EPILOUGE - PROVERBS 18:24
Gen could feel something tickling at her mind as she sailed through the Sol system, deep in the embrace of cryosleep. The journey had taken months, even at
sublight speeds and with the wormhole "expressway", and her craft was damaged from the rigors of interstellar space. Her tail, usually thick and
pendulous with a rich store of fat, was shriveled and vestigial. Without making planetfall soon, she would die. The tickling increased, coalescing into words
in her mind.
Lost child of the stars, to where to you head? The dialect this entity was using was unfamiliar to Gen, but she could understand the question.
"...Earth..." she whispered. She opened her eyes, blinking the ice crystals out of her vision and looked through the heavily frosted window. A
brownish gas giant filled the entire view, with the swollen red pockmark of an enormous hurricane rotating slowly across top cloudlayer. A shimmering purple
haze was visible to her aft, trailing her ship by a few klicks. She looked confusedly at it as it flew in close to her ship.
You will be delighted in your temporal lobe to know that you are almost there, star child! Your ship appears to be damaged, though. You'll never make
it in time. The interior of Gen's craft was filled with a strange violet glow as the haze floated into the cockpit, its wild energies crackling inches
from her snout.
I do not know why, star child, but I will help you. Maybe one day, you can help me in return... The purple mist shot through the roof of her ship, as if
the bulkhead didn't even exist, and hovered behind the tattered solar sail. The remaining fabric swelled as if filled by an unseen wind and Gen could feel
the craft pick up speed.
You are approximately 15 minutes from making planetfall, star child. Your current heading will suffice. And prepare yourself - the Earthlings are a little
paranoid of new visitors from the cosmos, with good reason. The cloud floated away and banked back towards the gas giant rapidly retreating from view.
I fear that even this small gesture of kindness will lead to my discovery, star child, but I feel that taking this chance will benefit both of us! Until
next we meet... Gen thought she saw the cloud change shape into a strange, tentacled creature as it descended toward the cloudtops.
She didn't have time to worry about that now, as her ship careened through an asteroid field. The cryosleep sequence started shutting down and Gen's
mind sharply came into focus. Gone for now was the strange "purple" sensation that crackled across her body in the presence of the mysterious entity.
The only thing she focused on now was getting her craft out of the way of some of the bigger boulders. Carefully, she piloted the speeding ship, trying hard
not to make any sudden movements that would rob her of precious inertia.
A small, red planet came into view below her, her short-wave radio receiving three separate transmissions spread across the surface. For a moment, she thought
she'd made a horrible mistake and overshot her target, until she spotted a brilliant, blue marble in the distance. Her reciever crackled and squealed as
overlapping signals and communications leaked into space from Earth's surface innundated her craft. The cacophany was almost overwhelming. Sooner than she
had anticipated, her ship rounded the sole moon, and she found herself scrambling to pilot her craft into an orbit around the planet, too late, she realized.
Frantically, she grabbed the radio transmitter and called out a frightened SOS to anyone that could hear. The cabin of her craft became uncomfortably hot as
her ship breached the atmosphere, enveloped in a blanket of fire. Warning bells went off in the craft as a fire broke out towards the aft compartment. Gen
cursed and initiated an emergency separation sequence. A translucent shell enclosed her chair and the craft's canopy blew off the bulkhead with a deafening
boom. Just as the escape pod dislodged from its mothership, the aft compartment exploded, sending bits of flaming debris raining towards the
rapidly-approaching ground. Gen was suddenly jarred by the force of a large parachute opening on her pod. She took a chance and surveyed the landscape below as
she floated down.
The scene was a little startling. There were smouldering, ruined buildings and what appeared to be the wreckage of an enormous alien craft, the likes of which
Gen had never seen, surrounded by an equally huge green forcefield. She spotted large, armored vehicles rumbling across roadways that were naked of any
vegetation, and giant bipedal metal beings slowly picking their way across the rubble. Here and there, she caught brief flashes of energy weapons fire below,
but before she could discern who was fighting what, a low "whop-whop-whop" rumbled in her ears. She turned and saw several aircraft, circling her pod
as it lowered to the planet's surface, spotlights and weapons trained squarely at her.
Her pod landed with a soft "thud" in the middle of a pile of debris, and was instantly beset by a group of what Gen could only assume were the native
inhabitants - Earthlings, as the strange entity called them. They were short in comparison to her, most covered from head to toe in metallic armor. The few
that weren't in this garb looked truly alien indeed. Flat, pink faces, no signs of scales or claws or horns, walking stiffly on two legs. Despite their
non-threatening appearance, Gen was more than aware of the crafted weaponry they carried, and had no doubt of their prowess with them. One of these Earthlings
came at her craft cautiously, armed with a long piece of metal. He wedged a sharp end into the seam on her pod's canopy and leveraged it open with a sharp
crack. As this one stepped back, two others came forward, weapons leveled at her head. One of the unarmored Earthlings started jabbering at her in a language
she did not understand. Gen only shook her head and shrugged in a universal sign of "I don't understand."
She spoke slowly and carefully, "I come for freedom", her hands raised above her head, trying desperately to show them she meant no harm. As she
spoke, another of the unarmored Earthlings cocked his head slightly and spoke to her in what sounded to be a very butchered dialect of her native tongue.
"Freedom? ...you...refugee?" was all she could pick out. There were other inflections and tones that Gen could not understand. She nodded
emphatically.
"Yes! Refugee!" she pointed excitedly at the heavens, recoiling when she heard the clack-clack of a weapon being primed. The Earthling that spoke her
tongue waved the weapon-weilders away and extended a smooth, pink hand to her.
"You come with us, refugee," he said haltingly and helped Gen's 7 foot tall form out of the escape pod. "You answer questions, you get
freedom." As the Earthling sheparded Gen into the belly of a waiting armored vehicle, he produced a small greyish box from the pocket of his strange cloak
and began jabbering into it in the language the others used.
"Yeah, is this the Legendary base? Yes, I need Morgan MacHine, stat."
Gen sat quietly, peering out the rear window at the convoy following them, her crashed escape pod tied to a flatbed truck bouncing along behind them. Her
battle claws had been locked in an armored chest, which currently supported the posterior of several weapon-weilding Earthlings. They peered at her as they
whispered among themselves, making Gen a little more than uneasy. Still, nothing could be worse than what she'd encountered on Draxis...
She must have dozed a little - her body was exhausted beyond belief from the arduous trip across the interstellar medium - for she found herself being poked
awake by the barrel of an Earthling weapon. The one that spoke her language encouraged her out of the vehicle and into the doorway of a large bunker. A
swirling green portal, crackling above a metal platform, was the only thing inside. "Get in", said the Earthling. Gen obliged, fearful of what
appeared to be unholy green fire waiting to consume her.
As she stepped in, she found herself in a large base, with many more of these strange creatures dressed in bizzare garments milling about. One of the large,
metal beings she'd seen earlier stood in a large repair alcove, with several Earthlings toiling over its maintenance. Gen glanced at her
"translator", looking very confused.
"We ask questions first, then it's your turn," he said before Gen could even formulate a question. "Fair?"
"Yes, fair," she sighed as she was led into a small room with a table and a few chairs. As they seated her, Gen could see outside the doorframe two
strange-garbed Earthlings - one with a shock of red hair, the other extremely short, wide, and covered from head to toe in what appeared to be icy blue and
white armor. She tried to listen, but her head spun with lack of food and confusion.
"You understand that my grasp on the 'mothertongue' is tenuous at best," Morgan said in a heavy Scottish accent. "I don't know what
help I can be."
"And I really don't know why I was volunteered to be drug along..." Mag Flashlight clamped his unlit cigar firmly in his teeth, shifting it from
one side of his mouth to the other. Morgan shot him a hot look.
"An alien that is neither Rikti, nor Kheldian. Something we haven't encountered yet. That doesn't intrigue you in the slightest?" Morgan
stole a glance at the topic of their conversation. He noticed a passing resemblance to the rampant dragon of the Welsh flag. Morgan turned to the operative who
phoned him. "You're sure? She speaks Gaelic?"
"It seems to be a dialect that we've never heard. The MK VI translators would do the trick, but unfortunatelly, they're back-ordered. It will be
months before we can requisition one." The operative looked at Gen, who had been given a plate of donuts while she waited. She sniffed the confections,
sneezing when a sprinkle went up her sniffer. She snorted and began devouring the donuts. After they were gone, she started to lick the plate with her forked
tongue, thought better of it, and started munching on the porcelain. He looked at another operative with an air of urgency. "For god's sake, man, get
her more food! She's eating the damn plate!" Morgan quirked an eyebrow at this.
"Does she eat meat, too?" Mag whispered, a little fearful.
"With teeth like that?" Morgan motioned towards the lanky reptilian as she thoughtfully crunched the last of the plate and licked the sugar and
porcelain dust off her fingers. "I'm pretty sure that armor of yours would be nothing but a crunchy shell, if she really wanted." Morgan leaned
towards the operative. "Are you sure she's friendly?"
"Friendly? Not sure. I can tell you that she has shown absolutely no sign of aggression. I think the poor creature is just frightened." The operative
sighed. "Look, I'll be on the level with you. Vanguard doesn't pay me to babysit every potentially friendly alien that tumbles out of the sky, no
more than you guys are expected to stop every bank robbery, or save every lady that gets her purse stolen by Hellions. As per Section 10..."
"...you can hold her for a week, the maximum time alloted for quarrantine." Morgan interrupted. "This isn't my first dealing with Vanguard.
So what you're saying is you called, not only for the slim chance that I can hold a meaningful conversation with her, but also because you need her to be
someone else's problem."
"Umm...yes. I wouldn't have been so blunt of course, but I'd heard through the grapevine that your supergroup's base was fairly
sizeable..."
"Are you SERIOUS?" Mag bellowed, startling Gen in the next room, who instantly dove under the table, quivering. Her energy blades flicked on
instinctively, flooding the room and hallway beyond in a soft blue glow, much to the shock of the Vanguard operative in their midst.
"Talsorian blades? How? Those are reserved for Security Clearance level 35 heroes and above!" The operative drew his sidearm and trained it on Gen,
who froze instantly. The glowing blades ebbed and flickered out of existence.
"Hey, hey, buddy, I don't think she meant anything by it," Mag intoned, carefully working between the operative and the terrified alien in the
next room. "You said so yourself - she's scared. Look, she don't look like no bad egg to me, right, and I fancy myself a pretty good judge of
character. Even if that character is over 7 feet tall, covered in blue scales, and has magical glowing blades." The operative slowly lowered his weapon
and glowered down at Mag.
"I think you just volunteered your services, hero." The operative motioned for one of the base medics to come near. "This gentleman has offered
to be the new arrival's guardian. Do see that he fills out the proper paperwork...."
Gen could feel something tickling at her mind as she sailed through the Sol system, deep in the embrace of cryosleep. The journey had taken months, even at
sublight speeds and with the wormhole "expressway", and her craft was damaged from the rigors of interstellar space. Her tail, usually thick and
pendulous with a rich store of fat, was shriveled and vestigial. Without making planetfall soon, she would die. The tickling increased, coalescing into words
in her mind.
Lost child of the stars, to where to you head? The dialect this entity was using was unfamiliar to Gen, but she could understand the question.
"...Earth..." she whispered. She opened her eyes, blinking the ice crystals out of her vision and looked through the heavily frosted window. A
brownish gas giant filled the entire view, with the swollen red pockmark of an enormous hurricane rotating slowly across top cloudlayer. A shimmering purple
haze was visible to her aft, trailing her ship by a few klicks. She looked confusedly at it as it flew in close to her ship.
You will be delighted in your temporal lobe to know that you are almost there, star child! Your ship appears to be damaged, though. You'll never make
it in time. The interior of Gen's craft was filled with a strange violet glow as the haze floated into the cockpit, its wild energies crackling inches
from her snout.
I do not know why, star child, but I will help you. Maybe one day, you can help me in return... The purple mist shot through the roof of her ship, as if
the bulkhead didn't even exist, and hovered behind the tattered solar sail. The remaining fabric swelled as if filled by an unseen wind and Gen could feel
the craft pick up speed.
You are approximately 15 minutes from making planetfall, star child. Your current heading will suffice. And prepare yourself - the Earthlings are a little
paranoid of new visitors from the cosmos, with good reason. The cloud floated away and banked back towards the gas giant rapidly retreating from view.
I fear that even this small gesture of kindness will lead to my discovery, star child, but I feel that taking this chance will benefit both of us! Until
next we meet... Gen thought she saw the cloud change shape into a strange, tentacled creature as it descended toward the cloudtops.
She didn't have time to worry about that now, as her ship careened through an asteroid field. The cryosleep sequence started shutting down and Gen's
mind sharply came into focus. Gone for now was the strange "purple" sensation that crackled across her body in the presence of the mysterious entity.
The only thing she focused on now was getting her craft out of the way of some of the bigger boulders. Carefully, she piloted the speeding ship, trying hard
not to make any sudden movements that would rob her of precious inertia.
A small, red planet came into view below her, her short-wave radio receiving three separate transmissions spread across the surface. For a moment, she thought
she'd made a horrible mistake and overshot her target, until she spotted a brilliant, blue marble in the distance. Her reciever crackled and squealed as
overlapping signals and communications leaked into space from Earth's surface innundated her craft. The cacophany was almost overwhelming. Sooner than she
had anticipated, her ship rounded the sole moon, and she found herself scrambling to pilot her craft into an orbit around the planet, too late, she realized.
Frantically, she grabbed the radio transmitter and called out a frightened SOS to anyone that could hear. The cabin of her craft became uncomfortably hot as
her ship breached the atmosphere, enveloped in a blanket of fire. Warning bells went off in the craft as a fire broke out towards the aft compartment. Gen
cursed and initiated an emergency separation sequence. A translucent shell enclosed her chair and the craft's canopy blew off the bulkhead with a deafening
boom. Just as the escape pod dislodged from its mothership, the aft compartment exploded, sending bits of flaming debris raining towards the
rapidly-approaching ground. Gen was suddenly jarred by the force of a large parachute opening on her pod. She took a chance and surveyed the landscape below as
she floated down.
The scene was a little startling. There were smouldering, ruined buildings and what appeared to be the wreckage of an enormous alien craft, the likes of which
Gen had never seen, surrounded by an equally huge green forcefield. She spotted large, armored vehicles rumbling across roadways that were naked of any
vegetation, and giant bipedal metal beings slowly picking their way across the rubble. Here and there, she caught brief flashes of energy weapons fire below,
but before she could discern who was fighting what, a low "whop-whop-whop" rumbled in her ears. She turned and saw several aircraft, circling her pod
as it lowered to the planet's surface, spotlights and weapons trained squarely at her.
Her pod landed with a soft "thud" in the middle of a pile of debris, and was instantly beset by a group of what Gen could only assume were the native
inhabitants - Earthlings, as the strange entity called them. They were short in comparison to her, most covered from head to toe in metallic armor. The few
that weren't in this garb looked truly alien indeed. Flat, pink faces, no signs of scales or claws or horns, walking stiffly on two legs. Despite their
non-threatening appearance, Gen was more than aware of the crafted weaponry they carried, and had no doubt of their prowess with them. One of these Earthlings
came at her craft cautiously, armed with a long piece of metal. He wedged a sharp end into the seam on her pod's canopy and leveraged it open with a sharp
crack. As this one stepped back, two others came forward, weapons leveled at her head. One of the unarmored Earthlings started jabbering at her in a language
she did not understand. Gen only shook her head and shrugged in a universal sign of "I don't understand."
She spoke slowly and carefully, "I come for freedom", her hands raised above her head, trying desperately to show them she meant no harm. As she
spoke, another of the unarmored Earthlings cocked his head slightly and spoke to her in what sounded to be a very butchered dialect of her native tongue.
"Freedom? ...you...refugee?" was all she could pick out. There were other inflections and tones that Gen could not understand. She nodded
emphatically.
"Yes! Refugee!" she pointed excitedly at the heavens, recoiling when she heard the clack-clack of a weapon being primed. The Earthling that spoke her
tongue waved the weapon-weilders away and extended a smooth, pink hand to her.
"You come with us, refugee," he said haltingly and helped Gen's 7 foot tall form out of the escape pod. "You answer questions, you get
freedom." As the Earthling sheparded Gen into the belly of a waiting armored vehicle, he produced a small greyish box from the pocket of his strange cloak
and began jabbering into it in the language the others used.
"Yeah, is this the Legendary base? Yes, I need Morgan MacHine, stat."
Gen sat quietly, peering out the rear window at the convoy following them, her crashed escape pod tied to a flatbed truck bouncing along behind them. Her
battle claws had been locked in an armored chest, which currently supported the posterior of several weapon-weilding Earthlings. They peered at her as they
whispered among themselves, making Gen a little more than uneasy. Still, nothing could be worse than what she'd encountered on Draxis...
She must have dozed a little - her body was exhausted beyond belief from the arduous trip across the interstellar medium - for she found herself being poked
awake by the barrel of an Earthling weapon. The one that spoke her language encouraged her out of the vehicle and into the doorway of a large bunker. A
swirling green portal, crackling above a metal platform, was the only thing inside. "Get in", said the Earthling. Gen obliged, fearful of what
appeared to be unholy green fire waiting to consume her.
As she stepped in, she found herself in a large base, with many more of these strange creatures dressed in bizzare garments milling about. One of the large,
metal beings she'd seen earlier stood in a large repair alcove, with several Earthlings toiling over its maintenance. Gen glanced at her
"translator", looking very confused.
"We ask questions first, then it's your turn," he said before Gen could even formulate a question. "Fair?"
"Yes, fair," she sighed as she was led into a small room with a table and a few chairs. As they seated her, Gen could see outside the doorframe two
strange-garbed Earthlings - one with a shock of red hair, the other extremely short, wide, and covered from head to toe in what appeared to be icy blue and
white armor. She tried to listen, but her head spun with lack of food and confusion.
"You understand that my grasp on the 'mothertongue' is tenuous at best," Morgan said in a heavy Scottish accent. "I don't know what
help I can be."
"And I really don't know why I was volunteered to be drug along..." Mag Flashlight clamped his unlit cigar firmly in his teeth, shifting it from
one side of his mouth to the other. Morgan shot him a hot look.
"An alien that is neither Rikti, nor Kheldian. Something we haven't encountered yet. That doesn't intrigue you in the slightest?" Morgan
stole a glance at the topic of their conversation. He noticed a passing resemblance to the rampant dragon of the Welsh flag. Morgan turned to the operative who
phoned him. "You're sure? She speaks Gaelic?"
"It seems to be a dialect that we've never heard. The MK VI translators would do the trick, but unfortunatelly, they're back-ordered. It will be
months before we can requisition one." The operative looked at Gen, who had been given a plate of donuts while she waited. She sniffed the confections,
sneezing when a sprinkle went up her sniffer. She snorted and began devouring the donuts. After they were gone, she started to lick the plate with her forked
tongue, thought better of it, and started munching on the porcelain. He looked at another operative with an air of urgency. "For god's sake, man, get
her more food! She's eating the damn plate!" Morgan quirked an eyebrow at this.
"Does she eat meat, too?" Mag whispered, a little fearful.
"With teeth like that?" Morgan motioned towards the lanky reptilian as she thoughtfully crunched the last of the plate and licked the sugar and
porcelain dust off her fingers. "I'm pretty sure that armor of yours would be nothing but a crunchy shell, if she really wanted." Morgan leaned
towards the operative. "Are you sure she's friendly?"
"Friendly? Not sure. I can tell you that she has shown absolutely no sign of aggression. I think the poor creature is just frightened." The operative
sighed. "Look, I'll be on the level with you. Vanguard doesn't pay me to babysit every potentially friendly alien that tumbles out of the sky, no
more than you guys are expected to stop every bank robbery, or save every lady that gets her purse stolen by Hellions. As per Section 10..."
"...you can hold her for a week, the maximum time alloted for quarrantine." Morgan interrupted. "This isn't my first dealing with Vanguard.
So what you're saying is you called, not only for the slim chance that I can hold a meaningful conversation with her, but also because you need her to be
someone else's problem."
"Umm...yes. I wouldn't have been so blunt of course, but I'd heard through the grapevine that your supergroup's base was fairly
sizeable..."
"Are you SERIOUS?" Mag bellowed, startling Gen in the next room, who instantly dove under the table, quivering. Her energy blades flicked on
instinctively, flooding the room and hallway beyond in a soft blue glow, much to the shock of the Vanguard operative in their midst.
"Talsorian blades? How? Those are reserved for Security Clearance level 35 heroes and above!" The operative drew his sidearm and trained it on Gen,
who froze instantly. The glowing blades ebbed and flickered out of existence.
"Hey, hey, buddy, I don't think she meant anything by it," Mag intoned, carefully working between the operative and the terrified alien in the
next room. "You said so yourself - she's scared. Look, she don't look like no bad egg to me, right, and I fancy myself a pretty good judge of
character. Even if that character is over 7 feet tall, covered in blue scales, and has magical glowing blades." The operative slowly lowered his weapon
and glowered down at Mag.
"I think you just volunteered your services, hero." The operative motioned for one of the base medics to come near. "This gentleman has offered
to be the new arrival's guardian. Do see that he fills out the proper paperwork...."