StarScreen chapters 1-3

Chapter 1 Of Starscreen

Time: May 17, 2776

Location: orbiting gas giant #435 Tallimar system

Business: counting loot from last hit.

Gazing off in aimless thought, I inattentively paced up and down the bridge passing my captains chair several times. Having just made one of the biggest scores of my pirating career I marveled at my ship, the Sphinx.

She was a beauty, held in envy by the eyes of every man that laid theirs upon her. Her crew was known throughout system from planet to planet as one of the most well trained, highly armed, and organized pirate ships with the best and most experienced officers leading her to every crushing victory. She was gallant and fierce, with a reputation that did not even come close to her true ferociousness. She was feared and admired alike throughout the galaxy.

She was a large carrier class vessel, and was one of only two ships of that class that survived. The Sphinx was a giant among other carrier class vessels, being twice as large as the standard carrier and just as fast. It was a deadly force to be reckoned with if used in the right hands.

I glanced to the left side of the bridge, to tinker with the holographic image of the ship. You could see the duel Haldron turrets, in their silver gleam, attached to the side of the ship. The armor was retracted exposing the eight hanger bays which took up most of the ships siding and housed all of their ships. The holographic display also had options to pull up the schematics on any of the ships interior parts such as the four massive hydrogen/plasma engine generators. In an icon below this, in the bottom left corner, was the option to open the the real-time schematics report of all the ships current inventory on supplies in any of the six cargo bays. It also, amazingly enough, had a complete crew roster showing what was now around 2,000 people. The best part was when it showed the position of the turrets with the most current strategic information on each. It was a quite amazing piece of technology being the first full color, functional, hologram ever made. Strangely enough there were three major armor sidings that were open they must have been the observation decks, these were used frequently, especially with the crew on temporary leave.

Its sister ship had been the Aurora, which was only slightly smaller. That is to say about one and a half miles across and three miles deep, keeping with the same angled front and rigid spartan armoring. It had been destroyed in its maiden voyage fighting the Chig empire. They were a race of sentient hive minded robots that had been terrorizing the Interplanetary Trade Federation for over 15 years. The ITF, despite their best efforts, didn't appear to be winning. It was at least something to keep them occupied to keep them off my tail for the meantime.

I was fortunate that the Sphinx had been sold for scrap, instead of being destroyed, after the design had been rendered useless after a confrontation with the Chig's Reapers. I had bought it on a loan and used this new, and oddly impressive, ship with my former crew to raid a nearby space station where I quickly paid off the debt and set out looking for adventure and wealth beyond my wildest dreams, living the life of a pirate.

I looked semi-impressive, if I do say so myself. I was presentable in my present state to say the least. Standing six feet tall, give or take a few inches, and wearing an old and worn, once blue military officer’s service dress uniform, back from when was once in the ITF military serving as an Ensign in the 139th Veneris Division.

Those were the good old days, back when I was just a rookie. I was third in command of my cohort, but I was ready and eager to prove myself as more than a capable leader. Coming fresh out of Officer Candidacy School, I graduated with honors at the top of my class, with a 4.3 GPA, at the age of 19. During my time there I excelled in the subjects of strategics, advanced mathematics, economics, physics, chemistry, and Shakespeare. My instructors told me that I would go far in this career, it seemed that a lot of my my higher-ups had placed much faith in me. When I graduated and was finally stationed I realized that I had all of this training and education, but absolutely no real-life combat experience. I may have been only third in command of my regiment, but there were a handful of good men who looked up to me, and quite a few more who I had to prove to that, despite being as young as I was, I was no pushover.