By:  Julie Whitefeather

A scream filled the small chamber that could shatter an eardrum through 15 layers of titanium steel. Tajqa sat bolt upright…or at least tried to…she got half way to the upright position and smacked her head on the bottom of the bunk above hers with a g-force that would have snapped the neck on a gorilla.

“Son of a….”

Cutting herself off, she slammed back into the thin mattress of her bunk, her right hand shooting to the area of impact. An all too familiar pain filled her head, the result of being awoken from the same scream that occurred night after night – hers.

“Can’t sleep?” queried a weary voice from the bunk above her.

“No,” replied Taj, “what about you?”

“Well fine, replied the voice from above her. Then hesitating it added “…until now.”

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by:  R.W. Harper

What do you get when you have two Gorn, two Klingons and a Human on an away team to retrieve data for an Orion Syndicate working for the Klingon Empire? Well, not only is it a good opening for a joke but you also have my current, somewhat interesting situation. The exact circumstance of how a Human, like me, ended up with colleagues such as these might seem odd to you, but in fact, it’s not odd at all. You see, these guys are my coworkers and friends — or at least, the closest thing I can call friends in this crazy universe.

My name is Raymond Bocheaux and I am a mercenary. Actually, the term mercenary, while being alluring and mysterious, at the same time, is also something that will get you into trouble if you throw it around in mixed company. By mixed, I mean groups and gatherings that might have the Federation types skulking about within it. So, you can call me a professional contractor if you want.

I am not one of those humans that find disdain for the Federation or anything like that. You see, I work for those that pay me and my loyalties follow the latinum, the gold pressed variety. Also, my home planet of Earth doesn’t find much use for wealth but out here in the other worlds — especially in the Klingon and Romulan empires – money keeps you happy and I like to be happy. The Federation has a problem with that though and I hear that I am wanted for “collusion with the enemy” or some such. I don’t particularly worry about that though since I have nothing back on Earth pulling me in that direction.  The Federation’s reach out here is not troublesome at all. I think some of my crew-mates on the ship are jealous though, they want to have bounties on them too – so that make me a little bit of a “Rock Star” on the ship.

“Raybo, you are on the point,” a tall, slender Gorn hissed followed by a computer generated voice. “Right, I got point,” I replied – patting my portable universal translator knowing that it tries its best. I am slowly picking up on some other languages used on my ship but since we have a Gorn commander, everything is officially spoken in Gorn. Though the Klingons and Orions, along with about a dozen other species use their native tongue when off duty. We all use these portable translators though and they can be quite interesting sometimes.

I nod in his general direction on throw my patented thumbs up with cocked head and grin. He snorts and turns back to his tactical kit.

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More than anything else it resembled a giant metal dragonfly constructed of tubes and miscellaneous debris that had been found floating in space.   It was lightly armored, even among a line of ships known for being particularly brittle. But for all that it was even faster than nearly anything in the space lanes.  At speeds approaching 6,000 meters per second there was little that could catch this particular ship. She dropped out of hyperspace somewhere near the first asteroid field in the Bania system and accelerated toward the outer rim.  As she approached the field a line of poetry from her days in academy came to mind. This particular line was scrawled on the inside of a stall in the ladies room and said something about a ship so small that “there was room for her ass and a gallon of gas.”  The particular breed of pilots in question where interceptor pilots…and like most she had a brain full of implants and nerves wrapped so tight that her instructor said if anyone ever hit her in the stomach she would sound high G.

She had been hired on by Kaalakiota Corporation, or “KK” as it was commonly known, right out of the academy. In fact Commander Skidochi Huorola had asked for her by name.  It was not her scores as an interceptor pilot that had made her an attractive candidate to the head of KK Internal Security. Nor was it any potential use in the cold wars between the Caldari mega corporations that made her so useful.   Her high scores were a bonus, but what attracted the attention of Commander Huorola was the fact that Tajqa came to the Caldari war academy already knowing how to fly Minmatar interceptors, and fly them well.

Her mind sometimes wandered during what she thought was routine missions. Now it was pulled back to the present as a bright red cross suddenly popped into view, detected by her side scans.  There were some terms that capsuleers still clung to and use of the word view was one of them. In fact Tajqa was not viewing anything – she was actually floating in a pod of green primordial goo, with cables strung to the inner surface of the pod.  She was like a living computer, the ships sensors plugged into her mind, and her pod plugged into the interceptor.  Perhaps a more accurate term would have been that she felt the blood raider frigate just barely over 25,000 km ahead of her Stiletto class interceptor. The Cruor was designed specifically for draining energy; something that Taj’s interceptor didn’t need in abundance to be deadly…which was the entire reason Caldari Internal Security had sent her to hunt Blood Raider ships preying on Kaalakiota manufacturing interests in Bania.  Kaalakota didn’t really care whether Amarri citizens got blown up or not, even though its manufacturing operation in Bania was on the outskirts of the Amarr Empire.  But when those same pirates began to affect the KK Corp profit margin? Well that was another matter all together.

The Curor had the same range as Taj’s interceptor; both could blast away at each other from 25,000 km out.  Still, technical specifications where one thing; being able to lock on to an interceptor approaching you at 5,800 meters per second was another matter altogether.  Taj willed the ships guns to lock on to the Blood Raider, and at 24,999 km the Stiletto began hurling large chunks of radioactive metal into the hull of the frigate rapidly looming larger in her sensors.  Then it happened…

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Welcome to the new LoreWriter.com.

Having had been away for a few months, it’s good to finally have this site back up and running.  You will notice that most of my old stories are no longer here.  I decided not to bring them back and let them retire – or endure a rewrite.

As always, I will have a few guest writers posting their stuff on the site as well so keep a look out for their stories and be sure to give them your support.

So, as always, hang on while I finish slapping this thing together.