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Contact Us:
General
Family Album
Holiday Diaries
Andy
Amateur Radio
Archery
Computing
Professional Details
Role Playing
Art Narrative (MGH)
Ken
Tom
Trudi
The words and artwork on this page have been prepared and created by Mark Hirst. Full information and additional examples of his work can be found on his website.
The origins of the narrative were inspired by a few of the early pictures and reminisences of our role playing college days. Now tempered by more recent science fiction offerings the orignal worlds of Marks Traveller™ creation see life some 20 or so years since we adventured there in this continuing storyline. The cycle is now complete as the storyline serves as an inspiration for the artwork which originally spawned the story.
Years after the Hycaron incident, people still talk to me 'bout how they hate the Lazloi. They talk 'bout 'em like they was evil.
Sure I understand. The Lazloi caused the Great Twilight, lot of people still hurtin' 'cos of that. But they did what they had to.
People didn't see it like I did.
The explosion filled the sky, a great ball of light. The ground was shakin' and I was thrown to the ground. Then it went dark, I mean like pitch black, darkest night you've ever seen. There was a loud bang, rocks splittin' and dust and stones and noise. I just closed my eyes and waited to die.
When I opened my eyes again and it was still pitch black, there was no light at all. The only sound was this buzzin', snarlin' hum. Felt cold and the air was so still. Called out to Chan and Carlin. Chan was cursing over a broken arm, man he was swearin'. Knew we weren't dead then, don't think they'd allow that kinda talk in the afterlife.
Tried calling Carlin but he didn't reply, remembered he was further away so I hollered louder. Didn't know he was dead till later. Found Chan in the dark by sound, said he broke his arm on a rock. We stuck to each other pretty tight.
Seemed like hours before I heard her voice. She seemed to be moaning, sounded hurt, delirious. Then a light, a speck of light just hangin' there. I could see her lying on the ground, think she was hurt bad, blood down her face. One of them androids was standing there, looked kinda lost, think it needed orders, but she was hurt real bad.
I tried going to the light with Chan but the other android appeared and blocked our way. Think they were as scared as we were. So we just sat there, eyes fixed on the light and watched the Lazloi. She drifted in and out for hours and the androids just stood there waitin'. Must have been like that for a day, sitting in the darkness, watchin' that light.
Think I slept through most of it.
Next day sometime, the darkness snapped off; boom, just like that. The light blinded us and then it went dark again. I was blinking stars. Few minutes later, boom, the light came back again for few seconds. Kept going like that for an hour before the light came back for good.
Sun was high in the sky and it was real hot. Looked 'round and saw the ship on its side. Looked like it hit a rock outcrop, pushed by the explosion. Ship had torn a big gouge in the ground, must've been smacked real hard. There was this big circle of stones and dust 'round us too.
Think it was another hour 'fore Kleneptra woke up. First time I saw how quick Lazloi heal. She slammed her head hard on a rock and now she was up and walkin' like it never happened. Tried to talk to her but she went to the ship, touchin' it, talkin' to it, like it was alive. I screamed at her to find Carlin. That got her attention. She said he was dead, she said he was outside the force wall.
Said she was sorry an' all.
Took a while to get the ship's door open. Kleneptra took us inside but it was dark. The blue metal felt cool and smooth. Saw no scratches, not even where it had torn through the rocks. She tried talking to the ship again but it was silent. I guess the explosion must have shaken up stuff inside real good.
First time I'd seen her scared, wasn't the last either...
-- Elise Mackie, former merc, Hycaron II
I've shared Siandyha's bed for over two years. Naturally, I was the first to see the early signs of change.
At first it was an occasional grey hair lying on the pillow in the morning. I joked with her that age was catching up, but her reproachful scowl silenced my humour.
Her grey hairs soon became white hairs. These were not the thick inflexible hairs of age, but gossamer soft with an inner glow.
When we make love, I can feel the changes in her body. Her skin is softer, her arms stronger, and she seems to have a luminescence of her own. When those changes became more pronounced, I saw the bruises on her arms; the bleeding under the finger nails and felt the heat under her skin.
During one night of passion, she hurt me with her new strength. I cried then because I didn't understand, she had always been so gentle with me. She cried too, frightened of what was happening to her.
Travelling across the abyss, jumping from one ruined star system to another, it grew worse for her. The strain of avoiding the debris of shattered planets and exploded stars was a great burden.
Everyday, she went down to the cargo deck to examine the stone artefact. She asked Cyana endless questions about the markings. So far we have been lucky and it is Siandyha's skill and intuition that has kept us alive.
It seems clear now that the Tiesian Gap is not a random redistribution of stars designed to thwart commerce and law enforcement. It is the result of a destructive agency that has systematically annihilated one star system after another. Planets and asteroids wander aimlessly in all directions, their anchor point now dark wisps of gas and dust.
This lack of refuelling points is why no previous expeditions into the Gap have succeeded. It is only the retrofitted Lazloi power plant that energises our human jump drive, which has sustained the Thunderbolt through these barren and broken lands.
Lying against Siandyha's damp skin, listening to her sleeping, I wonder about the world we have landed on.
Is the Tiesian Gap the result of some terrible war, or is it a barrier, a firebreak perhaps, designed to isolate this area of space and keep its dangers forever out of reach..?
-- The Journal of Tara Alessia, Security Officer of the Thunderbolt
First thing I did after we returned to the group was to spew my guts out.
My orders had been clear, to separate from the main group and to move into to a new location within the starport.
The over watch team on the Nike Athena said they had got a fix on the anomaly and gave us precise coordinates to investigate.
Something about the officer's face told me something wasn't right. I asked him if they had a visual on the target but he didn't answer. I asked him about our extract, how we're gonna leave when the operation was over. He said he didn't know. I asked him again and he just said nothing. I knew then that he was talking to a dead woman.
I explained the orders to the group but nobody had much to say. The sound of that poor kid kept playing in our heads. Every sound or movement had become an imagined horror. We must have pumped hundreds of rounds into innocent doors and windows that night.
I told them to stay but I know they wanted to come with us. I think we all thought that if we became separated, we'd never find each other again.
We rolled forward on one engine watching the counter on the positioning system falling down towards zero. Behind, I could see the rest of the group watching us through 'scopes. I fixed that sight in my mind, it might be the last time I would see them.
Ahead of us, an occasional dyybuk would wander across our path but they seemed fixed on their purpose and ignored us. I could see that they were moving from the location and it wasn't hard to miss it now we were closer.
The lagoon was like many of the others, except that it was emitting steam and vapours that filled the air with a thick haze. Our NBC system kept the worst of it out so we could get closer, closer to see what lay inside.
There were these things, moving, consuming, killing. Dyybuks moved around them tending and cleaning them. Occasionally, one of these things got hungry and took a piece from a dybbuk. The dyybuks would stumble and carry on missing a limb or a hand until they were rendered useless. The useless ones then hurled themselves into a waiting maw.
It was then that I saw the Sansica Corporation team moving around the edge of the abyss. They seemed intact talking amongst themselves and using their instruments. I couldn't believe that they had been so close to us all this time.
Only when they turned and looked at us with their empty torn faces did I realise why we'd never got an answer. They pointed at us silently and in the pit, shapes began to move.
I told the driver to start the second engine and we retraced our path, smashing through anything that got in our way. In the rear view sensors, I could see the pits of hell opening up and from it, apparitions and shapes from a dark and dreamy place.
As I coughed and sputtered, I screamed at the rest of them to get in their vehicles and go. They looked at me as though I had gone insane.
In retrospect of course, I realise that they were right...
-- Mission log of Lieutenant Ara Mercator, Recon Group
-- Mission Clock: 32 hours, 21 minutes, 42 seconds
A week is a lifetime when you think you'll lose it.
Our escape from Illaria City seems like a miracle now. Three huge vehicles tearing along the freeways, monsters snapping at our heels. The dyybuks were no problem, but other things came for us too, most on foot, some on many feet. I still wake up shivering, thinking about those.
You might call it a case of deus ex machina, except no gods or prophets were involved. People call the Lazloi angels, so I guess it isn't so wrong, but I don't think they did it for our benefit.
I should have been looking ahead like the others; I guess I was still a little crazy in those first few hours. The scene unfolding behind us transfixed me. We'd reach an obstruction, cars or trucks usually, and suddenly the size of our vehicle would become a life or death liability.
While we manoeuvred or shunted our way past, the writhing forms would gain on us, so close we could start to hear their jabbering talk. We'd speed away again, moving back and forth across the highway between the cars until our pursuers were distant once more.
It went like that for over half an hour, right until we made a wrong turn.
We made for the bridge but discovered there was a toll station, big enough for cars and trucks, but too small for an off world vehicle. We turned round but it was too late; there on the bridge approach, the armies of hell came for us.
Even with our ammo, we knew there was no way to hold them off, so we figured we'd have to jump over the side.
None of us was prepared for the blue lance that came out of the sky.
I'd seen a meson gun in action on exercises but this was something else. Again and again, the beam slammed into the starport lagoon sending geysers of steam and debris high into the air. In seconds, a pall of smoke and ash began rising but the beam did not stop. It snapped on and off like liquid lightning.
We were just as transfixed by the sight as the hordes that faced us. Suddenly their purpose was gone, their cries silenced, and they shifted uncertainly. Breaking the trance, I gave the order to lay some TDX across the barriers of three truck lanes.
We worked fast as the beam lit up the daylight sky thinking that at any moment, we'd have to start shooting or jumping. When the TDX levelled the barriers, barely a handful of the creatures noticed and those we dispatched with a couple of clips from the RAM grenade launcher. We bounced over the debris in turn watching the blue beam starting to seek out targets across the city. Only then did the creatures start to move, not after us, but in every direction.
It was though some controlling mind or intelligence had gone.
The hours and days that followed went quickly. We'd only encountered the invaders near inhabited areas so we pushed further into the hinterland. Our attempts to contact the Nike Aegis and her sister ships were in vain and it was only on the second day that we knew why.
We spotted a Lazloi ship with our telescope in a lonely orbit, drifting and apparently damaged. We could only guess the fate of our support ships, scared away, or perhaps destroyed.
On day four we were clear of habitation for many miles and with the looted spoils of far flung supermarkets feeding, fuelling and clothing us, were able to stop and consider our next move. Our first priority was a bath. To be frank, both men and women, we all stank, and a few of us needed it more than others.
Looks like we're stuck here, surrounded by the remnants of civilisation, and under the constant threat of the alien invaders. We hope that other teams dropped with us have also survived, but our radios won't go that far. The jamming has stopped, but there are plenty of monsters out there. Perhaps we'll find a spacecraft and get off this rock.
Whatever happens, the adventure has just begun...
-- Mission log of Lieutenant Ara Mercator, Recon Group
-- Mission Clock: 117 hours, 7 minutes, 15 seconds
These days, my life flits between terror and the hazy dreams of the doctor's needle.
When the cold sober world comes back to haunt me, I lie in the corner and huddle beneath a blanket, the soft whine and growl of the engine fills my ears.
The others try not to notice me, ignoring my crying, only intervening if they think I might hurt myself.
You see, I never saw hell before.
Only when that sharp itch hits my arm, and the cool smooth waves wash through me, can I remember how it used to be. I feel the cold water above me, the blue flickering light of the surface beckoning me to rise. I strike out and swim strongly, watching the light coming to greet me. Each kick of my legs draws me closer to the air and I feel the new me falling away.
I draw in the air and I am strong. They look at me again and we talk about things. We fight and kill the enemy and for a while, I feel OK.
You see, I never saw hell before.
I saw things that day, things that walk, things that crawl, things that fly.
The dyybuk is what remains of the people who lived here, it shambles about, biting and scratching, it is the eyes and ears of the invaders, as long as it doesn't touch you, it is of no real danger.
There's another kind of humanoid too, a strange blend of human and vegetative material, stronger and more dangerous, but no less vulnerable to our weapons.
Of the others, we know very little. We saw them from a distance in Illaria city but out here in the hinterland, they seem quite rare. Not that we don't come across their handiwork.
One appears to be humanoid but with great stature. It has an affinity for metals and machinery; it will grow itself around plates of metal and pieces of technology and fuses blades and shards of metal into its arms as weapons. We saw its footprints amongst the shattered body parts of villagers, eaten or torn apart.
I try not to think about the others, I really do, I think that maybe I'll forget them. I think maybe I'll forget everything.
If the needle won't do it, there's a planets worth of alcohol out there that'll do the job just as good.
You see, I never saw hell before...
-- Mission log of Lieutenant Ara Mercator, Recon Group
-- Mission Clock: 689 hours, 34 minutes, 35 seconds
You look back at your life when things go wrong, trying to remember the moment that changed it all.
I was thinkin' that it was a thoughtless word, a clumsy action, or just desperation.
Kleneptra was so nice to us. Everyday, she'd greet us with a delicate smile, offerin' food an' water from her shrinkin' supplies. She seemed kinda shy, didn't speak much neither.
If she weren't tryin' to fix her ship, she'd sit on her own, singin' these sad but beautiful songs.
I think maybe it started when she decided to go explorin'. I guess she never told us to come, but we tagged along anyway. We found more water but I think she wanted to find somethin' else. She kept on like she never got tired, but we couldn't keep up. Chan would shout for her to stop, but she'd smile and keep goin'.
I dunno, somethin' snapped I guess. Chan really lost it, he shouted and screamed at her. Told her she had to stop or we'd die, cursing her for letting all those people die, for letting Ambrakh die, for letting Carlin die.
She kinda stood there and blinked, I think that hurt her. Chan seemed crazy, maybe it was the heat, but for a moment his hand was raised, I thought he was gonna hit her.
So we turned round and headed back for the ship and nothin' was said for hours afterwards.
Now I think 'bout it, it was a few days later when I'd been ill with fever. I woke up to find Chan looking dishevelled and tired. I thought maybe, his arm was givin' him a problem, but it looked like he'd been in a fight. I saw a crack in his body armour; looked like somebody had punched him there. Man, it looked like a train hit him.
I asked him what happened but he wasn't gonna tell, like he was in some kinda shock. I tried askin' Kleneptra but when I caught her gaze, she'd just look away; at other times though, I'd see her looking at Chan. It was the look of a predator, regarding its prey.
From then on, the air was poison...
-- Elise Mackie, former merc, Hycaron II.
For those with faith, the wide profusion of life across myriad worlds is a challenge to their culture-centric view of their self-importance in the universe.
Even when faced with ample evidence that life has evolved and changed over untold millennia, they still cling to the notion that a god created them after its own image in a flash of bored inspiration.
To a xeno-archeologist, the record of life is a wonder to behold, undeserving of a simple and dogmatic story, conveniently couched in the narrow prejudices of one particular world.
Archaeological research shows wave after wave of minor alien cultures rising and falling over the long years. While much of those civilisations have been lost, each successive wave leaves its mark on the next generation of usurpers to rule the stars.
Measured on that scale, the current rule of man is but a footnote to history, a paragraph easily forgotten in the cosmic narrative.
Unlike the doctrines of religious conformity, the current theory of how civilisations have shaped our surroundings pretends to be a fluid and dynamic structure, constantly in flux as new evidence challenges the status quo. What I can relate now is only the current view of who came before us.
It was believed that prior to our current civilisation, encompassing the varied human populations of the Imperium, and the alien races such as the Vagr, Aslan and Hivers, there was one great over arching culture known as the Ancients. The Ancients manipulation and interference of early humanity gave rise to the varied human cultures across space.
While our knowledge in that area continues to grow, there are great mysteries that remain unsolved. Did the Ancients destroy themselves in a great civil war, leaving shattered worlds and asteroid belts in their wake? Did they tire of this part of space and simply moved elsewhere?
My preoccupation has been with the dark ages that must have ensued after their fall. For nearly three hundred thousand years, the official historical record does not show any significant cultures until the rise of the First Imperium. In all that time, did no race or culture ever aspire to explore and dominate the stars?
Since my experiences both before and after the Hycaron II disaster, and my association with Captain Rhand in her dealings with the Lazloi, I am forced to conclude that other great powers must have existed in that time.
Since the Lazloi are adamant their Creators were not the Ancients, who else could have performed the intricate genetic changes that made the Lazloi what they are, cursing them with isolation and slow decline? Who else indeed, could have bequeathed the Lazloi with their extraordinary technology?
A similar conundrum confronts us on this nameless world. Who created the vaulted city-sized megastructures we have found here? Rhand says they are older than the Lazloi, but they seem too new for Ancient origins.
Until we can enter these great mechanisms, we will know nothing more. I have asked Jaimila, our resident 'Jack-of-all-Trades', to find a way inside...
-- Cyana Bristo, formerly of the Imperial Scout Service
