I'm not sure if I've posted this here before or not, couldn't find it in the search.
Constructively critiscise me!
Here goes, enjoy
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Amadeus Kyros admired himself in the mirror. He had to look perfect for this meeting; it could land him the trade contract of the Century. He brushed his long, black hair aside to reveal his electric blue eyes, which, he thought, were the reason for his outstanding success with women. Every station or planet he landed on, just a glance from those eyes and a smile, Amadeus would have girls falling head over heels for him. This lead to him being slightly cocky around women, but in important situations he was always down to earth, not too flamboyant, but not too quiet, as a result of this, he had an uncanny knack for landing incredible deals, and people knew it, but they were keen to give him the deals, because they knew his reputation for getting things done, no matter what challenge they posed.
Amadeus stepped out of the bathroom as he felt the ship judder slightly as the docking clamps of the station connected with the sleek hull. “Cursed clamps” he thought “They’d better not have scratched my ship”. He strode to the hatch that would lead him to the noise and smell of the docking bay. How he hated those times, but they had to be done from time to time, one couldn’t spend their whole life floating in space. He pulled the hatch open and stepped out, but he wasn’t greeted by the noise, or the smell he expected. In fact, he had to shield his eyes from the pristine whiteness of everything, not what would be expected from the main trading station of the system. Suddenly it dawned on him that he wasn’t in the civilian docking bay, he couldn’t see anyone else. It was just him and his ship, “Forlorn Requiem”, he suddenly felt a sharp pang of loneliness, which was odd, considering the amount of time he spent alone in space. Maybe it was the whiteness of the place, or the total silence, or the fact that Verdus Prime, the main planet of the system, looked so distant, he didn’t know, but he wanted to leave, quickly.
He sat down in his chair at the head of the table. He smiled at everyone that was sat round and greeted them. Finally, after a long wait, the company director, Magnus Azariel, began the meeting.
“Greetings all, and welcome to our station, we hope you will enjoy your stay. But now enough of the niceties. Shall we get straight to business Mr Kyros?” Boomed Magnus from the other end of the table. A figure of authority if there ever was one. Thick grey hair, only now beginning to recede, deep set, steely grey eyes, which made even the most hard-hearted uncomfortable all added to his presence.
“It would be a pleasure Mr Azariel” Replied Amadeus almost instantly, as if already knowing what Magnus was going to say, before his lips even hinted at movement.
If he was unnerved by this, Magnus didn’t let it show, but some of the others round the table did.
“I understand that you want a contract with us to deliver our ships to the re-fit yard in Talos XI?”
“Yes, that is what I am here for. I have produced a detailed description of the route, avoiding all major dangers, whilst still maintaining speed. After all, we wouldn’t want to lose your reputation now, would we?”
“No, no we would not. The contract wouldn’t be the only thing you would lose”
A flash of anxiety flickered across Amadeus’ face, but he caught it, hopefully before anyone noticed.
“Of course. Now, if you would care to direct your attention to the screen, I will show you the route I intend to use as the delivery line”
The video screen flickered into life and showed the route, labelling all known dangers, and including notes on how the route would be made safe.
“Excellent! You have addressed all the issues that the four men before you haven’t been able to, and even some others that not even I had thought about. It shall be a pleasure working with you”
“Thank you. It will be an honour to work with an accomplished businessman such as yourself”
“Now, if you’ll be so kind, could you please step into my office so we can discuss your payment?”
Amadeus was already up as Magnus finished what he was saying. This time Magnus did let the fact that this unnerved him show. He stared wide-eyed at Amadeus’ seat, but a split second later had resumed his cold business face, and stood up to open to door to his office.
“Certainly” stated Amadeus.
Perfect, unscarred hands punched in the code to send the information needed to carry out the contract to all the relevant ships, and almost at once, the confirmation message came back “Command sent, command accepted, ships activated”. Amadeus thanked the stars for autonomous ships, if they hadn’t been invented who knows how long he would have had to spend distributing the relevant information to the relevant pilots.
The towel slipped off the end of the bed. Amadeus jumped. “Bloody towels…with all the technology we have surely they would make something that could hold them up…” he thought. He turned round in his bed, and resumed reading the latest news articles. “Nothing interesting today” he murmured in his head “just the general crap, ship crashed, pirates claim another life, the usual”. He flicked the news screen off and drifted into an uneasy sleep.
The ship jolted sharply, flinging Amadeus out of bed. He jumped to his feet, only to be knocked down again by another jolt. Crawling to the control panel he was thrown against the wall repeatedly by the successive jolts. Another jolt, flung into the control panel he released the air lock. The hiss that followed was the last sound that Amadeus ever heard as he was sucked out, into the vast emptiness of space, wearing just his pilot’s outfit.
“Bloody hell” thought Amadeus, who had just awoken, “I hope that’s the last one of those…not too pleasant…” he wondered aloud. Pulling his jacket on to ward against the cold he strolled to the cargo bay. Cursing against the cold he strolled through the cavernous hold of the ship, nothing in there except a few old rifles and a crate of neuro-pistols, “must deliver those at the next stop” he stated to the emptiness. As he left the hold he vowed to install something to heat that damned cargo hold, it was way too cold down there.
The ship made its second jump through hyperspace, without alerting Amadeus, who, at the time, was making himself a type of tea from the local planet. This jump made him jump, spilling the tea all over the kitchen. He cursed, and walked over to the ship computer; to put in the command to tell it to warn him of imminent jumps, surely that was programmed in already, it had told him about jumps before. “Strange” Amadeus thought aloud.
“This is system patrol 1, power down and disarm all weapons systems” Ordered the man over the comm. System.
“Whoa, hold your horses. What’s all this about?” Amadeus asked calmly.
“I repeat, this is system patrol 1, power down and disarm all weapons systems, we have a destroyer inbound on this position” The man was getting more and more forceful.
“Fine, I don’t understand what this is about, and I demand that you tell me” Stated Amadeus.
“All will be revealed, hold your position, a boarding team is being prepared to inspect your ship”
“Bu-, oh never mind, nothing I say will change your mind, but out of interest, what are you looking for?”
“Do not worry about such trivial matters, we shall explain what is necessary, and that is all. The team is boarding now”
“Ok, going down to meet them”
“No, that will not be necessary. They will search the hold and then any extra places that they feel they need to search”
“I don’t understand. Why can’t I guide them? What in the name of the emperor is going on?”
“Do not trouble yourself with such trivial matters”
“I can’t really trouble myself with them can I? You won’t give me an answer!” Amadeus was almost screaming at the system patrol officer now. He had noticed, and was making conscious efforts to keep his rage in check.
“That’s it, they’re done. The team is leaving now. Thanks for your cooperation” Announced the officer.
“Finally. If they have damaged anything I will personally find you, and take you to the courts” Shouted Amadeus.
“Your choice, it’s well within our rights to search ships, and you know that”
“Yes, of course I know that! I’m not stupid! But it is NOT within your rights to damage something on my ship, and, if I am not mistaken, under Act 564 system policing handbook you must inform me of what you are searching for”
“Thank you for your cooperation, we hope we did not disturb you too much. System patrol 1, out”
He slammed his fist down onto the worktop as hard as he could, making just about everything on the counter jump about 10 centimetres in the air.
“The bastards took my crate of pistols, which I have a ****** contract for, allowing me the freedom to transport them through the civilised systems. They didn’t even ask me for it! The shits. When I’m next up this way I’m going to take them to the courts, I don’t care how long it takes, but I will do it!” Raged Amadeus to a passing pilot.
“I’m sure they had a reason for it. Calm down, the police around here are fairly loose on this kind of thing, you know that as well as I do. It’s probably nothing, don’t trouble yourself” Reassured the pilot.
“Argh! Never mind, sorry to scream at you, it wasn’t intentional, I just had to let my rage go”
“Nah don’t worry about it, we all get a bit stressed when we’re alone for so long. Well, I’m jumping now; next time we are in the same system why don’t we go down to one of the bars together and have a drink?”
“Yeah, sure thing. See you later”
The ship was drifting gently towards the nebula, which Amadeus knew hid an asteroid field. The ships engines roared into life as Amadeus turned them on again, for a boost of speed to try and catch the ship before it hit the asteroid field. The engines clicked off once he was at sufficient speed, marked by an almost inaudible beep from the ship computer. 5000 clicks…4000…3000…1000, the computer beeped again to warn Amadeus of the fact that the target was close now. The ship began to slow itself down; he could see the reverse thrusters out of the view ports, after less then five seconds they began to fade. “500 kilometres to target and closing” announced the computer. 100km was announced by yet another beep. 50 clicks…25…10…5…4…3…2…1… “Target reached, power off” whined the computer. Using the inbuilt salvage beam Amadeus pulled the ship close enough to scan the ship for any signs of life. None where found. Next he scanned the cargo hold, nothing. “Well, at least I’ve got another ship!” exclaimed Amadeus in his head. A short space walk later and Amadeus was in the ship, with his neuro-pistol as a safety precaution. Scraping could be heard from the flight deck. Pulling his pistol out of its holster as slowly and quietly as possible. He began to creep towards the stairs, not wanting to take the lift for fear of making too much noise. Movement to the right caught his eye, he brought his pistol up and fired at whatever it was, the bolt from his pistol collided with the “things” chest, exploding in a ball of flesh, if it could be called that. The scraping upstairs had stopped. Amadeus edged towards the stairs, bringing his pistol up again, the first creature rounded the corner, to be greeted by three neuro bolts crashing into its face, knocking it backwards. The next one managed to get down a step before it went down, this time it was hit in the shoulder, killing it, but sending it spiralling into the three remaining creatures. Amadeus opened fire again, two shots at each creature. Every shot slammed into each creature, leaving them all a bloody mess. Searching the ship there was nothing else alive. “So much for nothing being alive…I really must get that ship checked out” thought Amadeus. He searched the creature’s bodies and found nothing of interest, except a strange box that he guessed were used for communication. It was roughly five centimetres in diameter and a strange metallic green. From inside a whirring could be heard, so Amadeus stuffed one hurriedly into his pocket and retreated back to his ship.
The system patrol came quickly enough, Amadeus had only just settled down after his comm. to the patrol and they were already there. They towed the ship away for further examination, paid him the sum of 20,000 Gen, and promised that if any developments were made he would be one of the first to know.
Amadeus’ ship began its slow descent into Thasia’s only dockyard. He watched as the shiny silver surfaces of everything glinted in the distant sunlight. The planet was on the very edge of the habitable area around the sun, so it was a lot colder than most other planets. The temperature range, on average was -70˚C to 5˚C. The first major city was rolling past the view ports; it was encased in a giant greenhouse-like structure, probably to contain warmth. The ship was being buffeted by the strong winds of the planet now, forced Amadeus to come away from the view port and sit down in his chair, just to be on the safe side.
The ship touched down in its allocated docking area. As Amadeus stepped out of his ship he was greeted by that foul smell, the smell of fuel, burning and urine. Making his way across the docking port he tried to breath in as few times as possible. How he hated that smell. Almost at a run now he could see the exit, where guards were demanding identification for the person, and of the ship. “Great” thought Amadeus “More time spent in this shit-hole…” He produced his identification, and showed identification of his ship. His eyes lit up as the guard stared at the hologram of his ship in amazement, probably the first of its kind the guard had seen. About the size of a freighter, it was as sleek as a cruiser, yet even to the untrained eye, it was obvious that “Forlorn Requiem” carried a lot of firepower, probably somewhere in between a system patrol corvette and a destroyer. Retrieving his ID from the guard. Amadeus made as fast an exit as he could. Once outside he took a deep breath to savour the smell of a new world, and to rid his nostrils of the putrid stench that the dockyards always gave off.
Amadeus ran, ran as fast as he could. Shock bolts were smashing into the trees behind him, just inches away. He was tiring now “Must keep running” he thought. Just as his legs gave way he reached the bunker he had been running for. He jumped/fell into it just as another shock bolt smashed into the trees behind him. It was his turn to fire back now. He levelled his rifle at his aggressors and depressed the trigger, sending two shock bolts screaming across the open ground, one struck a barricade and the other hit a tree “Damn!” shouted Amadeus in his head. Just as he got up to run again three shock bolts came flying from his left, striking him in the side of the chest. The impact sent him reeling. He lay on the floor in a crumpled heap moaning, until his fellow combatants came over to help him up, three shock bolts gave a nasty jolt. “Some ‘fun’ you guys have down here…I’d much rather be in my ship, sleeping” whined Amadeus.
“Oh come off it, you can’t say it wasn’t fun…your just saying that because you got hit” grinned the tall, greasy haired man who had shot him.
“Yeah…I actually enjoyed it…you just didn’t tell me how much the ****** shots hurt!” stated Amadeus, rather sheepishly.
“Well, if we had told you how much it hurt, you wouldn’t have wanted to come play with us, would you?” answered a shorter man, but just as thin as the last one.
“Good point…but hey, it was fun…until you shot me…dick” laughed Amadeus to the tall man.
Opening the news articles on the HUD of his ship, Amadeus’ interest immediately perked up when he spotted the words “Breaking News, alien life attacks” Jabbing his onboard computer, wishing it would bring up the article faster, Amadeus smiled “A war, one of those means loot, I like loot” he thought to himself, wondering how many credits he could make from this lucrative endeavour.
Earlier this month, an unnamed privateer came across a ship with traces of alien life aboard. We had no previous sightings or reports of the “Synctrans” as they are now being called, but now we’re under attack from them. A large siege force is amassing just a few light-years away from Signus Prime, capital of the empire. They have already laid waste to many trading lanes and it is only a matter of time before they begin an assault on our glorious capital. The imperial navy is drawing most of its ships from the outer reaches to defend Signus Prime, but still the Synctrans outnumber them and we do not yet know what kind of technologies they have, but we suspect them to be far greater than ours.