The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Dack Brill relaxed in the captain's seat on board the Mandalorian vessel Vindicator. It was just a routine patrol, and he didn't expect much more than maybe the odd pirate. Then, he saw a twinkle of blue light in the distance, and the beeping of the long range sensors. He instantly snapped into action.

"Report," he commanded."
"A few thousand alien vessels just appeared out of nowhere, sir," responded the sensor officer. "Sensors indicate energy readings on a par with an Imperial Star Destroyer, and the battlestation they appear to be clustered around is off the charts. They don't appear to be making any hostile moves yet, though, Captain."
"Hail them."
"Opening comm channels, sir... they're responding."

The holographic projectors of the ships comm arrays flickered to life on the bridge, and to the surprise of the captain, formed a two-dimensional image. It revealed an alien the likes of which the captain had never seen before. Its body resembled that of a giant, green caterpillar, though its head was radically different to the infant form of any Mandalorian moth he'd ever seen. It possessed three large eyes in a triangular fashion, which periodically blinked in a disconcertingly mammallian way. Where the mandibles would be on a real caterpillar writhed a mass of cillea, and it sprouted four tentacles from immediately behind its head, which it used to manipulate its enviroment. In a window in the bottom right corner of the screen was another alien, which resembled nothing so much as a brain given a face and a pair of withered arms and legs.

Then the little alien began speaking.

"We are the Ur-Quan Kzer-za. Submit to us, unknown alien, and spare yourselves needless loss of life."

Underneath his helmet, Dack's jaw dropped in shock. He had never heard of such contempt for the battle skills of the Mandalorians.

"What! We are the Mandalorians, not cattle! How dare you come before us and order us to submit like we were Imperial dogs? We seek honor in battle, and are all skilled in art of war. If you come here looking for n easy fight, you will be sadly mistaken."
"If this is indeed the case, your people will make fine Battle Thralls. Join us, and you will gain much glory in battle as we take this galaxy, and put it under our rightful Ur-Quan rule."
"You're planning on taking over the Galaxy."
"Yes. The Path of Now and Forever teaches that the only way to ensure Ur-Quan freedom is to enslave all other sentient races."
"You have a few thousand ships. You're going up against a Galactic Empire with millions of ships every bit as powerful as your own. You stand no hope."
"We are patient, and cunning. We have conquered half of our home galaxy of the course of the past ten thousand years. Conquering this galaxy is no different. Now, Mandalorian vessels, submit or be destroyed."
"Good night Ur-Quan."

"Battlestations! Scramble fighters!"

Daemora Beillane was resting in the flight lounge when she heard the alarm go off. Hopping to her feet, she smiled as he grabbed her helmet. Finally! Some action! She dashed off into the hangar, putting her helmet on as she went, and surveyed the hangar as the crew went about their jobs with the efficiecy of years of training. She clambered up the ladder to her fighter's cockpit, and strapped herself in as the transparisteel sheet lowered and the astromech droid locked itself into position and wistled the affirmative. Then with a roar of the engines, her ship lifted off and flew into space, her wingmen closing behind her as she surveyed the enemy. She saw about a dozen enemy capital ships closing to combat range, each about the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer, though the design of them was very much different. They were bright green, with a bulbous body, with a bulge at the front followed by a cylindrical body ending in engines. The bulge appeared to house the ship's bridge, and below that were the menacing arrays of weapons the ship was armed with. The body of the ship appeared to be home to a fighter bay, and protruding from either side of the ship were a pair of pods, each of which seemed to house a massive engine. It was at this point that fighters began to launch from its bays. They were bright red, and shaped like a flat box with a projection shaped like a semicircle protruding from the front, in which there were windows for the pilot to see through. It also appeared that it possessed some manner of turret mounted on top of it.

This was when a command from the Vindicator came crackling through.
"Blue Squad, engage those fighters."
"Blue One, Roger that," she replied.
So, she engaged her targeting computer when the enemy fighters opened fire, from well outside the range of her own craft. She watched helplessly as the beams of fire sliced through her squad, and watched in horror as a beam of the red energy sliced apart one of her wingmates and began heading for her. Reacting instinctively, she pounded the control panel, and jettisoned the fuel of her fighter craft. It saved her life, as the beam sliced through her engines, bisecting the fighter. Looking at the displays, she saw that the backup power was still online, as were the sensors. So, she floated in space, watching as the Ur-Quan blow the Vindicator apart with blasts of red plasma, and proceeded to make all the other Mandalorian vessels that came to meet them suffer the same fate as they blossomed into fireballs, either from the plasma cannons, or from the slicing weapons of their fighters. Soon, they were in orbit around the Mandalorian homeworld, when she noticed that they had begun a transmission.
"Now, Mandalorians, your leaders have a choice. Become Battle Thralls and seek glory in our battle to control the galaxy, or become Fallow Slaves, and have all your people return here to be forever imprisoned beneath an inpenetrable slave sheild. You have until the next local day to make your choice."

well, that's a sad story.  :(

poor gal.. I hope she had a cyanid pill!

Most interesting… I hope the story continues

Daemora shiverred in her cockpit. Not only had she turned down the life-support systems to conserve her auxillary power, the exchange she had heard over her comms was chilling.

The Mandalorians were slaves. Sure, they retained some degree of autonomy and personal freedom, and they were going to be seeking glory in battle like Mandalorians do, but still. She was going to become a slave soldier of an oversized alien caterpillar, and that was terrifying.

Then her ship jerked, as it got caught in the tractor beam of a Mandalorian ship that had just arrived in the system. She smiled a bit. Even if she was going to be a Battle Thrall of the Ur-Quan, at least she was going to be warm once her fighter got pulled into the cargo bay of whatever ship it was that was pulling her in. Then she saw the ship that was reeling her in, and her eyes widened in surprise. It was the vessel of Mandalore himself, an Imperial Star Destroyer taken from the Galactic Alliance when the Galactic Empire took them over. It might be over a hundred years old, but it could still fight with the best, especially taking into account the various modifications the Mandalorians had made over the years.

Soon, the ventral docking bay of the massive ship loomed over her, and she slid into one of the many sheilded openings into the interior of the ship. As soon as what was left of her ship hit the deck, she popped the canopy, and started working the cold out of her bones. That was when the medical staff extracted her from her canopy, and rushed her to a nearby med station in the ship, to check and make sure she hadn't sustained any real injuries. Fortunately for her, she hadn't taken any injuries. That was when a voice crackled out of the speakers of the nearby comm unit.

"If the pilot is uninjured, then Mandalore would like to see her."

Huh. Looks like someone was watching the results of her medical scans, then. Still, she was excited. She had never seen Mandalore, the leader of her people before.