Ash and Glass Opening

Ash and Glass

It has been nearly six years since any of you have seen the light of day. You each volunteered, or were forcefully drafted, into a military research program designed to make you a more efficient tool to be used by the UFP (Union of Federated Planets) machine. The UFP is a strong government body formed by the joint dominions of the Humans, the Yasignar, the En' Fin, and the Casthian. Their alliance is held together, shakily, by a mutual need for technological sharing and cultural trade. The UFP was built to govern the alliance, and police the planets of the Federated members. There are many, though, that say the UFP has become a blood-thirsty self-propagating entity eager to capture more and more worlds at any cost.

That is where the Liberation Front comes in. The Liberation Front are attempting to undermine the power of the UFP and reestablish a government that is more peacefully minded. It is LF (Liberation Front) uniforms that you first see as you awaken from the chryo-sleep you've been trapped in for an unknown amount of time. The last thing you recall is a nurse coming into your cell in the science facility to give you your dinner for the night, and then waking up where you are now. As you come fully awake you can hear the chatter of the uniformed men and women about you.

“...like they're starting to come around. How much longer until we reach the Thoth?” A lilting female voice is asking. From her sing song articulation of the PL (PL is the common abbreviation for Universal Prime Language, a language developed to be spoken by member planets of the UFP), you can tell that she's a Cashthian.

“Forty seconds and we'll make dock with supply bay three. We'll have three minutes from then to offload and get out of here if we are to have any chance of getting back to The Silent, and into hyper, before we're caught... maybe less.” A male voice answers, human, by the thick and inarticulate accent. A feeling in the pit of your stomach lets you know that you're moving very quickly in some form of in-gravity vehicle, but you can't seem to turn your head to look around. A loud, blaring siren starts up off in the distance and the male voice speaks again, “Make that two minutes.”

The Casthian's voice again, speaking quickly and with an unmistakable note of urgency. “I didn't want things to go quite like this, but our time is up.” She seems to be addressing you and some others, though you can't see the others. “You've been liberated from a military grade science facility where you were all scheduled for termination tomorrow morning. We are about to drop you all off on a Sol class science vessel leaving wet-dock in less then two minutes. They don't know we're dropping you off, and we don't want them to. We are going to drop you, and leave. When we leave we'll create a distraction that will hopefully have the UFP off your trail long enough for the Thoth, the vessel we're leaving you on, to reach enough distance to obtain Hyper jump. Once you're in hyper no one can touch you until you come out the other end, and we're sending you on a long journey. Hopefully we'll...

The male voice interrupts. “Docking now.” His voice is followed by the sound of docking seals engaging.

You can feel yourself being moved, but you don't seem to have any control of your body yet. You can hear, and see a bit, but it's like your body won't respond to your desire to sit up. You can tell you're on some kind of stretcher, there are multiple people around you on all sides, and there appears to be other stretchers, though you can't see clearly how many or who is on them.

The Casthian female's voice starts again. “The chryo drugs are still in your systems, it will take an hour or so for them to wear off, but where we're leaving you no one will find you for at least that long. I wish we could do more, but we can't. We'll create a distraction... give you at least some chance. You'll have to run though, as soon as you reach port, probably. They'll send Runners...”

The scenery around you is changing fast, you're in a new ship now, people are moving quickly all around you. The Casthian female's voice calls from some distance away, “Good luck.” and is immediately followed by the sound of a hatch closing and sealing.