[Introducing Ben Zwycky]

Sorry it took so long to post this (for those of you who were looking forward to it), but I had some problems with my ISP and then with my new modem. I've put my old modem back in for now. Every time it didn't work I changed it a bit. It's been revised so many times that it should get straight A's . Anyway, Here we go.

[rp]Sacrifices. Like sacrificing his dream of settling down with the girl he grew up with, the girl who could instantly make his day with a little laugh. The girl who glowed in the sun. It was always a faint dream, though. It was a great comfort to him that she was really happy with the man she had chosen, and that he was a really good man. Still, it had been a very dark and lonely year at University after he found out about him, made worse by the fact that he didn't find out from her, and he still sometimes longed to hear that laugh and see that mountain-melting smile directed at him. It wasn't that he hadn't accepted her decision, but for him his decision to go to Galcom Academy signified that he had given up hope of her changing her mind. Why hadn't he told her how he felt earlier? 'because it wouldn't have worked and would have just damaged your friendship with her,' he replied to himself, 'and that will always be very precious to you.' She thought he knew about him. It was an honest mistake, but for a long time he didn't believe that, and even after he did, it didn't stop it hurting. She was still his friend, though, she still told him things she told very few others, and she still brightened his day occasionally by calling him up. It was a very welcome surprise when that happened, but afterwards the loneliness and depression returned when he thought of what might have been... 'Stop it!' He told himself, 'she's not available. It was never meant to be.' Slowly the pain subsided and he focused on the day ahead.

As he showered, dressed and ate, he thought of the things he had seen aboard this proud vessel, and how unwanted visitors had changed his life twice. First his career, then his character. The first time was four months into his service on the Svoboda as Tactical Officer. The ship was attacked by raiders in Lyrius, and was boarded by five of them. Two of them got to operations quickly where they cut Combat Officer Greg Nemec in two with a barrage of fire before being cut down themselves. Two others didn't last very long, but one very focused and determined intruder managed to get to the bridge, where he blasted Commander Jiri Bitbek in the face, killing him instantly, but in turning his rifle to the next officer in his field of view, failed to spot the young tactical officer draw his sidearm and fire, his last mistake. Ben then took on the post of commander and combat officer as he saw off the raiders ships, disabling the aestrom that launched them and towing it back to Galcom HQ. Galcom was so impressed that they were going to give him a new ship, but when the families of Commander Bitbek and Seargent Nemec requested that they not be cloned, Galcom simply made his temporary position a permanent one and gave him his choice of Combat and Tactical Officers. He chose Doug McIlroy and Steve Culper, who he'd known at Galcom Academy. At this point, he felt deep pain at the loss of two friends he deeply respected, and disgust at the waste of life for the sake of a few credits, but also overwhelming pride at his achievement, a feeling shared by his parents. He felt like he could do anything.

This was part of the cause of the second time.

The second time had a much more lasting impact. He was cruising through the Polaris system. It was one day later. He had completed enough trade runs with his shuttles between Galcom HQ and Aleri that he never needed to worry about lack of credits again. His ship was fully upgraded and fully stocked. He was planning a new training regime for his crew to turn them into the best crew in the fleet. He had just had a good session in the gym with some of the marines. He liked training with the marines because they took their fitness seriously. He was still fitter than almost all of them. (This would become part of the initiation of new marines assigned to the ship. He would arrange to meet them in the training room after a 'fitness test' and turn up incognito in his training gear. If the newbie asked where the commander was, he replied "He'll introduce himself later. Let's see how fit you are, boy." Then came the press-ups contest. After usually soundly beating them, he would introduce himself, "Hi, I'm your Commander. I was Galcom Academy decathlon champion," at which point everyone else in the room would have a good laugh. They managed to keep that little tradition a secret for a couple of years.) He was on a high. He looked at his radar screen. Nothing but blue targets. Life was good.

"Security alert! We have intruders on board. Marines assigned to search duty."

"What?! Where did they come from? How many?"

"Ten."

"Ten? I want 20 marines on search duty now! Get all the engineers back to their quarters!"

Cycling through all the targets in the region he came across the two mercenary caste Stormcarriers. Too much to take on right now.

"Cloak the ship and head back to Sol. Let's get out of here and deal with those intruders."

He switched to perscan and saw that most of the intruders were trapped in a firefight on the flight deck, but three of them had managed to avoid most of the marines and had made it to deck 1. "Do I have to do everything myself?!" he shouted as he stormed off the bridge, weapon in hand.

As he ran down the main corridor, he came across a dying systems engineer lying at the side of the corridor floor, half-leaning against the wall, who had been trying to get out of the way of the intruders. As he looked at him, all he could see was the corpse of his friend Jiri Bitbek slumped in his command chair, and a supreme anger came over him, stronger than he'd ever known before. Sure, in his immature days he'd thrown someone across a room, but even then his fits of rage had been few and far between. Nowadays he didn't get angry with anyone except himself. Until today. He met two of them a little further down the corridor and dispatched them each with two shots to the chest. Now where was the third one? As he walked past a T-junction in the corridor, he saw the third one down the other corridor, raising his weapon to fire. He dived forward into a roll, hoping to get past the corridor wall as fast as he could, but too late. Just before his leading arm touched the floor, he felt his left leg getting almost wrenched out of its socket, and after he completed the roll, he found it wouldn't support him and he couldn't feel it at all. 'That's not a good sign' he thought, then chastised himself, 'never mind that. You've got to finish him off or it won't matter'. He jumped back the way he came off his good leg, and as soon as he could see round the corner he started firing and kept on firing until the credian was down, hitting him twice in the stomach and twice in the chest. He activated his emergency beacon and personal communicator "Medical emergency! I've...been..." He looked down at his leg and saw the gaping hole where his knee should have been, the bottom half being attached to the top only by a piece of burnt and twisted skin. As he slipped from consciousness, he saw the jump anomaly start to form in front of him, then it all went black.

Four hours later he awoke in the medibay of his ship, the lower half of his body immersed in a cloning tank. His leg was almost completely grown back, although it would be at least another hour before the muscles were back to their original size and tone. Noticing he was now awake, his medical officer Linda Waddilove walked over, and his gaze momentarily switched from his withered limb to her lovely brown eyes. She smiled at him warmly, but he just looked down at himself again. (He had asked her out during his lowest time at university, and she had turned him down, saying that she didn't want a relationship with anyone at that time. (And probably because she knew that he hadn't let go of his first love.) She had met her future husband a couple of years later, just after graduating. He was a schoolteacher in her hometown. It had been a big shock to Ben to find her aboard the Svoboda, and for the first few weeks he felt really awkward around her. But he became more relaxed as he got to know her again as a colleague and a friend.)

"Dearie me, Ben, what have you been doing with yourself? Your tousers are all ripped and just look at those stains! I'm not going to let you play outside if you're not going to play nicely, young man!"

But Ben didn't feel like laughing. He thought 'I lost control. I killed three people, but maybe that was self defence. I was arrogant and overconfident. It nearly cost me my life.' His thoughts then turned to what he hadn't done.

"Wallis." He said quietly. "How's Wallis?" Her tone changed.

"Don't you worry about that. You just worry about getting some rest and getting better." She put her arms around him and held him for a while, saying "It's going to be all right, OK?", but he didn't respond. He just carried on looking down at himself despondently. She then left to attend to her other patients. She told the nurse on duty "Make sure he's fully recovered and rested before you let him out of here." She needn't have worried- he didn't feel like going anywhere. He later found out that Jim Wallis hadn't made it. They found him just too late. His inner demons had a field day with that.

'Because you just had to prove how good you are, a promising young systems engineer is dead. Five seconds. If you'd just stopped for five seconds to tell medibay where he was, he would have made it. But no, you had to somehow avenge your old commander's death at all costs, so now a five-year-old girl has to be told that she doesn't have a daddy anymore.'

When the word got around that he was taking things hard, he had similar 'it'll be OK' visits from all of his officers, which were a big help, even if he didn't appreciate it much at the time. Especially helpful was the mothering he got from his female officers,. He had always been good at bringing out the maternal instinct in the women who got to know him. Maybe it was because he looked ten years younger than his birth certificate said he was, or maybe because he was a complete romantic failure. Whatever the reason, he knew that all of them cared about him, and would be there for him, maybe even a couple admired him, but all of them were unavailable. That was good in a way, because the boundaries were then very clear, and he was then able to just treat them as friends (or mothers from time to time).

The morning after he'd recovered his strength, he plucked up the courage to go and see Wallis' family. (They had already been told the news.) He confessed to them what he had done- he couldn't bring himself to defend himself (not that he could think of anything to say in his defence). He was amazed that they forgave him.

"I'm sorry?"

"I forgive you," repeated Mary Wallis.

"But I could have saved him."

"I know. God has forgiven me for everything I've ever done. How could I refuse to forgive you for this one thing you've done?" He had no answer to that.

"Besides, how many more people would have died if you hadn't fought off those intruders?"

This was getting too much for him. As the tears welled up in his eyes, Sophie said

"Don't cry, mister. It'll be alright," and gave him a little boiled sweet wrapped in golden paper.

This was the last straw. The tears came in a flood, tears of relief as well as sorrow. He had been terrified of what she might have said or done. They talked for hours, about life, pain and forgiveness. He left refreshed, re-energised and with his faith in God renewed. Just before he left he promised that he would do everything he could to ensure that this never happened again. She answered,

"Don't make promises you can't keep. You just do all you can and leave the rest to the man upstairs. If it's enough, great. If it's not, don't condemn yourself. That's not your job."

With his time of self-pity over, he started to consider the lessons to be learned. He wasn't invincible, he couldn't do everyone else's job better than they could, and he still had a lot to learn about Commanding a Battlecruiser. He had a fine crew, but there were weaknesses, and the training program he'd planned, with a few modifications, would improve things considerably. They probably wouldn't like it, certainly not to start with, but they would appreciate it in the end. He was also more certain than he had ever been that revenge wasn't worth it. He would do everything he could to minimise the loss of life and break the pointless cycle of recriminations. He had a few ideas in that respect. Maybe they would work, maybe they wouldn't. Maybe the Svoboda would forge a glorious history for itself. Only time would tell.

That was all two months ago.

Systems Engineer Gavin Hawkes was sitting in his favourite bar on Centauri station when he recieved the message. "All Svoboda crew return to their stations within twenty minutes."

'Whoa', he thought, 'I'd better go and pick up my stuff.' It had been a much more restful and enjoyable time than his stay in Gazer1 24 hours earlier, and he'd needed it. He had been tired of all the training. Training system engineers to be able to take on other responsibilities, like replacing flight engineers or temporarily the chief engineer, or even as assistants in the medibay. Giving us extra physical training, survival training, training in avoiding intruders and finding cover in a firefight. He supposed he could see the point of it all, but the repeated drilling just made him want to scream. As he walked back to his rented room he thought about the strange little hooded figure who had mugged him on Gazer1.

"Give us yer security key." he'd said.

"No. It won't be any good to you anyway. It'll just be registered as stolen and be useless within a couple of seconds."

"Give us it, or I'll cut yer." he threatened, brandishing a curved dagger with a barbed point.

"Okay, okay, here you go, but you won't be able to use it"

the little man (or whatever he was) took his prize, but sliced him just above the hip anyway, then disappeared down a dark alley. It wasn't a very deep wound, nothing life threatening.

"Svoboda this is Gavin Hawkes. Someone's just cut me and taken my security key."

"OK Gavin. your security key has been marked as stolen. Report to Medibay then pick up your new key from engineering"

Going past a service drone he supposed it wasn't so bad on the Svoboda. It was the same sort of deal for everyone on board, and looking at it another way, his CV would be so good when he moved on from this ship that he would have his pick of assignments. As he thought of how cushy an assignment he could wrangle, he opened the door to his room and came face to face with... himself.

His shock turned to a split second of pure terror as his clone grabbed his collar with one hand and fired the weapon in his other. There was no sound but the effect was deadly. He pulled Gavin's corpse into the room before it fell and closed the door, then quickly scanned his neural implant transmitter to get its frequency before uploading it to his own neural implant and activating it. He then took gavin's security key and personal communicator. The message came in "Gavin, you all right? we lost your LF indicator for a couple of seconds there."

"No problems here," he replied, "must have been some interference."

He took a small secure frequency beacon from a pocket in his overalls, activated it and placed it on Gavin's body, which was then transported off the station to be disposed of. He then picked up his bag and headed for the docking ring.[/rp]

Well, there we go. Part three coming sometime soon probably. Sorry to get a bit long and a bit gory at times there, but they were important events. Anyway I'd like to thank Desylva for accepting me into the ISS and for his fleet application form, which made me think through my character and also his relationships with his crew a lot more thoroughly, and as a result this story has a lot more depth than it otherwise would. Please anyone tell me if I'm getting borderline with anything.

Bye

----------------------------------------

Commander Ben Zwycky GCV Svoboda

General Operative ISS Fleet

"Nakonec pravda vitezi" (In the end the truth wins)

I just edited this to correct the transporter reference. No storyline changes.

[This message has been edited by Ben Zwycky (edited 07-05-99).]

[Introducing Ben Zwycky]

Hi there! It seemed to me to be a bit presumptious to join a main roleplay thread straight away, but I could always repost this if requested. I'm a newbie, but I've been hanging around this website and forum for the past three months, ever since I found the download and read the press release by SC. My brother bought me the Gametek version when it was first released, and to my eternal shame I took it back to the shop because I couldn't get it to work .

I've read the manual and every post in every forum made in the last 60-70 days on this site, and every roleplay post (that hasn't been deleted) since Operation Snowball's Chance, and the Pluto Insurgency, and the Calm before the storm. I love the way this site is run. I know that every time I visit commlink forum and read the new posts, they're going to be either useful, exciting, stunning, or funny. This is the advantage of a well-policed site. I have to say well done SC. Your diligence and integrity in the face of fierce and prolonged opposition that has shown anything but, has really paid off and brought out the best in a lot of people. As I've been reading the posts on this site, I've thought 'these are my kind of people' and I hope that in time, you might feel the same way about me.

[rp]Commander Ben Zwycky woke bleary-eyed to the soft but persistent monotone of his personal communication screen. "View", he croaked, his throat bone dry from a long deep sleep. As the cloud of light that appeared before him coalesced into a sharp image he recognised the friendly features of his combat officer, Doug McIlroy. "Morning, Ben", he said cheerfully, "Sorry to get you up, but we'll be ready to go in 25 minutes.". He liked Doug. They had been friends at University in England, and had both done the entrance trial for the 1st shock Marine Battalion, and had both been accepted, but Ben had turned it down, because he had only done it because he felt like a challenge, and it would have stopped him following his dream of commanding a battlecruiser. "Cheers, Doug," he replied, taking a sip of water from the glass by his bed, "I don't want to miss welcoming our guest aboard. I've got a lot of respect for this guy. Two months ago he negotiated the release of 40 hostages and the surrender of the Sla'ti terrorists that held them without even anyone getting injured."

"Now that's impressive. I'd better shake his hand when he arrives."

After the latest Gammulan offensive, the empirians at least could see that their feud with the Vesperons could lead to the ultimate break-up of Galcom and their own destruction at the hand of Galcom's most dangerous and powerful foe. And so they have decided to send their most valued negotiator, Cheko Ko-Kul, for a fresh series of talks, giving him powers to make considerable concessions should the need arise. The two sides have been blaming each other for Sla'ti activity for so long now, that the Sla'ti feel that if they ever sort out their differences it could be very bad news for the until now relatively secure Sla'ti worlds. And so, they have been seeking to give Mr Ko-Kul some 'friendly career advice'. Hence the battlecruiser. Since diplomat ships have been shown to be vulnerable to very determined attacks, it was thought that by transporting him directly on a battlecruiser that could be cloaked all the way from Centauri to Eridani, it would be very difficult to reach him. By using a terran battlecruiser, it would be vey unlikely to have been infiltrated by the Sla'ti. As it turned out, they underestimated their foe...

It had been a tough journey to get to where he was, involving a lot of sacrifices that still hurt, and a lot of painful experiences still fresh in his memory, but he knew that it had been the right thing to do. This was where he was needed, where he made a difference each day. If he had joined earthcom, he wouldn't have been so far away from home so often, but he found its philosophy too elitist. Yes, we have a responsibility and a duty to defend earth and its citizens, but being able to travel vast distances through space, meet alien races and cultures gives us not only incredible opportunities, but also great responsibilities to our partner races. He could never join the insurgents. He admired the strength of their convictions, and they even had a point about some things sometimes, but he couldn't agree with their methods.

He remembered what his father had told him; "Never be afraid to talk to people who are sincerely opposed to you, son, because they will keep you honest. They will notice your integrity or lack of it more readily than anyone else. Be careful of the ones who are just after power for themselves. They will often pretend to be your friend, but really only see you as a way to get what they want, or as an obstacle to what they want, and they'll turn on you when it suits them."

Galcom wasn't perfect, (because it was made of people) and had made some terrible mistakes in the past, which it was paying for now, but it still tried to do what it could to make this galaxy safe. There are still many who need Galcom, who can't defend themselves against the bullies of these times. Galcom was the only organisation his conscience would allow him to join. He knew there were those within galcom whose motives were not so pure, even some in high places, and he would do what he could to stay true to these principles and combat whatever corruption that he came across.[/rp]

Well, that's the first post. There'll be a bit more introduction in the next post (with a couple of flashbacks) and then on to what happens with Mr Ko-Kul on board. I hope I haven't done anything wrong, or gone too close to the ACM script for TOD1. I haven't done TOD2 yet, my game keeps crashing (but that's another forum). Please don't be too harsh- I've haven't written a story since I was about 13-14.

------------------

Commander Ben Zwycky GCV Svoboda

"Nakonec pravda vitezi" (in the end the truth wins)