Heaven Colony
Ez Fortuit Spaceport

Yssk walked across the huge domed concourse carrying his personal tool kit. He and another of his Thrynn companions had found work as mechanics for a mining outfit that based its ships at Ez Fortuit. Trained by the Imperial Thrynn Navy, Yssk was a solid engineer with over a decade of experience, but he was amazed at the skill of the Arth Veloxi who dominated the repair and maintenance facilities at the growing spaceport.

In the several months since Chief Inspector Biv Lugg had secreted the Kryssthoggr exiles to Ez Fortuit, Yssk had grown fond of his new surroundings. While the average mechanic here was better than was the case in the Confederacy, he was having no trouble getting by. The average colonist wasn’t half as discerning as a bona fide Thrynn. Yssk was putting the angles together. As he stepped onto the blue monorail car that led back to the main city, the sly reptilian smile was unmistakable.

The Empire, 4498
Levin Disraeli Colony

The tiny colony huddled on the edge of a frigid, steel grey sea. It had been years since the last communications had come in over net and even longer since a starship had come down from the skies bringing news and carrying away a batch of recruits to defend the Empire. The roughly ten thousand colonists had long since assumed the awful worst about the wars with the alien invaders.

Finally, on a cooling day late in the autumn of that world, the orbital bombardment lit up the low clouds with searing plasma light. The energy bolts rained fire down on the colony, leveling its power plant, the food synthesis facilities, the mechanical shops, the communications relay station and the bulk of the colonial structures. As quickly as it had begun, the bombardment was over. Several hundred survived the attack, but even the most hopeful knew there was no surviving the brutal winter that would soon settle over the world. All across the sky, the last flickering lights of a dying civilization were quietly going dark.

On the Elowan border, an android listening post tasked with monitoring the Empire’s activity beamed a report back across the void. //All Quiet Human Frontier***78-3//

Thrynn Space
Elowan Frontier
Hssths Expeditionary Dock

Colonel Venn’Bk was still amazed by the scraps of information that General Hoss’Vnn has amassed. Taken alone, they were of little seeming consequence. Even together, subject to the passing muse, they amounted to little.

But Venn’Bk was a full Colonel in the Directorate for Internal Security, and not taken to passingly muse.

The young Thrynn recognized a pattern in the noise, painstakingly trained to catch what others would miss. From the few pieces that were together, Venn’Bk could guess at the puzzle. The evidence was hidden beneath layers of deception but General Hoss’Vnn, dedicating years, had pieced it—the disappearances, the scraps of parchment, the…disturbances—into a stunning mosaic. A picture of unspeakable heresy.

Venn’Bk had come to the Hssths docks to stand in until a replacement could be found for he deceased general. Within days, the colonel had requested and received permanent orders, determined to plumb the depths of this hidden threat. Hoss’Vnn had known something was happening, a quickening shift in the undercurrents that had begun when the Humans had suddenly appeared like demons from some half-remembered dream.

Seated in the General’s tall wooden chair by the window overlooking the bustling wings of the space dock, Venn’Bk absorbed and arranged the horrifying evidence. The danger increases, the damage grows malignant. He stood, restless with the possibilities that emerged to confront him, and walked to a simple bench that held Hoss’Vnn’s dust-covered books. Leafing through the ancient tomes, the colonel considered the magnitude of the danger. The gathering signs pointed to a seething will, a spreading thirst for insurrection. The thought sent a cold acid rush coursing through Venn’Bk’s system.

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Next: "Parcel"

Not surprisingly, Biggs Hilsfar is a cash kind of guy--Arthenean Express ignores his applications, G'Nunkstercard "elevates" them, and Greasa passes them around the office for kicks. Last time Biggs flipped plastic onto the bar at McConnagle's, Toto Jones laughed so hard he cried. While Biggs and the usual suspects clown around, watch for serious Starflight action in the Leghk Sector when The Honor of the Ancients: Gazurtoid War 2 debuts August 7.

Hilsfar & Company: Because Interstel Pretends It Doesn't Know Biggs
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