Alternative covers 1

Goodreads

The Middle Kingdom now has a good reads entry :)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24703275-the-middle-kingdom

The Middle Kingdom

Finally worked up the courage to put this on Amazon Direct :D

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00SOSI2MI?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

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(G226 02/01/2015  via Roll20 - JF(GM), MI, Matt) 26

DAY 84 (fri) cont ...

Kirk and Endrol thanked Miss Root and asked if she would like to come with them. She thought about it but in
the end declined.

As they took off from the safety zone and entered orbit of the planet Kirk teleported Miss Root back to a safe
area in Grand Island. He then realised he was starving and dug out some ration bars to eat and handed some to
Mieon and Endrol.

It would take 128 minutes to get back to the Burung Mera planet going as fast the AS could (which wasn't very
fast!). The scanners showed a vast space battle taking place around this area of the planet. Judging by the scans
the Burung Mera favoured a spear head formation like a lance stabbing into one small area.
This gave the AS a sort of safe corridor to fly up, but as they ducked and weaved their way through the space battle
two Babi-Ijo pickets pealed off from a defence force formation and headed towards then.
They were local planetary vessels only, without warp, but had much faster impulse engines than the Aeroshuttle and soon
caught up.
Without even opening a comms channel they swooped in on an attack run.

Kirk was in the middle of planning their defence when a sudden attack of stomach trouble hit him. The anti-rads combined
with the miasma of the stinking Babi Ijo planet meant that the food he had gobbled down when he got back onboard the
shuttle was rebelling and coming back up again.

'Blurg!! If they come in range and don't have shields, just beam on board some HEAP grenades.' he gurgled from behind
the closed door of the ship's head.

Mieon shrugged, not being much use with either the replicator or the transporter, and looked at Endrol. All the
others were at battle stations so he replicated 10 HEAP grenades and transported them across to the pickets when
they came within the 20,000km range band.

Kirk was just getting back to his seat so got the satisfaction of seeing one of them being totally destroyed and
the other going sensor dark and start tumbling directionless in space.
'Good work', he said as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Two hours later they were back at the Burung Mera planet and being hailed as heroes. They handed over the rescued eggs
and the six Burung Mera saved from the Taco restaurant.

There were several camera crews on the shuttle pad and even Endrol found a microphone being thrust into his face.
Asked about the battle he'd just come from, in regards to the suicide bombers he said,
'I question their methods...'
The smile died on the interviewers beak as he realised he wasn't going to get the jingoistic answers he was looking
for, but Mieon arrived in the nick of time and smoothed things over.

They were presented with gifts. Kirk was given a 'Huntsman's Rifle' , Mieon was given a large chest of expensive
clothes, jewels and perfumes and every member of the crew was given a gold medal.


DAY 85 (sat)

It turned out it would take two days for the shields to be installed. Kirk sent a message to Chakotay who replied,
'I expect a full report on return. Come immediately after shields are installed.'

In the morning they awoke and were met by their adoring public once more. Mieon managed to talk to a local news
anchor called Tebby Scote, a young female with pink plumage. He asked her if there were any anti war people on the
planet and she said their was. She said she would put them into contact with a group called the #FourFeathers.

Mieon and Endrol worked together today on finding ways to end the conflict between the Babi Ijo and the Burung Mera,
but soon realised it would take more than two days.

Kirk worked on his MATSE project and enlisted the help of Crewman Dell and Crewman Rumbleton.

In the evening a grav-limo arrived containing international celebrities including Robin Wilyams, Laura Flocks,
Cluck Norris, Tylor Swift and Rusyell Crowe.

All of the AS crew were taken to a nightspot about an hour away called 'The Roost.'

Mieon was the life and soul of the party and hung out with the musical set for a while.

Kirk tried to chat-up Crewman Paterson but got nowhere.

Endrol had a fat bird from a hen night throw herself at him, but he threw her back again.

DAY 86 (sun)

At about 1 am they headed back to the shuttle pad where the AS was located.

In the morning Kirk worked on MATSE again, building his first prototype. Endrol helped.

Mieon went up to the observation deck of the shuttle pad and did some sketches of the beautiful Ruma Burung
landscapes.

Later that day she also got a message from the #Fourfeathers and she told them that if they wanted to make
contact with anti-war people on Ruma Babi they could try and find Miss Root of Grand Island.


DAY 87 (mon)

At 0100 hours the shields were fitted and Kirk got the AS away as quickly as he could, not wanted to hold
up Voyager any further.

The director of the reality TV show that was being made about the Aeroshuttle's crew came up and asked him
if the could send a film crew with them but Kirk declined.

Once they were heading back to Voyager Mieon scanned the AS for bugs and found six listening devices, presumably
planted there by Burung Mera media.

At 1500 hours they arrived back at Voyager and all were given the once over by the Doctor. When the Doctor learned
that Endrol was also a medic he asked him to take a look at Crewman Yosa who was lying on a bed groaning and clutching
his stomach.

Endrol checked him out and saw that he'd eaten 'Alien Bug Worms'. A stomach pump was the best answer.
The Doctor let Endrol perform the procedure. It was a messy business and due to his cultural nature Endrol did not
perform it very well, but he did well enough and the Doctor grudgingly acknowledged it would be good to have another
medic onboard.

Meanwhile Kirk had reported to Chakotay who ushered him into his ready room and said,
'Well, lets here it.'

Initially Kirk tried to spin his story to try and cover up the things he thought he may have done wrong, but Chakotay
could see it and said,
'I can tell you are disseminating Ensign. Just give it to me straight, it has to be a good enough story to get past Tuvok
otherwise he'll insist on pulling the plug on the Aeroshuttle.'

So Kirk started again, but this time told the complete truth and by the time he'd finished Chakotay had his face buried
in his hands.
With a heavy sigh he rubbed his eyebrows and said, 'Leave this with me, I'll talk to the Captain and see if we can save
everyone the bother of another court martial. Get everyone's reports to me by 1900. Dismissed!'

Kirk sent messages to Dell, Paterson and Rumbleton to get their reports in. When he messaged Mieon she sent one back
asking him to come to her cabin. Having never written a Starfleet report before she felt she needed a little help.

Endrol was invited to speak with the Captain later this day. Captain Janeway welcomed him into her ready room and they
talked. She'd found his home planet and told him they were some 200 LY away from it. She thought that it would take
Voyager about 100 days to get back there and she would be happy to take him there as it was more or less on the route
Voyager was planning to take.
'If you agree to help out in med bay we can get you back there as quickly as we can.'
Endrol agreed.
Next she summoned Crewman William McKenzie who was to be Endrol's room mate. McKenzie took Endrol down to Deck 9
and showed him is quarters.

Mieon finished her report and went to Sandrine's at Paris's invitation. Kirk was brooding so went back to his cabin
and worked until 2300.

At 2200 Paris shut down the holo-program of Sandrine's and Mieon also returned to her cabin.

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(G225 20/12/2014  via Roll20 - JF(GM), AP, Matt) 25

DAY 83 (thu) cont ...

It was 2100 ship time, about noon local time when they made their way down into the basement area where the
generator room was. After they'd chased out the janitor and his assistant Kirk lobed in an EMP grenade and the
shield generator was taken out and make winding down rumbling noises as it died.

Kirk contacted the AS and requested to be beamed aboard. Crewman Dell did his best but said,
'I'm getting too much interference where you are. I can get a lock on the eggs in the bank though.'
'Get the eggs then.'
Kirk nodded to the others and they headed back up into the terminal.

As they made it back up into the departure lounge where the bodies were still lying about from the fire fight
Dell told them, 'I have the eggs!'

But just as Kirk was going to order him to try and beam them out again there was more comms:

'Something hit us! ... Half the systems are off line! ... Get in the air! Paterson! Get in the air, we are being targeted!'

... Pause ...

'Incoming!!!'

The comms then went dead and the ground was rocked as a series of explosions went off in the space port. They took
cover as a pattern of bombs went off on the west side of the terminal.

Picking themselves up and dusting themselves down they tried to contact the AS again but could get nothing. Just
incase it would help Kirk then used his Tricorder to set off the shaped charge under the bank. Nothing happened
at the spaceport but the Tricorder registered that the bomb had gone off.

They made their way to the main entrance again and saw that half of it had been knocked away be debris and a lot
of girders and cables were lying everywhere.

At that point they were targeted by the AS transporter which got a lock on all of them but only managed to pick
up Mioen. Finding himself just in the company of Endrol, Kirk shrugged and picked his way through the debris
to the exit.

Rounding the corner into the security check area they were suddenly confronted by a Burung Mera charging in
with a big vest of explosives strapped around his body.

About 30 feet away, the portly frame of Mrs Rind came out of one of the offices, dusting herself off. The bomber
then cried, 'For Burung Mera! For freedom! For death!' and then rushed at her before exploding, showering the whole
area with nails, bones, feathers and crispy bacon.

Horrified, they pressed on. Another female Buto Ijo came out of the offices. She was a lot better looking than any
of the others they had met so far. She quivered when she saw Kirk and Endrol and made to flee.

At the entrance more bombers arrived. One went through to the security area where Endrol tried to talk some sense
into him. The Burung Mera did even pause to talk, but was so high on adrenaline that when he saw a security guard
emerge from the western lounge he charged over and exploded.
Endrol hoped that perhaps the sleeping family in the eastern lounge would survive the attack.

Meanwhile at the front the female Babi Ijo (Miss Root) had made the exit but encountered a bomber coming the
other direction. There was some weird logic going on in Kirks head, so he fired and stunned her, sending he
tumbling into the debris.
This didn't have the effect of deterring the bomber though who still came on and Kirk stunned him too.

There was a dead mans switch in his explosives vest though, and as a beeping on it counted down Kirk grabbed
Miss Root and charged out into the open spaceport field, Endrol not far behind him.

The final bomber exploded and brought down the whole entrance. Kirk and Endrol head out across the runway to
where some cars were parked.

Kirk remembered his Burung Mera data pad and left a message for Buto (their Burung Mera minder back on the
the planet Ruma Burung). After a few minutes they got a reply,
'Seeing what i can do my end to help you.'

Using he Tricorder Kirk detected that the AS was about 100 miles away and moving. He looked up at some of the
Babi Ijo cars. They were huge things, with wheels nearly as tall as a man and a small ladder that lead up
into the cab. The Babi Ijo roads were all thick with compacted rubbish, pressed down by the massive
wheels of their ground vehicles.

Still, the Tricorder had no trouble opening the lock of the nearest one and they all climbed inside.
There were just too many knobs and levers though for either Kirk or Endrol to be able to work out how to
drive the thing so Endrol used his medical skills to awaken Miss Root.

She smiled at them and told them a little about herself. She was one a few Babi Ijo that didn't like to
eat aliens, or meat of any kind, and was apposed to the war. She pointed at some of the badges she wore
on her vest and said,
'This says "Aliens are friends too!' and this one says "Meat is Murder"'

She agreed to help them and drove the car out of the spaceport and onto the main highway.

As the drove Kirk's alien data pad bingled and he saw he had a message from a Burung Mera called 'Captain
Leghorn'.
He was in charge of operations in this area and told them to drive to the city of 'Des Loins' about 150 miles
to the east where a safe zone was being provided for alien vessels caught up in the conflict. The AS had been
routed there and waited for them. It was under a forcefield though so transporters could not be used.

Miss Root drove along the highway as fast as she dared. The battle was really kicking off now.
Atmosphere capable spacecraft streaked overhead in aerial dogfights. Missiles flew through the sky in all directions.
Large Babi Ijo grav ships float about like mobile fortresses and attracted Burung Mera kamikaze attacks.

Using the ground vehicles navigation system they plotted a course around all major settlements. At one point they
were pulled over by a police truck, out rounding up civilians to get them into air raid shelters presumably, but a hefty
bribe of diamonds and they were soon on their way again.

The drive took well into the evening and Kirk, jetlagged, got some sleep in the back while Miss Root and Endrol chatted in a
friendly fashion.

DAY 84 (fri)

It was 0400 ship time (about 2100 local time) when they reached Des Loins. They saw a police road block up ahead though
and to avoid it turned off the main road. Going down side streets they found themselves in a financial and department store
area next to the city jail and a multi story car park.

Any further progress was blocked by yet another police road block. They abandoned the car and jogged over to the car park
then went up a couple of stories. Looking out the other side of it they could see an open lot which was being used as a
command post by the Buto Ijo Army and consisted of ten very large military vehicles. They could hear the crackle of
radio chatter.

All around the city there was a battle being fought and distant gun fire and explosions was a constant background noise.
Kirk contacted Captain Leghorn who sent back a reply,
'I can see you location. If you can fight your way past police I can clear the rest of the way for you.'

Kirk found that he could contact the AS now too and asked if they could hack into the local power plant to 'set of alarms'
to help cover their escape. Dell tried his best but contacted Kirk later and said,
'Seems like the Des Loins powerplant is in lock down and their is a battle going on around it. Even if I could set off
some alarms there, I doubt they'd take much notice, having bigger things to worry about.'

Kirk, Endrol and Miss Root had to fall back on their own resources. Kirk came up with the idea of using an incendiary
grenade to start a fire in the car park to lure away the cops from the road block. This didn't really work though, the city
was full of random fires right now and they were guarding the jail which apparently was more important.

Finally they noticed that most of the buildings in the area were connected by glass covered walkways. The first one went
right across the road block but they decided to risk it.

They scuttled across but one eagle-eyed Babi Ijo cop spotted them and fired a couple of wild shots. The next building
they entered was a department store. To get to where they wanted to go they needed a walkway that lead past the road
block, but this lead to a financial centre and the doors were locked with metal mortis locks.

Instead of wasting precious moments shooting out the locks while the police came up after them they rushed over to another
walkway and took it across to an office block. The next walkway after that lead through to a pizza restaurant and Kirk
left a stun and smoke grenade beside the door on proximity switches as a nice surprise for the pursuing cops.

From the restaurant they went out onto the street and continued on their way. Looking over their shoulders they could
see that they were not being followed.

They covered the rest of the distance to the Extraction Point on foot. Being as stealthy as they could they found
their way to where the forcefield was, but unluckily ran into a large squad of Babi Ijo Warbots.

They initially hid behind a half ruined house, but the Warbots were patrolling the area and spotted them. Miss
Root and Endrol made a dash for it while Kirk drew their fire.

Endrol ran into more of them down the alley he had chosen to flee down and the Warbots launched Interceptor Bots
into the air, small flying robots armed with phasers and viscous whirling blades.
Endrol shot at them, but he was a medic first and a soldier second so he did little damage to the enemy until
Kirk turned up.
Kirk was a lethal shot with his phaser rifle and quickly shot down the Interceptors and then two more of the
Warbots.

Sensing the time was right they all charged over to the safety of the forcefield and were teleported onto the
Aeroshuttle.

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(G224 05/12/2014  via Roll20 - JF(GM), AP, MI, Matt) 24

DAY 83 (thu) ...

While they thought up the plan, Kirk replicated some anti-rad tablets to take while they were exposed to
the light of Rivo on the Babi Ijo planet.

Step one of the plan was to get a specially prepared suitcase (full of EMP grenades) into the bank.

The port authority was personified in the form of Mr Rind who had heard of these pleasant alien visitors that
threw around diamonds like confetti and he arranged a driver for them, Mr Lardy Scratchings. Mioen was
taken to the bank where she met Mr Trotter the bank manager.
She got her first look at a typical Babi Ijo town on her way in from the space port. It was dirty
and covered in refuse. Litter was piled up in heaps on the sides of all the buildings and was pressed
down into the road by the wheels of the massive road vehicles. She was glad of the mask she was wearing
as the stench was terrible.

The bank manager was delighted to see Mieon and take her business and arranged a safety deposit box.
However the suitcase set off the safety alarms as it went into the vault. Still, even this was dealt
with by large bribes and the alarms were put down to the case being made from 'Strange Alien Material.'

Meanwhile Kirk was outside 'casing the joint' and searching for where the forcefield cables came into
the bank with his Tricorder. He located them, 20 feet underground and followed them along for a building
or two.

As he did this though his attention was drawn to across the wide litter filled street where someone was waving at
him from the window of a restaurant that served tacos.

He crossed over and the alien in the window and saw it was of a species he didn't recognise. It pantomimed to
Kirk something that he thought meant 'Please come in and eat me.'

Confused he entered the restaurant. The manager spotted him and bowing and scraping before this rich
looking alien he said, 'Are you interested in our special sir?'

Kirk nodded and handed over a diamond. The manager had no idea what a real diamond looked like, but once
it was assessed by the bank staff across the road he was happy to sell the alien in the window to Kirk
along with six Burung Mera that were unhappily being kept alive for eating later.

All of them were taken along to the spaceport in a Butcher's van and boarded the Aeroshuttle. The alien
that hey had rescued was called Endrol, he was from a 'lost tribe' of Kreetassan. The Kreetassan were a well
established Alpha Quadrant species, but somehow some of them were here also in the Delta Quadrant. Endrol
was a surgeon on his planet, and due to some bad luck while travelling by space had ended up on the menu
in the Rivo system.

Kirk was still working on his plan and the next step was to transport a shaped charge of explosives onto
the cables that ran underground to the bank which powered the forcefield.

This he did. Back at the AS, they then waited for the EMPs to go off in the bank.

At the correct time they did indeed go off and knocked out the forcefield around the bank. However this had the
unforeseen effect of putting up forcefields across other areas of the town as an emergency response.
This included the space port.

Kirk contacted Mr Rind and demanded they be allowed to leave the port.
Mr Rind said he wished he could but that, 'I'm sorry! It's out of my hands now, this is a military matter! You
can talk to the army when they get here in about 5 to 10 minutes.'

Kirk didn't like the sound of that, so using the shuttle's sensors he located the shield generator room in the
spaceport terminal and teleported two EMP grenades into the room it was in. Somehow though they didn't make it
and were deflected into another area.

It was decided then, that the direct approach was the best, so Kirk, Mieon and Endrol armed up and headed toward
the terminal. With weapons set to stun they had a blazing fire fight with several security bots, a squad of Babi
Ijo spaceport security guards and just about every passenger in the terminal.
All Babi Ijo's carry weapons. At the departure gate they passed through to get to the generator room they were
even attacked by a family of children with pistols, stun batons and tasers. During the fight Endrol was knocked
unconscious when a Babi Ijo child whacked him over the head with a stun baton.

Kirk and Mieon gunned down two more security bots in the lounge then finished off the last of the passengers.
They then did their best to revive Endrol, but once he was conscious he looked after himself, being a much better
physician than the other two.

Stepping over the sleeping bodies and reloading they headed toward the generator room at the other side of the
departure lounge.

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(G222 21/11/2014  via Roll20 - JF(GM), AP, MI) 23

DAY 82 (wed) cont ...

Meanwhile, a subspace message came through from Neelix. It was in essence a shopping list, and rather a
large one. Many people were requesting, if it wasn't too much trouble, if they could find, coffee, tea, soap,
brown rolls, insoles, fresh fruit, work gloves, face cream, hand cream, ice cream. Hundreds of items.

Neelix also warned not to do anything illegal like replicating local currency. Trade goods and things such
as gold and diamonds was another matter.

Kirk assigned Crewman Sandra Paterson to the shopping task and she set to work with the bases trading system
to buy as much as she could that was on the list.

Kirk looked for Burung eggs and found that they traded for 50,000 FS each on the local market. He contacted a
robot called Megatrader500 and cut a deal to buy one for 75k worth of replicated diamonds. Somehow the
robot knew when he saw replicated goods and considered them not worth as much.

Kirk started churning out diamonds from the replicator, a costly thing in terms of energy use, but still the
most viable tradable item he could think of.

Just then though he received Mioen's communicator message and worked out she was with some Vidiians. The details
of that adventure are in the previous report. By the time he'd sorted all that out he'd paid a further 30k FS to
officer 6-ZYT to smooth everything out.
(10k for being involved in explosions on the base and 10k over irregularities in their docking paperwork.)
Mieon protested but Kirk shrugged and replicated more diamonds which he then traded to Megatrader500 for cash.

Once he had the Burung egg in his possession he ran it through the transporter and tried to feed the resulting
data into the replicator. It was too difficult a task though, and he realised that writing replicator programmes
from scratch would take weeks potentially, especially for something as complicated biologically as a Burung
egg.

With a sigh, Kirk adjusted his plan and together with Dell and Mieon he took a wander down to the shipyards.
Here he talked to a being called Shield Trader Guromax in Hanger 43, but eventually he realised that on this
moon base that the smallest shield generators available were larger than the Aeroshuttle itself!

Grumbling he headed back to the AS and trying to salvage something from the trip he checked over the shuttles
warp engine to see what could be improved there. Clever as he and Dell were though, they had done nothing more
than basic warp theory at the Academy and didn't really know what they were looking at.

With nothing better to try he sent a subspace message to Torres to see what she needed and a while later she
sent back a list of mainly tech stuff, but also person toiletries.

They spent the rest of the day trading diamonds for stuff. Kirk took over the trading, with the help of Mioen
and ordered Paterson to spend some time on Piloting theory.
Kirk also purchased exotic alcoholic beverages, cakes, crisps and biscuits.
Mieon purchased some nice jewellery.

They also managed to get their hands on 50 kilograms of refined dilithium.

They left the moonbase that night.


DAY 83 (thu)

At first they had decided to head back to Voyager. They had not managed to get the shields, but the hold was
packed full of goodies.

They had assumed that the planet of Ruma Burung was completely closed off, blockaded by the Babi-Ijo, but this
was not the case. They Babi were not stopping small ships, as Rumbleton found after a few scans, and they could
land on the planet if they wished.

It was 0200 hours ship time when they landed, on a shuttle pad that stood up above the forest canopy. Three local
officials met them, led by Port Master Bwak.

The Burung Mera are bird like people, covered in feathers and beaked, but humanoid in general form. Kirk requested
that before they did anything else they get some rest and Bwak agreed.

At 1000 they awoke and met with the Port Authority again. They had been assigned a 'Handler' called Buto. This
was how it worked on Burung Mera. They are an inquisitive race and greatly interested in alien species. They
fact that they had never met humans or orions before caused a minor sensation on the planet.

Buto led them up to a pleasant tree house for refreshments and an hour later introduced them to a team of
scientists who asked them lots of questions about their race and homeworlds. They took some photos and Kirk
handed them some basic data on the Federation.

A further hour later a camera crew showed up and filmed a piece about the visitors for Bwak City TV. Once the
crew left they handed them some free Burung Mera Data Terminal so they could keep up with the local media
and reply to 'tweeps' send to them from admiring fans.

It was all rather a whirlwind and Kirk was glad when they finally got down to business with Buto.
As they ate lunch and looked over the beautiful forests of Ruma Burung Buto told him that they would give
them the shields they wanted and even fit them for them in exchange for the safe return of 100 of their
eggs.

Kirk was at a total loss as to how to arrange this, but Buto contacted some of his friends in the military
and told him that if they could get to the Babi-Ijo's home planet quickly they could coincide their egg
raid with a counter attack that was being planned by high command.

By 1600 they had fleshed out the whole plan and Kirk decided to give it a go.

As they flew past the moonbase and headed to the Babi-Ijo homeworld they were approached and boarded by a small
picket craft. A Babi-Ijo, a Kazona and two marines of unknown species entered the AS and arranged tourist
visa's for everyone. As usual the price was extortionate and Kirk gave them a handful of diamonds that seemed
to about cover it.

They were give permission to land at the town of Hamport, which was their target, or rather the bank there
was. It was guarded and had a forcefield over it, but Kirk's plan was to do away with the forcefield and
robotic guards with EMP grenades.

At 1800 they had landed and started scanning the town. From their scans they deduced that the forcefield
was powered by shield generators some distance away from the bank. The generators serviced not just the bank
but probably other buildings as well. They estimated that 20 to 50 lifesigns were currently at the location
of the bank. More scans revealed that the shield generator shielded itself and that the forcefield was sent
to the bank via underground cables.

The Babi-Ijo port authority was crossing the landing pad towards the AS. It was time to put the plan into
action.