Stars | ▶️

1.1

PART ONE | CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

Captain Darren Chess of the Novas had taken it up to himself to rule the solar system ever since the Stars fell three years before.

They said they were taken down from the inside.

Word around space pubs, whispers in the shadows of forgotten restaurants and rumors in cantines floating infinitely in the galaxy had it that one of the mechanics went rogue and killed everyone else of their rank and the former captain of the ship, stole a project that could quite possibly destroy the universe and escaped with one of the escape pods before dousing the survivors with a memory gas to make them forget everything about them. The Stars would have been the only ones with an accurate idea of what happened that night but they, too, had lost most memories of the event.

Three years passed and no one could remember a thing about the person who destroyed them.

All this happened while the Stars were being attacked by the Suns, who were after the same plans that disappeared with the rat. It was unclear whether the traitor worked with them, but everyone had a different theory about what happened.

And the Stars... Well, that night was a tragedy for all of them. Most of them died during the attack and the survivors managed to pick up the pieces and build a new research facility.

You see, the Stars were only made up of people who had no one else. Orphans and children disowned by their families, which was why most of the crewpeople were between the ages ten and twenty. There were older people, of course, but they weren't as big in numbers. That was one more reason why the massacre that took place there shocked the entire solar system so much.

Three years, and everyone had given up hope in finding the culprit.

Three years, and the Suns still hadn't paid for their crimes.

Honestly, Darren was trying to put the past behind him. Yeah, what happened to the Stars was terrible, but they were slowly rising to power again and would probably find the traitor soon. Maybe they just weren't giving out the traces they'd found to keep it a secret from the rat themselves.

Everyone knew that they'd kill that person if they ever found them and no one on their right minds would aid them or accuse the Stars of murder. Everyone knew that the traitor deserved the worst, because if they'd felt any guilt about what they did that night and about all that blood on their hands, they'd have come forward and paid for their actions. Instead, they hid away in the dark; the only person who remembered the fall with every excruciating detail...

The new captain of the Stars was a guy named Ron Bowns, who had been the former captain's right hand before the tragedy. He'd only been seventeen years old when he got the position, but he had yet to disappoint. He'd lost too much that night to let his people down again.

Darren couldn't have asked for a better crew. His co-captain, Sidney Claw, was as loyal as they came. She was in her late twenties (much like Darren himself), ambitious and knew how to get what she wanted, but she would never betray her comrades. She and the captain had known each other since they were kids and had gotten in all sorts of trouble together. They'd gotten married half a decade before on a dare, but didn't get divorced after and became an actual couple. Ask their friends and they'll tell you that they were practically begging for that opportunity.

The crew on the whole was about a dozen people and that may not sound like a lot, but they were close and worked hard when they weren't partying or fighting with each other.

Darren thought he knew everyone perfectly, but that notion was flushed down the toilet when he got a call from the surviving Stars.

"Someone's calling ya." Sidney told her husband, while munching on a bag of chips and sitting on his favourite seat (which was a huge no-no and earned her a glare).