NationStates Jolt Archive

Darrel Gray was a tall man who looked twenty, sat at his desk today as he did everyday: like an old professional. He waited on clients, interviewed clients, and sent them out to renew the cycle. Repetition, such was business. The tedium had several times required him to visit a gene therapist to recolor his shortcut hair to its current deep black shade.

The job was smuggling; whoever and whatever to wherever without any questions and for a hefty price. This meant he was obviously operating outside established legal framework.

Gray had setup his business on a small supply station three AU from New Delphi, masquerading as a small company dealing in the handling of 'exotic' materials. So far it had worked.

His office was cast in a deep shade of azure from radflares concentrated into overhead strips. Behind him was a view of space dominated by an eclectic mix of asteroids, comets, stars, and the barely visible green sphere of New Delphi herself through the widely space forcefield columns. Nothing else about his office was special; aside from the obsidian desk - which appeared as nothing more than a horrid rectangular void floating over a malmetal world-, and a pair of couches flanking the doorway extending unceremoniously from the main hall, both unnoticeable to anyone walking in, and with the leftmost being occupied by one who made neither a sound nor a movement.

"Mister Gray, your eighty-thirty is here to see you." The secretary's voice said over the relay.

"Send him in." He replied tersely.

Gray sighed, patted down his pin-striped suit, straightened his tinted glasses, went through the bog-standard security routines, download all pertinent information about his client, and signaled the polysteel door to slide serenely open once the motion sensors detected the client at the door.

"Welcome, Mister Zodiac." Darrel said with his trademark smile and forced enthusiasm.

He stood approximately five and a half feet tall, gaunt and pale in a nature that made him slightly unpleasant to look at without any specific justification. His black hair was arranged in the most mundane manner possible, and his face radiated a sense of... forgettability. He was not ugly, but his entire form seemed... aversive.

The only thing was that as he walked in, he wore the exact same pinstripe suit that Gray was presently wearing. He stopped just inside the door, scanned the man in front of him from head to toe, and sighed. He brought his arms forward and flexed slightly, and with a soft warbling hum that lasted for a fraction of a second, his own pinstripe suit reversed its color scheme and an unassuming glass cane topped with the bust of a roaring lion appeared in his hand. He placed the cane before him and rested both hands upon it, leaning forward slightly.

"Greetings, Mister Gray. We hope you do not mind our bluntness, but we would like to get straight down to business in order to facilitate as rapid a transit as possible.

"Our colleague Antares and us, along with a small complement of droids, require passage to Coruscant. We will also likely require passage off, to a system to be designated later. We will pay for each transit as an independent service, each payment no less than two hundred and fifty thousand credits, with incremental increases in the event of complications that necessitate either repairs or a detour or both.

"We do not believe that there will be any complications upon entering Imperial space. The danger would likely be outside of Imperial territory. Of course, this is not counting the slight possibility that the Imperials have gotten sufficiently paranoid to knock anything not resembling a TIE fighter out of the sky without bothering to check identification. We would like to be as straight and narrow as possible on route to Coruscant however, so we would prefer that methods to disguise identity be minimized.

"Barring questions, we are fully prepared to depart at the earliest opportunity."

The profile called up by Gray before Zodiac's arrival would reveal nothing beyond a small rumor on some backwater planet that the Godulans were looking after some form of renegade named Zodiac. Of course, there was also the story of another renegade who was last seen on Tenetia, though his name remained unknown. Reading between the lines would indicate that apparently something has the Godulans... spooked...

Darrel immediately noted that Zodiac never proceeded beyond the doorway: this was definitely someone who was strictly business and had done less-than-legal things many times before. The high pay for the job also signified his, or more appropriately - their -, disposition that this was just one of many formalities standing between them and their goal.

The sudden appearance of the cane was unexpected, but not necessarily surprising given the caliber of clients that waltzed through his door daily. The plural pronoun 'we' also meant more than his physicality revealed, but those were just details, irrelevant details, his supposed - and at this point confirmed true in Darrel's mind - criminal history notwithstanding.

Darrel Gray kept a smirk from growing too wide, leaned back in his chair, and placed his hands in an open fingered pray position just under his chin. Tis would go by quickly.

"Your ship leaves in ten minutes. The first payment will be due at the platform." Darrel had the eGrapple float a datacrystal over to Zodiac containing the pertinent information about the ship, its current location, speed, and destinations on the way to imperial space.

"I take it our business is concluded?"

Zodiac reached out and took the small datacrystal, and seemed to scan the crystal itself without any assisting equipment. After a short moment, he made the crystal 'disappear' into his hand, and gave Gray a serene smile.

"Antares and our droids are already on the departure platform and making their way to the vessel. He is equipped with the first payment. Our business is concluded, we thank you for your time and consideration."

With a curt bow, Zodiac turned and strode briskly out.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Antares watched the four large crates as they were loaded onto the vessel, assuring the pilot that the droids, though military focused, were unarmed and unlikely to set off any customs alerts.

He was both far taller and more heavily built than Zodiac, barrel chested and speaking with a voice that sounded like a landslide. Despite his voice, his manner of speech and general demeanor just dripped with agreeability and wisdom. He 'wore' a perfectly-tailored solid-black business suit with liberal amounts of golden jewelry. His hair was slicked back, and his round yet well formed face bore an expression that made others who saw him think he was moments away from 'Ho Ho Ho'ing.

When Zodiac arrived, the two of them looked like polar opposites; one big, one small, one happy and conversant, the other dour and quiet, and so on.

"Just got the droids on, boss, and gave them their first payment. Their eyes sparkled when they saw how much we were willing to pay."

Zodiac hmph'd in response, and scanned the ship. "It is a 'boring' ship."

"The best kind for our purposes."

"Indeed."

"We have some other guy coming along with us. A lawyer on his way past the galactic rim or something. He likes guns."

"Then you two will have something to talk about."

"Possibly. It would help to pass the time. What about you? We can always play chess."

"We shall consider it. Let us get on board, the ship looks about ready to depart."

"Gotcha. The passenger compartment is not far in. Bit of a snug fit for our form, but you should be fine."

And the two Godulans got on board the cargo ship, making their way towards the passenger area to wait for their arrival on the Imperial Capitol...

The SS Alexsander shuttered softly as the eGrapple released it from the supply station docking, allowing it to drift lifelessly into space. It was medium sized transport with a cylinder-esque form of modular construction. The entire hull was rust covered. The aft was wholly dedicated to engines and took up a quarter of the vessels immense mass; time was money after all. The bow, by contrast, contained overcharged shield generators and the guidance equipment in a small bulkhead, leaving the rest of the ship dedicated to cargo and passenger transport, the later of which was contained below the cargo hold dead in the center of the ships construction.

After a few moments of casual drift, the cluster of aether-crystals hummed into a soft chorus of sound from the ship's engines, reverberating through a hull that acted like a giant tuning fork. The frequency and pitch increased until the universe was nothing but this sound. Then it stopped, and the SS Alexsander was nothing more than a bright cloud of exotic particles in the physical universe.

Hello! Welcome to Hellfire Spacelanes! If we experience any turbulence it's because we're about to die - The overcom voice was hastily interrupted.

Shut the fuck up Roger or we're going to get yelled at again.

Bah, whatever. Enjoy your flight, skycom out. And then there was nothing but quiet from the aging speakers hanging from the ceiling.

"That joke gets so fucking old after you've hear it for the millionth time." One of the security guards said with a grimace.

"You telling me? I've been on this route for ten years longer than you have." Another guard replied with a grunt. The guards continued to talk amongst themselves, sometimes forgoing physical communication and using their cyberjacks instead.

The cargo hold perhaps half full, containing the droids Zodiac and his consort brought, the rest belonging to an agricultural startup that needed a few million gallons of chemicals and thousands of tons of farming equipment delivered to a world some thousand light years away.

The passenger compartment, on the other hand, was a ghost town. Further making the trip a waste for the aging aether-crystals. Only a lawyer looking for administrative work in Ursa Minor and the two Godulans inhabited the football field sized space not counting the half dozen guards scattered around the area dominated by complex clusters of cushioned benches.

Borgir Bukharin was a mid-level lawyer who had worked all around the Conglomerate coreworlds without much overall success. He was a very average looking man; medium height and build, a balding head he had never fixed with gene-therapy, and a thin set of glasses that existed only as an eccentricity.

Right now he thought that a change of location would benefit his career ambitions the most, a location far far away from the empire he was born in. The trip was only supposed to take a few hours at most, but Borgir couldn't keep himself entertained with any of the VR programs he had brought along. He needed to talk to someone in the hour left before he disembarked.

"So, where are you gentlemen headed?" He said to the two 'sitting' Godulans with a voice deeper than his appearance let off.

Antares smiled slightly and began to speak as a normal human would. "We're off for Coruscant. We wanna pitch some droid designs to the folks over there. Its our civic duty to assist in the progress of technology, I say. Ain't that right, boss?"

"Indeed," Zodiac replied, leaning back and bringing out a small eye cover in an apparent attempt to catch some sleep for the trip.

"Boss don't say much. Spends all his time thinking up new shit, I guess. He's so smart. Dunno about his business savvy tho. I told him he'd be better off designing weapons and stuff, since things are cheaper and get outdated so much faster, but nope, he wanted to make droids. So here we are, with our first batch of military grade droids, hoping that all the money we spent on building the prototypes doesn't come to bite us in the ass."

Zodiac grumbled under his breath, and Antares snorted with suppressed laughter.

A brief flash of light and radiation, and the freighter was again in the physical realm some two AU away from a pristine agriworld that orbited a burning gold star rotating so rapidly the solar wind left a permanent aurora covering Angelis and the gas giants further away. The Alexsander began its sublight drive towards Angelis quickly accelerating to .65c.

"Really? I'm a bit of a weapon's aficionado myself; I designed some things in my childhood that the military liked but I never really pursued a career, it was a hobby thing. Mind telling me more about your androids?" Borgir said during their sublight cruise.

Within half an hour millions of tons of chemical and machinery was unloaded and the ship was again on its way towards Ursa Minor, where Borgir would disembark and the last phase of the journey would begin. Until then, Borgir was content with conversing the entire time.

"I don't see why not," Antares replied with an amicable grin and a cautious glance at Zodiac. "Boss wouldn't like me talking too much about 'em, but hey, might as well get the word out somehow.

"They're sorta like a weapons platform with a focus on maneuverability and stuff. No built-in weaponry, but we gave each model four arms instead, each strong and stable enough to handle a heavy weapon without having to worry about recoil deviation. Put in multi-vector targeting too, allows each arm to track independently in a combat situation so's they can pick off four enemies at once.

"They're also programmed with some pretty snazzy urban combat tactical algorithms, and we gave them the ability to climb walls and even ceilings with some ease. We basically took standard ground combat scenarios and found a method to take them one step further. The construction is easy to mimic, but the programming is what makes them special."

"Ahh, sounds something akin to the PAINCAN or O.M.W.M.'s oh our government, scary things." Borgir said cleaning his glasses of with his shirt sleeve, "Especially when it came to the urban assault environment and riot suppression. The former of which was slightly less maneuverable, but the point in its design was obviously firepower. I have some videos of their application is you'd like to view them."

Borgir continued conversing with the Godulans, or more aptly Antares, for the duration of the journey. The topic obviously remained in the realm of weapons technology, Borgir himself being more than a little fascinated by alien weapons technology to the point of requesting data crystals regardless of the detail. Though it was never one sided; any information Antares could ask for and Borgir had access to he would more than give freely, he was a hobbyist after all.

Borgir departed at the orbital ring station above Tanis-V, a sparsely populated world with no natural resources but still home to a think tank specializing in advanced weapons technology. Of course administrative work was required.

Next stop, Coruscant!

Replacing Borgir though, was a very tall man lacking in hair with eyes covered by extremely thick and seemingly opaque sunglasses. The rest of his face was obscured by the neck of the baggy black overcoat her wore, covering all the way up to his nose. He walked over to Borgir's seat in massive strides common of someone so unfathomably tall.

Antares waved goodbye to the lawyer upon his departure, and accepted the arrival of the newcomer with good humor. This new guy meant business though, so he decided on an alternate approach.

He sat there and leveled an unblinking star upon the other fellow, balancing it with a pleasant smile. After a while, the big guy would either turn away or ask what the hell Antares found so fascinating.

Zodiac shifted in his seat, looking for a more comfortable position, and failing miserably.

~ Tag ~

Usually awkward looks were due to discomfort on the part of the looker, however every so often someone with a position similar to Lurker's decided the play mind games. Antares was apparently one of these rarely encountered individuals.

Systems were operating at their lowest possible settings if they were operating at all, polymorphic proteins kept his internal machinery as normal looking as possible while a subtle but powerful distortion field skewed the data from any scans that may pass over him. The aura surrounding him made him even less normal than his appearance.

With nary a half-hour left before their mutual destination was reached, Lurker decided to humor Antares' interest with some basic conversation.

"Business, just like yourself." He said in raspy monotone without a single movement discernible from the cloth that shielded the low part of his face.

Antares responded with a little snuff of suppressed laughter. "I'm guessing... birthday clown. I hear that some children find them quite disturbing, and I did wonder if anybody would ever decide to cut away the makeup, grins, and balloon puppetry and go straight into disturbing. Would be quite a step, I think. You might even be a hit."

Zodiak had somehow found a comfortable position and was now sleeping soundly, head dangling off the seat and body splayed out in all directions. One foot even rested on Antares' shoulder.

The bustling system of Coruscant was nearing. The heart of the Empire housing over three-trillion sentients and countless ships lit up like a supernova on the tachyon-bands and hysRADAR.

The pilots of the SS Alexsander were only slightly impressed; they'd seen bigger, from the imperial world of Terra to Core Prime, to Sunder and many other worlds encased in unending city scape.

"Fuck, there's always a checkpoint at these places. Always." Adrian sneered as the distance decreased.

"I know, it's ridiculous. The amount of money they lose in trade most be astronomical." Foreman said biting onto a gold coin as he thought about the cost. He really loved money.

"In any case, we'll arrive and get the check done with in the next couple of minutes."

"Better warn the passengers, as if they didn't already know."

Attention passengers, we will arrive at Coruscant within the next few minutes. If we get blown up by security please send your complaints through a paper shredder so we can cut out the middle man. Thank you.

... You're an ass.

Lurker only laughed in response to Antares' obvious jab, "I've been through worse. As I'm sure you have. And if you haven't, you're lucky because where we're going, you will."

And then the SS Alexsander slid out of a realm not governed by physicality into the inspection line bound for Coruscant.

Zodiac had finally come back to the land of the markedly awake and even now sat in a manner that seemed to suggest he had a metal rod attached to his spine to keep his back straight. An amusing contrast to the flexibility previously demonstrated in his attempts to get comfortable.

"We have been through our fair share," Antares replied, and shrugged in response to Zodiac's odd glare.

TAG No more posts until I get to it.

I'm not one to rush, God knows I have threads I need to get back to, but... Where'd you go Sith?

Bumping Again for whoever Temp-Sithy might be. Seriously getting tired of this stalling.

The thread will not be responded to.

As far as I'm aware Unified Sith ignored you for telling LIES in regard to opening this thread. The ignore stands, you do not exist.

There were no LIES from me. No LIES whatsoever, save for those he himself put forward. We discussed this very much in-depth and he accepted the entire thing. He said it could go forward, and it even had a goodly number of ground rules and everything.

So in this case. Its Sithy who LIED, not I.

You lied at the start and as I'm aware he on the advice of his allies, whom he said he must contact first to settle it, had a change of heart.

The condition of Rping as Unified Sith remains. Godular is Ignored.

No I damn well didn't. I didn't lie one bit. This was supposed to lead to closed and well-discussed thread. Ground rules and everything. Far as I can recall, the only lies I noted were when I recieved logs of him detailing intention to do opposite of what he informed me would go forward.

I was offered no updates beyond that. Neither I nor ElectronX were given further word in the matter, but we did discuss this very well and thoroughly. It took large amounts of information and detailings on my part as to the exact nature of various components, but at the end he accepted it. There were no lies on my part.

Wow, how utterly pathetic. First Sithy says NO POST!!!!)!)!)!)

Then we get some temp guy, who thinks he can fill Sithy's shoes and go "Ur are ignored Godular for teh LIEZZZ!"

Godular is right, he DID work things out, and Sithy was fine with it, obviously, as he tagged for interest instead of raising holy hell.

I don't care if you are in control of Sithy's account, but being a Temp doesnt give you a right to ignore. In fact, keep going down this path and Sithy will find his account ignored from most of NS.

Besides, you only have Sithy's side of the story, not Godular's and ElectronX's. You said HE told you that Godular lied. Kinda biased to go on his word alone, ya think?

But, I can tell this ain't going to go well, so consider yourself ignored as well. Sithy can come talk to me about being unignored when he gets back.

This IS The real Unified Sith, talk to me on MSN. But Godular you fill these pages full of lies under the pretence of change. The new temp guy for Unified Sith is more than acceptable. Godular is ignored by Unified Sith on all accounts forever and ever and ever.

At the end of our MSN convo, I told you I had to talk to other GE members about it first of all.

You started the thread under the pretence of lies and got me to agree to it, so I would respond to it in an attempt to get me to unignore you.

I talked to my allies.

They said ignore, and you are, therefore, ignored.

Got any problems talk to me on MSN. I will unblock you for me just to repeat myself.


Telros speak to me on MSN, I'm online right now. But I'm sure when you understand my point of view and what I have to say you will be far more calm and collected. Wardventure1@aol.com

I assure you, TEMP Sithy will be very good. He is a respected player and everyone likes him. Let his own actions and posts dictate your opinion about him.

The above posts were not done by the current player in command of Unified Sith, I had to make a swift change on the TEMPER, but I assure you my resolve..... Kinda go into that all too easy.

Anyway, yeah ignore the two posts up above and talk to me on MSN. Godular and ElectronX were devious in starting this thread. With intentions for a Harmless bounty hunter RP.

Lied, and yes I had warmed to it on MSN, but I thought about it some more, got advice from allies and other GE players, a condition of me going along with it. And decided no. All fine and dandy from the OOC perspective. Delivery of that information could have been better. But so far I have been nothing but truthful.

You can bet I'll be hunting for ya on MSN. And the list of 'other GE members' seems to be remarkably small, considering everybody I've talked to doesn't have a clue what you're talking about.