STGOD: The Pheonix Wars (Chapter II)

[Destructionator XV]

In the A'millian headquarters, on their homeworld. Lord Adam has returned with Khardem to speak with the Lady about the situation.

"This is Khardem, of the ancients. Khardem, meet my old friend."

"You are just as beautiful as I imagined."

He reaches out to kiss her hand, but she stands stoicly, both hands clasped behind her back.

"I am the Lady of the empire."

Khardem is somewhat taken aback by her lack of interest in his charm.

"I understand you are related to the bioships we discovered in the Riwal system."

Khardem stands back up straight.

"Yes, they are my bretheren."

"How many of your ships do you have in my territory?"

The Lady is wasting no time getting to the point with him.

"We have ships in many places."

"Don't you ever make me repeat myself again. Now, how many ships do you have in my territory?"

Lord Adam just smiled as he watched his old friend tear this man apart.

"I do not know the exact number, but we have some, scattered about to find out what kind of people you are. We only wish to be your friends."

"You're lying."

She says with a certain pitch in her voice. A technique she learned quite a while ago, this puts a strong influence on people not trained to resist it. She can tell he is not being completly truthful, but she cannot tell about what specifically he is lying, so she just tossed the words in his mind.

"I honestly don't know how many."

She didn't sense decption this time. Fascinating, she thought to herself, but gave no hint of her suprise to the outside world.

"Thank you. Now I want you to tell them to show themselves, so we may finally feel like friends."

"Of course."

"Mi'Lady, Khardem has been kind enough to provide us with new weapons in the other galaxy."

"Indeed?"

"Yes, I have provided our biolaser weapons to your ships there. They give you power even aganist Imperial ships. And I have much more I can do to help you."

"Khardem. Leave us."

"As you wish."

He leaves the room and is escorted to his guest quarters by members of the Royal Guard.

The Lord and Lady are now left alone.

"I don't trust him, and I don't like his brethern."

"Nor do I. He is arrogant and a pompous ass. Worst yet, he has tried to userp my power in the other galaxy."

"And you bring him here?"

"He is a being of great power, and he can help us defeat the Empire, and that thing inside Darth Kreshna."

"We don't need to defeat the empire, and the Phoenix entity is of little concern. You and I have toppled gods before. It would be no different."

"While I tend to agree, does it hurt dealing with his attitude? After we have added his technological and biological distinctiveness to our own, we can simply dispose of him."

The Lady can't help but laugh.

"With talk like that we don't much seen like the good guys at all!"

"Good, bad, I'm the guy with the new gun."

"Ahh, you make me laugh. Alright, we'll give him some latitude... for now."

"Very good. However, I will still keep a close eye on him."

A beep comes from their computer. The Lady presses a button.

"Speak."

"Sir, we have just monitored the Destructionator fleet going to hyperdrive. They are heading towards the galaxy woth the 9 world system on their own power."

"On who's authority?"

"Apparently noone's, sir. Shall we intercept them?"

The Lord and Lady exchange a glance.

"No, let them go."

"Yes, sir. And sir, transmission from Captian Willis of the Iyo."

"Patch it through down here."

"This is Captian Willis. We have been monitoring those bioships. They have released our knight and are not answering any more communications. They seem completly dorment. They even ignore us as we get closer scans of the planet. We do not know yet why they are here. We are going to beam down an away team to the planet to investigate. We will continue to report as we discover anything. Willis out."

"He is captian of a ship which along with a science ship are investigating 2 bioships found in the Riwal system. I think he should continue his mission without interference from us, despite Khardem's apperaence."

"Agreed. I am interested to know what they find."

The comm panel beeps again.

"Go ahead."

"Sir, you had better see what is on SNN."

The Lady turns on a television to the Subspace News Network. While the A'millian empire is a monarchy, the Lord and Lady enjoy giving the people freedom of speech, and they even run their own talk show on weekends where they take questions from callers directly.

"Evangical preachers have showen up on numerous worlds with words saying perfect tranquility is acheivable!"

"Jim, what else can you tell us about these new preachers?"

"Well, Jon, they apparently have amassed quite a large following in a short time. Our sources have not yet told us where they are from, but they are certainly here."[color]

"Jim, why are people even listening to this? Surely our people have grown past ridiculous superstitions!"

"I thought so too, Jon, but a new SNN News Poll has shown that 45% of humans in the empire still cling to some kind of faith!"

"How many people are believing this faith, Jim?"

"We don't know for sure, but I am here at the arena in Hart city on Yies, and there are at least 200,000 people here to listen to this sermon, and we have reports that a similar thing is happening in cities all over the galaxy!"

The Lady and Adam turn to each other and speak in unison.

"Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Over."

"Please listen to these messages from our sponsors. When we return, we will carry this sermon LIVE, on your 24 hour all news network, SNN!"

"This should be interesting."
"Indeed."

In the guest quarters, Khardem smiles as he watches the same program on his television...

ooc: Could one of you guys type up the news program on this sermon? I'm afraid I don't quite understand Khardem's bizarre religious nonsense enough to type it up myself.

[Destructionator XV]

(Double post)