Pirate of the Stars

Author: Brokenclaw Understanding

Chapter 1
The fingertips of a tall, light skinned man brushed the blinking, blue-green icon displayed on the main bridge touchpanel. The large vidscreen flared to life before the mans almost Asian amber eyes. The man was roughly six-foot-four, which, when coupled with his muscular frame, grave him a commanding aura of strength. A blue-green glow lit his cropped light brown hair as an image of a small planet revealed itself before him. He looked up from the infrared scans to take in the beauty of the third Terran homeworld. The surface of the terracompatable planet was speckled with blues, greens, and browns. The polar caps were whitish with a slight bit of gray near the very center. Signs of habitation were visible everywhere, from the almost imperceptible sparkle of lights on the dark side, to the huge laboratory dome visible on the light side. A huge cylinder was in orbit, just out of the planets ONeill ring. It had slightly domed end caps and large, honeycombed docking arrays positioned below the large viewport. Two large communication dishes were positioned facing the planet, with the other facing out into stellar space.

"Planet Alpha Centauri Four reports that docking permission is granted, Bax. Ill bring us around," called out A short, dark skinned woman from the only other seat in the bridge. The woman had long, almost reflective black hair, which she normally kept in a braid while on duty. Her small frame, not quite reaching five-foot-five, didnt remove from her domineering personality, which her deep black eyes showed very clearly. The holographic tags on the front of her one-piece jumpsuit visibly presented her name, rank, and ship. Vanessa Reens, Lieutenant-Commander, Stellar Justice.

The Captains tags reflected the blue green glow, making the lettering stand out boldly. Kurt Baxter, Owner-Captain, Stellar Justice. "All right, Van, dont use the antimatter drives, itll scare the shit out of them. Use the fusion rockets." Vanessa grinned back and tapped a few icons on her touchpanel. A faint whirr could be heard deep in the bowels of the ship as the fusion drives powered up. A hull-rattling growling followed the whirr of the ion initialization beams, signaling the complete power-up of the fusion drive. A bright white light lit the blackness of space as a plume of glowing plasma shot from the electromagnetic nozzle of the fusion rockets, pushing the Stellar Justice towards one of the honeycomb docking bays. The Stellar Justice was almost sixty meters long, resembling a gigantic A-10 without the wings. It had two large, drum-shaped antimatter drives affixed to its rear, which were capable of producing twelve gees worth of propulsion. The Antimatter drives also generated the tremendous amounts of energy needed for the formation of an event horizon which could push them through the fabric of space, up to a distance of five light years. Which, by current standards, was a huge distance. In between the two antimatter drives was the fusion exhaust and rocket, which was used when in close proximity to planets and space stations. The fusion generators also served to power the electrical needs of the crew when the ship was not crossing the void of space. Clusters of small, blister-like nodes covered the black silicon composite hull. Used for the generation of the infinite density energy needed for the event horizon, they were essential to the ships interstellar traveling capability. Without them, the ship could not expect to even come close to leaving any star system in a time span of ten years or less. The final obvious feature of the Stellar Justice was the small, oblong hemisphere on the top-front of the nose, resembling the cockpit from the early Earth-analogue of the starship. The only difference was that there were no windows on the starship, only two tiny holes in which high-res imaging cameras were positioned.

The ion breaking thrusters fired as the Stellar Justice approached one of the pentagonal docking bays. It slid smoothly into the magnetic docking locks, not a single scratch, blemish, or other damage done to the starship. The starships airlock telescoped out to meet the airlock door into the spaceport. A hiss was heard inside the Stellar Justice as the lock was completed. Baxter pushed himself up from the gravity couch, moving the touchscreen to one side. Reens did the same, this time removing the radio plugs from her ear instead of pushing the command touchscreen away. They both looked to each other with a grin, happy to have some shore leave before they chartered their next mission.

Below the bridge, in the weapons and sensor room, Lieutenants Rick Treem and Ron Rets both pushed their command screens away and stood up. Rick was a black-skinned hulk, standing almost six-foot-seven, his tall and muscular frame towering over even that of Baxters. His reflective black eyes darted around intelligently; anyone watching would have sworn those eyes were trying to get a target lock. His ebony-colored scalp was shaved bare, not even the faintest hint of hair anywhere on his head. His personality was that of a humble warrior, soft-spoken and gentile. That is, unless someone angered him, or harmed any of his shipmates or friends in any way. Then he became pure raging anger and with his inhuman strength he would be a formidable opponent for any man.

Ron, on the other hand, was loud and obnoxious and while in public, he was given a wide berth, the passers-by fearing hearing loss. He stood exact height of six-feet tall, with an almost sickly thinness. His scalp was covering by a misshapen covering of something that could barely be classified as hair, growing every which way and refusing to be combed down for any occasion. But under that mat of wild hair was a mind that went to great depths to preserve knowledge and to obtain knowledge. Rons alabaster complexion clearly showed his hours of work without use of the sunlamps or tanning booths, all his time spent in the pursuit of knowledge. He was known to be loyal, but not so much as to endanger his life, but trustworthy enough so that he would go to great, non-dangerous lengths to protect his friends.

The duo walked out the open doorway and down the hall towards their quarters, to prepare for the festivities the next few days would bring. Down on the far end of the ship, just in front of the drum-encased antimatter drives was the engineering section.

Lieutenants Kate and June Raeleda rose from their gravity couches. Twin sisters, the pair looked exactly alike, down to a single freckle. Kate had long, red-brown hair which was always kept up, normally in a bun or in a similar fashion. Her emerald-green eyes sparkled constantly, revealing the fact that she loved to flirt, which almost any man which caught her fancy. She was short, nearly five-foot-six, and thin, but not to the point of appearing emaciated. She was very friendly, especially towards men, and loved to hang about in groups of as many people she could scrape together. She fit in with the rest of the crew and was loyal to a point where she would seriously consider sparing her life. She was the ships electronics specialist and she often boasted she could make a starship run on the electricity generated by a hamster wheel.

June appeared the exact duplicate of Kate, except for her hair, which she kept short, sometimes in a braid but more often not. June was slightly reclusive, but she was still outgoing most of the time and would probably follow her sister to the ends of the galaxy and maybe beyond. June was loyal just like the rest of the crew, but her true trust lied with her sister. Being the ships engineer, or more commonly referred to as mechanic, required quite a bit of skill, which June had in abundance. As much as her sister was an expert in electronics, she was the analogue made for the engines and energy systems of a starship. When she did get into a boasting mood, she would always say that she could make a jump with less antimatter than that which was in her little finger. People would always laugh happily at the two sisters.

Kate looked to June and smiled, June replicating the action. They shared a quick whisper and disappeared down the hall, towards they quarters to prepare for the night activities, which would hopefully lead into more nights of activities.

All six crew members were dressed casually, with neural processors and implants turned on to full capacity. The neural processors and implants were used while operating the starship, letting the ships semi-intelligent computer interface directly into their minds. The retinal implants allowed most visual data to be displayed directly in their field of vision. The only physical control stations left on the ship were the touchpanels for each station and a few auxiliary command centers stationed throughout the ship. The rest of their implants were used for enhancement purposes, extra strength, better taste of smell or hearing, and things like that. When not on duty, they were readily showed off to anyone they met. If you had neural implants, you had popularity.

The inner airlock door whooshed open and they marched in a loud, giggling procession down into the spaceport airlock. It also whooshed open, allowing them access to the security hall inside. The android guards silently directed them to a thin, door-like frame positioned at the end of the hallway. The first crew member stepped into the frame. Barely perceptible halos of light appeared on the top of the frame and slowly moved downwards, scanning the bodies of the crew for weapons, or contraband.

A thin, crystalline pillar stood next to the frame, above which a holographic image of the woman inside the frame was slowly appearing, starting at the head and working its way down. Blinking red dots appeared where ever foreign, non-organic objects were detected. The neural processor, retinal, and bodily implants were marked with a halo of green around the red, labeling them as legal. This process repeated for every crew member. Out in the hall, the crew reassembled, trading hugs and kisses as they separated for the night. Captain Baxter gave explicit orders that they should all meet back at the Stellar Justice before the next afternoon. They all grinned at each other and walked down separate halls to their bars of choice. Baxter shook his head and started off down the corridors towards the nearest Mercenarys Guild office.

The front of the Mercenarys Guild was open to the wide avenues of the mall, with a large back room concealed by a triple-density composite aluminum door, of the highest sensor-proof quality. In the visible area of the Guild, secretaries were positioned throughout the room, with vidscreens and touchpanels. The guild members were either being attended to by the secretaries, or waiting in the long lines. The last secretary in the line had no line, nor any customers. A flashing holograph floating above her labeled that line as Exclusive.

Baxter pushed his way through the crowd and pulled up a chair to the exclusive members line. The secretary looked up from her vidscreen, "Welcome," the secretary paused slightly, "Captain Kurt Baxter. We have twelve exclusive contracts available. Please choose one." The touchpanel swiveled to face Kurt, a display of twelve contracts with small summaries display next to them. Among the twelve, only one caught his eye, Black Rose. The summary indicated this as a top-priority assignment, which required Guildmaster briefing. Kurt tapped the line of next labeled Black Rose. "Very good, sir. Unfortunately, I cannot help you with this choice. The Guildmaster will have to brief you." She tapped a few commands into her touchpanel. Scanning the results, she continued, "He is not currently busy and will see you." The triple-dense door slid open to reveal a large office with a holoprojector and a real oak desk. A frail-looking black-haired man sat behind the desk, slightly reclined. He beckoned Baxter in. Kurt stepped through the narrow doorway and walked across the wide room. He pulled up a straight-backed wooden chair and lowered himself into it, the chair creaking dangerously with age. The thin man smiled slightly, "Well Kurt, it appears you have chosen the most dangerous mission again." Kurt smiled back and reclined as much as he could in the hard wooden chair. "Well, I will fill you in with the full information through a datatransfer via your neural processor, but Ill give you the basics now." he tapped a few commands into his touchscreen, starting the huge transfer of data from his computer to Kurts neural net. "Im sure youve heard of the Black Rose, one of the most notorious pirate ships in two star systems. Well, one of NeoBoeings latest starship caravans has been hijacked, the crew executed and the cargo ships stripped clean of anything useful." Kurt nodded slowly, letting the data transfer drift to the back of his mind; allowing what the Guildmaster was saying sink in. "NeoBoeing was, needless to say, quite angry. They have put out a contract for the capture of return of the Black Rose and any remaining cargo. Their payment, upon delivery of the Black Rose, is twenty million starcreds. Twenty million Kurt, twenty million." Kurt boggled at the huge amount of SCs that NeoBoeing had put up. Twenty Million could leave six people rich for life, no matter how long.

"Guildmaster, I accept this mission." The datatransfer was completed as Kurt stood up and brushed his right five fingers lightly against the Guildmasters left five fingers, a symbolic promise, although all actually contracts were signed and accepted over computer, this was a tradition not easily broken. "Good, Kurt, Ill send the documents over to your ships computer. The official beginning of the mission is in two days, be ready for departure then." The Guildmaster swiveled to face the holoprojector, a closing statement which allowed Kurt to leave. Twenty Million SCs, Kurt shook his head and walked out from the office, to have one last night of fun before they had to depart.

Chapter 2
Forty-eight hours later, after having two extravagant nights of fun, the crew was ready for departure. The docking clamps retracted into the walls of the bay and the refueling hoses and magnetic antimatter transfer system unlocked their nozzles from the Stellar Justice and were reeled back into the spaceport.

The black starship slowly backed out of the bay, using its ion braking thrusters for reverse propulsion. As soon as it had cleared the bay, Vanessa tapped a few commands into the touchscreen and the maneuvering ion thrusters fired, bring them about. They aligned themselves with the nearest jump point and fired the fusion drive. Their speed steadily increased from zero-gee to six-gee within six seconds.

"All right, Vanessa, you want to give them a show? Fire up the antimatter drive," grinned Captain Baxter. He tapped in the Antimatter OK icon on his touchscreen, but let Reens do the actual initialization.

Van tapped two icons, first the green, then a blinking orange-red. A whine steadily increasing in volume could be heard from the rear of the ship. Bax and Vanessa sat lower in their gravity couches. The whine stopped for a fraction of a second; the ship strangely silent.

After a fraction of a second of silence, a brain-rattling subsonic rumbling could be felt, accompanied by a blinding white flash that lit the edges of the bridge vidscreen, its source not seen. Bax and Van painfully grinned at each other through the crunching twelve gees.

In the spaceport startled gasps and angry grumbles could be heard as the blinding anti-matter flash could be seen in the distance. "Show-offs," snarled one man before climbing into a maglev. The others just shook their heads and continued down the main avenue that overlooked the viewport.

"Ill be ready for jump to Sol in thirty seconds, Captain." grunted Van from her seat beside the captain. The Captain nodded and gave the order for Jump Drive OK" from his neural processor.

Down in engineering, the twin sisters were both strapped into the grav couches, frantically datatransing orders for conversion of excess antimatter and fusion power into the jump nodes. June datatransed the order for Singularity Drive OK to the control center on the bridge.

"Captain," voiced Van painfully, "were ready for jump. Im engaging the jump nodes now." She datatransed a few orders for the Singularity Drive to prepare the nodes for use. A high-pitched whine could be heard over the soundless rumble of the antimatter drive.

The annihilated antimatter energy stopped flaring from the two electromagnetic nozzles, all the tremendous power of the antimatter conversion diverted to the infinite density energy halo forming around the ship.

The energy ring around the Stellar Justice reached infinity. Its brightness faded as it was replaced by a two-dimensional event horizon. Space inside the ring darkened and warped to form the opening on an interstellar wormhole. The Stellar Justice was sucked quickly into it, appearing in the Sol system within nanoseconds. Once the starship was a few kilometers from the wormhole, Vanessa disengaged the jump nodes; the two-dimensional portal through space snapped shut instantly, allowing the starlight to filter through once again.

"Once again, Van, you have completed a flawless jump," grinned Bax from his terminal. He tapped the vidscreen command. A warm, reassuring glow of Sol spilled from the screen, covering everything on the bridge in its warm embrace; Earth could be seen as a tiny, blue-white dot in the distance, the moon an orbiting white pinprick.

"Yeah, you know how perfect I am," chuckled back Van. She tapped a few more commands and brought the antimatter drive back online. Van datatransed the order to contact Earth Command while the starships drive systems initiated. The whirr fell in pitch to a subsonic hum right after she received docking permission. Van datatransed the order for ten gees of thrust and directed the navigation systems toward Earth. "Okay, Bax. Well be at Earth in twenty minutes." The bright flare of antimatter energy filled the vidscreen and the crew was pushed back into their gravity couches under ten gees of pressure.

The head of an ebony-skinned man emerged from the small maglev shaft, his eyes showing an almost animal cunning. Cunning derived from an uncanny devotion to a lifelong obsession. The rest of the man rose from the maglev shaft, black holotags revealing him as the Captain of the Black Rose, Craig Sutre. The maglev slowed to a silent halt, allowing Sutre to step down from the black platform.

Sutres scalp was shaved completely hairless, the florescent light glaring off his scalp as he walked down the corridor to the bridge. His frame was massive, so massive that some geneering mustve been done to one of his ancestors. His muscled, seven-foot-six body tripped the optical sensor of the bridge door; it slid silently aside.

"Tactical, what is our position relative to that of the merchant ship," called Sutre from his position at the foot of the bridge. He hopped over the plasteel divider, landing on silent feet next to the Captains gravity couch. Sutre sat down.

"Five thousand kilometers and closing, Captain. I estimate interception in twenty seconds," responded the short Asian man seated in front of the Tactical station. The man tapped a few commands into his touchscreen, and a visual of the Harvests Bounty appeared on screen. A merchant ship, the Harvest wasnt meant to travel at high speeds; it was losing ground to the Black Rose fast.

"Good. Prepare the broadcast and power up the tachyon cannons. Dont forget to put the positron torpedoes at standby status." Sutre sank deeper into the foam gravcouch as the ship speeded up. "Boys, were going to have us some good cargo for once." A skull-like grin formed on his face. The rest of the crew present snickered or giggled insanely.

As the large pirate cruiser came within comm range, the small dish mounted on the nose of the Rose swiveled to face the Harvest. "Eject your cargo now. I repeat, eject your cargo now. When we have to repeat ourselves, we will repeat ourselves with our weapons." The grim message blared from the Harvests speakers, filling the small merchant crew with dread. The Captain quickly ejected the cargo. The Asian man aboard the Rose activated the mech. arm and pulled the plasteel crates into the waiting bay doors. The Harvests crew breathed a short sigh of relief.

"Annihilate them, tactical, leave no witnesses," voiced Sutre from his foam bed. The Asian man locked the positron torpedoes onto the ion emissions of the merchant ship, and opened the firing tubes. A black man next to the Tactical officer swiveled the tachyon cannons to face the Harvest with a large black command stick and tapped the fire control switch. Tachyon pulses shot from the cannons in rapid succession, ripping through the hull of the Harvest.

The sleek black ovals impacted with the hull of the merchant vessel, and antimatter annihilation took over, completely vaporizing the hull wherever it touched the torpedo. After several seconds of bombardment, the Harvest exploded in vacuum blast, firelessly vaporizing itself.

The only thing the sensors of the Rose didnt detect was the approaching enforcer-class ship, Stellar Justice. The x-ray laser cannons mounted on the Justice extended, and the tachyon cannons locked onto the Rose. A barely-visible light-blue sphere flickered into existence around the Justice, formed of energy-absorbing ions. As the shield was charging, the strange amount of ions drew the Roses sensors. They swiveled to detect the Justice.

"Captain, Enforcer-class bearing seventy-three mark twenty-four, headed right for us," yelled the Asian man over the din of the triumphant crew. He tapped a few commands into the bridge console and a infrared image of the Justice appeared on the viewscreen.

"Evasive action, bring the tachyons about. Were going to take them out, or die trying." Captain Sutre leaned back in his foam couch, the command console lowering into his reach. He tapped a few commands and the Roses ion shield commenced charging.

White-hot beams of x-rays and photons shot from the small cannons of the Justice, searing a vacant spot into the cloud of ions around the Rose. The gap slowly filled as the lasers moved on to a new target.

The tachyon pulses emitted from the small, cylindrical muzzles of the tachyon cannons stirred the ions of the Justices shield; vaporizing them completely in some places. Small ovals shot from the forward torpedo tubes of the Rose. They arched towards the Justice at amazing velocities, driven by antimatter boosters affixed to the sides. The x-ray lasers laced out towards the speeding torpedoes, exploding them before they could wreak havoc on the Justices hull.

Antimatter missiles flared from large racks mounted inside the Stellar Justices forward cargo bays. They were intercepted by tachyon pulses from the Roses cannons. The battle went on like this for minutes, every hit precious currency in the economy of war, every evasive maneuver a wise banking decision.

"Captain, fore shield generators failing, aft steady at forty-five percent. Sir, our tachyon cannons are overheated and were out of positron torps. Orders?" The Tactical officer looked to Sutre with mildly frightened eyes. Sutre stared back with a decisive gaze.

"Activate the mass-cloak, and divert all power to the singularity drive. Were going to take this to the temporal level," the captain released the support straps on his grav couch. The Roses trajectory changed rapidly, heading for deep space. After a few seconds, a cloak of white light replaced the pale-blue ion cloud. The Rose shot away at light speed.

"Captain Baxter, theyre using mass-cloak technology, should I follow with the singularity drive," inquired Vanessa. She datatransed the order for an intercept trajectory.

"Yeah, Van, looks like were going to have to. Bring her about with an intercept trajectory, heading four-one mark one-nine." Baxter datatransed the order into the computer only to find that it was already there. He shot a sideways grin at Vanessa.

The Rose activated her singularity drive; a black void opened up just past the void from which the Justice was appearing. The rose collided with the half-visible Justice, its atoms moving at incredible speeds, separating, being pulled into the two voids, warped, twisted, and finally breaking down into nothingness, part of the two singularities. The voids pulled on each other, twisting space into a jumbled heap of gravity and nothingness. Space flickered briefly, the fabric of space-time realigning to normalcy.