Chronicles of the Flying Dolphin

Of course, unauthorized helicopter and zeppelin traffic were common enough forms of smuggling arms and pilgrims, but the recent proliferation of pirate raids from space was the factor that brought so many diverse peoples together here for the first time in living memory.

Fractal appeared to have invited the entire population of the Forbidden Sector to Terra for the occasion. It made no sense at all. Throughout history, the denizens of that dreaded zone had made every attempt to thwart the Federation 's colonization and recruitment of new worlds into it's fold. But this time the space pirettes wanted the feds to win a world.

Why?

It had to be some sort of trick. But, there was no way the Ambassador could contact his superiors now. He had had no idea that the elected matriarch of this world's most advanced and benevolent state would turn out to be the missing information officer from Starbase 86. Or that her Prime Minister and chief confidant was in fact the mad poet/philosopher with the sentient, thirsty sword that laughed as it drank human souls. No officer, ambassador or guard in the entire Federation could have ever guessed at such a deceit.

The Great Powers had unanimously devolved into social Theocracies and quarreled endlessly over the one true god each of them claimed to represent - as if there could be but one divine being in any one universe! Even greater folly was their resorting to the use of whatever force their leaders were divinely inspired to use in the name of their particular god. Chemical, biological and nuclear weapons that had been stockpiled in the past as mere "deterrents" to aggression were now the divinely inspired tools with which these new crusades were most often waged. And the gods punishment of infidels had taken a tremendous toll of life forms on this world.

What religious fervor had done to this world was an absolute sin. But by the time the pirettes were to return, in four or five hundred thousand years, the great populations of the theocratic metropoli would be little more than tribes of superstitious barbarians.

The agnostic nomads of north amerika and europe poured over the borders of the neutral states in ever increasing numbers after each new holocaust. Derelict vessels washed ashore bearing the remains of would-be refugees half eaten by microbiologicals and bearing the distinctive burns of radiation and caustic chemicals.

Even the Terran Dolphins were not immune from the woes of the gods; the H2Osphere had been the domain of the Dolphins since the end of time, but Humankind had fucked it up as badly as they had their own areas of the planet's surface. By divine inspiration, of course.

The Technocrats of the neutral states were themselves safe from any form of attack, and quite capable of producing weapons that would make the Great Powers renounce their faiths and cower like dogs in defeat - but these weapons existed only in theory, as the neutrals preferred a saner solution to the planet's woes.

It was toward that end that the neutralities had formed a confederacy not of their most talented physicists, but of their most gifted psychologists and sociologists and merchandising advertisers. What people believe is far more important than what they see or hear - the long and bloody history of wars waged in the names of unseen gods was immutable evidence of that fact.

The common foe of marauding bands of pirates from space had at first made this world seem an ideal candidate for recruitment into the Federation. But something was amiss.

And, the ignorance had resulted in his capture. It was the dreaded pirate Fractal in the grey suit that addressed the assemblage at the Undivided Planet Headquarters building in the federation ambassador's place.

The rhetoric of the Emergency Council raged for what seemed like ages. I know you saw or heard most of it on the media-link, so I won't bore you with what are by now the all to familiar details of the conference. After four months of vicious debate, Atlantis won their proposal to build a fleet of interplanetary warships with which to intercept and destroy the extraterrestrials.

The International Fundamentalist Evangelical Believers and Doers of the Will of the One True God, Inc. together with the Holy Roman Empire - in an unprecedented show of solidarity - pledged almost the entire projected budget of six hundred and sixty six trillion troy ounces of platinum. Minor theocracies made up the balance, with only the Zen Empire, the Rasta-Caribbean Caucus, and the Israeli Coalition refusing to contribute. Their respective reasons were,

"It was meant to be,"

"It's cool, mon," and,

"They don't have the balls to fuck with us anyway!"

Disruption of public transportation by Swissair and Atlantis Zeplines caused more than a few riots, and no one really knows how many new border wars erupted. Rumors circulated that global H2O supplies had again been laced with mind altering drugs. Both the second coming of Christ and the appearance of yet another Antichrist were also among the more popular signs of the times.

But, altogether absent from even the most behind-the-times rumor mills were any reports of Space Pirate activity. Of course, all the Space Pirates were in Antarctica, helping the Neutralities to build the Escape Craft.

Fractal commuted between the frozen wasteland - which reminded him painfully of his last glimpse of his Home world - and the lush jungle courts of Atlantis - which, in turn, reminded him of the Home he and Kristal had shared before being each thrust into space and time travel. Not so much against their wills, but without their full approval. His zep was armed with simulasers, and always travelled disguised as a thunderstorm, an idea he had borrowed from an ancient friresign character named mister motion. Other craft gave a wide berth to the swashbuckling spaceman, most often without even knowing it.

By the time the escape craft were readied for the great exodus, the Federation ambassador had been prepared as a scapegoat by the twins, whose techniques of mind bathing had been honed as keen as the thachi Fractal had made for them.