The lost bazaar

Empty Bazaar

Case report of the Sextans A expedition and Golden welcome wagon convoy 5038 OTT,by convoy lead Commodore Urakulus.

The short bald headed Urilliua was even a little shorter than the Golden standing next to him.

Urakulus was the first Commodore of his kind. Even though they were a very early Union member.They, just as the Narth had remained isolated.

The Golden next to him had been a Golden Sphere commandant for almost 50 years, but now he wore a black uniform, just like the green skinned Urilliua. He had completed a short Union Academy program to bring him up to speed on Union tech and Union fleet regulations.

It was just a little over a decade ago, when Sobody the Exalted merchant had finalized his long standing plan to end the legendary neutrality of the Golden and join the Union.

Back then he understood Sobody’s reasons and he would never go against the will of the Supreme Merchant, but back then he disliked the decision very much. Not anymore, he was very proud of the Union flag on his uniform sleeve.

He was deeply impressed how efficient the Union did everything.

Incredible resources were made available to reconnect every Bazaar, no matter how distant it was.

His own ship, a Golden Sphere was right behind this Union HALD explorer and part of a sizeable flotilla to find out what happened to the bazaar in the Sextanis galaxy.

Contact was lost when the connecting gate begun to flicker and malfunction.

No one wanted to risk going through.

The Union had no such fears.

There were a number of these so called ancient gates and not all of them were left behind by the same advanced civilization.

Some were dead or damaged, some could be activated and some had been activated only relative recently.

The Golden, who travelled space for a very long time had used some of these gates to spread all across what the Union called the Local Group.

When the Golden joined the Union, Sobody’s decision was technically valid for all Golden, but contact had been lost to many of the distant bazaars.

Now any other civilization would have left it at that, but not the Union.

The Assembly decided to sent out expeditions to every known Golden Bazaar, no matter how distant. To reconnect them if they wanted to be reconnected and welcome them as part of the Union.

The gate that connected the M-0 galaxy to the 4.3 million light-years distant Sextans A. Over twice the distance to Andromeda, was called the Sputtering Gate, as it came on and turned of in seemingly unpredictable patterns and no one had tried to use it.

But this was not the Union way.

A Bellebee with the patience of a glacier observed the flickering patterns, while Xeno Tech specialists from the Science Corps made detailed energy scans and a Camogi cluster identified the a pattern. Mothermachine with the help of a Narth engineer designed a device that was able to stabilize the gate and SII built the device.

What was deemed impossible by other civilizations, was solved by the Union in less than a year. Repairing a device of a Tech Level 11 civilization.

The Commodore said. “What is on your mind, Captain Hobady? You seem deep in thought.”

“I was thinking how much our society has changed since we became Union and the Unions can do attitude. Every other society we knew would have never even tried. In our case we had given up on our own.”

The commodore nodded. “Yes that is true. If the gate could not have been fixed they would have sent a long range expedition or built another Bridge. The Union is still young compared to many other civilizations, but it is that unshakeable confidence that there are no barriers that can’t be overcome and our unique concept of combining unity with diversity that make me believe the Union will last for a very long time.”

The captain agreed.

Urakulus pointed towards the main viewer. “Do you want to return to your own ship or remain before we take on the last leg of our journey?”

“I

Urilliua

Werewolfs

Osirians

Laturak

Eduk