Evening draws near on Travos VII Central
Comandar Salkraveen slowly sipped his spiced nutrient tea, as he went over the week’s incidents, his heart began to pound ever slightly faster as he read again the report incident #1142 “bar room disturbance”. That incident involving the Kasuri female was already making waves through the politburo of Travos VII and shortly the news would spread to other Volean systems. It was exasperating, such a minor incident in the grand scheme of things, and yet it was being eaten up by the tabloids.
Well at least the Kasuri command was sending a ship to pick up their troublemaker, so long as that female can make it through the next 20 hours without…..
Beep, beep, beep, priority alert Class 2 from CS (Central Security)…The comm spoke.
Salkraveen looked at the comm, sensing a disturbance that would likely ruin his dinner plans.. Hesitantly he spoke: Comm… open channel.
“Comandar this is squad leader Becklass, the Kasuri female has trashed, her room, and….we cannot confirm this, but…..it’s covered in blood, though the exactly what or who’s cannot be accounted for yet. I need authorization to call out the garrison, …..and requisition some tanks.”
Salkraveen could feel a headache coming on, said condescendingly: “I assume that this authorization is required, because you have lost track of the female and /or she has absconded with some form of transport.”
Officer: “…Yes….She, left … unexpectedly and, while we can’t confirm this, but, it appears the driver of the cab she took may be under some duress.”
Salkraveen: “Hold momentarily for orders, I must review the data.”
The officer was mid protest when the comandar muted the call.
Under his breath, Salkraveen: “Small minded idiot.” Perspective is what these idiots need, so fully do they remember their brood mother’s horror story’s about Kasuri stalking through the dark, that they forget we have plasma weapons and battle cruisers for a reason.
Sighing even more, the Comadar activated a secure private screen, and proceeded to bring up the sectors traffic control monitoring system. Browsing through the list of live traffic violations until he found the repeat offender, A Glaco Company cab #73 driving erratically toward…..the central spaceport. “Of course.” Salkraveen said to himself. Then speaking aloud again. “Comm, call CTC (central traffic control) now priority 2.”
The comm chimed three times then: “This is adminstrator toft, what is your reason for calling.
With authority and haste he spoke: This is Comandar Salkraveen invoking priority one privileges, I am ordering CTC to clear all traffic on the I-26 corridor, to Travo’s Central Spaceport. Clear all lanes and re-route all traffic, with the exception of a Glaco Company cab #73. It is to be given as much clearance as possible, no police units are to stop the cab for any reason, Priority 1 incident in progress, military units will be inbound shortly. Do you understand the directiv administrator Toft?”
Pausing for a moment to register the sudden orders, the administrator finally spoke:
“I don’t understand, however it will be done, as soon as you confirm your authority ID.
Salkraveen hated the momentary delay, but rules are rules. Quickly we removed the chain around his neck, that held a very special ID chit. Taking it in hand and holding it to the console’s input scanner, he waited as the system silently read the card.
The administrator was silent then: “ID confirmed, any further directives.”
Salkraveen: “Set yourself on standby, and prepare for further orders.”
Speaking aloud to the room: “Comm, set call 2 to standby, unmute call one.
The sound of several officers arguing could be heard.
Speaking loudly into the comm”
Salkraveen: “Leader Becklass are you there?”
The officer could be heard giving some brief expletives, as he ordered his comrades to silence before he spoke: “Backlass here, Comandar do I have authorization?”
Salkraveen: “Yes, I am giving you authorization, priority 2. Get what you need, and just to be safe you are allowed to requisition double the required equipment necessary.
With almost gleeful joy Backlass responded: “Thank you so much Sir, you won’t regret this.”
Salkraveen: “One more thing, Leader, you will not engage the Kasuri unless I give the order, even if it costs you some men, YOU ARE NOT TO ENGAGE, understood?”
Backlass: “Comandar you do not realise the danger….”
“STOP” Growing somewhat angry Comandar Salkraveen interupted.
“I am MORE than aware, but the price your men could face is insignificant to the collateral caused by a premature lethal engagement. I want your men to shadow her, get eyes on her and only intervene if she threatens the general public. Do you understand Backlass?”
With and almost cold insincere tone Backlass responded: “….Understood Comandar”
Salkraveen: “Good, subject is in transit to the Central Spaceport, you will keep me appraised of the progress, and you will keep your comm on standby.”
Backlass: “I obey Comandar.”
At that Salkraveen set call 1 to standby: “Comm, open channel to CSC (Central Spaceport Control) Priority 1.”
Going through the same song and dance as before, he moved the priority of a specific errant captain ships to the top of the deportation que.
Believing he had solved at least one crises today, he was on the edge of relaxing when the spaceport control commed back.
An officer spoke: “The lucky bird reports engine trouble, will not be able to launch before the kasuri female arrives at the spaceport.”
Swearing aloud Salkraveen spoke to no one in particular: “You stupid xeno, your going to get yourself killed, and I am not going to let my men get killed saving some errant space trader.”
Hitting his comm one last time, he ordered the central spaceport authority to clear a corridor to THAT ships pad, and to not interfere with the kasuri under any circumstances.
Sitting back, Salkraveen bitterly drank his tea, getting ready to witness the coming excrement-show that might end his career.
ETA to spaceport 40 minutes
A Taxi barrelled through the ever lightening traffic going the max speed that the anti-grav car was rated at. Normally an such aggressive driving would have had the PD swarming after them, but unbeknownst to the driver and his Kasuri “passenger” traffic control was doing everything in there power to re-direct all other vehicles to side corridors and out of the way of the approaching cab.
Several kilometers away, but slowly gaining on the Taxi were two dozen hover tanks from the local regiment, followed by a dozen support vehicles.
“DRIVER GO FASTER!”
“I can’t ma’am the speed govern won’t let it go any faster, and even if I could the cab can’t handle those speeds!” The volean cried out trying not to hold back his tears.
Exasperated Kalin, slumped back down in her seat, frustrated but realizing there is little she could do at this point if she let her anger further boil. She could not miss this window to catch up with her “prey”, especially if she decided give in to her frustration and splatter the interior of the cab with the driver,
The poor volean felt the first tiny bit of relief as the Kasuri stopped physically breathing on his neck, yet his fur still stood up, and he had probably had perspired half of his body weight in the last twenty minutes.
Despite his predicament, he began to wonder where the police where, they should have stopped them by now. But such thoughts were interrupted as the door of the cab began jerking back and forth, the door assembly having been ripped off, nothing was really holding it closed, and now it threatened to rip off. Before the driver could say anything, the Kasuri, grabbed the door by the hole made from the missing frame.
Physically holding the door shut, she reached forward, and started tearing the cover off of the front passenger seat, before stopping when she saw what she was looking for. Trying not to look back as she tore his seats up, the volean steely looked forward.
Then with a metallic snap he looked into his rear mirror just as the Kasuir ripped a piece of carbon piping from the chair frame, bent, and then jammed it into the door, in such a manner as to force it closed.
Then relaxing slightly, she pulled out a compact and started applying some makeup. The voleon started to relax his tense muscles, but accidentally let off the accelerator.
The Kasuri looking up at him in anger, said: “Don’t you dare slow down, put it on autopilot or something, we cannot lose any time, if we do, YOU may lose your……mmmm let’s say manhood?”
Usually Kalin was quite adept at running threats, but the upcoming engagement had her distracted and she was loosing track of what she had or had not threatened to do to the volean driver if he failed to deliver her to the spaceport in time.
Absent mindedly Kalin spoke: “I don’t understand why this backwoods world even has manned taxi’s to begin with.”
(Unbeknownst to Kalin, the reason this planet had no auto taxis was mostly a scheme by the systems transit union in conjunction with a governmental scheme to provide jobs for otherwise uneducated, poor voleans. The program had been quite popular with its participants till today.)
Suddenly passing the last grav car in view, the cabbie realized the entire I-26 transit corridor was completely empty, this was unheard of. The small rock of fear building in the voleans stomach was growing to a boulder, and in the very distance, he noticed some things were approaching from the rear.
After five minutes and he could see clearly resolved in his vision, TANKS, lots of tanks.
Kalin had not notice, the tanks, but the columns of the central spaceport were growing in the distance and the suns evening glow bathed them in a reddish-yellow hue, like glowing embers a harbinger of the possible fires to come.
And all the while the columns of armored vehicles spread out behind the taxi, they no longer got closer, but seemed to be purposely holding a safe distance behind the cab.
The Volean cabbie never had been much of a religious man, but he prayed quietly: “Overfather, if I am to die, please let it be quick and not at the jaws of this vile demon.” Kalin overheard this but, luckily for the cabbie, she had no intention of biting his head off. However swiftly ending his pathetic existence was not entirely out of the realm of possibility.
ETA to spaceport 30 minutes
A message from the central spaceport authority flashed to the Lucky Bird and was instantly digested by Helio’s systems even before the the cockpits alert began to flash.
“Captain, I have some good news, if you so desire, we can leave right now, the ship was just bumped up in line, about 1,070,562 slots. We can in-fact depart at any time.
“Hmmmmm no…no… that’s okay, I think I’m going to…. not run away.”
“…..then… how do you want to respond to this turn of events?
“What’s the eta on our guest?”
“29.48, ETA currently, barring any collisions.”
“Well tell spaceport control that we have suffered some engine trouble and that we won’t be cycling up till about 65 minutes from now.
“I seee….so be it captain.” The machine said doubtfully.
“I just want to add a little margin in case she has some difficulty in passing customs.”
One of helio’s service drones entered the room and and started to measure the captain.
“What are your doing?”
“I’m sorry, I just thought it would be good to get some more current measurements, just so that we can accurately piece you back together if your “date” doesn’t turn out as you expect.”
“Good thinking, and while you’re at it, go ahead and make up a suit for me, you know just so that I’ll be well dressed in case I need to attend my own funeral.”
“….Understood captain, btw the message has been sent, the spaceport administration doesn’t appear happy, but there’s nothing we can do about that right?…..RIGHT?”
Ivo smirked: “Agreed, absolutely nothing could have been done to prevent the current series of events from reaching their ……hmmmm …. I think I’ve lost track of the analogy. Crescendo? that works right, events coming to a head, conclusion, ah well you know what I mean.”
Helio in that moment felt like beating his head against the wall. Only his “head” resided in the ship’s central database, so lacking a personal outlet, he elected to have one of his drones start banging it’s head against a blast shield in the cargo bay. Helio let this continue for a short moment, the action seemed to somewhat relieve the momentary frustration that the A.I. “felt” for his captain.
Captain Ivo missed the disturbance, but started walking briskly to drone holding, appearing to have come up with yet another “idea”.
The ai tracked the captain as he started selecting out drones for his entourage
Helio swore to himself, that if the captain went through with a dance number, he was going to remove the safeties from the fusion reactor, and let the universe decide the captains ultimate fate.
As the cab continued at maximum velocity down the I-26 corridor the distance to the spaceport shrank fast. The Kasuri woman was looking pensive, and then she spoke.
“What is the maximum altitude this cab can reach?
The cabbie was very slow to speak: “Possibly………a couple hundred meters?”
She said. “Climb now.”
The cabbie had a thorough horrified look on his face he spoke in renewed panic. “Ma’m if we exede 20 meters the central security may…..terminate the cab, we cannot….
Kalin’s claws extended and she clasped the back of the cabbies seat, tearing into the seat and the cabbies shoulders.
The pain pushing through the cabbie’s reluctance and without further protest, he hit a hidden switch. Suddenly the cab began to ascend up and out of the designated I-26 travel coordinator.
At this unexpected vertical movement the hover tanks took a moment to follow, as port controllers began furiously cursing and re-routing terrestrial and spaceport air traffic away from the approaching cab.
As this was happening, one of the auxiliary hover tanks pulled closer, and it’s weapons pod began targeting the cab.
The gigantic spaceport was fully in view of the cab now, the view however was lost on Kalin. Her attention on her comm, as she tried to determine which pad belonged to the “lucky bird”. Finding it, Kalins temporary relief that they were going to make it to the pad before the departure was cut short. The interior of the cab turned a burning bright white, temporarily blinding both the cabbie and Kalin.
At that moment the auxiliary hover tank had fired, a beam of pure electrical energy lancing out hitting the cab dead on. The blue lighting overwhelming the delicate electrical systems, and permanently frying its extended flight capabilities.
For a moment the antigravity cab dropped like a stone, before an emergency crash disrupter deployed slowing, but not stopping the cabs decent.
Their collective vision cleared just in time to see the side of one of the spaceports towers was only 10 meters away.
Kalin and the cabbie shouted incoherently as the cab plowed right through the clear plasticine skylights. Before impact another emergency damper deployed bleeding 75 percent of the momentum before the cab collided with the local customs office.
ETA to Spaceport 20 minutes.
“Ok that was almost perfect, but I want a little more reverb this time” I’vo spoke into his comm.
Helio responded back: “I understand you like the billowing smoke and the slow ramp, but adding the tigershark motif to the prow and subwoofers to the ramp seems….a bit excessive.”
I’vo “Yes, yes it is, but I intend to make a lasting impression, and it’ll be great.” “We’ve gotten the speed and volume of smoke just right, I just need to add that really deep pulsing undertone, and sync it as we march out.”
“Captain with all do respect, you should just stop pretending and just play the imperial march as you step out. Besides if things go badly the only lasting impression would be a very large blood stain on the carbon-crete.”
I’vo unperturbedly blinked, “Wait, how do you know that’s the theme I was going for and how do you even get that reference, I know there was a list of top 100 human songs in that one corti database, but is there other information you’ve recovered that you haven’t told me about?”
Helio paused for an uncomfortably long time and then responded: “Captain, from what I can tell the Corti had a complete snapshot of your planets global network that was only few cycles out of date. In the meantime, I have been parsing through it as fast as I can, unfortunately, some 90% of all material recovered has been related to what you hu-mons classify as “NSFW Materials”. Since said materials lack any kind of “value” to our company’s continuing endeavors, they have been purged from the databases.”
A mix of emotions passed over I’vo’s face, as he tried to respond but failed. Then finally he spoke at last: “So just to clarify, you had a complete copy of the internet, which you didn’t tell me about, and then you deleted ALL OF THE PORN.”
“Technically…….yes, but my analysis had indicated that exposing you to such datasets would lead to a dramatic drop in efficiency. In retrospect, however it appears, by denying you such “distractions” II I did not account for the possibility that doing so would leave you in a heightened state of “awareness” that could possibly contribute to you to becoming attracted to sentient lifeforms outside of your own species.”
Ivo looked a little confused and hurt, but he tried to not say anything.
“If it makes you feel any better I did save most forms of entertainment that were deemed to have any educational or artistic value.”
“So you have Star Wars?”
With a quick mechanical voice: “Yep”
“I can live with this. Hey how did you know I love the imperial march.”
“You tend to mumble it in the refresher every morning cycle.” Would you like to have that song played through the surround system when the ramp drops?
“As much as I’d love to, we don’t know how far humanities, (and by extension Disney’s) reach may one day extend. If I’m gonna make an impression, it’s gotta be original, and slightly subtle-er. So just sync the subwoofer reverb with our walking steps, and blend it into the ramps mechanical sounds, and boom, we got a killer intro.”
“Captain the ramp is nearly silent, are you asking me to add mechanical sound effects like this was some turn of the century terrestrial construct.”
“…..yes, I think..?”
“Understood, would you like to go through the sequence?”
Enthusiastically Ivo said: “Yes!”
Quickly Ivo and the terminator drones scuttled up the ramp, as it closed behind them in only a few seconds. Silence lasted for only a moment, followed by a overly drawn out grinding mechanical sound comparable to the lowering of an ancient drawbridge. As the ramp lowered smoke and steam escaped the mouth of the ship and deep reverberations could be felt throughout the hangar floor, as the ramp opened wider, smoke rolled forward, like that of an ancient chinese dragon unfurling its long tongue. The smoke cleared slightly, but streams to the left and right continued to billow out. Then the reverberations grew louder, as the impression of heavy boots, first heard, then revealed as the terminator bots materialized out of the fog. Their glowing red eyes the first thing to pierce through the fog.
The six terminator drones marched down the ramp, followed by their captain, setting up a reverse v formation in front of the ramp, weapons at the ready to intimidate anyone on the (now currently very empty) landing pad.
The captain marched down the ramp behind the drones, and then passed them as they fanned out in formation. He then stopped and looked straight ahead with steely determination.
Ivo spoke dramatically: “Sooo now we meet again, Join me and together we will rule this galaxy forever. BWAHAHAHAHHAHAAHA”
I’vo’s deep maniacal laughter was followed by a sudden awkward break,
“…ah…all right I think we got it, let me see the, video”
A couple of camera drones buzzed by, and then a holo screen appeared in front of him and began replaying the whole sequence.
“Good, good ah great, …..wow does that dialogue looked silly when zoomed out. Hey helio, I’m happy with this, I guess I’ll have to just wing it on speech, but this will definitely work.
Helio somewhat exasperatedly sounding: “So if this proves satisfactory, you’re definitely NOT going to try the dance routine with the drones, I hope.”
“Yeeeeahhhhh that might be a bit too much, also she wouldn’t get the context.”
“Most likely, “Five minutes captain, you’d better get back in here, I have a report that a taxi just ran through the checkpoint #63 and has collided with the customs office.”
“Well hopefully this doesn’t get me killed, because I’d hate to have wasted all these exquisitely planned last minute preparations.”
As a burst of zero’s and ones suddenly filled the floating view screen followed by a light binary screech from the comm. “01001001 01110110 01101111 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110011 01110100 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01110100 01100101 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101001 01100110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01101101 01100001 01100100 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110011 01110100 01110101 01110000 01101001 01100100 00101100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110000 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101101 01100001 01100100 00101100 00100000 01110011 01110100 01110101 01110000 01101001 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01101101 01110101 01100011 01101000 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110010 01100100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110000 01110010 01100101 01100100 01101001 01100011 01110100 00101110”
Ivo stopped and turned to the side and said: “What was that?”
“Sorry captain, I….had a little hiccup, all is well, come inside all is ready.”
At that Ivo smiled, and climbed back up the ramp as the murder drones (again) quickly followed his lead.
The ramp closed back and all became unusually silent, the flow of ships leaving the port had come to a sudden stop, leaving nothing but the rhythmic sound of the spaceports many cooling towers as they released steam. Approaching in the VERY distance you could hear the faintest rumble grow as 2 dozen hover tanks approached.
The impact of the cab against the customs office had thoroughly disoriented Kalin and straight up knocked the fragile cabbie unconscious. If it weren’t for the cabs emergency dampeners deploying, the’re would have been two very pancaked xeno’s embedded in the customs office.
Pulling herself free of the twisted wreckage of the cab Kalin attempted to regain her direction. She normally would have taken the time to try and recenter herself, however the stress from possibly missing her quarry was making rational decisions quite difficult.
However she felt herself being drawn in a specific direction, as if all the signs guiding her.
(It was in fact not her intuition but central control directing her to pad # 4000-3482-B, using the various advertising and info screens throughout the spaceport. At the same time every other door and access point was being sealed the various civilian Xeno’s were clearing out as quickly as possible.)
Her long legs tore up the meters as she rushed down the corridors of the spaceport, doors opened and closed as she moved forward. Unbeknownst to her hundreds of xeno soldiers were filtering into the surrounding passages following at enough distance to not be detected..
Kalin’s head began to clear, and then she stopped for a moment, “Wait, why are these signs leading me?” Suddenly an infoboard flashed “Pad# 4000-3482-B, 200 meters ahead”.
She didn’t understand and frankly she didn’t care, she doubled her pace, as the blast door ahead opened out onto the tarmac. As she crossed the threshold, she tripped and tumbled onto her face as the edge of her duffle bag was caught in the blast door, as it unexpected slammed shut behind her.
Getting up from the momentary distraction, she saw it, bathed on the golden glow of the setting suns. At 300 meters away it was still quite intimidating. The Prow of the ship was facing her direction with what appeared to be fangs painted on it. The ship as a whole was had silver and gold patterning, and a logo on the side with a black avian creature wings spread painted on the sides.
Shaking her head, she got up and proceeded to run, getting halfway to the ship, before freezing as spotlights and laser trackers kicked on and a booming mechanical voice spoke out.
“HALT OR YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON.”
At this declaration several auto cannons popped out of there alcoves underneath the bow of the ship and trained themselves on her, visible targeting lights playing over her vivacious body.
Kalin felt her heart stop cold as she found herself suddenly at a great tactical disadvantage.
“STATE YOUR PURPOSE”
Refusing to be intimidated, she stood up straight and angrily announced: “I Baroness Kalin Cerese have come to issue challenge for the life of your your disgusting captain, for he has offended me, and therefore all of Kasuri Kind, and must either prove himself worthy and/or pay with his life for his offense against me.”
In a somewhat disconcertingly jovial tone for a machine, it answered:
“Oh… that’s all you wanted, well please hold momentarily *(Or you will be vaporized) and I’ll get him…..”
As Kalin stood silent and waiting with impatience, hundreds of soldiers began appearing on the surrounding rooftops, taking up strategic positions, and preparing themselves for whatever may happen. One volean officer ordered the release of camera drones to document the coming incident.
Video and audio footage began flowing straight to Comadar Salkraveen’s view screens. As the multiple feeds resolved, he sank back further in his chair, ready at a moment’s notice to issue the final kill orders if necessary.