In an office was a desk with a holographic screen covering most of the wall behind that desk. A man sat in front of the desk typing away on his holographic keyboard when he heard a ping and an urgent notice appeared on his screen.
“Blossoming Terranova dry docks? Who are they? And why do they have a Galactic Federation carrier licence?”
He frowned as he started typing on his keyboard urgently. Looking up any information he could on this new dry dock.
“Alright, a newly established guild. Owns an orbital station base with a space dry dock. Damn, not a bad way to spend a couple of perks or a decent starter fund.”
He pulled up the information on the solar system and froze, a look of confusion crossed his face.
“Combat zone? That can't Be right…”
He typed away on his keyboard again for a few minutes before looking up at the screen.
“Oh, that greedy little shit, well I will just rescind that authorisation to label this solar system a combat zone. Returning it to a protected neutral zone. Aaaand done!” He declared the last bit as he finished typing.
He started tapping away again after admiring his work of saving a solar system from combat. He began pulling up lists of people as he looked for the right candidates and placing their files and pictures up on his big screen so he could review them at a glance.
“Perfect, captain Luscious Rivers and captain Jessica Biko are from opposite sides of the planet from each other, so one can be uplinked while the other is out in the real world.”
He moved his hands about his keyboard. Sending out orders to them to transfer their data to a Galactic Federation carrier that looked like it was scheduled to enter the designated solar system within a few hours.
“There we go, those two will take care of the galactic federations’ interests in MWOA254.”
*******
Jessica Biko was sitting in her recliner as she ate a television dinner with her family. The television was a brand-new cathode Television, it now had colour, the first of its kind. She was enjoying watching it with her family when her hud made a ding sound and displayed an urgent alert for her. She glanced at it and intended to ignore it because this was her family time. However, she noticed a crimson alert attached to it and groaned in annoyance as she knew she had to open it immediately, which she did. After reading it she read it again before leaping to her feet knocking her tray to the floor.
“Oh, my gosh, I have to uplink immediately and get to the ship headed to my new posting before it arrives in system” she told her husband and children as she rushed out of the room towards the bedroom.
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“Hunny, why the rush? Can't it wait a couple of hours?”
“No, a carrier is entering a combat zone solar system within the hour and the GF have unauthorised combat in that zone. I have been ordered to prevent them from beginning any hostile actions towards the inhabitants of the solar system.” She yelled as she rushed to put on her pyjamas.
“Jeez, that sounds serious, want me to uplink my arse and transfer it and the guild to the same carrier so you can hire us as security and enforcement of laws.”
“If you don't mind, darling?”
“Consider it done, sweetie, the Cerberus guild will be there to glare at those silly sailors.” He said, as he began changing into his pyjamas and sending off messages to the officers of his guild with his hud.
They both chuckled softly before he yelled out to the children, “clean up the living room and go to bed, mum and dad are going to go bring home the big creds!”
Moments later they had uplinked and began the process of transferring themselves to the galactic Federation carrier Merrigold.
*******
An officer who was running checks in a certain area of the ship. Gasped in surprise as all the cloning tanks began to activate and fill with liquids. He quickly brought up the command channel on his hud informing the commander of what was happening. He was ordered to monitor It. So he stood there, waiting until a ship-wide announcement was heard around him.
“Attention all hands. Prepare for exit of subspace. We will be entering the combat zone of MWOA254, where we have been ordered to secure the solar system and investigate the reason for it being declared a combat zone. Once this is complete, we may stand down and defend our position, or we will begin harvesting! That is all”
A few minutes after the announcement, the pods completed their process and quickly drained the fluids away, leaving fifty-three people stepping out of them and reaching for lockers before turning and marching out of the clone pod room and stood in front of him. He looked over the group seeing a mix of skin colours and genders amongst all of them but the just under seven foot tall almost pitch black man that stood in front of him drew all of his attention as he swallowed nervously. Until the shorter Lady of the same skin complexion and wearing captains’ bars on her uniform moved to stand directly in front of him and waved her hand in his face.
“Hey, tell your commander to stand down and relinquish command to me. I will be on the bridge in a few minutes to take command.”
He just nodded but didn't comply completely, instead he told his commander that a platoon had spawned, and a captain was telling him she was taking command and would be on the bridge soon.
*******
I was looking around the command room of my new guild hall in the orbital station base, my eyes wide and full of wonder. It had taken me five days to get a rocket, despite the branch leaders losing their shit as they tried to stop me from using more clan money to acquire one. It then took an extra day to get it into space and another to get it over to the orbital station base. I had not been able to get it to dock with the station, so I got it as close as I could, then took a space walk over to the airlock. I walked through a few corridors from the airlock until I exited into what looked like a city sized parking lot. As I wandered, I noticed two things. First the city sized parking lot wrapped around the second thing making it a four city sized parking lot. The second thing, which was in the middle of the habitat, was an actual four lane wide street that wrapped around a tower. I had discovered the direct path from the last corridor to the tower lined up with a huge door on the side of the tower that had a name over the top of it.
Blossoming Terranova Guild Tower.
I had gone inside to find a long corridor on my left and another on my right. They were both filled with locked doors on each side of the corridor. In front of me was a double door of an elevator. Once I had stepped in and turned to look for a panel with buttons so I could choose my guild halls’ floor, I instead found nothing by an omnidirectional view of outside the tower. A few seconds of confusion were redirected when the doors slid closed and a voice that I could have sworn was some actress I knew, said.
“Top floor, Blossoming Terranova Guild Hall.”
I never even felt the elevator move, but the scene outside the tower showed it clearly raised all the way to the top. Before opening and letting me out into a luxurious reception room complete with desk and pictures on the wall, there were even a few plants.
I smiled as I shook off the walk down memory lane and turned away from the command table that was displaying the solar system around the orbital station and was about to head out to see if I could find any kitchen or cafeteria in this guild hall when I heard an ominous alert.
“Alert! Unannounced Galactic Federation Alliance cruiser broadcasting the identifier name, GFA1193, Merrigold. Has failed to send guild command their entry permission for Blossoming Terranova Guild Territory, and has just surfaced from subspace at the edge of the solar system. Do you wish to hail the ship?”