Fiction

Night Time

Seng Karash

Aeotheran

The sound of klaxons cut through the air, and then the calm but authoritative female voice sounded through the night air. “Good evening citizens. This is your reminder that the curfew begins at twenty three hundred hours. Anyone who does not have legitimate business in the city should return to their homes until six hundred hours. Anyone found in the streets after this time will be detained by the Aeotheran Security Force. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Tonvas hurried through the streets, three of his minders behind him. He was furious. This had been the case for several weeks now. He had barely finished his meeting with his associate when last orders had been called in the bar. “This can not go on,” he swore quietly, “the situation is intolerable. Not even the Collective would have imposed this.”

“It’s hitting everyone boss,” Gramik replied, “ they shut down Pevonas. The ASF raided his premises and dragged him and five of his people off. He’s not been seen since.”

“Pevonas was an idiot,” Tonvas replied, “he tried to keep his club open with the alleyway entrance. He under estimated them.”

“Well he isn’t now boss.”

Tonvas reached the back door of his house and waited while one of his minders opened it for him. He hurried inside. “I will not tolerate this. The local dealers are hiding or left the city. Revenue in my businesses has collapsed with this curfew, I’m loosing money hand over fist. We need to do something, lean on someone, bribe someone in this new administration.”

“They don’t take bribes now boss, those who have tried also disappeared.”

Tonvas spun around. “Then maybe a direct approach will work, find out who these new minsters are , and who their families are.”

“Yes boss.”

“I’m going to my office. I do not want to be disturbed.”

Without waiting for a reply he walked upstairs, pushed open the door of his office and strode inside. Then he stopped. His chair was facing away from the desk. Slowly it spun around to reveal a tall woman, with long red hair. She smiled coldly at him. “Thank you for joining us.”

“Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my office?”

Her smile did not waver and her green eyes bore into him, “We wanted a word with you, didn’t we Malevek?”

Tonvas spun to see a sandy haired young man in the corner leaning against the wall, a hand resting on a weapon at his belt. “We did indeed,” he replied.

The crime boss turned back to the woman sat in his chair. “You are making a mistake, you do not know who you are dealing with!”

Scarlet leaned forward. “On the contrary, we know exactly who we are dealing with,” she said calmly, “as soon will you.”

Read more here

Introduction

Greetings House Shar Dakhan.

Well this is my third report. Got some nice stuff to announce so hope you enjoy it. As I write this is my little flat/apartment in the Northern English inner city riviera, its a sunnyish day outside and I've finished another working from home day doing exciting spreadsheets on local housing data and I'm feeling pretty cheerful. I've got myself a few days by the seaside planned in a couple of weeks which will be a nice break. I hope you're all doing alright and things are going well for you. So here we go.

A New Aedile

I've already announced this previously but I'm very pleased to have Sanginius as our latest Aedile here in Shar Dakhan. He's a very experienced member and leader and one of the organisers of the recent Pro Bowl and is a real asset to the House. Well done to everyone who took part in the Pro Bowl by the way it was a great event and I've seen some good participation from the members and some crescents showing up in my inbox.

New House Forces

Following the recent GJW Bentre and Darkhawk gave us a good share of the dividend from all our work in the Great Jedi War and after discussion with Battleteam Leader Locke and Malik we decided to buy the following to enhance our current ground forces and fleet:

A flash speeder squadron for our existing special missions company to give us some extra speed and versatility and an extra drop company to bring our second Battalion up to full strength.

A third battalion which centres around an artillery battery to give us some long range firepower, including two J-1 Proton Artillery lines, an AV-7 anti vehicle line, and a AT-DT Artillery Line, backed up by an Assault Company and two supporting Line Companies which overall will will increase our existing ground based firepower along with our existing forces.

Some extra transport and deployment capacity with an extra LAAT/Infantry and LAAT/Carrier which will allow us to get our forces on the ground and ready for action quicker.

And last but by no means least, the latest addition to our fleet, an Arquitens Class Light Cruiser. Locke originally pointed this out to me after the GJW as a possible option. It's a great ship and I think it will be work well both as an escort ship and independently for missions or Battleteam use. Currently it's unamed but as before I'm looking for suggestions from you all I'll send out a quick email asking for ideas.

So hope you'll all happy with that, we went for a good balance between ground and fleet. As per the recent DarkHawk Down comp and one I have upcoming (details later) I'm trying to give you the option of utilising our forces in your own fictions to spice them up or give you more options, so long as you don't wander off with an entire task force or battalion without warning the Summit first.

Fictional Update

So we've had a long debate via email recently about how we want to progress and I'm very happy with everyone who took part and the level of energy and interest in it. The overwhelming theme was you want to step away from shadow democracies or corporate dominion and you want us to be visible and in charge and I'm up for that as well. Following that I've had a bit of a think and then taken myself off to write something up I'm hoping works well for you as a starting position we can build on. Please see the g.doc below which hopefully you can all see, otherwise I'll send it out and share with everyone.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12IqSAyqYsGEP1Sc7zqeZs7DpCd5lvdY9SejhUua8hdU/edit

What I've gone with is more of an open rule over the planet and surrounding area. We're visible and in charge, there's no democracy and though we have an NPC First Minister and their supporting staff , they report directly to the House Summit and they're replaceable if they step out of line. We also have a tighter rule then before to discourage dissension from the populace and make it clear what is expected from them. We've got curfews except night time workers, more surveillance and education programmes, tighter controls over information and the media and stricter rules on production, though it's geared up to grow our economy.

We also have a civilian security and planetary defence force, the Aeotheran Security Force or ASF, to both maintain control over the citizens and free up our own forces for deployments or to plug the gaps where necessary.

Lastly I've started to have a think and discussion about our new permanent headquarters for our members and though the design is down to discussion I've laid out some of the features it ought to have, including visibility to our citizens so they can see who is in charge. The big spire idea is my own preference but I'm open to ideas.

I want to get on with tweaking our existing articles to make them fit how we want them as members, and also lay out a prospectus that is clear that describes how things work in our House and territory now. I'll be looking for feedback from you all on that.

Competitions

With the Pro Bowl over Sanguinius and myself have some competitions starting Saturday the 5th for yourselves and the rest of the Clan to do, based on the above harder rule of Aeotheran starting this weekend.

Street Cleaning. Criminals and dissidents are resisting our rule and justice. Deal with them.

Street Art. People resisting our rule are drawing graffit in our cities. Draw an example of this that insults us or stirs up rebellion.

Love Song. We need a song for our citizens that promotes our rule and expresses our citizens loyalty.

Fight For Your Right. Unlock an image of us controlling our planet.

Member Achievements.

Here's what you've all been up to since my last report.

DA Macron Sadow – 1 comp entry, 3 Clusters of Ice, 1 Seal of Vision

DA Malik Sadow – 3 competition entries, Dark Cross, Crescent with Ruby Star, Crescent with Sapphire Star, 5 Seals of Vision.

SWL Etah Obsidyn – 25 competition entries, 1,479 words of fiction, Anteian Cross, Crescent with Ruby Star, 4 Clusters of Ice, 22 Clusters of Earth, 9 Clusters of Graphite, 8 Seals of Vision.

Augur Sanguinius Tsucrya Entar – 5 competition entries, 10 competitions organised, 1,267 words of fiction, 1 course passed, 19 courses graded, 4 Clusters of Ice, 12 Clusters of Graphite, 18 Seals of Vision.

Augur Locke Sonjie – 8 competition entries, 1,211 words of fiction, Crescent with Sapphire Star, 3 Clusters of Ice, 3 Clusters of Graphite, 5 Seals of Vision.

SBL Malisane Sadow – 22 competition entries, 2 competitions organised, 8,829 words of fiction, 1 course passed, 1 Crescent with Diamond Star, 1 Crescent with Ruby Star, 1 Crescent with Sapphire Star, 30 Clusters of Ice, 10 Clusters of Graphite, 14 Seals of Vision.

Seer Raistlin Sadow – 3 competition entries, 1 course passed,1 Steel Cross, 2 Clusters of Ice, 16 Clusters of Graphite, 19 Seals of Vision.

Savant Aul Census – 15 competition entries, 1 Crescent with Sapphire Star, 3 Clusters or Graphite.

Savant Scarlet Agna – 1 competition entry, 1 Dark Cross, 2 Clusters of Ice, 3 Seals of Vision.

DJK Malevek – 1 competition entry, 2 course passed, 10 Clusters of Ice, 5 Seals of Vision

DJK Rivio Rosan – 1 competition entries, 1416 words of fiction, 1 Dark Cross, 5 Clusters of Ice, 4 Clusters of Graphite, 4 Seals of Vision.

I would also like to say good luck to SWL Robert Sadow and Colonel Kojiro Keibatsu who left us to take up the roles of Aedile and Night Hawks BTL in HMR working with Hades.

Also welcome back Savant Aul Census who is a previous Quaestor and Aedile of Shar Dakhan and has already snagged an Amethyst Crescent since he returned. I am sure he'll be a great asset to our House.

Final Thoughts

So as a conclusion there's plenty going on, you've been up to some great stuff, and we've got things planned for the future. Hopefully we can keep going and develop into a happy active House and there's lots of fun and rewards going round. If anyone has any thoughts or ideas let us know.

Take care of yourselves, and each other.

Malisane Sadow Quaestor of Shar Dakhan