Tales from the Inbox: Finn's Heist

2946-08-28: Tales from the Inbox: Finn's Heist

Euphrasie H. submitted this story, and though I can't prove it, I can't disprove it either. She read a story on this feed a few months ago about a mystery ship calling itself KR-122, spotted tailing a convoy to the Frontier before disappearing without a trace shortly after it was challenged, and proposes that it was engaged in some sort of criminal enterprise and merely following the convoy for safety and convenience. She provided her own account as well as several news articles about this phenomenon in general: while they would never attempt to steal from the Navy, certain underworld elements are engaged in regular and widespread attempts to defraud the Survey Auxiliary. What they do with the materiel acquired by such efforts is not clear, but the ships and other equipment so stolen seems to be funneled toward the Coreward Frontier for an unknown purpose.

Euphrasie's story supposedly took place a few weeks before the departure of the convoy in which Quetzalli traveled to the Frontier. KR-122 might not have been related to her story in particular, but I can't dismiss her theory that it was part of a similar enterprise out of hand. As always, the audience is encouraged to make up its own mind on this connection, and to be careful with people one meets in strange spaceport bars; even those who seem to be friends might turn out to be something you didn't expect.

The drinks came, and Euphrasie stared at hers a long time before picking it up and sipping it thoughtfully. The young man across the table, meanwhile, upended his own small glass of liqueur as soon as it was set in front of him, then slammed the empty container back down vigorously and punched an order for a second into the smart table's menu.

As he paused indecisively over the confirmation button, Euphrasie snuck a look at him. His loose, sandy hair hung in front of eyes whose red rims and rapid, haunted flicking to every source of motion the club's poor lighting couldn't quite conceal. His formerly easy smile had evolved into a perpetually strained grimace. Finn had never been a large person, but his hunched, beaten posture made him look even smaller.

Still insistently jabbing the tabletop display, Finn looked up to Euphrasie. "You know, Frazi." He said, reverting reflexively to the diminutive name he'd coined for her when they were both children. "The worst thing you ever did to me was save my life."

Euphrasie shook her head. Their meeting now was purely by chance; they had fallen out of contact ten years before, when they were both barely teenagers. Now, she was heading out to the Coreward Frontier with a Survey Auxiliary commission, and he was... Well, she preferred not to think about what Finn did for a living since he’d disappeared.

"Was I supposed to let you go to the atomizer, Finn?" She replied. "You didn't kill that man." After all these years, she didn't know what she had expected. She'd waited for him, hoping that some day, he might be able to clear his name and return, but he never sent even a cryptic text-only message that told her he was all right. She'd given up and signed up for Survey on her twenty-first birthday, the way they'd always dreamed of doing together, and now, with her freshly printed commission in hand, she was leaving Herakles space forever. It was just like Finn to literally bump into her as she was preparing to pilot her new Idril Yara through its first interstellar voyage.

"I could have fought the charge, Frazi. Cleared my name." He told her. "Instead, I was scared, and I ran. You helped me keep running, and by running I was condemned." The second drink arrived, and Finn glanced hurriedly to both sides. "Can't stay long." He said, staring long and hard at something over Euphrasie’s shoulder. She turned to look, but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary that might be keeping his attention. Perhaps, the pilot decided, her old friend was seeing ghosts. "Boss doesn't like me to hang around too long before a job."

"I can't stay long either." Euphrasie confirmed, as she returned her attention to Finn. "My departure window is in three hours, and preflight takes almost an hour." That was it, then. She was leaving, the agent of the Naval Survey Auxiliary, and he was staying, the pawn of the system's most unsavory syndicate, who would keep him around only as long as he made himself useful.

"It's still good to see you again, though." He told her. "One last time, I suppose."

Euphrasie shook her head sadly before draining her glass. "Come with me, Finn." She urged him. "By the time they know you're gone, we'll be halfway to the Frontier." Survey ships were small, but there was enough room on Yara for a crew of up to three – and Euphrasie was slated to pilot it alone. She could pick up another carton of nutrient paste before she boarded, and Finn’s presence would cause no trouble.

"I can't." He told her. "You don't understand. Boss has too many friends. They'll find me."

"Hell with them." Euphrasie slapped her palm on the table, feeling oddly buzzed after the single drink. "The Frontier is a big place."

Finn shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry." He said. "For not going with you, and for everything else."

"Everything else? Finn, you were always kind..." She shook her head, feeling somewhat unsteady. A foggy realization bubbled up from somewhere below her conscious thought. One drink shouldn't have made her feel like that. She’d turned around so breifly, but it might have been enough time for Finn; he’d always been quick. "You didn't."

"Boss needs your ship." Finn shrugged. "Survey will get you a new one, don't worry. They have spares of everything."

Euphrasie tried to stand, but her legs were wholly nonresponsive. She steadied herself against the table, but it was a losing battle. "Finn..." She tried to snarl, but it was barely a whisper. Losing a ship before she even left port? Her new Naval Survey Auxiliary commission would be torn up on the spot.

Finn winced, then shook his head and stood. As he leaned down over her shoulder to rifle through her pockets for the activation token that would lead him to the survey ship, he put his lips close to her ear. Even over the pounding music of the club, she could hear him whisper. "Goodby, Frazi."

As he left, she tried to follow him, but succeeded only in slumping down on the table, watching with unfocused eyes as Finn walked out the door. 

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Tales from the Inbox: Sojourn on Seyria

2946-08-21 - Tales from the Inbox: Sojourn on Seyria

After the favorable response both Nojus Brand and I got for posting his last submission some time ago, Nojus has been inundated with requests to send me what he can about several other adventures which did not result in usable footage, and I've been bombarded with requests to put them at the front of the queue. I was not aware that every second expedition (on average) that Mr. Brand embarks on produces insufficient footage to produce a program he's satisfied with. He must be all but buried in stories he couldn't tell in the format of his well-known program.

While Nojus's program and Cosmic Background are not affiliated, we've reached an arrangement that will hopefully make everyone happy. We'll review his tales as they come, on a case by case basis. As Mr. Brand is not a very articulate person in long-form written world, he has agreed to send a recording of himself telling the story and any corroborating evidence he has, and I have agreed to condense these tales down into something appropriate to this text feed. In addition to this, he requested (and received from Ashton) a semi-regular guest spot on our vidcast program. His first appearance should be some time early next month.

I make no attempt to establish the veracity of Nojus Brand's stories; I will however only publish those that are both interesting to this audience, and that seem reasonably likely to be true. We all know that the source of these stories is given to embellishment; even so, many of his most well-known exploits are indisputable, as there is plenty of evidence in the form of drone and camera-pod footage.

In the tale he sent in for this installment of Tales from the Inbox, Mr. Brand explains what actually happened on Seyria, one of the most toxic (to humans) worlds to still sustain macroscopic life yet discovered. It comes to life because, while he returned with plenty of footage, it was not usable to form a clear sequence of events for a vidcast episode that he could be satisfied with.

Nojus hated that Seyria’s atmosphere was toxic. He much preferred to post footage of himself wearing nothing but perfectly mundane clothing, braving the dangerous wildernesses of explored space armed with nothing but his trusty Reed-Soares Portable Survival Utility. Still, hundreds of his fans had requested a trip to Seyria, all of them knowing he’d need to use an environment suit; they wouldn’t mind the change of equipment much. The suit Nojus had chosen to bring was intentionally as minimalistic as possible; that would get him as close as he could be to an unprotected adventure under the canopy of the poison planet’s equatorial jungle.

Seyria had already claimed all four of the drones he’d brought with him. All he had left was a microcamera pod, a hardy little device the size of his thumb which had been recording since he arrived, albeit often from most inconvenient angles. When he didn’t need it for other things, which was rarely, Nojus tried to use his survival utility as a camera monopod, providing the occasional drone-like view of his situation, but such shots were few and far between. Editing his new adventure, Nojus knew, would be a serious chore for his team of underpaid but reasonably competent video technicians.

The viewers had demanded Seyria because, though toxic to humans, it was teeming with life to which the acrid chemicals in the atmosphere were no obstacle. If one could forget such things, Seyria was a verdant, lush place, its warm, humid air containing twice Earth’s percentage of oxygen and ten times its carbon dioxide. As a result, the world was a hothouse, almost permanently clouded and insulated from the cold of space. Seyria was well-known in the Core Worlds as a planet of poisonous air and hideous creatures, and it was to face such monsters Nojus had come.

Despite this goal, so far, the explorer had found little worth the effort. The critters which had made off with his drones had been smaller than himself, and though they’d been brightly colored and covered in an exotic, horned carapace, he’d gotten no usable footage from either the drones or the microcamera. He had spied a few larger beasts in the distance, but they were in each case gone before he could get close enough for a good camera angle. In general, the trip had been, though far from dull, somewhat disappointing.

Nojus reached the lee side of a large rock outcropping, dropping his hard-sided pack of tools and supplies on the only surface he’d seen in hours that wasn’t covered in soft, engulfing moss or hip-deep in muddy water. His suit readouts still showed green, and he had days of nutrient slush left, but he resolved never to agree to suit-only planets ever again. There was something impersonal about taking on the elements of Seyria from the inside of even the flimsiest armor. He was used to doing things the old-fashioned way, the way it was meant to be done.

Changing his survival utility from hiking pole configuration to serve once again as a camera mount, Nojus clipped the microcamera into its tip and set it up on the outcropping. It was always recording, so he adjusted its angle to focus on the lush, riotous jungle behind him. “Day three on Seyria.” He said, without using the radio. The muffled sound of his voice would need to be touched up, but that wasn’t his problem. “Nothing too bad since the drones. Really, this place is not living up to its reputation, and if it weren’t for this suit, I’d feel right at home.” He chuckled, for the benefit of the audience. “Hopefully, those of you ingesting the feed will not be quite as bored as I have been today, after my team has fixed up the footage. Sure, this planet is...”

Nojus trailed off, noticing motion behind the camera, in the shadows cast by the outcrop of rock. He held up one gloved hand to the camera, excited. The movement had looked like something big. “Wait just a minute!” He exclaimed, for the benefit of the audience.

At the sound, the thing in the shadows moved again. A long, chitinous limb reached out to find purchase on the rock, not far from his pack of supplies, and a pair of long, trembling antennae unrolled and hung over his head. This, clearly, was one of the monsters Seyria was known for. Nojus hurried forward to grab the camera and survival tool, holding up one hand toward the beast as its triangular, many-eyed head cautiously peeked out of its hole. “I’ll be right with you!” He said, quickly detaching the camera from the multitool and configuring it into a barbed gaff. 

Hefting his newly configured weapon in one hand and pointing the camera with the other, Nojus stepped toward the giant creature, just as it unlimbered its multitude of clicking mouthparts. It was, he could see, undoubtedly predatory, and though it didn’t seem especially hungry, Nojus was right in front of its lair, and not running away; it could almost certainly be goaded into conflict. “Hello there, lovely.” Nojus shouted up at it, as its head rose above him. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you!” 

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Special Announcement: Ashton Pesaresi Interviews Nojus Brand

2946-08-20 - Special Announcement: Ashton Pesaresi Interviews Nojus Brand

On 7 September, Nojus Brand will appear on the Cosmic Background vidcast program for a full-length interview and discussion of the things he saw during his nearly six-month tour of some of the more dangerous worlds of the Coreward Frontier. Nojus is not based here on Centauri, but we hope to have him sit in our studio for interviews in the future whenever he is in the system.

Ashton will be interviewing Mr. Brand, and he has requested audience suggestions as to the topics he should cover. All topics will be cleared with Mr. Brand's media team before the interview.

Nojus Brand is best known for his vidcast program, in which he tackles some of the most hostile and forbidding regions on explored planets. His audience and the audience of Cosmic Background overlap to a large degree, and after the positive reviews that reached both programs concerning his recent unplanned appearance on this text feed under the Tales from the Inbox metatag category, our two programs have decided to establish a more regular collaborations.

A second Tales from the Inbox episode featuring Mr. Brand's escapades will enter the text feed tomorrow at the usual time.

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Tales From the Inbox: First Contact on Makaharwa

2946-08-14 - Tales From the Inbox - First Contact on Makaharwa

Raukrhan watched the Great Old One silently. There was no mistaking what it was; the song-stories said that the Old Ones would come haloed in fire and gleaming to surpass the finery of all the cladelords, and so it had come to pass. Now, the creature hovered lightly over the Razor Plains, the great blasts of its breath flattening even the stiff blade-bushes below it. Dozens of glowing eyes watched in all directions, and not one of them had blinked since Raukrhan had begun watching. 

The Great Old Ones had not come to Makaharwa in at least fifteen generations, but it had been said in all that time that their return was imminent. The story-singers knew that the fickle, changing will of the Highmost Of All Worlds would someday cast its baleful eye on Raukrhan’s people once more, and He would send his servants, the Great Old Ones, to treat, to grant boons, or to destroy, as He had in ages past. In those days, some of Raukrhan’s ancestors had been taken to live among the stars, and it was said that those who had gone were singing still in the heavenly City of Worlds, entertaining the Highmost and his glittering court. 

Raukrhan hoped that, in the craggy vantage he had selected, even the multitudinous eyes of a Great Old One would be unable to spy him. He kept his plumage dulled to match the rocky spire onto which he clung, certain that as long as he was still, nothing in the world could see him. The Old Ones were not of the world, of course; this one might spy him out all the same. It was a risk, but a necessary one, and Raukrhan had volunteered quickly, before lots had been cast. As the rest of the clade had fled into the safety of the sacred grottoes, he had come out alone, carrying nothing except a bag with three days’ food for his vigil. Everyone knew that weapons and totems were no proof against the Old Ones. 

After a long while, the Great Old One effortlessly seared for itself a blackened hole in the Razor Plains and came to a ponderous rest. Even from a distance, Raukrhan could smell the sour stench of burning and desolation carried on the wind, along with the bitter, venomous smell of the Old One itself.

Any hope that the vast being had come only to take ease in a pleasant place was soon dashed; the creature disgorged a number of tiny things, some of which circled in tandem up into the air, while others tottered about on the scorched ground around their parent. The ground-bound things moved with deliberate caution as they fanned out into the Plains in small groups, while the fliers circled restlessly above their sinister parent.  

These fliers, the obvious threat to Raukrhan and his clan, were of a kind with the Old One’s glittering, sinister element. Their odd jerking motion in the air, and their total lack of wings or plumage with which to ride the wind, unsettled him, as did the speed with which they performed their precise aerial dance.  

One by one, these tiny subordinates flew off in all directions. This, the song-stories did not prepare Raukrhan for; the Great Old Ones described by the tale-singers never needed to search for what they wanted. When they came, they simply proceeded toward the object of their desire, erasing all obstacles as if they had never been. Perhaps, in all their ages of service to the Highmost, even Old Ones had become forgetful. 

Almost too late, Raukrhan noticed one of the flitting minions meandering toward him. He hugged the rock closely, watching it go by, buzzing like a gorged rubyfly and bobbing like a piece of foamwood in a rapid stream. It was not much bigger than himself, and seemed to hang in the air upside down, with its swiveling head hanging below its round body and stubby, fruit-shaped bulbs which seemed a disdainful mockery of wings. Such a thing, he knew, should not fly, and yet it soared jerkily through the air. 

Just as it seemed the creature passed Raukrhan’s hiding place without taking notice, it came to a sudden halt, spinning its body in place until it faced him.  Hoping still to avoid notice, the sentry froze and held his breath, even as its hot, acrid breath washed over him. 

The creature barked something unintelligible, its voice tinny and hollow. Raukrhan could no longer hope that he had not been noticed. After he spent a few seconds in silent deliberation, it repeated its noises, dipping lower, until its many-eyed head was suspended directly in front of his own eyes. Seeing that it lacked teeth or claws of any kind, Raukrhan hoped to spook this thrall from the stars – he threw up his feather-crest and cast his wings wide, shifting his plumage from the dull gray-brown color of the rocks to a vibrant pattern of violet and yellow.  

Most of Makaharwa’s more dangerous predators found such a display at least surprising, but this subordinate to the Old One merely backed away slowly, making no move to suggest that it was alarmed. Shifting his colors once more, Raukrhan threw himself at it, clawing at its hardened head with his climbing talons. 

To his relief, the shining creature broke off and gained altitude, though he doubted he’d done any damage. Before it could recover, he leapt off his perch over and sped away into a cliff-hugging dive, hoping to hide among the crags and evade the gleaming horror.  

Evading an Old One, however, proved as impossible as the song-stories claimed. As soon as Raukrhan had leveled off at the bottom of the cliff, the bobbing abomination dropped down in front of him. It had sprouted a new limb since he turned away; the spindly, talon-like appendage joined its round body just above the hanging head. This limb flailed against the air, but not randomly – Raukrhan decided that it was gesturing, a crude mimicry of how Raukrhan’s people might gesture with their clawed wing-digits. The meaning of the gesture was clear - it was pointing at its prey, as if claiming him as its own. 

Raukrhan, imagining the things it might intend to do with someone so claimed, turned and abruptly and dove into the canopy of a narrow, wooded gulch, crashing through the recoiling tendrils of a waterfall tree and taking refuge among its distended roots. 

Still, the questing servant of the Old One followed, slowly lowering itself between the trees. It found Raukrhan easily, and pointed at him once more. This time, he realized, it was not quite pointing at him – it was pointing at his little bag of provisions, dangling from its carry-strap.

Raukrhan hissed at it, looking for another way to escape. He didn’t want to part with the food, but he would gladly trade it for his life. Perhaps the Great Old One had merely come to the world to fill its cavernous belly? If so, it had chosen its location well – the hills around the Razor Plains were fertile foraging ground, and even the perilous plains themselves could be made to yield up a great bounty. Carefully, he lifted the leather loop off his neck and tossed the bag to the horror, hoping that this would satisfy its desires. Perhaps while it investigated the contents, he might make his escape. 

The shining creature barked again, equally unintelligibly. Its single talon picked up the bag, then held it out, as if to give it back. Raukrhan hissed at it, not understanding the otherworldly creature’s ways, and not wanting to try. The Old Ones were beyond the comprehension of all but the Highmost, and only madness could be the reward of such curiosity.

The servant of the Old One persisted, pointing with its single claw to itself, to Raukrhan, then into the distance, where its sire lay in a circle of devastation. It offered the bag, then again. Raukrhan, despite his best efforts, began to see the edges of its purpose; it wanted him to return with it, and was offering him something if he obeyed. He had no choice; the Old One’s thralls could certainly hunt him to the ends of the world, and if he did by miraculous fortune evade them, they would just as likely search out his clade-mates, since the sacred grotto was only a day’s flight away. Whatever its purpose, he was the sentry, the one who had accepted the risk; it was his responsibility to suffer whatever the Old One willed, in the hope that it would spare the others. 

Fear twisting his insides, Raukrhan snatched the bag back. The silvery creature rose past the treetops, and Raukrhan clambered up after it and took to the air, following the bobbing, shining servant back to its titanic master.

He wanted to flee once more, but he saw it was no use; more of the flying servants watched from a distance on all sides, and the tottering groundlings had gathered to watch his approach as well. As it went in the stories, the will of the Highmost, enacted by the Great Old Ones, could not be thwarted.

Today's entry is a rare treat - Raukrhan's account is the only case I've ever known of a first contact event for which both the explorers' and the natives' perspectives are recorded. The highly sensationalized exploration of Makaharwa, the so-called Chromatic Planet, is likely well known to this audience; Raukrhan is to date the only one of the planet's native inhabitants to agree to leave the world and return to the Core Worlds. Raukrhan's tour of the Core Worlds was far less sensationalized than the explorers' efforts to catalog the planet's diverse and beautiful ecosystem, likely for security reasons.

All the information I can find says that this account was likely dictated to a human assistant some time in mid-2943, shortly before Raukrhan returned to Makaharwa with a second research expedition. His impression of human arrival matches neatly with the impressions of several other pre-technological sapients encountered on the Coreward Frontier, and it is curious how nearly identical these legends are iacross wide areas of space. Perhaps in some long-forgotten era, the people of Makaharwa and the other inhabited worlds of the Frontier had dealings with the Xenarchs? I can find no research conclusively showing this to be the case, but a quick datasphere search shows that I am hardly the first person to speculate along these lines.

If there are any among the audience with additional light to shed on why these legends might be so similar, by all means send it along - I would be happy to present that sort of content on this feed.

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