[b]The Revenant[/b]

Nobody outside of the frontier systems smoked anymore. It was an old world habit largely superseded by electronic cigarettes... which Sadaet thought were for douchebags. In the atmosphere-controlled space stations and ships, finding a space to light up was difficult at best: personal living quarters and obscure places like machinery rooms. Luckily for him, he was able to keep the smell to a minimum from his own room and scrub out the worst of the chemicals with some extra filters added to the air system. He had received word of an upcoming mission and was preparing his gear: a small rucksack, olive green and worn from years of abuse, was stuffed to the brim with radio equipment and computers. Anything from radio transmission, retransmission kits, electromagnetic jammers, scramblers, and disablers, to cyber network enablers and breach kits were tossed into pouches and compartments. On the back, Sadaet’s name in Punjabi Shahmukhi script flowed across the back. A keychain with a little waving cat dangled from a webbing strap.


His four speakers were put at corners of the room and pushed soft electronica toward the center of the room. He had already brought his things onboard from the storage unit at Helios Station. An ornate rug covered the cold metal floor of his room. On the wall, he had mounted his shrine: Sadaet himself came from the Gorbenani subcontinent on Shahan IVa and, like many of his people, followed a curious mix of secular Islam and Sikhism called Masireh Setareh. Translating roughly to “path of the stars”, the hole temple at Prosidainsa was constructed by explorers from India and Iran generations ago. Their ships had both suffered grevious mechanical failures and were left adrift, floating in space for years. Yet, as both of them began to run low on power and supplies and the cryogenic pods were about to fail, a miracle happened: the ships drifted and met each other.

The odds were so astronomical as to be impossible... the vastness of space could only be overcome by something far greater than simple statistics or probability. So as the explorers fastened together their ships, they used the last of their fuel to crash land on the Shahani system frontier. Their colonial supplies were used to create Prosidainsa, the Providence of these stricken men and women. Over the years, a spiritual fusion of the children of Muslims and Sikhs found common cores and teachings, merging to become the core of society there. If there was only One Truth, Allah fulfilled much of that role. The Gurus and Hadiths taught the youth lessons and morals. Values and tenets founded the base of behavior. All because of a curious meeting amongst the stars. Sadaet himself bore a tattoo sleeve of iconography on his left arm, and wore jewelry and trinkets. 

The bag was packed, his rifle readied and laid next to it. The War Room was waiting: time to make his pay.