Life in Prime

[Whitegaurd]

I'm leaning back in a chair, sleeping.

Yea, i know what your thinking, how can i guy afford to sleep in a Universe filled with crazed Psychopaths who either want to make Credits the hard way or want to pointlessly turn the Universe into floating Space Debris.

Cause I'm smart. Completely Automized fleets work for me. Yea sure, there's always the hiccup here and there, cause computers can't really, well, Fight, but with the amount I've got running round, I've got enough money just to order a replacement. Well, it's not MY money, but I'm free to use it to replace destroyed or damaged equipment and Spacecraft.

Now i probably have you stumped. I clearly work for someone, but what do i do you ask? Well, no need to keep my hand closed and ask you to guess what I'm holding for much longer.
I'm an economic Manager.

I work for a privatized Captain who does as he wishes. If he wants to shoot random aliens out of the sky, so be it, I just make sure the money keeps on flowing into his bank account, and, of course, making sure some of it flows my way. The best bit is, you just need to an honest person to get a job like this, no need to get fancy degrees or finish difficult Economic courses, all i need to do is keep the money flowing and make sure it's always flowing, thats it.

Best bit i reckon, is that I'm quite conveniently working on an Argon Titan guarded by a fleet of smaller ships as well as Argon forces. I honestly think i couldn't have got an easier job, not to mention safer. The only safer thing i could think of is this entire fleet, only in a Boron sector. But i guess Boron being fish sorta things it might get a bit weird.

Well, anyway, I'm sleeping. I'm having this wonderful dream. It's all about ice-cream. I'm in a land full of Ice-cream, the ground is made of ice-cream, although some of the plants are made of chocolate and the grass is made of sprinkles. When it rains it rains delicious chocolate topping. Suddenly a shutter wakes me and i get up with such a start that i bang my head on an Overhead monitor. I fall back tipping my chair and crash to the ground. I'm thinking i might just lie down here and fall asleep again when i hear an alarm ring through the ship. "Thats new...." I manage to say. I try to stand up but I'm a bit shattered from hitting the metallic floor of the Titan passenger bay. You'd think that Carpet the Passenger bay. What dolt thought of making the floor metallic? As i try to stand up i notice that some of the other passengers are curious as to what's happening when a small squadron of Argon Policemen stroll down the corridor. This catches my interest mainly because they are not the security force patrolling this Titan. "Nothing wrong, please stay in your rooms, we just have a... slight problem we have to handle," one of the officers says as he walks down the hall. It's about this moment i realize that the Argon officers obviously are fairly concerned somethings wrong because they're carrying rather powerful firearms that would rather easily rip apart any of today's most durable armors.

It's probably about now i told you how i managed to get this fairly laid back job, after all, I'm sure plenty of other people would have gladly taken it, some of them even qualified for this sort of thing.
The captain of this fleet's name is Sarkay Hardey, he also happens to be a good friend of mine. See, we used to work down at a trade station together loading goods onto freighters. Of course, this was when ships docked inside of stations before they made stations with exterior docking points to be more convenient when it came to docking space. We used to load crates of what ever was ordered and Sarkay, or Shark, as i called him, always used to say "You know what, one day I'm going to own one of these ships, and then I'm going to make a fleet and become rich," I'd always nod my head and said "I'm sure you will Shark, I'm sure."
Soon enough Sarkay made it more then a dream, but a goal to become someone in the Universe. See, When they introduced machines and probes that would automatically load what you ordered onto your ship, me and Shark weren't really needed by the Trade station anymore and we lost our jobs. We hung around a bit until one day Sarkay came to me "Zack, listen, you know how i always said I'd Succeed in the universe?" He asked me.
"Yea, you said it every time we loaded a crate onto a ship," I told him.
"Well, I want to make that happen. Dreams, you hold in your hand but don't let them free, Goals, you let travel free so that they can do what they need to!" He had said.
"Mate, you know that didn't make any sense at all right?" We had a bit of a laugh when i said this but then Sarkay shuffled a bit and i knew something was up.
"Hey, what's wrong?" I asked him, then he looked up and stopped shuffling.
"Zack, i need some money to fulfill this goal, other wise it will always be a dream. Dream's don't happen Zack, goals do, but i need money to make my goal happen." He said to me, he sounded desperate.
"Mate, you know I'm going Broke, i can-" I was saying when Sarkay told me, "I need 20.000 credits, thats all, please Zack!" I started with a jump. That was a lot of money considering i no longer had a job.
"I don't have that kind of money Shark, you know tha-" But he interrupted again, and said something I'd rather he'd not mentioned.
"I know about Tara, you loved her Zack! She owed people money Zack, you saved up that money so she could pay her debts-"
"TO HELL I LOVED HER! I SAVED ALL THAT MONEY FOR HER! BUT THOSE HEARTLESS LENDERS, THEY KILLED HER! I HAD THEIR MONEY BUT THEY KILLED HER! WHO IS THAT EVIL SHARK?! WHO?" I couldn't stop myself. I fell back into a sofa and sat their, my head in my hands. I would be lying if i told you i wasn't crying.
"I loved her, Shark, i loved her..." I sobbed
"I'm sorry Zack, i didn't mean to-" I interrupted him and said to him "You can have the money, you don't have to pay me back, keep it." I knew that now that i didn't have a job that money was all i had left, but Sarkay was aiming for something, me, i was just watching the Universe fly by because the only thing that ever mattered to me was lost.
"Thanks so much Zack, i won't forget it!"
I barely heard him though, because all the sound in the Universe was been drowned out by memories in my head...
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Life in Prime P2

It soon came to my attention, that i was going to look pretty silly lying on the floor with my chair lying on top of me. I managed to wriggle my way out from under the chair and stand up just before an Argon security officer came in.
"Excuse me, are you Zack... Manaris?" He asked me. I shuffled a bit to the side the conceal the chair that was now lying on the floor behind me.
"Yes, yes i am, why do you ask?" I ask the officer.
"Well, Sarkay was accused of having Pirate links to earn 20.000 credits, however he claims that he lent it from you, so, we believed you may have been a pirate or something along those lines, so you and Sarkay are going to have to go to an Argon court to face judgment their." I sighed. GREAT. Lend a guy money and the police think your a blooming pirate. It wasn't long until i was walking along the Titans hallways and been stared at by many of it's passengers and officials. Me and the Argon officer boarded his ship. It wasn't a bad ship to be honest. It wasn't packed with cells and nasty holding rooms as i had imagined. It had a lounge section, a kitchen, a pilots section and a passenger's Quarters. What i also noticed though, was the Quarters had a lock on it on the outside.
"It's going to be a short trip mate, you can stay in the passenger's Quarters, but don't try anything, or I'll have to lock the door." The Officer Explained
"I don't intend to..." I muttered silently under my breath.
It was about half an hour later and we'd arrived on Argon Prime and we made our way over to a court house. This was surprising considering usually people are held then they go to Court, i was heading straight their.
When we entered the courts we were in a marble white hall. The Officer led me along the hall to a door that said Court 1. He stopped and said something into a radio. I heard a faint voice through the doors.
"We'd like to bring forward our final witness sir, Mr. Manaris." The doors opened and i stepped in, the officer directed me to a witness box, next to the Judge and i sat down. There was a man sitting down ahead of me wearing an extremely expensive suit who i recognized as Shark. His lawyer, as i interpreted, was standing next to him, and he looked like he was ready to shoot questions at me left right and center. "Mr. Manaris," He said. I Couldn't help it "If one more person calls me Mr. Manaris, I'm gonna have a god damn fit," i muttered under my breath.
"Excuse me, Zack, but could you please repeat what you just said?" The Judge asked in a demanding way.
"I said, If one more person calls me Mr. Manaris, I'm gonna have a god damn fit." I could hear Sarkay Chuckling by his seat and i could hear a giggle here and there amongst the audience, even the Jury. I swear i heard the Judge give off a little giggle.
"Nice one mate," Shark said to me. "What, it's true," I replied.
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Life in Prime P3

It wasn't long before the giggling died away. The judge looked down on me and gave me a "You've done the wrong thing, Naughty," look.
"Mr. Man- Zack, my client has pleaded innocent to pirate association and claims that, you, lent him 20,000 credits. Is this true?" Shark's lawyer asked.
"Yes, yes i did," I said but it was at this very moment a fairly confusing thing happened.
"This is impossible, we have evidence your honor, EVIDENCE, that Mr. Hardey could not have possible have loaned money from Mr. Manaris because, your honor, at such time that this "loan" was taken out Mr. Manaris was not only un-employed at this time in mention, but we have been informed that his bank account was not only empty, but somewhat in debt!" Someone screamed out from somewhere on my right, which was inconveniently blocked by the Judges stand, however, i must mention something.
I am a man of my word, and, as such, i have now been called Mr. Manaris twice.
I began to jolt around in my chair wildly and drooling like a young child might. I could see, despite my constant and unpredictable swinging action that half the people in the room at the time were wondering what was wrong, whilst the other half, including Sarkay, were laughing at me as if i was doing the most hilarious thing ever done in a court (however truth be told, courts being courts it probably was).
"Zack Manaris! Please cease this disgrace at once!" I heard the judge say. I stopped "Alright your honor, but i still owe this session of court 1 more fit." I told the judge.
About half an hour later i was dismissed from the stands and told i could wait outside or watch the court session unfold from the stands. I naturally was curious as to what was going on and i chose to watch from the stands.
There was a man sitting next to me wearing headphones. He had the sound up pretty high and i could make out some sort of song.

"I met a strange lady, she made me nervous, she took me in and gave me breakfast."

I sat through the case whilst the two lawyers disputed various things that, as far as i know, generally strayed away from the argument at hand.
Eventually the Judge stood up and spoke:
"Mr. Otsaya, EXILE Corporations, by your many attempts to get Mr. Harday into legal troubles, seem to stem off his recent business dealings that did not play in EXILE Corps favor and as of such, you have decided to try and seek revenge for the corporation, as of such I have found all your accusations, as such, false, and we will have another follow up session in private court to settle this dispute, session dismissed." It seemed that at these words court had ended, and i was finally able to talk to Shark as friend and friend.
"Zack, thanks so much for not causing to much trouble, ah screw it, how are you?" Shark came to me and patted my on the shoulder.
"Nice to see you to Shark, how long has it been, nearly a year now since I've ever actually talked to you in person." I said as Shark was packing up some things off his bench.
"Yea, sorry about that, my fault really, for pursuing the career i have. I thought that by hiring you i might get to see you a bit more, but you didn't aspire really, to get higher up so I didn't get to see you really." I chuckled a little.
"You should have figured mate, i like the simple life, because It's easier to manage." I said. To be honest with you, this is the first time I've been honestly happy since Tara died.


To be
continued....

A note from the Author (Whitegaurd/Me):

This story, i made up completely. It's inspired from life (and The X Series), life is an inspiration. Some of us don't realize this, preferring to dwell on the grand amounts of detail Graphic artists put into flying spaceships, guns or cars, when we take all the detail in the world for granted. Good graphics are judged by how real things look, the real things, are the things that graphics are compared to and we must never forget that.
Some of us praise Authors for coming up with wonderful stories, when life itself comes up with wonderful, sometimes tragic, even touching stories itself. It is life, i guess i am trying to say really, that we draw inspiration from and that no story or picture can ever be beyond that of life's own.

[-=Legendary=-]

I like this shark character. Damn computers

[Whitegaurd]

Part 2 of Life in Prime is complete, it also gives me an Excuse to bump my story up so it gets a few more hits

Please post your opinions, be constructive when it comes to criticzing (Spelt wrong, i know) and don't be to harsh. Thanks.

[Whitegaurd]

well, the post hit about... say 100 or so hits the other day? So i completed the 3rd passage and decided to post it.
Once again, i now have an Excuse to bump the Topic, however, could people PLEASE comment on the story, I'm in need of some feedback (and a reason to stop bumping my own posts)

But, a quick description of the third passage (for you lazy bums who have not already read it) Zack finds himself in court giving off evidence when, for the first time in 2 years he meets Shark again.

Now, i really want to introduce Shark into the story with a bit more depth and description so I'm going to make P4 revolve a bit more around Shark and some of his back-story as well as getting Shark and Zack back together as friends.
Now, a little snippet of what is going to be revealed in part 4:

"Zack... listen, don't chuck a spas or anything for not telling you earlier... but... well, there's something about EXILE corp that you might want to know"

Hope you've enjoyed the story so far.

[The Zig]

The start's solid. Your narrator has a good straight-fowardness about the way he addresses the reader. He narrates as though he were speaking to the reader in a bar. Friendly.

My only confusion is, I'm not sure what you're going for. The first part sets your character up as cynical and self-aware - which to me suggests realism. But then the stuff in the court-room is surreal - comic - it breaks the realism. If someone pulled these kinds of stunts for real, they'd be SO locked up.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts at the moment. I know it takes a while to set up a story. I'll watch how this develops. Don't worry if you don't get much feedback here - this isn't a high feed-back forum! Good luck, eh!


ps. One practical warning: there IS a limit on the amount of characters (letters) permitted in a single post here. It's pretty high, but I've hit it before. Anything over the limit gets cut off - disappears. Unless it's short, you won't be able to finish your story just by adding to the original post - it won't fit.
The two norms here seem to be (a) continuous "threads" like Sydrome's Sector 44 or SOTS' Seige, or (b) "chapters" like KiwiNZ's Red Glow or my own Terraformer Dreams. (Threads are definitely easier to manage)

[SOTS]

I agree with The Zig here - good start, engaging narration, but the flow seemed somewhat interrupted in P3.

I'm interested to see where this goes - I don't think I've yet read a story here where the main character stands as a witness in the second chapter. Good luck, and keep it up!

@Zig: O_o You linked me! :proud: Even if it was just to prove a point...

[Whitegaurd]

Thanks, i had realised the story had sorta gone off into a less realistic state (the courtroom part) but i felt the story needed some form of Humor, i just didn't present it well.
As for the letter limit, i was aware something along those lines existed and, i would eventually have to extend my story onto a new post but until that day should come the story will be continued using this post.

Glad you liked the first part though