[geoschmo]

Year 2411.3

Grandow sat at his desk and felt, well, he felt relaxed actually. Is was not a feeling he was accustomed to. For the first time in years the Rebublic was not under imminent threat of attack from somewhere.

The Amon'krie for all their instability had once again agreed to a trade treaty. And this time they showed signs of keeping it. Perhaps the removal of the Zynar threat to their shipping was enough to calm them. Or perhaps they had other targets for their anger now. Grandow didn't know, and didn't really care as long as they didn't bother the Republic colonies in the Cephredi system.

Relations were still strained with the Sergetti, but they had been dealt a greivous blow by the Fazrah and were no longer a legitimate threat. The eastern fleet had easily pushed them out of the Ushphada system, destroying a significant portion of their remaining fleet in the process and capturing two Sergetti worlds mostly intact. This opened up a path to the eastern part of the galaxy and Grandow was finally able to send a ship on a peaceful mission of exploration.

The Gartok had been designed for just such a mission. Not wanting to wait until his scientists had developed the solar collectors that they had been working on for so long, Grandow ordered a ship of the largest hull available, 500Kt at this time, fitted with just a minimum of armaments and as much fuel storage as it could accomodate.

The result was a ship with a full 60% greater range than the latest attack cruisers being built. It would not be much good in a fight, but it's mission was not to fight anyway. Captain Tadminum's orders were to avoid conflict if at all possible, even if that meant finding an ion storm and hiding out if things got too rough.

The mission was to explore as far east as possible before returning to refuel, making contact with as many species as they could along the way. The Sallegans had received maps for these systems years before from the Fazrah and Cue Cappa. They had information that at least one and possibly two races lived in this part of the galaxy. Grandow wished to make contact with them both if possible.

Closer to home much progress had been made on unlocking the long baffling mystery of the ancient cities on the Narcisston gas giants. Rebublic researchers had made a breakthrough in construction techniques that allowed the building of massive floating cities. Thus the long delayed colonization of these worlds commenced. Now with researchers living and working in close proximity to the ruins the nature of them could be deciphered.

As expected they were in fact the remains of an ancient civilization. Obviously eons ago some vastly superior race had inhabited much of this galaxy. Signs of them had been discovered in several systems now, and much usable technology had been gleaned. It was now a regularly accepted theory that this ancient race was also responsible for the warp gates that all the races used so freely.

A slightly less accepted hypothesis was begining to be formulated as well. That all the known races were decendant from this ancient race. This could explain why so many of them had developed space filight around the same time Grandow thought. This was not something he expected to be proven one way or the other in his lifetime, but it was an interesting theory none the less.

The Admiral viewed his map of the known systems, trying to divine where the next threat to his people would come from. There were colored circles representing systems with Republic ships and colonies, and different colors for sytems of their partners. Several systems had triagles representing the presence of multiple races. More often than not, one of these trianlges meant there was a Norak colony in that system Grandow thought.

The Norak had been a great ally of the Republic. Their entry into the Xi'Chung war came at a crucial moment and had proven to be what tipped the balance. For this they would have Grandow's eternal gratitude. However, they had subsequently proven to be quite the little opportunists. Three times now the Sallegan's had fought hard in battle, only to have the Norak had swoop in quickly and snapped up the territory vacated by the enemy afterwards. Twice, once with the Xi'Chung and then again with the Zynars, the enemy had chosen to surrender to the Norak instead of submitting to Sallegan governance. And now in the Ushphada system where we had pushed back the Sergetti, Norak colonies come popping up like daises after a late spring snow.

And from information received from the CueCappa and Fazrah, Grandow could see that the Sallgans were not the only ones in the galaxy with a "Norak problem". They had colonies scattered across nine systems. Nothing in great strength outside of their own territory, but they seemed to be everywhere. This religion of theirs was becoming quite popular among his own people. So much so that he didn't think it wise to challange them openly at this time. But he wondered if they weren't going to be a problem someday that would have to be dealt with.