Post by Axar on Aug 14, 2017 0:09:50 GMT
Chapter One: Cold
A ball of fire plummeted through the hazy atmosphere below. As it fell and hit thicker and thicker air, the fireball grew to truly immense sizes, enough that glowed brightly even from the perspective of Axar’s ship up in orbit.
The dark, orange-skinned Changeling sighed at the sight of it. Images of the long-haul search on the planet for the man flashed through his mind. Normally he would use the scouter, complete with its violet, glass screen, to find him. This particular Saiyan—Axar lamented the fact—proved to be so weak compared to his older sibling that Axar doubted he could detect his Power Level in a wounded state. Chances were that he would fall to such a low point that the ambient Power Level of the planet would hide him entirely.
Metal thudded quietly when Axar patted the arm rest of his chair. The natural body armor of his diminutive Suppressed Form scratched against it, a common annoyance. He smiled and spoke, “Nova, disable the viewscreen.”
“Disabled,” the mechanical, feminine voice responded.
“Keep tracking the pod to the surface. I want you to calculate a search area for me based on the landing site. That stubborn monkey might make a run for it if he survives.”
“Tracking descent path,” the starship answered. “Projected search area based on the power of the target in a wounded state would require seven Earth-weeks of search time.”
“Seven?” Axar’s voice croaked at the news. “That’s direct man hours, or does that include rest periods?”
“The projection includes no rest periods.”
One more time, Axar sighed. He leaned back against the padded portion of his “Captain’s” chair—a title he felt too haughty for the occasion. He answered, “Transmit all of that data to my Scouter and ensure that any changes to the pod’s current course are included in my information.”
“Transferring now.”
Axar stood up from the seat and continued, “Oh, and, Nova? One last thing: Connect me to Vegeta. You know who I’m looking to speak with. Direct to the transmission to the Captain’s quarters.”
“Preparing transmission.”
All around him, the silvery sheen of his personal vessel glowed at him. There were only two other stations on the command floor here, the equivalent of the bridge on a larger vessel. Each station had its own console and controls for various functions, but none of them were necessary. The computer understood most requests and commands itself and could carry them out without issue. Moreover, it even recognized the name of the ship itself, which Axar appreciated. He always found having to say “computer” for everything felt very strange.
The ship itself, which Axar named Nova, represented the height of his career achievements. It would comfortably accommodate three individuals. The price proved steep, especially when measured against the costs associated with the contracts that Axar took on. This particular job—the hunting of one Saiyan, Gehn—proved to be the most difficult one of all. Under normal circumstances, he would have considered cancelling the deal entirely and walking away from the money.
If this weren’t my first off-world contract, I might have, Axar told himself numerous times by now. A few times after Gehn escaped Earth. A few more times after Gehn escaped Konats thanks to the work of those two Android mercenaries that he hired. Ever since then, Axar decided that, when he landed on a world, he would always do so in his true form. Doing less than that allowed Gehn to get away twice, even if only by the skin of his teeth.
Still in his even shorter Suppressed Form, however, Axar marched across the metallic floor of his bridge. He stepped into a cylindrical elevator and listened to it hiss as it descended just a single floor. When it stopped and opened, it revealed three different doors for him to enter through: one straight ahead and two on either side.
He walked through the door directly in front of him. It hissed shut behind him to reveal yet another silvery room. This one had some additional furniture, such as a padded sofa, and a poor excuse for a bed over in the corner with a mattress barely twice as thick as his tiny arm. There was also a desk complete with a viewscreen and an audio system. Axar took to the heavy, metal chair that sat in front of it, held against the floor by the gravity system installed into the whole vessel.
Before long, a static voice chimed in.
“What is it?” they asked.
Axar paused. He hated the way the monkey spoke to him, but continued to imagine the zeroes in the payment amount he agreed to, “An update.”
“Tell me, then!”
Another slight pause. The impatience of the Saiyan on the other end of the line irritated him far more than Gehn himself had. He put on his most professional tone, “I’ve cornered Gehn on a planet deep into unclaimed space. A small, forest world. I should have news within a few weeks as I comb the surface and the wreckage.”
This time, the other party paused. When they spoke up next, their tone—hard to read through the distortions caused by interstellar communications—seemed much brighter, “He crashed landed somewhere? Oh, how I hope he died.”
“My ship’s computer has just confirmed the crash for me,” Axar chimed in honestly. He heard the report in his ear from the Scouter attached to his armored head. “I have a search area planned out. I’ll make sure to find him.”
“Are you equipped to stay out there for so long?”
“I am,” Axar reassured his employer. “My rations and other supplies are stocked for months and months.”
“Well, at least you’ve proven prepared, Axar,” the voice continued. “If not quick with your job.”
One more time, the Arcosian bit his tongue, “I understand. I’ll make sure to end the job on this planet, one way or another. Gehn has no ship, this planet is uninhabited, and I’m here in orbit. He’ll die, just like you wanted, and you can take that back to your military.”
Another momentary pause followed before Axar got an answer, “Yes, that’s exactly what I’ll be able to do. Good work, Axar. I’m anticipating some good news later on, little guy; so don’t let me down.”
He also hated it when they called him “little guy”.
All things considered, Axar accepted that he experienced worse employers in the past. They terminated their connection and, once again, Axar leaned back into his chair. He fit quite comfortably into it given his small size in this form and crossed his arms over his chest. His tail hung just off to the side of the chair itself and the tip flicked back and forth.
For a few more moments, Axar just stared at the viewscreen in front of him. He could use the ship’s applications to place other calls himself, he realized. In fact, another conversation with his father might be wise. They had not spoken since before Axar started this job, something that Joole cautioned him against.
“And if I call, you’ll just use the fact that Gehn’s still alive to get an ‘I told you so’ in, won’t you?” Axar talked at the blank screen in front of him. Then, with a wave of his hand, the display darkened and Axar just shook his head. “No, Father, I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ll be calling you after all. You can stew in your self-righteous indignation until I’m done here, you old fool.”
All of that made him feel just a little bit better. Axar stood from his chair and walked back out of his quarters.
“Nova,” he said as he stepped into the elevator. “Take me to the airlock. I’m going to the planet.”
“Moving the lift now,” the computer answered through the ship-wide audio system. “Would you enjoy some soothing mus—”
“No, no, that’s not necessary,” Axar reiterated his denial out of reflex. There was no setting in the ship’s current programming to toggle that automated response off. One day, Axar fantasized, he would possess the highest class of personal starship that would be entirely free of those particular defects.”
When the doors of the elevator hissed back open, Axar stood before a a small loading area and the airlock in front of him. The airlock itself was wide and rectangular in designed. The interior, vertical metal doors already hung open in front of him. On the otherside of the final set of doors would, no doubt, float the nameless planet that Gehn retreated to the surface of in his last-ditch effort to escape Axar.
He stepped through and listened to the heavy, metallic doors shut behind him. With another hiss, a different sort, they sealed shut.
“Depressurize,” he ordered the computer. Just a moment later and the ship immediately sucked all of the air out of the air lock and back into the rest of the ship. All around him, Axar felt pressure drop all the way to zero. He felt the heat go with it and quickly reduce the area around him into a near-perfect vacuum to match that of space itself.
He also felt his entire body adjust. His skin and muscles both tightened to apply the pressure to his body necessary to prevent the liquid in his lungs from boiling away. His heart also slowed to the minimum it would need to provide enough oxygen to his body for what he had in mind, but not too much that Axar would need to breathe for a long, long while.
These were the sorts of biological efficiencies made possible by his species, the Arcosians. Despite being part of a clan that the rest of his people looked down upon, Axar possessed the same abilities and all the advantages they brought with them. He, too, possessed a natural strength that eclipsed any of the other races, enough that he found it most comfortable to avoid his full power in exchange for the more relaxing, suppressed forms of his people.
Slowly, the doors in front of him split in half and slid open—one piece into the top of the hull and the other into the bottom section. In the split, Axar got a full view of the brilliant violet hues of the core of the Milky Way, which hung behind the hazy-red atmosphere of the planet below him. The surface itself appeared to be a lush green, except for the singular sea on the planet that existed in the northern hemisphere.
No ice caps, Axar observed. Warm, or a very uniform climate.
Based on the scans from his ship, Axar concluded the latter. The planet seemed to lack any latitudinal or equatorial changes in climate. The same species of tree seemed to dominate most of the mega-continent and the species of lower lifeforms present also spread prolifically across the entire, united surface. The same could be said of the aquatic life that the computer picked up.
In the future, when the space-faring empires of today reached further, Axar noted that it could make for a great colonization opportunity. If nothing else, he marked it away for future claim and sale. While the ancient World Trade Organization existed no longer, the sale of uninhabited worlds continued strong. Axar regretted that he never got to personally experience the world from those stories. A time when people conquered entire planets and sold them off to the highest bidder, all in the same of profit.
He felt as though he, and his Scorch Clan family, would have excelled during such a period.
A simpler time.
Slowly, Axar’s feet lifted off the metallic floor of his ship. He floated forward, past the threshold of his hull, and glanced over his shoulder to see the doors shut behind him. Once he floated well outside the range of the gravity system of his ship, his own, bright-orange aura flared to life around him. Like a rocket of his own, or a Space Pod of his own, he rushed straight for the atmosphere of the planet and watched, slowly, as the flames of re-entry started to appear around him.
A ball of fire plummeted through the hazy atmosphere below. As it fell and hit thicker and thicker air, the fireball grew to truly immense sizes, enough that glowed brightly even from the perspective of Axar’s ship up in orbit.
The dark, orange-skinned Changeling sighed at the sight of it. Images of the long-haul search on the planet for the man flashed through his mind. Normally he would use the scouter, complete with its violet, glass screen, to find him. This particular Saiyan—Axar lamented the fact—proved to be so weak compared to his older sibling that Axar doubted he could detect his Power Level in a wounded state. Chances were that he would fall to such a low point that the ambient Power Level of the planet would hide him entirely.
Metal thudded quietly when Axar patted the arm rest of his chair. The natural body armor of his diminutive Suppressed Form scratched against it, a common annoyance. He smiled and spoke, “Nova, disable the viewscreen.”
“Disabled,” the mechanical, feminine voice responded.
“Keep tracking the pod to the surface. I want you to calculate a search area for me based on the landing site. That stubborn monkey might make a run for it if he survives.”
“Tracking descent path,” the starship answered. “Projected search area based on the power of the target in a wounded state would require seven Earth-weeks of search time.”
“Seven?” Axar’s voice croaked at the news. “That’s direct man hours, or does that include rest periods?”
“The projection includes no rest periods.”
One more time, Axar sighed. He leaned back against the padded portion of his “Captain’s” chair—a title he felt too haughty for the occasion. He answered, “Transmit all of that data to my Scouter and ensure that any changes to the pod’s current course are included in my information.”
“Transferring now.”
Axar stood up from the seat and continued, “Oh, and, Nova? One last thing: Connect me to Vegeta. You know who I’m looking to speak with. Direct to the transmission to the Captain’s quarters.”
“Preparing transmission.”
All around him, the silvery sheen of his personal vessel glowed at him. There were only two other stations on the command floor here, the equivalent of the bridge on a larger vessel. Each station had its own console and controls for various functions, but none of them were necessary. The computer understood most requests and commands itself and could carry them out without issue. Moreover, it even recognized the name of the ship itself, which Axar appreciated. He always found having to say “computer” for everything felt very strange.
The ship itself, which Axar named Nova, represented the height of his career achievements. It would comfortably accommodate three individuals. The price proved steep, especially when measured against the costs associated with the contracts that Axar took on. This particular job—the hunting of one Saiyan, Gehn—proved to be the most difficult one of all. Under normal circumstances, he would have considered cancelling the deal entirely and walking away from the money.
If this weren’t my first off-world contract, I might have, Axar told himself numerous times by now. A few times after Gehn escaped Earth. A few more times after Gehn escaped Konats thanks to the work of those two Android mercenaries that he hired. Ever since then, Axar decided that, when he landed on a world, he would always do so in his true form. Doing less than that allowed Gehn to get away twice, even if only by the skin of his teeth.
Still in his even shorter Suppressed Form, however, Axar marched across the metallic floor of his bridge. He stepped into a cylindrical elevator and listened to it hiss as it descended just a single floor. When it stopped and opened, it revealed three different doors for him to enter through: one straight ahead and two on either side.
He walked through the door directly in front of him. It hissed shut behind him to reveal yet another silvery room. This one had some additional furniture, such as a padded sofa, and a poor excuse for a bed over in the corner with a mattress barely twice as thick as his tiny arm. There was also a desk complete with a viewscreen and an audio system. Axar took to the heavy, metal chair that sat in front of it, held against the floor by the gravity system installed into the whole vessel.
Before long, a static voice chimed in.
“What is it?” they asked.
Axar paused. He hated the way the monkey spoke to him, but continued to imagine the zeroes in the payment amount he agreed to, “An update.”
“Tell me, then!”
Another slight pause. The impatience of the Saiyan on the other end of the line irritated him far more than Gehn himself had. He put on his most professional tone, “I’ve cornered Gehn on a planet deep into unclaimed space. A small, forest world. I should have news within a few weeks as I comb the surface and the wreckage.”
This time, the other party paused. When they spoke up next, their tone—hard to read through the distortions caused by interstellar communications—seemed much brighter, “He crashed landed somewhere? Oh, how I hope he died.”
“My ship’s computer has just confirmed the crash for me,” Axar chimed in honestly. He heard the report in his ear from the Scouter attached to his armored head. “I have a search area planned out. I’ll make sure to find him.”
“Are you equipped to stay out there for so long?”
“I am,” Axar reassured his employer. “My rations and other supplies are stocked for months and months.”
“Well, at least you’ve proven prepared, Axar,” the voice continued. “If not quick with your job.”
One more time, the Arcosian bit his tongue, “I understand. I’ll make sure to end the job on this planet, one way or another. Gehn has no ship, this planet is uninhabited, and I’m here in orbit. He’ll die, just like you wanted, and you can take that back to your military.”
Another momentary pause followed before Axar got an answer, “Yes, that’s exactly what I’ll be able to do. Good work, Axar. I’m anticipating some good news later on, little guy; so don’t let me down.”
He also hated it when they called him “little guy”.
All things considered, Axar accepted that he experienced worse employers in the past. They terminated their connection and, once again, Axar leaned back into his chair. He fit quite comfortably into it given his small size in this form and crossed his arms over his chest. His tail hung just off to the side of the chair itself and the tip flicked back and forth.
For a few more moments, Axar just stared at the viewscreen in front of him. He could use the ship’s applications to place other calls himself, he realized. In fact, another conversation with his father might be wise. They had not spoken since before Axar started this job, something that Joole cautioned him against.
“And if I call, you’ll just use the fact that Gehn’s still alive to get an ‘I told you so’ in, won’t you?” Axar talked at the blank screen in front of him. Then, with a wave of his hand, the display darkened and Axar just shook his head. “No, Father, I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ll be calling you after all. You can stew in your self-righteous indignation until I’m done here, you old fool.”
All of that made him feel just a little bit better. Axar stood from his chair and walked back out of his quarters.
“Nova,” he said as he stepped into the elevator. “Take me to the airlock. I’m going to the planet.”
“Moving the lift now,” the computer answered through the ship-wide audio system. “Would you enjoy some soothing mus—”
“No, no, that’s not necessary,” Axar reiterated his denial out of reflex. There was no setting in the ship’s current programming to toggle that automated response off. One day, Axar fantasized, he would possess the highest class of personal starship that would be entirely free of those particular defects.”
When the doors of the elevator hissed back open, Axar stood before a a small loading area and the airlock in front of him. The airlock itself was wide and rectangular in designed. The interior, vertical metal doors already hung open in front of him. On the otherside of the final set of doors would, no doubt, float the nameless planet that Gehn retreated to the surface of in his last-ditch effort to escape Axar.
He stepped through and listened to the heavy, metallic doors shut behind him. With another hiss, a different sort, they sealed shut.
“Depressurize,” he ordered the computer. Just a moment later and the ship immediately sucked all of the air out of the air lock and back into the rest of the ship. All around him, Axar felt pressure drop all the way to zero. He felt the heat go with it and quickly reduce the area around him into a near-perfect vacuum to match that of space itself.
He also felt his entire body adjust. His skin and muscles both tightened to apply the pressure to his body necessary to prevent the liquid in his lungs from boiling away. His heart also slowed to the minimum it would need to provide enough oxygen to his body for what he had in mind, but not too much that Axar would need to breathe for a long, long while.
These were the sorts of biological efficiencies made possible by his species, the Arcosians. Despite being part of a clan that the rest of his people looked down upon, Axar possessed the same abilities and all the advantages they brought with them. He, too, possessed a natural strength that eclipsed any of the other races, enough that he found it most comfortable to avoid his full power in exchange for the more relaxing, suppressed forms of his people.
Slowly, the doors in front of him split in half and slid open—one piece into the top of the hull and the other into the bottom section. In the split, Axar got a full view of the brilliant violet hues of the core of the Milky Way, which hung behind the hazy-red atmosphere of the planet below him. The surface itself appeared to be a lush green, except for the singular sea on the planet that existed in the northern hemisphere.
No ice caps, Axar observed. Warm, or a very uniform climate.
Based on the scans from his ship, Axar concluded the latter. The planet seemed to lack any latitudinal or equatorial changes in climate. The same species of tree seemed to dominate most of the mega-continent and the species of lower lifeforms present also spread prolifically across the entire, united surface. The same could be said of the aquatic life that the computer picked up.
In the future, when the space-faring empires of today reached further, Axar noted that it could make for a great colonization opportunity. If nothing else, he marked it away for future claim and sale. While the ancient World Trade Organization existed no longer, the sale of uninhabited worlds continued strong. Axar regretted that he never got to personally experience the world from those stories. A time when people conquered entire planets and sold them off to the highest bidder, all in the same of profit.
He felt as though he, and his Scorch Clan family, would have excelled during such a period.
A simpler time.
Slowly, Axar’s feet lifted off the metallic floor of his ship. He floated forward, past the threshold of his hull, and glanced over his shoulder to see the doors shut behind him. Once he floated well outside the range of the gravity system of his ship, his own, bright-orange aura flared to life around him. Like a rocket of his own, or a Space Pod of his own, he rushed straight for the atmosphere of the planet and watched, slowly, as the flames of re-entry started to appear around him.