Diesel Empires

DORAAL, 22-1979. A hundred miles away from the nearest major metropolitan center, on the edge of the Anelas desert, you and your crew work the dawn to dusk shift for The Kings Mart #301, selling instant lunches, cantrip stims, and cheap orc beer to tired diesel workers, red-eyed truckers, and way too perky executives.

Fortunately, the paycheck is enough to keep a ramshackle roof over your head, bread on your plate, and the local debt collectors at bay. As long as your crew manages to avoid long-lost creatures of legend calling in ancient favors or corporate mercenaries who like getting paid to shoot first, your shift should be a piece of cake.

Then you can take the day-olds home to eat with your microwave dinner.

ASTERHOLM, 22-1986. The Giant peers over the hill like it’s watching our world from backstage. Its size makes the sky seem small, but it’s so far away, and your mind stumbles on its dimensions. It’s impossible, but looming, and as your mind attempts to settle with this uncomfortable reality, you notice something else: it’s getting closer.

It’s otherwise a beautiful summer night at the #10367 Kings Mart. It’s much quieter than most Sunday nights, but it’s nice to get a chance to enjoy the night shift. It’s the kind of night that really makes you appreciate the natural wonders of the Ashok’s Valley.

Yes, it’s definitely getting closer.

The cracks in your sanity have stopped getting longer, and you can think without it all falling apart. The Giant is here, and it's getting closer. In a few hours it will probably reach the city, and a terrifying question flares into existence: what is this going to do to a million minds living in a packed city?

30 PROCYON, CE-2244. The pilot is ciphered to the glyph coursing through the blood of the dragon. It’s tech that the Silohain likes to keep for its intelligence services, but they are desperate right now.

And lucky.

Rescuing a dragon is not something that you entrust to anyone, and that trusted team has to have a ship fueled and ready to do a hard 2G burn in an hour, because that fancy tracker still doesn’t have unlimited range. These elves are damn lucky they trust you, and that you have a very fast ship.

It helps that you know the location of the ship, because no one is backing you up on Procyon 30. Orbital security is probably working for the kidnappers, and the local mercenaries would rather have a corporate payout than deal with the Silohain. As long as these kidnappers stay in their lane, no one else will bother them.

Slow and easy until they disappear into the void, with a priceless and nearly extinct creature of myth onboard.

It’s a tricky play, but the Silohain is promising enough for year-long vacation on Homeworld, and in the end it's the right thing to do.

(But also, it’s a lot of gilder.)