(Posted on 02-024-2001)
(Editor's note: tyrex57 was kind enough to offer to resubmit the first three parts of his story together to help decrease the backlog in the EV/O Chronicles. Originally only Part 1 was slated to appear at this time. --Jude)
Part 1
The signal came as a complete surprise. The legendary Council was summoning him, of all people, to their station. Gilvan Rastavan was quite possibly the most hated person in the known universe.
For years he had proudly served the governments he had encountered. He had traded and worked in most of the galaxy, peacefully earning credits. At first he was happy to pursue such a life.
As time passed, Gilvan witnessed countless snobbery and idiocy of governments and citizens, and with each passing day grew more pessimistic and depressed with the worlds he encountered. By the end, he was so fed up with the stupidity of the universe that he bought himself a nice ship and went about disabling any ship he met. He was overjoyed by the fear that soon became attributed to his name. He made his goal in life to disrupt life without killing for all and create fear and hate. He was impartial in his wrath. The entire Universe had heard or witnessed his actions. His pleasure was to disable a ship and boarding it, threatening a quivering captain and forcing them to dance.
For an entire year, he traveled and poisoned tens of worlds water supplies with psychedelic drugs. Another time, he covered the capital of UE space (Earth) with 600 tons of congealing rotten fish. It was his obsession to gain attention from such action. Once, he had spent 50 million credits to create a broadcasting device, which destroyed all holo-vids in the systems he visited.
Gilvan did not care to tolerate any resistance to his actions. He destroyed many a bounty hunters ship, and as a message, sent the captain gagged and bound inside an escape pod back to his world. He had no friends, nor did he desire any. His life was a constant joke on society. So why was the Council trying to contact him? Gilvan, as any prudent person, decided to ignore this new occurrence, and proceeded to drink a quart of Saalian brandy.
Gilvan took the branches off of his Azdara, and prepared for takeoff. There was no populated world he could visit without concealing his identity, and he preferred the solidarity of the desolate worlds he landed on. He had stolen his ship from an Azdgari warship, which he had defeated, and he favored its quick movements, which made it seem to flutter like a butterfly, dancing in the wind. With a few shield generators, his ship became invincible to nearly all weaponry, and when he had need of cargo space, he would just hijack a freighter. Cruising outside the atmosphere, Gilvan encountered the typical scenario: a few merchants who ran at the sight of him. He yawned, wondering what he should do today.
Suddenly, the system was flooded with disturbance. Glancing at his radar, Gilvan saw only static. Gasping, he glanced through a porthole. All around, crowding the system, innumerable Crescent warships had appeared. Gilvan barely had time to look stunned, as 30 tractor beams held his ship, and another beam steadily drained his supply of fuel. For the first time since his childhood, Gilvan Rastavan prayed
Part 2
Gilvan Rastavan slumped in his chair, attempting to look calm and unconcerned as he was hailed and his tele-screen jumped to life. A smirking, pompous face greeted him.
Just for that, just for that, I ought to smack him, thought Gilvan.
Gilvan Rastavan, captain of the _____(pronounced underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore), you are called to Council Station by ordinance of the Council. We are here to escort you to the previously disclosed location. Oh, and by the way, resistance is futile, sneered the face and laughed. I am captain Porinkos Ubinohara. Prepare to be boarded. Gilvan was again reminded of why he had started his quest against society.
The Azdara was quickly taken into the hold of a Crescent Warship, and Gilvan was dragged, kicking and screaming, to a dank cell, completely devoid of any light or comforts.
Fools, Gilvan laughed to himself. They had not even given him a thorough search. He had managed to smuggle in a hand-held pulse gun, concealed under artificial skin. Ill make them pay. He chuckled.
The hunters were obviously idiots. They had left the cell Gilvan was held in with almost no monitors, expecting a mild-mannered idiot. It barely took 10 minutes for him to short-circuit the mechanism keeping the door closed. Gilvan entered the dimly lit hallway and prepared for the hunt.
The first guard could not make a noise as his lungs momentarily stopped functioning, and he fell unconscious to the floor. An hour later, he would awake, naked and bound, wondering why the angels would not stop circling him.
Gilvan scurried down the halls of the massive ship. Ducking from door to door, he stealthily made for the bridge. He was not concerned as to being discovered, being sure that no group taking such precautions to capture him would kill him. Even though Gilvan knew the layout of the warship, traversing it still took over an hour. His new clothes offered no protection from the identity sensors, and caution was of utmost importance. He snickered at the look on the face of the second guard he disabled, and laughed out loud watching the tubby rent-a-cop fall to the plainly carpeted, puke-gray floor.
Preparing to enter hyperspace jump. Assume your positions, a brass voice blazoned across the intercom.
Damn, muttered Gilvan to himself. This would mean that all crew would proceed to the strap themselves down, and internal sensors would scan every sector of the ship for the safety of the lackeys who missed the message. Gilvans old friend was killed by pirates who took him hostage, and, for fun, left him free of any straps during a jump. Needless to say, he had bounded across the walls, like a ping pong ball, breaking his spine and bones to bits
This was a disturbing development. His absence would be discovered! The guards he had stunned would not be found, since he had strapped them to beds, but his position was still awkward. The only remaining hope would be that the circuits would still be nonfunctional, and there would be no time to send someone to check on his cell. Calling to the God he had never cared for, Gilvan entered a sleeping quarter and strapped himself to the bed
Gilvan awoke with a gasp. What was going on? Where was he? How much time had passed? It was as if he had just awakened and his life was a dream, only parts of which he could remember. It slowly all came back, starting from his early childhood as the son of a miner, continuing to his current predicament. He suddenly remembered the warning lessons in flight school, telling of unstable hyper-jumps which could cause brain and tissue damage. Jumps, in which an instantaneous glitch in the vortex caused an impossibly small piece of the body to travel faster or slower than the others for nanoseconds. The result could be horrendous. It was even said that, once, a pilot was killed when a chunk of his wedding ring shot into his brain. Even if the tissue transfer were minor, the body often could not react, being incapable of responding, and going into major shock while it scrammed to discover the source of the error, which it could not. Sometimes the victim would go insane, their brain refusing any new information because of a fear of more anomalies. People died like that, crunched in a feral position, eyes shut, whimpering. The problem had been nearly completely alleviated with newer ships and more complex calculations. Still, about one of every thousand space-faring people would experience a minor case of this in their lifetime. Gilvan sighed, smacked himself, and ignoring the nagging fear in the back of his mind, continued toward the bridge
He reached it within 30 minutes, facing no resistance to his free movement on the ship. The surveillance machinery was simple to fool, and he slid to face the massive, smooth, glimmering Titanium alloy of the door. He smiled at his reflection. He pushed the hand-size black button, and casually stepped onto the bridge.
The room looked like an amphitheater, no right angles present, the pure diamond ceiling zooming up to near infinity, showing the vast emptiness of space, riddled with stars and galaxies. The bridge was actually set in the middle of the ship, yet the walls and floors were created as super-definition viewing screens, so that if the captain chose, she could view the complete space around her ship. The artificial gravity created by rotation did not stop the initial fright of falling, falling, falling forever into the void. Gilvan didnt blink.
There were only 4 people on the bridge, including the captain. The first three could not say a word, as they fell under silent beams of opaque light streaming from Gilvans hand.
As for you, Gilvan chuckled, DANCE! For I am not so lenient with those who dare defy me! Gilvan loved crushing the spirits of insolent people, and lived for the power of his fear. He smiled inwardly.
Please, the captain fell to his knees and started sobbing. Please dont hurt me, I am just a pawn. Its not my fault, not my decision. I want to live. I have a wife, children. His wails illuminated the chamber.
Shut your filthy hole, you worthless flake of gutter acid. Quit your whining!
The captain raised his red, swollen face, and continued sobbing. Suddenly, a gun appeared in his hand and flew to make the shot. Before he could even lift its grimy barrel, his severed hand landed at his feet. He readily fainted from shock.
Do not mess with me. Gilvan laughed. He sent the captain to the robotic medical wing, under heavy sedation. As his hand was being reattached, he scanned for crew, and discovered that it was purely mechanized. The only problem was the marines on board. They were quite surprised as robots tore into their barracks and sharply injected them with large, shining plasticine needles. Their attempts at self-defense were futile. In 5 minutes, 300 men were sleeping blissfully in a huge, white room. There were no women on board.
Gilvan scanned the surrounding space, and discovered that his ship was alone in the system. Sighing from love of his work, Gilvan wrote a brisk, clean, and violently cocky message to Council Station. He then relaxed and sat back in his gleaming black captains chair
Part 3
While he was waiting for a reply from the Council, Gilvan decided to have some fun. After all, he had full control of a ship registered to a reputable captain, allowing him clearance to almost any neutral spaceport. He discovered that he was alone in the Akrayhek system, and requested landing on South Tip Station immediately. As expected, he was quickly cleared for landing. His new ship gracefully entered the atmosphere, gliding calmly to the port because of its anti-gravity pods, and let itself be swallowed into the belly of the monstrous gray machine which is a spaceport.
The first thing he did was outfit his new toy. He replaced the SAD modules with Displacement Rockets, and added a fourth turret. An afterburner was a must, as were the two fuel scoops. He smiled when he realized that this was the ship with a fuel drainer, a complex device, which sends a ray to enter a ship and destroys its fuel. This outfit was far from perfect, but it would have to do for now.
A thought struck Gilvan. The planet around which the station orbited was home to the production plants for most of the galaxys cigaintos. These were the sons of the cigarettes, were pleasant to the taste, and caused a dreadful number of cancer deaths around the galaxy. Like the smokers from the past, many people denied that they could die from smoking, or simply, would or could not force themselves to stop. This was Gilvans chance for revenge
Yuri Werdsty strolled the garden behind his mansion. He had a servant dig out some weeds, and smiled at the colorful halo of his exquisite rarity. He smelled a rose, and turned to go inside. Just as he entered his marvelous back room, covered with elegant paintings and expensive fur rugs, a microscopic projectile entered his blood stream and he fell to the floor. Gilvan Rastavan placed him in a large duffel bag and carried his to his waiting hovermobile , the descendant of the automobile.
Yuri awoke as if from a pleasant deep slumber. Looking around, he saw only white walls any way he looked. He was floating in the center of a large room. He tried to pinch himself, yet he could not move his hands. The gripping fear clutched at his stomach, and he tried to call for help. He could not make a sound.
A deep, powerful voice filled the chamber, Yuri Wersty, you are guilty of the murders of millions of entities around the galaxy. Your punishment will be strict and severe. Did you really expect that you could evade the world for so long? Prepare for death, you scum.
Yuri was hyperventilating, yet he could not speak or shout out. His heart was thumping inside his chest like a hoard of buffalo, running on a plain. He was going into shock. Just as he was about to lose consciousness, or have a heart attack, a needle injected him with a murky brown concentrate. He relaxed and a soothing calmness overtook him. The fear of his mind was juxtaposed with the tranquility of his body, creating an awkward dilemma.
You will die as did those you have killed. Cancer will slowly overtake your lungs, as putrid black smoke and tar creeps into your body.
Yuri was allowed the free movement of his right hand, and a blazing cigarinto was provided for him. When he tried to push it away, a wave of excruciating pain ravaged him. He finally conceded and started puffing away at the stick of death.
The other CEOs of cigarinto companies were treated much the same way. Gilvan left them under mechanical supervision, fed and clothed, yet forced to smoke continually. In a few months they would be released back into their world, hopelessly addicted to their own product, and experiencing much the same horrible cravings and effects as the rest of the galaxy. They might even die of cancer, many painful years later. In any scenario, their lesson would be learned, and they would always have the reminder of Gilvan Rastavan Was Here tattooed on their chests.
Gilvans newest antic had pleased him very much. The smile on his face would resurface each time a he thought of it. In a joyful mood, he entered his ship and prepared for takeoff...
(This message has been edited by moderator (edited 02-24-2001).)