NationStates Jolt Archive

(OOC: If you currently have relations with Kajal, and would like to be involved in this thread, please contact me either on IRC or through TG. VERITAS members are pretty much going to get bugged. Same for a few specific ToY ones.)

The sands blurred and past beneath Elum's vision as the small skimmer flitted past the dunes of the Great Desert. Officially, there was nothing out here, past the small garrison and defense field on the edge of Solaan, but there were those among the population that knew otherwise, and Elum was one of them. He guided the skimmer south-southwest, into the heart of the vast expanse of sand, and the occasional rock outcropping. His destination was far from the elevated mountain-fortress that Solaan occupied, and would be startlingly warmer than that bastion on the equator, which sat at such a height as to be no more than subtropical in nature.

Of course, there was precious little water on Solanna for a true tropical region to form. The planet had been baked for eons as it orbited a yellow giant that threatened to turn red. Still, it supported the second largest number of Kajali within the Federated Imperium, and was home to nearly a billion sentients, largely settled within the dense urban fortress atop the equatorial plateau, which only now disappeared out of view beyond the horizon.

Elum felt a pang of panic, as most did, when his view was comprised solely of the rolling dunes of the Great Desert, the expanse that the Federated Imperium had unofficially abandoned due to it's vast and ever-changing nature. Maps of the region were not officially maintained, for there was nothing official of worth within the region, and for the vast majority, no reason to travel into it. To the west of Elum's skimmer, the dunes moved visibly, collapsing in the path of something far larger than the skimmer as it moved beneath the surface of the sands. Soforrah, the great Sand Demons, made all but gravitic transit through the region dangerous, and even so, skimmer travel would not be without danger. Elum increased his altitude, so that he was no longer near the peaks of the dunes, while the signs of the soforrah eventually receded from sight as well.

He had been instructed to hold on his course for nearly fourty minutes, headed south-southwest into the Great Desert, and warned that there was a good possibility that he would encounter a storm as he travelled. For the moment, the skies around the skimmer were perfectly clear, and indications of any movement, either of soforrah or atmospheric disturbances, was utterly lacking.

Rather abruptly, the dunes below the skimmer fell out of view, and several warnings started flashing on the panels of the repulsorlift craft as it fell freely towards the desert below. The drive strained to maintain altitude, and the drop of the craft halted after the skimmer had plunged nearly two hundred meters in free fall. It held itself in the air tenuously, sixty meters above the desert, and Elum's instruments indicated that the remainder of his course was unobscured all the way to the horizon.

There had been no indication of such a drop in the planetary charts, even if those charts were several decades old. Elum's current position was marked by a particularly large formation of dunes, though it was obvious that the formation no longer existed. Weather was not monitored this far south of Solaan, and he could only surmise that a particularly forceful storm had moved the formations elsewhere. The next storm would likely conceal the rock that lay bare behind him, and without thinking, Elum brought the skimmer back to full transit and raised his altitude to just above the peaks of the highest dunes.

He had continued on his course for thirty-two minutes before his skimmer's panel began to panic, and his craft lost power, careening out of control towards the sands below. Elum closed his eyes briefly before impact, and when the expected crashing did not occur, he reopened them.

Instead of desert, he saw the interior of a large hangar bay, sand drifting down from the large opening above the skimmer, as it was held firmly by the bay's gravitics. The skimmer had passed through a holographic projection that would fool all but the most interested of observers, and he had been told that his arrival would seem... abrupt.

When the gravitics set his craft down amongst a plethora of others, he was greeted by the same person who had given him the heading to take.

"I hope you were not overly startled, but you already understand our need for secrecy."

Elum blinked, as he realized where he was. When a skimmer disappeared into the Great Desert, this was likely where it arrived.

"Are you ready to devote yourself to the cause, to devote yourself to the resurrection of our Lord?"

"...I am, Sora."

"Good. We have work for you in the data centre. Go."

Elum was escorted off by a tall man garbed in sandy-gold.

He was a nondescript SYSNET Systems Technician, employed by Atla/Ljosa out of Solaan, and at the moment, no one had noticed his disappearance.

For the time being, he joined the numerous others in the data centre, having not noticed the eroded insignia that once dominated the far wall of the hangar. The insignia of the Old Empire, the order that had dominated the Kajali people for decades, largely forgotten by the people of the modern age, would fly again, on banners, and starships, and in the minds of those dedicated to the cause.

Sorami Kajur Dajal, the Dark Emperor of Kajal, would rise again.

The heat was appalling.

That was the first thing to have occured to the mercenaries when they had reached this base. Then they realised that the only females either outranked them or were their employers. This was not something conducive to continued high morale.

Except for the pay. The pay was great. Sure, there was no place to spend it, but at the moment they were being paid to do nothing but sit around and wait for 'further instructions'.


For the technicians, however, there was barely concealed anxiety. Things were starting to heat up, in a metaphorical sense. Slightly more informed than their comrades, they had been chosen from the finest hackers that the Omega Corporation's 'Differently Legal' subsidary could find. The Boss had told them that if they performed well here, he'd try to get them their Imperial citizenship back.

They just wished that something would start happening, instead of all this waiting...

"Greetings. I am Lord Tigiran Leruul. You have been hired because we require your expertise. I do hope that you have found your assigned accomodations satisfactory, though if not, I would recommend you desist from making any particular fuss about it.

You are here because, in one way or another, you find the New Order, this mockery of the Imperium, distasteful. You will be rewarded handsomely for your services in the resurrection of His Imperial Highness.

Those of you apt in the delving and exploration of highly organized decentralized information realms will be employed to retrieve His consciousness from its sanctuary within SYSNET.

Of the rest of you, we have a particular mission. We do not currently have a sample of Him to work with. You will retrieve His remains from the Imperial Morgue, in Kajurmani. I have arranged transport to Kajal itself, and my operatives in the city will work with you to acquire the remains. The Imperial Morgue is heavily guarded, though it can be infiltrated without the possibility of intervention by LUNA. The Menelmacari Witch, and her sycophant who dares call herself Imperatrix have devised a plot which has left Kajurmani relatively undefended from infiltration.

You will find more detailed orders in your assigned quarters. Your respective missions will begin tomorrow. Be ready for departure before sunrise."

In the folders within the quarters, were diagrams of the Imperial Morgue, streetmaps of Kajurmani, marking areas where sympathizers could be found, as well as profiles on agents employed by Leruul. Most important was the information on the wargames that the Imperatrix was suspected of involving LUNA in, accompanied by information on LUNA agents.

It would not do for these mercenaries to be caught by LUNA, after all. They had none of the conditioning of Leruul's own operatives, of course, and their folders would include only the essential information.

Losing mercernaries was, of course, preferable to losing followers who had been with the organization for several years.

"Milord, are you sure this is particularly... wise?"

"Wise may not be the proper term... necessary, I would say."

Leruul shuffled some paperwork around in his rather opulent office in the middle of the desert outpost. It had been getting harder and harder to hide his own personal assets on the ground, and never mind in space. With Dajal's assassination, and Leruul and other Imperialist's exiles, a full squadron of destroyers under Leruul's personal command defected, along with three battleships, and a Vanaar-type carrier.

Though outmoded, technically, by the larger platforms available to the Federal Imperium, these were ships of classes which were largely the workhorses of the fleet, before and after Dajal's fall.

The battleships, of course, Leruul had spirited away, along with the carrier, to a place where they would not be noticed, but it posed more of an issue to make ten Lirel type destroyers vanish, especially when they were all dangerously undercrewed.

But, it was necessary, and really, the small outpost barely had enough supplies to keep four ships operating, never mind fourteen.

So Leruul drew up a contract, and contacted a specific party. Someone who he knew would be interested. Someone who could provide a certain walking, talking commodity.

Something to test these new, microscopic toys on.

Leruul sent a message through SYSNET, routed through backdoors and loops and all sorts of essentially meaningless terminology.

The Federated Imperium had long ago abandoned trying to actually control the information realm, and the offer of ten, fully operational destroyers, to be delivered within three days would have made it onto the desk of the appropriate official in Iraqstan if it remained unmolested after passing out of SYSNET.

All Leruul wanted in return was a hundred sapient beings. He didn't care where they were from, or even what race they were... all they really needed to do once in his possession was die.

In the meantime, the Roanians had been instructed to dive into SYSNET with the other technicians, and were told to "feel free to start liberating the people in Kajurmani. With fire."