Star Trader Update .051

I apologize for not posting this past Saturday, but life got in the way of art. My 94 year old father, who lives with me, experienced a heart attack. He is recovering slowly, but it may be a while before I post to the blog again. I hope you will scan through the other stories I have here and find something to keep you busy until I return. 

Thank you so much for your readership. I love you all. 

Once dad and I have established a new routine I will be back with another great story either 

sci-fi, fantasy or paranormal.

Don't forget to check out my main website for free books and great series.

Theresa Snyder's Books

Now on with the conclusion of our story...

051.01


“I was one of the first to hear its call,” Mul’drak told us. “Tal’on was my father’s Great. When I was a youngling. I listened to his tale of Tal’on over and over again.”

“So, it was at least three generations between Tal’on’s capture and the Sollen sounding again?” Jake asked.

“Yes, and for your humankind, many, many more generation,” Mul’drak said. “You live such short lives.”

“When the call came five of us answered. We mistakenly thought five was enough,” the old dragon said and shrugged his shoulders making his wings rise in the process. “We found out later that the Prime passed on the story of the Sollen and its location through his family and political associates as Tal’on and my father had passed it on to us. In fact, the ruling of the Valdare had been retained in the Prime’s family line. When we arrived, we found the Valdare had developed into an advanced technological society with no pity for their own kind, much less ours.

Star Trader Update .050

050.01

“Tal’on could not stay away from Delevy,” Mul’drak said. He mantled his wings up over his head stretching them almost to the ceiling of the cave dome. He gave a big yawn, his large pink tongue rolling out its full length. The old dragon smiled wearily and shook his hand. “The young dragon’s bond was too strong. Over the next two years he ‘jumped’ to Delevy’s village often. The town grew to know him and though they did not understand his speech, they grew to enjoy the presence of the young dragon.”

“Delevy found she had extended family still living in the village,” Rudd’ard explained. “They and Tal’on helped her build a small home. They built a pole-barn nearby and Tal’on slept there, with Delevy at his side, on his visits during bad weather. But the Valdare’s world was changing. Even though their village was far away and they had kept to themselves, and hence out of the war between their people and the Sandcor, it eventually encroached on their world.”

Star Trader Update - .049

049.01

Tal’on paced impatiently in the courtyard. He had not been able to share the cell with Delevy in months. He had grown too much to make it through the door and down the stairs. The Valdare staked him in the courtyard when he was home and brought Delevy up to him in order to keep him pacified and quiet during the days he was free from fighting their war or recovering from injuries inflicted by the same.

The jailer, who had become a friend of sorts, was fetching Delevy. Tal’on and Graf’tal landed in the courtyard. The rest of the dragons took up residence on the spires and wall of the building built around the yard. They caught the jailer on his way to take Delevy and his other prisoners dinner. He still did not speak Tal’on’s language, but he understood the young dragon’s demand for his companion. He also noticed right away Tal’on no longer wore the collar which kept him in a submissive state. The jailer hustled down the stairs to release Delevy.

“Is you friend coming?” Graf’tal asked.

Star Trader Update .048

048.01

Tal’on lay on his belly with Delevy curled up against his chest in the crook of his front leg. She had finally fallen asleep.

After he surrendered in the stadium, the Prime revealed many things from the safety of his perch in the box overhead. He explained that the collars they both wore had tracking devices built into them and if they were to try and remove them, they also had an explosive device in them that would be activated and no doubt decapitate them.

Tal’on did some snarling and growling at this point, but the Prime calmed him by threatening to activate the explosive device in Delevy’s collar if he did not behave. The guards escorted them back down here to his cell. The good thing was he now knew where he was and the way out should he chose to leave. He had no doubt he could knock down the cell door and escape. The question was could he do it with Delevy and not get him or her killed in the process. And, how far did they have to be from the Prime and his detonation device before they were safe? Or was there a safe distance?

Star Trader Update .047

047.01



When Delevy left that afternoon, Tal’on went to the wall to retrieve the Sollen. He smiled to himself as he extended a claw to pry it from its hiding place. He had not paid attention where he was throwing his fire earlier and it hit the Sollen. Now as he flicked it into his paw with one long claw it not only vibrated, but it sang. It sang softly, but it sang. He tilted his wedge shaped head and studied it. Could it have been the blast of dragon fire? It had to be. He had done nothing different to it.

Perhaps he only needed to hit it a few more times before it would be loud enough for Graf’tal to hear and come for him.

Provided he had not jumped too far.

He couldn’t have.

He had to be within hearing range.

Star Trader Update .041

041.01

Tal’on had drifted off into a troubled sleep where the beings on this planet hit and probed him with their fiery sticks. He was brought back to reality by the sound of something grating against the stone floor. He bolted to his feet and yanked his chain to its full length in order to follow the sound to the see-through wall. He was surprised to see part of the wall was open now. One of the beings, blue from neck to feet, except for his hands, was standing there flanked by six other red beings, equipped with the pain sticks Tal’on encountered before. Several other beings of multiple colors stood behind them. Tal’on could see at least four more before the cave curved to conceal where others of their kind might have been hiding.

He wondered if the color of the beings designated their rank in their society as the color of his skin gave others an idea of his lineage, age and status. Perhaps the blue was a ruler…a leader of some type.

Star Trader Update .040

040.01


Tal’on vaulted onto Graf’tal’s haunches, finding purchase with his claws between the plates of his senior’s scales.

“Careful there youngling,” Graf’tal chided. He curled his long neck around and spied the young wingless dragon, his charge, with a shinny pair of obsidian black eyes rimmed and flecked with gold. “Why can’t you mount like any normal youngling?” He snorted smoke into the face of the lizard looking Tal’on on his back. “You scramble like a hatchling.”

“I would board properly by wing if we were not always the last to leave the ground,” Tal’on shot back as he finally made it up Graf’tal’s back and settled on the dragon’s shoulders with his scaly legs wrapped around Graf’tal’s neck and his tail lying out along the dragon’s spine.

Star Trader Update .039

039.01

“Say that again,” Jake said. He looked at me like he thought I had lost my mind.

“It was a dragon,” I repeated.

Jake got up from his place in my co-pilot’s seat on the bridge and took a few paces away from me. He removed his cap and ran his fingers through his dark, wavy hair. This was a habit Jake had when thinking, stressed or otherwise irritated. He could have been all three after my statement.

“What did you see?” Jake asked Arr.

“It was a dragon,” Arr confirmed.

Star Trader Update .037

037.01

“I’ll be fine,” I assured Marstead. “I think I need space. I need my mind to work on something other than who might be waiting to grab me next time I go into the city. For that matter, who might break into my ship and wreak more havoc.”

“I can’t keep you safe out there,” Marstead waved his hand in the general direction of everything. I was glad he was on the comlink rather than here beside me or he might have managed to convince me to stay. I really didn’t know why I was going. I just had a gut feeling I needed to go to my parent’s dig. Or, maybe that gut feeling was the breakfast Moby made for me that wasn’t settling very well.

“You don’t need to keep me safe, Marstead.” I tried to give him a reassuring smile. “I am a big girl and I can take care of myself.” Yeah, right. Some of my friends could tell stories about that. “I’ll keep in contact. I’ll send messages daily if that will make you feel better. It’s not that far away. I can be there in no time.”

Star Trader Update .035

035.01

“Tilt your head a little further toward me,” the dentist instructed.

I obliged and felt the jaw mike snap into place over my back molar.

“That should do it,” she announced. “Give it a try.”

I ordered the mike over a year ago, but hadn’t been anywhere with the facilities to install it. This layman’s variety of a jaw mike, unlike the Galactic Forces model, was not actually installed in the jaw surgically. Theirs was far more sophisticated. For this model, the wearer had one of their back molar’s ground down like you were prepping for a crown, but instead the mike was fit over the tooth.

I leaned up and took my “Ear” out of my pocket and stuck it in.

Star Trader Update .034

034.01

I sat in the lounge aboard my ship flipping through the pictures on mom and dad’s flat.

“How old were you there,” Horus asked.

Horus is one of five disembodied AIs I have on board my ship. All of them programmed by my dear friend, Daniel Dresden, one of – if not the most, talented programmer in the verse. Why he chose me as a friend I will never know, because I don’t know squat about programming and couldn’t carry on a conversation about software if I tried. That said, I really do appreciate Daniel’s handiwork especially when I am on long deliveries by myself, because heck, I am never really by myself. Space is a lonely place, but I always have company.

Star Trader Update .031

031.01

The whole thing turned out to be a bit anticlimactic. Once the Hummer Arr was talking to understood that the Calpernia, which is what it related to, could fix the problem, the Hummer started bouncing the code out to the Hummers it was connected to, they bounced it to the next group until all the other Hummers in all the NBs throughout the Verse had a copy and the fix for the virus.

All this time the Valarians thought each Hummer team, in each NB, was an isolated entity, but all along they were connected and had been talking to each other all this time. It was truly amazing.

Our part was finished. The NBs were back online. All the backed up traffic was being routed properly and within a week or so even the outlying areas were back to operation as usual.

The only thing left to deal with was Zackary Taylor.

Star Trader Update .029

029.1

Claiming to know someone who could talk to the Hummers was taking a wee bit of convincing until Coal managed to pull up some info on his computer about by friend, Arr, Jake Harcourt’s partner. Seemed a doctor named Margaret O’Connor was doing a bit of a study on him and she had recorders that attested to his ability to learn languages faster than a Roughnut snake can swallow a gerbit. You see, Arr’s people all have genetically inherited memories - abilities that are passed from generation to generation in the basic makeup of their brains. Arr can learn languages just by listening to them. Within a few hours he can master any language. Last count he gave me was one hundred and one, and that’s fluent, not just counting to ten and asking where the restroom is located.

A while back Arr and I were stuck in adjoining hospital beds for an extended period of time. We had a lot of time to exchange stories as we healed. That story is in my log books as “Body Bags and Other Dark Places” if you wish to look it up. Anyway… Arr told me about Jake explaining to him how the NBs worked - that they each held a Hummer inside. Arr was trapped alone on a planet for several years until Jake found him. Arr was shocked to think the Hummers were isolated in the NBs. He wanted to talk to them to make sure they were okay with what he saw as captivity. So Jake parked their ship, the Calpernia, by one and Arr took a few hours to learn their language and reassure himself that they were quite content as they were.

Arr told me this story, along with a string of others, and I remembered it.

Star Trader Update .026

026.01

Zack sat watching the drama unfold across his monitors. The virus he initiated in the beacons around Valaria had done their job. It was better than any game display could possibly be. The mercenary ship opening fire on the settlement on Gamma 3 was his favorite part. He had it on loop and it was playing over and over and over again. The recording, made by a civilian survivor, of the ship descending upon the colony with laser cannons firing, the destruction of the ancient runes the archeological colony was built around blown into rubble, and the citizens running, screaming. The visuals made Zack’s blood race. He had lost the line between ‘game’ and ‘reality.’

Zack actually chuckled as he watched the self-destruction of the second vessel in the Titan region. He had not expected the N.B. to have that far reaching connection. They were really an amazing bit of technology.

He leaned over and sipped at the straw from the drink bottle attached to his servo-chair. The Valarians would be contacting Daniel soon. Wait until he found the surprise Zack secretly downloaded on his flat last time they played. It was not easy getting around Daniel’s security system. In fact, it was harder than initially accessing the N.B.s. But Zack had done it. He had managed to install the trigger. Daniel was going to have a lot of explaining to do the minute he hooked into the Valarian server.

Star Trader Update .025

025.01

“Mayday…Mayday…This is MT 2424,” Coal said in a hoarse voice. Over six hours of calling out to what appeared to be an empty verse had left him hardly able to speak. Next chance he got he was going to rework the gear for longer range coverage and auto-voice repeat presentation.

Up until a little while ago Targus had kept them in the vicinity of the debris field so if someone latched onto the beacon Coal triggered, there would be something bigger to home onto than three small bodies floating in space. But Targus had passed out a few minutes ago. His tanks were nearly empty. It took more air to keep the big guy going. Coal’s heart beat was slower than his Walhmite captain’s or the human medical officer. Damion was out cold too.

“Mayday…Mayday…This is…”

Star Trader Update .024

024.01

Zackary Taylor a.k.a. Matt Milestone sat at his computer diligently working. He used a VACP or voice activated command program to put the finishing touches on the computer virus he was creating. Like his character, Matt Milestone, he liked the physical. However, his real body was stuck in a servo-chair and had been for the past ten years since the accident that put him there. He couldn’t even scratch his nose let alone do the physical activity Matt ran through in the game.

The accident was a devastating chemical explosion which killed fifty-three and left Zack and hundreds of others maimed. The loss to the corporation was horrific and sent it into bankruptcy and eventually foreclosure. None of the survivors received any kind of settlement. Zack’s medical bills were so astronomical he gave up on the rehab and the possibility of prosthetics long ago. He ate and defecated through tubes. He was basically a brain in a chair and nothing more.

Star Trader Update .016

016.01

“I’m going down to the planet,” I announced.

“I wouldn’t advise that,” Horus replied immediately.

“Nor I,” Sam chimed in, “you risk coming in contact with whatever he is spreading below and bringing it back on the surface of the pod to contaminate the entire ship.”

So, I stayed on board Ma-rye-a and my crew and I were witness to the largest genocide of this century. Attalla released biological death from his little black box and the iisadsu fell from the sky like rain. He must have told the oacoco to stay below the surface during the release. Ma-rye-a told us she could still detect their life forms.

We tracked the movements of Attalla’s pod as he rendezvoused with the battle cruiser for a hull clean up.

We saw the cruiser’s crew deliver the body containment and disposal units to the surface and tracked their meticulous clean-up of the iisadsu species.

I collected Attalla’s personal items from his cabin and placed them in a capsule that Sam jettisoned into space.

Star Trader Update .012

.012.01

There really was a negotiation job for Arr on Ukhra. He eventually succeeded in creating a treaty that both parties could live under. The trip back to the refitting station where the guys left the Calpernia was leisurely. They did not have another job lined up yet. I was still looking for something simple. I didn’t need a challenge right now. I was still recovering – not so much of body, the body was pretty much healed, more of mind. I was still having nightmares.

Two days before we arrived at Refitting Station Delta I found a cushy little job shuttling a diplomat around for three months while he re-negotiates treaties with the planets in his solar system. Cassie and I checked out his Bio on the NET and he looked good to both of us. We took on the job contingent on the fact that we all liked each other’s company after the first stop.

Now it was time to say our good-byes.

Star Traveler Update .010

010.01

I don’t remember too much of that first day on Ukhta.

I remember Jake holding me in his arms as he did his best to break through the underbrush below the huge iron wood trees - their deep charcoal colored bark standing out against the dense green ferns at their feet.

I remember Jake’s heart beating a fast rhythm in my ear as he held me against his chest. It would have been so much easier for him if he had been able to toss me over his shoulder, but that would have punched one of my many cracked ribs through something vital internally.

I remember one very painful fall we took when Jake tripped on something in his rush to put distance between us and whoever was chasing us. It would have been a lot worse except that Jake managed to turn in mid-air as he fell and put his body under mine to cushion my fall.

Star Trader Update .008

I apologize for the late posting. Too much holiday revelry at the Snyder house. LOL

Now on with the story...

.008.01

“I think you’ll be comfortable in here.” I padded the door open to my guest quarters. Kayo, Jake’s protect Dar-dolf, almost knocked us over trying to get in the door first. He started sniffing around the baseboards. I reassured myself that he was ship trained and would use the cargo deck for his business and not the carpeting of my lovely guestroom.

They are nice rooms. Cassie and I fixed them up when she came onboard a few years back. I picked Ma-rye-a for the layout of these rooms anticipating transporting people as well as cargo. The rooms are side by side with a bath in between however, the sound deadening wall that divides the rooms retracts into one of the sidewalls to the bathroom if you would like one huge room. And, it is huge - lots of luxury, like what you would get in a high-end Space port.