Qithka01’s Expedition

[The Pakkrat]

003-1203 Orsesokhin (Gvurrdon 2323) A000874-F As Cx Na Ph Pi Naval {3} (D7C1) [9B5F] RU1092 210 VThE

Though she had tried to find a new life after returning to her homeworld, her Pattern Mother’s Fame had caught up with her and stuck. Dame Qithka01 Cannagrrh bowed to the audience hoots and howls punctuating their applause. Qithka could take little credit to heart for the skills the original Dame had developed as an Entertainer. And even though this Spectacular Performance - a term not hers - had a standing ovation, Qithka could not bask in it. There was still so much to do than be bathed in the spotlights of this hybrid live action and holo-assisted stage tale of her homecoming and confrontation with her Viral cousin, the Rogue Individual Personality entity Voellzoen. Qithka bowed again and retreated backstage.

Voellzoen had once been Captain Voellzoen of the Dzen Aeng Kho Navy entrusted with the Quarantine Line to trailing off the communist polity the original Dame Qithka had been born in. Qithka’s cousin was captured by Virus, tormented, worked to death by his Virus masters, and finally brainscanned to upload his personality once he finally refused to obey the awakened flagship he had lost to infection. The Virus entity calling itself by the name of the ship had used an onboard Maker to manufacture a Vargriform Robot to house the collared personality of Voellzoen. His flaw however, was that he had an ambition to take over the Pack Cannagrrh as its Alpha one way that had failed and now another. Voellzoen the awakened Robot had arrived to usurp Cannagrrh Villa on Dzuerongvoe (Gvurrdon 1413), taking the mantle from Alpha Gevaudan Cannagrrh on his deathbed. That was when Qithka01 Cannagrrh the Relict Clone of her Pattern Mother, the Dame Qithka Cannagrrh arrived in the nick of time to argue with and offline the Viral Robot. The oversize battle Robot housing Voellzoen’s personality tried to claim Alpha by way of attempted Vargr Charisma but to no avail. The families, staff, and even the slaves simply could not overlook the metal monstrosity as their late cousin. This was a war bot much like the Fifth Frontier War, Zhodani tactical machines used aside biological soldiers. A lecture from Qithka01 before the cowering families under gunpoint explained this disconnect to the Viral Voellzoen. He was not Voellzoen. He was simply a computer brain trying too hard to emulate a living Vargr with a personality frozen at the time of the original Vargr’s death. And he was tired. Qithka01 shot the Robot with armor piercing rounds from a specialized Instellarms 9mm pistol, the likes of which had not been seen since the Fifth Frontier War. The bullets tore through the electronic brain, the F+ power core, and several key connections outward from the torso. Such was the Spectacular Performance that Qithka01 relayed to her audience this night.

 

[The Pakkrat]

That she had retold this battle and confrontation against Virus rekindled hope in the Vargr of the Thoengling Empire here in the Asteroid world of Orsesokhin. The Thoengling people had lost most of their member worlds to Virus infections in the early decades of the Collapse. Refugees from core-trailing worlds still trickled in, their faces traumatized and bodies scarred by what they had escaped. The Wilds, worlds lost to Virus infections were now an unknown frontier of aging Strains of evolving but crippled entities vying to hold onto a raison d’etre, something to justify their existence. The audience had been given a flash in the pan glimmer of that hope for a future. As she removed backstage, Qithka01 or simply Qithka now, closed and locked her dressing room door. No reporters, no managers, and no fawning fans. She could breathe again normally. She could be herself and not some Dame reiterated out of the annals of legend. Her black ring tail could still itself.

Just before tonight’s “Stellar Performance”, she had received notice that the refit of the 200ton Fast Far Scout, the Sixth Horizon was complete, the testing flights registering all-Green. Gevaudan’s old Imperial wedge ship was reborn anew and under Thoengling Empire technology insulating the Pack Cannagrrh vessel that had seen so much and done so much. But that too was another epic. It was a new ship and had a new mission ahead of her. Qithka vowed to make good use of her late brother-uncle’s upgraded design.


Just now truly age 3, age 21, or age 133 depending on her context, the Relict Clone Qithka01 brushed out her stage makeup and tail, high-tech stuff that flecked off with the right brush. That evil black ring, a reminding genetic marker change again told Qithka that she was still young in body though a centenarian in mind. Finally of drinking age, voting age, and general majority, Qithka had been showered with propositions from Famous and powerful suitors. But those mates would be in danger. Qithka01 had learned shortly after her inception - rebirth - that her Life Insurance policy holder Zirunkariish Insurance and Healthcare was under suspicion of tapping BeastMasters LIC, a company that geneered pets for favorable traits. It had been suspected only, a topic of insterstellar rumor that grew into a conflagration of insulted racial pride. Had BeastMasters tampered with the original Dame’s genetics to ‘improve’ or at least modify what the Ancients had gifted to the Vargr of Lair? Was Qithka01 somehow impure? Because of the Dame’s Fame and patient confidentiality, Zirunkariish could not divulge any personal healthcare information or PHI on the Relict Clone despite courts failing to justify any order otherwise. Her then cloning facility arcology had been bombed and imploded by demolitions shape charges in hopes of killing Qithka01 and ending the “genetic impurity” proven or simply suspected. But Qithka01 had escaped Vincennes (Deneb 1122) just beforehand. On the run, the young Relict Clone had hitched a ride on an unknown but special Vargr Armed Junker, the Arrkolltsue. But that too was another epic in coming home. Qithka01 had yet to author that tale.

 

[The Pakkrat]

It was seeing the arrival gate doors open at the local Beltport here in Orsesokhin, all the young cubs and shell-shocked parents released from the horrors of the Wilds that gave Qithka01 Cannagrrh a new purpose, a new mission. And it was one that she hoped her predecessor Dame would approve of. It was information gathering. A mapping survey would be valuable to the reclamation of the Gvurrdon Wilds. Maps were nigh state secrets. Here in Gvurrdon, most Starport A cartography departments only had aging data on worlds within five parsecs. Taking a Scout into the forsaken and unknown worlds just beyond the Quarantine Lines was seen as foolish and risky at best. At worst, it could puncture the security of the Line and result in Naval actions. And the current Navy asked no questions. They shot first and picked through the wreckage for answers later.

Much like Qithka’s rebirth, the Sixth Horizon refit was parallel to hers. The original vessel had been constructed by Ling Standard Products at Lunion inside what was the Third Imperium of 1110, in the Spinward Marches Sector. Qithka01 knew this because the Dame remembered the day Gevaudan had toured the Tech 14 ship to her, her attaché Uthka Varzeekh and the remaining members of the Artemis Group. Gev had secretly designed and had constructed the Fast Far Scout just before his and Uthka’s exile sentence from none other than the new Archduke of Deneb Norris. Again, epics from Qithka’s past welled up only to be dusted off and returned to the shelves of her vast and inherited memory. She was three years out of the cloning vats, and now the Sixth Horizon was fresh from drydock. The message the Relict Clone had received said it was waiting her inspection here in Orsesokhin. Currently the upgraded, Tech 15 ship was guarded by Brother Strain Servitor Robots that Gevaudan had purchased and named Vincent and Bob. Yet another chapter in Gev’s exile and coreward journey home. Qithka01 had paid through the nose in Rogue-dirty credits, Ship Shares, and incentive advances from Pack Vizier Zhevra Cannagrrh to force Qithka out the front door of Cannagrrh Villa before cloning reiteration became a media stain on the Pack. A ship and the freedom to go where she willed? Done! That was what she had desired ever since waking up in a vat of nutrient gel on Vincennes.

Qithka01 Cannagrrh was rebellious, far more roguish than her Pattern Mother. She was diverging from the original now, seeing herself as a new person with skills, memories, and inheritance of a Dame, a Knight, a “Blooded Fang” from the Vargr Extents. Ancients, she would never bite another thorny rose on camera again! To aggravate this diversion from the Dame, Qithka01 had come back to the Dzen Aeng Kho and refused to re-take the Equality Test, the stupidest stratification exams cooked up by the Society of Equals to partition the Gvegh citizens into Equals, Inequal failures of the Test, Unequal refusers of the Test, and the non-citizen slaves. It was detestable and Qithka had to explain this to Esksa Relltsou on her escape journey from Vincennes and the Regency. She could not help where the Dame had been born, change an entire polity still stuck in the 1100s. The Society of Equals or Dzen Aeng Kho in Gvegh language, was inevitably rotting from within anyhow. But the lecture Qithka01 gave Esksa did give her an idea. Upon returning to Dzuerongvoe, she refused to take the Test, donning the gray waist belt and head muzzle harness of the protesting Unequals. This shocked the polity because of the Fame and scandalous twist of fate Qithka01 presented. The popular Entertainer, their propaganda actress for Kfan Uzangou magazine, field reporter of the Fifth Frontier War, paragon of Gvegh everywhere had just thumb-clawed her nose at their Equality Test, an exam that opened career doors or closed them on failures. Qithka01 Cannagrrh had no need for higher opportunities, better paying careers, high society. She was done with all that. Slipping on and buckling the belts before Society of Equals Parliament of Worlds and their Agents, Qithka01 walked out a Relict Clone with all the money, prestige, and power she could ever want. The news media inside the Dzen Aeng Kho ranted, raged, and simmered at her exit from the public eye. Here in Orsesokhin, outside the communist Society of Equals, Qithka01 Cannagrrh had no need for her Unequal belts on stage. But offstage, the Relict Clone continued to wear them daily as a silent, visible, public protest against the Equality Test, an exam that promised mutilation fangs loss for those who failed to pass the Test the Inequals. It was humiliating for the Inequals who at least tried. The Unequals were seen as cowards for never trying. But the painful loss without anesthesia of one’s fangs was a mutilation and social stigma gone too far for far too long. Qithka01 by conscious choice became an Unequal in this lifetime.

"Are we going or are we to debate my sociopolitical choices now?"

 

[The Pakkrat]

Yes, Qithka01 Cannagrrh had her work cut out for her. She had a ship to claim for its maiden voyage, a book to write, two sane Robots to tech-sit for Zhevra Cannagrrh, a crew to hire, and a mission to map the Wilds. It was this or rot in the shadow of her Pattern Mother’s Fame, notoriety the reiterated Qithka did not enjoy. Tonight, anyone with a ranged weapon could have ended her from the unseen audience in the local theater. Qithka01 had already dodged her fair share of Zirunkariish reclaimers and BeastMasters exterminators, all on the rumor that she had been genetically enhanced or at least modified by a scientist of the latter who hung himself, taking the truth to the Human afterlife with him. And still, royalties and grants from tonight’s performance were swelling Qithka01’s account, begging her to stay and portray the Dame for them once more.

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