LibriumArcana.Games

OK, I got a strange idea; the whole post-apocalyptic STGOD Adam wanted to do way back when, but with less... structure.

"It was over. The Goa'uld, the A'millians, the Zerg; everyone, really, was smashed up after angering the Galactic Empire. Now there's nothing left but slag. Years passed, and new polities took its place. There were no more Guardians, no more Imperials or alien snakes posing as gods... Just Chaos.

Pirate "lords" began conquering systems, and a mysterious "Empress" began creating a realm of her own. But if one thing was certain, it was that things were going to be more interesting than ever."

==============

The Aurora had once been the pride of the Alliance Fleet, a beautiful starship made to combat the Guardians and later used to fight against the invading Imperials. Now, she was but a husk of her former glory, a patched up and charred machine held together with duct tape and a prayer, and using pieces of jury-rigged technology from dozens of species. Few of her original components remained; she was a chimaera of technological madness, much like her Captain.

Ra, an aging and bitter man with a metal plate covering much of his face, was a man that had fallen far. Once he was regarded as a God; then a Statesman, a Warrior, a Friend. Now he was none of that; he was a miserable corsair, piloting a starship he had literally stolen in the last war and reduced to a star-hopping rust bucket.

Once armed with energy cannons powerful enough to level continents, his ship was now equipped with Terran railguns bought from a scrap yard, and some torpedoes nabbed off of an alien starship. Ra glanced over numerous dusty and barely functioning screens, grimacing at the readouts. He noticed they were approaching Apnarix, a system frequented by pirates and rogue traders. It was the asshole of the galaxy, an amazing thing to say for a galaxy reduced to ash by war.

Ra glanced over, noticing his first mate, a female Romulan by the name of Vexule. Ra had saved her life toward the end of the war, the duty-bound soldier of the dead Star Empire finding her only purpose in life to be serving him.

"We're entering the system, Vex," Ra muttered. "I hope you're right about this."

"I am certain," came her answer.

It was a dark day when he finally woke up. Mostly because the lights hadn't been turned on yet and his curtains were closed. And so he reached over, turned on said lights and wandered over to the window, pulling back the curtains and gazing over the fields. It was a miserable English day with typical English weather soaking most of the grassy fields.

Breaking up the grassy fields was a big, metallic object of death heading straight towards his house. And for all of that, the tired man who'd just spent the last night partying had only one word to say about the whole matter. One word to describe the big mettalic object of death on massive wheels which tore up the fields as it moved.

'Yellow,' yawned Arthur Dent.

But of course, the adventures of one Arthur Dent are completely and utterly unrelated to the events of the other universe in which the post-apocalyptic situation was taking place, but it was happening at loosely the same time. It was an idle thought of one Wizard who stood next to the window of the big, antiquated battleship.

It was such an antique battleship that when he looked out of the window, he saw rolling waves and a clear blue sky rather than stars. And it was framed by wood rather than some exotic alien metals. He was on his way to a less-old ship, but he was currently stuck with something more akin to the HMS Victory than the USS Enterprise.

Sorin the Seventh simply hoped that the Apnarix system wasn't as unfriendly as it was rumoured to be. And that if it was, then he at least had enough magical knowledge from his Unseen University training to be able to fight back.

"So, why are we going to this accursed system?" asked Ra.

Vexule crossed her arms and answered, "To see the pirate lord, Mazkal. He's a fool, owns an old Ha'tak that makes this ship look well-kept. Without the vast military infrastructure of the Goa'uld or Jaffa, his vessel is little more than a derelict now. Yet his strength comes in his political pull, and his death gliders, which he uses as commerce raiders. Even if his ship is little more than a space station now, he is who we should speak with in order to get the information you want."

"The information on Madar's whereabouts," Ra seethed. "That traitor pulled a fast one on me and the Imperials, and I want payback."

"Just remember that I am a former officer of the Tal'Shiar, Ra," said Vex, running a hand through her knee length black hair. "I know something of Madar's resources, and they are more than this piece of flotsam can handle."

"This 'piece of flotsam' was once a great starship," Ra hissed. "The pride of four empires!"

"And now kept intact, albeit barely, by a dethroned emperor," Vex stated. "I mean no disrespect, but the glory days of this vessel are at an end. I urge caution in all matters."

"One thing you're very good at," Ra acknowledged. He threw her a smirk and added, "Among other things."

Vex chuckled under her breath and said, "I should prepare the ship for docking."

"En Taro A'millia, Commodore." Lady Lucrecia said as she gently floated into the control center, her untied cyan hair following shortly behind.

"We're almost out of food," Commodore Jackson said to her, without looking up.

It still had to happen eventually. Warrior and the other survivors are all mighty starships, but none were never intended to operate without a base to which to periodically return.

"Then we cut back more," she thoughtlessly suggested.

He looked at her characteristically flat A'millian body, noting how even the small Starfleet duty uniform they found for her is now even looking baggy, "That isn't realistically an option."

"Then, what? A'millia is a ball of lava, Koreallia and their habitats, an asteroid field," she sadly spoke, then a slight smile came across her bony face when she recalled the fact that the Imperial capital, Coruscant, and its Empire's other major worlds are in no better condition. "We gave those scum exactly what they deserved." she thought.

"You don't need to remind anyone about home."

"Even Wivillia lay in ruin. Is there any farmland left in the entire galaxy?"

"The wormhole formed by the destruction of the transwarp conduit is suprisingly still there. There is no knowing what is there, but..."

"It seems we don't have much of a choice, do we?"

"Right, which is why the fleet is en route now."

I moved this in here, since it is a game thread. If you guys want, a parallel OOC thread can also be created in the ooc forum.

"We are being hailed," said Vexule.

"Patch it through," Ra sighed.

A hologram appeared before Ra of an older, portly Jaffa. He snickered, saying, "Look who it is. The false-god, Ra! What do you want, snake?"

"I want to know where Madar, the traitor, is hiding."

"The witch?" laughed Mazkal. "She eludes my spies."

"A lie," Ra hissed, his eyes flashing dimly. "You will tell me where she is!"

"Or what?"

"Or I'll shove this rust bucket up your ass!" Ra said in his Goa'uld-voice.

"I think not, false-god! Deploy all fighters!" rumbled Mazkal.

Ra killed the transmission, barking, "Shields! Give me the railguns! Bah, where's my pew pew cannons of death? I miss the good old days..."

The Aurora spun about, her jury-rigged guns turning into firing positions as Mazkal's starship belched forth a cloud of death gliders. They unleashed energy cannon fire and thje occasional missile, having themselves been modified with scarce materials.

Suddenly the old starship lashed forth a hail of tungsten as her guns opened up, shredding several of the gliders quickly. Missiles and energy beams impacted on her shields, rocking the Aurora and causing her bridge to shudder violently.

"Not boosting to confidence," Vex muttered.

"Hold together you piece of junk!" Ra whispered, subconsciously forgetting that the Aurora's A'millian-designed AI had been dead for years, her systems running through countless rigged cables and five Goa'uld-constructed computers; clearly not what she was designed for.

"What's going on up there?" a soft, weary voice asked over the intercom.

"Nothing of your concern," Ra muttered, killing the connection. Galadriel rarely spoke to Ra anymore, staying on the ship by nature of the fact that it was the only place she had to go now. She hated him, but had no will left to actually kill him.

The Aurora quickly tore the death gliders apart, firing a stray missile in the direction of the immobilized Ha'tak. It did no damage to note, but did give its owner a nice wake up call. Ra reopened communication with Mazkal.

"I've disposed of your puny fighters, Mazkal," Ra boasted. "Now give me what I want, or I'll blast your ha'tak to dust."

The hologram crossed his arms, saying, "Until my reinforcements arrive and swat you from the stars!"

"I would be out of here before they even knew what was going on, fool. Now, I will not make my demands again!"

"She's in Sector AP-9245, on the world of Kamdragix. It was once a Jaffa colony; now it's her de facto throne world, where she is constructing a great city. Good luck getting past the Sith Fleet, though."

"Sith fleet?" Ra laughed.

"She has a surprising amount of Imperial technology with her, though the real Empire would cut her forces to ribbons. Still, more than your little ship can handle."

"I'll find a way in," Ra nodded. "Thanks for the information, fool."

Ra then cut the transmission, taking the ship's controls. He began to pull away from the ha'tak, confident in his brutal methods of negotiation.

Adam wrote:I moved this in here, since it is a game thread. If you guys want, a parallel OOC thread can also be created in the ooc forum.

I went ahead and took care of it.

EDIT: Linka

Bob Jackson's ragtag fleet passed through the wormhole connecting where Starbase 186 used to be to where Starbase 242 used to be.

Passing through the wormhole wasn't like what anyone had expected. It was actually nearly a light second wide open window across galaxies; passing through it was no different than passing through normal space. They could even look backwards through it, and see where they used to be and the stars beyond.

"Where's the planet? Astrogation? Sensors?" Commodore Jackson asked, puzzled, upon his ship's safe passage.

"Calculating..." the astrogator answers.

"There's no trace of it, sir. No debris, no nothing." came a weak sounding voice from the sensor operator's station.

"Eighty-two by eleven hours..." the astrogater announced, eliciting a response from sensors: "there it is!"

"The wormhole is right in its orbit; this planet now orbits two stars, each in different galaxies. I never would have believed I'd see it... we can jump there presently, commodore."

. . .

The planet's bizarre intergalactic orbit has caused havoc in its climate, but there is still a small part of the surface, where the remains of the ground base for Starbase 242 still is, that is habitable, and someone has decided to inhabit it.

Commodore Jackson decided to send a shuttle with some of his precious remaining Royal Marines, and Lady Lucrecia, who insisted to tag along, down to the surface to see what supplies they could secure for their former base.

. . .

"Wait here," Lucrecia told the powered-armour clad Marines.

"Outstanding," the Marine leader acknowledges and then he and his men get down in the bushes.

She open up her green Starfleet jumpsuit a little and starts to half walk, half levitate, towards the base and the people around it. Some of them spot her, and start to intercept her, carrying Goa'uld staff weapons.

"You there! Stop!" the men yell out at her.

She fades away, and about a second later fades back in, levitating right behind the ear of one of the humans in the middle.

"En Taro A'millia, darlin'" she whispers into his ear.

"What the hell?!" he exclaims, drawing the attention of the confused armed guys.

"Oh, hi, did I surprise you?" she asks, while effortlessly floating around to his front side.

"Who the hell are you!"

She opened her mouth to answer, but was interrupted bye distinct sound of an awfully close staff weapon preparing to fire.

"I'm quite harmless... why don't you ask these gentlemen to leave us alone so we can... get to know each other a little better?" she said with a slight variation in her voice and a sheepish grin.

He found himself dismissing the guards with a raised hand before he could even completely think it through.

"Much better." She still had the subtle variations in her voice, and he once again found himself agreeing on a subconscious level.

"Now, how did you get to become such a strong and powerful man?" she asked, voice returning to normal.

. . .

After extracting all the useful information she could from the leader easily enough to be worth it, she gave the signal to the Marines, giving them something to shoot. In a matter of minutes, the vastly superior Royal Marines had slaughtered the entire population of the settlement, without so much as a scratch on themselves. The remains of Starbase 242 were theirs again.

Shuttles were sent down to salvage what they could before moving on...

OOC: I can't believe that Jon --in his usually devious way, of course-- managed to get me posting on LA again despite my breakneck schedule, my unforgiving tasks, my weekend overtime, and my 3-hours-per-night sleep.

==================================================

Death Star Three...

Darth Kreshna just finished his morning shower.

Looking at the mirror, he saw a weary face.



The New Galactic Empire had won the Great Milky Way War some decades ago, but at what cost?

Most of them was convinced that the New Empire --with its technological might and scale-- could win easily. Well, they were right in a sense. But the enemies --the A'millans, the Goa'ulds, and (sometimes) the Zergs, fought with suicidal, fanatical zeal. And that did not even count the involvement of what-so-called "Private Military Organization" of the New Empire; the involvements of Imperial PMOs like Starline Intergalactional, Kuat Defence Services, and Sovereign Outcomes only made things more complex and generally worse.

Planets were wantonly scorched and destroyed, chemical and genetic weapons were wildly used, and planetary resources were strip-mined in record time.

And of course, the worse part is the occupation of A'millan Prime. Imperial mercenaries --known by the local as "those rude and arrogant guys wearing Oakey sunglasses"-- only served to enrage the local population. Suicide bombs were everyday's sight, and eventually, the Imperial troops were pulled out of the hellish region.

And those did not count the fact that Darth Kreshna was a reluctant war leader. See, when peace was achieved after the Guardian War, the Sith merely wished a peaceful "semi-retirement" on his position as the Viceroy of the Milky Way Galaxy; he mistakenly thought that other leaders were tired of the War and shared his wishes. But things were not as expected. Worse, the President of the original Galactic Empire did not support his defense proposal. Thus, the Sith had no other choice but 'seceeding' from the original Galactic Empire --bringing his massive Sith Guard Corps to fight the war in the Milky Way, and inevitably, reluctantly, establishing a new nation.



Darth Kreshna could only smiled a bitter smile when considering what his new nation had "won" from the war --a galactic-sized, post-apocalyptic wasteland.

The glorious A'millan Star Empire, the great Goa'uld Empire, the defiant Zerg Swarm, the mighty Trollish Imperium, and even the formidable New Galactic Empire.... those were things of the past. There were practically no government now, while planetary authorities had been turned into feudal junktowns. Opportunistic pirates, tribal leaders, mercenaries, and mega-corporations --those were the new rulers now.

But what pained the Sith Lord the most was the fact that before the war, there were all allies --there were staunch allies against the Guardians; only to stab each other's back after the short period of "peace".


Looking at the mirror, Darth Kreshna --the Phoenix incarnate-- saw a weary face.

A weary face that never aged.




.

"What are your true goals, Ra?" asked Vexule. "To smite this Madar?"

"I'd like to bring her down a few notches, yes," nodded the Goa'uld. "But that's not my immediate concern. That, my dear, is far more elaborate."

The Romulan arched her eyebrows, inquiring, "And that is?"

"Obvious," Ra hissed. "I need more ships and people. Sofar I have an army consisting of two people; you, and myself. Galadriel doesn't count because she is content to stay holed up in her quarters. If this ship didn't have replicators she would be dead by now."

"How do we know she isn't?" chuckled Vex. "I've never even seen her."

"Point," said Ra. "Whatever the case may be, I'd like to go out and pull a few favors - what few I have left - and get this ship fixed. I dunno; I don't really have a plan anymore."

"Look at the galaxy, Ra," Vexule smirked. "Everyone; they're just a bunch of scared animals fighting over the last few scraps of a ravaged galaxy. Perhaps a plan isn't prudent; perhaps, instead, we should merely try and play the factions against one another. Let others do our fighting for us and then slip in when they are weak and take what we want."

Ra paused a moment and finally said, "I knew I picked up a Romulan first mate for a reason. How delightfully devious of you!"

THE EMPIRE WAS CREATED BY AN EVIL OLD MAN
IT BDZ'd
IT DEATH STAR'd
IT LEFT
700 SURVIVORS
IN A SEARCH FOR A HOME
CALLED AIUR
BUT THEY DIDN'T KNOW IT
BECAUSE THE CHARACTERS AREN'T OMNISCIENT
THEY KNEW THEY GOT BDZ'd AND DEATH STAR'd OF COURSE
AND THEY KNEW THERE WERE 700 OF THEM
BUT THEY DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE IN SEARCH FOR A HOME
HELL, MAYBE THEY AREN'T EVEN IN SEARCH FOR A HOME
I MIGHT HAVE JUST MADE THAT UP
SERIOUSLY, HOW WOULD YOU EVER KNOW?
....
We apologize for the nonsense in the title card. Those responsible have been sacked.
MAN, CAPS LOCK IS AWESOME.
We once again apologize for the caps lock. Those responsible for those sacking those responsible for that have now been sacked. We return you to your regularly scheduled text. Or we would, if we didn't waste so much time writing in caps lock. To be continued....
...

Death Star Three...

Everything had changed since the Great Milky Way War. Governments like the New Galactic Empire and the A'millan Star Empire were gradually fading out, replaced by corporations, mutant tribes, space pirates, and self-styled feudal barons.

This was, after all, a post-apocalyptic universe.

The Death Star Three, for example, had became a big commercial city with market places, residential areas, and even slums. The "New Galactic Empire" --as if the government still existed other than in name-- badly needed to cut corners, and Darth Kreshna had conceded to outsource the management of Death Star Three to private entities.

But what bothered him most was the upstart enterpreneur and his business partner --who called themselves "MasterBlaster". The Sith realized that he made a grave mistake when he outsourced the Death Star's energy management to the motley businessmen; it was all too late. Soon, "MasterBlaster" dominated everything, and the energy price had been increasing more and more.

Darth Kreshna was sometimes tempted to use his Phoenix Force to turned the grotesque couple to ashes, but he knew that even the Phoenix Force alone could not solve complex problems like battlestation management or economics. So he, who once a great Sith Noble and a head of the state of an emerging nation, had to resort to his patience. Yet, "MasterBlaster" seemed to love to toy with his patience.

Like now.

The Sith was sipping a glass of vermouth --a bottle of Martini Bianco had been a rare artifact in this post-apocalyptic era-- while listening to saxophone when his comm. unit beeped.

"Not again...." Kreshna clenched his teeth, and punched his comm. unit. A hologram of a midget, piggybacked on the shoulder of a giant, appeared.


MasterBlaster, the new "ruler" of Death Star Three


The midget spoke, "one of your Stormies interfering with my business again."

The Sith took a deep breath. Psyche was considered illegal drugs; unfortunately, distributing Psyche was one of Master Blaster's side business.

"I cannot tolerate illegal substance being distributed on my battlestation."

"Your battlestation?" the midget smirked, then turned to his men, "embargo, on!"

"For Palpatine's sake, what now?"

"Who run Death Star Three?"

"Damn it! I told you, no more embargos."


"More, Blaster." He spoke to the giant, then persisted, "who run Death Star Three?"

"You know who."

"Say."

"MasterBlaster."

"Say loud."

"MasterBlaster." The Sith spoke louder this time.

"MasterBlaster what?"

"MasterBlaster runs Death Star Three."

"Louder!"

"MasterBlaster runs Death Star Three!"

Darth Kreshna's voice echoed through the entire megapolis that was Death Star Three as MasterBlaster relayed the comm. unit to the public audio service. The Sith was incensed, his eyes blazed with fire and his body was surrounded by the Phoenix aura, but he knew that he as head of the state, as every other nations out there, was powerless in this post-apocalyptic era.

MasterBlaster chuckled, and eventually spoke. "Lift embargo."


The Sith sank wearily on his couch, massaged his face. He then turned to a man with a mohawked hair and said, "Play something tragic, Ton Ton."

Ton Ton Tattoo, the saxophonist, played.



==================================================

OOC: well you said it is a post-apocalyptic universe, didn't you?

It was post-apocalyptic, apparently. Sheer chaos and anarchy with such things as space pirates and raiders gaining noteriety throughout most of the known systems. None were safe from rape, pillaging, monsters, some crazy religious cult or even possession by evil alien entities in this era. It was every being for itself, and there was only war.

He didn't really care. He tried to, for a few seconds, but his sociopathic personality just wasn't suited for it and he just gave up. All he saw was opportunity, a way to gain power; it was probably a personality defect, but he didn't really care about that either. He was a genius in his own eyes, and that was enough, he deserved power and respect and to be the one to rule them all...

The academic title awarded to him said so.

And so the Master glanced again at the TARDIS scanner - a stolen TARDIS, to be sure - and let out a friendly smile. He prepared to land somewhere in the galaxy, scope things out and get started on his master plan. Taking a moment to chuckle inwardly, he listened to the slow wheezing and grinding as his stolen ship finally materialised.

He opened the doors and glanced out to see the interior of a dirty and grimy space station and a technician who seemed to have only barely noticed the TARDIS arriving, which meant he was either used to it or hadn't seen it. The Master grinned; he loved perception filters, they made even a big blue police box appearing in middle of a room seem like it was a perfectly normal occurrence.

Lucrecia gently floated down the corridors of the Warrior into a small, dark room.

She brought herself to a stop and allowed her long A'millian fingers to gently rest in a natural place on a keyboard. She closed her eyes, letting her fingers run across the ancient computer, typing the command she has typed so many times since the apocalypse, on each character, feeling the old keys return slowly to their position.

After hitting the last key repeatidly until it registered, the monitor hummed to life, gently illuminating her pale face in a yellowish tint.

Displayed in A'millian - real A'millian, not the bizarre conglomeration of proper A'millian, old Kynesian, and mainland Guappian that passes for it today - and were the words
"ASV Warrior, BC-1000 History File
Royal Space Exploration Ministry
Press ESC to Exit, or any other key to continue"

She keyed through screens upon screens of dry unclassified technical reports until she got to the project pictures.

There were hundreds in total, pictures of the ship when it was first built - some 1100 years ago, even older than Lucrecia herself - dozens of photos which were just beautiful landscape shots of the area around the research facility, images of home that brought a smile to her, but she kept going until she got to the development project group picture.

About two score of people were in that shot, including some famous people in history. In the upper left, Doctor Rebecca Ashtermann and Doctor Greg Ryerski, inventors of warp drive, wearing their white lab coats, as always. In front of them were Doctors Poul Holtzmann and Dan Langston, inventors of the shield systems used both on starships and on personnel.

But it was the two doctors in the middle, next to King Devon, wearing the ceremonial dress of A'millian Elite Knights that brought a spherical tear out of her eye. The two Knights who took her parents in when they were orphaned by the First Interstellar War - the same two Knights that took a Star Empire in when it was orphaned by the Third Interstellar War.

"I wish you were here..." she whispered in A'millian, placing a hand on the screen.

"Action stations, action stations!" The silence was broken by a klaxon, and the monitor's light changed to a pale orange, now displaying
"ALERT
CONDITION: RED"

Lucrecia wiped her tears and left the old room behind. Humanity beckoned once more.

'So, who are you?' the Master asked of the technician who was working on replacing one of the glowpanels at a snail's pace. He noticed vaguely that there appeared to be a chainsaw among the man's tools, and he had a prosthetic arm. The significance of it all was lost on the Master.

'I'm the man replacing the lightbulb,' he said absently. 'And I've got clearance to be in here; but why don't you?'

'Sorry, must have teleported wrong,' the Master lied.

'Groovy,' said the technician. He stood and turned to face the Time Lord. 'I'm going to have to ask you to leave, buddy, it's in the rules.'

'I am the Master and you will obey me!'

'Nope, sorry, doesn't work; I'm practically immune,' said the technician.

'Ah, forgive a Time Lord for trying, Mr...' he glanced at the technician's namebadge, '...Ashley Williams. But I shall be back later for my box, of course.'

"Enough aimless wandering," said Ra. "I need to refuel this clunker. What's the closest outpost?"

"Drax V, a small fiefdom inhabited by a smattering of humans, Jaffa, and Klingons," said Vexule. She added with a laugh, "Apparently it's where all the 'old warrior' types hang out. It has a rickety old space station that happens to have made a reputation for itself as a seedy, crime-ridden cesspool."

"I'm trying to picture Klingons and Jaffa having a drinking game," Ra snickered. "Wonder who would win? Jaffa have the benefits of their Goa'uld symbiote, and Klingons have a few redundant organs or somesuch."

"I suppose we shall have to find out ourselves," Vex smirked.

"Fine by me; set course for Drax V."

The Aurora made a jump into hyperspace, quickly arriving in the Drax System and requesting docking permission. It was granted, and the ship settled down in the old starbase's hangar. Ra and Vexule egressed the ship's boarding ramp, coming up to an amazonian-looking Klingon female. From her uniform, badge of rank, and the disruptor holstered to her hip she was likely the harbor master.

"Welcome to Drax V," she said. "I am Qil'Yah, Harbor Master for the Baron Kriss."

Ra looked over the woman warily, seeing a dangerous look in her eyes. Clearly she wasn't happy to see the Romulan he was with; that much was obvious. She was attractive as Klingons went, with a mostly smooth forhead with a series of subtle ridges going down the center, and an otherwise round face and full lips. Her crossed arms were big, however, her muscles pressing against the sleeves of her uniform.

"Qil'Yah..." Ra muttered, nodding nervously. "Thank you. We're here to refuel and make repairs to our ship."

The Klingon glanced over the ship critically and snorted, "By Khaless... You might as well buy a new one entirely."

"It's got sentimental value."

"It's also got a million holes in it, pieces of scrap metal covering others, and exposed wiring," Qil'Yah chuckled. "If you want this thing repaired, you'd better have the payrole of a king."

"I was a king, once," Ra muttered.

Qil'Yah then stepped closer and said, "Even you're patched up. But I love the metal plate; it makes you look sexy."

Ra grinned and said, "You look quite sexy yourself, Qil'Yah. It's those ridges, and that smile."

"Flatterer," Qil'Yah said, letting out a deep belly laugh. She then pulled Ra in, hugging him tightly, and added, "How about you buy me some blood wine?"

Ra's eyes were wide as he stood in the Klingon's crushing embrace and looked to Vexule, adding, "Are Klingons as dangerous in bed as I've been told?"

Vexule gave an evil grin and walked off, answering, "Indeed. I'll leave you two alone."

Ra's eyes flashed long and venomously. He then turned to the Klingon, saying, "Damn that Romulan anyway. Let me give you a tour of my ship."

With a kiss, they were off. Vexule continued walking on, laughing. She muttered to herself, "The things he'll do to get some ass. Ironic, really, since he travels with two beautiful women. One he pissed off, and the other - me - doesn't like men with snakes in their heads."

The Master strolled down the corridors of Drax V, looking out of place next to the Klingons and Jaffa. He looked at that moment like a young well-dressed English gentleman of the late nineteenth century, and he wasn't about to chanve into anything that would match the other people who walked about. The Master's fondness for looking well-presented was probably just a testament to his vanity.

Though he was tempted to explore the Doctor's TARDIS and find a new outfit, he wasn't that tempted. He preferred to simply waltz in and figure things out first, but that didn't really require a change of outfit, and therefore he put his main priority as being 'conquer the universe'. That was yet to change, even after wasting his first cycle of regenerations, and then resorting to stealing the bodies of other people before reaquiring his ability to regenerate.

But his train of thought was interrupted as he saw a different face to all of the lost souls and brutish thugs on the station. A Romulan woman was walking down the corridor in an opposite direction, and he was forced to stop and stare. She was beautiful, gorgeous, utterly stunning in the sort of dangerous sense that had attracted him years ago - very briefly - to Romana. Though that relationship hadn't quite worked because she was more interested in the Doctor. It was a pity, but there it was.

He felt his hearts skip a beat, but he kept his composure; he didn't reach the age of sixteen-hundred years old without learning to keep himself under control. And he was entirely aware that Romulans tended to keep their pointed ears to the ground and that if anyone knew anything about the current situation and how best to manipulate it, it was them.

Part of his newer, younger personality had a brief thought that was at once structured as, Time to turn on the old charms.

'Oh, hello there!' he said cheerfully, with the friendly sort of manner that his new face and body were quite useful for. 'It's nice to see someone of probable intellect in a place like this... can't find an inch of wit anywhere with Jaffa, humans or Klingons...'

Vexule folded her arms, her hand ready to move to her sidearm with a split second's notice. It wasn't so much a hostile thought as it was Romulan instinct. She looked at the well-dressed man standing nearby and surveyed him carefully without looking as if she was.

She then greeted in a neutral, even tone, "Good day. Yes, this place is hardly the bastion of intelligent thought. If my partner were not in need of resupply I would hardly contemplate being here. I wonder what brings you here, a man dressed as a Victorian gentleman? Yet you mention humans - appropriately, mind - amongst a list of species that put might before mind."

'Things are rarely as they appear,' the Master said with a chuckle. 'I'm not from around here, personally. I'm from a different area in space and a vastly different period of time. My attempt to arrive on Earth to meet H. G. Wells and give him some pointers on Time Travel was a little bit off-target...'

He let out a smile. 'And as you have politely noted, I'm not much of a human... or human in any way apart from external appearance for that matter. It's more to say that a human looks like a member of my species rather than that a member of my species looks like a human.'

"Indeed," nodded Vexule, "I have been told we look similar to humans save for our pointed ears; the only similarity between a human and a Romulan is that we walk upon two legs, and humans barely so."

The Romulan then uncrossed her arms, interlocking her fingers. She inquired, "You mentioned time travel. I recall some experiements my own people made into temporal mechanics... Amazing as our long-seperated cousins, the Vulcans, claim space/time manipulation is impossible."

'Your Vulcan cousins have about as much knowledge of real physics as a three year old child has of quantum geometry,' said the Time Lord. 'They are nothing but primitives who deny base passion and desire, they think themselves logical and intelligent but all they manage is unfounded and needless arrogance.'

"So you see why we left them," Vexule smiled. "Even the Klingons, for their faults and savagery, don't deny emotion. Or the Goa'uld, though they seem to be more fond of only two emotions; anger and bitterness. I've experienced that firsthand, being stuck with one in deep space for years now."

'I can sort of admire the Goa'uld for trying, though their ability to achieve success is hampered by humans of all creatures,' the Master said with a chuckle. 'I've only ever been bested by one opponent before, and I'm entirely sure he'll be dead soon enough... I stole his ship and left him on a hostile planet far in the future. Though I wouldn't be surprised if he escaped...'

'I'm the Master by the way,' he said, extending a hand. 'And you are?'

Vexule arched her eyebrows, and allowed the man to take her hand. She commented, "The Master? Intriguing title... It suits your personality, I suppose. I am Vexule, former operative of the Romulan Tal'Shiar. I am currently under the employ of the Goa'uld, Ra."