[geoschmo]

Yeah, yeah, here’s my papers. I’m a master chief on the Borabath. She’s that free trader docked over there. Captain Kolnoth is my boss. He’s a Gravian, Gravan, whatever they call themselves. I just call him Captain. Some kind of retired war hero I guess, but I don't know much about that, my people aren't much for fighting. He can vouch for me if you see anything out of order there, or the XO if the Captains busy. I’ve got a few hours off and I’m going to get a drink over here if you don’t mind.

What’s that? No, I don’t suppose you would recognize my kind. I wouldn’t doubt I’m the only one of my race that’s made it this far out. I’ve been making my way from system to system on whatever rust bucket I can work passage on. Got to go where the money is I always say.

Well, I’m a Rygkesh, it says so right there. No, I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of us either. Oh, don’t bother looking in your database there. I doubt anybody wasted any space on our poor little Federation in their grand histories. We barely made it out of our own homesystem. Probably never spread to more then 60 planets in our entire history.

We pretty much kept to ourselves. We were tucked way out there, you call it the eastern regions. Well away from all the goings on with the big boys. Never even fought any wars of note until the end. That’s probably why it all went downhill so quick.

We just didn’t have the concept of what it took to build a decent combat vessel. Heck the Borabath is listed as a noncombatant and she could probably fight off a squadron of the best warships the Ryngkesh could have produced in their heyday.

No, we weren't much for fighting, that’s for sure. Problem is we weren’t much for trading either. We pretty much just kept to ourselves, and the other races seemed to be ok with that. We traded with a few races close by. The Gorzaak, and the Tuskans, and later on the Suzians. But we never really got the impression that they cared much about our part of the quadrant.

What happened? Well, I’ll tell you. The Borealis Empire went crazy. You may have heard about that. Decided that we couldn’t be trusted or something. Started attacking our ships and colonies. Well, as weak as we were, even we could beat up on the Borealis.

So our leaders started getting a little uppity. Thought maybe we could play with the big boys. We started getting all sorts of patriotic garbage about defending the Federation from the zealots, and joining the Suzians and Tuskans in some grand alliance of peace. Seems to me though peace wasn't on anyone's mind really.

That’s when we made our big mistake and attacked a couple Gravey worlds in Borealis space. At least that’s what we thought they were. Turns out it was all Gravey space that the Borealis were living in.

Anyway, as you might expect they didn’t care much for us taking potshots at their backwater planets, so they stopped ignoring us. From what I hear it was less then a year after that the Gravey fleet entered our homesystem. Of course it took out a couple hundred of the Ryngkesh’s finest on the way. Didn’t even slow them down from what I hear.

Long before that though I saw what was coming and was long gone. Worked my way onto a Gorzaak transport and got as far away from there as I could.

Why did I leave? I told you. I’m a Ryngkesh. We aren’t much for fighting.