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A Secret Report within the Sabine - Top Priority- -For Vinda's Eyes Only- It has come to the attention of the Tribunal and Presidium of a trend in Progen Centuriata genome decay. When their findings were brought to the Sabine Order that pilots of the Centuriata were purposely and in abundance overusing the Self-Destruct mechanisms of the Warrior-class vessels, measures were taken to prevent this decay from entering the ranks of the Sabine Order..... Pakkrat, for so his handle went, worked the controls of his hauler vessel furiously. His hands went wildly to engage or cut the port or starboard engines. The stabilizers had all failed in the icy hail of the comet. Many sections of the cargo ship had through penetrations from micrometeors. The haul would not pass inspection this run he thought as his course correction dodged yet another one of the big meteors trailing behind the comet's core. The shields had failed long ago and refused to come back online. He had only the armor of the hauler and life support to keep him alive. Finn was the jerk who had given him this shortcut route, swearing it was free of pirates and could cut days off the trade run. What he failed to mention was that this route, barely mapped at all, was also prone to an annual comet and the meteor shower that followed it. Pakkrat swore that he'd shove the navdisc where the stars didn't shine when next he saw Finn. But for now, Pakkrat had to survive a space hailstorm and hope to all the ancient gods of travel that the bridge of the ship did not get hit. With the cargo sections most likely Swiss cheese by now, the Terran trader had hit the emergency "Never Press" button to lock down the bulkheads and seal off all the corridors of the ship. He, for better or worse, was trapped on the bridge. The vessel, named the Labyrinth Runner, rocked and yawed as another mid-sized rock put a sizeable dent in the hull. Pakkrat was tossed in his web harness, yet somehow he kept his hand on the main attitude control. His will to survive kept the ship from nose-diving into a pock-marked meteor. Sensors blared the warning of proximity to the pilot. But looking out his forward viewport, the Terran merchant could see that this tiny asteroid was strangely hollow with many openings, much like a gigantic sponge. He guessed that it must have been an ancient pyroclastic meteor of some nova or other superheated explosion. The heat had left the rock opened like, well like Swiss cheese. "No use getting creamed out here any longer," Pakkrat muttered to himself as he manually thrusted each of his engines. The warp drive was long slagged and the freezing ice of the comet had seized his communications, the IFF transponder, and destroyed the emergency distress beacon. With some heavy turns and a dodge or two, the Terran trader edged his way down inside a crater of the meteor and slowed his approach. With only one forward light left, he was forced to match the spin of the asteroid and make way deeper and slowly. It took a while for the sensors to map the passages though the igneous rock. At last the gravitic sensors told Pakkrat that the Labyrinth Runner had reached the center, deep within and away from the deadly space hail. The trader set the vessel down on the smoothest stone he could find and used a docking claw to hold the ship to it. Just then the port engine sputtered and died. Pakkrat's heart sank. With options fading fast, Pakkrat did the last thing he could think of before entering the emergency cryostasis capsule. It was many decades later that a Progen mining operation found the comet off the beaten path and on the rim of the solar system that it traveled. The miners' mission was to find sources of space ice and collect it for its water as well as look for potential fields rich in iron, nickel, and other structure metals. The Warthog, was the Progen mining vessel to first detect the strange radiations emitting faintly from a particular asteroid. Instead of being radioactive itself, the asteroid was 'glowing' from within, inside its core. Sensors picked up the radiation, noting its half-life, identifying the substance as enriched Uranium, now banned by the SolSec Treaty for its use in weapons. Fusion energy had long replaced the substance's more peaceful applications. But why here, asked the crew of the Warthog. Mining beams and tractors lifted huge chunks of the asteroid as they stripped it of its porous outer surfaces. Ice and stone gave way and were pulled in, separated and processed for later refining. The Progen were now curious as to what this "Easter egg", so named because it was on the spinward side of this sector in space. The Warthog finally exposed the long obsolete Terran vessel. It was frozen in blocks of thick ice. All of the vessel's main power was offline and only the radiation signature from the cargo section betrayed its presence. "Vita Theodora, there goes our claim to this mining site," said the Progen foreman. "The Terrans got here before us." The captain, using a scope sensor device looked at the vessel's name and its registry character-string. "Labyrinth Runner, eh?" he pondered aloud. "Let's crack her open and have a look inside. She don't look like a miner to me." Standing in the rear of the bridge of the Warthog was the operation's only science officer, a Reclaimer of the Sabine Order. He was looking at another set of sensors until now unchecked by the miners. By focussing on the bridge did the Reclaimer, named Talus-M Ravindran, found the faint life signs of a single Terran. He registered a single active cryostasis field and capsule. While the miners deliberated how to bow out of the operation with as little evidence they were ever present, Talus-M suggested a salvage operation. Surely the Terrans would appreciate finding their vessel and its cargo if they found it themselves. "If we were to repair and restart the derelict ship's reactor then activate its distress beacon, eventually the Terrans will detect it." "Hmm," said the captain of the Warthog, a Progen mining specialist, "then we could take what we wanted, change the cargo registry and make off with no one the wiser." The miners still had not looked for the Terran who was still alive on the bridge. If Talus-M was quick, he could see to the Terran on the bridge while the miners plundered the cargo. With radiation-shielded suits, a man-portable mining laser, and several containers, the Progen sliced into the port side aft bulkhead nearest to the cargo sections. While the miners worked to search and salvage, the Reclaimer used the laser to cut his way to the bridge in order to "make changes to the cargo invoice". Alone, he made way onto the bridge. A thick layer of frost coated the bridge's panels, instrumentation, and controls. Talus-M went to repair the distress beacon and used some spare parts to empower the device. But he did not yet activate it. Once on, the beacon could be detected over the entire sector. The Progen were not supposed to be ranging this far into Terran space to begin with. Then the Reclaimer went to the cryostasis capsule that held the secret only he knew. For he had shut off the sensor bank that detected life back on the Warthog, Talus-M was the only Progen who knew that someone still lived aboard the craft. Now he could not rescue the Terran, nor could he do the hapless Terran a favor of death. So, he did the one thing he could think of to honor the sleeping trader. While the miners made off with cargoes and changed the lists in the only computer bank they could restore, Talus-M performed the Call Forward by taking enough samples of the sleeping Terran's gene-map. This man had wanted to survive. This Terran wanted to live and did everything he could to survive the comet field, the ice, and his battered ship. Surely such traits were worthy of Calling Forward. He could turn in the stolen gene-map to the Sabine Reclaimers who would know best what to do with the genome he had captured. With the Centuriata reaching wreckless and almost suicidal abandon in their battles with the Jenquai, the Sabine had decided to quell such tendencies within their own ranks. Stowing the collected gene-map in his pack, Talus-M Ravindran then went to the repaired distress beacon. "The beacon's about to go online, " he reported through a comlink on his spacesuit's vambrace, "get what you want and meet back at the Warthog, team." Before he closed the cryostasis capsule again, the Reclaimer took note of the name on the lapel of the sleeping Terran. "Pakkrat," he whispered, "sleep well." Then he left the bridge the way he came. The Warthog had not plundered everything but made off with enough of each type of cargo stored in the hold in order to make the Labyrinth Runner look as if she were making a light haul through a shortcut in space. With the invoices changed in the ship's records, no one would think twice about it. No one but the Pakkrat, thought Talus-M, even if he was rescued. With the Progen safely back aboard their mining vessel, they remote activated the distress beacon. Instantly, the Labyrinth Runner was calling for help and transmitting its coordinates sector-wide. Reverse-thrusting, the Warthog quietly backed out of the comet field and made off with a mining haul, salvage loot, and the Terran Federation could be happy to have an expensive ship back from the depths of space. Yet, Talus-M knew it would be some time before anyone looked into this sector. It would be good to be long gone with his own loot and back to the Sabine Order with the find. The gene-map was analyzed by the Sabine Order of Reclaimers. Talus-M was rewarded, extolled and given certificates of re-iteration, guaranteeing his genome line's future. Named, "the Pakkrat Master Genome", it went into study for its traits of adaptability, a desire to succeed, a tinge of greed, a need to survive, and a passion for travel. Years later the gene-map was authorized, in secret, for use. Using Terran genes introduced into Progen matricies was almost heresy, right under the use of genes from the hated Jenquai. Yet over time and by ultra-secret whisperings, the gene-map had gained some sort of reputation blown out of proportion by rumor and speculation. With the Centuriata's overuse of their Self-Destruct mechanisms, overblown sense of glory and gene immortality, their blindness to the decay threatened to spread to other orders of the Republic. It was a then-young Vinda herself who plucked the "Pakkrat Master Genome" from storage and introduced it into a new Progen Versatile matrix. With a little tweaking, the conception was iterated and the Call Forward began. She did this in private and had many other gene-maps of worthy and fallen specimens also present to cover this Terran one's presence. The Progen male was allowed to form, gestate, and be further modified by the best that Sabine genetic engineering could spare in secret labs on Arx Prima, away from the prying eyes of the Tribunal. With the introduction of Terran gene traits into a Progen matrix, the Sabine were given a freshly-gleaned new lease on immortality. She named him "Pakkratius", using an ancient latin version to name the Pakkrat genome iteration. Who knew what the original Terran donor's true name was? As far as Vinda knew, the Terrans had still to discover the derelict on the borderlands of Terran space. The young and eager Versatile Pakkratius showed a remarkable initiative, particularly in the fields covered by the Sabine Order. This was favorable as many teachers and instructors mistook the lad's eagerness to be similar to the gusto of those Progen drawn to the Centuriata and the Warrior's Way. This was not so, because the young man displayed aptitudes in sciences and mathematics. But the true test came when the graduating student announced a desire to record the glories of the Progen Republic through journalism. This stunned many of the deans of the various colleges. Vinda would have their heads for the Reclaimers, so they thought. But at the graduation ceremony, the newly-appointed head of the Sabine Order, Vinda congratulated the heads of staff. Then, from behind the scenes, she saw to it that the young Progen entered the Sabine to become a journalist as well a scientist for the Order. It was also about this time that the Collegia seceded from the Sabine Order, branching off to compete with Terran corporations in hopes of breaking the monopolies of InfinitiCorp and GETCo. The Republic needed to break free of crystallized markets of Earth. It was not known if Vinda was aware or was a mastermind of planting another, even more secret operative Pakkrat clone into the Collegia. Designated Pakkrateus, with a change of name pronunciation accent into Greek roots. This young entrepreneur was hardly looked upon by Vinda as Collegia leader Zieg shook hands with yet another protege graduating that day. Was this iteration a means to keeping track of Zieg and his Collegiates? Well, one does not earn friends in politics. One grows them from designated gene-maps and sets them up as soldiers in a battle for power. But this iteration from the Collegia was a story for another time. And far off in distant, Terran borderland space, a lone Terran's distress signal was received by a passing, unmanned probe and relayed by masercom back to InfinitiCorp's office at Earth Station. A lunar month passed before permits could be gathered and papers signed for a salvage operation to the distant comet. The original Terran trader spent another six months in a recuperative coma to slowly return to the world of the conscious. Then, true to InfinitCorp credo, old and dusty employment contracts were called into play and the original Pakkrat was put into a newly re-designed Trader ship and re-christened Labyrinth Runner. To this day, Sabine Reclaimers are silent about the spiritual side effects of the Call Forward. Who knows what the process of being Called Forward does to the soul of one still living? Is it fractured and shared with the offspring iteration, (or in this case iterations)? Are the clones soul-less? Is there some unseen connection between the Called and its clones? Across the vastness of space, three separate beings sharing the same gene-map with different destinies moved through the known galaxy. To what purpose was the original Pakkrat's cargo intended? Why did InfinitiCorp spend such funds to recover the Labyrinth Runner, its pilot, and its cargo? And what of the strange mark on the Terran patient's upper arm? Terran med-scans of the day failed to identify the nature of the tiny puncture through the arm. Buried under piles of corporate bureaucracy, the file on the Pakkrat and his mission was viewed by only one person, the Lady DeWinter. Were the DeWinters working through the trader's fixer, Finn? Surely, the coordinates for the discarded route the Pakkrat took had to have been condemned and and yet made available to the fixer. Queens and their pawns moved on the board. (I hope this was enjoyable. -P)