Newbie Galactic Combat II - Story Thread

[Ruatha]

Re: Zaxxon of the Zax's
posted by: tbontob Posted 1 hour ago
Fri, Dec 13 at 03:51:10 EST
Days had passed since Zaxxon relapse.

One day, he would be overwhelmed by his need to see his beloved Zaxxoness. He would call out his retinue and preparations would be made for the departure to Elstonile.

He would only change his mind when his good friend Eston spoke of "treason" and the certainty of his death by hanging.

Zaxxon would then be depressed for days.

Then he would be overwhelmed by his love for his beloved Zaxxoness and again he would give orders to travel. Eston would again convince him that the Zaxxoness would rather have a live and responsive Zaxxon than a dead one.

This cycle repeated itself over and over.

Zaxxon lost weight. His scales lost luster and hung limply from his frame. He became hollow-eyed and his bright red skin turned to a mottled pink and yellow patchwork.

Zaxxon started to mumble about his Zaxxoness...how beautiful she was...her incredible gentleness...her loving gestures...how delicate she was...her sacrifices...her inability to defend herself, both verbally and physically...and how he must have offended her so deeply for her to leave him.

He found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on sociey matters. His lack of attention to matters of import, meant that the society was becoming rudderless at a time when it could least affort to do so. The society was beginning to fall apart.

Finally, Zaxxon could take it no longer and begged his friend to go to the Zaxxoness and convince her of his undying love for her.

"Tell her how much I love her and how much she means to me. And how much I love the children. But do it gently since she is of a very delicate nature and so easily wounded."

Eston prepared for the journey to Elstonile and left the next day with a retinue of loyal Zax nobility and castle guards.

Zaxxon's spirits lifted with the making of this decision and was again able to focus on matters of importance.

He wanted to know more of the organic device that was used to spy on Ruatha's court and asked to see Spiii, head of his intelligence agency

Spiii had this to say:

They came upon Avrel when he was a student 20 years ago. He was in a serious accident and during the operations to repair his body they were able to implant the device without his knowledge.

It was only by sheer good luck that Avrel became an Intelligence officer in the Divine Intelligence Service.

The organic device needs power to transmit information but as the body is a poor producer of electrical energy, it can be dormant for years until the person becomes emotionally charged.

Then suddenly the message of Ruatha's insanity came through loud and clear.

We believe that Avrel must have had such a deep, undying love for his emporer/god, that his deep distress over Ruatha's condition resulted in enough energy to transmit the data.

Zaxxon asked "Then this device is really of limited usefulness?"

Spiii thought and then reluctantly resonded with "Essentially yes"

Zaxxon: "So not only did we go to inordinate expense to implant the device, we did it on the very remote chance he may be associated with Ruatha and not become a simple cobbler or baker."

"Yes"

"Well, if I was Ruatha, I would be laughing my head off! He must believe we are total incompetents to do something like this! We do not know if Ruatha is mad, temporarily mad or if only Avrel thought he was mad and he really is sane."

"Uhhh..yes"

"So, this device did nothing for us! We do not know if Ruatha is really sane or not. And as such, it contributes little if anything to our knowledge base of Ruatha and his empire."

"Uhhh...well yes"

"Dolts! The purpose of espionage is either to improve our situation of make the other's worse in some way. Neither of these things happened! Let's just hope Ruatha never finds out about it for the logical conclusion would be that we are so stupid that we would be easy prey for his empire!"

Spiii agreed with, "You are right! I will see to the entire revamping of our espionage bureau to ensure all future expenditures meet those requirements."

"See to it! I would be particularly interested in what you can learn about the CCCP."