2125 New beginnings.

The year is 2125 and man has reached the stars. Due to overpopulation and greed,the earth became a wasteland with rival groups killing each other,  for the few spacecraft to escape the earth.

The Arbiter was one such ship, a light battle cruiser with a crew of a few hundred, which was currently been chased and attacked by the Goliath, a massive planet occupying ship. The Goliath was the Flagship of the new government, armed with thousands of solders and habitation lander's, the Arbiter was out of it's depth and was fleeing for the safety of a nearby asteroid field.

'How far till were within range of the asteroids?' The captain glanced towards me,the radar man, '4 thousand kilometres and closing fast captain,'  He grunted and resumed his seemingly passive stare at the approaching cloud of hazardous objects. 

I didn't want to admit it but the captain seemed past his best, and piloting a ship towards the asteroids seemed like a bad idea, we were sure to crash and burn, while the enormous Goliath would have no adverse effects.

'Captain as your second in command I am unhappy with your decision and urge you to redirect our course for the safety of our crew.' The instant I said it I regretted it. The captains eyes blazed and he swung towards me'Oh you think so?''Well your relived of command then, I need a second in command I can trust and you, Scar have proved your not that person, your relived.'

I picked myself out of the harness and walked back to my bunk in the habitation part of the ship. I could not belive I had been dismissed, I even stopped caring about the stupid Goliath chasing us.

My room was a simple meter by metre squared, I appreciated this even more when there was a massive bang, that was reverberated around the ship, which smashed  me into the steel wall and left me gasping on the ground writhing in agony.

An alarm started blazing through the speakers, Decks three through seven atmosphere lost, no survivors. Said the cold automatic message. I couldn't believe my own senses, how many people were now dead due to the captains foolishness? Those decks were where the majority of off duty crew were, the entertainment and living areas. I got up and gingerly walked back to the command deck and was amazed at the image within.

The captain was lying in a pool of blood, obviously his own, a jagged spike of ceiling had pierced his seat,  he had obviously died instantly, through the window i could see we were in the centre of the asteroid field. One had obviously crashed through our stern, wiping out the decks and the unfortunate captain. The rest of the crew were shaken and covered with scrapes, a few were also similar to the captain in fate, the room was wrecked yet still..somehow operational.

'Get us out of this bloody mess' I shouted at the helmsmen. No one moved, I put all the authority in my voice and shouted 'NOOOOW' Action ,activity, the engines of the Arbiter strained as we slowly, too slowly turned and  changed course. Luckily with all the interference from the asteroids the Goliath had stopped targeting us. 

 Nerves suddenly grabbed me and my own mind began shouting in my face What are you doing? your no captain, you cannot handle this, let someone else handle this.

Yet everyone was looking at me, looking for direction, orders, something, anything at all.

I stood next to the blood covered captains chair, right, I cleared my throat, 'I am taking over as captain, I am also ordering us to turn and face the Goliath' Gasps echoed around the room at this, 'When I give an order I expect it to be followed, IMMEDIATELY.' Even I was surprised at my own words, yet my body seemed to be reacting on auto pilot.

The ship turned, yet the Arbiter was still taking damage and I was unsure if we would even make it out, I glanced at the life support screens and was distraught at the blank lines from the third across to seven, underneath were the current living stats, everyone had a tag put in there arms, giving the ship health readings and locations, The bar currently showed the depressing levels.

Life stats 300/800 members operational. Hull integrity 57%

God save us I thought, less then half the crew alive and ship literally breaking apart, how am I supposed to salvage this? Should I even try? The Goliath had a good reason for wishing us dead as well. A ship full of criminals,  what a merry band we are we are I thought surveying the surviving members of crew, who were battling against there own ship, hoping .... hoping for something to save them.

I got a cloth and cleared the seat of blood, kicking the body of the captain away,what a pathetic idiot he was, but he got us the ship, yeah but if he survived I would probably be dead for contradicting him.

What no one knew about me was that I had two personalities, normal Scar, caring, thoughtful, soft, but that I had a dark part to, the remorseless, creative, crafty part, the part currently in control.

'I'm ordering us to attack the Goliath.' I said,.........Silence erupted from the room,One of the braver gunners shouted HOO RAH and one of the people actually thinking, quietly said 'UMM Sir we have a light cruiser, half the crew dead and a ship trying to pull itself apart, against a planet occupying ship, armed with a SARE gun and hundreds of YARE anti-ship lasers, and you expect us to attack?'

'YES, I do.' 'Right so onto attacking a greater force,' I said to the crew. The good part of me was battling for control but evil had firm control.

As i had expected the Goliath had stopped a safe distance from the asteroids as they hadn't expected us to survive, they didn't fire as we drew within distance as they knew we couldn't damage them.

We were within range, the crew looked to me......'FIRE EVERYTHING'

Our ship fired 600 missiles, traveling through space they were much more dangerous as they had no gravity to slow them, however their target, after they hit, was still there, unmoving, unflinching and and preparing to mow us down like a blade of grass.

Old me was back, 'Get us out of here, I'm detecting a planet with oxygen, get us there while they are still warming up there SARE'. Our ship while weaker, could maneuver much better and started racing away like earlier, this time however the Goliath had begun firing.

The SARE was the biggest gun ever built, it ran the length of the Goliath and was designed for wiping out continents, it was inaccurate, took ages to fire but when it did fire, no one cared.

It fired, missing the Arbiter by thousands of miles, it hit the asteroid field and wiped it out, the shock wave flung the fleeing Arbiter across space towards the planet.

'We have lost all control of the ship, current speed is... roughly 9thousand kps,hull integrity is 34%, we will be entering orbit of whatever planet that is in thirty seconds'The pilot seemed oddly calm at this. I was still sitting shocked and failed to comment, perhaps this was it, end of the road,....

'Sir, the Arbiter had us with its barrage, our hull integrity is 99.78% i personally take responsibility for this and will resign immediately.' The lieutenant had addressed the commander on deck.'wont be necessary lieutenant, it appears they landed on Crey, even if they survive re-entry the native...life will kill every single one of them,'