Copyright 2000 Sharin Tarkhanis PREFACE When explorers from the Kharantite Empire first surveyed the Lysandian system, they dismissed it as of negligable importance. Situated as it was at the far edge of the galaxy more than 30 parsecs from the nearest imperial outpost, it was of no military value and lacked any items or raw materials of sufficient quantity or compelling uniqueness to justify establishing a colony. Besides, the one M class planet, dubbed Lysandia-4 by the survey team, was in the middle of an ice age and it was doubtful that a self-sustaining colony could be established there without investments that far outweighed any projected commercial returns. So the Kharantite science team briefly added their data on the Lysandian system to their logs and moved on to the next system in their flight plan... 2232 years later a heavily battle-damaged mercenary vessel wanders into the Lysandian system attempting to find a safe place to effect repairs, safe from the ever-present watch of the Empire... CHAPTER 1 Drell's fingers danced across the flickering translucent control console, balling up into a fist to bang the compartment containing the reserve power unit as the panel dimmed suddenly, threatening to go out entirely. The panel lit up to full brightness and fingers played across sensor readings, tactical displays, and local subspace disturbance reports. Satisfied for the moment that he had not been followed, Drell then brought up the damage report from what remained of the main computer and silently cursed as the full extent of his last skirmish became agonizingly clear. "Jump drives: fused, main power: offline, shields: 8%, hull integrity: 60%, environmental controls: nominal, weapons: offline except for the mass driver. Looks like we cut it a bit close this time old girl," he said, patting the console lovingly. With a weary sigh Drell finished looking through the list of lesser systems which had either been damaged or destroyed. The Tanarak was in bad shape. Drell had managed to bring the limping vessel to a jump array under cloak and then hacked into the jump control matrix, set it to lauch the Tanarak to a point far from the empire, and then destroyed the array as he entered the jump gate destroying any trace of his ship or where he had gone. Now he found himself sitting in a charted but ignored star system mulling over the list of repairs that he would have to make before going elsewhere to replace the parts that had been damaged beyond any hope of reconstruction. "Well girl, it looks like we're going to be here for a couple of weeks. Let's see if you've got anything in the computer about this little corner of paradise shall we?", Drell spoke out loud, trying to retrieve the astrometrics database. "Hmm. The Lysandian system? I've never heared of it. Good.", he smiled to himself as the data on the Lysandian star system appeared on his viewscreen. "Not much here," he muttered to himself, "Looks like the Imperials came to take a look and were underimpressed. This is getting better by the minute..." Drell scratched the slightly matted white fur under his muzzle absently as he pulled up the data on the fourth planet, the only habitable spot in the system. "A bit chilly I guess, but it'll do," he thought to himself as he looked over the rough planetary specs. He plotted a course to Lysandia-4 into the navigational computer and yawned mightily. He'd been awake for almost two days straight and with the realization that he was probably safe for now, the weight of all the stress, intensity, and sleep deprivation of the past couple of days came crashing down on him and he barely managed to stumble to the crew quarters before passing out in utter exhaustion on one of the three cots. Drell woke up slowly, almost like the oppressive cold which slowly crept into his bones. The first thing he noticed was that he was freezing, and as the realization dawned on him he rose with a start nearly falling out of bed. With his thick coat of fur he shouldn't be feeling cold at all unless something was very wrong. He stumbled to the cockpit and sat down in his freezing seat, gathering his shivering white tail in his lap to help him keep warm. Everything was coated with a thin layer of frost, probably mostly from his own respiration. With trembling fingers begining to feel numb from the iciness of the air, Drell brushed frost from the control panel and view screen and pulled up the damage report display again, shivering and groaning inwardly as the readout indicated total environmental systems failure. Looking out the viewscreen, he was relieved to find the austure white of Lysandia-4 looming in the foreground. He had slept for nearly 20 hours and the ship was now in orbit. And none too soon; he had to land NOW before temperatures inside the Tanarak equalized with the temperature of the hard vacuum outside the ship... He did a quick scan of the planet's surface and decided on a landing site in the temperate area near the equator of one of the larger continents on the planet. With a shiver, he directed the Tanarak downwards through the atmosphere, watching anxiously as the ship found a clear area large enough to land on the edge of a small canyon. It was at this point that he realized that he had not bothered to check the status of the landing gear subsystem and he shivered and fidgeted uncomfortably for a few tense moments while waiting to see the 'Landing Gear Deployed' indicator light up. With a visible sigh of relief that appeared as steam belched forth from his muzzle, the vulpine mercenary relaxed back into the pilot's seat and waited for the gentle 'thud' of landing. * * * * Sharin awoke with a start as her sensitive ears picked up an unfamiliar sound and she crouched on all fours in a defensive posture, instantly ready to for anything that might threaten her. She rotated her ears full forward facing the entrance to the crevice that she had claimed as her home for the day, and her breathing slowed to defense levels, not even a whisper of breath audible as eyes designed for nocturnal activity accepted the available light and brought the small cave and it's contents into sharp relief for her careful inspection. The sound intensified, a dull roar and she tilted her head upwards in the direction it appeared to be coming from. This was no enemy she was familiar with and she crouched further back in her cave, fear and adrenaline surging through her. The sound became even louder hurting her ears and she winced against the pain, eyes widening in alarm as everything began to shake and small rocks dislodged themselves from the walls and ceiling around her. Gathering her courage as best she could, triple tails fanned out and she dashed through thesmall entryway at top speed, ignoring stealth altogether as she fled an unseen foe who roared louder than the most fearsome raghahk and could shake the world with it's voice. She dashed through the short tunnel recklessly, tails registering the contours of the cave and numerous small rocks as well as hiding any faint scent she may have left behind. The blinding light of mid afternoon caused her no pause this time; she simply closed her eyes and continued guided by her other senses out of the cave where certain death lay and into the open canyon floor where she may be able to outrun the unknown threat or at worst die trying to fight it off. She exploded from the cave entrance, a blur of black fur and she opened her eyes, spinning around to gaze upward at her unknown assailant. Blinding light! Deafening noise! A metal seed falling from the sky spouting blue fire from it's belly... She trembled, every instinct within her craying out to her to run far and fast, yet she stood and gazed in wonder shielding her eyes which were unused to full daylight so that she might be better able to behold this strange sight. The golden seed fell strangely, drifting over the top of the canyon and rotating slightly in defiance to the wind and eventually dropped out of her sight over the top of the edge of the wall of the canyon. An even louder roar belched forth from the strange seed and she cowered and covered her ears, wishing for the comfort and safty of the cave. The roar dissipated suddenly giving way to a whine/scream unlike any prey she had dispatched before, yet there was the death-cry of what manner of monstrous creature she could not even begin to fathom. Her brain worked madly as silence once again reigned over the canyon and she concluded that she must see this thing so that she could warn her clan if this 'seed' was dangerous. She made her way to the natural stairway she had discovered which allowed her access to the canyon floor the night before and slowly, cautiously began to ascend. * * * * Drell monitored the sensors as the Tanarak made her final descent, arrowing toward the target landing area. Life signs on the planet were sparse, which was to be expected given that the planet was in the middle of an ice age and had likely experienced a mass extinction. Plant life especially appeared to be limited to small pockets scattered across the equator and Drell wondered idly how such a planet could support animal life at all. Rubbing his numbing paws together, Drell sat back and turned on the viewscreen to watch the final approach partly out of general curiosity and partly to see if there were any surprises waiting for him that the sensors may have missed. With a somewhat familiar whine the auxiliary thrusters kicked in and settled the Tanarak softly to the ground. "Gotta get the gravitics back online.." Drell mentaly reminded himself and he did a last minute check on atmospheric gasses and particulates, then satisfied that he could breathe without ill effects he set power to standby/recharge and made his way through the crew quarters to the cargo bay and opened the hatch, breathing deeply of the crisp air of Lysandia-4. He absently grabbed his holster and checked the charge on his disruptor, then snagged his tool belt and clipped both of them around him with the nonchalance of long habit before stepping out of the ship to survey the damage. He pulled his multi-scanner from his belt pouch and set it to alert, then clipped it to his shoulder harness as he looked around him. The computer seemed to have picked out a pretty decent landing area this time. The landscape was dominated by light brown to tan rocky soil, but a few kilometers distant Drell could make out a patch of green, likely a source of water and food if necessary. He scritched his chin idly, and blinked as his claws came away flecked with dried blood. Thinking back to his recent skirmish with an Imperial fighter squadron, he remembered something flying loose and catching him under the chin. He didn't have time to think about it at the time and had forgotten about it entirely in the interim. It must have hit him harder than he thought it had. "Lord, I must look downright frightful." he mused, looking at his claws, "I may risk a bath after I've got environmental back online..". Drell walked around the ship, growing more downcast as blast point after blast point in the thin hull revealed exposed and destroyed circuitry. "I haven't got anywhere near enough spares for this..." he groaned inwardly to himeself. By the time he made his way all the way around the ship the tip of his tail was dragging in the dirt. "I am going to be here a long long time," he proclaimed dejectedly, heading for the underside cover where the damaged environmental control circuitry was housed. He released the magnetic housing and peered inside, smiling slightly as he discovered to his relief that the environmental unit was intact and had only been jarred loose. "Thank goodness for small miracles," he thought to himself. Drell settled himself under the Tanarak and set to work on the environmental control circuits. It was a simple matter to reseat the circuit boards, but inspecting and testing the leads was going to be a long and tedious bit of work and he grumbled unhappily as he brushed some of the larger rocks out of his way and lay down underneath the ship to get started. So absorbed was he in his work that when he rolled over a little so he could better access a loose board he didn't hear the multisensor chirp softly as it went offline. * * * * Sharin peered over the edge of the precipace she clung to, turning her ears toward the gold-tinged metalic object which now rested on four legs just a few dozen meters to the northeast of her. She tested the air, scenting no known dangers in the area and peered curiously at the strange .. thing. What it was she couldn't say for sure. It looked like a seed of some kind, a slightly flattened oval that was larger on one end than the other, yet it looked like metal and was far larger than any plant, let alone any seed she had ever seen. She started to climb up further, then darted back down frightened as the side of the thing opened. Overcoming her instinct to run, she peeked over the edge again and her eyes opened wide as a creature emerged from within the thing, tall and swaggering and seemingly mindless of possible danger. She blinked in shock, thinking for a moment that this creature might be a fellow Khoru, but one of the rare ones which occasionally were born with white fur. But as she looked closer she decided against it. This stranger did not appear to have red eyes like the unfortunate aberrations did which were born to her clan from time to time, and furthermore it only had one tail. How would one be able to mask his or her trail through the caverns with just one tail, she wondered? She watched intently as the stranger took some items from within the thing and as he clipped them on she decided that the golden seed was some kind of home-cave that could be moved from one hunting ground to the next. What a find this would be for her clan! Curiosity overcame caution and she hoisted herself over the edge of the canyon wall and slowly made her way around the perimeter of the boulder field which lined the edges of the canyon to get downwind of the stranger and advanced slowly, deliberately towards the golden seed-cave, choosing to move on all fours just in case she needed to get away quickly.