The Adventures of Captain Roach (working title)

[Officer Genious]

Chapter 1:

"M'am, we got a message coming in." The comms officer shifted in his seat, nervously eyeing his board. "It's a Thulun shuttle."

She closed her eyes and swore darkly under her breath. The rest of her crew sensed her unease and twittered nervously at their stations. This was not part of the plan. The plan didn't involve any warships. Still, they looked to her, and after a moment of fuming the captain was calm again.

"Put him through." The comms offiver passed a few buttons in rapid succession until a large window took over the dozens of smaller HUDs.

The man pictured was middle-aged, perhaps the captain's age, with light hair and dark eyes peering out from the severe cut of his uniform. Her eyes went immediately to his chevrons and insignias-- an Adept in the Thulun military. She fought the urge to sweat again.

"Captain Roach, you are under arrest. Under section three of Thulun law, you are required to submit to board and search precedures in Thulun space. Shut down your engines and open your shuttle bays immediately, or face serious consequences under section--" The comms tech shut down the video at a wave from Roach.

"Patch me in." Roach rose from her captain's chair to stand for the camera, hands clasped behind her authoritateively. "Set up a live stream."

The window reopened again, this time taking up the entirety of the bridge view. The screen went black as the Thulun captain picked up the live call, and gradually the picture of the captain came through, grainy from transmission.

Roach didn't beat around the spice bush. "What are the charges?"

The officer blinked. "Smuggling and possession of class five goods." Roach stared-- class five? That was only a class under Narvidian artifacts! Her mind went back to her contract-- don't get boarded and watch for Thulun ships. It couldn't be but so bad. She couldn't look in the crates, but no spacer could without permission. What was going on her?

"I'm no smuggler," Roach lied. "I'm just a Javat trader." And a smuggler, but Roach didn't need to tell him that. "I'm simply delivering on behalf of a partner." Partners couldn't open crates either without express permission-- Roach figured she had her back covered. "He's taken ill and I've been tasked with shipping for him."

The Adept frowned, his face wrinkling. "And what does this partner trade in?"

Roach shrugged. "Clothes, spice, crystals and fuel. Some other odds and ends. Nothing interesting."

He leaned in and though he knew he towered over the bridge, though he could only see Roach. "Then you won't mind me taking a look."

The bridge stilled. Roach locked eyes with the Adept and smiled, her mind swearing loudly. "Of course not. Open the boarding bay." The video link shut down as her team promptly opened the bay doors, grumbling about the now failed contract. Roach sighed-- better a failed contract then a forced boarding.
"Jemms," she called the comms officer, "Send someone to check on those crates."

"M'am yes m'am," he mumbled, fuming behind his placid expression. He barked out orders through the ship comms systems while Roach sat herself down again. Her very first contract and she had failed miserably-- she would have to find another contract if Javat would let her, and find the money to keep her crew from mutiny in the process. She supposed a night at the spice den might be required to prevent... untoward feelings aboard the ship. She was in the middle of calculating the costs of a Javat spice den shen she realized Jemms went still.

"Jemms?" He didn't respond, instead baking again into his comms in furious disbelief. The bridge shifted again, drawn inexoribly to Jemms and Roach. More important, Roach needed to show her authority.

"Jemms!" The officer stopped, turning to stare at her. His face was pale with contained fury, his eyes wild. Roach noted that he looked unfocused, as though cursing some forgotten memory. "Slaves, Roach. We're transporting slaves."

[Officer Genious]

Chapter 2:

Roach sank into her chair for a moment. "Slaves." The bridge went deathly silent, as though breathing would make the horror real. Her mind spun-- slaves, of all things! The contractor had done more than set her up, he made her into his private slaver. No trader would dream of being a slaver-- not with both the Houses and Clans so actively against it. Roach's skin crawled with her conscience-- she had turned into a slaver.

"Captain." Jemms's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. Wordlessly he pulled up another screen on the display-- the Thulun boarder shuttles swam slowly through space towards the port bay doors, serene and manacing ants coming to destroy their lives. Jemm's pale face turned to Roach. "What do we do?"

Roach's back straightened as she boomed over the silence, "We give them a smuggler's welcome. Open fire from the port batteries, Liam!"

The battle opened as it often does in space: with the silent boom of fire and debris as boarding shuttles suddenly explode in the blackness, screams silent in the void. Roach's mouth went dry and her hands clawed at her armrests as the shuttles scrambled in confusion on her realitime display. The Thulun warship suddenly jolted as gunfire raked her sides, and it took Roach a precious moment to realize debris wasn't simply floating off the ship-- so were the doors hiding barrage guns.

"Brace yourselves," she called out, and not a moment later did her down ship shiver, flashing lights as the Thulun ship ravaged her back. The ship screeched, a terrible shriek as armor plating gave way to hull plates and then on to vulnerable interiors, and the vaccum sucked away the screams of those all ready lost. The scream of the ship abruptly died as the emergency system kicked in, sealing away lost chambers and repressurizing damaged ones. Roacj could hear a klaxon in the distance, through sealed doors. She wondered if anyone was alive to hear them on the other side.

The bridge roared to life as officers checked in and assessed the damage. Jemms roared to be heard over other conversations, each one its own catastrophe. "Three engines out, two sails and three hull plates gone. All armor lost. Fire broken out in Engines two and five, no response from eight but diagnostics say it should be... Nevermind, four engines out; it just vented out to space."

Roach's eyes glued themselves to the displays, hi-def screen projections side by side with crude colored markers denoting ship positions and planets. If she stared hard enough, could she spot her crew in space? Feel the horror of a familiar face staring blankly back at her through the visor of a spacesuit? Or would there simply be paste from those who expected nothing at all and didn't grab their suits before their shift at watch?

She tore her eyes away and stared sightlessly at Jemms's head. "Enemy damage?"

Jemms didn't look up, his face lit by the orange glow of his console. "Pretty bad, captain. We took out most of their hull and at least half of their guns. I think their engines are damaged too; its moving too slow to get out of our range."

For a brief moment Roach considered leaving them, walking straight to her quarters and leaving this battlefield for someone else, anyone else as she pretended this to be a bad dream. She didn't entertain the thought-- she had come too far for weakness. And she owed the Thulun captain at least this much.

"Finish them."

Jemms barked another order and the display lit up in reds and oranges as the Thulun ship imploded under the force of Vae Victus's eighteen guns, ruthlessly destroying the Thulun shuttle as it helplessly embraced death. Roach found herself again captivated by the gruesome images painted by radar and thermal imagery technology.

"Captain?" Jemms turned to look at her, suddenly older than his fourty years. "What do we do now?"

The ship onscreen was still in its death shudders. "We turn in that contract. Then we go home." She pulled herself out of her chair and staggered unsteadily to her cabin, blindly reaching for her vudka and spice. She set the bowl and cup before her, bottle at hand, before dabbling liberally in both.

She stared at the ceiling for hours afterwards.

[Officer Genious]

Chapter 2 Continued


They reached deep space and welcomed aboard their contacts, a tight-knit group of mercenaries hired to carry the slaves the rest of the way. A particularly large one introduced himself as Captain Shamut. He opened the crates with a tug on the normally code-locked door, and his men led half-blind men, women and children down to the shuttle bay where his ship awaited. In the meantime, he pulled Roach to the side of the room, pressing on his datapad.

"Here." He held up his pad, showing the receipt of a bank account transfer. "You should have your credits now. It's been a pleasure working with you."

Behind him, a young boy stumbled, his chains pulling him to the hard durasteel floor. A nearby mercenary kicked him almost absently, his steel-toed boot catching the boy's lip and tearing at it. The boy whimpered, curling into a ball in the middle of the slave line. Having now obstructed traffic, a handful of other guards surrounded him, and the bay echoed with cries of pain as they beat him. The other slaves stayed silent, heads bowed as the cries finally went silent, and the men hauled the unconscious boy to the shuttle by his feet.

Roach turned away. "So what about the Thulun shuttle?"

Shamut laughed, "That's your problem now. My boys and I are going to be long gone by the time the Thulun send a force here. I suggest you get gone yourself." With the last slave loaded, he turned back to the shuttle. "You have yourself a nice day."

Then they were gone.

[Officer Genious]

Chapter 3:


Even for a city known for light, the lights in Javat Prime's spice den was blinding, Synth club music blared over loudspeakers as entertainers writhed under a cloud of smoke, sweaty and almost naked under neon lights. Roach bobbed her head to the music, watching her crew unwind. She heard the stories of missing crew after a good night out. Her eyes flicked to the stern man sitting by himself in a shadowed corner. With a little help it wouldn't happen to this crew.

The stool beside her squeaked as Jemms fell into it, nursing a bowl of spice in one hand and cheap vudka in the other. Roach welcomed him with a wave of her own vudka glass, but Jemms ignored her and slammed down his glass. Roach tried to read his expression, but couldn't find it in the haze of spice.

"I gotta tell ya, Roach." His words slurred as the spice took hold, "I don't like it."

Roach sucked in a breath, glancing around. She'd rather have this conversation almost anywhere else. Her eyes caught again on the man in the corner. He stared back, a plain glass of water in his massive hand. She sighed. "Go on, Jemms."

Jemms bent towards her, his tall frame thinner and ganglier than ever to whisper loudly into her face, "I was a slave once. Out on Rift-Leporis 4. The goddamn Rift Trading Camp." Jemms spat on the floor. The barman glowered at them. "You been there?"

"No." Roach tipped the barman generously. The barman mumbled grumpily to himself as he went to serve other patrons. "I've heard of Rift's Trade Camp."

Jemms paused, swigging vudka. "It's a hellhole. Under Camp Spice Hall? Nothing but slaves refining this shit and getting beatings." His eyes, red from too many stimulants, focused on the rows of vudka in front of him. "It was hot down there, always was, and you could tell how long someone's been there by the cuts on his hands and the bend of her back." His gaze turned to his spice bowl. "I spice to remember. I spice to forget."

He dipped his hand into the spice bowl and made a face as he found nothing. Roach discreetly waved away a ready wait-slave carrying refills. Jemms considered his vudka for a moment before setting it aside. "That was messed up, you know. With the Thulun shuttle."

Roach took another look around. No one was paying them any mind, at least no one besides the man in the corner. Roach turned from Jemms to the bar.

"We did what we had to."

"And now?" Jemms ignored her body language and proceeded to talk into her ear instead. "Come on Roach, we're not stupid. You're going back to that skeeze for another contract." He shook his head. "It ain't right, Roach."

Roach sucked in a too-hot breath. The longer she sat here with Jemms, the more she wanted to leave. "We need that money, Jemms. No credits means no ship. No ship means some crap job at a space port." She considered telling Jemms that he'd be a slave again, and reconsidered. "We do what we have to do."

Jemms shook his head again, He pulled himself up without a word and staggered off into the crowd, vudka forgotten. Roach was still watching the space close behind him when another man took Jemms' seat and sipped thoughtfully from the bottle.

"He needs to be dealt with." The man's face was grave. Roach glanced down to her own drink and wondered if she should order something stronger.

"No," she said after a moment. "Jemms is upset. Everyone is. There's no need for anything... extreme."

"You can't just let him go like this. Not when you have a ship to run. Not when they could mutiny at any time."

Roach snorted. "I'm sure the Guild thought the same of the Star Traders."

He grunted noncommitedly. "Just don't forget our deal, captain."

"I won't, Pryor. You won't let me."

He slipped through the crowd without another word, resuming his seat in the corner. Roach turned back to the bar and signalled for a stronger drink.