Unmade: Pirates of the Twenty-Wun Stars, #5

By Jerri O'Powell

s the deep sea once gave rise to pirates, so also did deep space . The crew of The Twenty-Wun Stars is one such group of opportunistic souls. This exceptional group of serendipitous scoundrels find themselves under the leadership of Captain Jake Wade. The swaggering mojo at which this man moves thru life is literally infectious. Skirting the law where they can, looking for their next score to make payroll and trying to keep the ship online, is always the order of the day.

UNMADE

Captain Wade and the crew are visited by two young ladies from the future, trying to stop a century of war. In the time they come from, the confederacy has all but been destroyed, trillions have died, and most of what is left of humanity has been enslaved. Only surviving an ongoing battle with another clan of pirates by the skin of their teeth, they crash into the ocean of a long lost 'Big Bang' world. This world, cut off and oblivious to the rest of the confederacy, has re-evolved over the last 3000 years without the use of electricity, into a steampunk world. On this strange new steampunk world, deeply steeped in super-hero/villain culture, the crew and the visitors from the future set about repairing the ship, trying to prevent the future war and saving this new world from itself.

Title 5 in the Pirates of the Twenty-Wun Star series.

Over three thousand years after the final battle over the soul of mankind, between God, Satan, and Nefarious, destroys the earth, a new chapter begins. The resulting hyperspace blast from the earth's destruction flings the last of humanity into the furthest reaches of space on their surviving starships. Over 300 years passes before these star cast seeds of mankind reclaim the stars, and begin to find each other. The first of the new worlds to find each other and reconnect old humanity on new worlds, would eventually form The Confederation of Republic Worlds. This union would be marked with the erection of the Jara Timekeeping Tower on Jara Prime, broadcasting a synced time throughout the known universe.
This is the Jara Era.

• Language: English
• Publisher: McMillian
• Release date: Jan 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201361471

Book preview

Prelude

The entire ship shook as I entered the bridge, striding towards the captain's chair. I couldn’t even hear what was being said by the crew, as the boom from enemy fire shook the ship and echoed off the bridge chamber walls. Crew members who were not elbow deep in controls had their hands over their ears as our artificial gravity cut out for a moment, and everybody who was not buckled in, shifted stage left into the air. That included me. Those not strapped in grabbed their chairs, consoles or anything else they could. Luckily stage left was the direction I was going and just as the gravity came back, I had just grabbed onto the captain’s chair and dropped back down into my seat as the artificial gravity came back online. I buckled in. Some of the bridge crew were not so lucky. I looked up in time to see heads bouncing up off of consoles and Ms Larrett sliding on the floor to a stop right in front of me. She sprang up just as the gravity cut out again from another hit. She was running thru the air for all of a second and a half before the gravity was back and she dropped into place back at her station. Evidently that blast was not so near the bridge and the boom was more distant and far less deafening.

I’m sure this goes without saying, but everybody buckle-up. Mr  Randle, make us dance! Mr Emmerson, status report! Mr Canary, how many are we looking at!? Mr Justice, bridge cannons; make that number less. I said as the ship continued to rumble. With a press of a button at my arm console I was talking to the whole ship.

Attention all cannon and torrette personnel, report to your stations. If it moves, blast it! I said.

Bridge!? I asked, as everyone was scrambling into action.

Captain, our grade of shields is reducing enemy fire by 81 to 23%. At the higher end of that, we are taking little to no damage to the hull, most of which has not even scratched us. At the lower end from the bigger ships we are really feeling it. It’s penetrating the shields and hull armor and we are taking some internal damage. We took a major hit that did damage to 3 decks, deep enough to destabilize the power to the artificial gravity. Crews are enroute to repair the damaged power line now. The hull breaches are minimal and the shields are limiting loss of life support. We have slow leaks in 15 sections, but no casualties said Mr Canary.

Captain, we are looking at 9 ships. Four I think we could stand toe to toe with all day. Three that are really hurting us. The other two could probably take us out, if they could hit us with their mains . Lucky for us they are so big. They would be hard pressed to hit as long as our anti-i (anti-inertial) systems stay online. Dance dance dance. said Mr Canary.

"I’mma roll it up tight, we gone turn with the light. They might hit us a few, but they won't get past two. said Mr  Randle. I told you going over spec on the anti-I array was gonna save us!", he said. Our starship zipped around the heavy asteroid field of Pollange Moon of Kelles 33, like it was a one man star-fighter.

And that might be adding to why we are having these fluxes in the artificial gravity every time we take a good hit, said Mr Emerson.

We rockin 'and rollin', we leading this dance, we bending them over, they ain’t wearing pants said Mr  Randle as another boom rocked our ship and he seemed to be swaying to the beat to something he was listening to in his ear piece.

Well we better get outta here quick. Anti-I cores 7, 11, 17, 21… 9, 6, 3… 19 are overheating and…. SHIT! 23,2, and 5 overheating. If they burn up, they are gone, if they go down or the power couplings blow, we are gone! We’ll be sitting ducks, said Mr Canary

Sir, there is no one in the decks where the hull breaches are now. It’s a long shot but if we drop the shields for a second and open the bulkheads on those levels, the vacuum of air might cool them down some. I mean once the air is gone it’s over but… Ms Larrett said, before I cut in.

On my mark, Ms Larrett, open the bulkhead doors, and passages between the anti-i bays, and the hull breaches. Mr Emmerson, drop the shields in those sections on my mark, I said, pressing the ship PA button again. Attention crew, in ten seconds life support may be lost for a few seconds on hull breach decks. Hold off repairs and evacuate those decks for the next three minutes. If you have portable life support, keep it with you. SAI, give us a shipwide countdown, now.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five ,four, three, two, one… said the ship.

Hit it! I said. We could hear the deck alarms going off as we evacuated the air from those levels in an attempt to cool our anti-i cores.

A star-fighter with a single good anti-I core might use 10 times the power but can make a near instant 45 degree bank, traveling at sub-light, sub warp speeds. (Warp being 10 times the speed of light where exaggerated distance gains begin to kick in). In any event Mr Emmerson was a tech wizard when he’s not trying to make a deal or turn a profit. With his help we acquired a whole nother power core for our ship. I think Mr Emmerson had 3 at one point but sold two. I should watch him, but I trust him, kinda. It's not a propulsion core but it generates almost as much power as our main propulsion core. To which Mr  Randle pleaded his case for more anti-i cores. The ship originally had one primary and six axis place subordinate cores that as I understand had a primary function for minimizing the effects of post light speeds at one end of the spectrum and smoothe docking for a ship our size at the other. With them, a ship our size at docking speeds, could come to a complete stop almost instantly. Anti-I can greatly reduce inertia (the force that makes things want to keep doing what they are already doing.) Things that are rest, want to stay at rest, things moving, want to keep moving. Things moving in a straight line resist turns. Eliminate inertia thereordically and 180 degree turn could be done instantaneously.

Mr Emmerson and  Randle replaced the 6 subordinate axis cores and replaced them with upgraded primary sized anti-i cores, actually better than our original one. Then they added 24 more, almost making a sphere pattern when mapped in the ship. When they were all online, it used 50% of the 2nd power core’s output, but we could maneuver and dance like a star-fighter and we could bank in a battle and not feel a thing on deck.

Once Mr  Randle started his evasive pattern; it was a whole nother scene. This was however an unrecommended ship mod. No matter how well it was working for us, those anti-i cores were overheating.

Captain, the life support levels on the breached decks is 62% and falling. The cores are cooling but not alot. A few are back in normal range, but just barely. said Mr Emmerson.

Justice! Be ready on those main cannons! I’m getting ready to put three bogies in your sights said Mr  Randle. With that our terra-ton starship spun around like it was a play toy in his hand. Mr Justice fired our propulsion linked main forward cannon at the four smaller vessels in pursuit of us. The first one exploded like a fireworks display, the second one burst into flames that seemed trapped inside its own still active force field. The third managed to avoid a direct hit but we still destroyed the propulsion end of said ship. The fourth and final target of nine must have done something with their shields because the shot from our main cannon did some damage but more so pushed it back and away from us. It crashed into one of the larger two ships in pursuit of us. It tore right thru the larger ship’s shields, and when it was all said and done, it was embedded like a thorne in the side of a ship twice as large as us, bellowing out flames around the still active shields of the smaller ship we blasted. A cheer roared out on the bridge.

Our other manned cannons began firing at the crash area of the larger starship, with everything we had. The other larger ship started moving to block our line of attack, at the same time opening fire on us. Our shields were back up ,and we were too maneuverable, and too fast for them to hit. We kept hammering. Just as the larger ship finally got between us and them, the damaged larger starship erupted once again, sending the smaller ship that had crashed into it like a projectile at the ship that was blocking our shots for it. It crashed into that ship on the opposite side of us. The impact of which sent the larger ship careening towards us.

Mr  Randle! I said with some concern.

It’s just a thing, he responded, doing some motion on his control panel, all to the beat of whatever he was listening to. Thru the forward view the larger ship was headed towards us, erupting explosions on our side now contained inside their shields, simply fell away below our view. We were moving like a fly zipping off a forearm, avoiding a swat and you know what, even with our exorbitant degree of anti-I, I felt it in my seat.

"Captain, all anti-i cores in the forward 3rd of the ship are offline. They have fail safes. Not all of the others do. If I dont turn them off we might lose them permanently.

Captain if we turn off the even numbered cores, and the ones we leave on, we put at 60%, we should still have a significant retreat advantage traveling out of this asteroid field given the size of the ships still at 100% still out there. said Ms Larrett.

I like what she said! Mr Emmersone, can we do that? Mr  Randle, will that do to get us out of this asteroid field so we can jump to hyperspace? I Asked.

YES CAPTAIN! they both said. We spun around to the shortest path to open space, which I felt with the reduced anti-I cores. We started our way thru the asteroid belt.

Captain, we got company. That last ship launched approximately 12 fighter ships from their hangar before it started burning and they are headed our way said Mr Canary.

They shouldn’t pose any threat. Their weapons can’t do anything to us., I said.

No Captain, and I’m sure they know that too. We can’t outrun them in this asteroid field, so I’m guessing they will be trying to board through one of the hull breaches. said MrCanary.

The shields? I asked. They can’t get past that, can they?

They shouldn’t, but that last ship should not have been able to deflect a shot from our main cannon either. They are working with some new stuff out here, and they are not coming to fire their spit balls at us, and they sure aren’t coming to escort us out. said Mr Canary.

Captain, two have landed at the breach between deck 17 and 18, said Ms.Larrett.

"Right! Mr Canary, with me, grab your peace. Ms Larrett, have Head of Security Tosh and Iron Kelly meet me at deck 17 section 7. I want all personnel armed and prepared to fight.

Mr Canary removed his triple barrel shot pulse from the compartment under his bridge station as Ms Larrett made the shipwide statement about possible hostile boarding and arming. I opened the side compartments on my chair and stuck my forearms down inside to withdraw my personal weapons. I had heavy particle beam pistols in each hand and forearm bands on each forearm. Each band had a cyber mounted particle beam pistol that could aim and fire independently, at something I had seen out of the corner of my eye, while I was firing at something else. In a pinch the extra two cyber mounted pistols could be loaned to someone or even replaced with a different hand weapon.

Ms Larrett, the chair is yours. I said, as Mr Canary and I headed off the bridge. We strided with some purpose toward the lift that would take us to deck 17. Mr Canary was checking the status of his weapon and patted his side arm.

Have I told you it’s times like this I soooo feel like a librarian pretending to be a swashbuckling starship captain. I should be reading about this in a book somewhere or some real captain’s report log. I said to Mr Canary. He laughed.

I think the crew of this ship would follow you to the gates of hell even if you were kitchen staff. Let's be real here. I’m pretending to be a first officer, pretending I’m not a pirate, pretending that I’m gonna get paid, in full this week. So let’s pretend to go shoot some bad guys, or at least worse guys than us, and see if we can get to a port town where we might get some ass. Said Mr Canary, barely looking up from his gun.

You know most of the kitchen staff has more firearm experience than I do?...and I’m the captain, I said.

Might be, but I gotta tell you Jake, I have not seen you miss alot of shots. Shit sometimes you ain't even looking where you shoot, Said Mr Canary

Yes technology has certainly gone a long way to take the chance out of that, I said as we reached the elevator.

I don't know Jake, if I had to choose between technology, luck and skill for my hits, I would choose skill just for the sake of better storytelling. Soooo when we are trying to get laid later, yeah, just saying. Said Mr Canary as we stepped off on deck 17.

Do you ever worry about NOT coming back from this kind of thing? I asked.

Not as long as I’m on YOUR side and by your side. You know how the world bends around you right… right? He asked, looking at me out of the corner of his eye pausing a little.

Captain.

Captain, said head of security Tosh. Mr Tosh was a small unassuming man. Were it not for his shadow of facial hair, you might think he was a young boy. He was however a full grown man of small stature and fully trained in several martial art styles. The fact that he was from the high gravity world of Torrey 9 made him incredibly strong. He carried a side arm but I have never seen him do more than point it.

Next to him was Ms Kelly Irene, who the whole crew referred to as Iron Kelly. She was a vet from the Winston Proper civil war. I’m pretty sure she had been a child soldier who was fitted with massive oversized cybernetic military grade combat arms, far and beyond too big for her body. A doctor we had for a while , once told me she had also been a subject of gene therapy too. He supposed at the very least it was to make a child strong enough to carry those massive arms. He also said that at some point in her adolescence they would have weighed more than she did. Even today as an adult those arms had to weigh combined almost as much as she did, if still not a little more.

Not only were they war grade rugged,strong and fast, they each transformed into triple barrel particle cannons that could take out a tank.

Captain, came the voice of Ms Larrett, you have 4 more ships on the hull, we have 10 intruders on deck 17. We are clear of the asteroid field now and we can go to warp and outrun the rest of the star-fighters, but we can't jump to hyperspace til you clear those ships off the hull. she said.

We got it, Ms Larrett. You jump as soon as it’s clear. I said as we cautiously made our way thru the ship. We passed an open window on the exterior of the ship and could see the mad crossfire between our ship and the remaining ships still in pursuit but still of the shallows of the asteroid field. Being out of the field ourselves we jumped to warp speed and they were soon a speck in the distance. There was a chance they could catch up to us once they were completely out of the asteroid belt but once we could jump to hyperspace we were safe.

Iron Kelly, looking at her high grade combat scanner embedded in her arm, silently motioned that the intruders were just up ahead in the smoky passage. I looked over at her 3D scanner projection, which indeed showed the intruders up the smoky corridor against the wall.

She detached a grenade from her belt and tossed it down the hall. A second later a small lightning storm exploded down the hall and the intruders fell into the middle of the hallway, being shocked and firing wildly. The first to drop was one of theirs shot by one of theirs. The second to go was one that just exploded. He must have been carrying some kind of munition that was detonated by an arc from the lightning grenade discharge. Two of them stepped out in plain sight, fired down the hall at us, and as a result were cut in half by Iron Kelley’s particle cannons. That was 4 down and 6 to go.

First round in port IS NOT on me, said Iron Kelly.

Last kill is buying, said Mr Canary.

Am I the only one here who is taking this seriously, I said. Ms Irene, get to that breach. Your force field has air, right? You are the only one here with the firepower to clear the hull. When you get done with that, get back with us. I said. As another smaller explosion rang out from down the hall.

My upper forcefield has air, but it’s not air tight. It might be enough. Hey! They just blasted down to the next floor, said Iron Kelly showing us on her forearm scanner screen. We ran up the corridor and could hear the whistle of the air escaping past the breach to a smolder of smoke drifting up the hall. She pointed down the hole and then ran off thru the smoke. We looked down in the hole to the deck below, which led to another corridor. We heard gunshots and without a moment's hesitation, Mr Tosh jumped down the blast hole to the next deck. Not feeling near weightless or from a high gravity world like Mr Tosh, Mr Canary and I made our way down a little more cautiously to the next level. We followed the commotion.

Eventually we came to what would have been a childrens educational center on the ship in another life. The door had been blasted open. It was now mostly an engine room for one of the ship’s primary anti-i cores. There were still school desks stacked up against the walls. No sooner did we open the door did a space suited man come flying out past us and into the wall behind us. His vitals were nill. Which made sense as his helmet was very smushed and leaking blood onto his chest plate. His chest plate was dented in a good 8 inches too. He must have caught the wrong end of a couple direct punches from Mr Tosh.

*MrTOSH* Not buying!!! Came a message on both our WPCs (wrist personal computers)

Shit! Said Mr Canary. Before we could take another step we saw Mr Tosh pass by overhead in the open rafters of the repurposed school. He then dropped back down and disappeared behind some crates, in what was now an anti-I core bay.

He’s just showing off now, said Mr Canary.

*Iron Kelly* I got all the ships off the hull I could, just leaning out. I have to go get a helmet to get the last one. I’ll be right back. Came a message on my WPC. I showed it to Mr Canary.

There came another loud crash.

Lenard!? screamed an unfamiliar distressed voice. Shots rang out. Mr Tosh dropped from the rafters behind us.

If I were the enemy you’d both be dead he said, patting us on the shoulder. "I think there are two left. I just dropped a crate on one of them. They were setting up something but I’m pretty sure I broke it and killed one or two more of them.

Gentleman? This is Captain Jake Jaimon Wade. In a few minutes your ships will be destroyed and will be making our jump into hyperspace. We have an interesting opportunity here. I’m sorry that 6 or 7 of your coMrades have perished in this exchange, but honestly we have not had a single injury in all of this, and we don’t have any hard feelings. This whole mess started with the Grand Vank Sir, trying to double cross us in a trade and take our commodity for nothing in return. Well my team and I weren't fond of that arrangement, so we took what we came for and what we brought to trade….annnnnd I may have slept with the Grand Vank Sir’s granddaughter on accident. BUT! That said, I don't think anybody else needs to die today. So let me make you a few offers. Number one; we can put you in the one ship you have left and you can just skedattle. Number two, You can surrender. We will take you to our bridge and let you out at our next port. Number Three, I don't know where your ship or base loyalties lie, but this is non-confederate space in a system known to be less thaaaaan let’s say above board. We could use some seasoned crew. We can offer you your own private rooms, 3 hot meals a day and 150 crypto per job port to start and more once we know what you do. I said.There was a silence for a few moments.

You killed Lenard! Why should we trust you!? came a yell.

What would be my end game for even making the offer if I just wanted to kill you, some sadistic joke or something? Like I said no hard feelings over here, we haven’t lost anyone. I just don't want anyone else to die needlessly today on either side, I said if you surrender, you are safe, my people are safe, it's a win-win whether you want to join us or not. I said as Ms Larett began to speak over the shipwide PA.

We are jumping to hyperspace in 3,2,1 She said. There was a slightest hum that filled the hall behind us for a second.

Whoops, sorry gentleman, option three is off the table. That leaves one and two; the brigg or join our crew and the port drinks are on you tonight wiiiiith my team here. I’ll give you till Ms Iron Kelly gets here to make up your mind. You may have seen the young lady with war arms. Once she gets here. I’m going to just send her in. She can actually blast you thru whatever is standing between us and where you are now. You will be dead,we will have to repair this anti-I generator, we will still be light crew and worse yet, me and my first officer will be buying the drinks at port tonight. I said. There was another silence. I could hear Ms Irene lumbering up the hallway.

Gentleman , Ms. Iron Kelly is just up the hall, what are we doing? I asked.

One of us is hurt pretty bad. You just dropped a crate on him and the little guy has already killed our commander. I can't speak for the man who is out and I have like 24 credits on me sooooo I wanna go for the new crew option said a voice.

I got 53 credits. If I buy drinks tonight but decide to stay in port after that, is that an option? asked another voice. I looked at Tosh and Canary, they gave me the nod and the palms up. About then Iron Kelly walked into the foyer of the classrooms, stacked with crates and desks stacked along the walls.

What’s going on? she asked.

Think we have a surrender and new crew members, I said

One is dead. One is in critical condition and the other two are still armed. Looks like they were trying to engage a system pulse bomb. It would have fried half the ship from right here. Brilliant plan. We would have been captured in under half an hour given how little crew we have on board. What are we at 36 now, on a ship that can house over 800 she said looking at her scanner screen. She transformed her other arm into full particle cannon mode.

OK guys here’s what I’m going to need for you to do. I see 6 weapons over there including your broken system pulse bomb. I need you to slide them across the way behind the boxes on the other side of the ile. I’m walking back right now. If I see any weapons within a foot of you I’m vaporizing the lot of you.There won't even be enough left to lay to rest, understood? She Said

Iron Kelly took lead back into the old classroom hallway as weapons began sliding across the floor from behind some crates and into the open door of an abandoned, glass walled classroom filled with crates. When we got near the end of the hallway two men were standing with their hands on their heads, helmets recessed back into their space suits. Two others were lying in a pool of blood under a shattered plastic crate and the spare parts that had been inside it.. The first two walked past Mr Tosh and Mr Canary as Ms Irene inspected the other two.

I’ll get this one to the medical bay. There is still brain activity." She said scooping up one of the men.

Lenard is still alive? asked one of the men.

Your buddy still has some vitals. We have 20 womb tanks. He’ll be fine. She said.

What about..? started the other man.

His brain is in 2 different corners of the room. He’s gone. The one I passed in the hall seems dead too and we don't have a soular machine onboard. she said. (Soular machines can pull souls back into repaired bodies).

She walked off in the opposite direction toward the medical bay while we escorted the other two to security where Mr Tosh would give them a security scan before taking them to the med bay as well for a routine check up.

Mr Tosh, after we get these two logged into the system in a new crew status, bring them to the mess hall for dinner at my table. I said.

Aye Aye Captain, said Mr Tosh as one of the crew walked up from his security team and started checking our guest into crew status.

Ms Larrett, bridge status?, I said into my WPC, still visible thru my gun forearm mount.

Repair crews are already working on critical internal repairs. Hull damage of course can’t be done in hyperspace and is scheduled for tomorrow after port leave. I’m sending crew to clean up the dead. We should arrive at Fran Zoe 10 in 9.25 hours and 4 jumps. At that point we will be 79% done with all internal repairs to pre-damage status. We have the material for all external repairs but almost none for the internal spaces destroyed. She said.

Thank you Ms Larrett. First Mate Canary will be relieving you on the bridge momentarily. I said as we walked down the corridor.

Are you not coming back to the bridge? Said Mr Canary.

Ah I knew there was a reason I made you First Mate. Your grasp of the moment is sublime. I said.

"You alright Jake? This all went off without a hitch. We picked up that JangTrae Device for Mister Colonel, and we didn't have to trade them the Genix Array we had, so we can sell that now too. We almost got double crossed but we flipped it. We didn’t lose anybody, we might have two more crew and we don't have to pay for drinks tonight.

"If we could sell that Genix right now we couldn't afford to buy the supplies we need to fix the ship interior and pay everybody’s back pay. We just made another enemy in pirate circles and pirate circles seem to be all we are running in. Any game you play long enough, you will lose. How long are we going to be able to keep this up?

"Keep what up? Are you on that pretending to be captain thing again? You ARE captain, Captain. If you wanna go to the ship library GO!, but you are still the captain. Dude, you are the best friend I have ever had. Go get a drink, go read a chapter or two of some book with some deep subtle nuance of some concept I don't get. Then get to the bridge. You are not just the captain, you are this fucking ship. If I know this crew, and I do, they are ready to cheer another Captain J.J. Wade victory. They want... shit ,I want, to hear from you in your words how we just kicked ass." said Mr Canary.

Anthony, Ant… yeah okay...I… I’ll see you on the bridge in a few I said as I patted him on the shoulder and stopped at an elevator that went up to the captain’s quarters. I handed him my guns and both forearm bands with the automated pistols. Put these back would you? I said handing them to him as the pistols recessed into the bands. Mr Canary headed on to the bridge. In a few minutes I was home, well home away from home. I had not seen my home world in years.

When I opened the door Jill was there. White shorts, nothing else, pretty dark brown Glynnden world skin, sleepy dark eyes, tight curly black hair in 3 fist sized puffs and boobs as big as her head.

I heard what was going on...I made my Buukals a drink, she said, standing from the couch and bringing me a glass of my favorite Doelage Brandy. She inhaled deep on the pungent smoke she was penching between two fingers and held it for a second or two.

You got that look in your eyes again. You need to stop this, it's not healthy. You’ve got a basket of impostor syndrome so deep I could use it as a bra cup. You know you the mutha-fucka right? Stop it! You are the captain of this ship and I dont think a person on this ship would have it any other way. Come on, come over here. Drink your drink. You need a nap and some boobs on your back, she said unbuttoning my shirt with her smoke in the side of her mouth.

I just… I started.

Shhhhh, shh shh shh come on, drink, so we can lay down. said Jill. She tossed my shirt aside, unbuckled my pants and they fell to the floor. I stepped out of them and she led me into my bedroom. I sat down on the bed and finished my drink. She disappeared from in front of me to behind me on the bed and she pulled me down beside her. In a second she was holding me from behind stroking my chest. Her bosom was pressed against my bare back, her nipples tracing across my skin until they found their resting place. Her boobs were so warm. It was like every doubt I had in the world was melting away. There was no yesterday, no tomorrow, only the moment. How did I get here? In less than a minute, between the brandy and the boobs on my back, I didn’t care and I was asleep.

Chapter One

In The Beginning

I am the Captain of the Confederate Starship the Twenty-Wun Stars. At the start of the day, when I boarded this ship, I was the Director of Ship Records and Analog Media. Before the day was over I was acting captain. A librarian, that’s the simple title for what I was when I stepped off the personnel shuttle into the hangar bay of the Twenty-Wun Stars. I was in charge of a small library of a few thousand print books and the official digital ship records. It's a much fancier title, than job. Most of the ship’s records are for the most part cataloged by the ship’s AI system and there isn’t anything I can do with that data that it can't do faster if not better. The bigger part of my job was maintaining the tiny ships print library for the crew and visiting VIPs. It was a good, easy job with OK pay. The hardest part of getting that job was getting thru the Confederate Military Academy. Luckily I’m a people person, always have been. I have a PHD in history and one in literature. I’m sure more of that came from the fact that I was so well received rather than how hard I worked or how well I did on tests for that matter. The position caught my attention because the post was only on non-engagement diplomatic ships with crews under a thousand, frequently populated with crew and their families onboard. They traveled all over confederate space handling diplomacy and doing VIP logistics for confederate bigwigs. I heard the year before The Twenty-Wun Stars was actually toured by the President of the Confederacy while his personal ship was in the hangar on a particularly long voyage.

I had snagged a cushy job doing what I loved and I was going to get to see the entire galaxy to boot. Unfortunately the universe changed in the two years I was in the academy. When I got my post on this ship, before I could even unpack my bags, it was deployed into a hotspot that seemed like it was going to destroy the ship. I mean they don't tell librarians what’s going on in real time, it’s always reports afterwards. I never found out what was going on. There were never going to be any reports.

I was completely out of the loop, while alarms were going off all over the ship. Crew and families were scrambling all over the place. The floor was rumbling under my feet. There was the smell of heat; it wasn’t the smell of smoke or gas or fumes, but heat. The rumbling was growing, intermittently at first but soon it was like a ride on a bumpy dirt road in a wheeled car. I could hear screams and yelling coming up and down the corridors. There was the sound of a distant boom and a growing vibration. Then there was a silence. I don't remember hitting my head or passing out or anything happening to me. The last thing I recall is the sensation of a distant rumbling growing ever stronger and vibrating me off the floor in spotty failing artificial gravity.

It is so odd that I don't remember losing consciousness. It was like some cut movie scene or something. The next thing I remember was waking up on the floor outside the ship library. There was no drool like I had been asleep, no knot on my head, no aches or pains of any kind. I didn't even really wake up. You know that feeling you have when you wake up from a night's sleep or even just waking from dozing off somewhere…??? I didn’t have that feeling. I just opened my eyes and I was lying in the corridor outside the library.

I hadn’t even unpacked my bags in my quarters yet. I had dropped off my bags in my quarters and headed off to go inspect the library when the first alarm sounded. Whatever happened, happened fast and hard and...it seemed like it was over in just a few minutes. I opened my eyes and everything was fine, except I was lying on the floor. The library level was empty. That was not really odd given it was not a mission critical level and we had just been in an emergency posture. There were a few things on the library level including a small performance theater hall, a fitness center,an everything store, a weapons firing range and a few other ‘nice to have’ but not mission critical services.

It was quiet. I made it all the way back to my living quarters without seeing a soul. I checked my desk computer when I got back in my room for any new ship notices. There was an unspecified shipwide emergency. There was a report to all battle stations, which didn’t apply to me, and a ship emergency shelters order, but that was an hour previous. Maybe I had been out an hour or so. That didn't seem right. I should be hurting from just lying on the ship deck that long, but again, I felt perfect. When I asked the ship if I should report to the ship shelter, it told me there was no current ship emergency. So I just unpacked my things.

An hour later I headed to the mess hall. I still never passed anyone, and it was getting close to dinner time. The mess hall was empty and worse yet, there was no one in the back prepping dinner. I yelled out. I checked the wall console for dinner hours and they