Post by 727sky on Jul 6, 2016 7:40:20 GMT -6
Chapter
The twins, Sky and Fhaa sat at a corner table and for all who might glance in their general direction they appeared to be a strikingly beautiful humanoid couple just sitting and watching the scenery. Sky at full height was 6'4" and Fhaa, which stood 5'8" were not overly tall for USSB humans but certainly not short either. Like many others in this station's bar they appeared to have stopped by for some refreshments and to watch some of the vid screens placed at several strategic locations for the patrons viewing pleasure. One of the vid screens was showing the stations local news which was broadcasting non-stop about a huge interception of syn-drug and a arms shipment that had been hidden in a freighter ship headed for the planet Khanchantaburi. The history of the planet according to the vid screen was one of war, drugs, and corruption with different factions all trying to be dominate their individual niches.
The twins were not in the bar to cause problems or even really be taken notice of. They were there to gather information for USSB (the multiverse Empire they belonged to) and more or less blend in with the locals. Considering all the different Sentients at this station the 'blending in part' should have been no problem for this planned short stay.
Sky and Fhaa were both armed with 12 inch daggers which were well concealed in their dress attire. Even if someone were able at first glance to catch sight of one of the daggers a normal Sentient would consider the blades a form of decoration or even some customary display of a martial dress code; not much of a threat where everyone carried blasters or much greater weapons; just puny little daggers after all. However, little did anyone know that these blades were able to emit a cutter beam out to 12 long steps, or just cut like a regular very sharp 12" blade at close range. The cutter emitter was controlled by a biometric thumb wheel when the handle was grasped. Every click of the wheel would give a range for the cutter beam of approximately two steps. Six clicks were equal to 12 long steps.
If there were problems, Mom and Dad plus Tiki (their Phase ship) were just a thought away; so what could possibly go wrong ?
So far, the information they had gathered had been as expected and they were getting rather bored with being spies. There was absolutely nothing glamorous about listening to broken thoughts about money, sex, and the life forms thoughts on positioning and scheming for more power, which would also bring money and more sex...
O.K. so money, power/status, and sex seemed to drive and motivate the universe. At this station's bar there were no exceptions to the universal basic motivators as far as the twins could tell. Sex the twins could understand but the whole over powering need for money or credits and the social position they might bring made both of them feel sorry for these Sentients. USSB certainly did not work that way except for the sex maybe, which was a good deal.
USSB was always short of personnel so if the pleasurable activity was carried out to its' fully intended purpose everything was a net positive especially for the new life force created.. .
The beings of this station, at their particular stage of development, (they had not discovered Bulk travel) were a 'Satong a dozen' in this one of the 11 known universes.. Nothing of real value for USSB at this stage of these life forms development. You could feed the information to USSB Main on any of these societal life forms and get a total probability read out based off of millions of other Sentients on where a particular culture would be in another thousand years; barring accidents and maybe a lucky scientific breakthrough. You could say, when USSB mapped a galaxy they mapped everything to include the potential of the life forms found therein. Seldom was USSB surprised by a race of Sentients or their actions during some future time line because USSB had seen and recorded it all countless times before with only slight variations on a theme which was called, “Survival of a Species”..
The station with all the various life forms transiting throughout its' location had been considered as a possibility for some decent intelligence gathering. Maybe the inhabitants could offer a surprise or something of interest to keen observers; (which Sky and Fhaa with their telepathic abilities and the reading of minds certainly were). Actually most Sentients would consider the twins super magically keen observers if not down right scary, if the truth were known about their abilities; which were augmented by their USSB Biochips.
But alas, the twins were coming to the conclusion that so far, there were just boring, run of the mill, Sentients at this bar and station. Interesting in a social aspect but boring in any technological aspect.
This bar scene was a continuation of our investigating and the mapping of the Hadock dimension so no matter how boring, it was what we were doing. I suppose I was cut slightly differently being an earthling and all, for I found just about everything of interest to me; even if not so much for USSB.
After our first encounter with some bugs that thought they were gods in this universe and the subsequent actions of our little band of family, along with Cricket (Tall gray bug) and the two little gray droids, we had finally managed to show those particular tall grays the error of their ways. Later, after taking care of a few lose ends for USSB, we moved just 133 million light years away to a double bar galaxy along our research/fact finding route. Cricket and her two small Gray companions would continue to survey the galaxy with drones and close up inspections in the opposite limb of the galaxy from us.
The black hole (s) at the center of this galaxy were actually two dense gravity fields that would merge in a little less the five million years; again not all that uncommon..
Tiki had needed to stop at several asteroids along our route for more raw materials as she was busy turning out thousands of low tech droids every sleep cycle. The Hadock universe was huge and would take millions and billions of fast moving droids for our USSB mapping and research purposes.
With Cricket and the two other ships with one Gray each remaining in this Hadock dimension to continue with basic research/mapping along with the seeding of drones, this USSB mission would be finished sooner than most would believe. Cricket's three ships were presently finished with their quadrant of this galaxy and had moved on to another Galaxy to start the process all over again. Three USSB ships could accomplish what needed to be done much faster than our single ship could.. Besides we were not really in a rush.
Layla and I were doing our own bit of research on a planet around a sun 3 light years away from Fhaa and Sky who were doing some close up observations on a decently inhabited large research and refit space station. The refit part was a place where ships could be replenish their supplies along with new parts installed if needed....for a price..
We had just finished a most refreshing swim in a clear pool of water, which was fed by a small water fall, when Tiki alerted us that there were screams from what sounded like a female crying out for help not that far from our position. (not that far is a relative term so I had to ask her how far.)
She replied, “THAT WITHOUT TRIANGLIZATION IT WAS IMPOSITBLE TO ACCURATELY TELL...!.... BUT HER BEST GUESS WAS 3800 METERS AWAY BASED ON THE WEAKNESS OF THE SOUND IN THESE ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS”.
“Thank you Tiki for your best guess”.
Layla and I headed back to our talking senescent ship, “Tiki”, to get dressed in something other than our birthday suits. As we were dressing Tiki cloaked and positioned herself over a small village just about 3800 meters or about 2.5 miles away.
Below us was a terrible sight of mayhem and death as some soldiers (they had uniforms) were rounding up the villagers while doing a house to house search. Those who provided resistance were shot on the spot with a weapon that threw metal darts out of the end of a barrel much like our earthly guns used to do.. For all we knew the soldiers could have been the local police force but regardless, the nomenclature of the shooters, for those who were shot, would probably not matter.
Order or mayhem can 'both' come from those with weapons who have the will to use them.
We were there to observe and let Tiki take and send observations to USSB but the brutality that was being dished out to those who were defenseless was starting to “Piss Me Off” or as Layla wanted me to say, “I was getting perturbed/unhappy”. The meaning of Piss me off did not come across as intended when telepathic mind to mind communication was used.
From what we had gathered about this particular continent's social structure, it was the typical society based upon a strong man and his family which on earth would be like a King and Kingdom; with the King's favorites and relatives running the kingdom for him. That type of system works for the uneducated masses with very few exceptions. It was a universal system that could certainly force order on the population while those at the top lived a life of luxury. Otherwise, just another necessary step to get past inbred, brain damaged idiots as far as I was concerned.
The soldiers must have found who they were looking for as two males and a female were brought before one of the soldiers who appeared to be their version of an officer in charge. A brief discussion and finger pointing ensued and then the two males were bound by their feet and hands and placed on a carry all for transportation. The officer motioned his enforcers to load up, but the lone female stood before him trying to block his way. He shot her in the head as we watched. She crumpled like a paper doll into a forming pool of her own blood. That seemed to be the end of all the mayhem and to have satisfied the soldier's searching and killing in this village, for all the remaining villagers just stared and did not dare move or utter a protest..
I really wanted to rip the officer's head off with Tiki's tractor beam assistance; which we could have done in a blink of an eye.... or..... get into the head of one of his subordinates and have them shoot this officer between the eyes; which I could have done by myself... But... that is not our purpose, even though I must admit, I would have been extremely satisfied if I had actually acted upon my first or second impulse.
The trillions of inhabited worlds that are non USSB, with their various social systems and life forms, create a mosaic of much pain, suffering, and death for way to many. It is terrible in my mind to actually know how ruthless Sentient life forms can be with their own kind and certainly the other life forms they live with on their home planets or the planets they take in conquest.
At least at USSB we cerebrate life and bring new life into our USSB universes expecting them to have as good if not better a life than we are living presently. Sorry, I don't mean to get philosophical about such things.. It is just watching planets and their societies evolve..... they always seem to fall into the same almost 'cast in stone' patterns.
Hunter gatherers protecting their hunting grounds. Sounds rather simple but in actuality if you do not eat, you and your kin/tribe will perish. Limited resources always cause conflict and sometimes war and much death as if it were some kind of universal law.
Farmers and taxes paid for laws and protection against marauders, city states, nations, and finally, either they destroy themselves or another form of strong arm tactics is employed by whom ever can claw or think their way into the top leadership role..Usually after wiping out over half a worlds population. Race, color, and religious wars.... never ending cycles no matter where you go in the multiverse. Even after all the competing races are exterminated except for the dominate winner there are always reasons for the killing to continue among most Sentients who bow down before some strong arm government..
The Leaders live the great life while everyone else contributes to these top/elite of the social ladder's well being and welfare. That seems to work until the leaders or their governments get greedy and corrupt. Then the down trodden most always wake up one day and decide they have had enough with being abused and stepped upon.. Then it gets really interesting as the whole process starts over again !
Even in my limited time and studies at USSB I have found it is a very low percentage of Sentients who ever make it off their home world, much less survive to discover Bulk travel.
There are thousands and thousands of gravel stones sorted before one diamond is found.
Back at the Station:
Fhaa watched as 4 humanoid males entered the bar; she alerted Sky of their presence. Sky had been mostly focusing on a pretty female humanoid that had entered a couple of moments before. The four men were looking for someone they wanted to find, beat, and finally after much pain, kill.
Fhaa with very little effort on her part was able to understand these guys were enforces for one of the local smuggling lords who felt the individual they were looking for had interfered with a major drug and weapons deal. Sky wanted to stay and see what would happen while Fhaa, always the practical one, wanted to get out of the bar as soon as possible. These guys were armed with blasters hidden under the coats and they had no respect for life unless it was their own.
Sky knew better than to put up much resistance when Fhaa said, “Let's go” plus once outside he was aware that any disagreement could be sorted out between them. Besides, the real reason he had wanted to stay was to work his way around the bar to the pretty girl whom he already had the hots for; USSB research and some social engineering with her is how his mind justified his carnal thoughts.
The twins had no sooner exited from the main entry way door when the sound of blaster shots rang out from the bar.
Both Sky and Fhaa continued walking down the narrow main corridor to get away from the scene while mentally contacting Tiki to come and pick them up.
They had made their way down the corridor a short distance when Sentients started running out of the bar trying to get away from the death that was now loudly being dished out with blaster fire.
Evidently the guy the blaster guys had been looking for had several armed friends in the bar with him.
Sky wanted to go back and see if the girl had survived and told Fhaa as much as he fingered his dagger. Fhaa just rolled her eyes at him as she pulled him next to a bulk head wall. As they both watched several people running from the bar there was Sky's newest attraction running for her life among the panicked crowd. She ran directly towards them as the violence spilled out the bar's door way. There were blaster shots being fired back into the bar by two of the four people who had entered only moments before. As Sky's latest flame frantically approached; both the twins could read the terror in her mind and watch a jumbled mind's replay of what she had witnessed. She ran by them at the speed of full blown fright !
Sky started to make a mental suggestion for her to duck next to the wall with them but stopped just before he sent the suggestion .
Just about three minutes station time after Fhaa called for a pickup, Tiki, Mom, and Dad were just outside the station and ready for the twins extraction. Simple cloaking and a tractor beam was all it took to get them both safely back on board Tiki. I suppose you could call it the USSB's version of, “beam me up Scotty”.
I had just about had it with the type of societies we were running into so I asked Tiki if she could find us either a really primitive planet/society or one that is very advanced preferable some that could communicate properly without all the sound wave verbal jaw boning.
“ Let me see what I can find for you”, was Tiki's reply.
