The Surveyors

[MKSheppard]

Here it is: Another FANFIC from MADMAN SHEP'S EVIL SECRET FANFIC
VAULT OF DOOM (TM)

The Surveyors
a fanfic by
Mark Sheppard

********************

Space, The Final Frontier

Beyond the thin planetary atmospheres of a million million million
worlds, lies the cold blackness of space, a place of extremes. Life
as we know it cannot exist in such an inhospitable place.

Into this environment, nearly forty thousand lifeforms suddenly
appeared in a blinding flash of light, protected from the harsh
environment by the towering spires of their conveyance, the
Imperator-class Star Destroyer _Hellbore_.

As the mighty mile-long behemoth's lights twinkled in the
darkness, the wormhole by which it had arrived disappeared
with a low twinkle of light and an outrush of neutrino
emissions.

The beings that inhabited the thin envelope of the only
hospitable space for hundreds of light years in all
directions began to work frantically, knowing that they
had only a short time with which to do their tasks before
the Rebels discovered a Star Destroyer was missing.

From within the cavernous interiors of the mighty ship's
hangar bay, a rectangular ship a hundred meters long emerged,
and powered away from the hangar bay.

Aboard the survey lighter HELLBORE-52, Colonel Parck Ozzel
sighed and scratched his back, trying to eliminate an annoying
itch that seemed to defy all of his attempts to scratch it.

In front of him, Commander Zevulon Ferris, or simply Zev to his
friends, manned the weapons console, and at the moment, he
was running system-self-checks.

"Zev, there's no need to play with the targeting computers. We're
hundreds of lightyears from anything, including ships."

"Maybe, but if we bagged some fat target, we'd be up for promotions,
and a way off these kriffing lighters." replied Ferris.

The survey lighters that a Star Destroyer carried when on mapping
missions were little more than a hundred-meter block of engines,
sensors, and weapons in that order. The weapons were enough to
overpower most anything lesser than a Corellian Corvette, as the
lighter had enough power to outrun anything bigger.

The lighters were also painted in a special anti-sensor coating that
was embedded with micro-sensors and emmitters, allowing it to either
disappear into the background radiation of space, or send back a sensor
echo calibrated to the exact same wavelength and pulse of the outgoing
echo, effectively making it appear invisible, even to active sensors

The downside to packing so much power into such a small hull was cramped
quarters and inhabited areas. People were always hitting their heads
on exposed pipes, and due to the enormous size of the engines and the
relative smallness of the hull, there hadn't been enough space for proper
harmonic dampening, and as a result, there was always an ever-present
thrumming noise whenever the mains were on-line.

"How're the alluvial dampeners doing?" asked Ozzel, worried about how
the new ones were holding up. Rumor had it that KDY had bribed the
Naval Procurement Comittee to accept the _Striker_ class lighters,
even though they knew that the alluvial dampeners were dangerously
substandard, failing every 500 hours of operation, or about once
a month if the lighters were on a standard patrol/survey assignment.

"They're holding up, just barely. We gotta replace them when we get
back, though," came the reply from Zev, elicting a groan from the rest
of the lighter's small command crew, numbering ten people, including
the Colonel and Commander.

Everyone hated having to replace the dampeners, which involved the
lighter's forty-man crew crawling all over the engine section inside
access tunnels and outside in EVA suits for a full day.

"Colonel Ozzel, we'll see you in five days. _Hellbore_ out," came the
crackling voice of the Hellbore's Captain over the tinny speakers on
the bridge of the lighter that had already been rewired dozens of times
before to fix them.

The Imperial Survey Corps was the poor red-headed stepchild of the
Imperial Military these days, with more and more money being spent on
the Navy and Army, while the ISC shrivelled on the vine, suffering from
obsolete Old Republic equipment or shoddily designed replacements.

Nobody, it seemed, wanted to map star systems on the
Outer Rim anymore, and word thru the grapevine had it because
of a chance encounter between an Imperial Fleet and this unknown
alien race that used biologically based technology.

Further rumor had it that the Navy had assraped the Aliens, and that
a deal was struck; we'll stay out of the Rim, and you'll stay out of
the Rim too.

"Acknowledged. Ozzel out."

The Star Destroyer then slowly turned about and disappeared back
into the wormhole in a flurry of neutrino emissions, leaving the small
lighter alone in the vast blackness of space.

Several minutes later, the lighter disappeared in a flash of light as
it seemed to accelerate away at tremendous speeds, and once again,
this particular area of space was filled with void again, as it had been
for the last 3 billion years.

Ozzel sat back in his command chair and pondered the run of
variables that had caused him to be demoted from Major General
in the Army to a Colonel in the ISC. It had all started a month ago,
when he had recieved a notice in his routine e-mail that his brother,
Kendal Ozzel, had been killed in action against the Rebel forces
at Hoth.

Another e-mail, encrypted with his family's private code had arrived
a day later, with top-secret video footage of the _Executor's_ bridge
during the Hoth Campaign, showing Darth Vader somehow killing
his brother.

Shortly after, he was stripped of his command of the 124th Line Corps
and demoted down to Colonel in the ISC after an anomyous informant
had told the ISB about "irregularities" between his unit's shipping
manifests and what had actually showed up during inspections.

He had managed to salvage a small bit of his career by using every
last ounce of pull he had left to get him assigned to command of
a survey vessel, rather than punching papers back home on
Coruscant.

And here he was, in a strange new galaxy, all alone by himself.

Sighing, he turned around to face the sensor station.

"Anything here?"

"Nope, Colonel. Just lots and lots of interstellar gasses."

"Very well, continue on course. How long until we hit the
first solar system?"

"Twenty-six hours, sir. We're really slowed down by the lack
of starmaps for this area."

Ozzel grinned at this.

"Well, Ensign, we wouldn't be the Survey Corps if we
had starmaps in the *first* place, now would we?"

[Cpt_Frank]

My god shep how many unfinished fanfics do you have by now???

[MKSheppard]

My god shep how many unfinished fanfics do you have by now???

Blame Dalton, he keeps pushing the GSDA back, so I have incenitive
to dust off some old concepts.....trust me, you do NOT want my
Bf-109 Wankfest fanfic to be unleashed upon you all

[Cpt_Frank]

trust me, you do NOT want my
Bf-109 Wankfest fanfic to be unleashed upon you all

Hmm probably something along the lines of
'the Soviet pilots started to panic as the single Bf-109 ripped through their formations, hundreds of soviet planes exploding left and right.'

It can't be more of a wankfest than portal.

[Ted]

trust me, you do NOT want my
Bf-109 Wankfest fanfic to be unleashed upon you all

Hmm probably something along the lines of
'the Soviet pilots started to panic as the single Bf-109 ripped through their formations, hundreds of soviet planes exploding left and right.'

It can't be more of a wankfest than portal.

More like 109's ripping through feddie runabouts, but it's pretty close.