet him he identifies himself as Eisenhorn, but says little else.
But he is distinctive, to say the least. The most obvious physical attribute of the man is his crude augmentic assist system, which can be seen projecting from the back of his head and encasing his lower limbs. Clean-shaven, he has shaved his head as well in order to avoid interfering with the augmetic system. Furthermore, he has scars on the side of his face that deadened his nerves, limiting his facial expressions and movement, setting him with a perpetual frown. The grim appearance is heightened by a sober suit of dark greys and blacks under long blue, high-collared coat, that bulges with a chest-rig for his sidearm, holstered under his left shoulder. When he walks he leans on a cane that rattles with every step.
He takes the two of you to a dark room, then sits behind the table, and leans on it, tapping his hands together and waiting for you to speak, eyes hooded in shadow.

Flash Gordan
Newly entering Starfleet, you have been chosen to captain a new, experimental Ship that has been given the slightly ominous name the 'Event Horizon'. Despite having a science major, you don't understand much of the basic physics of it, but it's primary point of interest is a new power-source allowing therefore undreamed amounts of energy and thus allowing you to reach speeds undreamed of. The ship will be capable of traveling light years in moments, and the process involves some sort of transition to a tachyonic state.
Essentially, in layman's terms, you use a rotating magnetic field to focus a narrow beam of gravitons; these in turn fold space-time consistent with Weyl tensor dynamics until the space-time curvature becomes infinitely large and you have a singularity. It's unspeakably dangerous, and the risks are great, but the possible rewards are such that they would render humanity the only major power in the universe.
For all that, it's not comforting. Quite the opposite, it's ominous to look at, you can't help but think, as you discern the hard angles of a man-made craft. The scale of the vessel is almost unbelievable, a vast labyrinth of steel.

Richard B. Riddick
FORT LIBERTY is a small, tight looking walled city built up against the side of a low mountain. Filled with sharp-edged, institutional-looking buildings, the place is certainly exactly what it was, a place far from anywhere to dump the Alliance's unwanted. It's hardly the worst prison he's been thrown into, ironic name or not, but it’s still much more “civilized” that most places where he'd choose to live.
All in all, it has the feel of an industrial complex that sprang up to service a military outpost, that itself was created to house the state of the art facility to keep men like you from interfering with the rest of the universe, which is exactly what it was.
Giant mounted cannons, with barrels more then ten meters long, dot the wall that protects the city. Each cannon is manned by a uniformed soldier. They train on the ship (Clear Air Turbulence, the call it) that holds you as it comes to land, and an entire squadron level their weapons at you as you are taken from the holding chair and forced out. They are taking no chances with you.
You're pushed onto the airstrip with two dozen weapons trained on you, ready to open fire at the slightest twitch.
Jack Crow is a notorious celebrity and one-time pirate, a tough man who does not hesitate to kill or do what he has to in order to survive, but has been somewhat romanticized and is now seen as a dashing rogue rather then a cut-throat and murderer. He seems to regard his reputation as a missed blessing, and wears an old set of personnel power armor that should have been decommissioned. It's sleeker then the modern style, and fits him well, almost like a second skin, but he is nothing if not menacing.

John Stalvarn
You are assigned as the military arm in the upcoming experimental spaceship. You get no say in the matter. There is no evidence of long term habitation, just gleaming steel that has never known a human touch before now. Depersonalized lockers. Fold-down bunks, chairs and tables currently stowed for docking. A modular galley. These are to be your quarters while the ship explores the reaches of space. The men have already secured the quarters from flight status. Bunks have been folded down, each alcove personalized with photographs and pin-ups.
Outside there are more interesting rooms. A high tech operating room, full of modular equipment. Vertical tanks line the walls, each large enough to hold a human being, and gravity couches are in display.
You and your men stand before the gravity couches, almost nude, no room for modesty in Rasczak's Roughnecks, or the Mobile Infantry Sardaukar.
Lt. Rasczak (who the platoon is named after) moves around the cabin, checking the crew's radiation badges, and health read-outs. At last satisfied, he lets you all in, and you get changed back into your uniforms.

Paul Atredis
Duke Leto has been given the lucrative fief of the Jungle moon of Pandora. In terms of infrastructure or habitation it is a blip, the atmosphere is breathable but unpleasant, and it has little in the way of industrialization. Furthermore, the natives are hostile and refuse all attempts at negotiation and peaceful resolution, leading to them being forcibly pacified. However, it is the primary source of the Alliances Dilithium (referred to as Unobtanium by some engineers in a tongue and cheek manner) deposits, which allow the manufacture of warp drives. Without it, no faster then light speed travel, and as such it is one of the most valuable resources in existence.
The CHOAM corporation, the major underpinning of the Alliance's economy, whose shares and directorships determine production and allocation of resources, as well as, by extension House's income and financial leverage, have given it to you.
However, to balance this the president of the Alliance has given the Harkonnens desert planet Arrakis, the only known source of the spice Melange. The motives are obvious, keep the most powerful houses in competition to encourage production and keep them from threatening him.

Hober Mallow
A vast field of stars, stretching further then the mind can comprehend. The gas giant Neptune slowly spins into view. Brilliant and blue and cold against the void.
A black silhouette stands out against the planet, tiny against Neptune's scale, but soon drifts closer, revealing the Far Star.
You sit on the command deck, feeling very satisfied as you make your way to Earth. A luckily-discovered route through the Rifts of Ursuul IV has allowed you to do business with the Romulan Empire (off the books, of course), making you more then a year of normal work. And yet it's only a side-project while you focus on your real goal, despite the not-inconsiderable wealth it is making you. You are coming close to uncovering the key to wealth and power beyond your wildest dreams: the Haarlock Warrant, and with it, the ability to claim several uninhabited planets, and requisition huge numbers of Sardaukar to your cause, not to mention the full support of the Landsraad, of course, boundless wealth, effectively establishing you as as an independent Great House. Even that would be enough for most people, but your plan goes deeper still. If all goes as planned, you should be able to destabilize the CHOAM corporation, and effectively force the Alliance to return to free trade, rather then the socialist based society of the moment.

Outlaw Star
You've been doing simple jobs around Sol system for six months now, and you have to face up to it. You're not making enough to break even, and barely to cover base subsistence, while you plummet deeper and deeper into debt.
This solar system has been good to you, none of your many enemies can touch you here, except the most deadly of all, the banks. Particularly the Sector Bank 001 of San Francisco. When lesser banks found the houses they supported would not meet their debts, they opened their veins. When this bank found it out, new lords appeared as if from nowhere, all of whom were much more willing to find the money.
And you don't have the credits to even attempt to pay your debts.

Ratchett and Clank
You're trying to understand an ancient Technomite artifact you recently uncovered, by translating the how-to guide, but it's proving to be a long and arduous process, and it doesn't tell you enough of what you need to know. What it does tell is maddeningly infuriating. If not for the obscene ammount of money you are being paid to understand it, you'd have given up in frustration long ago.
It's a giant ring composed of a superconductive mineral called 'naqahdah', that's theoretical as far as you can tell, as there is no way to create it in a stable way to keep it from falling apart instantly. It has nine points, or 'chevrons', spaced equally around the circumference which serve a purpose you have yet to uncover. On the inner ring are 39 unique glyphs which you have no idea how to translate, but you suspect is the key to understanding the thing.

Cowboy Bebop Crew
Work has been slow, until you happened to find the first lead in weeks. Outside a club (The Old Pink Dog Bar) in Han Dold City a figure you recognize as a known frequent fratinizer with the Red Dragon Crime Syndicate. Nadreck the Palainian.
He himself is extremely valuable, given the chaos he's caused, however if you can also get his known associates you are looking at the sort of payoff you usually only see in your dreams.

[AnimeKid]

Junior

Junior walks forward and places his hands on the table and looks at Eisenhorn in the eyes, if those are visible, and speaks. "Okay dude, we came here after you threatened us so pray tell, just what do you want?"


Rachet and Clank
Grey:Clank
Orange:Rachet

Clank looks at Rachet with half lidded eyes that are basically screaming I told you so. Rachet I told you that we shouldn't have taken this job, I can see you buying the plans for a Blargian jet pack from a shady dealer. At least you can read Blargian but you have no idea how to read this.Rachet looks over the guide he was trying to figure out to give Clank a look of annoyance. Clank, I get that your a little T.Oed right now but listen if I figure this out with the amount of mone we'll get paid who know what I could invent. I'm sure it will be no less bizzare than your last three inventions What do you mean? What I mean is that Nuclear powered Rocket sleds, Anti-Matter Bathroom Buddy's, and Electroshock Undergarments are not something that ordinary inventors would create. For the last time Clank it's not electroshock undergarmets it's "Stunderwear" and they were a huge seller on Umbris. Now will you stop complaining and try reading this this. Clank sighs and takes the guide from Rachet to try his hand and Deciphering the artifact.

[The Shoveler]

Outlaw Star
Jim is hurriedly clacking away on the computer at their base: Starwind and Hawking Enterprises. Located in the back-alley of a rundown district in a town in Southern California, they live in a relatively nice location with plenty of room to store their parts.
"Gene, this isn't a time for your beauty sleep. Wake up and help me look for jobs!" he yells at his idiot partner lying in a cot on the second floor of the warehouse. "I like the effort you put into skipping breakfast to save money, but we're still in the red! So wake up! Ugh, you're hopeless..."
He sighs as Gene merely rolls over in the cot. Jim was going to have to work alone today again while Gene waits for the "Big Job" that's been coming... for about 3 months now. He doesn't settle for the smaller jobs that would be enough to go to paying off the debt or launching out of this system. So Jim picks up his tools and drives off to the next job.
Melfina has been working well as a waitress, but she's really only bringing in enough money for food and sometimes some leftover food from her job. Aisha has been trying to work in construction, but her pride as a "Great Ctarl-ctarl" has caused her to lose many of her jobs after the first pay check. Suzuka is the only one bringing in constant money as a detective/assassin in the city, but she's only bringing in enough to pay for the parking fees on the Outlaw Star.
This leaves Rent, Water, Electricity, and other such things in Gene and Jim's hands. With Gene not working, they've had to do without Electricity for a while and even Jim's meager earnings aren't getting them anywhere. So debt has been going unpaid and the interest keeps piling up.
Gene finally wakes up at around 1 in the afternoon, his usual time. He stretches and lays back again. He'd just play some video games while he waited for the big call.

[doliest]

Kirk
Kirk looks up at Ace; his mentor and friend. Ace was a particularly close friend to Kirk because he'd helped him pick himself up from the ashes he'd been left in by the massacre at Tarsus IV. Ace, who'd managed to get the food there earlier than expected, had been the one to help a shell-shocked young Kirk discover the wonders of the universe and truly put the desire to travel in him. He'd helped him get into the academy, and from there, Kirk had prospered. He really did owe everything to this man.

What a guy.

He smirks up at him, "Wonderful, Ace. Crossed over to an alternate dimension where everyone was evil. Met Mirror Spock-Spock, never grow a goatee. It'll look horrible on you."

Solo
Han Solo was, to put it mildly, suspicious. Lando was a friend, sure, and he'd trust him with his life...but his schemes? No way, half the time they tended to end really horribly and caused his debt to become even worse. Still, he needed the money, and, frankly, this one might actually work out for the better.

He smirks as he passes all the various things for sale and people; this was life. Free, untamed, and utterly chaotic. If there were fewer bounty hunters, he might actually want to stay here a few days.

[Cracklord]

Kirk
"Right. Maybe I should visit there next, skipper." He replies, smirking right back. It's his job, afterall. He's also the only one allowed to call you nicknames. "Same sort of thing here, saved the universe a few time, ended a whole lot of dictatorships, turned down thousands of marriage proposals, and got my highlights done." He replies.
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you. See, I need a favor." Seeing your reaction, he nods and shrugs good naturedly. "I know you're up for it. See, I found this.” He tosses you a holopad. “When you get a chance, take a look. It's a stable wormhole in the Benzite system. Romulans, I know. Fett had it, I think he might be working for them. Up for it, Skipper?”

Solo
Chewie growls, and at two meters in height this was not something to take lightly, and gestures over at a table, where Lando is in the process of hustling several aliens with a Khansas City Shuffle. Seeing you he ends it quickly and waves you over.
"Han, you old pirate! You look good!" He says loudly clenching you in a close hug, smiling widely. “How have you been?”

Junior
Eishorn's expression does not change. "I want a great many things. But you can't give me any of them." He taps his hand to his cane, and clumsily twitches his lip.
"Civilization, paradise, all that is only possible thanks to comfort. Keeping people happy. Our system is far from perfect. Despite our much lauded beliefs and policies to other races, humans are naturally jingoistic. Ultimately, we are a galactic power, and we will not remain that way by appeasing other races."
He taps the tip of his cane against the ground once more. "Which brings me to the two of you. Humanity is working on a breeding program, as is known. The navigators are required to breed in the family, but it goes deeper then that. You are both valuable to us for your genetic material, and you abilities. A civilization must make the best use of it's assets. We wish to utilize you."

Clank, Ratchett
You can't determine much more then you friend. It has no common root in any of the languages programmed into you. You've built something of a cypher, but at thhe current rate, you estimate it will take you aproximately six hundred star-years to translate it into anything meaningful.
You need more data, to make a case of translating.
Unfortunately taking it apart isn't working much better. You don't understand the principles it's based on even a little. About the only thing you can think of doing is switch it on and see if it works.

Outlaw Star
Your generator has been switched off, and is producing about as much energy as you can expect to get walking over a carpet in static. You're not going to be playing video games at the moment. Or switching on lights, or doing much of anything at all.
All that's left is waiting for the phone call.

[The Shoveler]

Outlaw Star
Gene throws the game down to the ground in frustration.
"STUPID SPACE INVADERS! Man, I need a drink," he murmurs as he gets off the couch. He checks his supply and sees that he's out of all of his liquor.
"Already out? Really?" he sighs as he looks at the clock. "8:42? Suzuka and Melfina should be getting back soon. I gotta make it look like I'm looking for a job so they don't yell at me again. Psh, who needs a job when the next big thing is right around the corner?"
He heads out the door, grabbing his jacket and slinging it over his shoulder.

-Twenty Minutes Later-

Jim arrives home to see Melfina cooking dinner for the group.
"Hey Melfina. Gene not home yet?" he asks her, setting his tools down and placing his earnings in their jar.
"Not yet, Jim. Dinner will be ready shortly," she answers, setting the plates out around the table as the pot boils.
"Dang. He better not be out drinking again. Doesn't he know where that money comes from?!" Jim says under his breath, frustration building up in his fist. Jim takes off his coat and walks to the table.
The door is violently thrust open as Aisha enters the area with Suzuka directly behind her.
"Is dinner ready yet?" Aisha asks, hurrying to the table. She's been proving very vividly that she could eat someone out of house and home since she started bunking with the crew. Her food intake alone is what is preventing them from paying off the interest on their debts.
"In a minute, Aisha. I have to let the pot sit for another minute," Melfina responds, finishing up the table and preparing to move the meat pot.
"Thank you for cooking for us, Melfina. If you weren't here, I don't know what we'd do," Suzuka chuckles, sitting down at her seat after depositing her share of the money in the jar. She has her own personal stash of 20-30 thousand, but she doesn't let anyone in the group know this.
"It's the least I can do for all that you all have done for me," Melfina says, putting the pot in the middle of the table. The group proceeds to devour the contents (mostly Aisha).

-Meanwhile at the Pub-
Gene uses the last of the money he's been holding on to to purchase another glass of beer. He talks to the bartender about nothing for a while until he, or rather the lack of beer remaining, decides to ask around for rumors about big jobs or bounties. His usual routine.

[AnimeKid]

Junior

"So , what your asking is for us to become sperm donors? Did you really need the whole cloak and dagger shtick for that old man? Unless there's more to it.

Rachet and Clank
Clank:grey
Ratchet:orange
Aphelion:red

Clank gives his furry friend his analysis. Okay then, lets get on that, APHELION. The duo's sentient hyper advanced ship flies to them at Ratchet's call. Aphelion we need to find a database in order to try and figure out this artifact. Clank thinks the symbols on it might be a cipher. Can you try and locate any. I can try, locating nearby planets now....
While this is happening Clank simply tries switching on the thing

[darkblade]

Spike and Faye

Spike scratched himself awkwardly as he approached the bar with Faye on his arm. Destroying half of a small outpost town on a backwater world for a 500k bounty was not am economically sound move for the crew. As such Spike was forced to play this job a little more subtly than he'd prefer. That meant going into the bar as a former Syndicate Enforcer and his date and not a bounty hunter.

Faye smirked slightly as they pushed their way into the bar. She was revelling in this job. Not only did she get some use out of her rarely used dress but she got to watch Spike squirm as they got the bounty. The "couple" entered the bar and surveyed the patron before making their next move.

[Cracklord]

Cowboy Bebop
The Old Pink Dog Bar has a reputation to maintain. They usually drew the line at outright murder, but otherwise stepping in there was effectively putting you fate in the hands of others. Finding a criminal here was a matter of throwing a brick. However, actually doing anything about the criminal was another matter entirely.
It caters to humans, and that's it. If you don't like it, too bad, because they don't make enough to cater to other races biology. What some find to be a refreshing drink, others find to be a deadly poison. No synthehol here, it was all the genuine article.
A disembodied arm flops behind the bar, seemingly of it's own accord, then you pause. You recognize that man by the bar. Captain Gene Star.
Nadreck, however, is nowhere to be seen. Maybe he's gone out the back.

Outlaw Star
Silence. You'd gone to the only place you could find that actually sold alcohol rather then that synthetic stuff that was taking over the market. Said bar happens to be the exact same one that Spike and Faye just chose to investigate. In this sort of place, that sort of attention can be very dangerous.
“Who wants to know?” The man behind the bar asks, as he hands you a bottle of chinan’ton’nickx.

Junior
“Your genetic material may be valuable to us. But you yourselves have the potential to be far more so.” Eishorn replies. “We are beginning what we call a brain race. The future of the galaxy will be shaped by those with the most power, in whatever form it takes. I intend for it to be humanity, rather then allow us to become a marginalized race at the mercy of others. Therefore, we need any advantage we can get.”
He looks at you levelly. "You are a potential advantage."

Ratchett and Clank
A breathrough. The symbols used to compose addresses are actually pictorial representations of star constellations, however they are stretched throughout the galaxy at all angles. At last tyou activate it, and there is an explosion of light. When you look up, you realize you are looking at a stable wormhole.
Your jaw hits the ground. Instantaneous transportation could rise or sink galatic civilizations. And if you could figure out how to replicate this, you could control it. The possibilities are almost too much to comprehend.

[doliest]

Kirk
"Always up for something new, Ace." Kirk chuckles as he looks at Spock, nodding his head. A new adventure. Braving the frontier and discovering what was really out there; it was what Kirk lived for. "Know where it leads? Hate to get my ship stranded in the delta quadrant or worse, out beyond known space."

Solo
"Poorer, angrier, and hoping your plan is actually going to help get at least a few debters off my back."

[darkblade]

Spike and Faye

"Damnit Gene." Spike curses as he watches Gene go about his business, the man meant well but he was one of the few people out there more destructive than Spike when it came to a fight. If things got even a little hairy it will go bad fast.

Faye notices Spike's distress and sits him down at the bar. "Get a drink and find our marks. I'll take care of Starwind."

Spike nods as he orders himself some whisky and looks over the bar goers for anyone too drunk to put up much of a fight and/or with an incredibly large bounty on their heads. When he fails that he takes his drink in one go and wanders outside.

Faye makes her way over to Gene and sneaks up behind him. "Hey there Captain. Slumming it a little bit are we?"

[Colesign]

{Cracklord: First I want to say...wow. You've managed to throw a bajillion different sci-fi settings together and somehow make it stick, and also somehow fit in a whole bunch of references to other sci-fi settings. The ones I noticed are Starship Troopers, John Steakley's 'Armor', the Culture series (Clear Air Turbulence) and the freaking Lensman series (what with Nadreck the Palonian: quite possibly the most scary and dangerous meek and self-effacing coward I've ever seen in ficiton)

Anyways, well done.}

Shevek

There was once a wall.

This wall, around the Spaceport of the city of Abbenay, once was held by many to be a prison wall, locking the world of Annares away from the rest of the universe. Others saw it as a wall locking the universe in, leaving Annares outside, free.

But in recent years, the wall was torn down. New ships from other worlds, traders and private explorers and rogues were allowed to land. Some grumbled about the propertarians and how it would all lead to war and enslavement, the end of the Promise.

But things have to change. Shevek thinks to himself. We have to move forward, or the Revolution will cease. And the people who come here...they do not fit into their birth societies. They are renegades, anarchists in their own way, you could say.

Shevek turned to his fellow syndics. Some, along with him, represented the Syndicate of Initiative, while others came to represent the Glassblowers Syndicate, the Defense Organisation, the local Holum-weavers Cooperative, the Student's Federation, the A.I. Research Group, and the many other voluntary organizations that expressed an interest in attending this meeting.

"What you should remember..." He begins to say carefully. "Is that these representatives of the Alliance, they will try to buy us. Don't hold any malice towards them: they probably won't be able to help themselves. They've lived in a universe where either you own or are owned, rule or are ruled over. It's the only way they know how to interact with people. But perhaps we can set them straight on that manner."

He grins sheepishly. "They'll probably also assume that we have the power to dictate changes to the people of Annares, rather than simply being mandated Delegates of the Syndicates we represent. Don't be surprised if they treat you like rulers, but still, I would recommend wariness."

[Cracklord]

Shevek
They've all been through this, and go through the motions, not really listening. Indeed, you think you can sense a faint degree of contempt in them, directed towards the ambassador who should be arriving shortly.
Which is troubling, in it's own way.

Solo
"Well, I can fix that." He replies, sitting down. "House Harkonnen was just given Arrakis to run. Politics as usual, let them run it into the ground then give it to somebody else. Who cares, right?" He lets off a cocky smile. "'Cept I know a few of the middle-men who work for the family. A few owe me favors, the others can be bought off. I'm talking Melange, brother. I'm talking more money then you can believe. All I need is a lunatic to move it, and I thought you might be up for it."

Kirk
"No idea at all, Skipper." He replies. "But knowing you, you'll get out of anything you get dropped into." He gets to his feet. "Well, I better get off. Got a hearing in a minute. Smoke me a kipper. I'll be back for breakfast."
"What a guy." Says Spock, mirroring everyone in the 'This Time Round' bar with his tones of complete adoration, then shakes away the uncharacteristic emotional reaction and his face becomes impassive again.

[The Shoveler]

Outlaw Star
Gene looks at Faye right before he was about to give his name to the bartender.
"Yeah, just trying to find that big break so I can get our business out of the red.
You know, that dress really fits you. On a date or something?" he asks, finishing off his drink. A drunk, a lech, a hot-blooded mess, a pilot, and an arrogant son of a b*tch. All of these describe Gene well, but the best way to describe him right now is ignorant. The jacket covering his scars and tattoos is probably the only thing keeping him from being recognized.

[industrious]

Captain Jean-Luc Picard

"Captain's Log, Stardate 8636.29. The Sovereign-Enterprise has just left the planet Argon 6, having dropped off Counsellor Troi for a conference on Tellarite developmental psychology. Wesley Crusher has also requested planet leave, as Argon 6 has an outstanding preparatory program for the Starfleet entrance exams. Our temporary counsellor, Lieutenant Bridge Carson is being escorted to my ready room even as I speak, along with one of Chief Engineer LaForge's old friends, Commander Kat Manx. I have asked Lieutenant Commander Data to formally greet them; I feel that such an encounter will only enhance his ability to comprehend emotion. And Engineering has just finished an extremely important and essential task for me, one that I needed to supervise with a very close eye..."

The Captain stands up from his comfortable chair, and makes his way to the teleporter. And for the first time in several days, speaks.

"Tea. Earl Grey. Hot."

He takes a sip, lets his shoulders down, and relaxes.

Preem Palver

He departs the Bellerophon in Prospero City, having finished a tour in the Outer Colonies. The First Speaker slaps his highly unfashionable brown suit, adjusts his tie, and begins his search for another ship to sail on. It didn't matter where said ship was going, either; a random walk down the Galaxy would help him get a pulse for what was going on far more than any guided tour.

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek pauses as he gains a sense of the mood in the air.

"There is a disquiet here." He asks Hashar, the Syndic from the Physics Federation, and a colleague he is friendly with. "What is wrong, Ammar?"

[Cracklord]

Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Commander Riker enters the bridge, making his way over to you, and salutes. He only does that when he wants to speak freely, knows you won’t like it, and wants to show you’re in charge. “I’ll be clear. I wish to complain about the replacements. I know they are legally human…” His tone makes it clear that the distinction annoys him, “but this is a sensitive mission, and I don’t like having untried crew members in charge of major roles while we are performing it. Particularly ones who are members of species not part of the Alliance and who themselves are not members of Starfleet.”
He stops his tirade. It’s a fair complaint, in it’s way, but he recognizes it’s out of line and not what you need to hear at the moment.

Lieutenant Commander Worf, Commander Anubis Cruger, Kat Manx, Bridge Carson
The two of you have been placed in charge of familiarizing the new arrivals with the ship, showing them the ropes, introducing them to the other officers and otherwise ensuring they fit comfortably in.

Shevek
"Most of us do not expect the Alliance to play fair. They want to own everything, to name everything, to write their names on everything. I do not anticipate them allowing us to continue as we have." He guestures at the rest of the group. "And it would seem I am not alone."

Edward Cullen
The bridge was a huge sweeping arc which apexed in a massive curving viewscreen dominating the entire area. The floor he stood on arced downward as well, creating two levels. In the middle sat a huge chair, position at the wall separating the bridge's upper and lower sections. Droids worked at humming stations lining the entire back of the place.
He sat on the chair, tapping his figertips as he watched the depths of space. Hard, yet regal, it kept whoever sat in it alert and ready for whatever was coming, but also reminded him of the station he possessed. And did the same to any whom looked at him.
Space. Endless stars, tiny pinpricks of light in the endless blackness, dark as his own soul. Or maybe he was the blackness, maybe it was all an extension of him, and the void that crushed against the worlds within, slowly smothering them all was he. He inclined his head beneath his hood slightly, lips quirking a little. He liked that idea.
Then he shook his head. "Steady. If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion.” He reminds himself, sitting up and paying attention again.
A sleek, silver droid, like an insect with a head like a curved blade turned, it's eyes glowing crimson ominously, then sensing no commands in Edward's voice it returned to what it was doing before, ensuring that the ship remained on course.

[AnimeKid]

Junior

He sighs as he ruffles his crimson red hair. "Well at least your telling us upfront that we're being somewhat used instead of being sneaky about it. I've got a few reservations though. What your talking about sounds like what U.R.T.V's are. A race of bio weapons. Believe me it seems like a good idea at first, and then everything goes to hell and then your like 'Man what kinda drugs was I takin that day?'. As you can see I do appreciate what your trying to do but the means seem a little off. No offense or anything."

Ratchet and Clank
Rachet:Orange
Clank:Grey
Aphelion:Red

"Whoa! Clank what is this?" he asks clearly bewildered. "It appears to be a stable wormhole capable of teleportation anywhere in the galaxy, possible further." his robotic compation replies. "It appears to be similar to Lombax technology." the feminine voice of Aphelion interjects. "You mean like the Dimensionator was?" "Do not believe so. The Dimensionator was a device that allowed travel thought the infinite dimensions. As your know the continued use of it cause a time-space singularity. However this device seem to have travel to only this dimension allowing us only to travel though space. Though I'm not sure if it is dangerous." "Well there's only one way to find out. Lets port to the nearest planet." "Wait, Ratchet!" Clank is to late to stop his impulsive friend as Ratchet activate the device to take them to the nearest planet.

[Cracklord]

Junior
"Noted." He replies softly, and slightly dismissively, now that you think about it, "However, that is not my concern. My concern is promoting harmony within the vast organizations that govern the Federation, and ensuring that any rivalries and discord are dealt with and kept to a minimum. That is now your job as well."

Ratchet and Clank
The Stargates only link to other Stargates, and cannot take you anywhere. You have a feeling of white light for a moment, of weightlessness, then of falling, then...
You fall onto another world. The trees are alien, the color too cyan to be anything you've seen before. You're in the middle of a small meadow among the towering trees. The fern-like 'grass' is beaten down around the portal you just stepped through, ringed by a metal border exactly like the one you just stepped through. However, the portal closed behind you, and you have no idea how to get it open again.
The place smells wrong. Earth, plants, the nearby forest, none of it smells like it should.

[darkblade]

Spike

Annoyed that his mark doesn't seem to even be in the bar Spike heads out back looking for him.

***

Faye

"Say that if you want to see Spike squirm a bit." Faye says with a smile taking a seat beside the Captain of the rival vessel. The Outlaw Star and the Bebop had crossed paths on a couple contracts and it almost always ended in lots of property damage and both crews further in debt. Faye lights a smoke and sighs.

"So you're not here on a bounty head?"

***

SPD Rangers

Doggie stands at attention besides his Klingon counterpart as the other SPD Rangers are transported onto the ship. He nods his head into a polite nod as their atoms are reconstituted by transporters. "Bridge, Kat it's been a long time."

"It's only been three hundred and fifty seven days since you were transferred from the Earth branch to Flagship security detail. With your Anubian sense of time that is quite an insignificant span of time Commander Kruger." Bridge says starting to ramble on with insignificant factoids.

"It was a bit of a surprise that I'd be chosen as the temporary Counsellor at the same time as you and Kat get full time job on the Enterprise. I thought the Federation wanted us all benched after the Reef Side incident. Time Travel is expressly forbidden even in the pursuit of alienizers." Bridge continues to ramble on as Doggie ignores him. Instead the alien turns his attention to Kat.

"Engineering. Aren't Warp engines a few steps backwards from morphing tech?" He asks his feline friend.

"On most ships but the specs on the Enterprise are unique. With a few years to work on the navigational tech we might be able to eliminate the need for the Spice. That's much more impressive than power suits to punch in a Regelian's face." Kat says with a slight smile.

"Of course." Doggie nods skeptically. "This is Lt. Commander Worf, Worf this is Counsellor Bridge Carson and Specialist Kat Manx."

[doliest]

Kirk
"Don't worry Spock. Everyone says that." Kirk doesn't bother fighting the smile on his face at Spock's reaction. He passes Spock the holopad Ace had tossed to him. "Well then, Spock, what do you think of our new mission?"

Solo
"Wait. Wait-Lando? Have you been smoking anything lately? Drugs are one thing. Weapons are another. Spice, though? That's big. Really big. The whole godd*** empire, every bounty hunter in the universe, and everyone from the Postmaster General to the Borg Queen will be hunting me! Though....for the right price, the Falcon could handle it."

[industrious]

Captain Picard

"Commander, I understand your concerns. But Counsellor Carson comes highly recommended by Counsellor Troi. And Specialist Manx is only here to visit Commander LaForge; she is not going to be replacing anybody, Commander. I only granted the request because he hasn't seen her since he lost his VISOR. In a very real sense, this is the first time he has seen her."

Picard sips his tea, and skimms through a PADD.

"We have a mission briefing at 1300 hours, Commander. I trust that a Counsellor will be able to be able to act with tact and dignity."

((Does what Picard says contradict what Manx says about her job? Yes. That's a subplot point.))

Hober Mallow

He finishes his cigarette, flicking the stub into the disposal bin with a cool satisfaction. He absently flicks a control rod or two, reducing his speed and opening hails.

"This is Trader Hober Mallow of the Far Star, requesting permission to land."

Yes, he had a plan to finally open the barriers to trade in this section of space. He didn't care about what political system they were under, or how their economy as a whole was structured. Just as long as he got his 15% commission and sales were good, Hober Mallow was a pleased man.

[Cracklord]

Han Solo
"Still trying to extort me after all these years, pirate? That makes me sad. I'm the first one you come running to where there is signs of trouble. Don't worry so much. Sure, people will notice. It probably gets weighed every half hour to make sure not so much as a grain goes missing. That's what I'd do. But just because they know it's gone doesn't mean they know who took it, does it? Hell, you're the last place anyone would check, and the guys I know aren't likely to talk. They'd be putting themselves in the line of fire as well."
Seeing Chewie's incredulous look,

Kirk
Spock seems even more flustered, somehow. "I mean, obviously he is admirable and worthy of praise in that he has achieved so much in a short period of time, and is an excellent role-model in that he tirelessly sets an example worthy of emulation, however I would prefer to express my praise in a less haphazard manner."
He then looks at the Holo-pad, mostly to change the subject you suspect. "Fascinating" He says, pointed eyebrow arching. "It would seem that the energy readings are far bellow the projected scale to maintain such a rip, and yet it is expanding at a steady rate. Logically, that would mean either some unknown party is assisting this transition, or the energy is taking some form Commander Rimmer's scanner is not capable of detecting. Perhaps if we were to observe it ourselves we could determine more, but the data is insufficient to form any precise conclusion."

Spike
The Bouncer tries to stop you, but a broken wrist takes care of that. You walk into what is, in better times, something of a brothel. The Palainian is sitting on a couch, arms folded neatly in his lap, staring levelly at you. "I have no intention of resisting if you insist on being violent about this. I abhor violence. At least on a personal level. Not that you have much chance of actually removing me from this building, given the disposition of those in the room downstairs." He pauses. "But if you'll indulge my curiosity, what are you here in regards to? Sedition, passing secrets to the Federations enemies, terrorism, or something else? I find it hard to defend myself when I don't know my situation."

Picard
Ricard seems mollified, if not entirely satisfied, by your answer. He trusts your judgement, and as long as you are aware of the potential for friction and have considered it he is willing to leave the rest in your hands. "Very well, captain." He says, relaxing the stiffness a little.
"I'll take over the helm, in that case."

SPD Rangers
Your conversation continues, as Worf begins to take charge of the tour, not really participating. He starts with the upper-levels, the holo-decks, the officers quarters and the monitoring rooms. He then you takes you down to the engine rooms and to meet the crew. Finally he takes you up to the bridge.

Hober Mallow
"Authentication?" A pleasant female voice replies over the communications. "Please provide details, the purpose of your visit and the duration of your stay." Increasingly, Space Travel was being monitored. In such a controlled economy some smuggling was inevitable, but nonetheless it caused friction and supply problems when it got out of hand.

[darkblade]

Spike

"I'm not really sure." Spike shrugs surprised that he was recognized as a Bounty Hunter so quickly.

"To be honest I rarely read the charges section of the bounty files. I just know you're worth half a million credits if I drag your *** back to San Francisco." His hand lowers to into his jacket for the handgun slung under his shoulder.

***

SPD

Bridge looks over Worf. "I heard Klingons were surly but I always assumed it was a racial stereotype not actually grounded in reality."

"Don't mind Worf. He takes his duty very seriously, he's rather big on Klingon honour. Makes him a bit grouchy at times but he's a good man." Doggie says with a respectful nod to his fellow officer.

They step onto the Bridge and salute the command personnel (Bridge is a bit slow about it only following suit a few seconds after Kat and Doggie do).

[Cracklord]

Spike
"Is that so. Well, if this is only a business transaction, I have no problem whatsoever offering you compensation for leaving me here." He replies. It's hard to credit, but he seems quite serious about avoiding violence at all costs. He's not armed, he doesn't have the presence or the appearance of a fighter, and indeed it's difficult to imagine what someone so meek and unassuming looking could do to be worth that amount of money.

[Colesign]

Shevek

"Then let's be on our guard." Shevek says.

"And let us not give them an excuse they can use to justify their desire to seize things, right?"

He looks out at the descending spaceship in the distance.

"And let's enjoy the spaceflight while we can: it's a very pleasurable experience, spaceflight!"

[The Shoveler]

Gene
"Nah, we've set up shop here for regular business. We haven't gotten any, mind you, since people tend to avoid searching for violent answers to problems, at least at my caliber," he sighs, leaning back. "I haven't had a good job in forever and I'd love the chance to get out of this dump. Jim wants to start up a long-standing business so funds can come regularly, but I just can't stand it. Once you've tasted space, you can't go back, you know?"
He checks his wallet to make sure he's broke. Yup, not even enough for a single cigarette, let alone another shot of anything.

Jim and Suzuka
After dinner, Jim set off in the car with Suzuka opting to go with. Gene never seemed to notice when Jim bugged his jacket, so he was really easily tracked.
"Dammit Gene, if I find you in trouble again I'm going to kill you!" he growls, his grip on the wheel of the car tightening. Suzuka merely looks forward, the air around her seeming still.
The car dashes for the bar.

[darkblade]

Spike

"Sorry I like to keep my business legal. On your feet." Spike says drawing his gun and pointing it at the strange man. While he is curious as to why this man is so wanted he can't afford to question it here and now.

***

Faye

Faye smiles and orders another shot for Gene and herself. As the drinks come she takes them for a second and subtly drops a pill into one before sliding it over to Gene. Assuming Gene drinks it and isn't on anything else it should knock him out for a couple hours and give him the Mother of all hangovers when he comes to. "Bottoms up Cowboy."

[doliest]

Kirk
Kirk chuckles at the flustered response Spock gave, before nodding his head, "Interesting, Mr.Spock. In that case, it seems only prudent that we begin an investigation, and hope that Trelane or some other would-be god intervenes. First, we need to find Bones and Scotty, then get the rest of the crew on the ship."

Solo
"Jabba's only one step from sending Fett after me, and frankly, that man is bad enough when there ISN'T money in it for him." He leans back; normally, he'd outright avoid this question, but...."Who exactly ARE your suppliers?"

[The Shoveler]

Gene
Being drunk as he is he doesn't notice her slip in the pill.
"Thanks for the drink," he says, taking it and downing it in one gulp. He looks at the glass afterwards.
"I just hope that I can leave this place soon. You know, outside of work you guys are pretty cool. Maybe we can work together on some-" he starts, but falls asleep before he can finish. From the blinking light on his left shoulder under the collar you can tell he's being tracked, most likely by Jim.

[industrious]

Hober Mallow

"Transmitting information; stand by."

Oh, bureaucracy. Can't live with it, or without it. The form was simple enough, though. Purpose: business. Duration: 3 days. And then his various certifications and licenses. Easy enough.

Jean-Luc Picard

The captain leaves his ready room after he finishes his tea; the SPD are already there.

"It's a pleasure to have all of you on board. And there's no need to salute, any of you. So long as you are diligent in your work, and perform admirably, I have little use for formal salutes."

He shakes hands with each of them, nodding as he does so.

"We have a briefing on Conference Room E in twenty minutes. Commander Riker, my Number One can escort you there. I need to talk to Mister Worf myself."

[Cracklord]

Hober Mallow
"One moment." The voice says, withdrawing to check each of the answers individually. Then it came back on. "Enjoy your stay. Please inform this office if your situation changes for any reason." And that was that. Anyone else would be expected to detail what they were transporting, and go through an inspection or two.
You weren't even questioned. It comes with the influence you have accumulated, being above suspicion.

Jean-Luc Picard
Worf straightens his shoulders and remains on the bridge, clasping his hands behind his back. "Yes, captain?" He asks in his deep voice, lowering his eyes half an inch.

Spike
"Very well then." He gets to his feet, raises his hands, and allows you to direct him out towards the bar. You expect him to be bluffing and suddenly to break into a tun or twist and wrestle you for the gun, and yet he does nothing of the sort. He honestly intends to let you put him in custody without so much as a raised word, let alone a struggle. And yet he's so calm about it. It all seems vaguely unreal.

Kirk
Spock puts down the Holopad. "Sir, the ship still requires twelve earth hours maintenance before it will be functional again. It is highly illogical to get them all together now." Having said that, he begins replacing the pieces on his chessboard.

Solo
Lando pauses a minute, then shrugs. "Names are dangerous in the scoundrel line of work, Han." He says. "But I suppose you need to know. A few managers of the platforms, and a few more of the refiners. Nobody important enough to be a threat, but powerful enough to be greedy."

Jim and Suzuka
You get to the bar. Gene is inside somewhere. He might be in trouble, this is a dangerous place to be Gene, and his signal hasn't moved in quite a while.

SPD
Commander Riker shows you to the conference room, gets you seats, and makes sure you're comfortable, then sits down and waits patiently, staring frankly at you both as though trying to read the contents of your soul through sheer observation.

[doliest]

Kirk
Kirk smiles, "Fine, Mr.Spock." He proceeds to set up the board, still grinning. If he knew Bones and Scotty, and he'd like to think he did, they were drinking rather heavily at the moment. He always did enjoy Bones when he was drunk, the things he would say...

Solo
"Okay. I'm in. Where am I running it to?"

[industrious]

Picard

"Mister Worf. My orders were for Lieutenant Commander Data to escort them here. Is something wrong with the Commander?"

His tone is firm, but it is not a rebuke. He is seeking information only at this point.

Hober Mallow

"Excellent. Computer!"

The Far Star's AI engages, and Mallow begins to lay out his itinerary. Starting with the most important engagement.

"Confirm my appointment with the New San Francisco Companion's Home; I don't want to be late. And while paying goes against my principles, I don't have the time to seduce anyone here. Busy, busy, busy. All work and no play makes Hober a dull dull boy."

[nanobot_swarm]

John Stalvern
John Stalvern was a space marine, he had been for fourteen years, and he knew in his gut that there would be demons on this flight. He was a survivor of the Mars incident, where teleportation experiments conducted by the UAC corporation had opened a portal to hell, unleashing Demons throughout the base who killed everyone save him. He fought his way through their unholy numbers throughout the complex, clearing a path into hell itself where he wrought his vengeance upon the demons and managed to kill their strongest warrior, the Cyber-Demon, as well as the Spider-Mastermind, leader of the demonic hoarde. For his bravery and l33t skillz, he was decorated with medals, and then promptly shipped off to this experimental vessel as protection for the eggheads. And then he had a feeling, the same feeling he had before the Mars incident occured, so he sent numerous warnings to Colonol Joson, all of which were ignored. Now here he was with his fellow space marines, all ignorant to the horrors that would surely come. Tus he decided that he would take a little extra when getting into uniform, putting on his green battle armor, and bringing along a shotgun, a pistol, and an MP3 player filled with awesome rock songs, most of which were unliscensed covers of metal. He was so ready for the demons, so ready he was shouting BRING IT ON, inside his head.

[AnimeKid]

Junior

He sighs at the man silence and finally relents. "Fine, fine, you win old timer. So what to you need from me? A hair sample and my unwavering loyalty or something like that?"

Ratchet and Clank

The three of them counting Aphelion land at their destination with confusion. Ratchet is the first to speak his confusion aloud, "Wha- where are we." Clank answers his confused feline-like friend, "It would seem that this teleportation device is linked to others in a tunnel-like fabrication. However the pathway back seems to have closed." "Well no use crying over spilled milk. Aphelion I need the stats on this planet and the current galaxy, and which quadrant." Thier ship immediatly responds, "Affirmative. I shall proceed with the data readout when I am finished. Try not to cause any problems while I do so."

[darkblade]

SPD

Doggie raises an eyebrow as he looks over Riker. He's been on the ship as a minor security officer for some time now and knew the command staff well this from Riker did not bode well. "Is something wrong, Sir?"

***

Spike and Faye

"Maybe next time sweetheart." Faye says blowing the unconscious man a kiss. Spike leads their target into the main hall at gun point. Faye sighs with relief and draws her own sidearm waiting for anyone else in the bar to make a move.

"Anyone moves and we'll take your bounty in too. No one wants that so keep your **** in the seats and we'll be on our way." Faye says waving her weapon around the room.

[Draxx]

Serenity
It’s a sunny day in the bustling bazaar of Eavesdown Docks as Mal, Zoe, and
Jayne work their way through the crowd. Given the fashions are more disposed to flowing robes and loose fabrics, they look extremely out of place. The guns they had at their hips only increased this sense of being out of place. The crew were not accustomed to civilization, and the idea of not having to be ready to defend themselves at a moment's notice. It’s a particularly busy day and all three of them are periodically jostled by passersby.

"Three hours! Three hours we wait in his parlor and for what?" Mal was grumbling, thumbs in his denim jeans, faded brown eyes narrowed. "So he can say no. If that's all he wanted to say, why did he make us come all this way? Y’know, Warrick Harrow used to be my very favorite lord with a sash."

"He has his own reasons not to want to take stolen goods. He's under investigation by the Federation, and it's going to look worse that he met you." Zoe replies. Sometimes she felt it was her job to keep Mal calm and sane by reminding him.

"Excuses. A man gives his word, he shouldn't back out of it." Mal replies. "Still, don't matter none. We'll unload it somewhere else instead."

[The Shoveler]

Jim and Suzuka
"So Gene's in here, huh? Crappy place to spend the night," Jim says, getting out of the car. Suzuka gets out and follows behind him up to the door.
"Wait, Jim. If Gene's really in trouble, I should go first. Stay close behind me," she says, going up to the door. She uses her (seemingly) wooden sword as a cane and opens the door slowly, looking inside. Jim stands behind her, his gun ready at his side.

[Cracklord]

Kirk
The two of you wile time away playing another few games. You manage to beat him once, but unless Spock has a lapse in concentration he's almost unbeatable, so you lose the next two games. And then, just like that, the bar closes. The two of you part ways, Spock has a meeting he wants to take care of, and you go to dinner to catch-up with Gaila, an old Orion girlfriend who you haven't seen in just under a decade.
You have a pleasant evening, then return to the headquarters for your orders.

Solo
"That's the catch. If we try to offload it right away, they'll pick us up for sure. We'll have to hang onto it once we lift it, least until the grip on the market lets down." Seeing your expression, he shrugs. "Man, if it was easy, everyone would do it. Do you want to be rich, or not?"

Junior
"Hardly. Your DNA can wait. As a matter of course, I will put you both to work. Ender shall remain here. I have a few theoretical solutions only he can solve. And you shall come with me to the outer reaches."

SPD
Riker shakes his head. "Nothing's the matter." He replies, shaking himself out of it. And indeed, he's stopped eyeing them speculatively and occasionally grunting. Doesn't seem he's going to answer the question, but just the same it can't be anything too important.

Serenity
The job in question is a new tecnology. Sometimes innovation means 'stealing anothers secret before they have a chance to use it', and in this case said secret is a new and revolutionary way to create artificial intelligence's. Their is money in it, of course, but it's only a theoretical process, so nobody is is supposed to know about it until it's past testing.

Picard
"I requested Data allow me to take it on, sir." Worf replies in his deep, gravely voice. "I was curious about the replacements, and wanted to see them for myself to take the measure of them."
He pauses, suddenly worried he has offended you with his presumption.

[industrious]

Picard

"Your desire to do so is admirable, Mister Worf. You are the Chief of Security for this ship, after all, and I can hardly blame you for attempting to do your job. I would only ask that in the future, if I assign Mister Data, and you wish to take another's measure, that you accompany rather than replace him."

He isn't angry. Well, he is a bit annoyed, but he's very, very good at sublimating those feelings. And he knows that Worf did nothing wrong and had no way of knowing.

"We still have a briefing to attend to, Commander. We should not be late."

[Cracklord]

Hober Mallow
A Companion is a skilled, well-educated and well-respected member of a guild of professional courtesans/entertainers, often accompanying the wealthy and powerful in their position in the social elite. They have considerable ritual and ceremony surrounding their services, which you find somewhat tedious.
Kin Arad is tall, statuesque and dignified as a queen, not a beautiful woman exactly, but she is attractive (which is not the same thing) and eye-catching, with an exotic, sensuous flair and raw confidence that one can't help but be drawn to. Her skin is clear and smooth, and she's apparently rich enough to rejuvac treatment.
"I must say, I was surprised to hear your call." She says, as she enters the penthouse you are staying at, blue eyes meeting yours. "You have quite the reputation, sir Mallow."

Ratchet and Clank
You feel as tiny as ants moving beneath these enormous trees, miniscule in a world devised on a far greater scale then the one you are built on.
As you look around, Ratchett hears a low, guttural roar that sends shivers up his spine. He turns slowly, and does not like what he sees.
It is a black six-limbed panther from Hell, five times the size that common sense would dictate, with an armored head and massive distensible jaws, ten quills around it's neck rippling out to give it a still more menacing appearance.

Spike and Faye
"I suggest you listen to them." The Palainian says softly, in a manner that any diplomat would give their right arms for. "If you co-operate they will most likely ignore you, and nobody will get hurt." His lips twitch, although something as inhuman as him is hard to read reactions on.
"Better to simply let us go our way, and go yours." To your surprise, it does seem to lower the tension in the room, and most of them go back to their drinks, no longer interested.

Picard, SRD
That said, you follow the rest of those involved to the conference room. It was pleasant, spacious (well, it usually was) and paneled with floating viewscreens and control panels.
The conference room is feeling a little stifling. For the first time in a long while it is absolutely full, given the importance of the mission, and the unusual nature of it. Starfleet is generally geared towards exploration, the idea of performing your usual role on humans seems both intriguing and faintly wrong.
The mission is currently being explained in detail, the essentials of the culture, their reasons for defecting and the advantages they will gain by rejoining the Federation.
Annares is a large, habitable moon of the planet Urras on which revolutionaries from that planet settled so that they might realize their dreams of an anarchic utopia. Two centuries later, the revolution has stagnated and hierarchical structures are reemerging.

Jasper the Ethnarch
Jasper steeped up to the bridge of the GCU Grey Area, hands clasped behind his back and shoulders thrown back in an unconsciously aggressive pose.
Jasper is a tall man with a pale skin and a lithe, muscular build, his upper body completely bare to showcase this. He wears white pants with blackstrips, tied with a black sash similar in appearance to karate gi, and black boots. His Omega form adds a metal skirt resembling Samurai armour. His face is carefully blank, totally expressionless, though something in his demeanor hints at disdain.
A mechanical pair of what debatably are called wings spread from his back. These are in fact two thin, jointed arm-shaped pieces of metal ending in sharp metal hands, with foot-long spikes from the elbows and five flat, jointed pieces of metal ending in spikes coming from the wrists.
He stops beside Edward's chair, arms folded across his chest, eyes like molten brass burning with a feral light much out of place on his bland, unassuming features. "Well?" He asks, looking up at the sky as well.
"No results yet. Patience." Edward replied, pausing his contemplations to look at his unstable colleague. Strictly speaking, the two were equal, though in terms of experience, intelligence and ability, although Edward was always careful to make sure that Jasper was well out of earshot when he said that, and besides the ship was smarter then both of them and the major population of any solar system you cared to mention, and quite capable of flying itself.
Just the same, he felt that Jasper should give him more respect and attention then the dismissive attitude he routinely exhibited. He was older then some civilizations, and was strictly speaking the head of their people, although he had little use for office. The man could at least attach an honorific if deference was too much for him.
Jasper snorted, shaking his head so his blond lions mane shook with it. He opens his mouth as if to speak, then turns on his heel and strides back the way he came, leaving Edward alone with his thoughts.
He looked down at her. She was nude, her long legs tangled among the sweat-stained sheets, her hands flung afar as though seeking to stretch apart. Her wide eyes were stretched even wider then normal, so that they dominated over half her face, with the deep, incomparable blue of a Melange addict. Alice was adrift, seeing time in a non-linear fashion, and lost in it. He sits on the bed, takes her head to his lap and strokes it, murmuring softly.

[darkblade]

Spike and Faye

The two bounty hunters lead their mark out of the bar at gun point. On their guard for anyone else to try and make some trouble.

Spike sees Gene's friends enter the bar and tries his best to ignore them. If they don't draw the connection between their professional rivals taking in a bounty and their captain passed out on the floor things won't get hairy.

***

SPD

"We're supposed to negotiate there?" Kat asks raising her eyes suspiciously at the presentation of mission objectives.

"I agree with Kat here. The planet is little more than a hideout for those wanted by the Alliance and SPD. I can't see any reason Starfleet would wish to attempt diplomatic relations with it." Doggie says shaking his head.

[AnimeKid]

Junior

"Okay, your the boss old-timer." As he follows the follows the man to wherever he needs to go Junior telepathically contacts his brother Nigredo also known to the public as Gainun Kukai Sr. to his Jr (He can only do this with Nigredo). He asks him to contact Mary and Shelley, his two lieutenants, on board the Durandal and ask them to find anything they can on a guy called Eisenhower. He also warns him that it might be a fake name so nothing might turn up. He tells him to contact him via telepathy if anything turns up and then terminates the link.

Ratchet and Clank

Ratchet reacts to the danger in an instant. The first thing he does is throw a groovitron. This handy little device has irresistible music and disco light that emanate from it's disco ball design. It causes enemies in it's area of effect ( about a 20 foot radius) to start dancing uncontrollably, however the effect only lasts for 16 seconds. Using the little time his has after it's launch Ratchet draws his magma combuster and pulls the trigger. The pistol like weapon then starts baseball sized globes of magma at the panther from hell's open mouth.

[Cracklord]

Junior
He reaches out teapathically, only for the old man to slap him down. It's a surprise, Junior is more powerful, but lessexperienced and wasn't expecting it, and the old man took advantage of that.
"It's Eisenhorn." He says, correcting your mangling of his name. "And I'm not a matter of public record. If you want to learn about me, you'll have to join my world, as you have agreed to."
Leaving you with that, he comes at last to the end of the corridor. The room ahead is a large dark room, more of a laboratory. No lights were on except for the light blue of monitor screens, the blinking of servers, and super computers surrounding them.
"In a few days, we shall make first contact with a new civilization, more magnitudes of power advanced then we are then can be easily articulated. They are not hostile to us, but they are hostile to our way of life. If they do mannage to spread, the concequences could be considerable, even the end of the Federation. We want you to find this individual."

Ratchet and Clank
His first choice does not work, for the simple reason that the beast does not hear on the same frequency as humanoids. To it, all it hears is a faint buzzing and occasional bursts of white noise. Irritating, but hardly the effect Ratchett had hoped for.
However, the thing was still flesh and blood, and a mouthful of plasma still melted the inside of it's mouth. It lets out a scream, lashing at you in mindless hate with it's front paw as it convulses in agony.

Spike and Faye
His arm innocently brushes James Hawking, drawing his attention as he steps past, in such a manner that can't be ignored but seems entirely innocent, leading to the two groups facing each other squarely. It takes a moment to guess what must have happened, with Gene pobviously drugged and the most wanted man in this sector in Cowboy Bebop's custody.

SPD
Riker sighs and scratches his beard. "It is at the moment, yes. Anarchists and the like live there, everyone equal in mediocrity, and they offer shelter from prosecution to anyone who shows up as long as they behave themselves while they are there. But if we just leave it, it will only get worse. We need to do something, and peaceful solutions are the best. Right Captain?"

[doliest]

Kirk
Kirk strolls in, the grin of a man who has everything he could possibly desire in life at his fingertips and lives for every minute of it. "So, Spock, any orders for us, or should we start investigating now?"

Solo
The answer is immediate, "I'm game. Hell, half the universe wants me for the money I owe it and the other half hates my f***ing guts. I figure, hey, I can only ever remedy one of those."

[Cracklord]

Solo
Lando laughs. "And then there is me and Chewie, right?" he says, turning and leading you over to the bar. "Here, I'll buy you a drink, partner, and then we can get to work."

Kirk
"Affirmative. We have no requirements but the investigation of said annomoly." Spock replies. "The co-ordinates check out, but the Romulan Empire has refused permission to cross over their borders so we will have to cloak ourselves the entire time." Spock says, walking over to the bridge.
McCoy is waiting in uniform, along witht he resto of the crew, and Chechov is talking about how the Russians invented inventing, and probably breathing as well.

[industrious]

Picard

"Agreed, Number One. The reemergence of various command structures in this anarchist utopia creates a problem for the Annaresans; the possibility that one or another radical group or individual can take control of the people there, or impose a draconian government is quite likely when the people are unused to giving away power. Our purpose is to facilitate the transfer from no leadership to their new leaders, and ensure that the Annaresan people will not be harmed."

Broadly, at least, that was true. His orders were to try to bring the Annaresan people into the Federation; however, Picard would much rather see a successful Annarsan planet than a Federation Annares, if need be.

Hober Mallow

"A reputation? Only good things, I hope."

He waves a hand and invites her into the penthouse. One of the most expensive he could find; business had been good to him recently, and his commission percentage had increased accordingly.

[Cracklord]

Picard
Riker nods. He wasn't much for anarchism, but if people wanted to live that way then it should be left to them, not be a matter for him to decide. "While we could impose ourselves on them, that would be against the morals that the federation and that Starfleet was built on. We're not gods, and it's not our job to dictate how people live. But we do have to help them up when they need it, and knock them down when they try to hurt other people."

Hober Mallow
"Hardly." She replies, steeping in and allowing her eyes to light up appreciatively. You suspect it's a show for you're benefit more then genuine appeal at the surroundings, but it's gratifying nonetheless, and if it is feigned it's indistinguishable from the real thing.
"Wicked, dangerous things. Apparenly you're quite the force to be reckoned with, Mallow." She continues. "More then anybody can handle. Is it true?"

[doliest]

Kirk
"Bones. Excellent; suprised to see you standing upright, considering the bar I saw. Scotty, happy to see you, be ready to push the ship to it's limits, we've got a mission." Kirk smiles to each of them; loyal men who would, if called upon, lay down their lives before betraying that which they all held dear. He'd trust his life to each and every one of them.

Solo
"A drink to all the b******s who I've avoided so far, and to all the b******s we still need too."

[AnimeKid]

Junior

He crosses his arms and looks at the old man as he says, "What civilization is that, and how can they be hostile to our way of life if they aren't hostile towards us?"

Ratchet and Clank

Ratchet back-flips masterfully to avoid the clawing attack that would have surely ripped him to shreds. As he does so Clank left arm shifts into the nozzle for the geo-laser. He had only used it to cut through rock and other such substances before. This would be his first time testing it on flesh. Clank aims and fires the continues laser at the big cat and Ratchet continues his shooting after landing on his feet.

[Cracklord]

Junior
"You know of the Borg?" He replies, and leaves that as the terrible implications that come with it to do the talking for him. "One doesn't need to kill to destroy, young man."

Ratchet and Clank
You tear of one of it's six legs, and it screams again, crashing into a tree. More and more shots tear it to pieces.

Kirk
Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
Your crew are receptive and well rested, ready to get back to doing what they do best, and exploring the reaches of the universe. You punch in the co-ordinates and set a course. And the ship shoots heavenward into the reaches of forever.

[industrious]

Hober Mallow

"Really?"

He opens the bar, removes a bottle of Four Kingdoms Wine, and pours a glass for each of them.

"They must be mistaken, my dear. I am a Master Trader; through my hands, wealth and profit flow for all parties involved. I've had several Ferengi beg me for apprenticeship. I am highly skilled, but all if I was to die, the Galaxy would still turn, the planets would still orbit, and the Foundation would get by somehow without me."

Hober is arrogant beyond measure, but he knows how to tone it down in the presence of women. Few like boastful men, after all. And he does like women.

[Cracklord]

Hober Mallow
"Really? I'd never have guessed that you were modest and softly spoken as well." She replies. "I'll bet you are even more dangerous then the rumors say."
She stops the flattery. Over-doing it made them feel patronized, and while it was important to make them feel powerful and in control, it also helped to actually let them take charge of the situation.
And men loved to talk about themselves, their achievements and power, particularly to attentive and attractive women they intended to seduce.

Annares
Abbenay spaceport did not see a lot of use, and the landing pad was scarcely appropriate for the ship. nonetheless, it was appropriate to function, and the ship came to rest lightly on the polished steel.
It was a majestic and moving sight, but it was also vaguely portentous. After the ship came to rest, things would never be the same again.
Shevak and his entorage are invited on. The Federation had insisted the actual negotiations took place on board, in case they needed to be monitored or a higher authority had to be reached. Furthermore, there was the not so subtle aspect of reminding them what they were missing out on. It was, afterall, a very impressive ship.

[darkblade]

Spike and Faye

"Would you believe I drugged him to avoid just this situation?" Faye asks Gene's crew akwardly as Spike sighs and runs for the door shoving his mark out first. Faye could try talking them down but he knows all too well that this will end with a fire fight.

***

SPD

"So why am I part of this briefing? As temporary counsellor my job is to help the crew deal with the mental stresses resulting from duty aboard this ship. Isn't it? I don't think I'm allowed in tactical analysis. Hey is that a replicator? We had one on the Dekabase but it never worked right and kept sending in raw milk instead of butter." Bridge starts to ramble on as Doggie cuts him off with a sideways glance.

"Are their any players for leadership that are friendly to the federation?" Doggie asks hoping to shift their focus away from Bridge's quirks. While he could be annoying he was effective both as an officer and a counsellor but most people couldn't look past his problems to see that.

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek boards the ships, undeniably fascinated. It's sleek technology, clearly built by people with a love for their craft.

Like most Anarchists, Shevek had once assumed that if you removed a person's natural inclination to work and create and substituted profit incentives, they would become lazy and shiftless workers. His visit to Urras, however, had broadened his horizons in that regard: creativity still existed under the profit system.

That didn't mean that the profit motive couldn't impair a person's creative drive though. Far from it.

"How I wish we could build ships like these..." Shevek said to himself quietly.

Annares may have, until recent events, been in isolation, too complacent in it's self-sufficency. But even with this new era of openness towards other societies, and a new revolutionary energy, the truth of the matter was that Annares was a piss-poor planet, arid and scarce in resources: the building of a single grain barge was a notable strain on the planet's economy, and it's defense fleet consisted of the original colonization ships, carefully maintained.

Plenty of Helium for Dirigibles, though.

Shevek sat down on a seat and strapped himself in. Unconsciously, his hand went to the pocket of his holum-fiber jacket, where the results of his scientific accomplishments lay...

Otherwise, his hands were empty, as they'd always been.

[Draxx]

Serenity
"We'll figure it out later. Come on, lets go get a drink and not think about how much the repairs are going to cost if Warrick doesn't fork out what he owes us." Mal says with a sigh.
"Best idea I've heard all day." Jayne says, then stops. "You are paying, right?"
"Enjoy the money while it exists. It'll be gone soon."

[AnimeKid]

Junior

Junior sheepishly rubs the back of his head as he replies, "Okay you've made your point. Still though the entire Federation has trouble with the Borg. I mean I know the Durandal is more advanced than most ships but what do you expect me to be do?"

Ratchet and Clank

Feeling that he has weakened the beast enough switches his Fusion Grenade laucher which takes the form of a glove that materialized the grenade in his hand. He then launches three grenades at the beast to try and finish it off.

[The Shoveler]

Jim and Suzuka
Suzuka glares at Faye, her sword ready for action. Jim looks over the situation and, being more trusting, holds his hand in front of Suzuka.
"I know Gene and he was probably drunk when you found him. It would make sense to knock him out before he could cause trouble for all parties in the area," Jim says. Suzuka looks down at him.
"I see your logic, and that does sound like Gene, but what if that wasn't the case?" she asks him, her hand still gripped firmly on her sword.
"Even if they did knock him out because he had a lead on their mark, it would still be pointless to fight about it. We'd just draw attention to ourselves and cause problems for everyone," he answers, not mentioning the fact that with only her as their offensive forces, Spike and Faye could probably overpower the duo. Suzuka puts down her sword.
"Fine. But Outlaws should never trust other Outlaws, Jim. Go, Faye. I won't stop you this time, so hurry out of here before one of the drunkards gets antsy."
The two of them go inside to fetch Gene.

[Cracklord]

Shevek
Worf, security officer, checks you over to make sure you are not trying to smuggle weapons onboard or anything else that would be found objectionable, then leads you to the conference room where the discussing will take place.
Worf is something of a strange sight to them, most of whom have never seen an alien. When they split from the Federation, the only race humanity had regular contact with was the Vulkans, none of whom had come to Annares (peaceful protest in the name of an ideology that weakened the species on a whole was 'not logical' according to them), and even a half-blooded Klingon is a totally new sight.

Ratchet and Clank
Giant space panther, well done. The tree behind it promptly collapses, knocked over by the force of the explosion.

Junior
“Observation, to begin with.” He replies, repeating himself carefully. “We need more information to defend ourselves. Until we know more, there is nothing we can do.”

Jim and Suzuka
You pull Gene out of the bar, and get him home. Well, there goes your last chance of being able to work something out, here. You're going to ahve to leave the system, and quickly, or find another way to get five hundred thousand credits.

[AnimeKid]

Junior

Junior nods as he hears what is needed of him. "Okay, information gathering. I can handle that. So... should i get started right away or is there some more things that I need to know." He rocks back and forth on his heels as he responds.

Ratchet and Clank

Ratchet breathes in and out heavily as he says, "That! Was a close one. Okay then Aphelion you got those readouts yet?"

(I turn Aphelion over to you Cracklord temporarily for the readouts.)

[Colesign]

Shevek

The people of the Tau Ceti system, although quite human in every practical sense (thanks to Forerunner colonization attempts and whatnot), have one particular racial feature that sets them apart.

They're...well, they're fuzzy. A light downy sort of dermal hair fairly similar to baby fuzz. They ain't cat people or some weird **** like that: they look human. They are human.

They also happen to look a tad pet-able.

Shevek and the various syndics from the various free organizations of Annares file into the room in a scattered, individualistic fashion. Some take to the seats, bouncing up and down on the soft fabric with a bit of skepticism: some of the more scientific ones are examining a few of the technological devices, others are glowering at the 'Propertarian Oppressors', and a fair portion are trying to strike up conversations with the Security Officers positioned by the walls.

Shevek turns to the Klingon officer.

"Shevek!" He says in a bright tone, holding out his hand.

[industrious]

Captain Picard

"I have always relied upon the ship's counselor to not only ensure that my crew is mentally sound, but to ascertain the moods and impressions of those we are to meet. A Counselor is always valuable during diplomacy."

He pauses for a moment.

"As for the 'leaders'' attitudes towards the Federation..." With an explorer's spirit and the future in his eyes, Picard turns his lips upwards. "...that's what we are shortly about to find out. The meeting takes place in two hours on the Holodeck, Ladies and Gentlemen. Please be prompt."

Meeting with Shevek

"Apologies, gentlemen, for my delay. I'm afraid Doctor Crusher needed to see me about arranging vaccinations for some of the Vulcan crewmembers."

The "Conference Room," as it were, is indistinguishable from a normal one aboard the Sovereign-Enterprise. Larger, certainly, but with nothing that would make anyone suspicious of it.

The Captain is dressed impeccably in his dress uniform (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Julian_Bashir_dress_uniform.jpg). There is a very calm, professional air to him. Authoritative...but casual.

"But before we begin, would anybody like anything to eat? A beverage?"

Picard begins to speak with a more commanding tone.

"Pain au chocolat avec des truffes, s'il vous-plait"

For a moment, they wonder if he's actually ordering someone to do something...before they see the replicator. Before they see the food appear, created out of thin air. Picard reaches in with the air of one used to doing so (albeit a tad slower than normal, for the sake of showmanship), and takes a bite of the pastry. When his mouth is free, he speaks again, merriment evident on his face.

"I assure you. It's quite delicious."

Hober Mallow

"I suppose so, my dear."

The dance of Companion custom and formality was irritating and fascinating at the same time. But it was worth it, especially when the Guild had such...stunning individuals.

Preem Palver

Perfect.

He's in the bar already when Jayne and Mal enter. In the middle of telling a particularly vile, nasty joke that was banned in Argo (but then again, what wasn't?), he points at the two entering.

"Barkeep!" he says, slurring his words slightly. "A round for the two that jus' walked in 'ere!"

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek takes a a chocolate truffle and eats it with gusto. Only one, though: Annaresti aren't really used to rich food, a fact he'd learned after too many dinner parties on Urras.

"Mmmm!" Shevek says, then swallows. Then he examines the replicator machine with undisguised fascination.

"A Energy-to-Matter Replicator! I've heard about these things!"

So far, so good. Then, with a gleam in his eye, taking out a battered yet fairly advanced data pad, Shevek, (and a few of the scientifically minded syndics) betray their Anarchist sympathies.

"Are the specs available for download? What's the power input ratio?"

[Cracklord]

Shevek, Picard
Riker clears his throat. "We will be most happy to answer all your questions, but it can wait. Regardless of how these negotiations turn out, we can have some of our scientists show you how to make one as soon as our discussion is done." It was important to show them that the Alliance was perfectly willing to help them. The matter replicators were extremely valuable, although they had limits. Complex elements and chemical compositions fell apart at a cellular level long before the machine completed them, so they were little use at creating anything complex, but just the same they were one of the primary elements of The Federations 'post-want society', and hopefully would allow them to one day become a 'post-scarcity society'.
He doesn’t say anything else, it was important not to undermine Picard or make him look weak, but it was also important to keep the group focused on topic. If he had to come off as the somewhat stuffy aid to do it, then there were worse sacrifices.

Hober Mallow
"So, might I assume we are celebrating something? Fine wine and interesting company," she winks, "Center of the civilized universe, I can only assume something is going very well for you."

Preem Palver, Serenity
This far in the civilized world, synthehol was the substitute, giving a similar buzz but not leading to excess, not damaging the liver or body, and not giving a hang-over. The barman slides three wiskeys over the table at Zoe, Mal and Jayne.

Junior
"We intend to make a few adjustments to your ship first. Nothing sinister, simply updating the weaponry and navigation system. After that is completed, you will go to the co-ordinates given, make contact, then await further instructions.

Kirk
"Captain, the Romulan Empire has just made contact. They are not hostile, they simply wish an accounting of why we are crossing over into their space." Chekhov says calmly, removing his headset and flicking a switch. “Should I establish contact?”

[darkblade]

Faye and Spike

Faye nods towards the other Bounty Hunters and follows behind Spike. Spike brings his mark up towards the docked Bebop where Jet is sitting on the deck. "Dear God did Spike bring us back a live one? We might actually make something on this one."

"Very funny. Fire up the engines and get us to the nearest precint. He's a talker." Spike sighs as he shoves the criminal onto the ship and lights himself a cigarette.

Jet nods and heads inside to start her up.

***

SPD

Doggie shivers slightly at the site of the pastry for a moment. He can smell the ever dangerous but near universal among human cuisine chocolate in it but he does not wish to throw off negotiations by letting it set him off too much.

Bridge looks at the summoned dessert and decides to try something himself. "Buttery toast."

Kat just shakes her head at both of her comrades.

[Colesign]

Shevek

In Annaresti meetings, usually there's a period of conversation and mingling, then a drifting to the center of the room for a discussion of the issues at hand.

All the same, Riker's request isn't phrased unreasonably, and everyone gathers at the briefing table.

Shevek is neither the first nor the last one to take a seat. But he does wind up being the first to speak.

"So." He says, spreading his hand wide. "You have your Anarchists. What are you going to do with them?"

[AnimeKid]

Junior

"Alright then I'll just chill until the adjustments are done then. Then when we're ready we'll take off and get to work," he says as he stretches his arms back and proceeds to sit down and relax while the modifications are being put in place.

[Cracklord]

Junior
Eisenhorn is not capable of facial expression, so you have no idea what he thinks of that. But he doesn't seem about to tell you, straightening and adjusting his coat. "Very well. We shall speak again soon."

Shevek, Picard
Everyone settles, and waits for the opening exchange. Once the negotiations begin in earnest, different specialists will explain details, philosophy shall be discussed, and all a manner of exchange will begin. But right now, it's between Picard and Shevek, unanimously decided upon spokesperson.

Faye and Spike
Nadrak has not moved since being place in the cell, as the ship starts off. You get a sense he's waiting for you to approach him, patient as a date with the grim reaper. You've sensibly left him alone, getting the ship off the ground and into the upper stratosphere then out into space. You'll be across in six hours, so there is plenty to do in the meantime. Yet just the same, whenever your not actively forcing your mind on other things you find it, inexorably returning to the prisoner.

[darkblade]

Ed and Eine

With the others distracted by their planning on how to divy up the bounty between them Ed finds herself wandering to the rarely used cell they have in the back of the ship alongside Eine.

The small dog stops and growls at their prisoner as Ed sits crossed legged in front of the cell.

"Hi! I'm Edward!" The strange young girl says waving to Nadrak.

[industrious]

Hober Mallow

"I can afford to...indulge myself more than other times, yes."

Buyer's remorse is beginning to set in. He's a fairly direct man when it comes to his pleasures; getting a Companion had been a whim more than anything. A few hours time, and it was getting flushed away in idle chit-chat.

Jean-Luc Picard

"I wouldn't dare to presume to call you 'my' anarchists at all. As difficult as it may be for you to believe, we do both believe in self-determination. For the rights of any planet, any individual, to be upheld."

Picard sits opposite from Shevek, palms spread onto the table.

"We have documents and various reports on your world, but they are, for the most part, either incomplete, incredibly biased, or so nuanced as to be all but useless. I would ask you to tell us about your world. Your society, in your own words. And if you wish, after you are done, we can do the same."

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek nods.

"Very cyclical. I approve."

Shevek pauses in thought.

"As a starting point, perhaps you could tell us the basics of what you do know bout our world? IN brief, what is Annares in your eyes?"

{I.E. post something short and utilitarian while I read over certain sections of the Dispossessed again:smallwink:}

[doliest]

Kirk
"Send word that we come in peace." Kirk says, leaning back in his chair in case of a video transmission.

Kirk didn't have much experience with the mysterious Romulan Star Empire. He knew that they were related to Vulcans in some way; that much was obvious. But unlike the Klingons, little information came from withen their empire; they knew next to nothing about the oldest foes the federation knew, which was something of an oxymoron.

[Cracklord]

Kirk
The Romulan shuttlecraft in the main viewer had been positively identified as a military vessel, and as you hail it the viewscreen flashed to life. You opposite number folded his arms and smiled at Kirk, with that same, arrogant smile that all Romulans seemed to be born with. "If that is the case, there can be no harm in informing us as to your reason for being here."

Ed and Eine
The Painalian looks up, and waves them over. "I can see that." He says softly. "You would be the intelligence of this organization then, given your size and trusting nature I'd imagine you work primarily from this ship, while the others actually drag us undesirables here. Would I be correct?"

Shevek, Picard
Riker decides to be blunt. "To our eyes, Annares is a problem. Maintaining an embargo is expensive, but refusing to do so more so. Furthermore, as you are no doubt aware it is seen as neutral territory, even sanctuary by those fleeing justice, and as an embarrassment by the administration."
Seeing he has your attention, he shrugs. "I myself see no issue with your way of life. It hurts nobody else, so you should be free to do it. As far as I am concerned, every lifeform has rights to think, live, be treated with respect and walk, scuttle or slither towards a bright new dawn. It's not even that we're different, if you look at the Federation I suspect you would find that in this age we have more in common then you believe. But The Federation doesn't like having to defend a planet that won't offer any acknowledgments in return."

Hober Mallow
Seeing he's becoming bored, she steps over and wraps her arms around him. "Enough talk." She whispers, and pulls him aside.

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek nods. "That, then, is your viewpoint, and the viewpoint of the Federation in general."

He fidgets. As the most traveled of the children of the Annarres, his authority when it came to knowledge has sort of bled over into authority within the group of Annaresti delegates. In an effort to defuse this...

"Perhaps it would be good if my brothers and sisters were to say a few words about what Annares is to them."

And so the men and women of Annarres each have their brief say, each person's expressed views upon their planet (well, moon, really), coloring their own perceptions, from the geographical ('the one continental mass of Annarres rings the globe and is bracketed by too main oceans...') to the historical ('After the Great Strikes and the brokering of the Settlement Agreement with the Council of World Governments of Urras, settlers associated with the Odonian movement made a mass landing near the Settlement that would eventually be named Abbenay...') to the passionately political (the people of Annarres, without states, premiers, presidents, chiefs, generals, bosses, landlords, wages, or wars, stand united and free in a spirit of solidarity, and shall stand together against all odds...').

Then came Shevek's turns. He closed his eyes, and then, awkwardly, speaking from the heart, he said:

"Annarres...is my home. And quite egoistically, I want the best for it."

There was a bit of silence.

Shevek coughed. "I have a question of sorts. You said that the Federation defends our world specifically, despite us not acknowledging our authority. What does that mean? There aren't exactly Battle Fleets from interstellar empires seeking to carpet bomb our world, and we've never asked for any help of that sort in defending our world anyways."

[Cracklord]

Shevak
Riker turns to Picard and shrugs, leaving the next move to him. How to explain the Dominion war or the Borg expansion to someone who has never heard of either of those groups? How to make them understand that humanity isn't the only power in the galaxy, and competition is not always peaceful? They've been apart too long, and are unused to violence.
He liked what he heard. A bit simple, maybe, but a home a man could be proud of, one he wouldn't mind himself, come to think of it. The Federation wasn't perfect. It was moving forward, which was good, but there was still plenty an idealist would object to. In a strange way, Annares seemed closer to what the Federation wanted to be then almost anywhere else he'd seen, and they'd done it with far less.

[Draxx]

Serenity
Jayne takes his drink and throws it back. Mal and Zoe watch him first with the sort of unconscious caution that gets drilled into survivors, but when there seem to be no ill-effects take theirs as well. During the war, they'd learned to be wary of trusting something so easily turned against you. And even since the war it wouldn't be the first time someone has tried to poison them.

Mal walks over to sit down at the mans table, looking him up and down. "Got the look of a man with a job that needs doing." Mal observed, thumbs resting in his suspenders. "Maybe I can help you out with that." Zoe has his back, watching around to make sure the man is alone, wile Jayne walks over to the bar and does what he can to compound the drink and stretch the intrest he was provided.

[darkblade]

SPD

While Picard and Shevek discuss their positions Doggie and Bridge round out the edges of the negotiation. Doggie looks to his former charge and issues an order. "Bridge, go find one of the aides and get me a reading."

"Isn't that very amoral and likely to insult the people we are negotiating with?" Bridge asks with no shortage of concern.

"Only if you get caught. No go." Doggie growls as the young man sighs and removes his gloves. Bridge navigates the room until he can find one of Shevek's assistants to shake hands with.

***

Ed and Eine

The tiny dog that a man such as Nadrak has surely recognized for the advanced genetically modified being it is by now continues to growl and making a point of standing in between Ed and their prisoner.

"Ed fight the bad guys too." The little girl protests crossing her arms in front of her.

[Cracklord]

SPD
Swinburne Sinclair-Peter was tall and rangy, with the air of one who does not belong. His long, dark hair is streaked with silver, as is the downy fuzz on his face, giving him an almost tiger-like appearence. This fits him fairly well, he has the look of an aging predator about him more then anything. He shakes your hand right back, and nods to you.
"The Federation has come a long way." He says.

Ed, Eine
"I believe you." He says. He's not much taller then the twelve year old, small and sleak with a wiry stregnth to him, but still a shade bellow five feet tall. He looks down at the dog, and makes a show of licking his lips.
"Do you know, where I come from that dog would be considered a delicacy? We have so little that the meat on it's bones would be far more valuable to us then the knowledge in it's head." He looks up at you with souless eyes, and bares small, sharp teeth, and suddenly you can't help but wonder if he'd eat human as gladly as dog. "Isn't that the basis of all wealth? Whatever helps the most makes you the most powerful, the most influential. Whether it is more food, more land, more people working for you... It's all the same, isn't it?"
He spares you having to consider it by changing the subject. "But regardless, I find myself wondering how you came to such a life. Surely you are young, and exceptional. Is living in these conditions really making the most of your potential?"

Serenity, Preem Palver
As it would happen, the farmers credit is very good, and the barman doesn't hesitate in letting Jayne stretch it as far as he wants, pushing over a large, frosted glass of what would be non-alcoholic whisky.

[darkblade]

Ed and Eine

"I came from a poor world too. It was this or work for someone like you." Ed says glaring at the man. For a brief moment her eclectic mannerisms and childlike demeanour vanish. They return even quicker than their fading though.

"Where'd you come from then?"

***

Bridge

"It's a lot better than it was when you broke off at any rate." Bridge nods.

"Though it does have a long way to go. Range- I'm sorry Counsellor Bridge Carson." Bridge holds out his ungloved hand waiting for the man to shake it so he could get a sense of him.

[Cracklord]

Ed and Eine
"Poor? You misunderstand. We were not poor. It's just that everything was so scarce, what could we do but survive? If the wealth does not exist, how can we be poor by not possessing it? First principles, Edward. Simplicity. As for me, well I am possessed of a desire to change this. Acts of terrorism, they call them, but really I seek a more lofty goal. I wish to draw attention to the inequities of this Federation and readdress them where I may. A patriot, you could call me." He stops, suddenly betraying a certain hesitance. "Isn't there a human expression to that effect? 'Do not curse the darkness, but rather light a lamp?' I have never killed anyone. Indeed I deplore violence in all its forms. I rarely lie. And while I may subvert or disregard certain laws, they are not my laws. Why should I be forced to obey them?"

Bridge
He takes your grip, and what you really feel is belief. This man represents the old-school of Annares, the flaming rhetoric and ideology, the intellectual who believes. He was probably deeply unhappy living in his paradise. He'd much rather rabble-rouse and bolster ideological revolutions elsewhere. Despite this, he feels almost gentle, somewhat paradoxically.
"Nothing is perfect. It's the route we take towards it that is important. Even in heaven there is room for improvement. If there wasn't, then what would be left to aspire to? What would be left for work?"

Qo'noS, First City
Once apon a time there was a Martian named Carlisle Valentine Cullen.
Carlisle was as real as taxes but he was a race of one. He was an intelligent creature with the genes and ancestry of a man, but he was not a man. What he was, was something else entirely. Until chance brought him to an arm of the galaxy that he was completely unaware of, he had never laid eyes on a human being. He thinks like a Martian, he feels like a Martian, he acts like a Martian. He's been brought up by a race which has nothing in common with us. Not yet.
For hundreds of years he has lived without want or need, and without a sense of direction. And so he came here with his sons, in order to make contact and begin bringing the people's of this arm of the galaxy towards The Culture's standard of living and idealogical perfection.
He has come.

[doliest]

Kirk
"We have reports of a time-space anomoly withen your space. What reports we have indicate that it could be dangerous and felt it prudent to investigate."

Solo
While drinking, Solo looks over to Lando, "So, when should we get the stuff onto my ship; and, for that matter, where."

[darkblade]

Bridge

Bridge returns the man's grasp before letting go and thinking to himself. A reading that doesn't work without context. I'll have to go deeper.

"So what would you like to see the Federation change to better accommodate your people?" He asks careful to keep his bare hands away from anyone else lest he be distracted by another reading.

***

Ed and Eine

Ed nods slightly and sighs before replying in her childlike voice again, it's hard to tell if the serious voice you heard or this is her true self. "Rules are meant to be broken but not when it hurts people. You've hurt a lot of people."

Eine grows tired of the moral debate he can't participate in and wanders off towards the smell of Jet cooking something in the galley.

[industrious]

Preem Palver

"Well, I sort of kind of have a job..."

The man leans back in his chair, throws back another shot of synthol.

"...you see, I won the planetary lot-o-ree a few weeks back, and I decided to go and see the stars. Now, the wife was all 'what about me,' and I was all 'what about you,' and I've had the most peace'n'quiet in years. Now, I just got me a wave from her, telling me to get home, or else she's thinking 'bout a divorce! Ain't that somethin? So, what I need is passenger ac-co-mo-dations aboard your ship for the next until you get back to Earth. I tell 'er I'm coming back as quick-like as can be, she's happy, I'm happy, you're happy...we're all happy. What'd you say?"

Captain Picard

Picard is slow to speak, and chooses his next words carefully. His intent is not to scare or intimidate, but to inform. And though that information would cause them to fear all the same, it would be a rational fear, and not the mongering that would take advantage of these people.

"The philosopher Thomas Hobbes noted that the problem with mankind was not that we were all destructive and desirous of other men's power, but that those people existed. This, I believe is the truth of the matter. The Federation has an enlightened sensibility about the galaxy, about morality, about rights and freedom. We are not perfect, not by a long-shot, but we are ever-striving towards our ideals. We recognize our potential, and when we fall short, we know we have done wrong, and seek to improve ourselves accordingly."

He leans forward, eyes sweeping across the room.

"But there are those out there who do not share our ideals. Who are dominated by their desire to control others, to force subjugation and their rule on those too weak to resist them. I have seen a world under the brutal reign of the former Cardassian Empire; their people forced to strip-mine their own planet, their liberties denied, their culture nearly destroyed. Now those masters are slaves to yet another more terrible power, and we have only barely managed to survive an encounter with them. This community you have developed is a shining beacon of hope for the future. But there are those in the darkness that would, out of jealousy or cruelty or ignorance, seek to extinguish that beacon."

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek paused.

"I'll say what some of the other people who live on my planet might say in response. That this is an act of fearmongering, an attempt to frighten us into submitting to your authority in the name of defense against a distant foe."

He leans back, eyes examining Picard's.

"But that's not what you're doing. You aren't that sort of person. And one of the implications of...certain equations I helped to formulate is that we...well, everyone, can get news and and information from the farthest reaches of known space. These empires and despotism are...as you say."

He fidgets in his chair as he tangentially refers to the General Temporal Theory he single-handedly formulated, and then broadcast en mass to every civilization in the galaxy.

Many physicists, unfamiliar with Tau Cetian physics, tore at their hair or hair analogues and called it mysticism. But it was consistent and had passed falsifiability tests. And based on it's principles, engineers had formulated the Ansible. A method of instantly transmitting ideas across great distances.

The implications were yet to be all figured out. And the person who'd given this knowledge to the universe...was fidgeting in an armchair.

He frowns.

"What solution do you propose for this quandry?"

[AnimeKid]

Junior

He merely waits for the ships modifications to finish up, taking a short nap.

Ratchet and Clank

(Did Aphelion get those readouts yet? If so I need you to temporarily take Aphelion so that she can give them out).

[Cracklord]

Ratchet and Clank
"Affirmative. This is Pandora, the fifth moon orbiting Polyphemus, gas giant secondary classification, orbiting the sun Alpha Centauri A." The basics done, it starts listing details.
"Diameter: 11447 km. Mass: 0.72 (standard units for an average sized celestial body). Gravity: 0.8g. Atmospheric density: 1.2. Indigenous lifeforms: Considerable, likely the subject of artificial tampering. Currently in possession of the Atredis family."

Junior
You wake up on the bridge, and get your first surprise. Eisenhorn has come with you, sitting on a swivel chair he's moved onto the bridge, fingertips pressed together, face set in his customary frown. "The co-ordinates have been provided. We should arrive in a week with the new engines." Seeing your questioning glance, he tilts his chin slightly.
"The Klingon Empire is our destination."

Ed and Eine
"What a tremendous insult to the vast ocean of experience." He replies, seeming almost insulted to be the subject of such a broad generalization. "There are no people like me. There is only me." He replies, folding his arms.

Bridge
"It will not change. Not on it's own. But from within, perhaps we can change the Federation." He replies steadily. He means to go on fighting his battle against authority regardless what becomes of this planet. But through peaceful means, at least based on what you can tell. He's a rabble rouser and a firm bulwark against any sort of formal administration, but he's not the sort to want to hurt other people. He just believes in his cause.

Kirk
The Romulan's eyes narrow. Your something of a legend among the rivals and enemies of the Federation, the mailed fist to Picard's proffered hand of friendship. It makes them cautious around you, which you like, but it also makes them reluctant to trust you. The smirk doesn't move, but he does consider your point. Then he shakes his head
"If there is such a problem, the Romulan Empire is quite capable of dealing with it ourselves. We don't need assistance from our neighbors for an internal matter. If you want to request a higher Authority, well after you show me your writ from Starfleet guaranteeing you diplomatic immunity, perhaps I can direct you to more official channels."

Solo
"Doctor Liet-Kynes. He's an official Paleontologist, and lives among the Fremen most of the time. you know how it is." Han did know. Just because the Federation as a whole had access to considerable technology, much of it did not trickle around, and there were plenty who lived in far lower conditions, without access to the many luxuries that the other worlds enjoyed. It was a source of much confusion why Arrakis, the most important planet in the Federation, was one such, but it had been a matter of policy for as long as The Federation had existed.
"Don't worry about paying him, we've already got a deal worked out. Can't actually provide until I sell the Spice,b but he says he'll wait." Lando adds carelessly. He then looks over at Chewie. "Come on, why aren't you drinking? You're making Han and me feel awkward, like you know something we don't."

Mallow
You emerge after two hours, sated and rather pleased with yourself, worn out but in a good way. No wonder Companions were so popular. Now comes the business of business, renewing old acquaintances and partners, maintaining links and negotiating new contracts.

Paul Atredis
The ship lands at the gate, the only functional spaceport on the moon. Despite it's importance, civilization here is the barest practicalities, the moon supports little except what is required in order to make use of it's deposits.
Your father takes a moment to adjust his old-fashioned black uniform (He was previously an officer in Starfleet, it's family tradition that all prospective heirs serve there first, and only may inherit after attaining the rank of at least admiral) and straightens his shoulders, then steps out to survey his new home.

[darkblade]

Ed and Eine

((I think you missed a post. That seems to be replying to Ed saying she'd have had to work like someone like him a few posts ago but her last point was that he hurt innocent people which undermines any noble goals he may have had.))

***

Bridge

Well this is good so far, while he has his own agenda which the federation would be less than happy with it's nothing dangerous. Bridge smiles to the man. "Well I hope you are successful, sometimes it seems the politicians on Earth could use a bit of a verbal shakedown to bring them to their senses. Except of course when they do something right but even then it's often as an aside to many more misjudgements."

[Cracklord]

Ed and Eine
(So I did. Sorry.)
The strange dark blue gas rolls in the containment suit, in a manner you are really not familiar with. Perhaps the increased motion means agitation or excitement, perhaps not. You have no idea.
"That is a profound, if simplistic, piece of moral absolutism, but one based on human views. Not a useful one to something like me, wouldn't you agree? As a cold rationalist, I can tell you that the purpose of existence is perpetuating your species and ensuring your genetic material continues. So then what is moral is weighed on a very different scale, wouldn't you agree? Morality is a matter of location. The Klingons or a race like them would hold me accountable for manipulating the situation from afar rather then taking it into my own hands and killing said 'innocent' people myself. The Dominion, on the other hand, would award me for such selfless service rendered to my own people. As for my own people, no doubt I shall be reprimanded for a sloppy job. I had to kill some dozen personally, afterall." The gas stills.

Bridge
You mingle. Your pleased to learn that he's something of an anomaly, most of the rest are less extreme then him, and are simply interested on hearing what you all have to say before they draw their own conclusions.

Legato
It's dark where you are sitting, and the hologram reveals little. The figure is humanoid, cloaked and hooded to conceal it's identity, even species, however it has often occurred to you that the fact it choses to appear this way does not reveal anything. The little blue figure could be anyone in the universe.
If he was human, there were many possibilities. One of the artificial beings from the eugenics wars, perhaps, or a particularly powerful psychic who managed to escape notice. You can't say for sure.
Not that it matters. Who he is has little consequence, what he does is more important to you. Your patron seemed to have an unlimited amount of resources, connections, and access to restricted information, he seems to know about things before anybody else. And he seems to control a lot more then he lets on as well. Thanks to him, you can sit here, within sight of Earths administrative offices and remain completely undetected despite everything. As well as providing you with the resources to continue your crusade.
"Nadrek left himself open." The figure says, in a deep, croaky voice, stretched by the slightest of lisps. "He was picked up by a group of bounty hunters and taken off world. Unacceptable."
He looks at you, the hologram shifting to reveal a jawline and frowning mouth, while leaving the rest cloaked in shadow. "I want him back. He knows too much and is too dangerous to be allowed out of our hands."

[industrious]

Jean-Luc

"For now...just that yourselves and the Federation stay in regular contact. If we could be permitted to have a small monitoring outpost on one of your system's moons, or on the planet itself, we would greatly appreciate it."

Picard looks over the entire delgation. Each of them with their own stories, their own picture of the world they shared. Most of them

"We also hope to be able to establish trade routes, under some very stringent guidelines. While I know the concept of money is abhorrent to your way of thinking, I believe we can still exchange technology and theories all the same."

[Colesign]

Shevek

"That's acceptable to me personally." Shevek replies, feeling somewhat relieved that more extreme notions weren't put forward right off the bat.

"Only a few years ago, the terms of the Settlement of Annarres forbade inhabitants of Urras and other star systems from coming here. People feared contact with authoritarian cultures, for understandable reasons, mind you: assimilation, conquest, abuse...."

He pauses.

"But it led to stagnation. And ultimately, it was just another wall, an abrogation of liberty for the 'good of the whole'. Freedom can't be sacrificed for safety, even if few complained...and ultimately, I believe we must exist in concert with the rest of the universe in order to thrive. This Great Experiment of ours must be challenged, must be able to endure the entrenched practices of a universe, and prove to others that there's a better way to live, and possibly even pick up a few tricks from others."

He chuckles a bit

"All of this explanation of which is a roundabout way of saying that, as a now truly open society, the people affiliated with you are free to come to our world, free to build things with their own labor, and free to communicate with your masters as you wish. We are sharers, not owners, but I agree that we can share technology and ideas with each other."

He leans forward. "But if you and..." he pauses uncomfortably. Annaresti aren't comfortable with possessive pronouns.

"...your people wish to come to our world, then I tell you that you must come to it as yourselves. Not as an officer of Starfleet or a citizen of the Federation, but with nothing but yourself, hands as empty as a child [it's clear he means that metaphorically]. When you walk off your ships or materialize onto the Port of Annarres, you are one of us. We are you responsible to you and you to us, a fellow Annaresti with the same options as all the others. But they are not safe options. Freedom is never very safe."

He leans back with a quiet smile. "But you'll find the Freedom we all share in very interesting."

Garrin, the slightly wary Physics Federation Syndic, chimes in with a final comment. "And not easily abused."

Shevek nods, and looks around to see if anyone else has views to express.

{Quick Question: Is Urras now part of the Federation? As of the end of the book, it's in a Cold War Situation, and has a early/mid twenty first century tech base: ultimately an analogy for 1960s Cold War Earth.}

[The Tygre]

Wordlessly, with a silence as cold and empty as space, Legato leaves. As he walks through the darkness to the outside, he sends a message to his assassins; 'Nadrek has been captured. Spread and search out. Report anything you find to me. If he is found, leave no survivors. Return Nadrek to me. Now go.' His orders transmitted, the psion focuses, expanding his psychic field, searching for any clues that may be around him.

[doliest]

Kirk
"I do have to impress upon you the danger of putting this off and rejecting our aid. One of our most experienced dimensional experts has informed us that this anomoly could endanger the Empire and the Federation." All of that very true. All of it also not the full story.

Solo
Solo looks at Chewie. He doesn't say a word; but even drunk, even with a friend, Solo was still Solo. His eyes ask Chewie a simple question, 'Trap?'

[AnimeKid]

Ratchet and Clank

Ratchet:Orange
Clank:grey
Aphelion:Red

Ratchet looks shocked at the readouts. "Whoa! How did we get all the way here. It would have taken a load of spice to get us this far. Hey, mabye that's why the guy wanted it fixed. If this went public the spice market would crash, cause there would be no more need for spice. Whoa!" Clank interrupts his furry friend before he can get two wowed. "Perhaps so Ratchet, however our primary concern is that we have only a vague idea of where we are and where to go. If we left this planet now for all we know we could run into the Borg. We need to explore this planet first. I'm sure there must be some intelligent life here. It is possible that they could have a map that we could use." "And if they don't because this looks like an underdeveloped backwater planet?" "Then we will wing it." Their course of action decided they head into the dense forests with Aphelion flying overhead to warn them of incoming threats.

Junior

He jumps into his captains seat and gets comfortable as he says, "Alright old man. Realians full speed ahead. Set a course and execute it immediately, you heard the old man." The realians all respond, "Yessir", before commencing with his orders. Jr. then looks towards his two trusted officers/lieutenants Mary and Shelley. Mary was a woman of about 26 years of age who had blond hair that came down to her shoulders. She was wearing her usual Blue jacket with a portion of it missing that would usually cover the neck and tops of her breasts along with the usual boy shorts and thigh high boots and stockings. Her elder sister Shelley had Purple hair that came down to her mid-back and had two flower pendents in it. She was wearing her usual sleeveless Chinese-like dress that had a low neckline, a lavender scale-like pattern and a slit in the dress that came to about slightly above knee-level in the front and back. She also had on a black under-dress and calf high boots. Looking at them both Junior says, "Okay then... who are the Klingon's again and what are they like?", he says with an almost visible question mark above his head. Both girls sighed in disappointment. The Little Master really needed to study his alien races and the proper mannerisms to present to them. Shelley is the one to answer him with her deep baritone-like voice. (Take it away Cracklord, because I know nothing about the Klingons. Well I did but I just plain forgot.)

[darkblade]

SPD

Satisfied with his findings Bridge slides his gloves back on and returns to Kruger. "A couple hellraisers but no one willing to do anything violent. Most of them are on the fence so this falls to Picard."

The canine alien considers this for a moment before nodding. "Good work. Lt Carson."

"That's Counsellor Carson, Sir. Project Dekaranger was retired years ago and I'm no longer SPD." Bridge reminds his former commanding officer.

Kruger nods. "I'm sorry. It's hard to see you and Kat again without remembering."

***

Bebop

Ed starts to form a reply as Faye walks into the Brig. "Do you have no decency? Ed's just a kid. Play Silence of the Lambs with someone your own size."

"I was having fun!" Ed protests crossing her arms in front of herself.

"This isn't a debate. Jet wants your help in the galley anyways. He's cooking peppers again." Faye sighs gently pushing the young hacker off the chair. Ed falls to the ground but smiles up at her "big sister" and heads off towards the galley.

Faye pulls out a cigarette and goes to light when she stops. "This isn't going to screw up your containment suit or anything right?"

[Cracklord]

Shevak, Jean-Luc, SPD
The days negotiations are concluded, with both sides feeling real progress has been made. With that, a recess is called, putting it on haitus so that you can both report back on the progress and result of the conversations, then continue the next day.

Bebop
"I do not have a biological need to breathe. The suit is airtight." It responded calmly. "Not that you would put it out anyway. You are angry with my actions in regards to him, and want to re-establish my position on this ship, that of a prisoner. As such, you intend to intimidate me."
The mist has stopped swirling, and has settled. "Allow me to assure you, there is no need. I have no intention of trying to escape, at least until we get to Earth. It is in my interest to be there as well, you see. I also have no intention of harming you or your crew. It would serve no purpose, afterall. And while you may find my analysis of your little friend threatening, all I did was force him to examine his beliefs. If they were worth following, examining them will only strengthen them."

Junior
"The Klingon's are one of the major powers in this galaxy, proud, tradition-bound and aggressive. For the most part, they are reluctant allies." Eisenhorn says.
The girls, meanwhile, tell you about the language, the culture, the history of aggression with the Federation, and a whole lot of other information that more or less is just saying what Eisenhorn did with more words.

Kirk
"We'll risk it." He says, reaching up to switch of the intercom, and the screen goes blank. So much for diplomacy. Now you can either return on your own empty handed without attempting investigation as a good Starfleet officer would, or act like a maverick and ignore the diplomatic channels altogether, sneak into hostile territory anyway and take it all into your own hands.

Solo
Chewie shakes his head, then lets out a guttural roar then changes depth and by degrees. You don't actually speak Wookie as well as you seem to, it's amazing enough that you speak it as well as you do. for someone without the right to recognize more then one in three words, so when Chewie speaks to you he sounds like he has a Cro-Magnon syllabus to make sure you understand. Normally that's fine, however, when it comes to getting across complex concepts it can be a little hard.
"Don't trust it. Lando knows everyone. Why you? You not spoken in years, and ripped him off last time."

Legato
He was taken from a bar, where he was due to meet another operative, by a group of bounty hunters. Several were identified, including one Gene Hunt. It seems a sensible place to start. his ship recently left the plant, heading inward, towards the more civilized planets orbiting closer to the sun.

[darkblade]

Bebop

"Ed's a girl. Don't worry about it though. Surprised me and I share most of the same anatomy with her." Faye shrugs as she lights up the cigarette and takes a long drag.

"So if you have no intention of hurting any of us why are you playing Hannibal to Ed?" Faye asks now content to have had some nicotine in her system.

((Note: Faye was in suspended animation from the early 2000s until about five years ago. She's partially amnesiac but is probably the only living being that still remembers Silence of the Lambs.))

***

SPD

Doggie begins escorting the representatives back to their temporary quarters as he leaves the others to their own devices.

Kat excuses herself from the others and makes her own way to Engineering. She's never been fond of crowds, particularly not of strangers she is expected to be nice to. Machines are much better companions.

Bridge though makes a bold move to approach Captain Picard. "Sir, while you are in command here and any diplomatic decisions are ultimately your's to decide and I am just a temp until your regular Counsellor returns from her leave I can't help but feel you are giving the anarchists a bit too much leeway right off the bat. While the purpose here is to maintain a stable connection between their people and the Federation it would seem a bit risky to make it seem as though the whole of Starfleet would be as accommodating as you have been today."

[Cracklord]

Bebop
Nadrek has studied human culture extensively, in order to understand his prey, but Popular culture was so fluid even the most tireless of researches would be hard pressed to make sense of that reference. "It passes the time." He replies blandly, playing neutral, given he is unsure if he's just been complemented, insulted, or something else. "It is not having an adverse effect on the child. Simply putting it in a position to question. If I wanted to hurt it, well then I would simply play on sympathy, lure it into a relaxed state, and bide my time for an opportunity. Then I would take her hostage, make unreasnoble demands and misdirect you, and then while you were confused I would sneak down to the engine room and shut down the life support, leaving you all to suffocate or freeze. I can survive absolute zero, and have no need of oxygen. If not for my ned for sustenance, I would have little issue surviving in space."

Jean Luc, Bridge
Riker and the other officers all surreptitiously start paying attention while seemingly looking over the recordings and double checking the minutes. They all trust their captain, and have long since learned not to doubt his abilities, but just the same he has yet to even broach the subject of a representative, let alone what actually joining the Federation will entail.
Autonomy was all very well and good, but joining the Federation was not simply a matter of signing a piece of paper and changing the name of your government.

Doggie
Worf joins you, as you escort the representatives off the ship, and back to the spaceport, where they will reconvene in twelve hours. After they’re gone, he sighs and shakes his head. “You know, it’s strange. Humans are always splitting off and joining new groups, talking about new ways to do things. My people have been doing the same thing since history began, and look how it’s worked for them. I can’t bring myself to understand it.”

Shevak
“Very generous of them.” Is the general consensus, as Picard, at least, has won them over as an honorable and forward thinking man whose head is in the right place. Although they remain suspicious of the Federation itself, as they would be to any administration or Authority, if it is made up of people like Picard, perhaps cutting themselves from it was the wrong decision.
You have a sudden image of the tiny, idyllic community you have here ripped asunder by exposure to the world outside, and you can’t help but the find the thought of it disturbing.

[The Tygre]

Legato follows the scent. He hides himself in his psychic field on the streets, invisible to sight and sense from... the cattle. Their stink fills his nose, and the chatter is like thousands of little insects crawling in his skull. Every last one of them is a virus, spreading, breeding, infecting other races with their horrible doctrine. But a trail of bodies is still a trail, and for now, Legato is a ghost. When he reaches the bar, Legato steps in, casually uncloaking himself in the corner.

[Colesign]

Shevek

The great fallacy of political complacency, Shevek knew, was the misconception that there existed an ideal society structure, that when implemented, would ensure freedom and equality on an automatic basis.

But that ain't so. Freedom is a process, a constant movement. "True Voyage is Return". In less complex language, Freedom requires work.

But Shevek is optimistic enough to believe that with a bit of work, the Anarchist society they possess on Annarres can not only stand strong under the societal pressure of the Federation's authority, but also promote a healthy amount of unrest and revaluation in the same.

With that in mind, after a bit of casual discussion, Shevek, Garrin, and the other Syndics inform one of the Red Shirts that the next meeting will be held on Annarres.

Then they depart to report back to their Syndicates, Cooperatives, Associations, Community Councils, etc.

(After all, it isn't a Star Trek episode without an Away Team...)

[darkblade]

Doggie

"My people were like that too. Look where it got them. That I think is humanity's biggest strength. Their ability to change and adapt. It makes up for their otherwise lack of genetic strengths in the grand scheme of things." Kruger shrugs as he leads the last anarchist to a set of visitor's quarters and walks back towards the crew sections of the ship.

"Sometimes the ability to throw your traditions out the window in the name of survival is a blessing. Of course it means that humans have a relatively limited view of their own history and have to keep revising it to make their heroes fit whatever the modern standards are. Already they have forgotten that Anubians were once worshipped as Gods after a SAR party found the downed Thanagarian research vessel."

***

Kat

Kat now on the Engineering deck makes her way towards the main console, her feline reflexes and stealth hiding her from the bulk of the crewmen. No doubt the android would notice her but he wouldn't think to alert the others until she was already on top of them. She stalked from the shadows for a few minutes before locating her target. A tall human of dark skin, born without functioning eyes he has to rely upon a VISOR for any form of vision, it has it's disadvantages but it makes up for them in being able to see past the visible spectrum most are limited to. It makes this a little harder.

Careful to remain in the blindspots of Geordi's visor Kat leaps from the shadowed bulkhead towards the Engineer. "Long time no see LaForge. Still no progress on the prosthetics I see?"

***

Bebop

"You wouldn't want to do that. I got a couple billion credit dept on my back and it's hereditary. If I die and it's ever traced back to you then you'll be out an empire." Faye explains with a slight smile.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. See this bounty hunting thing is not working out for me. It keeps me off Earth for the most part so relativity keeps the creditors away but it's not going to let me pay off anything. What would someone make on your payroll?"

[Cracklord]

Doggie
"Agreed." Worf replies, chuckling at that. Human history was something of a joke to those who observed it from an impartial position. It was really amazing they'd managed to advance at all in a meaningful way.
"I understand it can be an advantage, of course. Adapting quickly as problems arise is invaluable for their survival. However, I cannot help but wonder if they adapt at such a rate that it continues when they have no need of it.” To answer, he indicates the world they are standing on. “It’s inconceivable that in a galaxy filled with every lifeform imaginable that they would divide themselves into yet more groups over a tiny difference in ideology. Surely stregnth in unity is better.”

Bebop
Nadrek looks at you, and taps his fingers together. “Well, I believe I already promised to double your reward if you simply let me go. More expedient, saved me from having to go to the trouble of confronting you and the rest of the tedious business. But if you want to further formalize an accommodation…” He considers a moment. “Yes. I think we can. What if I was to make this debt of yours vanish, in a way that was not tied to you? Simply remove it as an issue. Would that be to your taste?”

Legato
It takes a while, but you find where they fled, the old, converted warehouse they stayed. They have become good at hiding, but not good enough to escape one with your intrinsic abilities. You knock down the flimsy door to find it empty. They’ve already left. You can see the abandoned tools, the still set up amenities, the tangled bedding and discarded clothes. They left in a hurry, not even stopping to pack.
Where?
Your search narrows, looking for anything that could narrow the search. Then you find a sheet of paper. Jobs are circled on it, as is the name of one in particular. Pandora.
Ah.

Edward
"We stand now at the birthplace of humanity." Edward says to nobody in particular, looking down at the small green and blue marble. "The beginning. It has taken me a thousand years to find what my parents lost, and now my work begins."
He gets up of his chair, and spreads his arm. “They have potential. We are there descendants, and will make of them what we have become. And more. Once I have completed, they shall be the jewel in the crown of the Culture, as they deserve to be.” He paused, as he heard a slow, steady clap, and turned to see Jasper had stepped ahead of his family and was bringing his pale hands together.
"Your intent is lofty indeed, for I do sense that you would do exactly as you say.” Jasper says, bored as ever with Edward. Then he smiles, his thin lips pulling back all the way to expose his gums, and his eyes bulge somewhat. “But I say now to you, that does not suit me," Jasper finished. Edward’s head snapped back up and his eyes were wide with disbelief. Jasper only smirked at his companion’s incredulity.
"I give and take as I please, lord. For a while, it suited me to go along with the no doubt admirable goals of your group, but I have grown weary of monotony and of small-minded beings who cannot understand what they are being offered. You never bothered to examine your motives, but we are here for the same reason. When you have everything, the only thing that matters is the power to create and destroy as you see fit, to cause happiness and misery as the mood suits you." Jasper says. “I tire of pulling primitives up to look up at the stars. I think I would prefer to smother them now.”
“You can’t meant that.” Edward said, seeing the spark of madness in his friends eye, and already realizing he did.
“Of course I do. When have you ever known me to lie about my intentions? I am tired of The Culture, and I am tired of our work. Why not simply take a primitive corner of the Universe for myself and rule it as I please? I am a true sybarite, Edward I live for my pleasure and I get it from all things. I am not base and cruel in my whims, at least not necessarily. I give pleasure to people as easily as I give pain, but only if it gratifies me to do so or is expedient. Nor am I foolish, I can cause pain, but I am neither sadistic nor self-destructive. What I am, Edward, is a rational thinking being. And what I see here indeed pleases me greatly."
Edward blinks. “But….” He is stopped as one of the bladelike protrusions like vast mechanical wings twitches at the sound of his voice ant scythes over, planting the sharpened tip at the hollow of his throat. Jasper himself doesn’t say a, he hasn't even twitched or glanced over at Edward, who's trying very hard not to draw a breath.
“Yes.” He says, with the ease of someone who has known someone else for a long time and learned to anticipate their moods and what they will say. “They could be great. They might even surpass us. Perhaps they will. If it pleases me. Go sit down and think on what I have said. You will come around. If you don’t, then don’t show your face on the bridge, for I prefer to live without regrets and for the sake of the time we have spent together it would be a shame to kill you.” The wing withdraws, then folds away, and Edward gets off the bridge.
"Are we agreed then?" he says up to the blinking red eye of the shipboard AI above the consols that fly the ship.

+++++ PERFECTLY +++++
GCU Grey Area replied.

[Draxx]

Paul Atreides
Freedom…

He steps off the ship moments after it settles on the port, not seeming to see those with whom he has lived all his life, his eyes staring ahead, out into the beyond, burning bright blue with the symptoms of Spice overdose. Kwisatz Haderach he had been called, all though what that entailed nobody was sure, only that it meant he was the final step in the chain of human development, the perfect being. What that meant for him, or for the universe was something the Bene Geseriat had hoped to control, but the Federation had, quite by accident, taken it out of their hands.

He walks barefoot over the muddy ground of the camp, disdaining the mask he needs to wear to breathe, and through the gates and the last boundary of civilization, out into the bizarre forest beyond, his mind opening as he glanced, taking in every minutiae of the incredible detail and marking it indelibly into his memory. The winds whistled through the soft leaves and branches, drops of water sliding down to moisten him like the lightest of caresses. The sounds of life surrounded him and, he could hear and read them all. Everywhere he looked he could see threads upon threads of times that may or may not come, plots within plots, and a grinding future ahead, like a cresting wave about to come crashing around him. And he could see the paths ahead that he must walk.

He could see Paul Atreides, and Paul Muad'dib, Emperor of worlds and a blind man, who walked the desert he hadn't seen set foot on, but already loved. He could see armies ravaging worlds, he could see humanity spreading beyond the reaches of this arm of the galaxy, as well as humanity dying, brief and forgotten, out-competed by its rivals. He could see a girl, a child in arms and a grown woman, with hear like fire and eyes that danced with mischief, and knew that he would grow to love her with all his soul, and she him, though they had not yet set eyes on each other. And he knew childhood had ended.

He had taken the Spice, knowing that he had to step forward if he was to keep on moving and seeing with mentat precision that the only way forward was the Spice. And he had been caught in the maelstrom of time, seeing all and understanding everything before he had struggle back to the present. At first he feared that he had lost his humanity, only to realize that no, he had been purged of everything else, leaving only that which was human behind.

He had come to live only in possibilities and probabilities and the vast expanse of ages yet to come, the present falling away to hover beyond his grasp, forever out of reach. But sacrifices had to be made. The merciless, precious present, would tear him apart. It was Maud’dib, humanity would need. Not Atreides.

He needed to take that apon himself now, strip away all that held him back. To make his way to the heart of the Federation and shatter it, replacing it’s shards to make an Empire that would span the entire galaxy in time. He would challenge the corrupted regimes and bureaucracy that had lost sight of destination and risen in the shelter of freedom and empty words while the world rotted around them. For rot it did, though nobody had noticed it yet, lacking his unique perspective.


He could feel all sins from the flesh purged in that instant, his identity now and forever cemented. It was not mere connection to a single world, but connection to every man and woman, every child and every life stretched throughout the universe to which he shared common ancestry.

He was everyone, all the men and women who had lived and died leading up to him. He was a Messiah, a visionary, a tyrant, a scientist, a philosopher, a warrior, a poet, a fool, and everything great and small. He had many names and faces, he was Bran Mak Morn, and Corum Jhaelen Irsei and Cormac FitzGeofery, and Erekosë, and many more, he was everyone born and everyone to come after, and would wear countless thousand more faces when he died. He was Maud’Dib.

"I am an empty vessel.” He told the ghosts in his head, spreading his arms. “Fill me…"

Mal Reynolds
Mal is far more practical than intellectual, but considers himself a good judge of character. He's quite aware that there is always a better liar then him, but for the most part trusts his instincts. He likes what he's seen of Preem Palver, and trusts he is who he says he is. A con wouldn't mime the mannerisms and unconscious drawl so effortlessly, and there really wasn’t any other reason they’d want to go after him.

Beside, he likes the man. He's bluff, honest (or at least appears that way) and puts him in mind of the country hands who raised him back on Shadow. That being the way it was, he's naturally disposed to want to help out as much as he can.

“Well, as it happens there is enough room on my vessel for one more, an’ we’re goin’ that way, so working something out shouldn’t be too difficult. Though I’m warnin’ you, it can get a bit tight.”

[Colesign]

Shevek

In a backdate to before the Anarchist Delegation left for home, Shevek tries to talk theoretical physics with one of the Enterprise's engineers.

Because Physics is fun!

[Cracklord]

Shevak

" - therefore to gain a complete unified, and consistent description of the fundamental structure of everything, we have to understand that all of the different 'fundamental ' particles of the Standard Model are really just different manifestations of one basic object, different resonances of energy, which suggests that any unit of measurement is ultimately misleading, if not wrong." He says, explaining a theory on a microscopic theory of gravity and the structure of both matter and energy.

Paul Atredis
"Paul?" It's Duncan Idaho, his face hidden behind the facemask, his loose clothing seeming strange on his body. Hi sword is on his hip, and his arms arms out-stretched, you father and his consort Jessica following behind. The air is burning the interior of your lungs, turning your throat raw.

[Colesign]

Shevek

"That supposition seems to rely on a multi-dimensional state of being for all matter. Analogously, just as classic three dimensional matter can occupy different locations within the universe through the passage of time, so would this unifying matter superimpose itself upon it's many different locations throughout the universe at the same time through additional dimensions."

Shevek frowns. "From one perspective, that would either mean that the whole of matter/energy is an extrusion of space/time, or the reverse, that space/time itself is a creation of matter/energy."

He chuckles. "Either way, that would blow Sequency physics out of the water."

[darkblade]

Bebop

Faye's eyes widen with surprise. She was only asking out of morbid curiosity. Though she would never admit it she looked at the crew of the Bebop as a family and never wanted to betray them but this was a whole game changer. "You can make them disappear?"

***

Doggie

"Unity is indeed a noble trait but so is their individuality." Doggie muses as they board a power lift.

"I got my weekly Holodeck session in fifteen minutes. If you'd care to join me for a quick sparring session we could continue this discussion."

[The Tygre]

Legato sends out another message; "Planet: Pandora. Search there." That message is all the Gung-Ho Guns receive from their shadowy leader before he leaves the warehouse. Coursing through the streets, working his way on foot through the crowd to the nearest port.

The port.

A symbol of his own failure. A mockery made directly in his face. The human disease spreading across planets and galaxies, corrupting and sickening everything it touched. Who knows how many worlds he will have to purge before the filth is eradicated? What lengths will he have to go to to eradicate the vermin? It doesn't matter. He has time. For now, the psychotic psion keeps his eyes open for the first ship going to Pandora.

[Cracklord]

Doggie
Work nods meaningfully, and his eyes narrow, a fierce light dancing through them. "That would be most enjoyable." He says. "I'll take care of the rest of my duties, then meet you here."

Shevak
"Only if you assume that they are separate to begin with." He replies. "What if it is all one thing? It would account for dark matter and gravity stretching time, as well as many other discrepancies in modern thought."

Bebop
"Well, as your young companion so astutely noted, not without collateral damage." He replied. "It's not a matter of influence, but I do have a series of skills that could cause all records of you to vanish completely." Seeing your expression he raises a hand. "Yes, it's liable to cause damage to your society, but I wouldn't be hurting anyone."

[Colesign]

Shevek

"Indeed!" Shevek replies.

"In some ways, the Subspace Ansible and it's Temporal Theory framework relies on the concept of the fundamental oneness of space, time, and different forms of matter. It cannot transmit matter over great distances instantaneously: rather it transmits ideas in the most literal sense, effecting changes in information content between the two ends of the Ansible transmitters. From the framework of your theory, since all matter is ultimately one thing, the dimensional gap that promotes the illusion of disconnectedness is used to create a resonation between the two points, and thus convey information."

Shevek shrugs. "I myself have always looked at the biggest problems in physics as stemming from the issue of time. It is like this, to make a foolish little picture: if one throws a rock at a tree, the Simultaniety physicist says that the rock has already hit the tree, and the Sequency physicist says that it never will hit the tree. Which is true? I've always tried to take the difficult path and choose both in my theoretical work. But in the end, the thrown rock does hit the tree, and neither the physics of sequential seperation or Unity can quite explain it."

[Cracklord]

Shevak
"Precisely. The main problem is that there is not a precise way of measuring time, or determining it. Theoretically, time does not even exist, particularly as described by delay differential equations specific to dynamical systems. Indeed, it is ubiquitous in many physical systems, however if duration does not exist…”
Since you haven’t been to the Dark Tower, or even suspect it's existence, you don’t know that the universe is indeed infinite in all dimensions, several of which beyond your perception, including time, so while your theories are interesting they are, ultimately, based on incomplete information. You go on debating string theory, unified field theory, quantum states and tie them off interestingly, as well as discussing the transmission of information and it’s effects on the physical world, then split up, both quite satisfied to have had that opportuniy.

Legato
You feel them respong, their minds mapping out the trip to the tiny moon already.
(Does anyone want to take up Outlaw Starr as PC's? I'll post a better update as soon as I get an answer.)

[darkblade]

Bebop

"So if I help you get out of this you'll make my debts disappear and no one gets hurt?" Faye asks for clarification. She's all but stopped moving the cigarette to her mouth just letting it burn right to the filter in her hand.

***

Doggie

Doggie enters the holodeck, to the familiar set of blank black walls and yellow horizontal lines. "Computer, training program Kruger A-53."

Hard light projectors reform the blank room into an Anubian combat ring. To someone versed in Earth history could easily see how the Anubians once were thought to be guardians of the underworld to the Ancient Egyptians. The arena is a stone circle carved into the ground enscribed with runes detailing the history of great warriors who fought for the Sirius system and the Anubian race.

"Computer, begin session."

Several robots with pitch black bodies and chrome heads and limbs (http://www.grnrngr.com/monsters/pictures/krybots02.jpg) appear on the outer edge of the circle. One arm ends in a normal humanoid fist, the other with a fearsome drill.

"Krybots, a good warm up." Doggie draws his sword, a traditional Anubian V-Sabre. It resembles an Earth Katanna in form but the rare Anubian ore forged into the blade and the shifting weight within in the weapon to accommodate for the different defensive tactics enemies may employ leave it a unique weapon and Doggie holds in his hands the very last one ever made.

The Krybots advance upon Doggie only to be quickly reduced to holographic scarp metal in short order.

[Draxx]

Paul
"Father..." He paused. He has never thought of it before, but language is such an incredible thing. And yet so flawed. Change the delivery, the intonation, any of the thouasands of elements that make up the word, even slightly, and it no longer makes sense. He hears them speak, but he hearns nothing but sounds is brain does not know how to interpret, sped up and slowed down. He watchs them mouth impotently, and can only shake his head. he was drifting again. With a wrench of will, he forces himself back into the present to hear what they said.

"This is not the place for us." He says. "We will die here." He already knows what his father is going to say, he is too much the product of his past and environment for him to agree to Paul, even though it will kill him, so Paul simply straightens and speaks again before Leo can answer. "I must leave. We will never see each other again. Thank you, for everything." With that he turns and walks back aboard the ship, ignoring everyone's stares at his sudden outburst. he waits until they are all gone, then stares at the controls a moment. They were not complicated. He could do this. And he could already read the flow of time ahead to steer this.

The sip takes off, flying away from the tiny moon that was intended to be his home, and towards the universe itself, the tiny prophet sitting inside, reading the flow of stars.

[Colesign]

Shevek

{Cool}

Shevek, after returning to Annarres, and after discussing things with people who wanted to hear the particulars, decides to return home and spend time with the partner and the daughter.

Tomorrow, the talks would continue on Annarres, in the city of Abbenay. Things looked like they'd go well.

He can't shake that foreboding premonition he'd experienced earlier, though. It tickled at the edge of his thoughts, whether a psychic prophecy, subconscious analysis, or simple instinct.

Things are going to change. More than they already have.

[Cracklord]

Legato
In the endless void between the stars the long form of a starship moved silently, its chalk-white surface in perfect contrast with the infinite night, the entire thing faintly ominous, like a spear head or the tip of an arrow, slicing through the emptiness towards it's target. The almost casual motion of this ship would send shivers up the spine of anyone watching.
The recent arms race after the Dominion war and with the less friendly neighbors of that arm of the galaxy, had continued to push weapons technology further. This had been a prototype, that featured a state of the art cloaking technology and capabilities, that was abandoned due to how impossible it was to maintain it. Your master picked it up for you. You've never had cause to complain.
You sit on the bridge, as your minions move about. They are another gift from you master, genetically engineered human-like beings, Augments they're officially called, bred to be free of the usual mental and physical limitations. They have been forbidden since the eugenics wars, but you have never been one to care what humanity has to say. It has amused you to train them to wear them away until they serve as pale imitations of yourself.
You are just coming within sight of the moon, when two things occur at much the same time. A ship is shown leaving, not the ship you came for mind, but still, and more to the point, your mind senses something. Being psychic connects you to other beings, both sentient and not sentient, and as you approach the moon you sense something, something, something so huge it almost unmakes you. The supreme moment of the human race. The spice can awaken latent psychic powers, which is essentially what happened here, though to an extent you've never imagined could actually be done.

Bebop
"I said I would not harm anyone, not that nobody would get hurt." he mentions. "There are many ways to argue hurt. If the economy of a planet collapses, people will be hurt, for instance, as their way of life collapses around them. It’s the same sort of problem here. If I make your debts vanish, the bank will collapse as it is unable to cover its own loans, many people will be rendered bankrupt as all their savings default, and many will lose their jobs and means of providing for themselves. This universe is all connected. We cannot influence it any way without fall-out effects in what it is connected to.”

Doggie
Worf enters just in time to decapitate the last one with a powerful swing of his enormous two-handed blade of curious design, before lowering it and glancing around with every sign of respect at your results. He's dressed in a harness over his uniform, you notice. He kicks the head out of the way as the world fades and the next data-scape is loaded. "Interesting foes those." He notes. "I've seen many different warriors from all corners of the worlds, but never like them."

Shevak
You were lent a data-pad, that talks about the worlds of the federation. You get the message, but take the pad, thinking it might be interesting to learn more. Your having trouble relaxing, so decide to look through. The first world mentioned, curiously, is Arrakis, colloquially known as Dune, not Earth as you'd expect. The legendry homeplace of humanity is the subject of much private speculation on Annares, given that you haven't heard news about it in nearly a hundred years and have little records to settle your curiosity.

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek, after plugging the datapad in and uploading the information to the AnarrNet (No Way an Anarchist Society wouldn't be Open Source), starts to page through the Arrakis Entry.

[industrious]

Preem

He throws back his head and laughs at the Captain's words, drops of the cheap whiskey falling from his mouth onto the table.

"Tight, he says. Less you ever had to harvest twenty hands-worth of work with nuttin but your own self and your two childrens, you ain't seen tight. Begging your pardon, I spect, since them words ain't exactly proper. But dun worry two shakes of a woman's fine fanny bout me, Cap'n."

He leans forward then.

"So. How much would the ride cost me?"

[The Tygre]

That power... that infinite, unyielding power, glaring in his sight brighter than the sun... He can feel it. He craves it, even as its very flavor repulses him. He can feel it sliding between his lips and down his throat to his gut, the psychic residue practically palpable. But he has a mission; he is to go to Pandora. These are his master's orders. And the last time that Legato disobeyed his master, his limbs were snapped like twigs, his spine bent over itself, and his neck crooked 180 degrees. It took over two years of psychic willpower to regenerate himself into any working condition. And that was not even for a mission in person; that was for daring to send one of the Guns after a personal target.

The frustration overwhelms Legato. He lets out an inhuman hiss as he implodes a crew-member's organs. Blood oozing from his mouth, eyes boiling, limbs twitching, the drone falls to the floor. It lacks the magic it used to hold, however. The deceased's crew-members don't even pay him any mind, and it is only a matter of minutes before another drone arrives and attends to the open station.

In the mean-time, Legato concentrates. He forms a seed in the ether, a black parasite of miniscule size. The seed floats through space until it lands on the psychic mass, hanging on like a tick. It is nearly impossible for anyone but Legato to destroy, and while not capable of much, acts as a kind of psychic locator. When his mission on Pandora is done, then Bluesummers will track down the seed and its fertile soil.

For now, Legato sits in quiet anticipation, waiting for his landing on Pandora.

[Draxx]

Mal
He pauses, considering the matter. On one hand, it's not all that much to ask for, really, and he quite likes the man. On the other, given the state of his ship he owes it to himself and the crew he's responsible for to squeeze every tiny bit he can out of the man. That's got to be his first priority in any buisness transaction.

So he names a figure. It's a big figure, calculated to make the man start and start negotiating. Which is entirely what Mal wants, the way he reacts will tell mal what he can afford, and they can work out a more realistic number between them.

[doliest]

Kirk
"Spock? What are the possible dangers of that wormhole?" Kirk knows that the wormhole needs investigating; however, there's no reason to utterly break every diplomatic rule Starfleet has unless the wormhole is actually dangerous to life in the Romulan Star Empire, and, indeed, the Federation.

Solo
Solo nods slowly, looking at Lando, smiling. "So....Lando. I do gotta ask; what made you think 'this is a job for Solo.' I mean, you're connected. Well, you were last time I saw you." Han smiles, trying to play it off as a drunken conversation starter, rather than the prod it really is.

[darkblade]

Doggie

"Krybots, the foot soldiers of the Troobian Empire, a small fascist group that controls a few systems in the Beta Quadrant. These are the forces that destroyed my people." Doggie explains as the holograms fade away.

"I've been fighting them ever since." Doggie neglects to mention the secret war he fought against them using the SPD's resources when they covertly attacked Earth but Worf lacks clearance to hear that tale.

"Enough with the warm up. You ready to go?"

***

Bebop

Faye hesitates for a few minutes but shakes her head as she slams what was left of her cigarette into a bulkhead. "No thanks then. As bad as my debts are I'm not doing that to the rest of the Federation."

[industrious]

Preem Palver

He repeats the figure numbly.

"You could buy your ship for that!"

He blinks, shaking his head at the number.

"...I can pay you two thousand, lad. Plus fifteen...when we reach Earth."

Seventeen thousand. In credits, which didn't spend as well on the border planets, but still. A man could take a luxury cruise with that sort of money. Or not have to eat protein for a year.

[AnimeKid]

Ratchet and Clank

The trio continue their way through the jungle into the deeper parts of the planet. The plan was to find someone here who knew the quadrant well enough to at least get them the coordinates to the nearest metropolitan-like planet. Cause without coordinates or a map for this quadrant they would be reduced to flying around aimlessly until they happened along a planet.

Junior

The Little Master jumps into his lounge chair that doubled as his captain's seat as he listened to the details about the Klingon's . "Okay then sounds like this should be interesting at least. Now then time to get out of this stagnant place. How's it going girls?" One of the 100-Series Observational Realians that helped pilot such a large vessel turns towards Junior. "We're ready to go sir, all systems check out, we have the coordinates locked and we are ready for warp." Junior nods as he claps his hands together. "All right then people lets get this show on the road. Let warp!" The realians nod as they say, "Roder", and proceed with warp to their location.

[Cracklord]

Shevak
At fist glance, the planet doesn't look much different from yours. Dry, far from anywhere, and supporting only a tiny fraction of what it was capable of. It's when you get to fauna, and see the sandworms that you gain a small measure of reverence for the planet. And apparently it's the only producer of the Spice, that incomprehensible material that makes men prescient.

Legato
Pandora is a large moon, with a low gravity, inhabited by a sentient native species that is allowed freedom as long as it keeps away from the production facilities. As such, there are only a few places to land. The Outlaw Starr landed in the central facility, where all the rest branched from. Judging by it's current level of occupation, it just got a boost in personnel both military and civilian. You'd hoped to track them to some out of the way smugglers moon where you could attack them directly. This was far from what you'd wanted.

Doggie, Worf
The world flickers, then falls away, and you find yourself in the midst of a battlefield. It's a scene from history, the first bug war, and the greatest conflict the Federation has been involved in. Essentially, it was the catalyst that turned humanity into a superpower, and was also a battle nearly destroyed them. If you were superstitious, you would probably find it vaguely sinister.
Even so, it's certainly a workout. They are a extraordinarily adaptable and always attack in large numbers, and what's more they are intelligent. One leaps at Doggie, it's razor-edged serrated talons powered by whipped muscle capable of eviscerating him in one blow. Another readies a hand held canon, primative beam weaponry by todays standards but certainly effective, while the others work to keep you in place.
They'll quite happily sacrifice dozens of their people if it means taking down one enemy.

Kirk
Spock does not jump to conclusions. He goes quiet, considering the matter, utilizing his mentant training as he performs calculations. "I can only speculate, sir, as they are a largely unknown phenomenon." He says at last. He has answers, but not all of them. "It depends on to many factors I don't have, so any calculation I perform are ultimately speculation. However, if Ace Rimmer, the premier specialist in The Federation believes it to be dangerous, then I would advise we take him seriously."
McCoy grunts. "Damnit, I'm a doctor, not a quantum mechanic." He says under his breath then shrugs. "Look, if this is a threat to anyone, the Kirk I know wouldn't put them at risk because some uppity official doesn't want him to work in their backyard. With respect, sir."

Solo
"You're the only one crazy enough to pull it off, and desperate enough not to try and cheat me." He replies easily. "Come on pirate, you know me better then that."

Bebop
"Of course, every action has consequences." He says blandly. "Taking responsibility for them can be hard. Well, it was a pleasure talking to you. You have a very unique viewpoint that I cannot help but sympathize with." It's something of a dismissal, leaving you to speculate how someone apparently so well connected got caught so easily.

[doliest]

Kirk
Kirk nods, "We can't risk innocent life, not Romulan OR Federation. We're going to have to investigate this, and quickly, considering what Ace said." He taps the communication panel on the side of his chair, "Scotty? I don't suppose you can hide our warp signature to get us through Romulan Space to that wormhole."

Solo
"I know. It's just been a while. And the last time we worked together, I DID try and cheat you." Though my finances have only gotten worse since then.

[darkblade]

Doggie

((I'm combining it with the Bugger Wars from Ender's Game because, why the Hell not. If it's an issue just say so.))

"I would never have the Xenocide in my program. Something is wrong..." Doggie says swinging his sword towards the attacking foot soldiers. As a victim of a total species wide xenocide himself Doggie is naturally uncomfortable with the end result of the Bug War, where a child prodigy, annihilated the home world of the Bugs, destroying their Queens and leaving the workers to all die painful deaths.

"Computer, abort program!"

***

Bebop

"You wanted us to take you to Earth all along." Faye says with a smirk as she gets up from her chair.

"You're planning something there aren't you?"

[Cracklord]

Doggie
(Quite the contrary. I encourage initiative.)
Worf is as confused as you, although far less concerned about it. Not being particularly introspective or discerning, at least in regards to what he dubbed as inconsequential things, he hadn't questioned this rather odd turn of events. He simply dealt with them.
Shouting a war-cry in klingon, he decapitates the bug that was preparing the weapon, hen charges he others, mowing into them while his ally bears the brunt of the attack.
He had different feelings about the war of extermination, as he saw it the war was inevitable and what followed was something to take pride in. It was regrettable that the fight had to take place, but once it was that had taken place between two warrior cultures, and so as both sides had been completely committed, there didn't seem much reason to dislike the conclusion.
The bugs are tough, smart, and no how to work together. It takes a long time to finish them off. When you finally do, you hear clapping, and turn to find yourself looking at a smiling man in starfleet uniform.
"Wonderful! And here I was worrying that you've all gone soft."

Bebop
"You give me entirely too much credit. Placing myself in such risk would be foolish, particularly when there were so many variables that could go wrong. Allowing a situation to master you is unforgivable." He replies. He says it with the same quiet, unassuming conviction he says everything, but you already know he's a good liar, and something tells you your not wrong about your hunch.

Kirk
"Nay problem!" He shouts up from the engine room cheerfully and unnecessarily, his voice booming in the bridge. "Joost a wee fix. Be up before yer ken it, cap'n."
As he takes care of that, the ship turns and pretends to warp, in order to convince the Romulans you care about their opinion, and have left. The Scot gets it online, and you sneak past the border, unnoticed.
Now it's just a matter of finding the bloody thing.

Solo
"I haven't forgotten." Lando replies. "But if I wasn't willing to overlook that, I wouldn't be in this lifestyle, pirate. There is a lot of money in Spice, and I know I can trust you. At least, I know I can trust you because one I put you in this position, you won't have any choice."

John Carter of Mars, Paul Atredis
On the planet Barsoom, on the great red plains that stretch as far as the eye can see, choked with dust like clay and red, thorny plants that twist about, there is a burning light in the sky, like a star falling from the heavens, leaving a burning trail through the night sky. A wreck of twisted, blackened metal smashed into the ground, sending up dust throughout the sky, and further wrecking the ship.
It is seen by only a few. But the news travels fast, something has fallen from the sky.

[Colesign]

Shevek

"Yikes. " Shevek mumbles. Next, he pages through the history of the Federation, fully mindful that this particular set of data might be positively biased in favor of the authoritarian government in question.

He tries to read between the lines.

{I figure this is a good way to get some exposition in}

[Executor]

John Carter of Barsoom

Across the Red Planet of Barsoom, many eyes watched the burning streak of fire fall from the skies. The light from it was brilliant, lighting up the heavens all across Barsoom as Red Men and Green Men alike watched it fall. But amongst all the Red Men and Green Men and the myriad varieties of Barsoomians, there was one who was not of Barsoom at all. The one that had survived the gladiatorial games of Warhoon, the one that had overthrown the empire of Zodanga for the love of one woman, the finest swordsman of two worlds, the one who had become known to the Green Men as Dotar Sojat, Warlord of Barsoom, a Chieftain of the Tharks and Prince of the city of Helium. His name was John Carter.

"Tars! Did you see that?" John Carter said, standing on the balcony of an old stone Barsoomian mansion in the ruined city of Thark. He had been on a visit to his friends in the Thark clan, his old comrade Tars Tarkas in particular.

"Aye, old friend, that I did" said Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of the Tharks since he slew Tal Hajuus all those years ago. The fifteen foot, six-limbed Green Man came up to stand beside his diminuitive six foot human companion, and he turned his gaze skywards, his two large eyes regarding the trail of smoke rising from the place where the fireball had impacted. The two cup-like antenna that served as antenna for the Green Men swiveled forward, a gesture not unlike that of a horse paying close attention to something.

"A comet perhaps, or... maybe it was a ship" said John Carter.

"It must have been up at quite an altitude if it was a ship. Higher than any airship I have known" replied Tars Tarkas.

"What say you and I take a conroi and go investigate?" said John Carter, turning around and purposefully striding into the main hall of the mansion, away from the balcony.

The walls of the mansion were covered in art, clearly marking that this building had not been constructed by the crude Green Men, for they made no buildings of their own, instead dwelling in the ruins of ancient city-states. No matter how many times John stayed in the city of Thark, he never ceased to be amazed by the great quality of the art. It represented scenes of peace and leisure: People strolling through parks, boating on ponds, playing music, dancing. It depicted a happy people at leisure, and it did so in such a lifelike but artistic manner so as to reduce an unprepared man to tears at the first sight of it. The Green Men, however, had no appreciate for art, not even Tars Tarkas, the one Green Man on all of Barsoom that could be said to have a heart. 'Alas, that Barsoom must've been such a different one to this cruel and warlike place' John Carter thought lamentably as he glanced at the beautiful murals on the wall.

"Are you sure that is wise John Carter? Other hordes must've seen it, and who knows what that thing is" said Tars Tarkas, following after his friend and gesturing with his four arms as he did.

"Losing your nerve Tars? Come on man, the game's afoot!" laughed John Carter.

"Very well, but if this turns out like that incident with the Plant Men, I shall tell Dejah Thoris that it was all your fault!" Tars Tarkas replied as the two friends walked down the central staircase of the mansion.

An hour later, the gate of Thark was thrown open, and a strong cavalcade of fully armed Tharks, mounted on their great thoats, galloped from the city, raising a cloud of red dust as they did. At their head, amongst the 15-foot green giants rode John Carter himself, and Tars Tarkas beside him.

[doliest]

Kirk
"Mr.Spock. Can you locate the anamoly by any special signature it might send out?" Kirk had never been a science officer. He knew a few science officers had risen to the rank of command, but Kirk had always been an officer. He did his best to keep up with scientific advances, but, frankly, he was eternally grateful for Mr.Spock; without him, Kirk wasn't sure he'd be able to figure out half of what he DID know about, for example, wormholes.

He slides slightly in his chair to a more comfortable position, taking a view of those on his bridge. It was something he always did when he did something he knew could end horrifically. He needed to see the people who's lives and careers he was playing with, who could end up courtmarshalled for allowing him to do this. Indeed, they could be killed, perhaps by the Romulans, perhaps by the wormhole, or a dozen other things. He knew it, and they knew it. But they followed him into the abyss unquestioningly. It was why he never settled. Never stopped fighting; because if he did, he condemned them. And, for the many things people, and on some nights, he himself could say about Captain Kirk, no one could say he would let this people be killed.

Solo
"Heh. Drag me in as deep as you can? Nice plan Lando." Han drinks a little more, "Still, I get the feeling more is going on here; sorry 'bout that, but I don't stay alive by trusting people. It's why I try to avoid Tatooine, after all."

[Cracklord]

Shevak
It's been a little over two centuries since you departed to form your own colony, and a lot has changed. The Bug war came about shortly after your secession, which resulted in the first united military effort by the human race, and led to the creation of Starfleet, as well as creating certain laws that seem rather draconian to you. Apparently only those who have served in any of the militaries or government positions are allowed to vote and the noble houses came about due to certain extended families gaining control of the upper ranking positions in the Imperial armies and ensuring they retained them.
Just the same, increasingly it is turning into a co-interdependent socialist government, and you suspect it would have long since if not for the fact it is regularly forced into positions that necessitate rapid mobilization, and withdrawal of certain personal freedoms. You read about the Dominion war, the growing war with the borg on the fringes, and the skirmishes with the neighbors, and it occurs to you that opening ourself up is opening yourself to their enemies as well, though you are quite aware that ignoring them won't make them go away.

John Carter of Barsoom
You think of absent friends, in particular of Lieutenant Gullivar Jones, your comrade and the only human you had set eyes on since you first came to the red world. He died a long time ago, saving your life on another of these journeys in fact, and at times like this you can never help but think of him.
The two of you mount up, and begin the long trek into the plains where the crash occurred, driven by both curiosity and alarm. Eventually you come to the ruins of what can only be called a flying ship, like the great iron dreadnauts that plowed the ocean back on Earth, though sleeker and made of some substance you have never seen or imagined before, like iron and yet unlike. More to the point, a boy, almost a young man is lying face down in the red earth, and he is unquestionably human, whipcord thin with a hard, muscular frame, and a shock of reddish hair. It's almost too much to believe.
You are not the only one to have seen the fiery crash. Huge, unblinking white eyes stare over at it from a black, soft, rubbery 'body', if it can be called that, given the being consisted of a disembodied head about four feet across, two branches of eight almost-whip like tentacles each around the mouth. It's eyes watch, and then it withdraws. The emperor will want to hear this.

Kirk
"I would imagine so. It is simply a matter of tracing the drain of emissions, including light. If space is a rubber-sheet, then it would appear as an enormous sinkhole, distorting everything around it."
Chekhov waits patiently for him to state his findings before nodding. "Well, we have somethink exactly like that here." He says, creating a three dimensional hologram of the space quadrant you are in, and indicating a red blip. "Captain?"

Solo
"Well if we can't trust each other, we're both forewarned." He replies, smiling easily. "Anyway, round up a brute squad, try to keep the information down, and meet me when you're ready to begin for the rest." He says, suddenly slipping into the role of authority figure.
"Will you get going you pirate? We do want to move in before someone else beats us to the blow.

Ratchet and Clank
The smoke shrouded structure of forward Base 16 rose from the blue-green jungle below like a grey rock in an alien ocean. The forest itself stretches for uncountable miles, until it comes to a mountain range of soaring peaks.
The mountains float like clouds among the fixed mountains and swirling cloud structures, and circulate slowly in the magnetic currents like icebergs at sea, scraping against each other and the towering mesa-like mountains of the region. When they are in clear sunlight they cast distinct shadows on the land below.
They are overgrown with foliage at the top, and straggly beards of vines hangs down beneath them, as though tying them in place.

[doliest]

Kirk
"Can we launch a probe into it, Commander Chekov?" That seemed the best way to get a good look at it.

"Mr.Spock, check any sensor readings that might give us an idea of if it's expanding."

Solo
Solo nods, getting up to get this trainwreck started. He knew it was going to screw up; that was just how things went for him. Indeed, everything about this job sounded like it was going to screw him over. But he needed the money, and, worst case scenario, the job put him further in debt. Big deal. He was already long past critical mass; it couldn't get worse.

[darkblade]

Doggie

"Who are you?" Doggie asked not reconizing the man. He wore a command uniform but he was not someone Doggie had seen, or smelt on board the Enterprise before but he seemed to know Lt. Worf, this did not bode well.

***

Bebop

"Well I'd rather not take that chance. I can't afford to lose your bounty." Faye says as she walks away heading towards the bridge where she shifts the course away from Earth and towards it's moon. There was a thriving colony there and any bounty on Earth was just as valid there.

As they apporached the natural satalite she started the on the comms. "Lunar outpost, this is Cowboy vessel Bebop coming in to claim the bounty on mark um..." She stops herself and rifles through the mess of wanted posters and bounties Spike leaves lying around the ship.

Jet wanders into the Bridge and takes the comm from her. "Mark 24601."

((Why yes I do use that number for any kind of fugitive I don't have any reason not to.))

[Draxx]

Paul
Sands. Arrakis would have sands not unlike this. He could imagine them already, stretching out as far as forever in a great haze, with the sun beating down and the ground bellow vibrating steadily. It was his destiny, and the destiny of humanity.

But he wasn't ready. Arrakis would destroy him if he set foot on it now, he was too soft, to young, iron in need of forging. So he was here, where he would learn to be a man. He looked up into the eyes of the man who would become so important. He saw many things, many of which he hadn't expected. The man carried an air of tiredness, but also of what was almost boyish excitement. He saw hardness, but also compassion. He saw why this man would be so important.

His lips are cracked and dry already, but he opens them, his face calm and tranquil as though he wasn't just pulled from the burning wreckage of a ship that sailed the gulf between the stars. "My name is Paul. Paul Atreides. Hello John Carter." The man hadn't said his name, or who he was. There was no way for Paul to know who he was. And yet he did.

Mal
"That sounds about fair to me." He says, shaking Preens hand. He accepts it just quickly enough, not too much to make the farmer feel he was agreeing too quickly, but not too long considering either. "Meet me at the spaceport in a few hours, we'll be up to leaving then."

Mal gets up and walks Zoe and Jayne out.

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek, frowns. There were some egalitarian elements to the Federation as of the moment, but he couldn't help but recall an old saying of Laia Aseio Odo, the Mother of the Anarchist Revolution:

"Freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice: Socialism without Freedom is Slavery and Brutality."

Shevek can't shake the feeling of worry. To take his mind off of it, in a fit of frivolity, he decides to look up the entry on Annarres itself.

[Cracklord]

Shevak
It's not very detailed, which seems strange, given that they are here to try and get you to open up to the universe. It's simply names and dates,as well as explaining it's industrial capabilities and primary production.
Then it hits you. They don't care. As long as it's inhabitants keep their heads down and get on with it, they can do it however they want, as long as what they do isn't inherently objectionable. The Federation ultimately makes provisions for every species, lifestyle and creed, so long as they are willing to compromise themselves about certain things.
Just the same, you read between the lines, and you can't help but be shocked at how bland it all is. Apparently the dispute that caused your secession is listed here as a minor dispute, during a management crisis. It's not all that big a deal by their standards, so nobody saw it as important enough to explain.

Doggie
"Hasn't your captain mentioned me? Well I am called Q. And you are here to be reminded of humanities essential nature. They are two meals and one threat away from this again, and I'm going to prove it."
He clasps his hands behind his back. "But because forcing you all to do something is boring, I'm going to give you a chance to prevent it as well."

Bebop
The moon you've chosen is coming into sight. You'll drop him off, be paid the bounty, and he'll be taken somewhere for a trial. It will probably still be earth, but it won't be your fault, and there is always a chance they might listen to you.

Kirk
The Wormhole, as it happens, is a swirling mass that is visibly sucking everything around them toward them like a giant drain or tornado. Sometimes it is a directional tornado shaped funnel. A blue and purple vortex swirling into darkness, a red glow near the centre. It's only a few kilometers across, tiny in astrological terms, and if you can get an accurate measure you'll soon know whether it's growing or shrinking. Unfortunately, you'll have to do it from here.
The thing is so hot it glows in X-rays. If you get any closer, it will liquify you, even protected by a meter of lead. Technicians and scientists run about below decks, reading radiation, trailings and attempting to measure it with mathematics.
Then Spock, who is translating their findings into recognizable english, or at least as close as he can get, for your sake, looks up and shakes his head. "Captain, given certain levels of distortion and the trail, it seems likely that something came through. Which should not be possible, given the conditions I calculate that it would tear apart a black hole, let alone anything less sturdy."

Solo
Recruiting too many people is a rookie mistake. More people to share with, more chances of one of them not keeping their mouth shut or deciding the scam might work better if their were less ways to split it.
Recruiting not enough people was an idiots mistake, because being unable to do the job was far worse in the scheme of things.

[industrious]

Preem

"Will do, Cap'n."

After the crew of Serenity leave, Preem ponders his half-finished drink for a moment before he finishes it.

He exits the bar, enters the alley, humming a song with far more class than a humble farmer would ever know.

"At the end of the day, there's another day dawning..."


Captain Picard

The Captain sits at the head of the table, with the rest of his senior staff arrayed around him.

"I would everyone's reports on this first day of negotiations on my PADD before 2200 hours today. There isn't much to be said for this meeting, I'm afraid." He gives a brief smile.

"I'm going to have to play tomorrow's schedule close to the chest."

[Colesign]

Shevek

It's at times like these that Shevek realizes how big the universe is.

Yet it's not that simple fact that causes him to worry so, so much as the soulless monolithic nature of the Federation itself. Being part of a greater whole is all well and fine...but this...

Shevek sets the pad to the side, and winds up staring at one of the small mobiles of glass, wire, and jewels hanging up on the ceiling, the so called "Occupations of Uninhabited Space" that Takver so loved to create. This is how the daughter Sadik finds him when she returns home from school.

[darkblade]

Doggie

"Big talk from someone who may have doomed every species in the Federation with your stunt with the Borg." Doggie growls towards the God-like being. He walks past Q towards the doors of the holodeck.

***

Bebop

"You can't take him to Earth." Faye warns the lead officer who takes their prisoner from them.

"He wants to go to Earth, that's why he let us take him without firing a single shot."

[The Tygre]

... Inconvenient. Legato's ship is well-hidden. After dropping him off on the toxic moon, the stealth runner enters Pandora's orbit, watching for its master's summons. As for the psion himself, his activities will require a bit more tact. The omnicidal maniac takes a bold step by not disguising himself with invisibility. Everything is cluttered. It all feels like cattle shuffling against each other in a meat truck, or rats vying for the last place on the trap. Their toxin is condensed, the filth practically choking Legato. If it wasn't for the poison gas outside, Bluesummers would be making a B-line for the wilderness. But for now, he lays low, blending in with the rest of the scoundrels, bounty hunters, and riff-raff of the galaxy.

He starts with the obvious; the dock offices. There has to be a manifest somewhere. If he's lucky, then the task will be simple; empty ship with the prisoner. And even if they have moved him, then there aren't many places to run on this world. He'll find them, even if it means tearing the moon apart to the core.

[Cracklord]

Doggie
You step through the door, only to find yourself stepping back out of the door onto the holodeck. He has bent space. Q only shakes his head, and sighs. "I was reasonably sure that wouldn't happen. Besides, it's a big galaxy, and there are plenty of dangerous things floating about waiting for you to discover, and plenty of them are worse news waiting to hit you."
Then he smiles again. "But enough judging that you don't understand. Tell the captain I said he should go to the planet you've chosen to name Mars. The longer he leaves it, the worse the situation will be."

Shevak
The night passes slowly, you find yourself unable to sleep, too wrapped up in thoughts. What will happen to your home? By the time you dress and join the congregation awaiting the next days negotiations, you don't know whether to be relieved or terrified.

Legato
Segmentum Tempestus. Subsector Gaius. Unnamed System. Pandora.
It takes you only a little time to trace the location of the ship. The main holding area. No mention of the prisoner. PErhaps they already dropped him off, or disposed of him. Maybe you should resort to some more on hands questioning.

Bebop
You are taken aside, the man pays you, you fill out some forms, and then you're ready to go. Before you do, Nadrek looks at you and sends a thought directly into your head.
'That man you drugged. If you have any fondness for him, I would suggest you now go and find him. You see, my accomplices believe him to be the one to capture me.'
Then he's gone, taken to a solitary holding cell awaiting trial, looking smug about the whole thing.

Captain Picard
You read over the reports, most of which more or less agree with your own perception of the events. They've become insular, and while the terms you offer are very reasonable they can't help but be suspicious of any change whatsoever. It happens to closed communities.
Just the same, they are mostly reasonable and willing to hear you out. Initially they were fearful, but you've managed to reassure them that the Federation has no intention of gunboat diplomacy.

Outlaw Starr
You came to Pandora for two reasons. One, the small community was handling serious amounts of money, given they had a substance everyone wants. And two, given they were a small community, there were a whole range of services they no doubt needed outsiders to provide.
That sounded good to you.

Ratchet and Clank
A cluster of huge, tall, thin trees with many branches that stuck out at right angles from the trunk had all leant towards each other over a small lake, forming a dome like structure. Hammock leaves and vines and fungi covered the trunks and branches, which formed a cobweb of connections. It was beginning to glow in the dimming light, reflecting off the water, which gave off its own glow from fluorescent underwater plants.
An indigenous Xenos, three meters tall with smooth cyan-colored skin, large amber eyes, and a long, sweeping tail, face scarred with ritual markings, is observing you from one of the branches, a rude spear in it's hand.

[industrious]

Picard

It's been a good day. No snags, no unexpected twists to upset a delicate political situation.

Time for bed.

[darkblade]

Doggie

"Fine, just fix the door." Doggie says pulling out his SPD licence. He always preferred it to the standard Starfleet communicator. It kept half the conversation hidden from eavesdroppers which is all but essential while in security.

He calls Picard with it.

***

Picard's Quarters

As you get ready for bed you receive both a knock on your door and a communicator signal from Doggie.

***

Bebop

"So much for the race track." Faye mutters as she runs back to the ship with the credsticks.

"We got to go now!" She yells as she boards the ship to the surprise of all present. Even Eine lets out a small yelp at Faye's rush, normally she's the one keeping them on a single world long enough for her to gamble away a bounty.

"He's going to do something and has men coming after us. He used his psychic powers to tell me." Faye explains but the others don't seem to concerned.

"How many of our bounties have said that someone was going to come after us for putting them away?" Jet asked crossing his arms as he turns to look at Faye.

"Almost all of them." Faye admitted weakly. "But this guy was different."

"Sure he had the power to do it but if he was going to do it why wait until we already had him on Earth's Moon, which I still think was a mistake, they docked us a couple thousand for a transfer fee." Spike complained without even taking his eyes off the small holovision unit they had in the ship.

"Ed believes Faye. Gas man was spooky." The tiny hacker says surprisingly optimistically. "But Spike can fight bad guys so we're okay."

Faye proceeds to sigh and place her head against the wall all she could hope for was for this to pass or for their next bounty to take them far from Nadrek's goons.

[industrious]

Picard

Damn.

The captain has just gotten out of his uniform. Fumbling for his badge, he taps it.

"Picard here."

[Cracklord]

Doggie
Q has already vanished. The door works perfectly, and nobody else seems to have noticed the issue with it. Worf puts away his Bat'leth and steps out with you. It was you he addressed, not the klingon, so he assumes it's probably for the best to let you handle it. Plus, he's naturally taciturn.

Picard
Your crew knows only to call you once you go to bed if it's some sort of emergency only you can handle.

Bebop
Jet finally turns his gaze from the holo-unit to look at Faye. He softens a bit when he sees she's serious, but only a bit. If the guy was going to have them killed, why would he tell them about it?
"Look, what exactly did he say?" He asks, folding his big arms over his chest.

[darkblade]

Picard

"Captain, um Q just appeared to Lt. Worf and I in the Holodeck. He says that there is a situation on Mars you should look at before it escalates. He specifically compared it to the Ender the Xenocide and the Bugs." Doggie says not quite sounding sure of himself, he's not sure what to make of Q or his insane demands.

***

Bebop

((Jet is the gentle giant character. Spike is the martial artist type built miserable bastard. I'm going to assume that was said by Jet not Spike cause that makes more sense.))

Faye thinks about the specific thoughts and calms down severely. "Wait...okay crisis adverted."

She slumps down on the couch next to Spike. "I misunderstood him and forgot all about drugging Starwind. That's who the hit is after. We're fine."

The others all look on her disapprovingly.

"Where did we leave the Outlaws?" Spike asks jumping up and running towards the control room. He may complain about bastards like Gene but he's not about to let one get killed by one of his bounties that's just low and bad for the reputation.

[Cracklord]

Cowboy Bebop
Starwind has left the solar system and has made his way to Pandora, looking for work. A nice, out of the way place, on the very fringes of civilization, where nobody will hear him scream or wonder what happened to him.
If you want to follow him, you'll have to catch a lift or upgrade the ship a lot. Fortunately, contacting him is easier. Or at least, would be if he had a number (he doesn't. Too traceable).

[industrious]

Picard

"I see."

Instantly, all thoughts of sleep flee his mind. He is alert, composed, and ready for anything. With Q, it wouldn't be enough. But it would help.

"Picard to Bridge. Red Alert! All senior staff are to report to the briefing room. Mister Worf, escort Guinan there as well. This is not a drill."

[darkblade]

Bebop

Ed has already begun tracking the Outlaw Star and trying to hack into their computer to open up a channel between it and the Bebop. Of course to anyone else it looks like she is sitting in front of a keyboard with a pair of goggles on and slamming down on buttons randomly but she is totally hacking into the other ship's computer.

***

SPD

Doggie and Bridge report to the Briefing room. Bridge is not quite sure why but a combination of Picard's earlier statements about how he relies on his counsellors and Doggie forcibly dragging him brought him there.

Kat continues to work in Engineering.

[Executor]

((All Barsoomians are telepathic. Italics indicates mental communication

John Carter of Barsoom

The young man was not one of the Red Men of Barsoom, nor was he of any other species of Barsoomian. No, to all outward appearances he was human, a shocking discovery indeed on the mossy dead sea bottom of Barsoom.

John dismounted his thoat, the leather accoutrements of his fighting harness creaking as he did. With a hand set on the hilt of his long steel sabre, he began to descend into the crater of the crashed ship. His iron-grey eyes regarded the boy before him with a calm, evaluating look. The boy was slight of frame, but wiry and muscled, he was not exceptionally tall, for he seemed to be on the cusp of adulthood, still straddling the border between boy and man. His uniform was not familiar to John, but it had been centuries since he had been to Earth, so perhaps that was to be expected. It was the eyes though that held John Carter's attention, for there was a depth of wisdom and knowing that belied the boy's age.

Suddenly, there was the sound of cocking actions as the Tharks trained their long radium rifles on the boy as he said John's name. The boy also said that his name was Paul, Paul Atreides.

"Stand down" John said mentally, touching Tars Tarkas' mind with his own. He gestured downward with his hand as he continued down into the crashsite. Reluctantly, the Tharks lowered their weapons at a mental rebuke from Tars Tarkas.

Finally John came to the bottom of the crater, and he stood before the boy. It was a strange feeling, standing before someone dressed in what appeared to be Earth clothes while wearing nothing but the harness and accoutrements of a Thark warlord. John Carter's critical eye looked the youth up and down. He felt very large in comparison to the boy, and he suddenly realized how the Green Men must feel when looking at him. 'Ah, but it was foolish for the Tharks to underestimate me when I first arrived here, I shall not repeat their mistake' John thought.

"Greetings Paul Atreides, I must apologize if my accent is strange, I have not spoken English for many years" John Carter said at last.

"I must ask you though, how do you know me?" he continued, cutting right to the question on the mind of every one of the forty warriors sitting on their thoats behind him.

[doliest]

Kirk
"Something came through, Spock? Is there anyway to narrow it down? A ship or a fleet, perhaps, capable of dimensional travel? Or a would-be god like Trelane? Perhaps a space creature lacking in physical nature, like Redjack?"
Kirk had encountered a wide variety of strange and fantastic creatures in his travels. Of that, there could be no doubt.

Solo
Han isn't looking for too many people to help. He and Chewie can do quite a bit. But he needs a few people to set everything up. And some protection. He definitely needed a gunner if he was going to get anywhere.

[Draxx]

Paul Atreides
"I have a unique perspective on things." He replies, in his calm, quiet voice. "And you speak English very well." He adds. Indeed the slightly overly formal way John Carter speaks would be right at home among any of the families.

“One difficult to explain. Suffice to say that I see things before they happen, as they will happen. But to see the future is to be trapped by it.” He says, getting to his feet, and readjusting his torn shirt to cover his midsection.

Then he looks over at John Carter’s followers and lowers his head respectfully, raising his hands to show he’s unarmed, although he has the poise and confidence of a warrior, despite his age, and wears a long knife on his hip within easy reach, allowing him to draw it in moments, and obviously knows how to use it.

“This land of yours is rugged and beautiful. Since I will be here for a time, I would like to see more of it, if you will show me.”

Mal
Preem shows up to see the old design, looking like a cross between a bird and insect, or at least it had in it’s better days. Now it had been so rebuilt and repaired with temporary solutions that you can barely believe it holds together. It’s rounded to contain pressure better, and the engine is humming softly, which you take to be a good sign. There are nightmarish stories of losing the gravity or atmosphere control in space.

The rest of the crew are currently in the process of loading it up with heavy steel crates into the interior of the cargo bay, stacking them as best they can. Mal hasn’t mentioned what’s in there, or where he’s taking them, but judging from what you see it’s nothing particularly interested.

“All the songs have gone away.” Comes a quiet, lonely voice behind you. “Sometimes I sing them, but they never come back, and I just feel empty. Everyone else has forgot them. I have to, most of the time. But sometimes, I remember things everyone else has forgotten for ever and always. Does that ever happen to you?”

You turn to see River Tam. She was the wild card. Literally. She looks young, withy a high forehead, a pretty face and a slim build, but something in her slightly too wide eyes makes you nervous.

“That’s just River. She’s another of the passengers.” Says Mal, appearing behind her. He doesn’t look like your idea of a captain, even of a ship like this. His boots were scuffed, the blue of his denim pants had long ago gone gray, and his light brown shirt was covered by a ragged tan leather jacket that hung down to mid thigh, the right side of his coat was tucked behind the holster on his hip to keep his gun handy. He’s not made for civilization, Mal isn’t.

"Anyway, get packed. We'll be leaving in an hour."

[AnimeKid]

Junior

The captain of the Durandal gives a final snore before waking up and seeing that they are still in warp trying to get to their destination. Feeling impatient he calls out to Eisenhorn, "Hey, old man when are we getting to this planet of the Klingon's huh? If I wasn't the captain I would be down in the casino room right now."

Ratchet and Clank

Ratchet:Orange
Clank:Grey
Aphelion:Red

Ratchet waves his hands at the local in a placating manner. Clank activates his built in universal translator just in case the language here was different from norm. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hey buddy don't worry, we come in peace. We just kinda crash landed here from a weird portal contraption. We were hoping that you or anyone else here really that you had a star map or could just give us directions to the nearest civilized planet." Piping up from his place on Ratchet's back Clank decides to add his two cents. "Ratchet based on this planets technology level they would not have planetary travel, let alone a star map or even know directions." "I know that Clank you said that three times over the course of this trek, it is at least worth a shot," his furry companion whispers back. "Fine, but when this fruitless endeavor fails do not blame me when I say, 'I told you so'."

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek heads to Abbenay Spaceport early, before the time for the second diplomatic meeting.

A few cargo Dirigibles roar overhead. There are a few ships berthed on the landing pads. Mostly few opportunistic merchants (trading's a tricky thing in a non-currency society, but a bit of bartering, no tarriffs, and no government have made it a relaxing stop for free traders to take port at). Also on the one of the landing pads is a long, sleek, large and thoroughly antiquated craft:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3404/3555252997_8cecbd269c.jpg

One of the ten Ferry Ships, custom built to haul large amount of ore between planets, and then later to transport a nation's worth of idealistic revolutionaries to their promised land. Too large and too expensive to build more of with Annarre's scant resources, the Defense Organisation are the only ones who ride them into orbit these days (they're also the only set of spaceship they possess. As far as Shevek knows).

And as it happens, one of the bell nozzles of the towering craft is being worked on by a sweaty, swearing mechanic wearing the Defense armband.

Shevek walks up to the woman in question, waving a hand in greeting. "Shevek!" He calls out. "How goes it?"

{I thought this would be a nice interlude of setting establishment. If you're willing to go along with some dialogue, Cracklord, I thought this would be a good way to lay out the technological state of Annarres compared to the rest of the Federation.}

[The Tygre]

It was time for Legato to get personal with his work. The psion found a quiet place at the docking station. After setting a psychic barrier against any vermin that might come in from outside, he concentrated. His psychic energy spread out, like a fungus on the roots of a tree. All he needed was a name, a face, somebody thinking about the outlaw. Then all he would have to do is follow the trail.

No witnesses, of course.

[Cracklord]

Shevak
Silvia Tolby turns and waves, leaning her ironite staff (A metallic walking stick and badge of recognition among the Defense Organization) against the ship. She's young, barely out of adolescence, and dresses practically. Waving back to you, she stands up and walks over. She's pretty, but not feminine. Quite the contrary, even her walk is strong and masculine.
"May I help you?" She asks. She's been in the process of removing most of the machinery from the now decommissioned ship. An emergency meeting that night had come to the subject of planetary defense, and it had been agreed that, upon seeing the Federation ship, the defenses wouldn't do any good anyway., and could be put to a better purpose.

Picard
You stand at the bridge, the entirety of your senior staff standing before you, waiting for you to explain what's going on. Worf has pointedly kept what he knew to himself, trusting you to explain it for him.
Though nothing has explicitly been said yet, there is a feeling of tension, as everyone feels your

Bebop
You arrange transport on an Axiom class Star-liner, normally far out of your range, but given Nadrek was a very wanted figure for the next while you can look forward to being as affluent as you want.
Ed has managed to find their ship. It's currently orbiting Pandora, and has a new location programmed into it, setting for the edge. The uncharted far reaches of space.

Kirk
Spock shrugs. "It depends on too many factors. Based on the radiation trails and our attempt to determine power output, it could be one extremely efficient ship the size of a moon, one incredibly inefficient one no larger then a Federations ship, or anything in between. It could be a fleet." He pauses. "Of course, we can use these trails to follow it."

Solo
There were plenty of people like that here. Pick one. (Yes, you have complete freedom to decide on any such character you want, from any bit of science fiction you want.)

Ratchet and Clank
The catlike humanoid turns and vanishes into the foliage, gone in a moment, and leaving you alone with no idea whether he understood or even heard.

Legato
Gene Hunt is currently resting in a non-personnel building to the east of the camp. The building is almost empty, you could take him out and almost all his crew before anyone even knew you were here.

Gene Hunt
You got a job. Your to find Leto Atreides' son. Apparently he went mad, took a ship and vanished into uncharted space. There is a considerable reward offered. Enough to go totally legitimate and pay all your debts, then retire.

[industrious]

((Gene Hunt's in this game? Odd...))

Captain Jean-Luc Picard

There isn't any acknowledgement of their presence; Picard launches straight into the briefing with little time for pleasantry.

"I have just been informed that Q has appeared on the Enterprise. For those who have encountered this being before, you already know the implications of his arrival. For those who do not, I will be brief. Q is, as far as we know, an extremely powerful being, claiming to represent a group known as the 'Q Continuum,' who has seemingly made it his purpose in life to attack, provoke, and otherwise endanger the lives of this crew, this ship, and humanity itself. It was Q who was responsible for the Federation's encounters with the Borg; time and time again, he has attempted to destroy humanity with a series of what he claims are 'tests,' but in reality, are little more than exercises built to amuse his own ego."

Near the end, the Captain's voice speeds up a tad, loses its usual professionalism. He notes this, pauses for a moment, regains control.

"All crewmembers are to travel in pairs, and are to report any and all unusual activity to the senior staff at once, and without delay. Guinan, should you feel Q's presence on this ship, I want to be alerted immediately. There is no telling what Q's purpose here is yet, and if you should encounter him, you are to contact me immediately, and do nothing to provoke him. Nineteen people were killed the last time he was provoked. Are we clear?"

It isn't a question.

Preem Palver

He blinks at her statement. The First Speaker knows there is a deeper game; he's one of, if not the smartest man in the 'verse. Has to be, due to his profession.

"Hell, girl, I'm getting old. Happens way too much, nowadays."

He doesn't answer, not directly. Within the part of his mind that is shielded from any prying eyes (has to be shielded, given that the Second Foundation has a great deal of telepaths), the part that isn't Preem Palver, protein farmer, he allows a single surface thought to bubble up.

If you can hear this, we shall talk later.

He slaps Mal jovially on the shoulder. There's nothing military or hostile about the gesture; it's just a way of saying hello.

"She looks like me old tractor. And that's a compliment, you can bet your bottom credit on that."

[darkblade]

Doggie

"Sir, he made a point to direct us to Mars. While he is dangerous it would be foolish to completely ignore his warning." Doggie adds towards the end of Picard's orders.

***

Bebop

"How did he get out here?" Jet asks as the Bebop breaks off from the carrier and flies towards the Outlaw Star.

"I don't know he said he was broke. He couldn't even afford another drink for himself. I had to poison him out of my own pocket." Faye says.

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek holds up his hands. "Peace, Ammar: I merely wished to ask how your day was going. If you're busy, I'll be on my way."

[Corvond]

Flash Gordan
"My crew was as carefully chosen as the disciples of Christ." He says to the gathered men, an inspiring sight in his red uniform, his handsome, square jawed face and clean-cut good looks. "Each of you is the best Earth and the Federation have to offer, and we stand here ready to make history, and change the universe. This, gentlemen, is the future."

Riddick
He doesn't say a word or make a movement. He just allows himself to be taken bellow to the prison, silent and still, staring at the place with a weary expression on his face, as though wishing he could just get this over and done with. His goggles hide his milky white eyes that don't need light to see, and his massive limbs speak of primal power and quickness. He's a barbarian enslaved by civilization, akin to those of the Hyborean age, and he shows disdain in his face to this entire institution. He's broken out of worse then this before.

[Cracklord]

Flash Gordan
Your immediate officers (Captain Janeway is the captain of the ship, while you are the Federations representative and in charge of everything, and Commander Adama commands the military units) are all on the bridge to make their reports. So far, everything seems ready.

John Stalver
The crew has secured the quarters from flight status. Bunks have been folded down, each alcove personalized with photographs and pin-ups.
You, the highest ranking NCO, move around the cabin, checking the crew's radiation badges and profiles to ensure everything is as it should be.
Most of them have acclimatized fairly well. A pair sit on their bunks, tossing a handball across the cabin. A few others look over a "Watchman" video unit, and Johnny Rico is sitting at the back reading a novel that, in defiance of modern convention, is printed on paper.
Then there is a call, and you are ordered to the bridge to make the final report before take-off, and to give them a warning about the demons you know are coming.

Riddick
You are escorted to your cell, and sealed in the cooler. Air-tight, you note. They must have heard of your propensity for escape. You note you have a cell-mate, a figure in a containment suit, his body swirling gas within.
“You’ll do.” Nadrek says, looking you over. “You’ll do nicely.”

Doggie, Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Riker steps forward. "Might I assume you intend to return to Earth directly, sir. Might I suggest that we first take an hour to have the people here decide upon a representative, or at least a delegation. They can be dropped at Earth to continue negotiations, while we deal with the problem at hand." Riker doesn't like leaving jobs half-done, and more to the point just offered you his support.

Shevak
“We can hope for peace. But that’s all we can do.” She replies, sighing, and most of her bitterness is expelled with the air. You suppose you can sympathize. It must be maddening, to devote yourself to one task with all your abilities just as your father did before you, only to find out it’s been utterly irrelevant all along. There was absolutely nothing Annares as it now was could do to defend itself from an aggressor. And it’s hit her harder then most.
She looks up at the ship as though wishing she could take her staff and demolish it in one blow. Then her face falls a little, and instead she simply waves you over to help her remove part of the engine.
“What do you think? Of the captain, I mean?”

Bebop
Spike shrugs. "Yeah, well do they know that?" He asks, taking a long pull at his cigarette. Somehow, the luxury accommodations seem to have made him more agreeable, though you doubt it will hold. “Maybe they didn’t realize his check bounced until he was long gone. That’s how it normally goes. Or hell, maybe someone owed him a favor, he’s much better at getting owed favors then making actual money. Hell, maybe he even went as far as piracy. Really, who cares?”

[Colesign]

Shevek

"Captain Picard? He's a good person." Shevek says after some consideration. "The which of for I'm quite grateful. If he came from an Anarchist society like ours, I wouldn't worry."

He meets her eyes. "But that's the terrifying thing of it. He doesn't come merely as himself: he is part of a greater authority that tells him what to do, something monolithic and large. And we don't know what they intend."

And then, perversely enough, after that bit of doom and gloom, he smiles.

"But don't despair or some such nonsense." Shevek amends. "Time is cyclic as well as linear. Events occur in seasons. When a storm comes, we pass through it soon enough, especially if we work together...Owww!"

He just stubbed his foot on a toolbox.

"Right then. Enough idealistic proverbs for one day."

[Cracklord]

Shevek
She rolls her eyes. "So if I suffer, I shouldn't worry because in the future I might not?" She says. "Physicists. Always probing the infinite but never touching the definite."
She sighs. "But that's exactly what worries me. Have you considered that, given the tremendous size of the Federation, they probably sent someone they knew we’d open up to, in order to get us to trust them. We probably can trust Picard. But can we trust the next man they send? Or the man after that?”
Then she stops and faces you squarely. "And if we can't, then what? Our only course of action lies in hoping they believe their own ideals enough to let us live as we choose. We either surrender or throw ourselves on the mercy of people we've never met who will mostly likely only consider us for moments."

[Draxx]

Firefly
The old Firefly-class transport was rusted and faded, what little paint she claimed being chipped and marred by hundreds of thousands of micro-meteor impacts and the occasional bullet scar. Despite that, there is something comforting about the ship, not reliable exactly, but not far from it. Something that makes you feel you can rely on it, no matter what shape it's in.

Mal takes the shoulder slap with good humor and leads you in, adjusting his coat to cover his gun as he does, and leading you in a way that doesn't let you see the rather hurt expression on his face at the mere implication that he could be somehow ashamed or needing approval about his ship.

“Anyway, you’ll have to settle on a room and a bunk, I’ve already leased out my two shuttles, and they get seniority. There’s one of them now.” He lifts a hand, and waves at a tall dark man leaning on the doorframe, who waves back and smiles up at you as you pass. It’s a genuine smile, lighting up his face and wearing off the hardness, making him look a decade younger. If not for his pale brown bombardiers eyes you quite imagine you could be smiling back.

The ship’s unofficial chaplain and occasionally inspired cook, Shepherd Book was an enigmatic man who had let little of his past become known by the rest of the crew. Why he still stuck around, Mal had no idea. None of the crew were overtly religious (barring, perhaps, Inara Serra, a registered Companion who had left Serenity in her shuttle/home before they landed to meet a client).
Mal had long ago eschewed any faith in the Divine having any particular interest in his success or failure in life. And while he could not make himself go that last step, towards a total atheism, he did place a lot of stock in Luck. He never tried to depend on it – though circumstances often forced the issue – but it was always there.

As he entered the corridor outside the crew quarters, Kaylee was just stepping off her ladder. She was wearing a smile bigger than her cutoff tank top and shorts combined. Mal averted his eyes – it was like seeing a little sister in a state of undress – just not right.
“This is our engineer. Kaylee, say hello to the new guest. He’ll be staying a week or two.” Kaylee manages to smile even wider and bounces past.

At last you get to your room, where Mal pushes the little two-wheeled cart that contains your stowed belongings. “We’re launching in an hour and a half, once everyone gets back. Get comfortable.”

River, meanwhile, was standing outside, lost and forlorn. She heard him alright, and doesn’t know what to do now. Thanks to losing her amygdala she isn’t all that good at impulse control, and usually acts on her first idea. But he had told her not to, and she trusted him. He was like her. But so had been the people who cut her…

River Tam was a huge mess of tightly wound issues and emotional damage all wound up in the addle-minded body of a moody seventeen-year old super genius. Her ability to control her own life was limited.

She should talk to Simon. He’d know. He looked after her. He always did.

[Cracklord]

Serenity
Hoban 'Wash' Washburn, the spiky haired blonde pilot, came down from his lair wearing a hideously ugly orange and blue Hawaiian shirt. Wash cast an earnest, boyish look at the Captain, and wiggled his eyebrows. "Oh, sweet chubby Buddha, sometimes I wonder how I let my life lead me places like this." He says.

[industrious]

Captain Picard

He rubs his chin, ponders his options.

"I believe, Number One, we can use Q's game as an opportunity. He always delights in testing humanity, and while we have given him our measure, shown him our potential, like a stubborn and petulant child, he cannot help but continue long after reason would dictate him to stop."

He spreads his arms.

"What beter way, then, to show the Anarrans our good intentions? I propose that we allow a small delgation-no more than five-to accompany us to Earth and Mars to see what Q is planning. In the meantime, so that negotiations do not grind to a halt, we will need a replacement for ourselves. I think...Captain Sisko should be a good candidate. A fine officer, and he does have quite the resume when it comes to dealing with new cultures and civilizations. Any thoughts?"

This one is a question; he's willing to consider any objections or arguments, knowing that ultimately, the final decision rests with him. One of the reasons why Picard was chosen for the Federation's new flagship.

[darkblade]

Doggie and Bridge

"Sir, I do not think bringing anarchists on a mission of this sensitivity is a good idea. While they may mean well they do not see eye to eye with Federation policy, to see it force so soon may well jeopardize both the mission and further negotiations." Doggie starts to say.

"Actually. I agree with Picard and Riker. Our biggest fault in these negations thus far is that they have all the cards. We know how they live and what they want but all they know is what we want and see the Federation as a big scary boogie man. To see it's policies enacted to defuse a crisis may lessen their fears of us and what we represent." Bridge explains.

"You sure about this, kid?" Doggie asks with a slight sniffle growl, the kind that suggests while he is insulted by Bridge countering his statements he is willing to concede defeat to his former squadie.

"Well I can't say for complete certainty but I am mostly sure that this will work out for the betterment of both missions. Besides Q selected us for this in the middle of negotiations, he probably intends for them to be part of his test."

***

Bebop

"No I've tried leaving the system before. They wouldn't let me anywhere near a half decent shuttle without a couple million up front." Faye sighs before trying to hail the Outlaw Star.

[Cracklord]

Doggie, Picard and Bridge
Riker pauses, considering, then nods. He's annoyed that there will be yet more people to take care of on board the ship, but he can't really complain since it was his idea. And, of course, like most of the crew, he thinks of you as an almost perfect Socratic philosopher-king, so tends to side with you no matter what conclusioon you come to.
"Agreed. He can take care of the situation, although he does have a tendency to intimidate people. They might find him threatening."

Bebop
"Then maybe he took out a loan and offered that hunk of metal he calls a ship as collateral." He pauses. "If he did, we're probably not doing him any favors saving his life." He adds, given the state the Outlaw Starr was in.
"Have you tried the pool? It's great."

Kirk
So there you have it. Decision time. You are in hostile space looking at something so big, dangerous and beyond your ability to influence it reminds you of those horror stories Admiral Archer talks about when he's had too much to drink, about giant organisms in the outer rim of the galaxy, creatures out of the nightmares of insane gods that eat stars. There is nothing as such you can do to close the wormhole, given it’s stabilized. If you drop a metric tonne of antimatter in there it will be exactly one tonne heavier. If you try to blow it up, you’ll do exactly the same thing.
So you have two choices. Your first is to go through and take a look at the other side. It’s a tremendous risk, you have almost no chance of making it through, given it’s so hot it glows in x-rays, but if you took certain provisions it might be possible to make it through, though whether you could ever make it back and whether it was advisable to try are certainly worthy of consideration.
Your other choice is to turn around and follow whatever came through, and leave the wormhole for the Romulans to deal with. The thing is heading towards the federation, and if it’s hostile that could be quite a problem. And you are the only one who can give a warning, or find it.
And the Wormholes not going anywhere.

Solo
Your new crew load up on the ship, the second most diverse and strange group you've ever had on board at one time. Then you take off, heading towards the sun, where you will land on the most important Planet in the Federation to take something that could either make or destroy you from an old moisture farmer.

[Draxx]

Simon and River
Not making a sound she opened the door wider and padded across to the other hallway, unseen and unheard, passing through the corridor like a ghost.

She was reeling, inside, and despite her own internal protests she was lighting up those areas of her mind that ‘They’ had put there. The ones she hadn’t wanted, or known about. The special knowledge that seventeen-year old girls shouldn’t know. The ones ‘They’ wanted her to have when they crafted her into a tool.

She knocked on the door, then came in, and sat on the bed. And started crying, choking out sobs. Simon didn’t know what to do, but sat down and did his best to comfort her. At last, she stopped crying and started talking. And Simon listened, an older brother taking care of his little sister. But rather then the problems he wished he was dealing with in regards to her, he was trying to make sense of something he really wasn’t ready to understand.

River was a surgically created paranoid schizophrenic with all manner of additional alterations to her brain. She’d been pumped full of advanced drugs and nanotech, told all sorts of painful lies, and had the very fabric of her reality challenged on a daily basis for her secondary formative years. Sometimes she seemed able to tell things happening in places there was no conscious way she could perceive, even be precognizant to an extent. Other times, she hallucinated. And it was seemingly impossible to distinguish the two. But he had to do his best.

“I think you should talk to him. He might be able to help you.” He says, in his soothing, quiet voice, stroking her hair the way they had before everything had gone to hell, doing his best to calm her down.

“And I think I should go and talk to the captain.” He added, getting to his feet.

Mal and Wash
“Love of a beautiful woman has been the downfall of better men then you, Wash.” Mal replies. “I take it there is a reason for this self pity? One that involves you doing your job, which is flying the ship? Because if not, I want to say that I got it covered, you do your job and I’ll do mine.”

River Tam
Preem Palver gets a knock at his door moments after settling in. He can guess who it is.

[industrious]

Captain Picard

"Well, Commander..."

Picard chooses his next words carefully. It would not do at all for him to criticize a fellow captain.

"I have absolute confidence in Captain Sisko's abilities. And one thing the Anarrans will have to learn is that while the Federation is composed of many people, with their own nuances and interpretations of our principles, ultimately, we are all committed to those principles. They will be able to compare my character with his, and hopefully, come to a better understanding of the Federation."

He clears his throat.

"Anyone in disagreement, please see me after this meeting; your concerns will be duly noted."

Preem Palver

"Please. Enter."

His belongings are sparse; a framed picture of his "wife," a half-empty pack of cigarettes (he doesn't smoke but it's a useful fiction), one or two hardcopy books (a compilation of Abrahamic mythology, and The Once and Future King). Since his room is small, and is little more than a bed and enough space for two people to sit on the floor, there isn't really any need for more.

For this conversation, at least, he's dropped his lower-class accent.

[Cracklord]

Mal
“How about that the destination you just decided on is in the Core.” Wash warned. “You know, where some of us are wanted fugitives with really high prices on our head, and others have embarrasingly low prices on our heads for abetting said fugitives? I mean, if some bounty hunter turns me in to cover his beer tab, I'll never get respect in prison no matter who I shiv.”

Captain Picard
"Very good, sir." Riker notes. "I'd best go down and explain the situation to the natives. Do we have a scheduled time of departure?"

Hober Mallow
You have a meeting to get to with the board of directors of the CHOAM corporation, regarding your proposed expansion efforts. If it paid off, you could look forward to making a large sum of money, and gaining a great deal of influence you can turn to your favor. The hard part will be convincing these old gargoyles that it's in their interest to assist you.

Earth
In that fuzzy, indefinable space between the Rim worlds and the Central planets was a lone brown dwarf star, scarcely more than a big jovian that hadn’t quite made it to stellar greatness by igniting a robust fusion reaction. It was called Leda. And it was the last stop before coming back to the Sol system, heart of the Alliance, and jewel of the Federation, or at least that’s what they said. A ship had passed it a week ago, unknown and unsensed, but nonetheless, it's pressence was being felt, like a lone, lunitic cell coming into an organism and looking for a mate in order to raise a cosy tumor.
The Alliance was the epitome, the cornerstone of human civilization. The Core worlds, Earth, Mars, Venus and the others, they were the foundation of the Alliance. They were where the roots of the civilization arose. All the technological marvels they boasted, all the high culture and society, all the wealth, was concentrated there. All the Rim world economies put together were less than the annual economic activity of, say, Mars alone, indeed roughly ten percent of the Federations industry occurred on that red world.
But power is vulnerable.
On earth, a new cult had sprang up, that promoted harmony and what they called free-love. And it spread rapidly, so fast if you blinked you’d have missed it rise. And it was all centered around a man who nobody seemed to have heard of before, or have any records of whatsoever.

[Colesign]

Shevek

"Yes." Shevek reluctantly agreed. "It was a forced analogy at best. So I'll just say this: my gut feelings tell me that Optimism is still warranted, and that the Great Experiment is far from over. There's a good solution to our problems, if we think things through, work hard, and stick to our principles."

He shrugs. "Not terribly compelling, but there it is. Peace and plenty to you, Ammar."

With that, he makes his leave to the meeting.

[Cracklord]

Shevak
You arrive at the spaceport to find Riker, Picard's number two, standing at the spaceport with his hands clasped behind his back, in full dress uniform, his face stern and thoughtful enough to make you worry, although it doesn't seem directed at you.
"There has been a crisis." He says, deciding not to go over the problem in too much detail. He really should have discussed with Picard exactly what to say, but there just wasn't time.
"And unfortunately, we will have to cut this particular meeting short. Unfortunant, particularly in these early stages, but we don't have much in the way of choice, I'm afraid." He sighs.
"If you are still interested in the discussed reunion, then we're more then happy to escort a delegation to earth in order to continue this. And if that's not to your liking, another ship should be here in a little under two weeks."

[doliest]

Kirk
"Set a course to follow it's trail then. Maintain stealth and, if possible, increase the power of the long range sensors to try and give us an early warning if we run across anything."

Solo, Arris, Magnoda, & Jack.
Solo looked over the team he'd recruited as he heads back to the Falcon, fighting to keep from drawing his pistol-

So, Lev, you were just finishing up that thing about your brother?

Yeah. It doesn't really get interesting after that, though. Just politics. Little brother whining about mommy. Squishing his brain. Usual reunion.

I hear that. Last reunion I had, ended in an arrest, and a falcon losing it's coat.

I don't think falcon's have coats, Mag.

Whadda you know about anything that doesn't involve tiddlewinks, captain?

He would not turn his pistol on himself. But on them...He kills that notion as he leads them into his ship, ignoring the jokes Lev cracks about it's condition. He attempts to open a channel to talk to Lando.

"You there, Lando? I got us a crew."

[nanobot_swarm]

John Stalvern
First he tells the marines to have their guns close at all times just in case some of them are zombified or imps teleport in or something, he then sprints up to the bridge like a train, seriously no one should be able to sprint this fast this long, while wearing armor, and comes to a dead stop in front of Flash. He says to him,"The marines are in fine condition physically and mentally, all equipment checks out and is in working order, all-in-all, everything is okay with the Roughnecks." He then shifts his eyes about and shouts," HOWEVER I BELIEVE IT IS IMPORTANT THAT WE ARE ALL READY AT ALL TIMES WITH GUNS AND STUFF BECAUSE I THINK THAT THERE WILL BE DEMONS! WE MUST BE READY TO FIGHT THE DEMONS!"

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek blinked.

Some sort of political tactic? ...No. Probably not.

"What is the crisis? And how long do we have to make our decisions?"

[Cracklord]

Shevak
"Not long. And we will keep you informed as we learn more. For the moment, we know next to nothing ourselves." He replies, in the by rote way of an officer with an unfortunate job who just wants to get it done and leave it at that.

John Stalvern, Flash Gordan
"...He's a highly skilled soldier, sir." Jaenway says to the captain as everyone else looks at you, horrified by your outburst and sheer insubordination. It's very fortunate indeed you come so highly decorated indeed, or you might lose your position on the vessel, and your chance to make history.

Kirk
"Right away, sir." The ship turns, and begins to make it's way back to the Federation.
Spock taps his fingers, a sign that he's thinking as the ship follows the faint trail through the black of space. "Any theories as to what this might be, sir?" He asks. He usually doesn't approve of mere speculation, but one way or another you'd have to make preparations and there is no way to scientifically to determine what you're following given your lack of data. If you were going to make preparations, you had to make a decision.

Solo, Arris, Magnoda, & Jack.
"I can see that. How is it that when there are only two cops in this enture place you mannage to pick them both up? Really says something terrible about my choices, doesn't it pirate?" He says, then smiles.
"Well, don't let me hold you here. Get going!"

[doliest]

Solo & Friends
He's got a point. Why don't I arrest the three of you now, and uh, save some trouble?

Vacation, Magnoda. And besides, we're way outside your jurisdiction.

"Besides, my debtors will shoot me before you could get me in a cell, Harkness would leave, and nothing would still to Arris. So let's avoid the unpleasantness, eh?"

With that, Solo punches in coordinates.

Kirk
"Perhaps the Dominion? Another traveler from the Mirror Universe?" Kirk shudders at the second one.

[industrious]

Captain Picard

"No, Number One. But I want to be off once the Anarrans understand our mission, and if they decide to come with, to leave, shortly after they arrive."

Hober Mallow

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Board."

He's wearing his best suit, and he's totally, completely relaxed. He's a salesman, first and foremost.

"I know that there has been a lot of concern about what what folks like me have been doing by the Core. Undercutting your profits. Giving out goods of better quality and at a cheaper price than you can compete with. A strange new religion that you don't want at all."

He pauses, spreads his hands.

"Is my assessment correct, so far?"

[Cracklord]

Kirk
Spock considers for a moment, then shakes his head. "No. They haven't the capability, which if I may say is most fortuitous. Actually, I’ve been considering the matter, and cannot help but feel that we ourselves are under observation. Perhaps their intentions are not aggressive, and we are about to make contact with some advanced race with capabilities far beyond ours.”
“Oh, you have that right.” Says a voice, as the helmsman turns, and you start. That’s not Chekhov. He vanishes in a flash of white light and reappears a few inches for Kirk, apparently with no concept of personal space at all.
“Well if it isn’t the wild man blazing a trail on the wide frontier for the light of civilization to follow behind and illuminate the galaxy. You look well. Yellow suits you. Do you know who I am?”

Solo & Friends
Akkaris is a sixteen day voyage. In the meantime, you'll have to put up with your guests.

Captain Picard
"I'll certainly do my best to illustrate the magnitude of the threat, though I think we should keep the actual situation to ourselves, as the existence of beings like Q isn't something we want everyone to be aware of." He pauses. "It would only encourage him."
That said, he steps out to explain the basics of the situation to the people they were meant to be negotiating with.

Hober Mallow
The CHOAM corporation was the only way to expand interests as a method of controlling expansion. It was fairly benign for the most part, it certainly prevented an excess and shortages, however it could also be extremely obstructive. And given that there was no appeal process, a man had to content himself that these old men had the final say in his interests, whatever his own say in the matter. They had interests consisting of entire worlds, now, and assets in the theoretical numbers, however most of this was invested.
It was the casual sort of meeting, the kind where the real deals were made between moguls before things were turned over to lawyers and financial officers. The stars were out, and a glorious night’s ocean breeze wafted in from the wide windows over the bay. On the Inner worlds, land was power. Less so in the fringes, but in a world of nine billion like Earth, owning this much choice and developed land was an almost unspeakable display of power.
The centerpiece of the room was an ancient-looking brass telescope. But along the periphery of the round room were chairs, coffee tables, lamps, and a fireplace hologram, which had been programmed on low. A tasteful array of beverages was ready at the bar, and two trays of hors d’orves were laid out on a convenient table. There was tasteful background music – Holdt’s Tripudio Astrum suite for violins and bells – because it had a hopeful, optimistic character and a soft base that would be persuasive. The lighting was likewise soft, a warm pink glow that was just dim enough to cause the pupils of the eyes of the group to dilate.
You would have preferred the imposing power and dignity of a boardroom then this semi-formal environment, but you keep that to yourself. It’s there way of putting you at ease, of telling you they consider you a like mind, and so despite it you force yourself to go along with it. Just the same, the meeting was not going well.
That bears repeating. The meeting was not going well.
“Far from it. We accommodate every conceivable need in some form, it is not your proposition or methods of business we feel is at fault. Furthermore, we have no concern of competition, as long as it meets the standards.” Says the grim, bald headed figure of Mitch Courtenay, who’s face that could have been chiseled from obdurate stone. He was a man with a past, who was a rising star in the corporation, with a history of picking investments others had passed up, turning them into fortunes orders of magnitude larger than forecasters ever dreamed. “It is you yourself. We do not believe you have the interests of either the Alliance or the Federation at heart. And while we cannot all be patriotic, the fact is that it’s not your success that is suspect, but you yourself.”

[doliest]

Kirk
Kirk seems suprised for a moment, before a mask of acceptance slips over his face. "Yes, I've read Picards reports. And Janeways. And Siskos. You really do get around, Q. Though, considering what Picard and Janeway said about your flamboyance, I was at least expecting a more imaginative uniform. Though please, spare me the bed clothes." Kirk is grinning at this point. God-like beings harrassed him rather frequnetly, and he found them best dealt with by being unimpressed. Add in that Q rarely hurt crew members, and Kirk felt this could go well.

Solo and friends
(To be filled in by something fanficiton in lenth.) :smalltongue:

[AnimeKid]

Ratchet and Clank

"Hey wait, I need your help. Aphelion track its movements we need local help to get out of here." "Affirmative." Ratchet tears off into the jungle after the fleeing lifeform.

[Executor]

John Carter

John Carter smiled, his expression gentle and bemused. He had the patriarchal look of a friendly grandfather regarding an endearingly foolish young grandson. It was a look that his nephew Eddie back on Earth was quite familiar with, for 'Uncle Jack' had always been a perennial favourite amongst all the young members of the Carter family, and their relatives the Burroughs as well. Some might have considered John Carter's expression to be patronizing, but this was offset by the gentleness of his smile and the warmth in his grey eyes

"Paul Atreides, there are some things you must know of Barsoom before you can be shown it's marvels," he said, and without further preamble, he bent over, and then sprang up and jumped seventy feet up into the air. He then came back down, and alighted in front of Paul, bending at the knees as he struck ground.

"You are from Earth, no? Or an Earth-like world at least. Of course you are, you are human afterall. Paul, the gravity and air density of Barsoom is lesser than that of Earth. You may find that you need to relearn some motor skills if you are to travel on Barsoom" John said with a grin and a laugh.

Despite his levity, however, his mind was troubled. Did the boy really say he could see the future? He had seen and heard many unusual and wondrous things on Barsoom, but never of a seer who was anything more than a fraud using unusually strong psychic powers to manipulate the masses. Even so, how had Paul known his name from the start. John threw up his mental barriers, even as he laughed.

'He says he is a seer' he reached out to Tars Tarkas wordlessly, without a single outward thing to show that he was communicating with the towering Green Man, still sitting on his thoat with spear in hand.

'Do you think we can trust him' the cautious Thark replied.

'He is only a child Tars, but there is something odd about him, to be sure'

'If I recall, there was plenty odd about you when you arrived amongst our people as well' At this, John had to restrain the urge to chuckle at the old memories.

'Heh, fair enough. Keep an eye on him though, a hand near your pistol. Something strange is afoot here'

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek frowns as the situation is explained

"I am willing to go. I cannot speak for the other members of the delegation. What say you all?"

To himself, he thinks.

This is an opportunity to learn about the Federation outside of sanitized reading files. And I can transmit anything important back home via Ansible. And...maybe I can find allies out there among the stars...just in case.

[Draxx]

Paul
He listened patiently to the mans explanation, then in answer leaps up into the air and executes a perfect tripple flip, enough to shame any acrobat as he contorts his muscles smoothly and easily, then lands perfectly on the balls of his feet and bounces upright. He smiles boyishly as he lands, but the smile fades after a moment, the exhuberence of using his body swallowe by his thoughtful nature.

He could thank the training he’d been going through his entire life in order to mould him into a worthy successor of the Ateredis name for his agility. For the last six months, since being accepted by the Bene Gesseriet, he had been training for life on Pandora, where the gravity and pressure were less then what he was used to, and while it was nothing like it was here and had given him a stable groundwork. Not that he intended to tell John Carter that, it was better to keep the man guessing at his capabilities regardless whether he trusted him or not.

He was troubled. He was good at reading people, though there was nothing supernatural about it, but John Carter confounded his attempts to get a bearing on. He knew the man was important, that he would learn from him and that he would be the final step in his maturity to carry him to Arrakis, but beyond that he was lost. Who was this man? Was he cruel or was he kind? He felt the former, but that was instinct and nothing more.

It was going to be hard to get used to being human again, after so recently having stopped.

Mal
"Let me worry about that." He replies, straightening his coat, and moving as if to step past his pilot. Wash has a better point then he wanted to admit, but given his situation it was either take any job that came his way or starve and eat Jayne.

[industrious]

Hober Mallow

Well wasn't that just damned inconvenient. Men of principle in business. Who'd have thought it?

Mallow has the soul of a Ferengi; while he knows very well about Seldon crisises and the manifest destiny of the Foundation, he doesn't really care about either as long as he gets paid.

Time to pull a gambit. And if it didn't work, he'd try again the next time the board of CHOAM changed. The potential profit of getting on Earth was astronomical, but Mallow still made quite a profit every year normally.

"Look. I spend my life in space for my five-and-dime gadgets and my beer-and-pretzel kickback from the Foundation. There's fat fellows back there," his thumb jerked over his shoulder and back, "that sit home and collect my year's income every minute – out of skimmings from me and more like me; they're the one's who worry about politics and votes and policy. I'm a Master Trader; I worry about cold hard cash. As long as I get paid at the end of it, I really don't care who does what and where."

He takes out a cigar, lights it by simply roasting the other end like a heathen, sticks it in his mouth.

"That's all there is to it, really. I don't give a rat's ass about the Federation, end of story. I'm just in it for the credits and latinum."

There was a slight possibility that they'd buy his speech and let him on board. Very slight.

More likely, they'd be disgusted and leave, but some poor schmuck of them whose margins aren't quite up to his usual spec will want to talk about possibly converting his plants for greater efficiency, along with a nice chunk of money for his silence. And a foot in the door was all he really needed.

Jean-Luc Picard

He works on a few reports in his ready room before he contacts Data.

"Commander Data; you have the bridge. I'll be in Holodeck Three if I am needed."

A good captain knows his limits, and not to overstress himself if he does not have to. There would be little enough time for him to relax over the next few days; a few hours as Dixon Hill would do him good.

Preem Palver

"Please. Enter."

His belongings are sparse; a framed picture of his "wife," a half-empty pack of cigarettes (he doesn't smoke but it's a useful fiction), one or two hardcopy books (a compilation of Abrahamic mythology, and The Once and Future King). Since his room is small, and is little more than a bed and enough space for two people to sit on the floor, there isn't really any need for more.

For this conversation, at least, he's dropped his lower-class accent.

[Cracklord]

Kirk
He laughs, his entire body shaking as he does, and slaps his knee. "You are much more fun then the others. I should have visited you far earlier.” He says, then suddenly stops and faces you. “But it’s worth the wait. Lets talk about whether your species continues to survive." Q says, reclining as though sitting back on a chair, though he was apparently floating on absolutely nothing. "War is nature's way. Survival of the fittest, and all that. The human race must either continue to evolve, or it will die. And now, we’re back to the glory days of the eugenics wars. I mean Big Brother watching you all, humans stepping off assembly lines and into a Soma filled haze, and all the rest. If you care about anything The Federation has built, well you’d better do a damn good job, because if you lose this fight, you won’t have a thing left to fight for.”

Jean-Luc Picard
You vanish into the adventures in San Francisco, California, 1941, where you make your way through mysteries and through the stories of your childhood hero, and almost make yourself forget the burdens of the present.

Shevek
You finally settle on five people abnd board up. You suddenly feel adventurous, you'll be heading to the cradle of humanity in nine days, moving far faster then light, and in a spaceship so advanced you can scarecly credit it. It almost makes you forget your suspicions that you're being misled, or at least that they know a lot more then they are telling you about this 'crisis'.

Doggie
Now that they will be remaining on board for a little over a week, you and Worf have been instructed to show the delegation around while Commander Data escorts you and answers their questions. He is currently cheerfully informing them about the three laws that govern his behavior and all his actions are based around. It's kind of confronting, the way he suggests it's the mechanical equivilent of a soul.

Ratchett and Clank
At last you find your way to the processing plant. Civilization. At last.

Hober Mallow
Mustapha Mond steps forward. He's the perfect counterpart to his grim fellow, in that he's cheerful, middle-aged, and gives the image of being perpetually apologetic. Just the same, he’s not the pushover he appears.
“No need to be confrontational. While we may have different motives, we all want the same thing.” He holds up his soft hands. “Your proposition is certainly… brave, for want of a better word, and it’s still being considered. Naturally enough, your position as an independent businessmen of some stature has no small weight on our consideration.”
He sips the drink he's been holding, makes a face then puts it down. "If you could ease a few of our concerns, I can see no issues whatsoever."

[The Tygre]

Legato was growing... temperamental. It was rare for him to display true bouts of anger. Annoyance, disdain, disgust, disappointment, and a dozen other 'dis-'s, yes. But almost never anger. Still anyone of those 'dis-'s could lead to a small city dying where they stood. Legato signaled for his ship. He would make a stealth run through the lower atmosphere to the base where Gene was hiding. But Legato Bluesummers stayed certain of one fact. Gene Hunt was going to die painfully, and slowly.

[Cracklord]

Legato
It's difficult to make your move. The occupying family has brought an army, and unlike most of the houses armies, these ones have the look of hard, seasoned professionals, highly trained and resilient. They were dressed in uniform, light personnel armor fitted with shields and helmets, and tellingly they were armed with grav-blades and Lancer Assault Rifles, effectively ensuring they were prepared for anything.
Your target is somewhere within, but you haven't got the resources or the inclination to take on an entire occupying force head on.

Outlaw Starr
Leto Atreides was tall and well built, with a neatly trimmed beard, the blue eyes that spoke of spice addiction and with the lean, flat build of a man half his age. Of course, that was impossible to tell, given that he probably took the Melange to extend his life.
You were taken up to him and had spoken for a few moments, then before you knew it you were offered an obscene amount of money to track down his son, who, apparently after going mad, took a spacecraft and flew it to the outer rim and out beyond into the furthest reaches of space.
It's extremely dangerous. But you don't have a choice. You're desperate. You'll take any job you can get, and you're extremely lucky to have something like this fall into your lap. And the gratitude of a man like him could be extremely valuable.

[darkblade]

Doggie

Cruger doesn't mention the fact that all non-combative robots use the same basic systems of three laws. It's his higher level functioning and ability to augment his other non-three law systems that makes him more than a standard protocol droid.

Instead he focuses his attention on the delegates seeing who among them if any might cause trouble for him later on.

[AnimeKid]

Ratchet and Clank

Ratchet cheers as he runs towards the plant. "At last, civilization at last. You see Clank I knew that we would find something. " "Perhaps Ratchet, but we still do not know if the local residents are hostile or not." Ratchet runs into the factory as excitement in each step at getting off this planet. "Geez, you worry to much Clank. I mean besides, that guy lead us here right?"

(Is Junior going to get an update soon? Sry if I'm hounding you about it or if it feels like it.)

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek takes some notes on the impulse drive system of the shuttle on their way up. The arid planet of Annarres obviously couldn't build ships quite like the ones of the federation...but these ships were extravagant: something smaller, simpler, and engineered for lightness like the early space capsules and spaceplanes could possibly...

"Do you know what our Warp Drive route will be?" He asks one of the ensigns.

[doliest]

Kirk
Kirk nods, listening intently, "And just what has been unleashed that you want me to fight, Q? And for that matter, how do you plan on one Constitution class starship defeat whatever came through that wormhole?"

[Cracklord]

Kirk
"That would be your problem." He vanishes in a flash of light, and reappears behind you, placing his hands on your shoulders. "If I helped you too much, well then all I would be left with would be a resigned conclusion. Where's the fun in that?"

Shevek
"The co-ordinates are here." He says, illustrating a screen. "Right now, our navigator is in a trance. As the way is determined, he'll provide instructions." He indicates a tank, where a tall and spindly figure is immersed in highly-concentrated amounts of orange gas. You get a fleeting glimpse of extremely large eyes which lack the iris, and ill-defined facial features, and then it resumes being a silhouette amongst it.
"Simply punching in co-ordinates doesn't work, given that the entire cosmos is constantly moving. And steering manually is impossible, given we're moving past the speed of light."

Doggie
Data was just being friendly. They've probably never encountered an artificial inteligence before. You examine the delegation, and the only one who seems in any way less then receptive is a young woman, who's glowering and wrining her hands. It's clear she's not comfortable here and doesn't trust any of you.
Apparently, she's what passes for a law officer on this world, although how they reconcile that with anarchism is beyond you.

Junior
Your in orbit around the planet now, silent and undetected, monitoring. The city is in turmoil, in what seems to be a revolution. Eisenhorn hasn't stirred, his occasional tapping the floor with his cane the only sign he's alive. However, what ever stirred them up appears to have left. It's really your call whether you continue monitoring from space or intervene, as Eisenhorn certainly isn't taking charge anymore.

[AnimeKid]

Junior

He continually taps his fingers on his captains seat as the infromation gathering continues and Jr. finally yawns before speaking. "Man we've been here for hours gathering info. I'm going down girls I gotta do something." Shelley then speaks up as she says, "Please wait just a little longer Little Master. We still do not have information on why this revolution happened and what the sides want." Mary then says, "That's right, I mean I know that Captain Kirk is like your role model and all but that doesn't mean you should just go off half-c*cked and not knowin' the situation." Jr. sighs as he sits back down as he says, "Sure thing, Spock and McCoy but it better take less than an hour or I'm taking what I can get and goin' down there." They girls nod as the look continue observing the conflict and trying to find the information for the cause of the revolution and what the sides are.

[Colesign]

Shevek

"Which is where precognition comes in." Shevek notes. "It took temporal physics a century or to to catch up with the demonstrated effect of melange."

Then he catches a gander at Data.

"Shevek!" He says by way of introduction. "There are a few sentient mechanicals on Annares, but they're very crude and blocky in body form: regardless, it's a pleasure to meet you."

[darkblade]

Doggie

Doggie goes to approach the woman as Shevak arrives. Best not to get confrontational while in the presence of their leader.

[The Tygre]

Legato
((... 'Don't have the inclination or resources'? Do you know who I am? :smallamused: ))

Legato's corpse yellow eyes take in the facility. The dead stare traces over walls, tanks, weapons, and men. Garbage. Every last bit of it. Just trash. Every blood vessel, every gear, every wire, just so much **** piling up in the universe. It needed to be disposed of. Put to better use. Cleared away for a more glorious promise. But first... he had to make sure there weren't any rats waiting to bite him. Bluesummers scans the base, feeling from afar for any psychic presences of note.

Outlaw Star
Gene Starwind kicked back on the command bridge of the Outlaw Star. 'Bridge' might be too big a word, though. More of a cockpit for four, excluding Melphina's tank behind his seat. The red rocket shot to the depths of space. Bounties weren't unheard of, and the crew had faced worse. Hell, just him and Jim had done stupider and riskier jobs than this. But there was still something creeping at the back of his neck...

"Something wrong, Gene?" Jim asked. The pint-sized prodigy startled the bounty hunter, making him jump, "Ah! Crap, don't scare me like that!"

"Sorry. Don't get your panties in a wad..."

"Hey, don't get smart with me. I'm just a little on edge, that's all."

"Thinkin' about the pay?" Gene's doubts melted away at the word 'pay'. Money. Cash. Credits. Woo-longs. Currency. The most beautiful selection of words in the galactic language. Working for a noble; they'd hit the big time.

"Gene? Gene!" Jim Hawking snapped his employer out of the haze. The bounty hunter snapped back to attention, "Huh, uh? Oh, sorry. I lost track there for a minute."

"Yeah, well try to stay more focused. We're keeping a pretty steady pace here, but we could probably get there in a couple of hours if we warp."

"Nah, let the others rest. Melfina's cooking, and heads roll when Aisha doesn't get her third lunch. And Suzuka's..."

"'Off being Suzuka', as you put it Mr. Starwind." Gilliam, the ship's AI finished. Gene smiled, "Finally catching on. I guess you probably know what our resident assassin does for fun, don't you Gil?"

"I do, but I'm not telling. She cuts metal very cleanly, you know." One final snort, and Gene leaned back in his chair, watching the stars drift outside. "Steady as she goes, Mr. Hawking. Nobles are nobles, and a count's son will leave a trail a mile wide."

((Oh, that's right. I'm bringing text-y back.))

[Draxx]

River Tam
River steps in to the room, cautiously, like a wild animal inspecting a new corner of a familiar place. Her mind is a multicolored, abstract swirl, and as she stepes over to you she gently lifts her hands, and places them on your face, feeling your jaw, cheeks and forehead with no care at all how strange and uncomfortable this is for you. She even pinches you a few times. Painfully.

She’s reluctant to trust you, since the only other person like her she’s met made her the way she is now, but since she can’t see any intent in you to harm her, in her primitive way of reading impressions, she’s come at her brothers advice on the hope that you can help her.

Stepping back and out of your personal space, she sits on the bed and looks at you.

[darkblade]

Outlaw Star

The signals from the ship the Bebop Crew is on finally reach you. It's a message from Faye Valetine.

"Gene, I'm sorry for drugging you before but you have to hear me out. The terrorist we picked up, his men think you're the one who brought him in. They're coming for now."

***

Doggie

"Shevak, would you care to join the rest of your delegation as I show them around the ship?" Doggie asks the anarchist as they come across each other in the halls.

"I would hate for you to get lost and have something happen."

[Colesign]

Shevek

"What's the general route you'll take?" Shevek asks. He doesn't quite pick up on the tone of command. Or he picked up on it, but decided to pretend he didn't.

[doliest]

Kirk
"Perhaps a hint then? An idea of what we're getting into?" He needed something to work with; while Kirk, like any Starfleet officer worth his salt, enjoyed exploring and discovering all the universe had to offer, he'd rather not run into something with no idea of what it was, when there was a good chance it was hostile.

[darkblade]

Doggie

"The plan is very louse, it would be much better if you'd accompany us." Doggie says, in truth under normal circumstances he would be all too happy to allow Shevak to go his own way but with the possibility of him coming across Q he can't take the risk.

"Part of the mission we are on right now includes the potential risk of hostile attacks. I have been assigned to protect the delegates and would appreciate it if you do not make that any harder for me than it has to be."

[Colesign]

Shevek

"Attacks from what?" Shevek asks. "You been acting like a propertarian with the information you've given us so far."

He's been following you all the while. You suppose that stringing him along with questions will do the job.

[darkblade]

"The directives of the mission were very vague. All I can tell you is we are heading for the planet Mars, in the Sol system. The bridge is our next stop, I'm sure the Captain could better tell you the details of the mission." Doggie continues.

[Colesign]

Shevek

"Excellent!" Shevek leans forward as they stride through the hallways.

He pauses.

"What do you personally think the mission entails?"

[industrious]

Riker

The two reach the bridge, but the Captain isn't there.

"That's classified information, Shevak."

Will nods at his two fellow Starfleet officers, nods to the Annarian. Belatedly, he realizes what his tone reveals.

"It's for your own safety."

Preem Palver

Preem's mind is perfectly ordered. A room filled from floor to ceiling with mathematical equations the likes of which River has never seen. Occasionally, she might recognize a function or two, but even then, they bear as much resemblance to what she knows as basic addition does to vector calculus. And while River is quite the savant, the formulas shown are simply too unfamiliar to discern.

The science of psycho-history, after all, was unknown to all save the Second Foundation, after all.

She gets an impression of the man as well. Stern. Devoted. Not kind in the conventional sense, but like a surgeon who cuts into people to make them better. The ends justified the means, after all. But the equations whisper of a better tomorrow, if not personally or in specifics, then in time and across all people's everywhere. A tapestry made of men. A history of things yet to come.

Preem looks into River as well. His mental powers take time for him to open and utilize, like a blindfolded man needing to blink in the sunlight after taking it off. He brushes against her mind, softly and with great care; it would be rude to enter her mind fully after all. A moment passes.

Preem recoils physically, the shock causing him to flinch and grasp his head.

"What," he rasps. "What did they do to you, girl?"

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek narrows his eyes for a moment.

"What gives you the right to decide that?" He asks.

[darkblade]

Bridge

Bridge gets up from the seat he was borrowing from Troi and takes steps forward between Riker and Shevak.

"This is just a misunderstanding. You both need to calm down and take a step back from the situation." He says as pointing threateningly at both parties.

"Riker is on edge because he knows next to nothing about what this mission is really supposed to be almost as little as you do, Shevak. So he's being unduly confrontational right now and you should not be taking it personally. He outright verbally assaulted myself and Kat earlier today." The young Counsellor continues directing his attention to Shevak.

He then turns back around to Riker. "Now, think about this Commander. Shevak is a man of some note among a community of anarchist. Expecting him to fully master living under a military chain of command in a matter of hours is just insane and you know it. Particularly when it seems to him like that chain of command is withholding important information his life and those of his fellow delegates may depend on."

"Do not make me book private sessions for both of you..." He issues the last part as a direct threat to the both of you. How that would be a threat is better left to imagination.

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek is privately gratified by Bridge's honest manor, and Riker's (and Doggie's) choices of words make more sense.

"Ah. I suppose Riker's choices of words make sense in light of the grossly inefficient system of military ranks."

He steps up to Riker.

"I don't intend to apologize for what I've said. But I don't want bad blood between us. Shall we start over in a more open light?"

[Cracklord]

Shevak, Doggie, Riker, Bridge
Around you, ignoring your faux pass verging on confrontation, the various tecnicians and officers required to actually fly the ship get on with their work. Data, however, raises a hand politely, as he had observed you anarchists doing when discussing things with each other.
"Actually it is quite the opposite. Since ranks are determined entirely on merit and training in the skills necessary to do their job, the ship is far more efficient and requires half the number of personnel that would be needed in a more informal situation, not accounting for inter-party friction and lost time spent in largely frivolous debate." When you stare at him, he opens his mouth, no doubt to begin explaining exactly how he reached that calculation, until Riker stares at him and he closes his mouth.
He looks at you, then shrugs and shakes your hand. "I can't tell you everything. Understand that's as much for your own safety as anything else. But let me promise you that as long as you're on this ship, we'll do everything we can to keep you safe and comfortable."

Kirk
"You really have no shame. Well, if you want a hint, make sure your packing plenty of firepower." He vanishes in a flash of light, to reappear at the helm again. "Well, try not to get too much done before I make it back. I just found a way to contort myself into a universe I have fond memories of, and I think I'll go there and recuperate for a while." He vanishes.
Spock raises an eyebrow, having managed to get through the meeting relatively unruffled. It was a gift of his, indeed the corner-stone of your friendship was in many ways you pushing the boundaries to try to make him have an emotional response.
"So he does have limits to his capabilities afterall. Fascinating." He pauses, then stares at you. "It does not take a complex calculation to determine that the warning and this impossible trail we are following are connected. A ship too big to exist burning as much power as several suns travels this way, and we happen to find it, only to be warned to expect the worst. It seems to obvious, and too chaotic. Therefore I calculate he has an ulterior motive."

Legato
With the vanishing of the young psychic, you are the only one on the moon, bar the tiny talents of the Guild Navigators that have been mostly atrophied by dependence on The Spice, and the latent, untapped potential in the Dukes' concubine.
Meanwhile, your men begin arming up and readying their weapons and equipment. They were all very confident in their own abilities, but given The Duke had an army there was going to be hell to pay trying to get through, and they all knew it.

Outlaw Starr
A long time ago, there was a movement that did away with conception and created people right off the assembly line, where each would step into their roles in a rigid caste system to live in a society that promoted happiness above all else. They'd lost a war, and been mostly wiped out, along with their world.
Except the factories that built them had not been destroyed, and continued manufacturing the people, who had been made imperfectly. Without anyone to instruct them or any of the resources they'd needed to live, they'd gone feral, and initially turned to the only food source on the dead, blasted worlds they came to being on: Each other.
The Reavers were terrifying by any stretch of the imagination, mostly inhabiting enormous space hunks where they simply drifted around, with no idea how to drive the ships, waiting for contact. Some of them could figure out how to steer the ships, and took to raiding and pillaging, destroying and destroying like rabid animals until someone took the time to put them down. To any frontier settlement, they were a nightmare worse then the slavers, rebels and anything else, worse even then invasion. Pray they don't take you alive.
Ahead, there was a veritable field of the ships, gruesomely decorated with still, broken corpses and crude symbols of fresh blood. They kept painting them, because it changed color when it dried. Somewhere beyond is your missing young heir. Unfortunately, you don't see how he got through without alerting them. Even now, a few are starting to drift towards you.

Bebop
It's about now that you get the first sign of the Reavers. So far they're only appearing on scanner, but you can see the thousands of evil red dots ahead, like some sort of human asteroid field.

Han Solo
When you picture the most important world in the galaxy, most people will think of soaring crystal spires and the centers of wealth, power and culture. Akkaris was sand, stone, and broken dreams. The Hardokens were already in the process of wringing every scrap they could from it with their heavy handed ways, and life was almost unbearable. The natives were in theory protected, but since they refused to recognize any authority or submit for inspection, nobody could tell if they were being killed. For a moment, you feel a brief pity for them, born on the most inhospitable place imaginable and kept that way out of policy, and now under the yoke of tyrants as well. It makes Tatooine look positively idyllic by comparison.
You land in a cave. Liet-Kynes, the imperial paleontologist and your contact is waiting for you. It's fairly simple, least in principle. Hand over the supplies (they're working on gradually transforming the planet's climate from a harsh desert into a temperate one) and take the Spice, then get off world and lay low. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to trust you, and that's slowing things down.

Jasper Cullen
The pale figure smiled his stainless steel grin. Despite being smaller and less imposing then the gathered men, he endeavored to seem infinitely more menacing. He was of average size and height, lean with a rangy toughness to him and a hint of mongrel in his make-up, with features that were at once gaunt and sharp, with eyes like molten brass that bespoke sudden shifts in mood as extreme as any change in climate, and a certain indifference in the suffering he caused. His skin was pale, as if it had never felt the sun. Jasper had hidden his true nature for too long, but that was to change. here he was, in a vast stretch of galaxy in which he had an advantage too great to calculate in technology and weaponry. The thought of carving it into his own empire and playing everyone off against each other like a child playing with toy soldiers suited his dreams of paradise perfectly.
He'd come here, a fortress on a thought to be uninhabited moon with no functional atmosphere, simply shown up at the door, and as though compelled by his presence order had come with him. The backbiting, recriminations and ideological rhetoric; all the neverending insane babble ceased, and instead people had begun to talk in low, confident voices, and things were being agreed upon. And now here he was, talking to the dozen or so men who styled themselves as generals in this backwater, as far from the light of civilization as they could get.
They were predominately asiatic, as the feudalists tended to be. But that was all that could really be said for them, they didn’t have uniforms, nor insignia nor discipline, equipment, a real government, armor, battleships, legal protections, rollers, officers, or a thousand other things an army needs to be more than a passionate mob. To be honest, all they had was a sort of weary defiance and prices on their heads, and the dull sparks of desire for freedom from the Alliance.
Their military was of the people, and all volunteers who had learned how to be killers, but not soldiers. Their war was over, and they had lost. There were enough of them to make a fight for it against local militaries, most of whom were used to comfort and had less combat experience then them, but once the Sardaukar showed up it was all over, and they died like flies.
So they attacked settlements in the name of 'the people' and told themselves one day they would be heroes, but they were tired, and weary, and had stopped believing a long time ago.
Jasper had killed ten men before they got the picture and let him into this meeting. A few had tried to stop him, others had tried to kill him, and one had said the wrong thing at the wrong time. Jasper had met his gaze, and his mechanical limbs clacked together, then lashed forward with the speed and accuracy of a striking snake, driving itself through the mans eye and out the back of his skull.
"I do not have a sense of humor." He had noted, as the limb folded back into place, the man sliding off it messily. "I am aware of it intellectually, but only in a theoretical way. It's actual composition is completely alien to me. So keep that in mind when you have the urge to say something you'll regret."
The generals he was facing who were unarmed and rapidly realizing that around this man that was a very bad idea, didn't know what to make of him. He had promised to give them weapons like nothing they'd ever heard of, ships like nothing they could conceive and other pieces of equipment they didn't even know what to do with. Why? Entertainment.
"Stability bores me. Following patterns bore me. I like to experience, and simple monotony is amongst the most torturous existence I can imagine. I much prefer chaos, or rather the illusion of it. Which is what brings me here. You are not the most powerful group, or the most organized, and you are no more backed by the common people then any other, nor any more hypocritical. Indeed, their is nothing spectacular about you whatsoever. Which is why I chose you, as it happens."
They sway away from his gaze like wheat before a scythe, quite conscious of just how precarious their futures were. "You are going to start winning, as long as you can hold my interest you'll keep my favor, and things will go very well for you. But don't take my word for it." A hand flicks up to brush away a dirty yellow strand of hair, and his eyes gleam. "Let me demonstrate my power."
And the world explodes with white light.

[Colesign]

Shevek

"Really?" Shevek asks, bemused, in response to Data. "I've always concluded Military Hierarchical Structures are inherently inefficient and slow: Imagine all the effort wasted in Generals giving orders to the captains who give orders to the lieutenants who gives orders to inferiors who give orders to their inferiors and so on! It suppresses natural initiative, as if thinking beings were simply cogs in a seventh-millenium steam engine! With such a rigid, inflexible system of coercion, how do you get anything done?"

Then he takes the time to ponder Data's words in more detail.

"I can understand rank as a means of categorizing the skills and roles of certain people, as you've argued. What I don't understand is why you view debate and 'friction' as an unpardonable hinderance to a functioning crew. Cultural differences, I suppose."

Then Riker butts in with his commentary.

"I appreciate your concern...Commander Riker." Shevek says, trying to be polite. "But rest assured that I did not come here to be safe and comfortable. Nor, I suspect, did the fellow Annaresti. I personally implore you not to place my safety above the safety of the crew."

[Cracklord]

Data
"It is the fact that they are cogs in a machine, each knowing their role and performing their tasks, that makes them more efficient, and thus requires less personnel, thereby allowing resources to be conserved and more people to do less work." He says, quite aware that the conversation has moved on to other things but wanting to get a last word in.
Riker listens, then nods. "Fair enough. But you're not part of the Federation yet. We'll get you to Earth, let you and the politicians take care of the rest. And I know keeping information from you is not the best way to get you to trust us, but these are hardly ideal circumstances."

Kirk
"Everything that happens, happens for a reason. And that reason is me." Q says, without reappearing. Then he's gone to go play mindgames and the prisoners dilemna with Ponies.
Spock simply tilts his head slightly, and stares out at space. "Any change of plan, captain?"

Mal Reynolds
There shouldn't be an asteroid field here. There should be a green and blue planet, covered with forests and oceans, cities and life. There should not be a torrent of ice and stone and rapidly cooling rock drifting, like crumbs against the black, the moons bobbing silently out in the emptiness, suddenly adrift with no celestial body to give them purpose or anchor.
Something destroyed the world, shattering it to pieces.

[darkblade]

Bridge and Doggie

"Nothing is wrong with a little debate but it has it's time and place. In the heat of the moment in a combat situation it can cost lives." Doggie says gravely. Bridge shoots him a glare but neither say anything more on that matter.

Instead Bridge turns the subject to the matter of secrecy. "I'm going to tell him. If the Captain takes issue with it he may discipline me as he sees fit. Shevak, this is not an official Starfleet mission. We have been contacted by an interdimensional being that has taken a fondness to the Captain and he told us something was going to happen on Mars that would rival the Bug Wars in sheer scale and tragedy. While we have our doubts about how much his word can be trusted we cannot afford to ignore the threat both as Starfleet personnel and as people of moral fiber."

***

Cowboy Bebop

Faye watches the blips on the radar screen. "Are those..."

Jet's eyes widen with terror as he sees them, he ran a few Reaper clean up operations with the SPD back in the day. While he never was around for one of their attacks in person he knew all too well what they are capable of. "Ed, get the dog and stay in the panic room. Faye lock down everything and get us ready to run. Spike get your fighter warmed up, we'll need cover fire."

[Cracklord]

Cowboy Bebop
The ship trembles and rumbles as a few steady impacts patter along it's sides. Harpoons, with massive cables begin dragging the ship towards the hulks. In many ways, the Reavers were stupid, but they had enough base cunning and logical ability to figure out how to reel in their prey and use an air-lock. To get away, you'd have to sever them quickly.
There is no sound in space, for there is nothing to carry it, but you can feel it. The rumble with a desperate undertone, the madness and thudding of their frenzy, like the arhythmia of a disseased heart. Right now they'd be working themselves into a frenzy, biting iron until their teeth cracked and worrying the flesh of their arms until it bled, or scraping their fingers along the edge of their blades until all they could feel is a red haze and desperate desire for murder. They’d be stomping their feet and beating their fists in an infernal pounding, like some terrible drum. Then they'd come rushing in, and no matter how many you killed they'd keep on coming, hate and bloodlust eclipsing self preservation completely.

Bridge and Doggie
Riker glaress at you, then sighs and turns to the anarchists. "Right. We've encountered him before, and he seems to view us existing for his ammusement. Indeed, he caused our first mettings with the Borg. The captain is of the belief that we had best follow his instructions, given that if we don’t he’s quite capable of delivering his threats. So that has taken over as our primary priority.”

John Carter, Paul
Barsoom is a savage world where a man may carve his own destiny, one of honor, noble sacrifice and constant struggle, where martial prowess is paramount, and where many races fight over dwindling resources. It is filled with lost cities and undiscovered ancient secrets, some best left undisturbed.
The Mi-Go and the Yaga had visited here once, and remnants of their work could still be found in the ruins and hits of nameless things best forgotten. Now cultures less developed and saturated with evil carve out a living, and slowly but surely Barsoom is rising again.
Your group boards a flier, making a leisurely way back to the city, while Paul gets his first good look at the landscape, the dry highlands and hills eroded down to stunted giants, the red dry sands, interspersed with moss covered valleys. You pass a canal, and the city can be made out on the horizon as the sun sets behind you.

[darkblade]

"Ed! Seal off and depressurize all non essential parts of the ship!" Jet orders the Tiny hacker who was unable to get to the lower decks fast enough. She sets about it locking off everything but the bridge and adjacent weapons locker and turning off their life support. The reavers may be monsters but they still need to breathe.

The three remaining crew members barricade off the cockpit and get heavy weapons ready without any of their usual sarcastic fare, they had been in space long enough to know what happens when the Reavers get you and even they couldn't make jokes about that.

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek blinks as the two officers finally give them the full explanation.

He thinks it over for a bit.

"I thank you for your honesty. I assure you I don't plan to do anything stupid, and I would be more than willing to help you prevent the outbreak of a savage war."

He smiles suddenly, the glint of a scientist in his eyes.

"It would be interesting though to talk with a Being of Pure thought such as you describe. I wonder what his perception of time would be like..."

[Draxx]

Mal
The captain looks out at the field, trying to make sense of it without success. "There should be a world ere. WHole worlds don' just get up and walk away." He mutters, trying to reassure himself, but there is no denying the evidence of his eyes, much as he wishes there was.

Paul
He stares about, curious to see this world. The snatches he's seen before now pale in comparison to the entirety laid out before him. It is rugged and beautiful, ad speaks of faded grandeur and might. Once this had been paradise. But the world had moved on.

He came from an civilization so vast it was difficult to comprehend, with technology so complex it was almost beyond the comprehension of even those who designed it, and if he spoke of it's wonders he believed this ageless man would call him a liar. And yet still he saw things that pricked at the edge of his curiosity, things he'd never imagined or expected.

He could be happy here, if he chose it, at least for a time. He could let go of his responsibilities, and follow in the footsteps of the warlord he had met. He would shake his addiction to the Spice, and for a time the two would be close, having adventures great and terrible and rebuilding much of the world, until the two of them quarreled mightily and he killed the other man. It would be simpler, and less painful, yet it was not in him to take the escape it offered, as much as part of him longed for the escape that it promised. Inaction would just as surely doom humanity as anything else.

He sighed, returning to the present, and looks again at John Carter. It is a strange thing, to know someone before they've spoken, to understand them before you know more then their name. But it is one he is becoming well acquainted with. He has read the myriad of destinies that await them based on his choices, and knows the importance of this man, has seen him in every future, and knows the result of his choices before he even learns that they exist to be made.

River
"I don't remember." She says in a small voice, almost meek, and you spot an animal yearning in her wide eyes, a desperation to be whole. "The numbers stopped adding up, the answers went away, and I'm lost and alone inside myself."

For a moments you think she's bout to start sobbing, then she regains her composure, or at least changes direction drastically.

[doliest]

Kirk
"No, Mr.Spock. Q's hints rarely seem helpful except after the fact, at least based on Captain Picard's, Sisko's, and Admiral Janeway's reports. Unless you gleamed something I did not, Mr.Spock."

Solo
Han sighs; honestly, what did this man want from him? "Look, I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, I have the delivery, it's right here. You have the spice. What part of that do you not understand?"

Jack moves beside Solo, a slight, friendly smile on his face, "Maybe we can throw in a few credits to sweeten the deal?"

[The Tygre]

Legato
Readying their weapons? ... The nerve. Bluesummers would kill them if he didn't need them as well. No psychics. A good sign. This could go faster, but for the moment, a minor display of his power would do. The soldiers needed to work out their aggression, and the unwashed masses had to be processed for questioning.

Legato felt out. He reached with his senses, moving from target to target with an energy as old as the universe, latent in him since birth. The possibilities of psychic power are not so unusual, but one of Legato's nature could practically be a god. An image starts to form in Legato's mind's eye. Strings. Hundreds, maybe thousands of little glowing strings. The tapestry grew and grew. When at last, the points of light stopped their infernal production, Legato focused on them.

What to do? What to do? It was a difficult decision. There were a lot of options. But it would be a shame to let a good massacre go to waste. And his... 'men' (slaves? pets? hounds?) had to understand his power. Even just an inkling of it.

The tapestry snaps. Like a tether, each string twists and snaps in half. In the base, every living thing falls to the ground. Screaming and pulling themselves with their arms, they seek to know what happened, why it happened, and how.

For Legato Bluesummers, however, it's simple; he just rendered an entire military base paraplegic with nothing but a thought. Coldly, Legato orders his soldiers, "Process anyone who might have information. Kill the rest."

The Outlaw Star
"Faye? Faye, is that you? What are you talking... a... bout..." Gene and Jim freeze at the sight of the oncoming Reavers. How the Hell did they sneak up on him? This was bad, really bad. The Outlaw could run, maybe even fight some, but the Bebop wasn't built for combat like the Star. There was no way in Hell that just Spike and Faye could fight their ways through. Panicking, Gene hits the trans-ship intercom, "Faye, get the Hell out of here. I know you don't like being told what to do, but your ship can't hold them off. Be reasonable. Get your fat ass moving and get the Hell out of dodge! Now!"

Without even a second for a beat, Gene orders Gilliam, "Get the ship ready. We'll try to hold them off until the Bebop's clear and then we're out of here. There's got to be another way around them. And put me on speaker-comm!" Gilliam has no quip, no witty observation for the outlaw as he opens up the whole ship to Gene's orders; "All hands on deck! Melfina, sweetie, we need you at the wheel! Aisha! Suzuka! I need you at the arms!"

Static comes from the kitchen, "Right away!" Melfina knows Gene's panicked voice. No time for questions, it's just best to run. The bio-android makes a dash for her stasis tube. An angry voice growls, "Starwind! What the Hell is this?! A Ctarl-Ctarl does not stand for this treatment! And what's this 'all hands on deck'? What, are you my captain now? Do I work for you! I'm declaring mutiny! Power to the Ctarl-Ctarl! Glory to our empire!"

"Aisha, now's really not the time. I need you at battle-stations, so unless you breathe vacuum, get up here and pilot the starboard! ... Actually, that's not a bad idea. I don't think even Reavers could stand up to a pissed off Ctarl-Ctarl... Where's Suzuka?"

"Present."

"Ah!" Gene lets out another panicked scream at the presence of the assassin. "Geez! Don't do that! Put some bells on or something."

"I'm wearing a belt of them." Indeed, the orthodox assassin has donned a belt of bells around her sash. Gene can only stare for a moment of perplexed, and somewhat awed, horror before ordering, "Well alright then. Take the port side. Gilliam, once everyone's in the cockpit, lock this place down tight! I'm serious, full-code xenos on this one!"

"Understood." Melfina emerges in her stasis tube behind Gene's chair. Her eyes widen at the sight of the Reavers, and her dove-like voice whispers, "Oh, Gene... There are so many."

"I know. Try to find us a way out of here. We'll just have to think of some other way to get in."

"Oh, Reavers. Is that all?" A feline voice yawns. Aisha Clan-Clan of the Ctarl-Ctarl has arrived, strutting to her position on the bridge. "Bunch of spacer trash and inbreds. Next time don't call me unless it's important."

"Yeah, you're great. I'll try to remember." The crew watches as the Reaver ships harpoon the Bebop. Gene yells out, "Damn it! Aisha, the axe!"

"Way ahead of you!" The ctarl-ctarl is practically laughing. The grappler ship rushes to the Bebop, raising its right arm and bringing down a tremendous axe. The cables are cut, and its clear that Aisha is aiming to hit the Reaver ship next. Suzuka and Gene have already pulled up ranged weapons systems and are taking aim. Melfina desperately searches for an escape route, a hyperspace point, just some kind of exit. And Jim and Gilliam are focused on keeping the ship up and running, alive and tight as a drum.

[AnimeKid]

Ratchet and Clank

"Ratchet we have been walking around for hours, and we have not come across any intelligent lifeforms in this establishment. I think we may have to deal with the fact that they all fled." Ratchet shakes his head in negative confirmation with his friends assessment. "Naw we just haven't been looking hard enough. We have to get that starmap! HELLOOOO, IS ANYONE HEEERRRREEEEE!"

Junior

Junior hops out of his seat impatiently as he says, "Arrgh that is it. Mary, Shelley beam me down their. Anything has got to be better than just sitting here!" Mary calls after him, "Wait Little Master, we still haven't got full data on the situation. You could end up picking the wrong side and creating a catastrophic butterfly effect!" Junior turns as he looks at her and says, "Aw like I'll be the first person to majorly screw up in the universe. Yo, old geezer you coming, cause if not I'm leaving your ass here." He then heads to the transporters to be beamed down to the Klingon world.

[Cracklord]

Ratchet and Clank
You arrive into the base to find most of the soldiers in a mindless stupor being cooly executed by a series of menacing figures. The soldiers don't move, don't even react as weapons are placed to their foreheads and their brains are splattered everywhere.
One of them sees you, and turns, pointing a pair of high-powered chain guns at you, one in each arm, and opens fire in an explosive hail of shells.

Junior
You teleport directly to the ground, on the main street of the capital, a place of deep religious significance to the Klingon people as The city is deserted, the streets empty, the lights off. There are no signs of life at all.

Legato
The duke and several key members of his retinue, including his consort, have escaped into the wilderness. The world is hostile, no doubt they'll soon die. Of the men you captured, only a few were deemed worth bringing to your attention.
Thufir Hawat, their mentat, and no doubt aware of almost everything that goes on (human, rather then vulkan. That's rare), Gurney Halleck and Duncan Idaho, a pair of warriors who seem to be in command of the majority of the army, and Wellington Yueh, a Suk Doctor. The remaining thousand personnel and soldiers were put to the gun and executed. The mind fog kept them from suffering, but it's still enough to put you in a good mood.

Outlaw Starr
Fighting Reavers was a lot like fighting a school of piranhas. They swarm you, all their ships closing in at once, cables flying and the black filled with silent explosions as you smash at them, trying to clear yourself out. Just like fighting piranhas, it's not a matter of knocking a few aside, it's a matter of getting away before they can turn you into chunks. Already, a few have latched onto you like enormous ticks, drilling into the exterior to try to force entry.


Kirk
"As with many such beings, it's what they don't say that's important when calculating results." Spock says, his eyes slightly glassy. A trained mentant, he was capable of performing computer level calculations in his head.
"The wars he alluded to were civil wars. Humans against humans. I judge this to be particularly significant as to the nature of the problem. The Alliance is still unstable, with the attempts at secession barely half a decade dead. Why should it be an out of context problem?"
"Now hold on there, people don't go to war with each other for no reason." It's McCoy. "The issues that led to the wars are no longer relevant, they're not just going to start killing each other because..."
"Rational beings would not." Concedes Spock. "But aren't you the one always telling me that everything doesn't come to percentages and liogic when humans are involved?"
"Well yes, but this is different!"

Solo
"I understand more then you would imagine, young man." He crosses his arms. "You are attempting to extort me. Deny it." He looks at you with the brilliant blue eyes of one who has been long exposed to the spice, and you feel your retort die on your lips.
"And don't try that. I have no need for money. I simply have a dream to one day rework this world into a paradise, and a lifetimes work to look forward to. I shall not live to see the results."

Shevak
"Not to kill your enthusiasm, but you'll find he's essentially more a pain in the ass then a sage ready to answer your questions about the universe." Riker replies, rolling his eyes. Q had a way of shattering illusions.

Cowboy Bebop
The engine halts, the pumps that supply the majority with fresh oxygen grinding to a halt. They won't notice straight away. But in a few minutes they'd use it all up and start dying.
The Reavers who have entered are thundering against the blast doors, trying to open them and having less then no luck. It would take atomics to rip them down, you only have cause for alarm if they manage to deactivate the alarms, which is unlikely, or find some method of cutting through, which is closer in the realm of possibility.
Their lungs had noticed the problem, even if they themselves were too deep in a killing frenzy to pay attention, and already they were taking hundreds of shallow breaths to try to boost their oxygen intake. A bow plate clanged as the pressure differential grew, then another one actually buckled with a crack like thunder, silver stress-lines cracking through the paint. It was a risk, if you depressurize the ship will crumple like a ball of tinfoil, but it's also your only method of fighting the Reavers.

[nanobot_swarm]

John Stalvern
Seeing them all horrified and bewildered, John decides he must try and clarify his argument that they will all be horribly killed by demons unless they arm themselves to the teeth. "Well from what I hear of this experimental drive thingy on this ship, it will be like a teleporter to teleport the ship to another place in space. Well back on Mars the UAC did teleportation experiments, and that summoned demons into the base and I had to kill all the demons. Logically teleporters must use hell to teleport because demons come out, and so logically, if this ship tries to teleport somewhere, we will teleport into hell, or demons will teleport into the ship, and we will have to kill them all before they kill us."

[Corvond]

Flash Gordon
A different sort of man would have dismissed the claims that the marine gave, discounting them as delusional or even subversion. Or simply ignored them, letting the man say his piece without paying him any attention. Or even ordered him off the bridge as soon as he began talking about what seemed impossible.

Flash Gordon was not like that. He never assumed anything, particularly where danger was concerned. Stepping up to the marine, he looks him in the eye, silently gauging him. Satisfied by what he sees, he raises a hand to shut up his officers, then lowers it.

"Alright. What do you suggest we do? Abort the mission?"

Riddick
He stares at his new cellmate, luminous eyes widening a little behind the goggles he wears to protect them. "Must have done something pretty bad to end up with a cellmate like me." He says, dislocating his wrists and removing the shackles, then walking over to the door, running his blunt, sensitive finger down the hairline crack looking for flaws or irregularities to exploit.

[Colesign]

Shevek

"What?" Shevek said. He found this particularly and horrendously astonishing.

"...Why?" he asked in a frustrated tone (not frustration directed towards Riker)

[Cracklord]

Shevak
"He doesn't confide in me either." he replies. "I suspect it's the simple matter he has no inclination to further humanity on the path towards knowledge, and simply watches us to amuse himself. Really, why should we expect him to act human at all? He's not human, it's foolish to assume he acts in a way that would make sense to us just because he sometimes looks human."

Flash Gordon, John Stalvern
"You can't possibly be serious!" Janeway says, shocked and horrified at the thought. This isn't just some spur of the moment improvised expedition, the technology was developed over a decade and an incomprehensible amount of work has gone into building and fitting it.

Riddick
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." He replied, then jangles the arms of his containment suit, fastened securely to the wall. "Could you remove my restraints as well? I have an inclination of how to open the door from this side."

[Colesign]

Shevek

"But playing super-dimenionsal pranks on less-evolved lifeforms for the purpose of laughter? Pranks and laughter are traits humans share too! So why would he be different enough from Hu–from Hominid lifeforms to not care about scientific discourse, but close enough to the values of carbon-based hominid life to appreciate pranks?"

Shevek'll probably be shedding later from his Physicist aneurysm.

"But I digress. Rest assured I personally won't try to antagonize this Q."

[darkblade]

SPD

"Pranks are played upon equals. Q views us without roughly the same way we would see a pet." Doggie explains as Bridge starts to giggle slightly at the unsaid irony of the Anubian comparing them to pets. He stops after Doggie glares at him for a moment though.

***

Bebop

Ed takes Gene's call as the others stay ready a the blast doors. "Faye's busy now Gene. Don't worry though bad guys probably won't kill you now. Too many Reavers for them to get here."

Jet grabs the controls and starts the ship's engines trying to make a break away from the ships that hadn't already started to try boarding the Bebop.

[Colesign]

Shevek

"...Perhaps these analogies are just as insufficient as comparing space/time to a piece of cloth is."

He turns back to the bridge, squinting at the viewscreen and readings of the navigation crew.

"We're bound for Mars in the Sol System: does that mean we'll be routing through the Proxima Cetian system?" He asks, tracing the route on the Star Map on display.

http://www.closeststars.com/images/closestxy_i1y0.jpg

[industrious]

Captain Picard

"Actually, Ambassador, we won't need to route through any particular system."

Picard has just emerged from the turbolift, still dressed in his Dixon Hill costume. Trenchcoat, fedora, suit...the works. A walking anachronism, and yet, he makes the look work in a room filled with Starfleet uniforms.

"The Enterprise has a fully functional and fueled warp drive system. We'll be headed directly to Earth."

Preem Palver

"There, there, girl," he says, patting her arm awkwardly. For a man who can manipulate emotions and memories with a subtle and deft hand, he's very bad at showing genuine emotion himself.

"May I try something?"

[Cracklord]

Shevek
Riker raises an eyebrow at your explanation. "That's not even remotely logical. 'My dog has four legs, my cat has four legs, therefore my dog is a cat'." He replies, shaking his head, then suddenly glances over at Kruger. He opens his mouth, then closes it, figuring drawing attention to his canine appearance would be far more tactless then simply ignoring it.
As Picard steps on deck he stands to attention. "All is in readiness, captain. We can depart as soon as you give the order."

Bebop
You manage to shake off a few more of the ships, breaking out of the cluster and drifting along the edge, your ship studded by dozens of ugly little ships full to bursting with Reavers who have broken in. Most of them are dead of asphyxiation or floating around weightlessly now that you've turned off the artificial gravity in the outlying parts, but three score have made it into the center and are trying to break into the bridge.

[AnimeKid]

Junior

He walks around calmly yet with a perturbed look on his face. He then puts his hand up to one of his ears and brings up his left arm to his mouth as he activates the comm link. "Hey Mary, Shelley? What the heck is going on here I come down here expecting guns to be pointed at me and I get a ghost town. Not that I'm complaining or anything but I thought that these guys were in a civil war?"

Mary replies quite snappishly to Junior's questions, "Weeellll since someone went off half-c*cked we don't have the data to exactly reply to that Little Master." Shelley replies after her sister in a much more calm fashion. "It is probable that you landed in an evacuated city because of advancing opposition. If anything there should be clues to where the townspeople where heading or at least how long ago they left. The only thing that I can tell you is to look around and see what you find."

Junior sighs as he says, "Fine, Scooby-Doo to the rescue." There is a pause before Mary says in her usual southern accent, "Little Master you have got to stop watching those antique cartoons."

Ratchet and Clank

As the machine turns towards them Clank eyes widen. "Ratchet, I think we are in trouble." "Oh no were not! Aphelion aerial support, now!" "Affirmative."

With that command Ratchet's small compact ship soar down low before hovering in place above the clearing where the base is. She (according to the voice of it at least) them lays down fire on the mechs targeting Ratchet. While she does that Ratchet, who is experienced at dodging gunfire of all kinds at this point, runs to a nearby cover as he tosses three fusion grenades in rapid succession at the mech that is targeting him.

[doliest]

Kirk
"It's true, the entire Alliance could fracture any day-sometimes it feels like all that's holding us together is fear of every empire that rises up from nowhere to try and conquer us. The Klingons, the Romulans, the Dominion, the Borg....heh. Really, we're defined by our enemies just as much as our own nature. Still, I can't see the Alliance shattering without something truly immense taking place..." His eyes narrow, "The more I think about it, the more interested I get in finding that ship."

Solo and friends
Lev shakes his head quickly, "No, no no, we're not trying to extort you. We're trying to bribe you."

Solo sighs; he didn't like doublespeak, but did Lev have to say it like that? "Look, you've got a dream? I've got a dream involving a land free of creditors and a retirement to Risa. Maybe we can work together and see we both get what we want."

[Colesign]

Shevek

"But cats and dogs do share similar traits besides their similarity of four legs, and...never mind Commander Riker: analogies can go too far."

"Captain Picard." He says in greeting as he comes on the bridge.

{Does the Warp Drive act precisely like in Dune, behave like the Star Trek Drive expect with the addition of Spice Navigators, or like the Warhammer 40k Warp Drive with the addition of Spice Navigators?:smallconfused:}

[Cracklord]

Kirk
"Indeed. It seems it will answer a lot of questions, not to mention be the key to learning a great deal." Spock replies, as the warp drive hums to life and you shoot off into space.

Solo and friends
He looks at you, his stare somewhat worrying, then nods once. "Lets make it simple then. You give me the equipment, and I provide you with five." Lando said six, but somehow you doubt you're going to push him for that much. Hell, the equipment isn't worth one where you brought it, it's just that The Alliance isn't keen on making Dune temperate and losing the only way of producing Melange, so won't let anyone import weather satellites.

Ratchet and Clank
Monev the Gale continues firing, quickly overloading your shield as you look desperately for cover as the bullets continue to fire. His eyes are white and disconcertingly wide, and he's smiling as he unleashes the hail of bullets.

Legato
A spacecraft is approaching.

Shevek
(Warhammer 40k drive DOES have navigators. They are called Astropaths and get eaten by demons a whole lot. But that's beside the point, it doesn't work like either. It moves space, not matter, as matter can't move faster then light it moves the space around it in a sort of bubble that allows it to travel wherever the hell it's going, neatly bypassing relativity in both time and distance).

[Colesign]

{Okay: that sounds like the classic Albicurie Metric of Warp Travel: bubble of negative energy, cut off from the universe, space contracting at the front and expanding from the rear,etc.: the isolation from the universe would necessitate a travel sequence worked out ahead of time, which ties in nicely with prescient navigators.}

Shevek

Shevek blinks. "Ah. Right. Most of the traders that stop in Abbenaey Port don't have the reactors to sustain a prolonged Warp Drive Travel sequence of that length: I need to adjust my thinking, I suppose."

[doliest]

Solo and Friends
"Fine. Magnoda, Jack, Chewie? Can you get the good doctor his equipment?" The three of them head into the Falcon and start removing the equipment, as Solo turns back to the scientist, "See, it's easy when we all work together."

Kirk
Captains Log. Stardate [Stardate Retracted]
It appears we have visitors from another universe; visitors that could endanger the alliance and all we hold dear. With a warning from Q heavy in our minds, we have set course to follow it as fast as we can without alerting the Romulans to our presence. This missions, and our lives, are in Mr.Scott's capable hands.

[Cracklord]

Solo and Friends
As you begin unloading the ship, the door that leads to the caverns slides open with a clank and a hiss, and some threescore men file in, each one carrying a crackling shocklances, their points directed at you. They are not wearing stillsuits as the natives did, but rather the articulated plates of armor favored by House Harkonnen, and their faces are shrouded behind hoods and scarfs. Unlike most houses, that recruit their soldiers from specially determined worlds sanctioned by treaties and the Alliance, the Harkonnen's are secretive about the source of their soldiers, and rumors abound.
At the head of the thirty soldiers is a smiling man with spiky red hair, strong, high cheekbones you could shave with and a lean, whipcord thin build. A knife is at his hip, and is eyes are brilliant blue.
"I've finally caught you in the act." Feyd-Rautha says, smiling his lazy grin that dimples the side of his mouth, and drawing his knife. "Oh, I've wanted to kill you for a long time. It's nice to finally have an excuse." His face darkens gradually, like a summer sky before a terrible thunderstorm.
"You've made trouble for us, complaining about all a manner of things. It's good to know I have you now just where I want you."
He looks at Solo. "And here you are, in the act with him. You migntn't know it, but you're in violation of the law, and are no longer counted as citizens of the Alliance."
Before you are able to grasp exactly what is happening, or what had already happened, Jack Harkness was staggering backward, his eyes bulging in surprise and pain, his hand grasping at the slim black hilt bulging grotesquely out of his chest that hadn't been there a second before. You realize the man had made some sort of move, no more then a flicker, and his knife was now on the other side of the room, so fast it was like some malign magic trick. He lowers his hand, flicks on his shield, which hums to life around him, the air wavering as though a forge were burning within, and he begins stalking towards you, drawing another pair of knives and holding them delicately.
"Well, maybe you can give me some sport. What do you say?" The guards fan out behind him, weapons leveled.

Shevak
"Tell me about it." He grunts, before turning back to Picard. "On your order, sir."

Kirk and Solo
The two enterprises meet orbiting Mars while waiting for confirmation to approach Earth. I leave the next part in your capable hands.

John Carter, Paul
The martian has returned to the ancient, decaying city, and made it's way to the pyramid where the master of it's people sits. At the top of the steps on a magnificent golden throne, sat the Emperor himself. He was of gigantic stature, larger than the majority of his subjects, and sixteen feet in height. His broad, mis-shapen head bulged and his face seemed almost squashed, though there was a terrible cunning in his enormous, milky white eyes.
They spoke for a time in clicks and whistles, as the subject informed its liege that the traveler had arrived in his chariot of fire, and the Emperor let out a triumphant shout.
The time had come to take back Barsoom as the prophecy foretold they would, as it had been in the time of legends.

[nanobot_swarm]

Doomguy thinks for a minute, taps chin a few times, and then it seems a few neurons in his brain managed to form a coherent idea. "Well if we have to go through with this mission for the taxpayers, I think everyone in the crew should be give armaments to defend themselves, so the hoards of hell don't tear them all to shreds. Everyone should be instructed to watch out for any ghostly beings, because they will turn them into zombie slaves, and if in the process of being turned, they should shoot themselves in the head to save us all the trouble. Since invasions from hell tend to warp the surrounding enviornment, all radioactive materials should be extra specially secured, and all personel should be instructed to watch out for possible lava flows, because demon portals tend to bring that in with them. I think I will make a demon classification guide, and distribute that among the crew so they know what to do when encountering our hellish foes."

[darkblade]

Bebop

Ed keeps pushing the ship out of the cluster of Reavers hoping to escape before anymore grab hold.

"Back up and open the door." Jet says as he throws down one of the console chairs to use as cover. "If they break through on their own it'll just make them madder."

Spike nods and presses the button to open the bast door and both Jet and Faye start to unload submachine guns to the subhuman monsters charging towards them.

[doliest]

Solo and Friends
Jack feels the pain as he slams into the cave wall, though he knows he will stand again in a few minutes. It's his gift; one day it would likely be a curse, but Jack found he rather enjoyed it most of the time.

Han ducks behind the nearest piece of lab equipment and draws his blaster, opening fire on the guards without a word to the knive wileding psychopath. He'd learned enough in the last few days to leave him to...

Magnoda grins as he draws his own gun; an old-style gun that still fired metal slugs. It wasn't as good against body armor, but it DID ignore most personal 'energy' shields. He aims for the face, ignoring the man's body armor.

Lev follows Han's example, ducking behind cover with him, aiming at any guards that fire on Magnoda, hoping to keep the man covered.

Kirk
(I'll let Indy make the first move; I think I'm going to like the meeting, but I can't think of how to start it. :smalltongue:)

[industrious]

Picard

"Warp Three, Commander. Engage."

Enterprise

"Open a channel to the Constitution-Enterprise, Ensign."

The Ensign does his duty, and Picard rises from his chair as Kirk comes onscreen.

"Captain Kirk, this is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Sovereign-Enterprise. We are on a Priority-One mission concerning a warning delivered to us by the Q entity. I respectfully request your aid in this mission."

Picard. Always formal and on ceremony, stuffy and authoritative in public. The two had attended the Academy together briefly; Picard was in his last year when Kirk was just arriving. That Picard was a...much different individual than the man before him. James rather doubted that this Picard would ever challenge someone to a drinking contest over an insult involving the Kobayashi Maru.

[doliest]

Kirk
Kirk grins from his seat on the bridge, "Captain Picard. It's been too long; I'd love to help you; Q warned us while we where investigating a dimensional rift. Mr.Spock will send over our readings on the rift to you now." He gestures for Spock to, to quote Picard, 'Make it so.'

To say Picard and Kirk were different was, well, yes. Different interests. Different skills. Different flaws. Different interpretations of the nature of the Alliance. They couldn't be more different; but they were both legends that would endure long after they died. Men who had saved the Alliance more times than could be counted.

[The Tygre]

Legato
In his quarters on his ship, Legato takes his own sweet time. each of his four prisoners has been strapped down to a table before the psion. One, however, is filled to the brim with tubing and pumps, all culminating on a valved pipe above his head.

A melody plays in the background. Symphony; pure music, no clumsy organic hands tainting the perfect sound. A servant wheels in a silver cart covered in a white sheet. Wordlessly, the servant pulls off the sheet and leaves. Underneath is a set of silver utensils, several wine-glasses, a china plate, some decoratively arranged napkins, and a single blue rose in a glass tube.

Legato picks up one of the champagne glasses and swirls his finger around the rim. He walks over to the man entrapped in tubes, and with a subtle joy turns the valve. The tubes spring to life, jolting through the man's systems. He screams out in pain as the device performs its foul work, draining him. Out of the nozzle attached to the valve, blood begins to treacle. Legato places his champagne glass under the nozzle, closing the valve when his glass his half full.

Bluesummers sips from his glass, and wistfully sighs. He then retrieves a steak knife and fork, as well as the china plate and pair of napkins. Walking over to the next man, the lunatic places the fork and knife against his prisoner's bicep. Legato is not completely blinded by his hate; even humans can serve this purpose.

Before he can cut, Legato is interrupted by the warning of a ship. Exasperated, Legato hisses, "Display visual."

Outlaw Star
Gene growls, "Damn it! There's no end to them!" Gilliam implores, with what almost be considered worry by the AI, "Gene, the Reavers are breaching our hull. It will only be a matter of minutes before they are inside the ship, and our current systems are not optimized for such intrusion."

"I know! Just give me a minute!... Alright. Aisha, if they breach us, I want you out there taking them down. Don't hold back!"

"What, you mean it? You realize you might lose half the ship?"

"Are you a Ctarl-Ctarl or aren't you!?"

"Puny human! I could tear their whole fleet apart with my bare hands! How dare you question the mighty Ctarl Ctarl!" There's some truth to what Aisha said. Ctarl Ctarl are vicious in combat, especially berserk. The last recorded incident of a Ctarl Ctarl rampage recorded over 900 deaths, and thousands of severe injuries. And that was over a wrestling match.

"Jim, Melfina, if they get too far, I want you two to hide. Are we clear? Don't do anything stupid. Just try and hope for the best. Me, Suzuka, and Aisha will try to hold them off."

"But Gene-"

"Understand?"

"Yes, Gene."

"... Yes."

"Alright. Melfina, how are we doing on getting out of here?"

"I'm still searching for a way out; it's difficult with all this movement." Melfina was created for the sole purpose of navigation. While standard space-faring is her most common practice, she shines at locating and traversing galactic ley-lines. Paths between planets and galaxies, these vast invisible trails of energy reach across space, and some even say dimensions. Right now, the innocent android is trying her hardest for even a hint of ley-line, something she can teleport the whole ship on.

[Draxx]

Mal
Book was sitting on the ramp of the cargo door, just watching silently. Mal was completely motionless, staring at the spinning rocks that had once been a world, his face carefully closed, only his eyes giving voice to the sheer tumult his mind was going through.

There should be people here. There should be a world. Instead, there was nothing but debris and broken dreams. The magnitude of the crime is too large for him to comprehend. Oh, if pressed he could talk about it easily It was beyond all human experience. It led only to total incomprehension.

River
She pauses, and looks at you, sharply intuitive as though expecting to find exactly what you intended written in fine print on your forehead. Then she lowers her head when she sees no such thing, and shrugs. "I don't know. I don't understand."

[Cracklord]

Captain Kirk, Picard
The two of you exchange information quickly on what you have discovered. Unfortunately, Q was equally maddeningly unhelpful to both of you. Picard knows a little more of what it intends, and Kirk can at least say how whatever it is got here, though what it is, where it came from and what it was is still a mystery.
It’s also a very cumbersome way to transmit information. Things would be a lot more efficient if you met in person. Technology an innovation have come a long way, but it’s yet to find a more efficient way of transferring information then word of mouth.

Legato
Duncan’s eyes were closed and his breathing steady, even when you put the knife against his arm he didn’t even flinch or tense. It was an old technique for dealing with torture taught to all blademasters. Taking your brain away and becoming detached from the body, no longer feeling fatigue or pain or anything, simply knowing about them intellectually.
The doctor, meanwhile, had almost passed out, and the Mentat was trembling with emotion, although what he was feeling you’re not sure. Rage? Hate? Terror? Anything. And you didn’t particularly care to find out.
Gurney, on the other hand, is looking at you with bombardiers eyes, his inkvine scar twisting his jaw. There is no fear in those eyes. Just hate and defiance. You can do whatever you want to that man, but you won’t break him. It's strange. Such a long time that you'd been exposed to anything as simple as human courage, that you'd almost forgotten what it's like.

REBOOTING OPERATING SYSTEM. SENSORY SYSTEMS REINITIALIZING.

The black screen roiled, then derezzed. Pixels swam in a dizzying loop, caught in a whirlpool, finally forming a picture of the air above the camp.

OCCULAR SENSORS ONLINE.

The ocean of black that was the Pandoran Night sky showed a single spaceship flying above, firing at the figures bellow. It wasn’t any form of government ship, it must have arrived later. Just the same, it had passable weapons systems. Readings showed that there was nobody inside it, an illegal AI was apparently taking care of that itself.

Bebop
A curved section of the hull slid back into place with a soft thud. Air began to hiss gently from hidden vents, and you feel your ears pop gently as the cabin pressurizes. But you barely notice, because the Reavers just got in.
The Alpha’s were supposed to be tall and perfectly formed, indeed so perfect that they barely even appear human, as though each one were modeled after some statue of a Greek God. The Reavers did not look that way at all. The Assembly lines that built them had been malfunctioning for a long time, and so many of them were slightly malformed, as though their features were wax that had strayed too close to a open flame. Furthermore, living by eating each other and with no concept of personal grooming or the like, as well as the vast number of scars they all bore, they had degenerated further. Now they looked less human then many of the aliens you’d met, the likeness just strong enough to disturb you all. More to the point, driven by some incomprehensible love of self mutilation, they have torn of vast portions of their skin, and pierced it with metal. But for all that, they are still designed to be in perfect human condition, and they don’t know pain or fear. The only way to put one down is to make sure you kill it, then bury it under a rock. And even then, make it a large rock and don’t turn your back on it.
They are coming for you now, materializing out of the smoke like evil spirits.
The leader, with matted blond hair and a beard streaked with grey and black, looking like some cross between a Viking and a giant from a children’s book, roars, his voice so rough and broken that it barely sounds human anymore. The rest of the pack growl and snarl like beasts; occasionally punctuated by shrieks and moans.
The leader takes his Qualta Blade, that any collector would trade an arm and a leg for, and probably would have to in order to get it away from him, swings it before him, firing it like a pulse rifle. His followers, on the other hand, brandish a varied (and in some cases, pitiful) assortment of weapons, rusted axes, dull knives, and splintery clubs, as well as weapons they’d improvised themselves that added a whole new dimension of terror to being wounded. A few had chainswords, and you even spot a chainfist lurking towards the back, crackling with energy as it whirs evilly.

Solo and Friends
The bullet passes through the shield and grazes his face. It would have taken him between the eyes, but by luck as much as reflexes he managed to avoid the shot. Feyd-Rautha’s face opens into an ‘O’ of surprise, an expression that said more clearly then words could have done that, for all his intelligence and readiness to fight, he had expected to live a long, happy life where he shot people but was never shot himself. Shot at, perhaps, but actually hit? That wasn’t part of the plan at all.
His expression changes then, darkening even more, until his eyes are possibly burning with insane hatred.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” He whispers madly, the look of surprise replaced with a wide, trembling grin.
The soldiers meanwhile begin a range of fire with their shocklances, a series of blue arcs of fire that fill the air with the stench of ozone and an acrid smoke, sticking your hair on end. Fortunately the blasts are fairly easy to avoid, although they make cover fairly superfluous. But they only need to hit you once, you’ve seen the results once and watching someone’s skin boil off isn’t an experience you’d care to repeat.

Junior
Seeing books burn is a terrible thing. Once they start burning books, they’ll soon be burning people, for one thing. For another, destroying knowledge seems vaguely obscene. There is a huge pile of them before the palace, ancient manuscripts depicting the proud warrior history of the Klingon people. It’s their past, their existence. And they are being burned by a mob, who threw more and more on the pile, chanting all the while, while a drum beat sounded from the enormous speakers above the square, and a few klingons in white robes looked on, with the harsh faces of executioners who took satisfaction from their work.
You didn’t understand the language, but what they are chanting, again and again, is ‘way of peace’. They haven’t noticed you.

Flash Gordan, John Stalvern
“Sir, you can’t be seriously considering the ramblings of a madman in any way worthy of consideration.” She says, a little shrilly, staring at you with eyes that plead you to reconsider. “He’s only recently returned from a leave of absence after suffering post traumatic stress. He’s clearly suffering a relapse.” She wasn’t there. She hadn’t seen what you had, only heard about the aftermath. She can’t be expected to understand.

Hober Mallow
The communication device buzzes, and the screen flickers on. He begs your indulgence a moment and steps aside, in order to talk. You'd dearly like to know what he's saying, but a sound dampener leaves it as so much White Noise. He takes it up to look at it, and his face changes from curiosity to open horror, then lowers it, shaken. "Meeting ajourned. Consideration vetoed." He says, spreading his arms to make sure he has everyones attention, then without another word turns and walks out of the building, ignoring the questions and leaving you wondering what the hell is going on.

Outlaw Star
The Ctarl-Ctarl finds the hull breaches, with enormous hollow drills on the Reaver ships having torn into the hull like enormous ticks, letting the Reavers in without letting the artificial atmosphere out. Most of the attention of their flotilla is focused on you, not your friends, since your doing a much better job of fighting back, but if you do escape you’ll be leaving them alone. Which is why Gene is trying to fight his way through the swarm enough to link up. At the very least outcome, you can die with your friends.
The first one climbs into the ship, eyes bloodshot, splintered teeth bared. Once they overwhelm you, you can look forward to enduring their depravity, which really doesn’t lend thinking about.
It’s then that Melfina uncovers something. She’s not sure where it leads, but it does seem to be their only hope.

[Colesign]

Shevek

Shevek waves his hand at Kirk as he comes on screen.

"Greetings. We are not ambassadors from the planet Annares."

[darkblade]

Bebop

The Bebop has a fairly impressive weapons locker. Unfortunately the weapons in it are mainly designed to capture bounty heads alive. Nothing to put down hordes of Reavers. They do have two assault rifles though that Jet and Faye begin to empty into the on coming horde.

Spike himself picks off any that get too close with his handgun as tough as their augmentation has made them they still need their brains to remain unpunctured by lead.

[Corvond]

Flash Gordon
"Yes I am. I take any potential threats to my crew and mission seriously. get used to it." He tells Janeway, then looks over at the sergent. "Make it so. If you have any trouble getting the men to comply to the suggest changes, come straight to me and I'll see what I can do." He says, giving you a charming smile.

Riddick
"We'll see." He replies, and goes back to trying to get through the door.

[Cracklord]

Kirk
"I find his denial to be suspect." Spock says, in the tone of voice of one who would not really understand the phrase 'sense of humor' if one were to sit him down for an hour and explained it with diagrams.

Shevak
"Tell me, isn’t it considered bad manners to interrupt to old friends meeting on your planet, or is common courtesy too much structure for you?" Riker asks, intending to chastise you.
He's really finding your insistence in refusing anything that could be construed as authority as irritating, verging on ridiculous.

Flash Gordon
"...Yes sir." She says, though she doesn't sound very happy about it. "Now if you could turn your attention to more important matters, perhaps we could lift off. We still have an hour of preperations, and this is only going to delay us even more."

Riddick
"As you like it." He says patiently, and leaves you searching for a crack that doesn't exist. There is no way you're getting out of this room using what you have on hand.
Nothing to improvise, nothing to take advantage of, the guards beyond your reach. The vents are too small to crew through, and are bolted shut anyway, and there is no way to get this door open.

Bebop
The leader staggers back, his chest suddenly pefforated enough to see out his back, torn to shreds under four rounds rapid, For a moment he stops, staring down at the hole in his midsection with stupid malevolence as he tries to understand how that got there, only to get shoved over and trampled by his followers in their haste to get at you, crushed under their mad rush.
The pulse clips Faye, lifting her off her feet and sending her flying with the raw force, to smash painfully against it and slide down. It's not enough to put her down, it seems it was on a low setting and he didn't know how to chage that, or it was running low on power.
You continue to lay down fire, and the Reavers simply charge into your fire, trying to drag you down with weight of numbers, heedless of the casulties.