The pronunciation of the word has it’s roots going back to the time of the first Clannus…. wtf?



I throw down my writing instrument in disgust and thus ended my studies in Ancient Caprician Literature. It wasn’t a fantastical course but given the situation around home lately, I had decided to broaden my horizons.

I quickly found out that any such endeavor would be better served had I simply sat naked on the arm of a chair and plugged myself with stim-shots or other screwed up concoction doctors less paid than their peers come up with to use and make a quick credit to drown out all our sorry lives.

I mean, what the hell do I need to know about Capricians anyway? They seem no different than the scumsuckers that ran our little corner of the Wyl Sector before. Naturally, I wish I could say that times were better, but then to say that I’d need to go as far back as when man crawled out of the primordial soup to kill the wildebeast that failed to drink us up from that same soup. But at that time, man was merely an amoeba and who the hell wants to be an amoeba?

Anyway, where was I?

Capricians! They are no different than any other scumsucker. Ok, that sounds familiar. They eat, drink, fart, screw and shit like the rest of us. There is no mystery to them and sooner or later there will be naked pictures of their top people floating around the holonet digital underworld just like there are of that Imperial wench, Bhindi Drayson.

I suppose I wanted to write down the events leading up to the great change but as I think about it, I can’t think of really one thing that’s changed except that there is another group of fat-asses sitting on the throne of greed while we, the hardworking idiots who do nothing to improve our sorry lot in life, yes we… rot in the hell we affectionately call home.

But perhaps it is a tale that needs to be told? I don’t know. I don’t really care but, hey, if it earns me a credit or two, I might find a pretty enough whore and forget my troubles for half an hour or two.

And that’s all that life is. I might qualify that by saying, “my life” but that wouldn’t be true. Everyone’s life is a series of moments. Just some are more fucked up than most. And mine is pretty much ----.... ok, I have hit the limit to the amount of profanity I can use. I have local publishers here that limit the amount of ‘realism’ I can add to my writings, and being not very inventive, creative or original, to eat.. I typically will bend over and take one for the team (though it’s their team. funny how teamwork works, no?). I wish I had enough money to put this on the galactic holonet but that’d probably only get it sent as far as Sparthia, our sister planet. I hear that the galactic holonetwork is not really that up to date nor really reliable as everyone else is coming up with their own crap. Still, it would be something to speak out to people so far away they can’t do shit to me whatever I say. Even if they loaded a friggin Star Destroyer and flew out here and blew up my planet, the cost to them in time, credits and resources would so far outweigh mine that I’d be victorious by default.

True, I’d be dead but probably richer than I am now.

So why don’t I just shoot myself.

Now there’s a thought. Too many people bitch and moan about life and then fail to shoot themselves, the cowards. Funny how sweet the taste of hypocrisy is. I should know, I am a devout hypocrite.

I told a girl once that I loved her. I told her so much that she got pregnant (a situation those words have a way of bringing about). When I saw her squirming in pain trying to squirt the bugger out, I flat out told her, “Screw this, I’m leaving.”

She never tried to stop me so she must have felt the same way. Of course, an objective person would say that she had other things on her mind at the time but who wants to be objective when all arrows point to you with scathing judgement?

In any event, she married a man who ended up being my editor and who’s turned down my applications to have my crap posted on the galactic holonet and who dotes on the child that I really didn’t want. Didn’t look like me anyway. I’ve never been bald or fat. So she should worship the ground I walk on for giving her such a palatial existence but, like any other self satisfying wench, she forgets that little fact and goes shopping.

What has this to do with Capricians?

I’ll tell you in my own good time shitface! (yeah, my pay got docked for that!). I hate readers who think they know better than me. If they did, they wouldn’t be reading my column, they’d be reading something more faggot-oriented like INS.

However, what I am attempting to describe to you, my most gloriously inept reader, is the world I live in. The environment that has produced the likes of me!

“Surely paradise,” you might whisper in hushed tones. For who wants the pansy goody good world the Jedi spit out faster than they can say their celebate vows? Wait! Do they say celibate vows? Perhaps not. But they say passion is forbidden and what’s love without passion but screwing straw dolls? But if the Jedi like to screw staw dolls, who am I to say whether it’s right or wrong? I mean, besides INS and about a million religious groups scattered around the galaxy?

In my more cynical days, I met a religious person. She worshipped the one true God Empion who’s son came down to die for everyone’s sins and wore the icons of the son of god’s death on her necklace and ear-rings. As a token of her appreciation, I shot her son with a blaster and left small icons of the blaster so she could wear them to honor her son as she did her god’s.

As we all will be doing with the Capricians for they come not to kill us but to kill our society. Not that it was the best of societies. You’ve read the stories. Corporate Sector Authority getting fat men fatter and poor men dead. Union was a curse word and employee relations was when your boss took advantage of you at the threat of losing your job. That all died with two words.

Seth Vinda

A rich man who wanted more and was just strong enough to get it. From the CSA. He then had the audacity to not take over the Wyl Sector leaving us to languish in the power vacuum. Too bad we were too small to glance at in his eyes or our worlds did not have enough economic value to be worth noticing.

But his friends, the Capricians did.

Of course, it’s not like we have a government or any one else but the Association of Bosses running things now.

But here the Capricians come to better our life by destroying the good old days of rape, pillage, and plundering.


So unless you missed it early on, in which case, you’re pathetic as a reader, this is an account of a takeover. A takeover of the Wyl Sector by the Capricians. I don’t know how long this account will be but I suppose it depends on how far the Capricians go (knowing them, all the way). My editor of this shitty (ok.. now I am paying to have this published) publishing company has a specific word count I am to reach. But since he is paying me by the word, screw him! Maybe my words can out pace my profanity and we all will be happy.

This story, however, is one that starts the way they all do.


With an unhappy bitch. I swear, to shoot them all is to destroy our race and to keep them alive is to make life miserable. I wonder if the monkey evolved into a man to get away from his bitch? Now, there’s a poser to evolutionists. Who crossed the line from monkey to man first? Man or woman?


Where was I?


Oh yes, the unhappy bitch...

The Caprician warship Ressario crossed into the Wyl Sector without incident and Scipio Arien was unhappy. Being the Commonwealth Ambassador to a spot of anarchist space was one thing, but being sent to a spot of space where murders, rapists and bunch a people who just didn't give a flying flip who sat on the seat of power in and around the Corporate Sector was another.

It was not that the space around the worlds within the Wyl Sector were dangerous as there were no pirates in the area. Who in their right mind would cross into the sector as it's planets were industrial slums and smog filled cesspools of crime and corruption?

They'd eat pirates alive and suck the marrow from their bones!

And so here she found herself and for the first time she wondered if CommGuard was playing a joke on her. True, she had the power of the Ressario at her call but to screw up with one planet was more than likely to screw up with all.

The worlds of Wyl may not be linked to the holonet but they had their own sector transmissions that served the isolated planet's needs.



"What in the Halls of the Clans am I supposed to do with these people!" she asked no one, irritated.


Her eyes grew hard.


If they want to see stubborness...

*


The Caprician battleship arrives tomorrow and everyone who is anyone on this forsaken planet is itching to find out just how their concerns will be addressed by this new Commonwealth.

By the way, my publishers have told me that I cannot call the ship coming a battleship as it is misleading. That I should not presume because I do not know the exact classification of vessel coming.

Suffice to say, it is a big friggin ship with lots of guns, probably has shields better than average and carries alot of Capricians capable of handling themselves in our rather lawless society.

Anyway, in mingling with the other media agents intent on covering a story, and since that is what those of us with our boring jobs do when we are not writing our editorials or filming our news bits, if you were to ask any one of the news agents why they mingle with their 'competition' they would say something about sharpening their edge or collaborating on ideas or telling of an incident from as many perceptions as possible but that is not the real reason.

The real reason we mingle is because we are lonely and want to find someone to screw. And since we work for the media, no one in their right mind would sleep with us so we have to pick from our own kind.

It is an interesting phenomena that would make a great news item but publishers and editors dare not. We'd all go on a screwing binge and forget to report it.

Usually when we couple, we do not talk but the evening before the Capricians came was one of understandable excitement.

"I wonder if they'll honor the Gay Week holiday." one such reporter said as she was disrobing.

"For happy people?" I asked frowning. The term was new to me.

"For homosexuals," she chided me while explaining. I shrugged. How the hell was I to keep up with all the politically correct terminology for same sex screwing?

"Why call it Gay? Why not call it Homosexual Week?" I asked in genuine confusion that did not hinder the pulling off of my clothes. She did not answer but another thought struck me.

"Do heterosexuals have a holiday week too?" Perhaps there was something here that I've been missing.

"Of course not, silly!" she said. She was a young reporter.

I stopped the unbuttoning of my shirt. "You mean to tell me if I want to screw a man, I can have a week holiday but if I screw a woman, I can't?"

"Exactly!" She said, removing her bra.

"That's.... that's... stupid!" I said indignantly. It seemed grossly unfair.

She put her clothes on a chair and turned to me in all seriousness. "To have a holiday week for screwing women would demean women."

I narrow my eyes. "How many women voted for the Gay Week?"

Her answer did not surprise me in the least. "All of them." Then she huffed. "Are we going to talk or screw?"

Somewhere in that whole exchange was a subtle truth and a hidden irony. But we were too busy coupling like two horny Borelian rabbits to actually reflect on it.

Soon, I was thinking about nothing.

"These people live in slums! Industrial slums but slums nonetheless." Scipio said annoyed. "How do you have them cross the barrier from that to the Commonwealth?

Sometimes I think CommGuard resents having a woman with the power that I do!"


"No. It's not having a woman with the power that you do. It's having a woman with your power who's successful!" said the holographic picture of Tyscio Korban. He held out his hands and turned to the holorepresentation of Achinta Vega.

The features of the HRD were sharpening as the necessesary equipment regarding the new communications and hardlight applications were being installed throughout the Commonwealth worlds.

Tyscio Korban however was aboard a ship that had yet to be refitted. One of the few but the tranlation platform that acommpanied the communications systems (on planets or vessels) was the bridge that allowed the more broadly accepted holonet systems to be converted into a signal understandable to the Commonwealth system and vice-versa.

Actually, what was simply known as the translator was a piece of equipment in itself with all the necessary safeguards. Any hack or invasive measure attempted would shut down the translator not that any such hack or invasive measure would be compatible with the Commonwealth system.

Still, it was disconcerting to Scipio to see a near exact replica of Achinta standing next to her but Tyscio Korban's holographic head on a stand-alone receiver.

"What man wants to admit that a woman is more successful than him?" Tyscio was trying a man's appeal to Achinta who was, according to Scipio, so much more.

Achinta raised an eyebrow. "How do you find it in yourself to live with your Jedi Master?" he asked innocently.

"Oh go howl!" laughed Tyscio. "Never twit an HRD's woman!" he said in mock anger. "Anyway, we are getting closer to breaking the translation on the artifact. The new wave of colonists have arrived with the nice military hardware. Elrood is becoming quite the sophisticated city state."

Scipio had laughed her earlier and now smiled at the man's musing. "Elrood is an important educational center and there is more there to go to Kidron. We want them to realize the benefits of associating with the Commowealth."

Tyscio grinned. "Like what your mission to the Wyl and Aparo sectors are?" he asked innocently.

"You go howl!" Scipio yelled laughing as the other man's point was made.

"Anyway, I've got to go. Seems the Stellar Explorer will be arriving from Kidron soon and we'll be pushing farther up the Sector to see what else is out here."

"Good Hunting, Korban."

"Fair Weather, Ms. Arien. Achinta, I feel your pain." and the holonet signal ended.

Scipio smirked. "So how do I do it? The pulling of these people up to Commonwealth standards but do it in such a way as to have them realize it's to their benefit?"

"By appealing to their natures, Scipio."

"But they are criminals.." Scipio started.

"Of circumstance. Would you not steal, would you not kill to protect youself in a state of anarchy if you had too? These people lived under the crushing rule of the CSA and while the leaders did not care about their people, they did maintain a well oiled industrial center. Wyl and Aparo Sectors are the heart of that and the people do remember. But there is no leadership that cares about anything beyond their own selfish cravings.

You have to end the circumstance."

Scipio nodded but turned to Achinta. "But how. I can't just dump credits on the planet. It'll never accomplish what we want. Alot of what is there will need to be replaced and rebuilt which means displacing people from their homes. What do I have to offer in the interim?"

Achinta shrugged. "I do not have all the answers." and Scipio smiled.

"I wasn't really asking for your to provide one. Just sounding out in my own mind what faces me. When women talk, Achinta, we find the answers to our questions within the discussion. We are set at ease from our worries through the act of conversation. Men, they are set at ease when someone presents a solution to a perceived problem. Actually, HRD's too."

The Vinda Corp man nodded and quircked his lips, "I shall endeavor to remember that."

And then added, "If I may be so bold, perhaps having this conversation with CORE* would help set you at ease."


Scipio laughed again. "You go howl now!" Only Achinta would suggest she carry out her 'necessary' conversation with someone who would be in a position to 'solve her problem'.

"When do you leave with Natalya?" Scipio was not sure what to make of the daughter of Seth Vinda. They had met and talked a few times since she returned to the 'fold'. Seth's daughter, unlike her father, seemed more ..what was the word? opinionated. No. Vocal in her opinions. Seth tread a neutral ground whereas his daughter drew a line in the ground and stood on her side.

Scipio remembered when she used to be as carefree as she could be but the invasion and war had shown her the ugly side of the galaxy. In her people. She knew how many grey areas there were but she also yearned for that 'certainty' of righteousness.

She shrugged off the thought.

"We leave within the hour."

"Be safe." Scipio said (no ordered) with conviction.

"In that regard, I shall place your orders above Mr. Vinda's." the HRD responded softly. "Be careful and stay safe, Arien."

The use of her personal name softened her as he knew it would.


The communication ended and Scipio redirected their comm network to contact the CORE.

Herridian Wye appeared where Achinta had stood, almost lifelike. "Scipio, my dear. Achinta said you'd be calling." which made her smirk. "Did he tell you why?"

"Well, he did but he also said I should listen to your account again in case he missed anything and engage you in conversation." The smirk widened but she relayed her thoughts once more.

Then something struck her. "Actually, Herridian, I think I may know how to proceed."

"Wait! You've not heard my contribution." Herridian said before she could disconnect.

"What have you got?"

"A way to fix the broken worlds of the sectors while improving their standard of living."

Scipio's eyes narrowed. "How?"

And the portly former leader of Herridian Clan gave a self (smug) satisfied smile. "Why, my dear. There are more uses for hardlight technology than you can ever dream."


And he proceeded to tell her.



*CORE: Commonwealth Ordinance, Research and Energy

*



I was paid a visit the other day. A pamphlet seller had rang my door and when I answered she immediately asked, "Have you accepted Empion into your heart?"

I asked what that entailed.

She responded, "50 credits a month. You get a seat in our district parish, our local monthly newsletter sent to you personally, and a gold plaque with your name on it placed under the image of the Ganymede Truss. The Holy Book of Empion told of his son, Ganymede, strapped to a torture truss and executed by the ruling body of the time. It is said he died for all our sins though I do not believe that is why he was sentenced to the torture truss.

A seat, a newsletter and a plaque.

Eternal salvation as well, yes? I prompted.

"Well, yes." she hesitatingly admitted.


Not a bad investment if it held. What if I take Empion's name in vain? What if I shoot someone?


"Once you are saved, you are saved." she responded with a faith that was admirable.


What if I shoot your preacher? I asked.


"Now you are being difficult." she huffed. "Do you want to be saved?"


From what?


"The burning wrath of Empion! Sinners will burned forever and ever in the Cooking Pot of His Discontent."

Hell?

"Do you want to be saved?"

50 credits a month?

"That's all!" she said sweetly.

I handed her the 50 credits, she wrote my name down on her paper and I became invulnerable to sin.


Two days later the girl was found dead and I was convicted. The things done to her were unmentionable. Well unmentionable in the sense that her family would sue the pants off this publishing agency if printed.

But the pictures can be found on the holonet underground.


*


I stopped my interview of Berberute, a very large man whose hands could crush my head like a melon. His account of the visiting religious girl struck me as a grand illustration of what was broken in our society.


He was sentenced to death but when the parishoner came in to pray in behalf of his soul, Mr. Berberute said that he was saved. This shocked the parishoner so much that he went to investigate and the church authorities halted his execution.

It was determined that while the girl had received the credits (which were stolen off her person, of couse) and written his name down, she had failed to forward the signatures gained (one of which was Berberute's) to the Parish so a gold plaque was never made.

Technically, without the plaque under the Ganymede Truss, he could not be considered saved. Others said that because he had given the credits to her the act showed his desire to be saved and accept Ganymede into his heart.

The debate raged for a couple of years and in the end, it was considered that it was the girl's fault for not forwarding the information. Perhaps she was going to keep the money? Perhaps she didn't care about her fellow man's salvation? In any event, if someone was unfaithful in the little things, how could they be considered faithful in the big things? Perhaps the girl was trying to entice Mr. Berberute with her body? When this was brought up to Mr. Berberute he readily agreed that that was what had happened.

When he was asked why he had not mentioned anything before, he said he did not want the girl's image tarnished.

Mr. Berberute was the hero of the day! Within hours a book deal was signed. He became a millionaire overnight and a celebrity to boot. His sentence was retracted to community service. The girl's plaque was stricken from under the Truss and renounced to the vilest part of The Cooking Pot of His Discontent.

She was going to hell. Everyone was certain.

At least until her parents paid 5,000 credits to have the plaque returned and everyone commented on how forgiving Empion was to accept a sinner like the girl.

Berberute's community service was serving as a janitor at a district private school for young women.


*



I burned my images of the Ganymede Truss.


A thought occurs: And the Commonwealth thinks they can change this?


Maybe they'll give us cheaper drugs and liquor. There is no problem pointing out the problems inherent with our quasi-mash of police state run by a drug lord, religious fanatical laws and corporate materialism with poor people thrown here and there for good measure. Any idiot with a personal computer can rant about problems. The true geniuses are those that actually have solutions.

They arrive in a few hours.

The Reconstruction of Capricia lasted five years. The three million strong of the Reconstruction Corps suddenly had found themselves without work.

They had done a good job on the Homeworld. Perhaps too good a job for the resourceful Corps turned it's attention to the various Colonies.

Providence had quadrupled in size with various businesses working towards a far better terraforming project than the original. The shipyards of Brin were expanded upon and the monument on Minos now had company as a vast military complex, attempting to achieve the glory of Capricia and catch up to Providence, grew.

The only planets left alone were Kendra, the gas giant, and Tirus, where the Leveller of Empires still held sway. The deceiving green and blue of Capricia's sister world belied the deadliness of it.

All in all, though, the Reconstruction Corps had reached a dead end for there was nothing left to do.

Until two things happened.


The Commonwealth.

And the breakthroughs made by C.O.R.E.


The Reconstruction Corps were suddenly not just three million people looking sadly at an approaching unemployment line, they found themselves an empowered government arm to be wielded across the worlds joining the Commonwealth.

And as more worlds joined, as the various departments of VC were nationalized under the government charter, this new Corps of ..builders and engineers were suddenly the architects of something greater than any single planet.


And so they ventured forth to tackle new challenges.




..and they were late!


The Ressario had been in orbit around a rather typical world that seemed to be steeped in criminal medievalism for the past five hours.


Scipio drummed her fingernails on an elegant table as she sat in her quarters, off duty, feeling irritated. There was only one transmission from the world and from what she could tell, the man was either mad or on drugs or both.


A once highly industrialized world has been reduced to one signal outward. This was not to say that the planet did not have communications, no. The inhabitants chatted quite frequently on some basic form of holofrequency though usually to lure small children from their homes by posing as 10 year old friends.


It seemed to be a planet of people that did just whatever the heck they wanted and out of that endeavor formed quite a prison-like society over the entire world. It was ruled over by a group called The Association of Bosses. Perhaps a holdover from the CSA says.


At first glance, a planet that would be best left alone or one, if the death star had blown it to bits, would not be missed.


She clicked on the receiver and the insulting voice permeated her room once more.


The irritation returned and her drumming continued.

*



I was walking alongside a near-abandoned street when I came across a crying teenage girl. She had more metal on her than an android. Nose rings, cheek piercings, lip piercings, tongue piercings and that same crap on her eyebrows and ears.

Perhaps it was the pain of having all that metal in her head that caused her to cry. I don't know but I saw all sorts of tatooes in various places that made me wonder whether there were any others in less conspicuous places. The thoughts that came to me after that I at first dismissed as illegal for the girl was clearly underage.

But then I thought: It isn't illegal. Not on this world.

Another thought struck. It should be.

Now that thought was the whimpering of my conscience which, I begrudgingly acknowledged, has fought hard to hold onto it's tenuous grip on life.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes, the girl with all that shit on her face.

I asked, "Why are you crying?"

She said that her boyfriend had left her.

I replied, quite frankly, "Of course he left you. You've got all that shit on your face!"

Her crying sparked into anger as her face flushed with pain and rage. "I did this for him!"

I barked back, quite happily, "Ha! What guy wants to bed an ugly girl? Granted if there is no other choice, he will. But putting all that shit on your face does not make you look beautiful. Any idiot with eyes knows that!"

I leaned forward and patted her head like I would a little puppy, "Another thing guys like to do is get bitches to do things for them. And if we can make you put all that shit on your face, what other things can we make you do?"

She screamed an obscenity I shall not repeat. I swear, women curse worse than fucking sailors.

I drew back in mock hurt, "Hey freak, don't blame me. I didn't make you put all that stuff on."


"What if I did this on my own?!" she screamed.


The change in story did not deter me in the least. "Then you're a fucking idiot. Why would you want to look like a freak?"

"It's unique!"

"It's self destructive shit-for-brains! And you KNOW IT! Don't give me this 'unique personality' banthashit! Every one of you little whores who have have bad mommies and daddies think no one loves you and to prove it to yourselves, you make yourselves as ugly as possible."

I had a good shout coming for days.

"Then... then (and this is the rich part), you try to validate your worthless existence by trying to get a fucking boyfriend. And when you're this fucking ugly you end up crying when you end up with a scum of the earth guy! Puhleaaze!"

I slap her cheek which probably hurts my hand more than her face with all that metal crap.

Fuck!

"You want unique? Try staying off drugs. Be a fucking good person. Perhaps wait until you're 20 before losing your virginity...oops.. can't undo that one! Try being unique in personality, not the papermache facades that everybody wears nowadays."

I don't know what she heard in my voice but her eyes suddenly started to gaze at me in an uncomfortable and calculating way. She whispers what I could do with her body for a set price. Perhaps I could show her the gentleness that she's been missing?

I nearly sputter out laughter at her audacity, my mind retracing back the events of finding her.

Was she really crying?

Ha! She's good!


I lean over grinning broadly. She thinks she's got a new customer when I apologize, rejecting her offer by saying: "But I do not sleep with ugly people."


The string of cursing she lets out impresses even me. I throw her a credit or two for the entertaining diversion. She is too much of a businesswoman to let those credits go to waste and so scambles to pick them up.

The way she moves is enticing and I chuckle to myself. She's a pro, utilizing every body movement to excite.


It wouldn't have been illegal. Not here. Nothing's illegal.

And as I watch her scamper off in search of another victim/client, I feel a slight burst of pain.


I look up and see the tiny light of the Caprician warship moving alone in orbit overhead. They have been up there for hours. So long that the planet has lost interest in their presence.


I wonder what they would have made of this situation and why they've not come down yet.


An image of a bunch of people with a bunch of shit on their faces, dressed in rags and bad make-up suddenly comes to mind and I laugh out loud.


Maybe the Capricians are just ugly.


They'd be right at home here, then.

Scipio had never seen such a people given over, not necessarily to despair but to a form of resigned cynicism viewing and judging everything through a jaded set of eyes.


It was as if they were existing on the simple momentum generated by acts of living. It was as if they simply no longer cared anymore.


Nothing moved them and nothing surprised them.


Had the Invaders won the Conquest of Capricia, she could very easily see that her people (those few that survived) would have become just like these.


A perverted ecology of decadence and perpetual filth had become the norm and it was one that Scipio was determined to destroy.

On some level, one diplomat had inquired as to the moral implications of changing a society that did not want to be changed. Of course, the counter arguement was: Could anarchy be considered a society or merely the lack of it?

The discussions had gone back and forth so much that Scipio had stood in disgust at the topics and glared at each of her negotiating brethren.

"It's like you are arguing for a person's right to commit suicide." she growled out in anger.

"Don't they have that right?" retorted a fellow diplomat. He felt so confident that he added, "Some might even argue that what we are doing to this planet is what the Yuuzhan Vong tried to do to us. Did the Yuuzhan Vong have the right to try to change our way of life?"

Scipio had had enough. "Trev, you are truly an idiot!" she bit back. "HOW DARE YOU COMPARE US TO THE INVADERS! The Yuuzhan Vong were not trying to change our way of life! They were trying to destroy us!

And here's another revelation for you, Trev. They not only felt they had the right according to their gods, but even according to evolution, by right of survival of the fittest, their acts of destruction were merely nature's way of resetting the great big fracking circle of life!!"

Scipio had a good yell coming for days and the release felt good. "What stopped the Yuuzhan Vong from murdering every one of us was not that they were morally wrong! It was the fact that we, along with Vinda Corp, kicked their asses off our world and out of our system!

Now if these people on the planet below us want to band together to maintain the right to kill themselves as they are slowly doing, more power to them. But my mission is to render aid and improve their life with or without their consent."


The Caprician woman's eyes narrowed and her voice went hard. "It's time for them to grow the fuck up!"


Her eyes grew soft. "And gentlemen, in helping them, we help ourselves."

And as she stood up, "Trev, no more arguing for the lazy way to deal with life. If you can't handle that, resign now."


Another official spoke hesitatingly, "But, Ms. Arien, how exactly are we going to show these inhabitants the light? Things are horrid down there."


The Caprician woman smiled. "I am going to employ the same tactic my man used."

The collective group's eyebrows rose at that as their thoughts turned to Achinta Vega. Scipio let the question hang in the air for a minute before answering...

"First, I am going to get their attention. And then, I am going to surprise them."

*



Life is fucked up.


But you don't need me to relay that little bit of fact do you? Just look around.


My mind is wandering back to the time when our grand and glorious shit-hole of a planet once had a military organization. Sure it was funded by the CSA but then, what wasn't in and around the Corporate Sector?


I am recalling an interview I had had with a mother of one of some anonymous soldier who had died caught in the crossfire between the Empire, the Jutraalians and a whole slew of other factions. It was around the time when some dictator named Fearsons built a Death Star and called it a diplomatic center.

By way of a response, the Empire sent a diplomatic envoy themselves comprised of about half of their fleet and the two 'negotiated'. Like any such 'talks', everyone had a fucking opinion and many got smashed around by those who could make their opinions felt.

This CSA-funded soldier was one of hundreds from our world that got smashed. But then we were on the Jutraalian side and they had their diplomatic station permanenty shut down. I think we took their side because of something or other to do with Vinda Corporation.

Sometimes I think Seth Vinda would not be as big as he was if the CSA just stopped giving him props and free advertising.

In any event, this mother was picketting some vacation retreat of one higher up CSA official because her son had died. She wanted to know why? Why were we in the fucking war? Why did we choose the Jutraalians? Or whatever else was in her insane mind.


I mean shit.


At that time, when I had steady paychecks coming in I could afford to be picky and this one interview caused me great annoyance.

Why did he die? she asked.

I stopped my dictation and looked at her.

"Because he was in the fucking military!" I sat up and she jerked as if slapped. "I mean, what do you think the military's job is? Why do they hand out guns? What the fuck do you think guns are for? To hunt Dathomir bats?"

I laughed, "Why the fuck did you enroll him in the military for?"

She stammered, trying to defend her position. "The.. the recruiter offered so many incentives. We had paid college and benefits.."

I should have spat in her face. "Why the fuck do you think they are offering such good incentives and benefits? BECAUSE IN THAT JOB, PEOPLE FUCKING SHOOT AT YOU!"

I threw down my datapad. "You wanted him to live? Then you shouldn't have enrolled him in the military so you could get the Family Package Benefit you greedy ass bitch!"


I should have known. The greedy bitch tried to sue the company for my remarks.

I simply denied them and wrote a bogus interview that was compelling and convincing enough to push the jury my way. Besides, she had already made too many enemies with the CSA.

I think she was eventually run over by a hovercar of the CSA official on his way to his vacation home. He was going so fast he never saw her.

Stupid bitch. Served her right for picketting in his private drive in front of the entrance fields.



Those were the days.


We were a heavy industrial planet then. With CSA funding we were one of the backbones of their fleet. The fleet that Vinda Corp blew to pieces in their turf war over the Corporate Sector.


The CSA was in massive retreat and could no longer afford to provide the massive funding our industrial centers needed to keep running. During their war, supplies such as durasteel, transparisteel, duracrete and other materials became in short supply. So their prices drove up making the cost to produce a space-worthy vessel increase exponentially.

Soon, the cost to produce any ships was so high that the CSA could not afford to purchase them. And so if they were not buying the ships we made, why did they fund the companies making them and employ the thousands of people needed to run such companies?


It was a classic Corellian Switch.


They kept drawing cards making us think that they held a better hand and so we stayed in the game only to find out that we were being bluffed and were now out the credits invested in our own fucked up futures.


Because we were a big industrial planet, employee unions were strong. And when the CSA suddenly pulled the plug to deal with Mr. Seth Fucking Vinda, our economy and industry collapsed almost overnight.

With no government funding, with no government contracts, with no one wanting to purchase what we manufactured there was no more money to pay the people.

The last brilliant measure of the remaining official who stayed to see if anything could be salvaged was to expand our market. If the CSA couldn't purchase our ships, even at half cost, someone else might.

Even if we only got half price for the bloody things, we'd still be able to alleviate the financial distresses plaguing us and give us some direction.

With renewed purpose, thousands of salesmen were prepped to go to these new markets to make fast sales. Hope was hanging on!

So, amid other citizens that were clawing to escape our doomed world with something more than the shirts on their backs, these salesmen stood in line at the starports awaiting transport out yonder reaches.

Unfortunately, with union dues being so high, union employees could not afford to pay because the companies were cutting back pay.

So these union employees went on strike.

And all transports and transit stations and starports shut down.

No one could leave and our last hope evaporated and the small structure keeping us afloat sank.

Those few salesmen that did manage to steal their way out, finding out that everything collapsed decided not to return and decided to make their way elsewhere in the galaxy.


Life is fucked up.


Fucking unions.



So imagine my surprise when, yesterday, I looked out my crumbling apartment complex window to see in the distance, a bright, shiny brand-spanking new residential complex. Complete with self sustaining running water and energy!

The place glowed like paradise and they were offering free residential transfers.

Thousands left their slums for this offer. Of course, I figured there would be rioting and I almost was right but an annoucement said that today there would be another complex and these complexes would be built until everyone had quality housing.

How the fuck they sprang into being is something I cannot fathom. It was almost enough to make me believe in a fucking higher power. Almost.

So as I look outside today, I see an even larger complex behind the first.


These Caprician magicians finally did something catching our attention.


It's as if we were living for decades on fish guts found in trash compactors only to have someone offer us a real gourmet dinner with fine wine and all the breadsticks we could eat.


Life is definitely fucked up!

"You're proposing to create entire structures from hard light?" Scipio asked incredulously.

"With the proper detail put into the template program, there is no reason why, in theory, it couldn't work." Herridian Wye, founder of CORE explained motioning the former head of Scipio Clan over.

"Look, this new technology has applications that only are limited by our imagination. Why have refuges living in the squalor of temporary shelters when we can give them the red carpet treatment?"


"But all this costs, Herridian. We.."

"Oh stop thinking provincial, woman!" Heridian snapped without heat.

Scipio turned her eyes to the elder leader questioningly.

"Arien," Herridian said softly, "we have the credits. We are not just sad little Capricia now. We are a Commonwealth and we have the money. Our surplus grows each day. Scipio, we are one of the wealthiest factions in the galaxy if not the wealthiest. Let's use it to help, yes?"

Scipio relented finally nodding to the portly scientist. "Very well, Herridian. Load your stuff aboard the Ressario and we'll get their attention."

"Brilliant! What planet are you visiting anyway?"

"A planet in the Wyl Sector. Sephis-Wyl or something like that. It was found in an old CSA database. It should serve as a front line against incursions from that quarter."

"If we can reinforce it." Herridian pointed out.

"If we can organize it!" Scipio shot back. "From what I've read, it's a political nightmare of anarchy."