Episode One

{{Written by Alina}}

“Fire at will.” Victoriana Regency, former Lieutenant General of the Anubian Army and captain of the Feisty Dragon, stared out the console window of her craft. Beside her, Cornelius Zydeco sent the command through to the main computer and readied the ship’s moderate defenses. Between them and slightly behind them, Arturius sat at the armaments console and selected his method of attack. Cornelius noticed the indication on the main console and turned around.

“Short range lasers? Just how close to them are you planning on getting, Arturius?”

“It’s the right choice,” said the Captain. “Our long range options won’t penetrate their defenses, the only way is to maneuver the ship between their shields and the walls of the craft. If we pilot the Dragon close enough to their shields, our shields should merge with theirs for a brief period of time, giving us a direct shot at their unprotected hull. It’s a long shot, but it’s all we can do.”

“But even if that works once, how can we do it to the nineteen other ships that the monitor is picking up?” Cornelius said.

“Hopefully, by then we’ll have backup. Place the shield strength at maximum, Cornelius, this is going to take a delicate touch.”

Cornelius made the adjustments and sat back in his seat.

“She’s in your hands now, Captain.”

The Captain furrowed her brow and turned the course of the Dragon directly into the oncoming fleet. The distance between their hull and that of the first Anubian Infiltrator narrowed further and further.

“We’re going to experience a little turbulence now,” said the Captain.

“A little?” said Cornelius. “Violet and Marie, I seriously recommend some seatbelts unless you’re cool with severe head trauma.”

Violet, who had been standing behind Arturius’ chair, now sat down and buckled up. Marie stopped pacing the deck and did the same.

“Impact in ten seconds,” Cornelius read off the monitor. “Five, four, three, two, one!”

There was an ear-wrenching crack of electricity, as when lightning strikes very close to one’s person, and suddenly the Dragon was in motion. The few things in the cockpit that weren’t bolted down soon were ricocheting off the walls and ceiling.

“Is that your coffee mug, Marie?” said Violet, narrowly dodging a projectile.
“Maybe,” said Marie.

The Captain clenched the controls tightly, then suddenly made a 90 degree turn so that the guns pointed directly at the Infiltrator’s hull.

“Now, Arturius!” she commanded.

Without a second’s hesitation, Arturius engaged the short-range lasers, and the Infiltrator took a direct hit. Cornelius switched the Dragon into reverse and the craft drifted away from the Infiltrator.

“You hit the fuel cells!” he said. “It’s paralyzed now, great aim!”

“If Arturius’ aim with a cannon is as true as it is with a bow, we’ve done much more than that,” said the Captain.

“You mean you were aiming for the modulator? That’s impossible, with all the turbulence we couldn’t have hit something so…” Cornelius noticed a red glow coming from the center of the Infiltrator.

“Oh my God we hit it. We have to get out of here.”

“Brace yourselves,” said the Captain. “I’m merging our shields with those of another Infiltrator. Since we’ve fused with an Infiltrator just now, our shields should be carrying trace amounts of their shields’ energy. That means that the next infiltrator’s shield is going to be more likely to accept our shield, and we can stay merged for longer. We can stay there until the explosion is over.”

“We can stay there for longer, maybe, but it’s not going to be any more pleasant,” said Cornelius. “Impact in ten seconds, brace yourselves.”

Again, the Dragon fused its shield with an Infiltrator, causing the piercing blast of energy and ensuing chaos. Outside the ship, the first Infiltrator collapsed in on itself, then exploded. The blast lasted only a few seconds, but the shrapnel continued to pelt the shield after its duration. Gradually, the intensity of the Dragon’s turbulence increased, and the infrastructure of the ship began to make groaning and rattling noises.

“The Infiltrator’s shields are starting to recognize that we’re foreign,” said Cornelius, “they’ll repel us soon, and then the shrapnel will hit us.”
“Hang in there,” said the Captain.

All of a sudden, the communicator began to play a familiar melody, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly, the sky was filled with Infiltrator debris, as one by one the remaining nineteen were destroyed. The Captain disengaged contact with their merged shield, and flew them out of range of the many explosions. Cornelius turned down the power on the shields to normal range.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to hear the Sound of Music,” he said.
“Initiate an airspace communication with the Nun,” said the Captain.

The Feisty Dragon and the Singing Nun made contact, and Cornelius opened the air channels. Stella entered the cockpit, and everyone got up from their seats to greet her. She moved her goggles from her eyes to her forehead and grinned widely.
“&^%* yeah! I didn’t even hit anyone this time!”

After saying their hellos, they moved from the cockpit to the main cabin of the ship. Although it was a mess from being so violently shaken, Marie soon had them all eating dinner. While the Captain, Arturius, and Violet delicately manipulated knives and forks, Stella wolfed down her food with her hands, one of which was still gloved.

“We’re low on fuel from running the shields so high,” said the Captain. “We need to refuel before attempting another mission.”

Stella nodded.

“Osiris isn’t far. The Nun can tow you there now.” She twisted a buckle on her glove and opened communication to her crew.

“Oy! Get our friends to Osiris you bunch of *#$5-@$$ed sons of fishes. If we’re not there by tomorrow morning, your @$$es are all going to hurt long into next week.”
Cornelius looked at her uncomfortably.

“Captain, why do you let her do that?” he said.

The Captain didn’t look up from her dinner plate.

“The way Stella runs her ship is different from mine. I think you’d best not criticize her judgment, seeing as she saved all of our skins earlier.”
“But I don’t understand how you can relate to each other at all. How did you ever have the opportunity to get this close?”

The Captain looked at Stella.

“We met under parallel circumstances,” she said.

“I’ll tell you the story,” said Stella. “It was several years ago now, but once upon a time your Captain was in the Anubian army.”

“Just like Arturius,” said Cornelius.

“Yep. They even went through Basic together. In the beginning, neither of them understood the corruption of the Anubians, and both were very dedicated to their professions. After Basic, they parted ways. Victoriana took a track to becoming an officer, and Arturius became an infantry private. Your Captain fought many battles on the side of the Anubians, and she distinguished herself so much that she rose through the ranks to become a Lieutenant General. It was about that time that she began to notice the level of corruption infused with the structure of the army. Missions were undertaken for the most unimportant reasons. One general wanted the resources of a certain planet, another started a crusade against the religion of another planet that bordered on genocide. A war was started with Osiris because two of the Generals were angered in a gambling dispute. Now you know Osiris because you grew up there, it’s a giant tangled mess of gangs. There are bad gangs, and really bad gangs, big ones and small ones, and a few that are almost palatable. That’s where I come in. I was a fairly high ranking member of a medium range, okay kind of gang. Unfortunately, that was the gang that got in trouble with the Anubians, and it was Victoriana’s job to hunt me down. She did a @%$& good job of it too. She had me cornered in the middle of nowhere in the Southern Swamps. She approached me with a loaded gun, and was about to fire, but I guess the sight of me made something click in her brain and conclude once and for all that what the army was doing was wrong, and that she didn’t want to go along with it any more. If they would sink so low as to kill a young, unarmed girl crouching in the reeds, she couldn’t associate with them anymore. She let me go that day, and I didn’t forget it. Now, years later, I began to have similar feelings about the gang I was in, that even if my gang was less deplorable than some of the others, it wasn’t really good. One day as I was pondering leaving the gang, I saw her in a bar fight against no less than five opponents. I recognized her, and to repay her for saving my life I helped her win that fight. I left my gang that day, though on pretty good terms, and we’ve been working together ever since.”

“Wow,” said Cornelius, “I understand what you mean by parallel circumstances now. But how did you meet up with Arturius again, and how did you meet Marie and Violet, and get this ship?”

“One thing at a time! Jesus! Well, the two of us stowed away on board an Isisian cruiser bound for Anubis, where Victoriana hoped to foster enough dissent in the military to initiate a revolution. It took us a few years to do it, but through a series of underground networks and a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears, we amassed enough revolutionaries for a moderate sized coup. Unfortunately, there were a few double agents put into all the wrong places, and with their foreknowledge of our attack plans we were hopeless. It came down to a final showdown between ourselves, a handful of loyal revolutionaries, and the whole strength of the Anubians in a cheap used shipyard. Now who should own the shipyard but a man who had been to Basic with your Captain, Artirius. Now Artirius had been in battles too, but had long since been discharged from the army because of a severe injury to his chest, which you can still see in the form of a scar. Since being discharged, he had fared somewhat poorly in the civilian world as he had no marketable skills. He had soon become disillusioned with Anubian society, and when the revolution came around he was one of the first to join its ranks. We exchanged a few shots with the Anubians, but in the end we had to abandon the fight in the very ship we sit in now. We’re all that’s left of that revolution now, but another one is in the works. As we gain more ships, we gain followers, crewmen, and officers. One day we’ll have a fleet of our own, and we can come out of the shadows.”

“But what about Violet? She’s not from Osiris or Anubis, how did you meet her?” said Cornelius.

“Well,” Stella continued, “it wasn’t long before the revolution made news on other planets, however hard the Anubians tried to suppress it. The contacts we made on other planets formed a sort of alliance that was willing to protect us from the Anubians in exchange for aiding them in various ways. The alliance gave us a distress call from the planet Isis saying that some of their royalty was in danger. The Captain and I were hesitant to accept this one, but you will never find a man more chivalrous than Arturius, and he made us come to the rescue. We saved miss Violet here, and stayed on Isis for a time to recuperate. By the time we decided to leave, Violet and Arturius were inseparable. It was so cute!”

Stella took the opportunity to pinch both of their cheeks without their consent.
“Since Violet was smarter and handier with a weapon than her parents would have us believe, we decided it was alright to have her on board with us. As for Marie, it’s something of a different story. We were on a mission on Osiris which took us undercover into a brothel. Not the most dignified mission, but definitely the most fun.”

Cornelius grimaced.

“That’s where we met Marie.”

“She was a…” Cornelius trailed off.

“I was a hooker cooker,” said Marie.

“She was the chef for the brothel,” Stella explained. “We had no intention of taking her with us, but she stowed away. We didn’t realize it until we were far from the planet. We smelled cookies coming from the kitchen, and when we came in we discovered that she had baked for us. She begged to stay and we couldn’t say no, especially to peanut butter and coconut cookies. She was with us for several missions, and she’s a great fighter. Then one day we went to refuel on Osiris. I’m familiar with a lot of the gangs there, and I’m able to use my connections to get us things we need. That day, however, we made a series of mistakes that got us in trouble with one of the newer gangs that I didn’t know about. Luckily, you did.”

“Deadly Steel,” Cornelius nodded, “It was quite the task taking them down. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“So, what did you do before you joined up with us?” Violet asked.

“I was just an independent agent, trying to protect the few people on Osiris who weren’t a part of any of the gangs. It was hard work, but I had nothing else to do with myself. Those gangs killed some people very close to me, and I didn’t want anyone else to follow their fate. People fed me and kept me safe in gratitude.”

“Start from the beginning. How did you end up with a glowing arm, for example?”

“Oh, that. Well, I was born on a little independent asteroid colony owned by the TridentCo mining company. My whole family was essentially enslaved by the company, and I barely saw them at all. We worked in the mineral mines in exchange for store credit, with which we bought everything we had. When the wages went up, the prices of goods went up too, so we always just barely got by. One day, they took me away from the little asteroid where I lived and took me to the corporate headquarters on the pretense of my getting a better job. I don’t know whether my parents consented or not, because I haven’t seen them since. Anyway, instead of getting better jobs at corporate, me and the other selected miners were subjected to a series of experiments to try and maximize our mining abilities. We were injected with all kinds of chemicals, and underwent rigorous training and brainwashing ‘lessons.’ The worst part was at night, though. In our drug-induced sleep, they would perform surgeries on us to implant us with tools and weapons that could be activated with our brains. One of those is my ulna, a bone in my forearm that I can make glow green. One night I skipped my medication just because I was curious, and only pretended to sleep. When they came in for my surgery, I realized what was going on and I tried to escape. They held me down and got some drugs into my system, but I escaped. I commandeered a small shuttle and flew it away as best I could. I fought the drugs for as long as possible, but I fell asleep at the controls, and ended up crash landing on an unknown planet, which turned out to be Osiris. I was taken in by an elderly couple, Jacob and Elizabeth Coverley, and they taught me all about life. Real life, anyway, not what I had had before. Then one day they were killed by one of the gangs, and I devoted myself to stopping things like that from happening again. I used my embedded tools to take down several of the worst gangs in my area. It took me a long time to learn to use my tools, because I hadn’t finished the training. I still have no idea how many there are, or how to use all of them. When I met you guys, I didn’t feel as weird, what with all of you being as unusual as I was. It was only natural to come with you. Then I became the engineer, and we went through all those missions, we got the Nun, and here we are. I don’t know if I’m abandoning my planet or my family, or where I belong, or who I am. There are so many unknowns.”

“All of us had to leave behind something we cared about when we got on this ship, sweetie,” said Stella. “All of us have seen corruption at the top, and stared it in the face.”

“When a tower becomes too heavy at the top, it will fall down,” said Arturius.

“I’ll drink to that,” said the Captain with a smile. They lifted their glasses.
“Now I think it’s time to get some sleep,” she continued, “Tomorrow, Osiris, and who knows what awaits us there.”