An Introduction

As with all forms of travel, once a mode of transportation has been around long enough it becomes commonplace. So commonplace that it becomes not transportation, but home to certain social types. So it was that space travel eventually became the home of tramp freighters, communions, gypsy’s and criminal groups. Our story is about one of these ‘ships.’ Actually, mainly about a handful of the sentient beings currently associated with one of these ships. Where and when this story is placed doesn’t matter. It could be in the past, present or future, this reality or another. Suffice to say it does not occur within the limited confines of our own backwater solar system.

Among all those semi-legal, third class ships that ply disused and forgotten star lanes the PURPLE PASSION was certainly nothing odd. Huge of course, based upon a long outmoded heavy troop transport like many of its sisters, a conglomeration of both ancient and nearly new technology, small ships, parts of ships and abandoned stations, it wandered from planet to planet. As with all such ships its crew had evolved into a community, a few having been born, and most would die within the protective shell of its hull. Survival tended to be a day to day situation of course, even the few passengers that took these ships could expect to find themselves pressed into work, if they had the right skills. If they stayed long enough they ceased to be passengers, eventually becoming accepted as crew.

Two of Purple Passions crew were a small mouse of mountain religious heritage named Kiko Nao Rhys, and a rather huge ex-assassin known only as Felina. These are our hero’s you might say, the two whom this story revolves about. Oddly (or perhaps not so) these two started as enemies, then working companions. They worked well together, became friends, eventually more than friends. So it was eventually the PURPLE PASSION would be floating just outside the legal orbit of some small planet, as it often did, while events were set into motion that would change both their destines. Perhaps even the destiny of a new race. We now move to the beginning of our tale, a tale that shifts between all the emotions humans are wont to explore.

And some they are not.