"Begin recording..."



"Confessions of a Dangerous Ego"



"The dream comes to me at night. It comes upon me with cold sweat and chattering jaw, menacing me as horrors I had long thought passed. Then, it screams aloud, in my dream, her piercing cry a cacophony of sound and color. And I awake, wet to my bed sheets, the echo of her voice still fresh in my ears."



"The colors stay with me longer, until I sleep again."



"Blood red and torrent, like some broken, dead rainbow of sin and contempt. It is as if standing under a great arch of the things one fights to forget, seeing it all come down in vivid reality."



"Other times, in my waking state, I see it dancing at the edge of my vision, threatening to swarm. I have no recourse any longer."



"The fuming cry is that of my child, my spawn. I bore it into this universe, like some sick mother birthing a child doomed to destroy it and those who hold it too close."



"But I could not know, and if I could have, I would not have cared. Even now, coming towards the time of reckoning, I care for none but myself... It will not drag me down."



"Time rolls on, unstoppable and perpetual, as do I."



"For me and mine, life... no, existence, is but one ongoing game. A game where-in the goal is simple, and yet far beyond the comprehension of those we surround ourselves with."



"Granted, my words are just another excuse to let it all happen, to watch everything I have done here collapse around me. But a valid excuse all the same. I have built this, and now I will sit back, content to experience the feelings incorporated with the final demise of my creation."



"The same has transpired before, and will likely do the same again. Time and time over."



"I must escape. I need something... new."



A sharp rapping noise, as knuckles upon steel, disrupts the speaker from his ongoing monologue.



"Pause recording and save personal Log..."



"Enter."


"Sir," adds another voice, caught on the tail end of the digital record, "the game is about to start."
_____________________________________________________________________________


"We will be making our final approach into Dortal Proper in approximately fifteen minutes. We thank you for traveling Exclusive Coach. Enjoy your stay."



The voice was decidedly robotic, it's metallic voice designed to provide the maximum amount of sincerity and kindness while also giving the listener the distinct impression that the voice really possessed no genuine care for the passenger. More importantly, it served to let anyone aboard, not a member of the flight crew, know just exactly where they sat on the totem pole of things. After all, their tickets had already been paid in full.



However, none of these things were of any concern to the single passenger seated comfortably in the cabin designed to accommodate easily ten fold that number. Nor did this passenger care, in the slightest, that he was the single soul aboard inter-galactic 1107 dash B. Quite to the contrary, in fact, as this lone figure was one Omar Omep Demem, known Galaxy-wide as one of the best shockballers alive.



No. None of these things worried the tall, well built human in the slightest. Nothing worried Omar, which made him the perfect agent, aided by his cover as an intergalactic sports icon. In all honesty, Omar Omep Demem had but one thing on his mind as his shuttle angled in for landing, that being; the small audio recording ferreted away on his person.

<b>A man on the Inside</b>

The man known as Vehlek exited a cubicle on the thirty-seventh floor of Hasbandi Inc Towers, a small diskey tucked securely in his breast pocket. He walked casually to the other side of his floor, passed by a low-level security checkpoint and turned onto the main corridor, C37. He walked down this corridor for half a minute, passed another, more thorough security checkpoint, entered an elevator, pulled out a small blastam pistol, and shot the guard twice in the chest.

The stench of burnt flesh began to fill the small metal box as it ascended and, watching on the security monitors from Hasbandi Control, Fischel Plumer of the organisation known simply as 'the agency' discretely switched the video feed into one showing nothing but an empty lift. He then started counting.

Fischel was not a happy man, and on this day in particular he was feeling quite pissed off, for lack of a better term. He had spent the last four months integrating himself into the systems of Hasbandi Inc; learning the operating procedures, security checkpoints, unique management features that made the H. Towers such an impenetrable fortress.

He'd studied employee manuals, schematics, done extra shifts and considerable overtime to make sure he knew the exact features of the security network, that he could predict exactly the way the people and systems would react to a terrorist threat; specifically information of a delicate nature (plans for the latest weapon of mass destruction being designed by Hasbandi) being stolen from a server on the thirty-seventh floor. He'd become so engrossed in the systems that he was even offered a pay-rise. He knew the system back-to-front and, according to his own modest judgement, was probably one of the best security operators that Hasbandi Inc had ever employed.

And today it would either all come together... or all fall completely apart. This made Fischel quite pissed off. The fact that the whole plan hinged on Vehlek putting on a good performance and not fucking up just made him more agitated.

As casually as possible, so as not to draw any attention from the other people working around him in the security centre, Fischel flicked a switch on his console that initiated a barely visible subscript to begin a countdown within the program that administered the elevator's security cameras. A second later a small chime sounded from the clock on the control centre's wall, signalling a shift changeover. Fischel signed off his console, pushed back his chair, and was out of the room and half-way down the corridor ten seconds later.


<i>Time, what we live and die by</i>

It took approximately fifty-eight seconds for elevator number two to go from the thirty-seventh floor to the roof with an average load of 150kg. Fischel's subscript had a turnover of forty seconds. Fischel had waited one minute and ten seconds from the time Vehlek shot the guard to the time he initiated the subscript. It took Fischel thirty seconds to reach the end of the corridor, and the security checkpoint into the highly restricted area.


Vehlek killed the two guards he could see with the compact blastem pistol, something that would not be found as a standard issue anywhere throughout the galaxy. The agency did not have standard-issue weapons. It was against procedure.

He checked around the corner quickly, noticed another guard on the other side of the roof, sighted in, and shot her in the head. Thirty-five seconds.

There was no-one else on the roof. Vehlek checked his watch to be sure of the time, shot out the security cameras, then stood back and waited.


The guards saw Fischel coming and were about to ask for his ID, but then the alarm went off and in the sudden rush of people trying to get back to their workstations Fischel was able to slip into a side-room. Vehlek would be on the roof, keeping the building security busy. They would quickly trace his movements back to the thirty-seventh floor, and figure out what it was he had 'stolen', but there was no way they would realise Fischel's influence in Vehlek's escape.

He pulled a small chip out of his waist pocket. Fischel was in a small, cramped room; low-lit, filled with banks of circuits and several monitors. He found the one he wanted fairly quickly and started switching the chips around. Everyone would be so busy dealing with Vehlek that they wouldn't notice what he was doing here, and he'd arrange to have the security tapes altered some time in the next few days by one of the digital artists in the agency's employ. For now, though, his job was done.

It had taken a little under four minutes, and it was done. Now he just had to get out alive.

Vor awoke to the sound of imps hammering on his head. The pounding only got worse when he sat up.

With a moan he swiveled his feet off the bed he was laying in. he couldn't remember the last time he had had such a bad hangover. Must have been one heck of a night, he thought to himself. Cupping his face in his hands, he moaned again. The memory of what had happened slowly returned.

"Awww..."No wonder his jaw was hurting too. "Aw shav.."

Opening his eyes with great difficulty, Vor looked about him. Duracrete walls, force-field door and spartan amnesties. Prison.

"Shav it!" he bellowed. He regretted doing that the moment he felt the imps start hammering again.

The room was a small, dirty little place with an open toilet, empty washbasin and double bunk beds. Vor had been in prison more than once, though this was his first time as a prisoner. His typical duty was in bailing out a collage friend after a hard night of partying. He recognized this room as just an overnight stay room, thank the stars.

Standing, and moving toward the force field, he tried looking for a guard. None were in sight. "Hello?" he called out. Useless, he knew, the field wouldn't let any sound by. Only what was piped out would get out, and in the prisons he had been in that was usually kept muted or low down. Drunk prisoners wasn't a night guard's idea of fine music.

"Hello?" he called again. "Could someone come out here?" Maybe someone had a droid on duty.

"Hello?"

After a few minutes of moving to each corner of the room and looking for mic, Vor gave up. Someone would be out to check on him eventually. He just wished he knew what he was in for. He remembered coming into the building, eating some soup... then there was a noise at the door, and he had stood up... Shav! He should have stayed seated.

"Standing like a fool, making a target of yourself.."

A Traitor’s Dream

The first night after we fled Muscave I dreamt that I was flying.

I was a bird; small, insignificant and vulnerable, soaring high above the hills and valleys of my homeplanet, Kasico. The wind was warm in my face and the sun hot on my back. The ground below was distant and seemed like nothing more than one large green blob occasionally cut through by a blue streak of river. I was in heaven.

Then the wind changed, and I felt my body being drawn backwards. The sky grew suddenly black, and behind me I could hear a terrible roaring. Shadows started to obscure the rivers below; the ground became a black carpet of spikes, rushing up to meet me. I looked behind to see what was making the noise and saw a massive cyclone hurtling towards me, TIE fighters swarming around it like bees, rocks and stones hurtling everywhere and making the loudest noise I had ever heard.

I tried to fly faster. The tornado kept gaining. I was loosing altitude, the ground climbing head over heel up to meet me. The roaring in my ears became a deafening shriek. I screamed then, terrified, mortified, petrified. As soon as that thought entered my head I found that I really was petrified, my body stiff and rigid, unresponsive. I dropped like a stone.

The tornado grabbed me then, seizing me out of my free-fall to certain death and oblivion, pulling me back towards its gaping centre; the TIE fighters jostling around, trying to get close to me. I started to suffocate, the dirt and debris cluttering up my throat. I couldn’t breath. My chest hurt. My head hurt. I wished that the tornado had just let me fall to the earth and die quickly.

Then a giant bunny rabbit ate me.





Wake up!!

"Aw, hell!"

I shot up in bed, banging my head on the low ceiling. For almost a full minute I sat there in confusion, thinking to myself; ‘I don’t remember the ceiling being that low.’

Slowly, as I cleared the sleep from my eyes, I began to take in my surroundings.

I wasn’t in my bed; I was in a bunk. In a cabin. With a low bulkhead above me, not a ceiling.

...star destroyers...surprise attack...closing in on all sides...have to get out...OUT!...can’t stay here, they’ve taken the spaceport...go, RUN!...jump to hyperspace; leave the rest of them, just go...

Then the memories of the last forty hours came back to me, and I shook my head. ‘Damn,’ I said out loud. "Damn, damn, damn..."

I sat hunched up on my bunk, taking a minute to remember the horror of the last few days. Waking up on Muscave Station to the sound of klaxons blaring, fighting down a hangover to get to my ship. I found my crew already there; waiting, impatient. We joined General Hoight’s fleet of defenders, vowing to give our lives to defend the system from the Imperial attack force.

But there were too many. Too many ships, too many enemies. Too few friends. The battle was quick and brutal, the Imperials taking out our capital ships like they were ants on the pavement, crushing them into oblivion. We were loosing, taking far too many casualties. There was no chance that we would survive. General Hoight hadn’t ordered a retreat.

There were only a few ships left in my task force. I remembered weighing the odds. Trying to decide what to do. I remembered the cruiser flying wing to mine exploding, then drifting listless. I remembered the screams over the comm bands as people were sucked out into space, their bodies exploding with the forces involved. I remembered the screams from my own crew as concussion missiles struck our hull, blowing out coolant tanks and fragments of loose metal.

I remembered giving the order to run, to break off our course of attacking the enemy, of drawing their fire so that the commanders of our petty fleet could escape. I remembered convincing the other ships in my task force to follow me. To desert the battle, to leave it to the Imperials.

To save our own skins.

To betray Muscave.

In my cabin aboard the Caspian Pride I lay back on the bunk, covered my face with my hands, and wept.




Ref: <a href=http://www.therebelfaction.com/forums/showthread.php?t=788>The Battle of Muscave</a>

It had been a beautiful dream. A dream of peace, prosperity, and safety for all.



It was morning now, and President Kaant was standing in his office, looking out over the watery world of Clakor. It had been a beautiful dream, for awhile. Now, now it was just hell. A small, personal hell.



In the background he could hear the heads of state talking amongst themselves, waiting. The secretary of defense was late again, as usual. Isjhe could hear the sounds the men made, but he zoned it out as he gazed over the watery expanses. This was a new office, and a new presidential palace. One of six new ones, actually. After the terrorist attack last week the Secret Service had taken to moving him around every few days. It was a pain, to be sure.



The dream from last night surfaced in Isjhe's subconscious again, and he shuddered slightly. His wife had not been too happy about the vomit on the bed, and he had not been too happy about the vision.

Dream! he thought to himself, harshly. Not a vision, a dream. All that hokey Jedi stuff could be good enough for some crazy hermits or kids high on the latest drug, but here in the real world men had to deal with reality.

Isjhe chuckled a bit. He was the only man in this office who didn't actually believe that the whole Jedi thing was real. Sure, there was that kid... what's his name. Hadul something or another. He had gone with on the mission to Aeten, and by all accounts had been quite helpful, but could he really read people's minds?

Not a chance, thought Isjhe.




"We're ready Mr. President," said his secretary softly. Kaant turned, nodded to her, and looked at the heads of state. They were quiet now, waiting to hear what they had been called here for.

"Gentlemen," said Kaant, and then paused slightly. The face of Cecil Lash, laughing as he died, hung before his vision. Blinking violently, Kaant shrugged the image away. By all that was holy, he was glad that man was dead.

"Gentlemen, I think it's time we re-evaluate our defense systems. The General here has brought to my attention some fatal weaknesses.