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Authors: Eric S. Brown, Tony Faville
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battlefield. It was well known amongst the sentient races that the Ra-tid was not a race to enter into conflict with lightly for their brutality had long been a thing of legend. They gave no quarter, nor asked for such, and tended to leave nothing but an oozing, splattered pulp of their enemies whenever possible, even if they had just surrendered.
Xarn’s heightened olfactory senses alerted him to the unmistakable synthetic odors that Senior Fellow Milar of the Gener race exuded, about a minute before he entered the room. Despite his years of disciplined study of the Ka (A semi-martial discipline of his people for mastering self-control) Xarn's whiskers almost imperceptibly twitched. If the humans viewed the Geners as unnatural beings, Darians such as himself saw them as utter abominations.
The overly sterile and almost chemical smell Milar gave off burned Xarn's nostrils. While Xarn had nothing personally against Milar per se, he did despise his race.
When the Darians and the Geners had made first contact, it was by way of a Gener Exploratory Cruiser, the Gener equivalent of a human heavy battle cruiser, abducting the crew of a Darian merchant vessel. The crew had managed to send off a distress signal prior to being abducted but when the closest ship of the Darian Defense Forces had arrived, all it found was a perfectly empty and unharmed ghost ship.
There were no signs of a struggle but they did find additional holo-cords (Darian data records) that showed the young Darian who had sent the distress message reporting that they were being boarded by a vessel of unknown origin. The still gold furred youth, a fur color that denotes that the Darian has just achieved sexual maturity, then seemed to have difficulty keeping his eyes open as he repeated their ship’s coordinates his face suddenly went still and he sat back is his chair in a relaxed position.
The rest of the holo-cord revealed three humanoid beings in pressurized suits enter the bridge of the small merchant vessel. One held up a trapezoidal instrument and tapped at it with a distended forefinger. Then all three of the invaders removed their helmets and the Darians had their first view of a Gener’s face.
It was not covered in fur so it was clear that it was a non-Darian sentient, even if the elongated three fingered hands of their pressurized suits had not given that fact away already. It was rather covered in small scale like patterns that seemed to have a moist sheen about them and varied in color from grey to green to even bright orange.
One of the three intruders drew closer to the holo-cord device. As it did so, its face came clearly into view. There was no apparent nose but the mouth and eyes were enlarged, even by human standards. When the sentient had tapped the recording lens of the holo-cord with one of its three long fingers the holo-cord had gone black.
After review of this information, the Darian Defense Forces sent more ships to the area to ensure that this wasn’t a full scale invasion. Two weeks later, they found the Exploratory Cruiser in orbit around a Gas Giant’s moon not one jump from where it had abducted the Darian crew.
The captain of the Shak’ta (the Darian equivalent of a Heavy Cruiser) was surprised to be hailed in his own language by the giant ring shaped vessel. The Gener who appeared on the Darian viewing screen inquired as to their business in this sector.
When the Darian captain replied that they came in search of the missing merchants, the Gener’s told them that they had been reduced to their constituencies so as better to be studied on the base level. However, he told them not to worry because they had learned much of Darian culture and language from their subjects before they proceeded to the next step of their studies.
The Senior Fellow of the Gener ship informed the Darian captain that it would not be likely that they would need new subjects for some time and hoped that the vessel they had left adrift would
Xarn’s heightened olfactory senses alerted him to the unmistakable synthetic odors that Senior Fellow Milar of the Gener race exuded, about a minute before he entered the room. Despite his years of disciplined study of the Ka (A semi-martial discipline of his people for mastering self-control) Xarn's whiskers almost imperceptibly twitched. If the humans viewed the Geners as unnatural beings, Darians such as himself saw them as utter abominations.
The overly sterile and almost chemical smell Milar gave off burned Xarn's nostrils. While Xarn had nothing personally against Milar per se, he did despise his race.
When the Darians and the Geners had made first contact, it was by way of a Gener Exploratory Cruiser, the Gener equivalent of a human heavy battle cruiser, abducting the crew of a Darian merchant vessel. The crew had managed to send off a distress signal prior to being abducted but when the closest ship of the Darian Defense Forces had arrived, all it found was a perfectly empty and unharmed ghost ship.
There were no signs of a struggle but they did find additional holo-cords (Darian data records) that showed the young Darian who had sent the distress message reporting that they were being boarded by a vessel of unknown origin. The still gold furred youth, a fur color that denotes that the Darian has just achieved sexual maturity, then seemed to have difficulty keeping his eyes open as he repeated their ship’s coordinates his face suddenly went still and he sat back is his chair in a relaxed position.
The rest of the holo-cord revealed three humanoid beings in pressurized suits enter the bridge of the small merchant vessel. One held up a trapezoidal instrument and tapped at it with a distended forefinger. Then all three of the invaders removed their helmets and the Darians had their first view of a Gener’s face.
It was not covered in fur so it was clear that it was a non-Darian sentient, even if the elongated three fingered hands of their pressurized suits had not given that fact away already. It was rather covered in small scale like patterns that seemed to have a moist sheen about them and varied in color from grey to green to even bright orange.
One of the three intruders drew closer to the holo-cord device. As it did so, its face came clearly into view. There was no apparent nose but the mouth and eyes were enlarged, even by human standards. When the sentient had tapped the recording lens of the holo-cord with one of its three long fingers the holo-cord had gone black.
After review of this information, the Darian Defense Forces sent more ships to the area to ensure that this wasn’t a full scale invasion. Two weeks later, they found the Exploratory Cruiser in orbit around a Gas Giant’s moon not one jump from where it had abducted the Darian crew.
The captain of the Shak’ta (the Darian equivalent of a Heavy Cruiser) was surprised to be hailed in his own language by the giant ring shaped vessel. The Gener who appeared on the Darian viewing screen inquired as to their business in this sector.
When the Darian captain replied that they came in search of the missing merchants, the Gener’s told them that they had been reduced to their constituencies so as better to be studied on the base level. However, he told them not to worry because they had learned much of Darian culture and language from their subjects before they proceeded to the next step of their studies.
The Senior Fellow of the Gener ship informed the Darian captain that it would not be likely that they would need new subjects for some time and hoped that the vessel they had left adrift would
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