Lost Empire 81

0001 – Tempro

0003 – Conner- Thomas

0097 – Ace – Zimmel

0098 – Lucy

0101 – Shelby (mother ship)

0125 – Lars

0130 – Gillese

0200 – Ellen

0250 – Tendra

0301 – Rodrick

0403 – Johnathon

0778 – Jan

0798 – Celeste – Shelby (human)

0805 – Toran

0808 – Radella

0881 – Handrax

0908 – Tara – Mara

1000 – Sherry

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Ungrown – unnumbered

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0100 – Derry (father ship)

Rescued from Tendraxians

so far

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4 on Shelby 2 in re-gen

8 on Lucy

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Known and OR numbered

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0501 – Thaddeus

???? – Lena

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missing – 0667 – Marco

0999 – Zan – still lost

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The Queen of the Vorlons, shuddered as the last of her first mate’s relatives were butchered. Ah, She thought, the sound of death was so delicious to her.

A slightly worried looked came to her features, she hoped it would be enough to persuade the human. It had been far too long since, they had been in space. Space, where her ruling race deserved to be.

The Queen knew from their past dealings of Risen’s lineage, she would have to wait. The only thing she was worried about was the fact that like his sires, he could react counter productively. Enough she feared, to actually annihilate the planet of all life. She knew the human had the fire power.

It was only a few hours later that her com. went off. “All that you wished has been accomplished. I had all the proceedings recorded for your enjoyment.”

The face of Risen appeared, an almost wicked, evil smile dominating his features.

The Ex-Duke nodded slightly before he spoke. “I will review it before I make a decision on, just what I will release to you and your people.”

“I feel that you think, all my people are like that poor excuse for a Vorlon warrior.” The Queen spoke keeping the hope and almost desperation out of her voice.

Risen smiled, she’d tried to hide it, he’d been well trained in the ways of deception. “I will review the punishment, then and only then will I let you know.” With that Risen clicked off smirking at the Queen. Ah, he thought finally things were starting to go his way.

A steady beeping from his console immediately drew his attention. Risen’s mouth dropped open as he recognized the markings on the ship that was passing the dark planet. What in the hell was an imperial trader doing this far out?

The Ex-Duke hit several switches then gasp as he saw that the imperial network had been extended this way almost a whole system. Shit he thought, he was going to have to accelerate his plans. If the empire was starting to fringe expand, the many colonies that were hidden, were in a hell of a lot of danger.

A look of the dampening field on the planet, showed that the passing freighter hadn’t the power to pierce it. Shaking his head, he knew that the larger ships that the bastard fake to the throne had, wouldn’t be fooled.

Risen started to type out several commands, still watching the freighter it grew smaller as it moved away. Finally satisfied, he typed in another command then there was a roar. He smiled as the slender landing; probe ship that had been on the Cregon colony landed next to him.

“All plans that have been requested, are being replicated. All should be ready within the hour.” Probe X-51 reported to him.

Good the Ex-Duke thought, now how to tell the Queen and leave before they showed up to get everything. Risen thought a few moments then a truly evil, twisted smile came to him.

______________________________________________________________________

Kimison and Rayburn both cursed as the small, slender, sentinel on the table started to tremble, then a thick layer of smoke came from it. They both looked at each other then turned back to the plans on the design table behind them.

“Damnit!” Kimison shouted. “I corrected everything that was wrong last time. Why the hell did it fail now?”

“It lasted far longer this time, almost a full minute before failure in all systems. Tempro? Can you bring up where the failures started then we can go from there.” Rayburn said as he was also feeling the pressure to get this project finished.

“Sirs,” Tempro said as a shimmering revealed the older looking holo-gram. “Almost all problems from before have been eliminated. The servo motors were operating with no problems. It appears that something between the positronic brain, the artificial nervous system and the rest of the body failed. Attempting to isolate the first of the problems now.”

Kimison sighed as he sagged into the seat behind him. They had a working model, though when the brain section was activated, everything started to deteriorate. Kimison shook his head it was almost as if the neural pathways were…

Kimison jumped to his feet as he started to type at a frightening speed on the comp.

Rayburn was at the comp next to Kimison watching what the man was inputting. For a few moments Rayburn could only watch then his eyes opened wide as he started to nod. “I hadn’t thought of that,” Rayburn said when Kimison stopped a moment. Rayburn then started to type with Kimison watching and nodding.

Tempro was also watching the proceedings, nodding his head as the two men started to enter data faster and faster. “I concur on many of the facets that the both of you are correcting. I am predicting a greater amount of success with the direction you are going.”

Both men stopped to stare at Tempro, “that is all well and good. We still have to strip and rebuild the entire nervous system. This is going to set us back quite a bit of time, time we can’t afford to lose.