Of Horses and Lasers

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This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Copyright 2006 Jim The Cactus

For the latest copy of this work please visit http://www.nqig.net/~jtc/projects/nanowrimo06/

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Prolog
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In the second beginning, before there was plot, or really much of anything at all, there was the author. The author looked upon the screen and saw nothing. Being familiar with this sight from the first beginning, he created list of possible settings. He looked upon his creation and saw that it was good, but useless. So he began pondering what to do and opted for video games instead. After they had been finished, he gave up and picked the easiest one and entered a title into the document, naming the document "Of Horses and Lasers". And when this had been done he saved and meandered off to school. And here our story haphazardly begins again...

Chapter One
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"Book of Origin Ch. 1
In the beginning there was the Yagdir. The Goddess Cenari, having come to the Yagdir looked upon it's dusty surface and saw nothing. She took up some of the earth and separated it into the mountains and plains and sea-floors. Then she transformed some of the earth into seas and air. Then she built the grasses and trees, and formed the badgers and boars.

Looking upon her creation she saw that it was good. She watched over her creation, but saw that her creation was so vast and wide that she could not manage it alone. So she created man and woman and said unto them, "Go forth and watch over my creation. I shall give you the power to create and to destroy and you shall use it to guide this creation in my stead.

Man and woman accepted their task. They went into the world and multiplied, and the Goddess, having seen to it that her creation would be well cared for, took her leave to rest in the temple of Uthgali.

While she slept, man and woman used their power with the wisdom Cenari had granted them. But like all creations they grew old, and with time passed away. Their children; Tor, Ith, Gordon, Dale, and Gruth took upon themselves the task of watching over the world.

Book of Origin, Ch. 2
However, each, having been granted only some of the power began to squabble. For the first few generations things went decently well, with only minor arguments. But as men and women grew in number, so did their rivalry.

Eventually they began to band together into nations united under their common ancestors and used their combined power to create great machines of destruction. A great war was fought for this power, and most of creation was destroyed.

Near the end of the war, the profit Grenhald went to see the Goddess Cenari. He spoke with Cenari of the troubles of man. Cenari came to the great leaders of the world and spoke, "Why do you quarrel? Have you no regard for my creation? Have you forgotten your purpose?"

The leaders spoke in return, "When you left it was your creation. But man has made it mighty. Our power has been wielded, and the creation is now ours. You have no power over us." And they smote Cenari with their mighty machines made with the power she granted.

As the Goddess faded from Yagdir, she spoke, "Your abuse of power will not serve you. With it you shall be destroyed and Yagdir shall return to the dust from whence it was born."

Book of Origin, Ch. 3
The leaders ignored her warning and returned to their great war machines. In time the war was won and with the children of Tor lay all the power of Cenari. However, they abused their power. With their mighty machines they raped the land and did not tend to the flowers and the animals.

In time Yagdir could no longer support man and his mighty machines. The massive factories spewed forth smoke and filth and the seas and air were destroyed. Fields could no longer grow grain and the animals could no longer feed man.

And during this time most of the children of Tor perished. As they did, they carefully archived the knowledge of man into libraries and began preparing a vessel that could take them to where they could try their hand at creation.

They set forth on a journey of a six thousand solar years. They traveled in 12 vessels to 12 places, each bearing the hopes of the children of Tor for the future and leaving behind their home.

Book of Origin Ch. 4
One of those vessels traveled to Marnith, and there the children of Tor began anew. Lead by the profit Barnuth, they pledged to correct the many mistakes of the children of Tor.

Barnuth spoke of the fall of the tribes of Yagdir and of the abuse of the power of Cenari. The followers of Barnuth swore that they would take upon themselves the task set forth by Cenari and would wield their power the way she had. They would form the mountains and the seas, the air and the animals making each one unique.

Never again would they use great machines where they were not needed, nor would those machines ever be made to be similar. Like the land and the sea, they would each be made unique so that the followers of Barnuth would always hold precious their work and never use it for destruction."

The large bell in the clock tower rang the 16 o'clock hour. The lore-meister, a tall young man in his early 20 looked up from his reading, "Well, it appears that our time is up. I'd like to see you all here again next week for my sermon on the forming of Marnith as told in the book of Barnuth. Until then, may the goddess' wisdom watch over you."

The parishiners began leaving from their pillows in the library's great hall and moving out into the busy streets. I was with my father, a man who had been widdowed by my birth. A tiny ball of a man in his mid-forties, he owned a trinket/pawn shop over by the town border. His scraggly black hair was poorly kept and though he was wearing his finest now, normally he wore work clothes and a leather apron.

He loved his work. He always had some project on the counter that would be beeping or booping, blowing steam all over the room or shimmering with an unnatural glow. Customers would come in and just before they could make their inquiry, the thing would explode or crackle with electricity or generate a rainbow of colors causing the customers to either flee in panic from the horrible stench it was emitting or stand there dazzled at the pretty show.

As for me, I had always lived with him and since I've been old enough, have been helping him in his shop. Typically it worked out that while he tinkered, I was actually responsible for the day to day operations of the shop, when I wasn't at school of course.

Since the service was over this meant that the whole town would be going back to it's daily routine. Much of life in my village centered around the weekly sermon given by lore-meister J'had. Every week at 14 o'clock on Tuesday the entire town makes it's way to the Library of the Goddess for J'had's sermon. The sermon actually starts at 14:30 so that people have time to make it in from the fields by horse and lasts 
till 16:00.

Businesses close early on Tuesdays so that the shopkeepers can make it to the Library on time. Well, that and Barnuths Word tells us that it should be so. I'd asked J'had once why that was and he simply told me that without the Goddess' wisdom fresh in our hearts we would surely falter and Marnith would fall just as Yagdir had.

My village, a large one with 5000 people in it called Yumia, was a bustling town ruled by High Lore-Meister Lorath. He wasn't exactly a good ruler per-se, but he did manage to get the day to day business done without causing too much of a ruckus. He made sure that the walls were safe, the guard's horses where fed, and the reactor center was properly staffed. Generally things moved smoothly from day to day.

The most important structure in Yumia is the library. School, religious services, government, civil services, all of these things are done at the library. It's a 4 story tall concrete and metal spire brightly light by the various blown glass lights that dominates over everything in our town except for the clock tower. It looms in the center of the city, and the many main streets stretch away from it radially.

The shop, by comparison, was a small two story wood and mortar building housing the store on the ground floor and dad's and my residence on the second floor. Most of the town's buildings were about this size or smaller except for the clock tower and the hospital, both of which are located just adjacent to the library.

As we made our way back to the shop, we ran across the town physician, a sombre woman by the name of Dania Ki'loan. Dr. Ki'loan had just been returning from her schooling in the great library at the city of Timoral. Dad tells me she's a great doctor and if she had been there when I had been born, my mother would have been here to tell me of her adventures.

"Nice to see you Marn. And how's young Pylodon today?" she asked with her deep frigid voice.

"Hello Dr. Ki'loan. He's doing pretty fine except that he seems to ignore all his studies," father replied with a disappointed tone.

"Hey! I don't ignore them, they simply just aren't interesting. 'History of the country of Malod', 'Differential Evaluation', 'creative writing', there's nothing interesting at all. What about physics, or programming?"

"Programming is forbidden, " father snapped at me, "you know that! So perish the thought!"

"But why father? The library has computers, why can I not learn to use them?"

"It is the way to destruction. Only the library's children of Man and Woman are allowed to command the computers. They make a solemn oath of uniqueness and their work is carefully reviewed before we can use it. And you cannot join them unless you are born into their ranks," the doctor said, "so for us, programming is forbidden."

"Would you have us walk the path to destruction Pylodon?" father asked me, "Can you accept our demise from your arrogance?"

"No father," I mumbled.

"Then you see why it is forbidden," he noted.

"But what about you? Wouldn't it make your work easier if you didn't have to wait so long for the software you need for your projects?"

"Yes it would son, but easy work makes for wasteful, wantful hands. So even though it takes a long time and many of my requests are denied, I must be mindful of their labor and allow them to carefully guide our path rather than charge blindly to our doom."

I sighed, knowing (at the time) that he was right. Dad and Dr. Ki'loan talked some more about their lives for a bit and then we parted ways and headed back to the shop.

Chapter 2
Upon returning home father hurried in to grab his latest trinket, this time he had managed to put together a lifting engine for lightening loads out of the few components he was able to salvage out of some of the things people pawned of.

Things like this where how we made our living. People would bring in their junk that didn't work any more or loot and artifacts that had been found in exchange for quick cash. Dad would then take them apart, carefully, and assemble the working parts and some parts he made himself from the recycled scraps of other components into useful devices, or sometimes simply repairing existing devices.

Because of the nature of his work, he was always in contact with the Library. Frequently he would need parts that a smithy or some careful handiwork couldn't produce, so he would go to the Library and see if the monks there could make the parts for him using the Library's resources.

The biggest problem was that since every component is unique, often it's hard to tell what it will do. For this dad would have the people at the Library look at it. The monks have scanners and good software for reverse engineering the device and telling you it's function and purpose.

However, there where many things that they could not identify, so dad always had a huge pile in the back of components that had some mysterious, undetermined purpose. Dad kept telling me that one day he'd have all of them sent over to the Timoral scanners, known in the tinkering community as the best in the world, to have them analyzed.

I had always thought this whole process crazy. It always seemed like things where far harder than they had to be. Every component being unique meant that if you needed something specific, you where basically forced to make it. The only thing that helped keep the cost of that down was the recycling centers. The people there could easily separate things back into their basics like iron and steel and would give you back these building blocks.

But even with this, it still meant that a lot of work got thrown away. Every time a component was melted down, all the work that went into making it was lost. I didn't even have to ask why it was like this, I knew the answer would simply be "Because pride in creation is our salvation. This is what the Wisdom of the Goddess tells us."

Every day I would ponder on the awkward way our lives plodded infinitely forwards by stepping backwards. The cycle just seemed to go on forever; progress was impossible. My mind would often wander to the story they told us as small children, of the 12 vessels moving to find a new home and of the 11 other societies that must have either flourished or failed thousands of years ago.

I would lay awake at night, pondering where they might be. Did they succeed? Are they living the same backward life that we live? Do they look the same? "Vessels" were they like ships or aerocars? If I had an aerocar I could probably go visit them. But the only people who could afford aerocars where the filthy rich and the church, I'd never be able to afford one.

That night was no different. I was up till 0:00 pondering the mysteries of the universe. This meant that the following morning was not very pleasant, however. I had school every morning at the library from 7:00 to 10:00 and today was no exception.

Trowing myself off the bed (with a little help from dad dragging me onto the floor with the bedsheets) I got dressed, ate a quick breakfast, and headed off to school. I met up with my friend Jith, a large barrel chested kid with matted blond hair on the way in. He told me of his plans to try and break free of class early and helped breif me in on my part of the plan. I agreed and he was in the process of asking me what my father had built yesterday when we got to Rinni's place.

Rinni was a different kind of girl. Despite the heavy labor that was commonly found in the areas surrounding Yumia, most women were relegated to more dexterous tasks such as welding or animal care. This means that most of them are lean but sturdy. Rinni, on the other hand, was the blacksmith's daughter. Her mother, the town's blacksmith had raised her the same way her mother before her had raised her; as a blacksmith's apprentice.

This gave Rinni a different kind of appeal. A burly woman unafraid of trivial things like a bar of 5000 degree plastisteel, Rinni had a tough outer husk but was a softy on the inside. Not literally of course, as she had no qualms sleeping with the cast iron teddy bear her mother had made her (with care to sand the iron down to a silky shine,) but she was a softy nonetheless.

"Heya guys!" she yelled from the door of the foundry holding a white hot bar of steel, "I'll just be one second!"

"'Kay!" Jith shouted as we both plugged our ears to the roar of the furnace. Shortly the furnace shut down and Rinni came out pulling off her protective muffs. "Is it that time already?"

"Ya. We need to get to school," I reminded her.

"Darn!" Rinni said, wiping her brow with the back of a mitted hand,  "I was hoping to get this axle pounded out before that."

"Why are you always at work before the sun comes up?" Jith puzzled looking over at me and my still groggy morning face.

"You silly, would you want to be working out with hot steel in an equally hot sun?"

"Um... Well... No, I wouldn't."

"And there you go. 'Early to bed and early to rise makes a blacksmith helthy, welthy, and not melting all over the floor,'" she said as we tried to suppress our giggles, "Anyway, give me 10 minutes,"

"But we're already running late Rinni!" Jith yelled.

"Ya aren't gonna' get me to school without at least gettin' my work clothes off, so either head off without me or wait,"

"We wait then." I said looking at the nervous expression on Jith's face as Rinni went back inside.

Faster than expected, Rinni came back wearing her uniform and carrying her books and we were off.

"So, you thinking on ditching today?" Rinni asked Jith.

"Ya, we were thinking... Um... I mean, no, I was thinking that today would be a good day to stay in class." Jith replied as I bopped my head.

"Man, I got you boys figured out. You know, Py, you probably should think about keeping your plans secret from your friend here."

"Actually," I said, "it was his plan today."

"Really?! Damn, I would'a never thought I'd see the day,"

"HAY! I've come up with my own ideas lots of times." Jith said with a disgruntled pout.

I laughed, "Like the frog fiasco?"

"That was fun and you know it!" Jith said.

Rinni giggled, "Ya, I guess it was."

"Dad sure was angry though. I was grounded for a week." I pointed out.

"All I got was no dessert," Jith said.

Rinni chimed in, "My dad isn't much of a disciplinarian and mom just said 't'aint nothin' wrong with the kiddo havin' herself some good clean fun.'"

"If she wants to call that clean then so be it, but there was nothing clean about it," I mused.

We all laughed. "That it sure wasn't," Rinni said as we got to the library.

Chapter 3
We arrived right about the same time as the bell at the clock tower rang. This meant we were going to be a couple minutes late. Our teacher, Dr. Fontif, despite having known us since we were small kids, had little tolerance for our regular tardiness, justified though it may be.

"Mister Ginth, Mister Tor, Miss Ebelene. Tardy again I see? I want to see you today after school."

"Aw come on Dr. Fontif We're not THAT late this time," Jith pleaded.

"You're right Mister Tor. Only 5 minutes instead of your usual 15. And we can discuss the matter of varying levels of tardiness, but we shall do so after class."

"Yes professor," we all spoke in unison.

"Now where were we, ah yes, partial fraction decomposition..."

The day lingered on and on. When the bell for 12:00 rang out I was glad for it to be over, till I remembered we had to stay over, which really ruined the "bell ring high".

"Pylodon, Jith, Rinni, can I have a word with you?" Dr. Fontif commanded.

"Yes ma'm?"

"Could you explain to me why you're always late?"

"Well, you see," Jith piped up, "we always have to wait for for Rinni. She's always running behind because of work."

"I am!" Rinni added.

"You know as well as I do that I've already heard that excuse a thousand times. As much as I believe it to be true, it doesn't explain why this problem persists."

"Huh?" Jith puzzled.

"You're late almost every day. Every time I ask you to stay late and explain why you're late, and every day you tell me the same thing. Have you three done nothing at all to work to remedy this issue?"

"Um...." we all looked at each other.

The professor sighed. "See, let me try to explain this to you. Class begins at seven sharp; you know this. If you're having trouble getting here on time, you're going to have to leave your homes earlier."

"But professor!" I pleaded.

"No buts mister, this is a basic life skill, being able to meet your obligations and planning ahead are a part of life. Now, I want to see you here at seven o'clock, no, six forty-five. I want you kids to do whatever it takes to get here by that time or we're going to have to come up with another way to teach you this lesson."

"Six forty-five?" Jith sighed, "I'm barely out of bed by that time."

"Indeed you are Jith, and that's the whole point of this little exercise; you're going to have to get up earlier so you can get here in proper time."

"Aw man!" Jith pouted.

"Young lady? I want you to make sure you set some kind of alarm. You're a bright kid, but if you miss out on the first 15 minutes of class, you're going to have missed a lot over the course of a semester."

"Yes ma'm" Rinni responded.

"Okay then, you two are dismissed. You and I, Pylodon, need to have a talk."

"Really?" I said, confused.

"Yes, really." she replied, "Go on ahead you two, he'll meet you out front."

Rinni and Jith hesitated, "Off with you, shoo!"

The two headed out the door and out of sight.

"Okay mister Ginth. We both know you're the smartest kid in this class. You're clever and crafty. Why must you apply it towards getting OUT of class rather than learning the topics?"

"Because the topics are BORING! All of the fun topics are either glanced over or are not taught."

"Like?" She queried.

"Like programming. Why must the Children of Man and Woman be the only ones who can do it?"

"Because it requires great faith to resist the temptation to do great evil."

"What guarantees that the Children of Man and Woman are any more faithful than others?"

"Their binding oaths and Barnuth himself. 'I have established an order that will be the caretakers of man's faith. With them I leave a sacred trust that they will dutifully protect from now till eternity.'"

"Bah," I grunted.

"Barnuth's Words are nothing to be laughed at. Without his guidance we would surely fall into the same hell that Yagdir did."

"Oh?" I questioned, "Where is Yagdir? How does one get there to see for himself?"

"That is one of the great mysteries of our past. Where is Yagdir, where did the other 11 vessels go? What kind of vessels where they? These are some of the many things that we do not know. If you have an interest in the topic, maybe you should study archaeology?"

"Indeed," I replied, "Am I free to go now?"

"Indeed you are. But I want to see you improve in your studies. If you do I'll look into helping you get into the archaeology program in Timoral."

"Whatever." I replied and sauntered out of the room to meet up with Jith and Rinni. "What was that all about?" Jith asked.

"Standard 'Wasted Potential' lecture. She suggested I should look into archaeology. Oh ya, ALL KINDS of adventure in archaeology." I said in a jaded tone.

"Aw come on! Archaeology is full of adventure. Exotic places, exotic artifacts, ..."

"Exotic foreign women," Jith interrupted

"Jith!" she pouted, "I was talking!"

"Whatever" Jith replied.

"Anyway, there's plenty of adventure in archaeology. You just have to look at it the right way."

"You kidding, I already know what I'm gonna do when I get up the pynys; I'm gonna buy myself an aerocar and see if I can't find Yagdir. I know it's got to be around here somewhere. It's just a matter of finding it."

"What? Why do you want to do that?" Jith asked, looking confused.

"To prove that all of this backwards world we live in is just chasing around an old superstition. That this Barnuth's Word trash is just that."

"You don't seriously believe that do you?" Rinni said.

"Yes I do, every last word of it."

"Well, then, you and I have something in common kid," a shadow from behind me said.

Chapter 4
I turned quickly to see who had said that. What met me on the other side of the spin was a man of average height dressed in a brown hooded cloak (with the hood down) with sandy blond spiky hair and a well kept beard.

“Who are you?” I said, looking over this total stranger.

“Robert. Robert Bates,” he said, stepping forward to shake my hand.

“Nice to meet you, Robert, was it? Haven't heard that name before.” I said, cautiously shaking his hand.

“Ah, you wouldn't have now would you. Hmm, well, then what is your name squirt?” Robert said.

“Um, Pylodon, and these here are Jith and Rinni,” I remarked, looking at his hand wondering when he'd let go.

“Oh, sorry there squirt. Kinda got carried away by the sights. I'm not from around here, you think you kids could show me around?”

I looked at Jith and Rinni hoping to have them help me say no, but Rinni said “Sure! We'd love to show you around.”

Jith shot me the same look I had hoped to shoot him, but I merely shrugged and started after Rinni and Robert who where now almost halfway down the street.

“... That HUGE building we are in front of is the library. The library is the central hub of our city. It's also where the High Lore-Meister lives and works. That over there is the bazaar where the various farmers and ranchers go to sell their fresh goods. This big thing is the hospital, and that over there is the bakery...”

Rinni continued as we walked around the circular road that goes around the library.

I broke in in one of the moments she took a breath, “So, what brings to you Yumia?”

“Recon Mission,” he said casually.

I paused for a sec, “Recon Mission?”

“Reconnaissance, you know, observing and reporting to others?”

“Who?”

“The Cenarian Resistance.”

“Wha?”

By this time Rinni had noticed that people weren't following her anymore and wandered back to us.

“What's keeping you guys?” Rinni asked, hands on her hips.

“Oh, just stopped to talk about life. So, what's that place?” he said pointing to a building he clearly picked at random.

“Oh that? That's the flower shop. The lady there sells such nice flowers. I think she might be a little off thought...”

Rinni went on and on, dragging the apparently interested spy, me, and Jith all along for the highly verbose ride.

After about an hour of this, Robert seemed to have finally grown tired of Rinni's hyperactive tour.

“So... Um, where do you guys go for food?”

I lied, “Oh ya! I was supposed to meet with dad for lunch. Aw man, he's gonna kill me.”

“He's not going to kill you Py,” Rinni said.

“True, but I'm late either way.” I said, “I'll see you guys later,”

I headed off for home, hoping to tell dad about 'Robert'. I stopped off to grab some sandwiches from the deli. When I got home I was surprised to find Robert already there.

“So, your old man tells me you didn't have any plans, though it looks like you decided it wasn't too bad an idea after the fact,” Robert told me with a whimsical glance.

I stared at him blankly, trying to control the hate and fear slowly rising in the back of my mind.

“This nice fellow has been telling me about your guy's tour through the town today. That was a very kind thing for you to do,” dad said.

“Yes it was, the consummate host,” he smiled at father before shooting a twisted grin to me. “I hope you don't mind Pylodon, but I picked up something for myself before I came over.”

“Rinni show you?” I asked, knowing the obvious answer.

“Oh yes. She's a very helpful girl. Told me all kinds of things,” he took a bite of his food, “so she's a blacksmith?” he sputtered to dad.

“Apprentice blacksmith, but she's becoming a fine blacksmith indeed.” I handed dad his food, “Thank you son. Rinni comes from a long line of fine craftsman. I use their work regularly in my products.”

“Thinking of which, you have some interesting stuff here. Frankly I'm surprised that the High Lore-Meister has let you continue your work,” he said between bites.

“Oh, my work proceeds with his direct supervision. He has taken a significant personal interest in my work and often provides suggestions of things I might try and books I might reference.”

“Ah, well, that explains that. So, have anything interesting for sale?” Robert asked, getting up from the counter and wandering about.

“Oh, I have all kinds of new things. I recently got my hands on a new scrapyard over in Maltosa. A lot of the stuff they have piled up there is pure junk, but I keep finding these little gems hiding in there and it's really helped bulk up my inventory.”

“So it appears. Reactionless thruster?” Robert said pointing to the new load lifter.

“Never heard of such a thing. That's a load lifter. It uses an anti gravity engine that I acquired from the discarded aerocar of one of the Lore-Meisters.” dad said pulling it down from the display and powering it up.

“Hmmm...” Robert said, watching it operate, and giving it a quick push down and watching it stay in place.

“They sure do have an interesting way of keeping things under control here.” Robert said.

“Huh?” father mumbled, looking up from the load lifter.

“Oh, nothing. So, what compiler do you use?”

My ears perked up.

“Compiler?” dad said?

“Ya, that thing that turns source code into executable code for computers?” Robert replied, confused by father's ignorance.

Dad turned a frightened look to the man. “You speak of programming? You're not with the Children of Man and Woman, you don't follow their custom. No...” dad hesitated, then gathered his resolution, “Sir, I think you're going to have to leave.”

“Seems I've found what they're using. Okay then. I'm out of here. I'll see you later, oh, and take care squirt.” Robert said as he walked out the front door, closing it carefully behind him.

“I should report that man to the library. Bad things will come of us if he stays here,” dad muttered to himself as he went to put away the lifter.

Dad turned to me, “I want you to stay away from that man. He's no good,” dad wandered off to his project, “doesn't even know an anti-gravity engine when he sees one.”

Chapter 5
Well, having been given dad's strict orders to avoid him, I did what any self-respecting teenager would do; I waited till dad wasn't looking and slipped out of the shop and to find Robert.

Finding him was pretty easy. I found him over at Rinni's place, gawking at all of the various tools and goods.

“Ah, squirt, I was kinda expecting your dad to tell you not to talk to me. I presume that's why you're here.”

I blushed.

“Yes, I mean no! I mean, whatever.” I turned to Rinni, “Mind if I borrow him for a bit?”

Rinni gave me an exasperated look but begrudgingly agreed.

I took Robert into one of the quiet corners of the workshop. “You know programming is forbidden, don't you?”

“Well, I do now.” Robert said with a disappointed look.

“That is common knowledge to every town and city that I've heard of anywhere in Marnith.”

“It is then?” Robert inquired.

“Yes, which means that somehow you've either been living under a rock completely out of the reach of the library and the Lore-Meisters or you're from somewhere else.”

“You're a frighteningly astute kid, you know that?” Robert said, “Yes, I'm not from this place you call Marnith.”

“So, where are you from?”

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”

“Try me,” I challenged.

“Okay, kid, I'm from Centarus IV, a large moon orbiting the gas giant Centarus in the Remulon system.”

“Wait. What? Moon? Gas gas giant, Remulon system?” I said, knowing he was simply making up words.

“See? I told you you wouldn't believe me. You just haven't been taught what you would need to know to understand. That simple.”

“You're just making that stuff up. Where are you really from?” I demanded.

“I didn't lie to you kid, okay, maybe a little bit about Centarus IV being a large moon, it's actually the third smallest in Centarian orbit, but I figured I'd compare it to the size of this pebble of the cosmos.”

“Gah!” I sighed exasperatedly, “Whatever. Okay how about this, I'll make you a deal, you teach me programming and I'll keep your little bit of choice heresy a secret from the library's guard.”

“You're quite the negotiator kid, but I think I'll you'll have to do better than that. How about this? I'll trade you a happy confinement for coming quietly or a brig cell for resisting.”

I was about to speak up when Rinni clocked him over the head with a iron rod. “Move it! He won't be out for long!” she shouted, rubbing her hands. “Damn that man has a thick skull.”

We ran out of the shop and began heading for the library, and the library's guards when we turned a corner and ran into Robert. “Why do you people always have to do this the hard way? Why can't anyone ever simply give in?” he said.

“Maybe you shouldn't threaten them,” I said with a sneer.

“Might be wise advice kid. You should look into it,” he said taking a few casual steps forward.

“I'd never come with the likes of you, even if you said pretty please with cherries on top!” Jith said.

“I do believe you will be coming with me, cherries or not,” Robert said leaping into action.

Robert's movements where super-human. Before I had even turned to look at possible escape routes he had already gotten his hands on Rinni and Jith.

“Run for it!” Jith shouted, struggling against Robert's iron grip.

I tried to make my way through the town towards safety. As I made it to the main circle surrounding the town, Robert caught up with me, jumping down from the roof of the bakery.

“Don't think you're going to outrun me squirt. I told you, there's much you don't know and I can assure you, one of those things lets me do this all day.”

“HALT!” the guard I had prayed for said, running towards Robert.

“We'll continue this later, until we meet again in the Argosan Plains” Robert whispered with a devilish look.

“What about Rinni and Jith?!” I shouted in desperation. He simply grinned and slipped in with the crowd.

Chapter 6
For the next several days the guards were very much bustling about town. They were going door to door asking about the strange man in the brown cloak. Not that the brown cloak was all that identifying, every person in town pretty much had one, but they had to start somewhere.

After Rinni and Jith where kidnapped the library's guards took me in for questioning. I didn't tell them much, if they caught him on my information, he could simply tell them of my request and I would get to share his cell. So I was in no hurry to tell them the finer details and ultimately incriminate myself.

But I had to get Rinni and Jith back; I wasn't about to let them simply rot away in his hands. So I spent my free time in dad's shop gathering together tools and supplies. I took some of the scraps I found in the various junk piles in the back and tried to fashion together a weapon. I didn't have my father's talent for the task, but I got lucky and came across some kind of gun that only needed a quick tweak to get to emit a pretty solid beam, throughly burning a spot on my test target.

The gun had a socket that looked like something went in it, but it was oddly shaped. It didn't match the creative, often whimsical shapes of the components that the Children of Man and Woman made. Instead it had this kind of rigid, rectangular shape.

I rummaged through the pile of undocumented components, searching for the part, assuming father may have removed the part for testing and never put it back. What I found was that he had a few parts of this shape. Three, specifically. Each had it's own marking, unique from the rest.

Grabbing all three, I tried each one out. All of them seemed to have the effect of increasing the beam output, but none of them seemed to have any other significant effect on the machine. Deciding that I might figure out what was up later, I put one of them in (brighter beam is always better), stuffed it into my makeshift holster, put on my brown cloak and headed of to the Argosan Plains.

I figured dad wouldn't exactly be hip on the idea of me wandering off alone to find a guy who had kidnapped two people in much better physical shape than me with a weapon I cobbled together poorly out of the trash that I stole from his shop, so I set off at night after dad went to bed.

The journey to the plains isn't long, but it is rife with challenges. Many creatures inhabit the space outside the walls of the city, and though most of them are harmless creatures like Rabbits or Yuffins with their cute little miniature spears and shields, some are a significant threat to the unwary traveler.

The rutaq with its rows of sharp fangs and lightning agility could easily rend a man's bones into splinters with a single bite. That combined with their digestive saliva meant a quick death for anyone foolish enough to ignore their guttural cries and wander into their nest.

With my weapon on hand and a few spare charges, some food, a radio, a compass, a map, a bedroll, and some clean clothes I set out through the Ifrin Woods that separated Yumia and the Argosan plains. The journey was, thankfully, uneventful. I traveled by day, and camped in the trees at night. The trees weren't exactly safe either, but it's better than hanging out on the forest floor with the rutaqs.

On the second morning, I awoke and took my first few steps into the Argosan plains. Looking out into the vast expanse one thing became very apparent; I didn't have the slightest clue where to find Robert and my friends. The plains were about 5 million acres of nothing but grass and hills, and I wasn't prepared to search it all.

I began rummaging through my provisions. I had enough resources to search for about 3 days before I had to return. I knew I could extend that if I could find a source of clean water, but the plains were just short of a desert. Even if I had the astonishing luck to find a river, I would simply not be able to find the dry firewood needed to cleanse it.

I sat down and did some simple computations in the dust; with three days to look, at my pace, I would be able to search about 7000 acres a day, or about 21 thousand acres total before I had to return home. Given the immense size of the plains I would only be able to search a tiny nick of the total area. I needed a better plan.

I pulled out all of the equipment I had brought with me. Looking at the equipment, I couldn't come up with any better solutions. “I should have brought a bio-scanner or something. This is pointless.” I muttered to myself.

Deciding that I didn't have what it took to do anything other than a brute force search I began my search. I walked all across the plains, marking important landmarks on my map and navigating carefully so as to not get lost. It was a long day. My search, despite having done almost double the amount I had hoped due to the long late summer days, had turned up no people, nor any trace of them. I set up camp and settled in for a short night before setting out on my search again in the morning.

I was awoken in the middle of the night by some rustling. I looked around for the source, “Hello?” I spoke into the darkness, scanning for vague shapes in the distance. Behind me I heard a familiar, disturbing voice.

“Hey there squirt,” Robert said with his irritatingly smug voice.

I snapped around to see nothing. “Where are you?! Show yourself!”

From another direction I heard his reply, “If I do that you'll shoot me with that blaster and I can't go having you do that.”

“You're damn right I will!” I shouted, reaching for the weapon.

“Not that it'd do you any good; you'll die out here before you find your friends without my help. I'm sure you know that by now.”

“I'll never give up the search! Even if I have to go back for more supplies I'll simply return more prepared than before, with scanners and the whole shebang!”

“It won't do you any good you know,” he said from yet another place, “the Lucky Kitten's cloaking system includes bio-signature masking, not that I'd be foolish enough to keep her here on the surface while I know you're in the middle of a manhunt.”

“Is that where you're keeping them? This 'Lucky Kitten'?”

“Eyuppers. I'd wager that even in plain sight you wouldn't know what to look for.”

“I can make a few good guesses,” I said defiantly.

“I'm sure you can, and you'd to be wrong on all of them,” Robert said from yet another place, further infuriating my sense of location, “so why don't we jump past these formalities, you lay down your blaster and come quietly, and I give you the guest's treatment rather than the prisoner's treatment your friends seem so eager to receive.”

"What have you done to them!"

"I've put them in the brig, exactly as promised. Quite a shame really, the rooms I've got made up are quite nice."

I noticed a piece of the brush rustle as he spoke. "You're invisible! How the hell'd you do that?!" I shouted as I pointed the gun about 4 feet above where I could now see his feet kicking up dust.

"Damn squirt. You know, I'd be more than happy to explain that and maybe even how to put those eyes of yours to good use if you'll simply cooperate." Robert said. I saw the dust scatter gracefully and a light thump about 3 yards from where he had been.

"Look, I'm not here to hurt you squirt, I'm here to show you something you'd never believe if I didn't show you, and it's not exactly easy to convince a stranger to come see something they wouldn't believe. I've tried being nice, I've tried being nasty, but pretty quick here I'll have to use a teeny bit of force, and I can assure you, neither you nor I will come out of that scuffle without needin' a bandage or twelve what with that blaster."

"What makes you so sure I wouldn't believe you?" I demanded.

"Because I don't think there's anything I could say that would convey what I mean to you. You simply just won't know what I'm talking about. We've been here before kid."

"Try me."

"Again? Okay squirt, one last time to humor you. I am a member of a resistance group working to undermine and overthrow an orginization who has been operating on multiple planets that uses religion as a way of keeping its subjects under their strict control who communicate using a faster-than-light mechanisim that they make sure you guy's don't get so they can be sure you're not snooping."

I tried to wrap my mind around what he said.

"You look like you've got a cramp in your eyebrows squirt," Robert remarked with a laugh, "Trust me, until you see it you're not gonna get it." 

I fought with the concept a bit longer and relented, "Okay, I'll see what it is you want to show me, but if I do, you let my friends go. And I keep the gun,"

"If it makes you feel safer, do what you want. As for your friends, after I show you kids, you all go back to your happy little ignorant lives if you wish. I doubt you'll go back though." Robert said casually.

Robert dropped his invisibility. He was dressed in quite different clothes now. He had some kind of odd black jump suit and a similar helmet. He pulled up the visor, "Damn it's hot in this thing." He said as he started to walk away, "Well? Are you coming?" he said placing his hands on the back of his head casually.

I gathered up my bedroll and hurried up to catch up with him.

"So, what is this 'Lucky Kitten'? Is it some kind of ship?" I asked, curious but still very much distrusting of Robert.

"It's an interceptor class boat. Got 'er off of some old snot on Thurmond. Said she could pull a skip factor 10.0 jump; truth was she barely could sustain hover."

"Okay, I understand the hover thing, but 'Skip Factor', 'interceptor class'?"

"If your father's any indication, I'd bet you don't even know about the hover thing, but I don't think I'll be able to explain it, not yet at least," Robert stopped, "Ah, here we are."

"Huh?" I said breifly before running into something very solid, "OW!"

"Oh ya, I probably should have warned you about that," Robert rummaged through the pockets in his suit, "Here it is."

Robert pulled a strange object out of his suit. He then took off a glove and pressed his thumb on the scanner. In the middle of the field an opening to a shabby steel room appeared about two feet off the ground. "Watch your step," he warned, shuffling up a set of invisible steps, "I've managed to end up halfway inside on my face more than once."

I placed my feet carefully on each stair and gingerly felt around for solid footing before eventually coming into the room. I looked about, it seemed to be some kind of staging area. There where suits like the one he was wearing, a few that I couldn't recognize, and one that looked like a lifting exoskeleton like the ones I'd seen in pictures taken in Timoral, except this one seemed solid and didn't have a dozen or so levers.

Robert pushed a button on a panel in the room and the door closed, making me quite uneasy. "Relax, I'm just closing the door and equalizing the pressure," he informed me.

An odd sounding woman's voice came on. "Hello Robert and guest. Please wait, equalizing the airlock and running contamination scan." Robert glanced over to the panel, "Hmm, your ears are gonna want to pop, you should definately work to help them do that. Apparently the ship is running slightly over this ball's pressure. Told you you live on a pebble of a planet."

"What do you mean planet?" I puzzled.

"More on that when we get inside squirt."

He was right, my ears deperately wanted to pop, like diving deep into the ocean. I swallowed and wiggled my jaw and made funny faces trying to get my ears to pop. At first Robert laughed at me, that was until he tried to get his to pop. The two of us sat there making weird faces at one another for the several minutes it took for the airlock to cycle.

"Pressure at 14.7 pounds per square inch. Scan complete, no harmful biologic or chemical contaminants found. Please enjoy your stay."

Chapter 7
A second door on the other side of the room made a heavy thud and then slid open. Inside was a short metallic corridor leading to another door just like the one that just opened. Robert walked up to the door and it opened. On the other side was a woman. She greeted me and spoke with the same odd voice I had heard in the previous room.

"Hello," she smiled, "I'm Emily. It's nice to make your aquaintace, um," she turned to Robert, "Sir, what is our guest's name?"

"Can't you guess?"

"Oh... You must be the Py character those other two keep moaning about."

"You mean Rinni and Jith?" I egerly requested.

"Ya, them. They've been all 'when is Py gonna get here?' all afternoon," Emily remarked.

"Really?" I said.

"Yes really, " Robert said, "it's been quite annoying honestly."

"I thought they where in the brig?"

"Oh, they were," Emily said, "but they promised to be good."

"You're kidding," I said cynically.

"No joke", Robert said, "though having to deal with teenagers always gives me a headache. Kinda makes me wish I had just left them in the brig. But a promise is a promise. I'm not here to kidnap you guys, I'm here to show you an important truth; but that knowledge is more of a freedom even with you in a brig than it is with you guys undisturbed in your homes."

I looked at him irritatedly, "So, when are you going to show me this, 'thing' that you are so desperate to show me?"

"When we get to the main deck." He said simply and continued down the hall.

I followed them through the door. It lead to a medium sized sitting room. We passed through a door on the left of the room and headed down a hallway that seemed at least a hundred feet long. "How big is the Lucky Kitten?" I asked, awed by the hundred foot long hallway that was on the other side of a comparitively modest door in the middle of the field.

"The Lucky Kitten is a interceptor class vessel," Robert remarked, "Technically she's one of the smallest vessels in the fleet."

"The Lucky Kitten is approximately 40 meters long, 10 meters wide, and is three decks tall (that's about about 10 meters,)" Emily cheerfully replied.

I turned to Robert and whispered, "I think she might a little 'off'"

Robert laughed, "Emily? Hoooo no. Emily is exactly as she should be. Aren't you Emily?"

"Allow me to verify," she paused oddly, like she was pondering something carefully, "Indeed sir, I am operating at 100% of expected function. Time since last failure has been 304 days, 15 hours, 10 seconds."

"What an odd thing to say," I noted, puzzled by Emily's strange behavior.

"Not really," Robert said, "Emily is a projection of the ship's computer. She has been given a personality simulator but in her 'heart' she'll always be a machine," Robert paused, "well, a non-sentient machine. Generally interstellar craft aren't outfitted with sentient computers as it makes them a bit less predictable; no one want their computer to tell them, 'I don't feel like it,'" he said with a bit of a laugh.

"Thinking of which, if you have any question about the ship's unclassified specifications, feel free to ask me at any time." Emily said happily.

"You guys keep calling the Lucky Kitten a ship. What is a 'ship'?" I asked.

"All in due time squrit."

We arrived at the end of the hallway and a blue automatic door there opened, revealing yet another door opening in the opposite direction further revealing a small,circular room. Robert stepped in.

"That's a dead end." I remarked.

"Oh ya," Robert said with an exasperated look, "You're place doesn't have much that's over 4 floors up, you wouldn't know. This," He said, spreading his arms out as though he were presenting some great acheivement "is called an 'elevator'."

"An elevator?"

"Yes, an elevator. This device has the important function of moving things from one floor to another without requiring that you carry it or walk up stairs."

"Really?"

"Really. You know they went out of their way to keep you guys grounded. Oh ya, watch your step, when the thing moves it's going to feel kinda wierd and will set you off balance."

I stepped into the room and the doors closed leaving the projection behind. "Emily?" Robert requested.

Emily's voice came through like it did in the airlock room, "Yes sir?"

"Take us to the Main deck"

"Aye sir."

Suddenly it felt like the floor started moving underneath me. I struggled to keep my balance and ultimately lost the fight, falling clumsily to the floor. Robert stood solidly and smugly where he was and looked down at me, "I warned you didn't I?" he said.

When the elevator stopped moving and I finished swallowing back down my lunch, we made our way to a door on the right side of a brief hallway. The door slid open and inside were Jith and Renni, seated in some comfy looking bean bag chairs in middle of a decently laid back room, complete with in wall fish tank and a holo-projector in the middle of the room. The calm environment from the room's tranqil decorum decorum quickly fell away as Jith and Renni heard the door open and saw me walk in.

"Py!" they both screamed.

"Where the HELL have you been Py? We've been sittin' here like moss for a full day. What happen'd, you forget to come rescue us and Captain Robert had to come get you?" Renni scorned me.

"Ya, you get lost or something?" Jith said.

"You try finding 2 people in an invisible place without scanners and 3 days worth of rations in the middle of a multimillion acre plain!" I said angrilly.

They laughed. "Relax Py, we're only fooling," Jith said, "Did you have fun with that 'elevator' thing they've got here? I rode it a dozen times this morning. It's awesome!"

My stomach turned over. "I think he didn't." Renni said watching me turn a few different shades of green, "So captain, can we finally hear what all of this is? I've been waiting all evening."

"Yes, now is the time," Robert said, making his best wise and important pose/voice, "it is time for the young ones to learn the truth. You see, when a man and a woman love each other," we all looked at each other and turned beet red. Robert broke his pose, "naw, I'm just kidding. Okay but seriously, we've got a lot to cover and not a lot of time to do it in; they have sensors that can see us, and if anyone followed Py, they'll be showing up by morning."

"You see, the place you live, which you call Marninth, is a planet. Emily?" The holo-projector started showing a picture of a large sphere with large brown, green, and blue patches on it. "Your city is right here," he placed his finger on the spot the sphere grew and fell away on the edges until the vauge outline of our city was present.

"Wow!" Renni exclaimed, "There's the library and the bakery and the..."

"Yes, well, enough of that," Robert said removing his finger causing the map to zoom back out and show us the whole sphere, "However, this isn't all there is to the world. Your planet, Marninth, is actually only one in a vast interplanetary system. The planet shrunk away to a tiny sphere running on a circle around a bright sphere with several other spheres on circles running around it at different distances.

"This system, called the Tingrith system is home to your planet as well as several others of varying size and shape. He placed a finger on one and the pictrue zoomed in and showed another sphere, though with a largely green hue with widely scattered patches of blue and lots of white fluffy clouds. "This one is your closest neighbor, we call it Tingrith 3, but then again we call your planet Tingrith 4, so to be honest we don't know what an intelligent species on that planet might call it if there are any."

Rinni placed a finger on the planet and like before it zoomed in. However, unlike last time, the picture was nothing more than a blurry mess. "We haven't done a survey of that planet yet, so we don't have any high resolution images of it," Robert said, "What you're looking at is the best our long range optical sensors can do from here."

"How do you guys get these pictures?" I asked.

"We have an array of cameras spread out across the ship's hull as well as telescopes that allow us to resolve some of the finer details even from the huge distances we typically working at."

"Telescope?" I asked.

"Let me guess, astonomy is banned here too," Robert sighed.

"Astronomy?" Jith asked, "What's that?"

Robert looked at us funny for a bit, "Emily, please give me a view of the sky."

"Understood sir," she replied and a flat picture appeared in the holovid. The sky was totally flat, with only a pervasive faint blue glow.

"Well then, I think that explains that. Emily, based on our current location project what the starfield should look like onto this image."

A vast array of dots appeared on the screen of varying colors and two largish discs of light. "Wow!" Rinni said.

"It's so beautiful," Jith remarked.

"Indeed it is. When we make orbit we'll have to investigate how they're pulling this off and why our sensors didn't notice before.

"So," I asked, "what are those points of light you where expecting to find?"

"Stars squirt. The sun you guys see during the day is one of them, it's just a LOT closer."

"How far away are they?"

"It varies, some of them are as close as a few light-years, others are millions away."

"Light-year?"

Robert sighed, "It's a unit of distance. You know the speed of light right?"

"Ya, 3 million meters per second."

"Right, well a light year is the distance you would travel in a year at that speed."

"Oh. So that's really far away," Jith said.

"With how you guys travel it's impossibly far away. The Lucky Kitten, however, can travel to some of the closer stars in only a few hours," Robert said with a boastful look.

"Wait, how?" Rinni said, "That doesn't make any sense, the whole point is that the speed of light is as fast as you go, if it takes light a few dozen years to get there, how can you get there in a few hours?"

"That, kiddo, is the point of a skip engine. The Lucky Kitten has two engines, one set of reactionless thrusters for moving about in real space and one for traveling faster than light called a skip engine."

"How do they work?" I egerly inquired.

"I'll leave that for Emily to explain once we're underway. It may only take a few hours for us to reach the closer stars, but it's going to take us about a week to get where we're going. Centarus is about 13 million light-years out."

"So, you keep mentioning 'they'. Who are 'they'?" Rinni asked.

"'They' are the Children of Tor; a totalitarian tyrrany that currently has control of ten of the known colonized words and were the orchistrators of the Yagdarian Exedous."

"If the historical records that Cenari gave us are accurate,"

"Cenari?! You mean the goddess?" we all exclaimed.

"Goddess? Ho, ho, no. Cenari is the name of Yagdir's central control network. It has been keeping the people of Yagdir connected now for an eternity."

"You mean it holds data and lets people talk?" I asked.

"Ya. Well anyway, about seven thousand years ago, after the invention of space travel,"

"Space?"

Robert gestured at the display, "That empty area around your planet that coincidentally makes up most of the universe."

"Oh"

Robert sighed, "Anyway, a group of people living in the Tor providence of Yagdir started a large project to colonize other worlds in an effort to build a utopian paradise and escape the bitter reality of life on Yagdir. Yagdir had been enjoying a technological boom but had paid for it with pollution and overpopulation."

"They talk about that in Barnuth's Word," Rinni proclaimed.

"Really," Robert said aghast, "Wow, most of the other planets they squelch that knowledge. Anyway," he gestured to the display which changed to show a large star map and 12 lines leaving from a system labeled Yagdir, "they built 12 interstellar craft using cryo-tubes since the skip drive hadn't been invented yet. Each one was launched toward a system that had a habitable planet. This one here," he said pointing at one of the lines, "was heading off to your planet. No one heard from them or any of their peers for almost six thousand years."

"Wow," I said.

"Wow indeed. In the meantime the people of Yagdir continued developing technologies and got the pollution and population problems under control. Society flourished and over the milennia, they were forgotten about; just a small blip in the history books. Then, about 500 years ago, the skip drive was invented. The first models where very slow and VERY expensive. But they opened the door to interstellar flight. However, what we found suprised us; there were already people out in space moving around."

"Who?"

"We didn't know at the time but we know now that these where the Children of Tor. At the time we were still using electromagnetic wave radios to communicate, and they didn't even bother installing them on their ships anymore. Typically, however, if a vessel ran across one of them, it ment the destruction of the Yagdarian ship," Robert said irritatedly.

"Then about 100 years ago, the Yagdarian Union gathered together the biggest fleet it could and prepared to try to claim some access to space away from the attackers. However, better command and the fact that we had no faster-than-light communication system ment that there was no way we could win. After about 5 years of fighting, the fleet was lost."

"The planet braced itself for a counterattack, but the attack never came. Slowly, life began moving again on Yagdir, but our hopes for space were almost completely crushed. A select few carried the light on though and eventually further research ultimately lead to the consrtuction of graviton wave radios and the cloaking technology you saw me and the Lucky Kitten use. The cloak technology is now about 20 years old and the radio was declassified about a year ago, seems the military had come up with it about the same time the civilians came up with the cloaking tech."

"Really? So that means you guys have only been at this a year?"

"Six months actually, we managed to salvage this relic from an old man who had apparently been it's previous captain during the war. He was getting on in his years and wasn't up to maintaing it anymore."

"But that man would be over a hundred!", Jith said.

"Ya, so?"

"So?! Only the rare few live past a hundred here. Especially since the plague about 20 years ago took out all of the few elderly we had," Rinni exclaimed.

Robert turned an ugly shade of red. "They run around with panimmunity and you can't even get decent medical care?"

"Panimmunity?" Rinni asked.

"Panimmunity is a treatment all of our children recieve that grants them a strong resistance to disease. From the reminants of the war we know that theirs is more advanced than ours and grants them total immunity to disease. Since we completed mapping the human genome and simulating the cellular process we've been able to completely eliminate heriditary diseases and with the use of an inexpensive nanite factory implant, we've basically elimnated all but the most virulant of infectious diseases."

"Really?" I asked.

"Really." Robert responded, "But we're getting to the part of the story you're familar with aparently, so let's wrap this thing up and get to the point. So, around this time we start listening in on their graviton chatter. We start hearing of these horrible attrocities they've been committing, and about planets like yours. Since our navy can't defeat theirs there has been little if any space travel. Only small convoys or rouge ships like ours that have been retrofitted with cloaking systems."

"Our particular group, the Cenarian resistance, was formed over Cenari in conversations and postings and strives like several other small groups to accomplish 3 critical tasks. First is liberate the people being held captive by the Children of Tor. Second is dissolve the stranglehold on space that they have and free space for exploration and trade. Lastly we strive to accomplish these goals by the minimal loss of life."

Gathering together all of the data and my gumption I spoke, "So, how exactly do the three of us fit into this grand scheme of yours?"

"That, squirt, is a mighty fine question. For the moment, all we want is subversion. Little fires burning in the people, the knowledge that there's more and there's people keeping you from it. Things like panimmunity and space. So we're going about finding groups of young people who can already see something isn't right and taking them on a tour."

"You call this a bloody tour?!" I shouted, furious at the implication that I was here entirely willingly.

"No, I call this the boarding call. The tour is yet to come," Robert said deviously.

I was shocked at his suggestion. Given all that I had seen at this point I had already come to understand that there was a lot more to all of this than I could initially see. But to suggest that this was simply the beginning, well, let's say that I was more than simply a little bit surprised.

Emily appeared on the holo-projector, "Sir, the crew is gathered on the bridge."

"Excelent," Robert said, " I think it's time to get moving then.

Robert made his way to the exit, "Well? Are you guys coming or not?"

We left the room and made our way to the end the hallway. There was a large black sliding door. Robert stepped up to it and it opened to show us a large room with strange instruments and chairs. On the far wall was a large holo-projection of the Argosan plains. 4 people bustled about checking readouts and discussing various goings on. As Robert entered the room everyone stopped what they where doing and looked at him. 

"Tamera, get the main reactor warmed up and prep the engines," he barked, "Jacob, I want that skip cap  topped off and ready to go and I want a course to home ready as soon as possible. Josie, I want a go/no-go from you in 5. Jet, ready the shields and guns, you know what they threw at us on the way down here. Emily inform the battle crew that we're going core hot," He looked sternly at the people, "You know the drill folks, they can see us now, so let's try to avoid becoming scrap before we hit orbit."

"What do you mean 'core hot'?" I asked.

"Oh, see, one thing we learned during the war was that the way they can find our ships up close is by sensing the radiation given off by our reactor. Skip drives cost vast sums of power, so to be able to make any headway, we have to have a large fusion or antimatter reactor to charge up the energy banks to power it."

"Ah," I said, "I wonder if they can track the antimatter batteries we use then in our aerocars."

"You guys have that small of an antimatter reactor?" Robert said, aghast at the thought.

"Oh ya, they're made by hand by the Children of Man and Woman," I remarked.

"Who?"

"They're the representitives of the Library that are given access to the 'dangerous' technologies that they told us would lead to the destruction of Marninth the same way that Yagdir had been destroyed. Though I have to admit, I had always thought that there had been some way for me to reach the land of 'Yagdir' from where I was by aerocar or some such."

"Well squirt, I don't think that was going to happen."

"Captain," a tallish man with black hair standing at a terminal reported, "all stations report go."

"You ready for this?" a smallish woman with long brown hair and a baret said, "It always seems to be an adventure,"

"Indeed it does Tamera. But as long as there's a reason to fight, we've got to give it a chance," Robert replied, "Jacob, take us to skip altitude and get us the hell out of here."

"Aye sir!" a red headed kid about our age said from the only seat with no computer in front of it, "You guys better strap in. We've only got 12g worth of dampeners and this is gonna be a bumpy ride."

Jacob grabbed a wire and slid the end of it into a socket in the side of his head. He placed his hands in some padded slots in the arms of his chair and sait back. A yellow klaxon began blinking, and everyone scrambled to find their seat and buckle in. We heard a countdown that sounded a lot like Jason's voice over the intercom with the same errie oddness that Emily's voice had, "10 seconds till launch, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1" and with a quick thump we were moving.

I watched as the vehical took off with amazing speed into the night sky on the holo-projector. "Why does it only feel like we accellerating very slowly?" I asked Robert.

"This ship is outfitted with intertial dampeners. They counteract the forces of accelleration, but they're not perfect; so a little bit of the force seeps through into the cabin and creates that slight feeling of movement that you can feel now. But don't get comfy, our trip has us pushing these things to their limit, and ..." suddenly there was a heavy thump and the whole ship felt like it had just run over a huge rock, "... woah... Well, you can see what Jacob meant."

We traveled for what seemed like an hour and the sky looked exactly the same. "Sir," Jacob said over the intercom with that odd tone, "the sensors report our climb but the visuals have remained constant. For that matter I can't even see the stars."

"Don't worry about it kiddo, I'm not sure what they're up to, but they've somehow blocked the sky from having any stars or moons."

"Seriously?" he asked

"Yup." Robert replied.

"Wow, not even on Hilgot were they doing that. They must really want to keep you guys down."

"Actually, " Robert said, "they're developing man portable antimatter reactors here, when they've got that much power in one place, they have to be careful someone doesn't look up and wonder 'what's up there' and use a simple ion rocket to get there."

"Wow... Good point sir," Jacob replied just as the flat sky fell away to the vast expanse of infinite space all at once.

"Woah," we all said, dazzled by the awesome glory that lay before us.

"It's really something isn't it?" the stout woman to my right said.

"Sure is," Jith said.

We sat there quietly for a time, drinking up the vast expanse of space and truly grasping the nature of our situation.

"So, what're your names?" she asked.

Jith turned and looked at us, "This is Rinni and Py, and I'm Jith."

"Oh, nice to meet you Rinni, Py, and Jith. I'm Josie. I'm the communications officer here."

"Really? What do you do?"

"I'm responsible for keeping track of friendly messages going back and forth as well as watching the enemy's traffic to look for patterns and try to guess at what they're up to, and every once in a while when I get lucky, listen in."

"You mean you use the grabidron radio?"

Josie laughed. "Grav'i'tron silly. And yes," she said with a grin.

"Ooooh, can I listen too?"

"Maybe later. Right now we're about to hit the fun part of this journey."

"Oh ya," Robert said, "you're probably gonna want these," he handed us each a paper sack, "we haven't figured out how it is that the human body manages to tell when it's been shifted along the skip axis, but suffice it to say, this is gonna turn your stomach upside down the first time or two you do it."

"What?" I said, just as Josie piped up, "Captain, I think they've seen us."

"Shit!" Robert said, "Jet, keep an eye open for active scanning, lock anything that can see us and frag it."

"Understood sir," the tallish man in the last seat said.

"Skip course plotted. 2 minutes till skip cap charged," Jacob reported.

"Sir, 5 contacts," Jet said, "time to impact is 30 seconds. Firing counter measures, intercept in 10."

There seemed to be an infinite period of silence as everyone held their breath. Only the gentle roar of the engines could be heard.

"4 contacts destroyed, brace for impact!" Jet said as an audible alarm went off. After what seemed like an eternity Robert shouted out "Damage Report!"

"Huh? I didn't feel anything." I asked.

"Not now squirt!" Robert said as Tamera read off the damage report.

"Shield Generator 7 is overloaded and offline. My guys say 5 minutes till repairs will be complete."

"Return fire to the launcher. Give them 3 missiles and shoot the bullseye!" Robert commanded.

"Yes sir," Jet replied, "Missiles underway, 45 seconds to impact. 30. 20. 10. Impact. Firing Cannons."

"Effect?" Robert asked?

"Severe damage to thier launcher. Laser batteries at 50%" Jet reported.

"Sir," Josie said, "we've got a lot of chatter. I'd bet we have fighters inbound."

"We're already at speed, just ignore them," Robert said.

"Skip cap to charge. Hold on for jump," the alarm went off again, but with a slightly different tone. Everyone on board seemed to brace for some kind of impact.

Jacob hit the metaphorical switch and it felt like my body was twisted into a pretzel. My stomache wandered to a convienient location somewhere around my left pinky finger. But it didn't stay there long. It then wandered over next to my kidneys and then somewhere in my armpit. It was like riding a wavy roller coaster that was so extreme it couldn't possibly exist.

Eventually the waving became less and less severe, and even though it looked like the room wasn't moving an inch, there was no doubt in my mind that we had done something. By this time Jith and Rinni had already given their paper sacks a full donation of cookies. I managed to keep mine done for a while, but all that did was make when I broke even worse.

My stomach reached all the way down and pulled up the gravel in my shoes. When I finished, Robert looked over at me with a knowing eye. "See what I told you. And from the looks of it you tried to hold that back. Did the same thing myself first time, though I have to admit unlike you I had the advantage of doing a stationary, microskip training jump instead of having to do an escape jump first thing," he handed me a paper tissue. We're in stable space now. Go clean up and when you're back to yourself, come back here. It will be several hours before we can skip again."

I finished blowing my lunch out of my nose. "Aren't they gonna be able to chase us?"

"Naw, every skip we make is just a little different. Since we're jumping 4 billion kilometers or so every skip, a difference of just 1% can puts us on a line 80 million kilometers in length. There's no way they could guess where we came out accurate enough to actually threaten us. At top speed it would take them 700 hours just to close the gap."

"Wow," I said.

"Now go get cleaned up. Oh, and don't forget your bag," he said, as Emily phased in before us. We unstrapped our belts. "Now if you'll follow me, I'll show you to your quarters."

Emily lead us down the corridor back to the elevator, which, despite how it made me feel before, was nothing compared to the skip, and the threat that there were going to be more, a weeks worth, was something I wasn't looking forward to. We rode the elevator up to the third deck. Emily showed us to a door. "This is your room."

"Just one?" Rinni asked, turning a bit red.

"No, this is a multi room area. The military decided that creating small, tight knit groups was important, but so was personal space. So they created the dorm layout to allow for some level of common facilities while still providing for personal space."

We all sighed in relief. We were all friends, but we had never been the kind of friends to hold a sleepover, so the idea that we would be given seperate rooms was somewhat comforting compared to the alternative.

"Don't we need some kind of key?" Jith asked.

"Why would you need that? I know who you are."

Jith looked at her confused, "Jith," I told him, "she is the ship's computer remember? Responsible for opening all the doors, etc."

"Oh.... Right," Jith said, "I'm never gonna get used to that." We all cracked up, even Emily. Which was still a bit disquieting to me. The door opened and we took a step inside. "Please be aware that I cannot project into the room unless you explicitly activate me from a holoprojector, so if you need me, turn one on. Otherwise, have a nice day," she said before phasing out.

The room was a lot more comfortable than the cold steel of the hallway. The walls had a nice wallpaper. There was a kitchenette, an dining table, a holoterminal, a couch, and 4 doors. We looked in all the cupboards and in all the doors. The kitchenette was fully stocked with cookware and the pantry/refridgerator were full of food, and the doors lead to three relatively small rooms and a common bathroom. Each bedroom seemed to have a wardrobe with a few standard issue garments in it of various sizes resembling the uniforms of the bridge crew, a bed, a nightstand, and a small holoterminal. The bathroom was rather utilitarian and small, with just a shower, a toilet, a sink, and a mirror.

"Wow!" Jith said, looking about the various rooms.

"I claim the one next to the bathroom," Rinni said.

"Whatever," I replied, "You have a preferred room Jith?"

"They all look the same to me," he said with a shrug, "You want left?"

"Works for me," I said, and headed off to claim my space while Rinni and Jith freshened up in the bathroom.

I touched the button on the holoterminal. A miniature Emily sprung up, "Hiya Py," she said in a happy tone.

"Hiya," I said, looking awkwardly at the projection, "what can you tell me about the Lucky Kitten?"

"Oh, a lot of things, is there anything you want to know in particular?"

"How about the basics, what does it look like? How does it go? Why did the missile impact not shake the ship? That kind of thing."

"Hmm..." Emily said, pondering, "Well, I can answer most of those. Some of the details are actually a secret because they grant us a significant strategic advantage. But I'll answer what I can.

"This is the Lucky Kitten," a picture of a sleak looking ship appeared on the monitor next to Emily, "The Lucky Kitten is an Interceptor class vessel. It's motivated by 4 8 million kilogram reactionless thrusters and one skip engine. And the reason that the ship was not shaken by the missile impact is because the shield recieved the entire blow, though it did overload the generator coil which had to be replaced."

"Oh," I said simply. "So we have some kind of protection that isn't in contact with the ship?"

"Yes. A shield is a kind of reactionless force screen emitted at a distance that's used to protect the ship. The greater the force that is needed to repel the attack, the more power the shields must emit. But this can lead to either shield breakdown or emitter overload."

"Ah," I said, before hearing a door slam. "You're up Py," I heard Jith shout out.

"Alright!"

I unpacked a new set of clothes from my bag. It felt kinda weird because I knew Rinni and Jith wouldn't have such a luxury.

"Oh," Emily said, "You don't want to wear a uniform from the closet?"

"No, not really," I replied.

"Oh. Okay then," she said with a chipper tone.

I pressed the button on the Holovid and made my way to the bathroom. I took a quick shower, and then switched into the new clothes. Finishing tidying up, I took my stuff back into my room and went into the commons area.

"Finally ready?" Rinni asked me.

I looked at them. They were both wearing a uniform like the ones in my closet. They actually looked pretty good.

"Finally? I had to wait for you two slow pokes be ready before I could even start," I said, digging through the cupboards for one of the cookies I found in my preliminary search of the pantry.

"Youf guyth reaby?" I asked holding my loot in my teeth.

"Yup, let's head back." Rinni said.

"Pass me one, and ya." Jith said.