Sometime After the Events in the Gesalt Colonies
Mark broke his much rehearsed mask of patience to glance down at his chronometer. The readout on his wrist bolstered the message that his aching backside and cramped legs were sending him. He had been sitting in an uncomfortable plasteel chair awaiting his appointment with the Emperor of the Independent Realm of Praxico Major for seven hours now.
But diplomacy was really a waiting game after all.
Or at least that was the game that Mark was playing.
Rubino turned his eyes from his chronometer to the Palace Reception Room’s only redeeming feature, the window. This escape from the drab Imperial-Modern architecture of the reception area along with the rest of Emperor Satoris’s palace offered little solace. The planet’s capital city followed a similar design paradigm.
Through the currently negligible smog of the city’s growing industrial district, Mark could make out the astonishingly tall spire of the planet’s greatest architectural and scientific achievement (of the few there were since the reign of Emperor Satoris had begun ten years prior). The planet’s populace was extremely proud of this triumph and the flight plan beamed to Mark’s ship by the Praxican flight controller had taken him unnecessarily close proximity the new space elevator.
The obsidian black tendril, measuring some hundred thousand kilometers in length and anchored in space by a hollowed out asteroid that bordered on planetoid status, was the whole reason that Mark had been dispatched to Praxico Prime by the Commonwealth. For centuries, rather than find other uses for it, the Praxicans had simply loaded their more hazardous wastes into container ships and dumped them outside their solar system. The expense of this practice had reserved it for the only truly deadly byproducts generated by the growing heavy industry on the planet. The new space elevator had quickly eliminated this impediment and now virtually all waste produced on the planet was being dumped right next door in Commonwealth space.
In the scheme of things, this dumping was a trivial matter considering the vast amount of wreckage and assorted space junk that still, after more than a year after the Domain War, was drifting in and around the Kirima system. It was the principle of the matter that concerned the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth was not the New Order’s lapdog or a Coalition pushover, so it should not be treated that way.
This progressive plan for waste disposal had been proposed by Praxico Major’s very own emperor. All his advisors had been too afraid to point out the short sightedness of the policy. Depleting Praxico Major of valuable resources was a problem that future generations of Praxicans could deal with. Each of these advisors had an obligation to his ownhead to keep it connected to his own body.
Consequently, Mark was sent to Praxico Major to ask a potentially psychopathic monarch as assertively as he dared to please stop jettisoning trash into the orbit of the suns of Commonwealth member systems. Mark had done his homework before venturing to the Prax System. It was definitely a world in decline. The emperor and his friends were impudently ransacking the treasury. Every now and then Emperor Satoris would put forth a public works project or a great exhibition in the arena to placate the populace but mostly he just pilfered his world to sustain his insatiable desire for all types of iniquity. This was far from Mark’s ideal assignment, but dealing with an insane emperor sure beat the hell out of being Vice-Admiral Wilkar’s keeper for any longer.
Mark turned to the leathery looking old man sitting next to him. By appearance of his sun aged skin and rustic attire, he was some kind of farmer or herder.
“Kind sir?” he ventured. “How long has Emperor Satoris kept you waiting?”
The much bronzed old man turned to look at Mark. “I have not moved from this room in two days now,” he answered.
“What in the galaxy would make you want to do that? I mean… Does he owe you money?” The sheer boredom of the situation caused Mark’s diplomatic training to lapse for moment.
“It is my belief that a factory build near my land last year has poisoned my nerf herd by dumping its wastes into the river. I lost three hundred nerfs this year. They all dropped dead before my cattle hands and I could drive them off the river bank. I’ve come to demand compensation,” said the herder in an obviously much rehearsed fashion.
Mark pulled himself out of the chair, his knees cracking as he rose. “Well sir, I wish you much luck in your endeavor, but I won’t wait a second longer to see your emperor.”
At that, Mark made his way for the door, but stopped as the guard manning the desk yelled to him. “’ey where ya think you’re going foreigner?”
“Excuse me?” answered Mark reprovingly, his voice dripping with agitation.
“Just fuggin’ wait dere a sec,” said the guard as he spoke into his comlink.
Mark retook his seat and waited. A minute later another guard arrived carrying a small blaster.
“Blaamm!”
With the pistol, the guard shot the herder square in the head. Mark sat there in horror, covered in blood and brain matter, as the second guard looked back confusedly back at the first.
Mark broke his much rehearsed mask of patience to glance down at his chronometer. The readout on his wrist bolstered the message that his aching backside and cramped legs were sending him. He had been sitting in an uncomfortable plasteel chair awaiting his appointment with the Emperor of the Independent Realm of Praxico Major for seven hours now.
But diplomacy was really a waiting game after all.
Or at least that was the game that Mark was playing.
Rubino turned his eyes from his chronometer to the Palace Reception Room’s only redeeming feature, the window. This escape from the drab Imperial-Modern architecture of the reception area along with the rest of Emperor Satoris’s palace offered little solace. The planet’s capital city followed a similar design paradigm.
Through the currently negligible smog of the city’s growing industrial district, Mark could make out the astonishingly tall spire of the planet’s greatest architectural and scientific achievement (of the few there were since the reign of Emperor Satoris had begun ten years prior). The planet’s populace was extremely proud of this triumph and the flight plan beamed to Mark’s ship by the Praxican flight controller had taken him unnecessarily close proximity the new space elevator.
The obsidian black tendril, measuring some hundred thousand kilometers in length and anchored in space by a hollowed out asteroid that bordered on planetoid status, was the whole reason that Mark had been dispatched to Praxico Prime by the Commonwealth. For centuries, rather than find other uses for it, the Praxicans had simply loaded their more hazardous wastes into container ships and dumped them outside their solar system. The expense of this practice had reserved it for the only truly deadly byproducts generated by the growing heavy industry on the planet. The new space elevator had quickly eliminated this impediment and now virtually all waste produced on the planet was being dumped right next door in Commonwealth space.
In the scheme of things, this dumping was a trivial matter considering the vast amount of wreckage and assorted space junk that still, after more than a year after the Domain War, was drifting in and around the Kirima system. It was the principle of the matter that concerned the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth was not the New Order’s lapdog or a Coalition pushover, so it should not be treated that way.
This progressive plan for waste disposal had been proposed by Praxico Major’s very own emperor. All his advisors had been too afraid to point out the short sightedness of the policy. Depleting Praxico Major of valuable resources was a problem that future generations of Praxicans could deal with. Each of these advisors had an obligation to his ownhead to keep it connected to his own body.
Consequently, Mark was sent to Praxico Major to ask a potentially psychopathic monarch as assertively as he dared to please stop jettisoning trash into the orbit of the suns of Commonwealth member systems. Mark had done his homework before venturing to the Prax System. It was definitely a world in decline. The emperor and his friends were impudently ransacking the treasury. Every now and then Emperor Satoris would put forth a public works project or a great exhibition in the arena to placate the populace but mostly he just pilfered his world to sustain his insatiable desire for all types of iniquity. This was far from Mark’s ideal assignment, but dealing with an insane emperor sure beat the hell out of being Vice-Admiral Wilkar’s keeper for any longer.
Mark turned to the leathery looking old man sitting next to him. By appearance of his sun aged skin and rustic attire, he was some kind of farmer or herder.
“Kind sir?” he ventured. “How long has Emperor Satoris kept you waiting?”
The much bronzed old man turned to look at Mark. “I have not moved from this room in two days now,” he answered.
“What in the galaxy would make you want to do that? I mean… Does he owe you money?” The sheer boredom of the situation caused Mark’s diplomatic training to lapse for moment.
“It is my belief that a factory build near my land last year has poisoned my nerf herd by dumping its wastes into the river. I lost three hundred nerfs this year. They all dropped dead before my cattle hands and I could drive them off the river bank. I’ve come to demand compensation,” said the herder in an obviously much rehearsed fashion.
Mark pulled himself out of the chair, his knees cracking as he rose. “Well sir, I wish you much luck in your endeavor, but I won’t wait a second longer to see your emperor.”
At that, Mark made his way for the door, but stopped as the guard manning the desk yelled to him. “’ey where ya think you’re going foreigner?”
“Excuse me?” answered Mark reprovingly, his voice dripping with agitation.
“Just fuggin’ wait dere a sec,” said the guard as he spoke into his comlink.
Mark retook his seat and waited. A minute later another guard arrived carrying a small blaster.
“Blaamm!”
With the pistol, the guard shot the herder square in the head. Mark sat there in horror, covered in blood and brain matter, as the second guard looked back confusedly back at the first.