Starbase 600 Shorts

[Innkeeper]

Spirit in the Sky

I sat in a lounge and stared blankly out into space. Renaisance station stretched out into the distance. It looked larger than a planet. It was much much smaller than a planet of course. But you expect planets to be large. You don't expect a space station to stretch off into the distance.

I wasn't really looking.

I understood the mission of the Necessity. It made perfect sense. I'd felt a very mild echo of the madness and death the Rishan race maker left in its wake on Oz. I'd also felt an old lady Aneilog make the cross over. She happened to catch me and use me as a cane as she painfully shuffled to the sickbay to donate her body to science. She went from this side and what the Ane call Sensate Life to the other side, The All. The Ane didn't die. They became part of the great telepathic mass mind of the Ane.

So the old timers of the Necessity just elected to endure an uncomfortable trip and then make a deliberate cross over to kill a thing that hurt them more than English could ever describe. Yeah. I got that. It was a Kamikaze mission, but that wasn't all that big a committment for the Ane.

I stared out the window. I wasn't going to die.

I arrived in a beat up old starship, with a beat up patchwork crew, and found Coventry on it's knees. Now I commanded the second biggest starbase ever over a rollicking Federation central node. Everyone was having a good time, and I was never going to die.

It creeped me out. Humans aren't built to go on forever. We had a couple of old timers on Renaissance Station. One was a thousand years old and it made him weird. I'd never really understand him.

Would I ever really understand me? Eventually I would be part of The All. What would I do with myself? What was it like?

Gensilan tickled my mind.

**Hey,** I said.

**You can ask. You wouldn't be the first human in the All.** She said.

I sighed. **True**.

After a while I went ahead and seperated myself from Gensilan on the conscious level. I didn't think I could let her go subconsciously anymore.

I hate going to The All by myself. It always feels like I am going into someone else's church and talking too loud. I had to take ownership of it. I was as Ane as I would ever get now. It was waaayyyyy to late to back out now, by almost a decade.

I raised my Aspect and elevated my Icon. I wasn't good at it. I felt small and weak. Like a child trying to open too big a door. It was, in fact just like that. I found myself in The All. I can't describe it. I could sense the active voices of millions of Ane, using it as a mass communication system. I could hear the cheerful greeting of a few who recognized me. I sent a happy greeting back.

Then I just asked. It was more that I deliberately felt the request emotionally. **May I speak to human in the All, please?** I was in the presence of Akimbomoto. A tribesman from Africa some thousands of years ago. he wasn't clear on the Julian date, didn't especially care and Stardates were beyond useless to him. I could feel his faint, paper thin joy.

**What do you do here?** I asked. It had an undertone of **What's it like to be dead here?**

**It's not like that.** Akimbomoto answered. **Time is also a sensation, young man.** He addressed me as a fondly considered young man. I was odd to be considered such. I was over 65 years old, and heading for 70 at warp speed. Akimbomoto died when he was in the vicinity of 49. But he was wiser than I, especially in regards to the Ane or the All. He'd been part of it from birth, and was raised as it.

**So, you're not here unless I ask for you?** My image was a like a computer program that wasn't active until it was called.

**No. It's not like that either.** Akimbomoto grinned at me.

**So... What's it like?** I asked.

I felt my self drift away. I lost all sensation It was like a dream where I was in a group of talking friends.

Gensilan yelled **HEY!!**

I mentally blinked and found her holding me. **What?**

Akimbomoto was apologetic **Sorry, young man. I didn't realize how new you were.**

**Umm. Thanks** I held on to Gensilan tightly.

**I was told that other humans don't know what their afterlife is like.** Akimbomoto said. **How sad.** I felt myself sliding back down into my own head. **The Creator knew we'd be here. It's meant for us, too.** Akmbomoto said as I fell out of the All.

I opened my eyes and found myself looking at the overhead in Sickbay. Gensilan looked at me with concern. "I'm fine." I said, "I'm not doing that again any time soon."

She shook her head **Be carefull what you ask for 'young man'**

I decided not to sweat the All for a while. There would be plenty of time later.


Spirit in the Sky -- Jay P Hailey, April 2005



Again this is a result of the STB-600 game. It is discovered that Admiral Hailey is telepathic. However, in Epiphany Trek, most Humans are telepathic they just have really closed off firewalls.

Sometimes Jay has a way if getting under my concepts better than I can, this is one of those times. I like that about him.

[Innkeeper]

New Ship, Old Mission

Ree'ok looked at the new ship and sighed. It was a wonder of engineering and manufacturing skill. In it he and his brave crew would venture out to face madness and death. Ae Tabooist purpose. The ship was sleek, a wider, broader manta ray, one of the new Dolphin class cruisers. A roomy hull and advanced warp drives that were faster than anything else in the quadrant.

"Thank you, my friend." Ree'ok said to Anderban.

"You are, of course very welcome." Anderban bowed. Gensilan smiled and inclined her head as well.

"It is with utmost regret and sadness that I must ask your people not to accompany us on our holy mission." Ree'ok said.

Anderban blinked. Gensilan shook her head. "Not going to happen Ree'ok."

Ree'ok sighed deeply. Some people simply took a while. A long while. "Your All represents the work of a beautiful and sane creator, my friends. I could not, in good conscience, deface the work of these beings with any more interference from the artifacts of my own creators."

Anderban looked thoughtful.

Gensilan squeezed Ree'ok's hand. "It's Okay, Ree'ok. Every Aneilog and Ane on your crew has experienced The Change. They know what the risks are. We're as devoted to The Mission as you are."

Ree'ok sighed again. They didn't really understand. The Rishans were insane and insanely dangerous. But by experiencing their artifacts and their mad thoughts, a Tabooist could reach out and touch the face of God.

While the Ane were dead set on neutralizing every Rishan artifact they found (and suceeding through some mechanism Ree'ok was not able to pry from them). The Taboooists were ambivalent about approaching the works of their creators.

To have a contemplative glimpse into the mind of a mad universe and quietly think about what it truly meant in the cosmos and existence as a whole...this sublime experience was difficult to acquire among angrily, bloodthirsty herbivores. The Tabooists feared the Rishans and viewed them with awe. But they didn't hate the Rishans, a distinction lost on the Aneilogs.

Ree'ok felt these emotions with a quickness that belied his bulk and then accomodated himself to the universe, a skill well practiced among the Tabooists. The Mission must come first.

"Thank you my friends. Of course every hand bent to the Holy Task is a beneficial and desirable thing." Ree'ok said, slowly.

Anderban and Gensilan, unable to read Ree'ok's mind felt that he was simply thinking slowly, a misconception the Tabooists subtly encouraged by deliberately talking slowly.

"Shall we take the tour?" Gensilan asked.

"Please." Ree'ok shuffled along with his friends.

The Ship, of course would be a wonder. Pathetic and inadequate next to the works of the Rishans, but what else could be expected of mortal hands? As far as modern ships went the Dolphins were the top of the line.

Ree'ok looked at details slowly as he shuffled. This ship brought home a dilemma that no Tabooist thought would come in their own life times. With ships like these there was a possibility that every Rishan Artifact could be found, examined and neutralized. Then what would the Taboosists do?

Some felt that as the last Rishan artifact that the Tabooists should neutralize themselves.

Ree'ok reached a slow, but inexorable decision...He, like all of his people was much more graceful in the water than on land, although not nearly as graceful as the Ur-Tabooists, the innocent turtles which even today lived their lives on the home world. Ree'ok imagined himself sunning on an OZian beach, Surfing and swimming, and communing with the last Rishan artifacts that would be active. The Aneilogs.

His sigh was warmer and happier as these thoughts and images crossed his mind. Now all he had to do was survive second hand contact from his creators long enough to get there.


New Ship, Old Mission -- Jay P Hailey, July 2005



Another one of Jay's short bits. This time between the Aneilogs and the Tabooists. Two people seperated by a common goal.

Tabooists are unreadable to keep them sane. whether by design or accident the Tabooists are not sensitive to the telepathic "waveband" used by most species in the galaxy. the same waveband the Rishian telepathic interfaces work at. If the mad machine cannot make madness at you you have a better chance of not going insane.

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I need to state how much BB code drives me nuts. These stories are formatted with standard English paragraph indents, which you can force in HTML but BB code actively fights. I still regard BB code as totally useless and unnecessary. -Innkeeper