I've never been good at delivering speeches. Even worse at writing them. I never seem to quite find the tone I'm reaching for when I'm trying to get people to listen. Fortunately, I don't have to deliver a lot of them. The folks on Hale's Moon have never been for long winded speeches in any case. When they elected me Mayor the first time, my acceptance speech consisted of "Thanks, folks. I'll try and do you proud." It went over well.
But now, standing in the midst of two hundred odd colonists packed into Fook Yoo's and damn near everyone else watching on a screen somewhere nearby, I hoped I'd be able to say what I felt. There were so many people here who'd touched my life, saved me from who I'd been when I arrived, made me feel welcome and wanted without caring about who I'd been before. I owed them a lot. More than they owed me, and I sincerely hoped I'd managed to do them proud.
"Relax, Boss, you'll do fine. Now get your skinny ass up there," Genni chided me, giving me a gentle nudge towards the stage. In the two years she'd been my assistant and the three she'd been Deputy Mayor, we'd grown close. Who'd have thought our friendship started after she shot me? Now, years later, I'd be turning the colony over into her capable hands. From disgruntled colonist, to Town Elder and mother of three.
I nodded, gave her a hug, and started working my way through the throng. I knew all these people. Colonists and visitors alike. Folks from Shadow, Washtown, Burnholme, Suzhou, half a dozen other Rim worlds. Folk from Blackburne who'd settled here after the Reavers wrecked their colony four years ago.
The people in this room had changed with me over the last few years. Some more than others. Little Jin, growing from an enthusiastic, gearhead, orphan to a strapping 17 year old who'd learned to shoot from General and Duncan, and learned to wrench from Sabrina. Uncle Sobi and Lady Jade, married two years now, watching the crowd arm in arm from the loft. Krenshar, the machine with a soul, sporting a new skin around the same core chassis. General, talking quietly with Belize in the loft opposite Sobi and Jade, mellower, more mature, the anger that'd driven him now years behind. Lilybell. My Mei Mei. Standing with Krenshar, watching, knowing what I was going to say, a look of both sorrow and joy on her engineered feline features. And somewhere, somewhere unseen, Aurora and Blue, watching as well.
At least I hoped they were watching. Somewhere.
Folks quieted quickly when I stepped up onto the small stage between the two well worn dance poles, voices fading to a murmur then actual quiet, waiting for me to speak.
"Good morning, Citizens. Thank you all for coming here or watching on the feeds," I started, settling into a nice, protective, zen-like calm. "First, thank you for letting me serve as your Mayor for a full term and now re-electing me for another. Can only guess you're glad it gave the folks looking to harm us a better target than your fine selves."
I let the round of light laughter subside. it had been a running joke for years that I'd been elected more for my ability to attract bullets away from the townspeople than my ability to lead. In fact, it wasn't entirely a joke as I'd caught more than one bullet over the years as Mayor.
"As many of you know, I've been offered the Executive Officer position aboard Children of Earth for her mission back to Earth that Was. My wife, Sabrina, and Doctor Carver, have also been offered positions on the crew, as Chief Engineer and Medical Officer. After a lot of soul searching, and talking to the Town Elders, we've decided, all three of us, to take the assignment," I waited a few moments for the crowd to absorb what many of them already knew, and the murmurs to die away.
"To that end, I'll be resigning my position as Mayor of Hale's Moon effective the end of next week. With the Elder's blessing, Genni Foxtrot will take over in my place until you fine folk decide whether to let her finish out my term or to hold another round of elections."
"If we shoot ya again, will ya stay?" I heard from the back of the crowd, followed by a wave of laughter. The familiar voice of Sam Foxtrot, Genni's husband.
"Sorry, Samuel. This decision has been a long time coming. It's been a pleasure and a privilege to serve as your Mayor, and I hope I've managed to keep my promise of doing you folk proud. We've stood together through interesting times. We've fought back to back against enemies and the elements, and I can't think of a finer group of people to have done it with. We've survived some major challenges together. We've shared both suffering and joy on this little slice of Heaven. But the fact was we had to choose before the opportunity burned a hole in the Black, and we've chosen to go."
I looked across the room, the sea of faces. Some smiling, others nodding, showing signs of acceptance or regret. Sadness. Joy. Hope. Loss. These were good folk and I would miss them.
"Some of us have had our differences over the last few years," I said, looking directly at Genni across the room to another round of laughter, bringing a hand up to rub the spot on my chest where she'd put a bullet into my armor. "But the fact is, I'll miss all of you. I've tried to give enough time to get everything in order before we leave, but I know you'll be in good hands. So rather then us dwelling on departures, let's have ourselves a little shindig and celebrate the ongoing prosperity of Hale's Moon."
I waved to a round of friendly cheers and laughter, stepping off the small stage to give Sabrina a hug. It was a brief speech. Probably didn't say all it could have. How could it? I was saying good by to the colony I'd called home for over five years to set of on a one way trip to a world out of legend. Half these folk probably thought I was toppyoushimonai, and I might well have been. Over the next few days I was pretty sure more than one person here would try and talk me out of it, but we'd made the decision. Sabrina and Belize and I. We were going.
Butsuriki help us. We were going.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Prelude
Good advice sometimes comes in very simple terms. "Her think you should go." Lily had a way of making simple, direct, statements, and this was certainly one of them. I wasn't even sure how the conversation had come up, other then in the quiet aftermath of a post 're-elect the Mayor to another four year term' shindig.
My first term had been, shall we say, eventful. In the four years since I'd first gotten elected Mayor of a little backwater mining colony, we'd fought wars against Loyalists, Reavers, and Machines, and lived to tell the tales.
We'd seen new lives come into the world, and old friends leave it. We'd watched a colony of barely three hundred fifty people grow to over fifteen hundred souls, thriving on a world that we had to update the terraforming ourselves to make it possible.
We'd seen the Independence movement sweep through the Rim worlds. Rising up, as half a dozen worlds declared their succession from the Alliance, then die back down as those same worlds either worked out some kind of truce with the vastly more powerful Alliance, or fell beneath that same unstoppable force.
We'd seen the Reavers flare up into violence then die out as quickly and violently as they'd come, leaving death and terror in their wake until that one, final, massive, battle, that ended their reign of terror. Now there were just scattered tribes, dieing out as Entropy ended their collective span.
And the machines. Those accursed machines. Designed to help rebuild after the first Unification War, then perverted into weapons by the self serving hardliners who still had factions interwoven into the fabric of the Alliance. They'd been a quiet scourge on at least half a dozen known worlds, and possibly many more unknown ones.
For the last few months though, we'd been able to pretend the Machines were gone. While we couldn't be sure they'd been eliminated, the last attack we could attribute to the weaponized von Neumann mining machines was almost four months back. Long enough to give us a sense that maybe, just maybe, they threat was gone.
The quiet, the stability, was why Lily thought I should go: Take Grandfather's offer of the Executive Officer position on Children of Earth and leave all this behind for one grand adventure. His offer had been standing for years. Literally. Long delayed, the ship was still at least a year from completion and the crew selection still not finalized. Grandfather had wanted me to serve as the ship's XO for at least the last five years, even knowing it was essentially a one way mission. While we could come back, the round trip was over a hundred standard years.
For all her being the fastest ship ever designed, the journey from 34 Tauri to Sol was a long one. Bound by the absolute limit of lightspeed. The crew would have the advantage of the most advanced hibernation systems ever designed, and a long time at relativistic speeds, but everyone the crew knew when the left would be long dead by the time they returned.
If they returned.
It was potentially the second greatest adventure Humanity would ever undertake. All contact with Earth that Was had been lost shortly after the first colony ships arrived in the 34 Tauri system hundreds of years ago. With all the struggles of trying to settle into Humanity's new home, our birthplace was almost forgotten. The stuff of legends. To this day, Earth that Was was spoken of as a mythical place, but none of us knew anything that wasn't in a history book.
Sure, there had been attempted contacts in the past. There were at least three documented cases of scientists in the pre-Alliance days trying to get a signal back to Earth, Luna, or Mars, with a high power comms maser. None of which ever heard a reply. Not that the reply would have come back within the lifetime of the person sending the signal. There were also at least two automated probes, neither of which ever reported home. System failures? Somethine ate them in Sol system? No one knew. But twenty years ago the Interworld Science Foundation had proposed the idea of a manned expedition back to Earth that Was. Humanity deserved to know what had become of their homeworld. In respose, half a dozen of the best naval architects in the 'Verse had submitted designs for consideration - should the project actually be funded. Of them, one showed actual promise.
Children of Earth was the magnum opus of Kawanishi Heavy Industry Ltd's most talented, and eccentric, designer. A massive ship that incorporated some of the most sophisticated drive and power technologies ever devised. She would take a crew of hundreds across the stars to Humanity's homeworld and do it in record time. If only she would be built.
With the Alliance being the political quagmire it was, and the years long Unification War, it was no wonder she'd taken a decade just to be approved in principal, then years more before construction could start after updating and approving the design. But she was being built. Now, roughly a year from completion, KHI, as the shipyard and secondary sponsor, and the ISF were trying to finalize the crew selection.
And Grandfather wanted me to go. Still.
We had turned him down before, Sabrina and I. But our reasons had changed over the last few years. The priorities that kept us on the Rim were changing as the people, and the worlds around us, changed. For the first time, I could see Sabrina was actually considering the offer. Uncle Elsoph himself had recommended her to be Chief Engineer: high praise from the man who'd designed most of the great ship himself. "I'm too old." he'd said. "Your Sabrina though. She knows. She understands."
"We'll think about it, Mei Mei" was all I could say. But we would. At length. It would be a huge decision, leaving our lives here behind. When we returned, Krenshar might still be alive. Or functional, rather, since he wasn't really 'alive' to begin with. But everyone else we knew? We'd be coming home to their grandchildren, assuming the mission was a success and we came home at all.
So much to consider. And all because Lily thought we should go.
My first term had been, shall we say, eventful. In the four years since I'd first gotten elected Mayor of a little backwater mining colony, we'd fought wars against Loyalists, Reavers, and Machines, and lived to tell the tales.
We'd seen new lives come into the world, and old friends leave it. We'd watched a colony of barely three hundred fifty people grow to over fifteen hundred souls, thriving on a world that we had to update the terraforming ourselves to make it possible.
We'd seen the Independence movement sweep through the Rim worlds. Rising up, as half a dozen worlds declared their succession from the Alliance, then die back down as those same worlds either worked out some kind of truce with the vastly more powerful Alliance, or fell beneath that same unstoppable force.
We'd seen the Reavers flare up into violence then die out as quickly and violently as they'd come, leaving death and terror in their wake until that one, final, massive, battle, that ended their reign of terror. Now there were just scattered tribes, dieing out as Entropy ended their collective span.
And the machines. Those accursed machines. Designed to help rebuild after the first Unification War, then perverted into weapons by the self serving hardliners who still had factions interwoven into the fabric of the Alliance. They'd been a quiet scourge on at least half a dozen known worlds, and possibly many more unknown ones.
For the last few months though, we'd been able to pretend the Machines were gone. While we couldn't be sure they'd been eliminated, the last attack we could attribute to the weaponized von Neumann mining machines was almost four months back. Long enough to give us a sense that maybe, just maybe, they threat was gone.
The quiet, the stability, was why Lily thought I should go: Take Grandfather's offer of the Executive Officer position on Children of Earth and leave all this behind for one grand adventure. His offer had been standing for years. Literally. Long delayed, the ship was still at least a year from completion and the crew selection still not finalized. Grandfather had wanted me to serve as the ship's XO for at least the last five years, even knowing it was essentially a one way mission. While we could come back, the round trip was over a hundred standard years.
For all her being the fastest ship ever designed, the journey from 34 Tauri to Sol was a long one. Bound by the absolute limit of lightspeed. The crew would have the advantage of the most advanced hibernation systems ever designed, and a long time at relativistic speeds, but everyone the crew knew when the left would be long dead by the time they returned.
If they returned.
It was potentially the second greatest adventure Humanity would ever undertake. All contact with Earth that Was had been lost shortly after the first colony ships arrived in the 34 Tauri system hundreds of years ago. With all the struggles of trying to settle into Humanity's new home, our birthplace was almost forgotten. The stuff of legends. To this day, Earth that Was was spoken of as a mythical place, but none of us knew anything that wasn't in a history book.
Sure, there had been attempted contacts in the past. There were at least three documented cases of scientists in the pre-Alliance days trying to get a signal back to Earth, Luna, or Mars, with a high power comms maser. None of which ever heard a reply. Not that the reply would have come back within the lifetime of the person sending the signal. There were also at least two automated probes, neither of which ever reported home. System failures? Somethine ate them in Sol system? No one knew. But twenty years ago the Interworld Science Foundation had proposed the idea of a manned expedition back to Earth that Was. Humanity deserved to know what had become of their homeworld. In respose, half a dozen of the best naval architects in the 'Verse had submitted designs for consideration - should the project actually be funded. Of them, one showed actual promise.
Children of Earth was the magnum opus of Kawanishi Heavy Industry Ltd's most talented, and eccentric, designer. A massive ship that incorporated some of the most sophisticated drive and power technologies ever devised. She would take a crew of hundreds across the stars to Humanity's homeworld and do it in record time. If only she would be built.
With the Alliance being the political quagmire it was, and the years long Unification War, it was no wonder she'd taken a decade just to be approved in principal, then years more before construction could start after updating and approving the design. But she was being built. Now, roughly a year from completion, KHI, as the shipyard and secondary sponsor, and the ISF were trying to finalize the crew selection.
And Grandfather wanted me to go. Still.
We had turned him down before, Sabrina and I. But our reasons had changed over the last few years. The priorities that kept us on the Rim were changing as the people, and the worlds around us, changed. For the first time, I could see Sabrina was actually considering the offer. Uncle Elsoph himself had recommended her to be Chief Engineer: high praise from the man who'd designed most of the great ship himself. "I'm too old." he'd said. "Your Sabrina though. She knows. She understands."
"We'll think about it, Mei Mei" was all I could say. But we would. At length. It would be a huge decision, leaving our lives here behind. When we returned, Krenshar might still be alive. Or functional, rather, since he wasn't really 'alive' to begin with. But everyone else we knew? We'd be coming home to their grandchildren, assuming the mission was a success and we came home at all.
So much to consider. And all because Lily thought we should go.
The voice behind the screen
This is a work of fiction.
It's all a work of fiction, really. Those of you who've read the Lonesome Ninja Mayor know it is a Character blog - a journal of happenings in the soap opera that is the Little Ninja's life as the Mayor of Hale's Moon.
I have had a wonderful time writing it. Many of the stories though, are not my own. I am telling the happenings of the 'Verse. The shared campaign on SecondLife that encompasses half a dozen regions and dozens of characters. While I am, at least sometimes, the story coordinator for Hale's, my efforts go more towards keeping everyone else's stories straight and trying to fit them into a coherent whole than worrying about my own plot lines.
It's not easy.
But it IS fun.
This story is my own. It is pure fiction: a story that could happen in the 'Verse if we chose to let it. But it's not intended to be taken as something that will happen. If you know the Little Ninja, then you will know some of the characters. I am borrowing liberally from my friend's imaginations.
To you, I say thank you.
You inspired me.
I hope I can do your characters justice in the saga I'm going to attempt here.
This story was born out of a 'trapdoor' I wrote into Seana's background. A way to easily write her out of the campaign in such a way there would be closure - should I need it. Obviously, I haven't needed it. But this story has grown from that simple idea. It's been running around in my head form months, and now I will try and tell it.
I hope it reads well...
-S
It's all a work of fiction, really. Those of you who've read the Lonesome Ninja Mayor know it is a Character blog - a journal of happenings in the soap opera that is the Little Ninja's life as the Mayor of Hale's Moon.
I have had a wonderful time writing it. Many of the stories though, are not my own. I am telling the happenings of the 'Verse. The shared campaign on SecondLife that encompasses half a dozen regions and dozens of characters. While I am, at least sometimes, the story coordinator for Hale's, my efforts go more towards keeping everyone else's stories straight and trying to fit them into a coherent whole than worrying about my own plot lines.
It's not easy.
But it IS fun.
This story is my own. It is pure fiction: a story that could happen in the 'Verse if we chose to let it. But it's not intended to be taken as something that will happen. If you know the Little Ninja, then you will know some of the characters. I am borrowing liberally from my friend's imaginations.
To you, I say thank you.
You inspired me.
I hope I can do your characters justice in the saga I'm going to attempt here.
This story was born out of a 'trapdoor' I wrote into Seana's background. A way to easily write her out of the campaign in such a way there would be closure - should I need it. Obviously, I haven't needed it. But this story has grown from that simple idea. It's been running around in my head form months, and now I will try and tell it.
I hope it reads well...
-S
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