22

[Naota 261]

There was an unsteady decade of peace in the beginning of the 22 Century between The Empire Of China and Google, both continent with their mutual control of the solar system, but things were about to change. First contact occurred October 16, 2010 4:24 P.m. Intelligent life was found in the solar system Hopi , 23 light years from earth. On behalf of the people of earth the organization; PEACE, was created, a joined alliance between Google and The Empire Of China. Of course it was run by the church of scientology. Their missionaries were the first to visit and Hopi and although their peace negotiations with the Hopites were successful, their missionary goal was not, the Hopites rejected Scientology. Google quickly monopolized the control of trade with the Hopites via videogames, the craze for them among Hopites teenager fueled Google’s power to begin taking the natural resources of planets Hopi 1,2, and 3. The Empire Of China had much less success with their drug trades, the Hopi’s were mostly satisfied with the drugs they had. But this all changed with an unexpected outbreak of SARS among the Hopite population, and need for their cure of the virus skyrocketed. The Empire now controlled the majority of Platinum mines across the Hopi system.

This is where my story starts; I’m Dr. Sheppard, and I’m currently aboard Google interstella 5.0 on a direct course for Hopi 1 for medical and scientific tests of the inhabitants. Google funded this to increase their trade profits with the native Hopites and for fear of sabotage by The Empire, a very well armed convoy of Google Mercs were sent along as escort. Despite my protest I now have to travel with them.

[Vash/Knives]

Man, what great Whiskey, Was all I was thinking about, leaning back in the chair of my office aboard Interstella 5.0.

“Colonel Mitchell sir!” a young private walked .

“What is it”I replied.

“Holo from General Kirk.” He said as he turned on the holographic receiver and left the room.
Fuzzy at first, General Kirk’s head appeared on the receiver

“What the Hell is going on? This Dr.Sheppard is vital to our cause and here you are infuriating him, he requested to have you scraped from commander of this voyage.”

“So, what, he’s been against our escort since the beginning. Its not beef he has with me, its beef he has for the Mercs, he’s unpatriotic.”

"Even so, I need you to befriend him, he’s important, much more so than you.”
This thinly veiled threat infuriated me. Sarcastically, I replied,
“Of course, I think I’ll go join him for lunch; Ill make him my BFF.”I turned off the receiver and headed to the mess hall. Through the thick smell of meatballs and pasta, I couldn’t help but notice the irony when the only open seat was right next to Dr Sheppard. Sitting down I greeted him and said, “So we should be landing soon, are there any preloading preparations you need? You know, for your science and stuff.”

[Naota 261]

"No, in fact just the opposite, I’m going to need you and your Mercs to stay out of the way, you know, of my Science and Stuff.”

Just then a code rang over the intercom for senior staff personnel only, the Colonel and I both got up and headed towards command central.

“Attention everyone!” A communications Merc called out: “It appears our landing site on Hopi 1 was burned to the ground. We still can’t tell if it was arson or an accident.”

“Why do you think it was arson?!” I asked.

“There’s an Empireal platinum mine only two clicks south of the site, it could have been a sabotage job.” A corporeal said as he pointed to the platinum mine on the map.

“No, that doesn’t make since, why sabotage a landing site? That won’t have much effect on our mission.” After thinking about it for a second I continued…”Was there any key information about our mission located at this site? Maybe they were attempting to spy on us?”

“Well I guess we’ll never know what information was stolen; all the records at the site were burned down.” The same Corporeal replied.