Chapter Six

Nuklet looked at his bridge crew and hummed in satisfaction. He had put together an excellent crew, all skilled in multiple disciplines, with education far exceeding what was culturally norm and a desire to see what was beyond the borders of the Outer Rim Civilized Systems.

They had chosen a small system, with a dim red dwarf star and only two gas giants and four standard planets, only one within the habitable green zone where life could be reasonable expected to be found. That planet was dangerous, covered with seas flush with heavy metals dissolved in corrosive liquid H2O, and the small proto-continent covered in jungle where the sharp mountains didn't rake at the sky. The atmosphere was full of CO2 and O2, high in nitrogren, and the ground was laced with radioactives.

A dangerous planet but one that could be exploited for wealth and prestige by those willing to commit to it.

Nuklet smiled as his cousin, Putmit, alerted the crew they were about to leave jumpspace after nearly a standard year. Nuklet had invested wisely in recreational facilities for the Far Grasper so that the ship could make the best time through jumpspace and reach the system.

The translation to realspace made the entire crew nauseous, but excitement over the prospect of exploiting an entire system that had been untouched even by the Precursor War pushed away feelings of ill-will.

Fammit, a scan-tech who had served ten standard years with the Unified Military Fleet, looked up from his instruments and frowned in the way his species usually did, shrinking his bark-sack and slapping his tail.

"Problem?" Nuklet asked.

Mitikak, the Akltak communications officer suddenly jerked upright, her wintips going to her communications headset. "Captain!"

Nuklet turned to the Akltak female and raised his four eyebrows. "An emergency?"

"There is a strong signal, the omnitranslator is working on it. Some kind of audio message with a visual component," Mitikak chirped.

"Keep on it," Nuklet said. He turned back to the Saurian. "What is the problem, Fammit?"

The lizard male tapped his display. "There's heavy energy signals, there's debris around the primary planet, and what looks like two large spaceships in orbit around that planet."

"Do we have visual on them?" Nuklet asked.

"I'm receiving multiple signals from the planet, as if the communications are omnidirectional, unencrypted, and unshielded. The omnitranslator has been able to translate the most common transmissions," Mitikak broke in.

"Putting the visual on the main screen," Mitikak said.

On the screen the planet was shown. Parts of the jungle were burning. There were large conical metropolises, four of which were burning. On two different windows on the main viewscreen were the orbiting spaceships. One was massive, with ominous architecture, kilometers long, with what looked like statues of strange beings with their hands pressed together at their chest holding up various parts of the massive ship. The other looked as if it was cobbled together from debris taken from a hundred junkyards and a thousand debris fields. The jumpcores in the twelve engines, all seemingly slapped onto the hull at random areas, were all mistuned and leaking energy in ugly purple halos.

Both ships gave the entire bridge crew various symptoms of anxiety. Their appearance was menacing and both were on opposite sides of the planet from one another but still appeared to be maneuvering in order to bring the other into firing arcs.

"The signals are ready," Mitikak said. She shuddered and Nuklet noticed that her feathers were pressed close, her wings close, and she was squatted down slightly. "I warn you, it sounds like a nest war down there."

"Let us hear them," Nuklet said.

"FOR THE EMPEROR!"

"PURGE THE XENOS!"

"STOMP DA HUMIES!"

"CRUSH DA SQUISHIES!"

Behind the roared words were the sounds of laser weapons, stuttering kinetic weapons, the detonations of artillery and explosives.

Nuklet made a chopping motion, urging Mitikak to cut off the feeds. His kind were no strangers to violence. After all, only two hundred years ago nearly three thousand of his kind had lost their lives during a fierce trade war.

But the raw aggression from those transmissions made him quail back in his crash-couch.

"I have another ship on scanners," Fammit said. "They're rapidly approaching"

"They're signalling us," Mitikak said. "The omnitranslator can understand them."

"Put the new ship onscreen and let's hear what the new ones are saying," Nuklet ordered.

The new ship was sleek. Black with a pair of engines that had gold energy pulsing from them. It was rapidly approaching, flashing small lights in the red range of visual lights.

The translator crackled and the new ship's communication blared out.

"Hey, who are you?" One voice asked.

"This is a sanctioned league game! That isn't even a Codex recognized ship!" Another voice asked.

"Both of you be quiet," A stern voice said. There was a throat clearing noise. "Greetings, gentlebeings. I am Hammond-83132, a registered and accredited Judge of the Clone Directorate Branch of the Judge's Guild. May I ask your intent?"

"We hold the exploitation rights to this system. Who are you and are you jumping our claim?" Nuklet said, half rising from his couch.

"Hey, we leased this place five years ago for our tournament!" The first voice protested.

"Be silent or I'll deduct the next one of you to speak eighty army points and delay any clone respawn by six hours," The Judge snapped. Again with the throat clearing noise. "Pardon, gentlebeings. The two competitors are under a great deal of tension. We were not aware of any other claim on this system. This is a sanctioned league game registered with TerraSol Judge's Guild and the Battle-Hammer Entertainment Craftworks League Administration."

"What league?" Nuklet asked. He wondered if the omnitranslator was working correctly. There seemed to be terms that it was having problems translating.

"The Battle Hammer forty-thousand League, Clone Worlds Directorate Branch," The Judge said. "We're in the middle of a sixty-thousand point game here."

"A... a game?" Nuklet asked.

"Space Marines versus Orks," The Judge said. "It should be wrapped up in say, six years or so."

"But we bought..." Nuklet said.

"What about the outer planets?" Pontik asked, the amphibian clicking his tongue in anxiety.

"Are you using the other planets, the asteroid ring, or the Oort Cloud?" Nuklet asked.

"The game has gone beyond those areas. Let me consult with the players," The Judge answered.

There was a long moment of silence. Mitikak pointed at the screens.

"I have several feeds from the planet. It's largely encrypted but one is unencrypted if you wish to view it," she said.

"Put it on screen," Nuklet ordered.

The screen showed a pitched battle between forces. One massive, with green skin, wearing cobbled together metal plates painted in wild patterns of red and green. The other figures in power armor, thick and heavy plates, all in red fighting alongside hordes of smaller bipedal humanoids dressed in green armor and wielding laser weapons. Both the ones in power armor and the ones in the flimsy looking green armor had icons of some kind of fierce looking bird on their chest. When Nuklet looked at Mitikak the avian female just made a gesture of confusion.

Nuklet noticed that the sheer unbridled violence was making several of his crew ill, even though he himself and Fammit were fascinated by it.

"Shut it off, Mitikak. We've seen enough," Nuklet said.

They all sat in silence for a few more moments before the Judge returned to the com-line.

"I may have a compromise that will be acceptable to both parties. You, being the party of the first, the two competitors being the party of the second," The Judge said. "If you agree to my arbitration I will waive all fees as you are a First Contact species in return for the right for full claim to First Contact on behalf of myself and the Judge's Guild."

Nuklet thought it over. The idea of having to pay a fee to this Judge was an anathema, but having fees waived for something that he did not know the value of also disturbed him.

Still, he wasn't sure what else he could do.

"I agree to waiver of the fees and your conditions," Nuklet said, taking a risk.

No risk, no profit.

"Both currently tournament engaged players agree to grant you planetary salvage rights once the clones go offline," The Judge said. "Additionally, they grant you salvage rights to the debris fields."

Nuklet's eyebrows raised. Salvage rights, now they were talking.

"In return they receive the right to continue their competition on the planet's surface and within it's orbital area for a period of six more years or until the tournament competition is finished, whichever occurs first," The Judge said.

"Six years?" Nuklet asked.

"Yes. I am forwarding the timescale according to radioactive particle decay so that we are using the same time scales. Additionally, they grant you license to view the game in raw data without paying license fees, should you be so inclined," The Judge put in. "If you need any assistance, just let them know. Their shipboard cloning banks are running at optimum in case you need manpower."

Nuklet was hardly listening. Salvage rights and free assistance!

"What about the cities?" Nuklet asked.

"Once the clones expire when the license runs out, we'll leave the cities behind instead of disintegrating them, if you want to salvage them too," the Judge said. "As for the military equipment used by the clone soldiers, it's old-tech, but you're welcome to the materials. After all, it's just materials, not much use in our post-scarcity Confederacy. The technology is not on the First Contact xenospecies prohibited access and trade list, so there is no legal reason to prevent it from being part of the salvage deal."

Nuklet didn't understand the last part, but the idea of scavenging and salvaging those huge conical cities made his claws grasp greedily at the arms of his command chair. He also liked this Judge, it spoke a language he could appreciate.

"Very well," Nuklet said. "We will exploit the Oort cloud, asteroid belts, and the planets outside the one your, ahem, game is taking place on."

"Agreed," The Judge said.

Nuklet rubbed his hands together.

Salvage rights to alien tech!

"I am transmitting the legal documents now. As a gentlebeing's agreement, the game shall continue while you review the terms and conditions of the Judge's Guild legal agreement," The Judge stated.

"I look forward to examining your terms and conditions," Nuklet said, feeling the surge of excitement at dealing with an unknown race's legal code and agreements.

"Very well. I look forward to working with you. Please feel free to contact any one of me, should you need further assistance," The Judge said.

Nuklet barely heard the last part, engrossed in reading the dense legalese of the contract that had just been sent to his displays by Mitikak. The longer he read, the more he hummed with pleasure.

Any rule and technical specific lawyer who could come up with this thick of an agreement was someone that Nuklet was happy to meet.

------------------------

When the crew of the Far Grasper returned with word of a game played by masters of cloning technology on whole planets, involving short life clones, the Unified Science Council could scarcely believe it. Despite the technology brought back, crude but highly effective, mostly geared toward war and resource extraction, the Unified Science Council was loathe to believe that this so called "Clone Directorate" could exist, much less would be so cruel as to create clones just to force them to fight in a tournament.

However, the video logs were incontrovertible and the fact that the crew of the Far Grasper had somehow learned the rules to this cruel and barbaric "Game" and played it on computer driven holographic boards and EVR, all pointed to the fact that this "Terran Confederacy" had not given up cloning over its obvious moral and ethical considerations.

The Unified Military Council pointed out that the willingness to create cloned soldiers gave the "Solarians" and the "Terran Confederacy" and the "Clone Directorate" massive manpower advantages.

The words of alarm from the Executors were being listened too more and more.

----------------------

FROM: JUDGE'S GUILD

TO: CLONE DIRECTORATE INTELLIGENCE

CC: CONFEDERATE INTELLIGENCE

Encountered a ship outfitted for resource extraction and exploitation at Hartfield-221 System. Previously unencountered xenosapients, seven xenospecies total. Most were unwilling to purchase rulesets or holo-patterns for proper tournament play. However, three species found Tournament play to be fascinating, although they are currently only at the level of holoplay, not Realplay.

Have included recordings of small talk, discussion, and play of those three species.

Are requesting permission to attempt marketing for primary tournament games and a Judge's Guild representative.

----------NOTHING FOLLOWS------------

CONFEDERATE INTELLIGENCE

CC: Artificial Biological States; Digital Artificial Intelligence Infonet Worlds; TERRASOL.GOV; Cyborg Cooperative; Clone Directorate; Mantid Free Worlds; Traena'ad Hive Worlds

All subjects within the Long Dark that are not Confederate actor intelligence service agents are ordered to withdraw with the exceptions listed in the attachment.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

FROM: JUDGE'S GUILD, TERRA HQ

TO: ALL JUDGE'S GUILD STATIONS

SUBJECT: LONG DARK TOURNAMENTS

All tournaments must be cancelled. System rental fees will be refunded. Games in progress will be listed as a draw and all points and fees (not including Judge Rental Fee) will be refunded.

---------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------