Posts by MercZ

This sounds like a neat little endeavour.

I haven't heard of those folks unfortunately. If they aren't updating their emails (or replying to them), it tells me they really don't care anymore, and the best you can do is simply credit their work

mercz

I'm up for any games, but I need to know which mod is "the mod" if the servers are using that right now.

I've only had this issue when I've uninstalled my mods incorrectly. Sometimes after awhile it'll let me level up, but other times I'm simply stuck and have to hope that I have a good save before that.

I can unfortunately attest to listening to music on the radio, but I do like some of the NPR's segments here (that is when they aren't doing their annual fundraisers >_>).

Unfortunately, it's getting harder to find any sort of good programs here that don't involve shock jocks or music. The only other things past that is talk radio here, and in my parts that usually means a bunch of angry conservatives or religious talk.

The coldest we get here is just around freezing, not much past that.

I've never seen any real snow except for once. Most of the time it turns into slush or frost on the roads.

I never heard of the man, but from the things I've read about him after looking him up, he certainly had a touch with these things.

Ch. 3

That same dream again. Alvaro wasn’t sure if he was watching some quirky Rheinland Art House Film, but he’d see a luscious planet with towering crystalline skyscrapers. It was nestled in a valley surrounded by large, ice-topped mountains. He would see movement in the streets, but they were blurry and up close seemed to be unrecognizable. They all moved towards one direction…

“Hey boy, wake up!”

Alvaro jumps, slamming his head on the top of the cargo hold. Rosalia laughs and helps Alvaro out of the ship.

“I know it was boring in there, but unfortunately there’s no path from the cargo bay to the cockpit, at least not human sized.”

Alvaro nods weakly and moves his hand in front of his right eye.

“Something wrong there Alvaro?”

“I wish not. Some shrapnel got in my eye. I don’t think I can see out of this anymore.”

Alvaro picks up a nearby rock and tosses it down the nearby crevice, and lets out a deep breath.

“Anyways, thank a bunch Rosalia, and pass that along to the rest of your squad”

Alvaro begins walking away, and takes another look at Rosalia. Something familiar…

“Wait, Rosalia? Oh, forgive me, I just ain’t all here!”

“It’s alright, as long as you are safe. They’ll debrief you in the base- I have to go and raid a shipping lane in Bretonia.”

As he watches Rosalia fly away, he feels ashamed he could remember his brother’s fiancé, who had willingly remained in the small Guillén family even after his brother’s unfortunate death.

Alvaro walks calmly into the command room, where he is greeted by Alonso.

“Here’s that Corsair resilience! Bounty hunters never seem to keep much of us in jail for long!” he laughed, “I doubt they could even keep their women that long!”

Alvaro nodded weakly.

“Alonso, you think you can get the doc to do something about my eye? I think it’s gone now…”

Alonso moves closer
“Shit, I just thought you got bruised up there, not blinded…” he said apologetically. He turns around, and slams his fist on the wall. “Oh man, Octavio’s going to be very pissed with all this… I shouldn’t’ve left you alone out there”

“Don’t sweat it”, said Alvaro, “those bastards were underhanded. Does my dad know I was taken?”

“I don’t’ think so”, said Alonso, “We were just about to send him the message when you arrived”

“Let’s just keep this between you and me then. We’ll just say I had an accident while I was working on my legionnaire”

“By the way kid, how exactly did you get that?”

“Uh, something hit me while the ship was being destroyed”, he lied, “I couldn’t see it. Did you tow my ship back at least?”

"Yea", he said, "In fact, after you’re done with the doc, would you like to come with my squad to Cadiz? We managed to salvage some good tech and weaponry, and I know you’d like to see you father. Meet me here later tonight"

Alvaro nods in understanding, and makes his way to the office of Dr. Torres, the specialist at the launch base. He gets in the small office, and he is greeted by the middle-aged woman who shows him to the examination room.

“I think that I can keep the eye with out having to remove it”, said Torres, “but it is going to be covered up. I can’t risk giving you a prosthetic until you are fully grown. You are like what, 18 or 19 right now?”

“Yes, I am 19 currently. I thought my eyes stopped growing a long time ago?”

“Yes, that is true, but I don’t want to risk doing anything to your skull that might hamper further growth elsewhere”, she said, “For now, I think I can just give you this”

She pulls out a black cloth and pulls it around his head. She tightens a band and does a quick response exam.

“This is to keep things from getting into your eyes,” she said, “plus, you’ll look like the pirates from the old stories!”

“What, so I go to Los Angeles in Liberty and be a mascot for a pirate ride now or something?”

“Stop your whining!”, she said, “just keep it on for the first few days. You can take it off if you wish when you sleep. I suggest trying to re-adjust your aiming and coordination as well with the simulators”.
“Will do. Thanks doc”, said Alvaro as he left the office. He pulls out his phone and calls Alonso.

“Hey Alvaro, everything cool? You got it patched up?”

“Yup. Look like a pirate straight out of the old books. Where are you right now?”

“My squadron is doing some runs in the system. We’re planning to deliver some goods to Cadiz soon”

“Can I come with you guys?”

“Kid, have you even tried adjusting to your eye sight now?”

“Bah, I think I can handle. Survived in the prison ship with it when it mattered”

“Alright, send me a message when you clear orbit”

Alvaro shuts off his phone and goes to the hangar bay where his legionnaire is being kept. The ship is repaired, but clear signs of his scuffle with the bounty hunters are still evident. He asks the hangar captain for his key and access codes, and hops into his ship. After checking his energy source and engine status, he takes the ship up for liftoff.

As his ship takes off and ascends to space, past the arid, towering peaks of Crete’s mountains, he realizes he still has his artifact.

Odd… why didn’t the bounty hunter’s take this off me? Guess they didn’t recognize it.

Alvaro receives a hail from Alonso as he exits the atmosphere, with some coordinates to meet them at.

As Alvaro cruises towards the coordinates, he takes a note of his surroundings. Behind him was Crete with her moon, Cella Dor. In the distance was the debris cloud which housed Tripoli Shipyard, which engineered many of the Corsairs’ prized ships and weaponry. Tucked away near the Walker Cloud was the strange planet Kalhmera, which may’ve been habitable had it not been for something strange in its atmosphere… he couldn’t remember what it was, he dozed off during that lecture.

He neared the position, and he was able to see the distant shape of the squad. Alonso hailed him as he neared them.

“Welcome to the party Alvaro”, he said, “I’m sure you know most of the squad members!”

Alvaro did indeed know most of the members of Gold Squadron, it had after all been his brother’s old group. Even Rosalia was here, who would occasionally run missions for her original Gold Squadron when Minotaur let her.
“Doing alright Alvaro?” asked Rosalia.

“Perfect”, he replied. “Alonso, what are we carrying to Cadiz?”

“We have some food and maintenance supplies for them”, he replied, “they’ve been running low as a result of the war a few weeks ago”.

“Really?”

“Yea, apparently Bretonia has shifted much of her attention to reconstruction so Cadiz’s raiding squadrons are not able to get their usual loot. Rheinland seems to have faired much worse, and they are avoiding use of the Omega systems for trade due to a near collapse in their economy. At least that’s what a Junker had told me”

Alvaro enters into formation with the Corsair convoy, and they pass through to the wormhole to Omega-41, his least favorite place. He already had to worry enough about the radiation from the neutron star frying his balls; the Hessians were known to attack the Zoners and Corsairs for supplies.”

Aside from a brief scuffle with some unlucky bounty hunters, the convoy passes through the system with ease. After relaying their information to Leon Base, they enter the jump hole to Omega-5.

The asteroid-littered system comes into view after a few seconds. It was a barren system with no planets or useable resources. The graves of many Corsairs could be found in this system, lost fighting the Red Hessians for control of the system, which had a link to nearly every Omega system, making it vital for control of the Rheinland-Bretonia trade routes. It was their portal to the world…

He looks in the distance and spots Cadiz Base, the massive city within a peculiar asteroid. The city itself was an engineering feet, much more impressive than the tiny Hessian Base, Ronneburg. The convoy travels towards the base, where they are hailed.

“Gold Squadron, we have you on our radar. It’s good to see you”

“Same to you”, replied Alonso, “We got the…”

Alonso is cut off by the sounds of alarms from Cadiz’s end.

“You might want to drop off the shipment quickly”, said the communications officer, “we’re picking up a fairly large Hessian attack group moving in.”

“Will do Cadiz”, said Alonso, “You heard the lady fellas, get the transport in the base ASAP, and join the defense”

“More Hessians to shoot!”, exclaimed Rosalia, “I need some target practice anyways!”

Murmurs of agreement are heard from the rest of the squadron. Only Alvaro feels a bit unsure due to his ship. He wasn’t sure how a light fighter like his Legionarre would fare against heavier and stronger fighters like the Hessian Stilettos and Sabres.

The transport ship quickly moves itself within the confines of Cadiz’s hangar, and Gold Squadron proceeds with the rest of the Corsairs to meet the incoming Hessians. Alvaro picks up some confused transmissions from the first Corsairs at the scene.

“They seem to be packing more of their elite Sabres more than usual…”

“I’m picking up a strong concentration of energy… something large is coming!”

“Shit, watch it! All incoming squadrons, it seems the Hessians have brought in one of their cruisers. Take caution!”

Surely enough, as the last fold of the massive Cadiz asteroid is behind them, they see the junky Hessian cruiser in view, laying down a hail of fire on the Corsair fighters.

“Give those children a beating they won’t forget guys!” yelled one of the Corsair pilots, followed by a load roar of battle cries through the battle channel. Not surprisingly, Alvaro’s fast and nimble legionnaire reaches the action a few seconds ahead of the rest of his squadron. He immediately attacks a nearby stiletto craft, wearing down its shields while dodging its attacks as well as the blasts of the powerful cruiser. He kept replaying one of his tougher simulations, simply titled “Bretonia Navy Attack 05”, where he and his squad mates had to combat both Bretonian heavy fighters and a cruiser.

As his laser impacts begin to directly impact the hull, Alvaro primes a strong missile and slams it into the middle of the ship, destroying the cockpit and engines. As he swings past the wreckage of the ship, he sets his sight on another ship and prepares another dogfight…

A sharp pain erupts through his head, and Alvaro sees himself in the familiar green hue of the Edge Cloud. He guides his ship around and sees a large concentration of destroyed ships. As he nears them, he recognizes them as Corsair legionaries… there was only one place in Corsair space that was like that. He sees a body float by him, a familiar body. Benito?

The shape of a body suit slowly nears his ship, and Alvaro attempts to nudge his ship out of the way. His controls are unresponsive and his ship continues floating towards the body. His ship shuts down as it moves near the body suit. Alvaro bangs on the control panel, trying to bring the ship back to life. Bright flashes of light begin to illuminate the area, and the strange crystalline ships from his initiation appear again, the experimental bounty hunter ships…

The ships arrange themselves in a circle around Alvaro, and slowly close in. One of the ships emits a strange creature, which hovers towards him. Alvaro couldn’t stare at the creature; it seemed to be hell incarnate to him. Alvaro feels the tight grasp of a tentacle as it bashes through his cockpit, and he is ripped out and moved towards the body suit. He tries to move away, but the tentacle tightens its grasp on him. He looks at the body suit, and sees only his own reflection on the face mask. He moves his hand towards the mask to unlatch the glass.

This is no normal reflection… the eye patch isn’t where it should be in a reflection

Instead of touching the glass, his hand feels flesh. As the realization comes to him, Alvaro sees the eye patch is on the right side… it’s not a reflection. He pushes the skin- it gives way and he fells the texture of the bone. Trying to restrain himself from puking, he tries to push himself away, and his eyes only seem to hover towards the “Guillén” patch on the body suit.

What the hell is this!

Alvaro tries to reach for his pistol, but the creature’s tentacles tighten on him. The creature turns him around, and forces him to look upon its shape. Alvaro screams out in rage as he tries to kick against the creature, which takes the kick with no apparent pain. It shapes one of its appendages into a sharp dagger and thrusts it straight into Alvaro’s heart and sends another into his head.

Ch. 2

They awaken abruptly and stumble out of their confined pods. Some of them believe they have reached their destination and immediately rush to the window to see where they are. They are nowhere close to the paradise they thought they were in. All they see is the rolling darkness of space, and the small packets of color indicating the various nebulas of Sirius...

"All representatives report to the bridge"

On the bridge, the crew and representatives are all awaiting for the captain to come out, and when he does, they all ask questions.

"What was that explosion from?"

"Did we hit something?"

"Are there any planets nearby?"

"Hold your questions!” yelled Captain Chavez, "We have sent down some of our crew to the ship to see what happened, and they should be back soon...."

Some engineers come in and do a salute to the captain.

"Report!” he commanded.

"Well, the explosion came from the rear of the ship, and the main engines have been destroyed.”

“Some of the secondary engines are still intact though, but I'm not sure how long they'll last", said the Chief Engineer.

"And the explosion, was it from?” questioned Chavez.

"Well there are no asteroids fragments near to indicate an asteroid or something of that nature hitting us… it was more than likely an explosive device judging from the way the explosion affected the hull. The explosion also seemed to have hit the reactor, and life-support might fail soon", one engineer said.

"Judging from that, it had to be sabotage, only someone onboard the ship could have done that", Chavez said.

"It's probably our so called "allies", said one of the representatives, Caesar, "Those bastards probably want more planets and resources to themselves"

“They wouldn’t do that to us! It’s those damn Coalition f*cks, they must’ve snuck on the ship!” said another man, who moves over to sit on a nearby bench, “Why couldn’t they just leave us alone! They won already!”

The bridge gets filled with more and more representatives, who immediately join in the discussion. Chavez moans.

"Stand down!” yelled Chavez, "Even if it was one of them, we can't do anything about it right now!” We're just lucky to be alive!"

"Well what are we going to do know?” questioned Caesar, "This ship might blow any second and we’re no where close to where we are supposed to be!"

"Wait, I'll see if I can make contact with one of the other sleeper ships, maybe they’ve landed and can send help.” said Chavez.

Captain Chavez went to the computer nearby, but before he could do so, a gunshot rung out, and Chavez was slammed against the console, his blood splattering the command screen. The representatives looked for the source of the disturbance. All their eyes came onto Caesar.

"Why the hell did you do that? He didn’t deserve it!” yelled Carlos, another one of the representatives.

Caesar smiles.

“Ah, Carlos, good to see your squadron was onboard as well… anyways”. Caesar takes a deep breath.

"If he made contact, our "allies" would just come and finish the job", said Caesar, "It's clear now that they didn't want us to ever come to Sirius, so they could get more things to themselves"

“Your reasoning is unsound! Do you have any proof!?” questioned Carlos.

Caesar sighed.

“Whatever, say they send rescue ships. I doubt the damn guys could reach here before the life support fails”

Carlos opens his mouth to start another argument, but he sighs for a moment, then asks a question.

"Well what are we going to do now?” said Carlos.

"I have flying experience back in my day fighting the Coalition, and I had practice flying ships of this size in the simulators", said Caesar. He turned towards the chief engineer "You said the secondary engines are still operating right?

"Yes...” the man stuttered, still looking at Chavez's dead body.

"Good, long range sensors indicate that there are planets suitable for life within this ship’s reach. I'm going to pilot this ship close enough to where we can use the escape pods to get to the planet from there".

"I'm not going", said Carlos "Something feels wrong about this damn place, and I’m going to take my chances with the life-pods… the Hispania can’t take no more…”

Carlos points towards another blip on the hologram, away from Caesar’s choice.

“The radar reads this being more inhabitable than the one you picked. It’s a bit harder for the Hispania to navigate too, it seems, but I think we can take some of the shuttles on the ship and travel to there.”

“Trust me, Carlos”, said Caesar, “we’ll be better off all together on the Hispania and make our way to that planet…”

One of the representatives yells over Caesar.

“It’s a damn trap! They wanted some of us in the rear dead so they could claim for themselves! Are we just going to let them round us all up and kill us?”

"If we weren't of the same nation, I would've of shot you right now", said Caesar, “I doubt any of us would ever do such a thing, but to be realistic that’s something I’d expect from your sort!”

An uneasy silence falls on the ship. Some of the civilians who overheard the conversation begin spreading it amongst others- Though it wasn’t about the possibility of a Coalition saboteur or an Alliance conspiracy- it was one about their very brothers and sisters turning against each other for greed. Fights and verbal insults get thrown around the ship, and slowly, they begin taking sides.

Carlos and Caesar, despite wanting the people to reach an agreement, can’t stop the divide that manages to split the people within hours. They begin talks with the other representatives and come up with a decision. Caesar would take those who wanted to take their chances with the Hispania, and Carlos was appointed to leading the ones who wanted to use the shuttles.

Carlos and Caesar decide to lead the people to safety. Caesar takes the Hispania to the planet he read, and Carlos takes those who wanted to bail to the nearby system. After a while, some shuttles launch from the ship, with Carlos's ship in the lead. He looks at the rear view monitor, and stares at the wounded Hispania limping towards their destination as they enter the large nebula.

****
"Ready for this kid?” said Alonso.

“Ready as I’ll ever be. I’ve had my “baptism by fire” in the initiation and that mission we took over a month ago. And all those raiding mission we did on convoys!” said Alvaro.

“Indeed. Don’t forget you’re on the Bounty Hunter’s list now for those raids we did on the BMM. Those Bretonians have asked for a hefty price, I think last I heard you’re at about 70,000 credits. Not too shabby.”

“It seems things are getting back to normal too… what ever happened with Rheinland and the other house has subsided, and now trade is returning back to normal. I honestly thought that after Kusari was defeated and the Liberty president was overthrown in by those pro-Rheinland Liberty Navy generals, we’d have issues…”

“Yes, but now it is back to business. We’re coming up on Cadiz pretty soon- Two jumps left.”, said Alonso

“Hold up, I’m reading someth…” said Alvaro

But before Alvaro could finish his sentence, a barrage of laser beams blasts from the depths of the clouds, and they receive a hail

"Ah, here are those two that the BMM put a hefty price on!" said a voice.

Ah shit, it’s the bounty hunters…

"Just surrender; our ships could destroy you before you knew it!"

"Hell no", said Alonso, "If you think your pieces of junk could take us on, you have another thing coming!!"

"As you wish, you two are worth enough dead", said another bounty hunter.

The group breaks into an attack. Alvaro tails one bounty hunter.

I got you in my sights…

He launches a barrage of missiles to destroy his shields.

"DAMN!” said the bounty hunter, "That bastard got my shields!"

Alvaro unleashes a laser barrage and manages to clip off much of its hull. He finishes off with a missile. The barracuda explodes in a brilliant red color.

“Ah fuck”, said another bounty hunter, “That Corsair got O’Connor!”

"Keep that Titan off my tail", said one of the bounty hunter co-pilots, "I got an idea! Take us behind that asteroid!"

"Got him my sights kid", said Alonso, "Just make sure that he doesn't try to hit me from the behind...”

"Sure thing...” said Alvaro, but before he could finish, he detects an object impacting his ship. ‘

"The hell!” yelled Alonso, "One of those idiots is on your cockpit Alvaro!"

Alvaro attempts to increase speed, but the bounty hunter breaks through the cockpit and grabs Alvaro. Alvaro gets hit hard in the head, and he dazes off as he sees his ship moving further and further away…

"Hey look", said someone, "The Corsair woke up!"

"Had a nice dream?” laughed another, “how was that bread you dreamed about?”

Alvaro comes around and sees he is in a small cell. He rubs his head and lifts himself to a small window on his door. He sees the long row of cells, and recognizes where he is.

"So", said a voice, "I see that the bounty hunter got you"

Alvaro sees that it's coming from the cell next to his.

"You must have done something huge to get their attention", it said, "Usually those pricks are scared to venture that far into your turf!"

"Yea, but I guess the bounty the BMM made them hard for me", said Alvaro, "They got me, but not sure whether it’d be worth it for them- out of the three ships they sent, only one came back”

"So did your ship get destroyed or something?” said the prisoner.

"Actually it was a strange tactic", Alvaro started, "One of those bounty hunters ejected out of his ship and tore me out of my cockpit. I feel like a dumbass for letting that happen."

"Yea", said the prisoner, "That's a tactic they've been using recently. Suicidal, but it'll get the job done."

A small hole breaks opens in the wall and he can see his neighbor, wearing a black suit with a breather attached to his mouth, who seemed close in age to Alvaro. Alvaro also recognizes the garb.

"So, from where do you hail?” said the prisoner.

"I'm a Corsair from Crete", said Alvaro

"I'm an Outcast", said the prisoner, "Miguel de Santiago at your service"

"I'm Alvaro Guillén. This is strange; we would've killed each other if we were in other circumstances."

"Strange indeed...” said Miguel.

Miguel? Damn, freaking name is too common…

"Where are we?” said Alvaro.

"We're in a bounty hunter prisoner ship. I’m guessing we are still somewhere in the edge worlds, I heard them discussing that we passed Freeport 9 a half hour ago", explained Miguel.

“What’re you in here for?” asked Alvaro.

“Bounty hunter caught me trying to deal some caradime to some spoiled Liberty kid on the Hawaii in Sigma 19. On top of that, Outcasts all have a base bounty, like the other big-time criminals.

"If you don't mind me asking, but why do you guys wear that thing, even outside the ship?” said Alvaro, shaping a breather on his face.

"The caradime we've found has brought us much needed supplies, but we've become dependent on it", said Miguel, “we can’t survive with out its aroma.”

"If that's the case", said Alvaro, "I have an idea"

Mark Wagner does his usual patrol on the station. He feels uneasy with the murderous glances from many of the criminals onboard the prison sector. He mumbles to himself, remembering how easy duty was on Roppongi Station in Kusari space. He passes by one of the cells where he is stopped by the yells of a certain prisoner.

“Ey! One of the Outcasts passed out!” said the prisoner.

“Why the hell would you care?” asked Mark, who looked at the young prisoner’s appearance and garb, “you damn Corsairs could care less about them surviving.

“Exactly”, sad the prisoner with a strange smile, “I want him to suffer, and he can not die before the fun begins”

Mark shrugs and goes to the prison cell. He uses his keycard to open the cell and proceeds inside. Mark takes out a small needle and jabs it into the Outcast, who jumps back to breathing. He adjusts himself and leaves the cell, making sure to lock the door. He turns around and proceeds back down the row to the break room for some water. As he swipes his card, he notices something that is off… usually he has to fumble through until he got the card for this sector.

Oh well, guess I’m getting the hang of where my keycards are…

=====================================================================

"Hey", he said, "the plan worked!” said Alvaro, cupping the card while he watched the gullible card walk away.

“Good!” said Miguel, “quickly, let me out and we’ll be on our way!”

The two proceed to quickly open all the cell doors, letting out a throng of prisoners. The two yell to the men to get ready to escape soon.

"What!!” yelled a Hessian, "I'd rather die than work with a Corsair!"

"Shut up!” yelled an Outcast, "you bitches do nothing but whine this and that about your asses being kicked by everyone!"

“Oh yea? Want to say that to my face fish head?”

"YOU ALL SHUT THE HELL UP!", yelled Alvaro, "We must work together to get out of here. I don’t care who the fuck you all are, we are all targets of the Bounty Hunters and enemies of the houses! Now put aside your differences and let’s fight our common enemy, and survive to live another day!"

All the prisoners quiet down.

"Bah, let’s just get to the hangar bay and escape?", said one Outcast. Many of the pirates nodded in agreement.

“Let’s get going people!” said Alvaro nervously.

“What about the women? I know I saw a small group of them being taken off elsewhere”

“What about our stuff those bastards took?”

“I heard they got some money and weapons on here!”

"WARNING! WARNING!! All personnel take up arms and proceed to the detainment sector. There has been a jail break and the criminals have armed themselves. Don't hesitate to kill!"

“That’s our cue boys!” yelled Miguel.

They all begin their escape, rushing through the ship and swarming any guards unfortunate enough to get in their way. Soon they find a weapons locker, where each take as many weapons as they can hold, and blast their way through the ship, until they are stopped by the first security detail.

"Lowlifes", said the sergeant, "Give yourselves up, or we'll send you guys straight to hell..."

He's interrupted by a laser shot, which hits one of his troops in the head.

"As you wish", he said, "OPEN FIRE!!!!"

The criminals quickly take cover in the rooms adjacent to the hall, and those that don't make are torn apart from gun fire, their blood splattering on the walls.

“Damn!” yelled Miguel, "We're trapped!"

Alvaro looks around and spots a vent above the room. He looks at the grenade on Miguel’s belt.

"Miguel!", he said, "Give me that grenade!"

"Why?", Miguel said, "You can't throw it! The angle in this hallway is wrong, and those guys will shoot you as soon as they see it!"

"No, just watch", said Alvaro.

The sergeant throws himself behind a hastily constructed barricade as the firefight ensues. He thinks over in his head how the criminals had gotten their hands on the keycard. He remembers one Mark Wagner was on duty for this week. A reprimand is in order when they were done with this filth.

He hears a cling from somewhere, and looks over his shoulder to see a grenade in their mist. His men see the same thing. It was the last thing they saw.

=====================================================================

Alvaro drops back into the hall, his head still ringing from the echoing of the explosion in the vents. He feels a stinging sensation from somewhere and feels disoriented. Miguel makes his way over to him.

“That was extreme man!” said Miguel, “I knew you Corsairs were dumb as hell, but shit!”

Miguel looks at Alvaro, and points to him.

“Ey man, you know that…”

"Warning! Severe damage detected in the central hall. Bulkheads locking down"

"Oh crap!", yelled Alvaro, "quick, everyone get moving!"

The men dash down the hall, throwing themselves under the locking doors. Alvaro manages to slide in with plenty of time, but three of their escapees get stuck on the other side.

"You are a dumbass!” yelled Miguel, "You could've got us killed! And look! Your right eye is severely damaged! Hell, you may be blind in there!"

Alvaro gets a sinking feeling in his stomach. He waves his hand in front of his right eye trying desperately to see it. Now he knew what was that stinging feeling…

"Well at least we're alive", said Alvaro, "Plus, the rest of the bounty hunters can't get through; we only have to deal with the crew”

The men go through the living quarters, shooting and plundering what they can get. Along the way, they liberate the women from their living quarters, or at least simply opened the door for them; the women had already taken care of their captors.

"Warning! Fire detected in the main hallway, disturbance detected in living quarters. All personnel are advised to shoot any prisoner. They are considered dangerous…"

One of the Outcasts drops dead from a laser shot. Alvaro dodges another and shoots a bounty hunter in the head. He motions for the men to move quickly down the hall.

The bounty hunters are killed and overwhelmed but still manage to fight well- at least half of the criminals are dead too.

Alvaro passes by the communication room, where he takes a detour to make his escape plan.

"All Corsairs, this is Alvaro Guillén ", he said, "I am onboard a bounty hunter’s prison ship and need backup to destroy it. I'm currently on board, and I need some help1”

He waits for a response, and sends coordinates while he waits.

"Affirmative, Guillen. This is the Minotaur squadron. We’ve been combing the area for a few hours now!” said the Corsair, “We’re on our way!”

Alvaro switches off the frequency and shoots the communication device. He rejoins Miguel.

"Ok", he said, "My comrades our coming. They'll probably cause a distraction..."

"Let's get going", said Miguel, "If we lose any more they'll overpower us!"

The walls are littered with blast marks and blood. The ground is littered with corpses of the prisoners and bounty hunters. Alvaro and the others don’t really seem to mind. They had already seen such carnage in their own time. Big blasts soon begin to be felt from outside.

"Red Alert! The station is under attack! All pilots take prepare to launch!!"

Alvaro looks out a view screen, and surely enough he sees a full squadron of Titans and Centurions pounding the ship and picking off the weak bounty hunter ships.

"GOOD!” laughed a Hessian, "This is a good kick in the ass for the bounty hunters!"

"There's no time", said Miguel, "This is buying us time, but they'll have to blow the ship apart if we don't hurry!"

The group make their way to the hangar bay, shooting the pilots of the ships before they are able to board them. An explosion rocks the ship, followed by a strange rumble from the depths of the ship.

"WARNING! Reactor leak! All hands abandon ship!”

"Uhh... Every man for himself!!!” yelled an Outcast.

The men scramble off, boarding ships with their groups and allies. Alvaro realizes that he is the only Corsair, or at least the only one still alive. He quickly runs to a ship still locked in the bay, and jumps on the ladder. As he reaches the boarding door, he receives a powerful kick to the face and drops off.

"Sorry kid", said an Outcast, "You may have saved us, but you’re still a Corsair!”

The ship goes off and Alvaro stands there alone.

"Damn bastards!", yells Alvaro, "Ungrateful sons of bitches!"

Alvaro dodges a piece of the catwalk dropping from the upper levels of the hangar bay. He takes cover near a locker where he fishes out a space suit. He dons it and begins to make his way towards the hangar bay exit, dodging flaming debris. He sees the carnage of ships zipping around, debris hurling at dangerous speeds, and the massive asteroids still moving along their path, undeterred by ight.

Now or never!

But before he could thrust himself out in to the depths, a Titan pulls up and flashes its light.

“Hey, kid, jump in here!” said a female voice. The ship turns around and its cargo bay opens up. Alvaro tosses himself into the bay, and he can feel the ship as it moves away at a fast speed. He hears the dull thud of an explosion a few seconds later.

“Ahahaha kid!” said the pilot, “that was like something straight out of a movie!”

“Thanks….?” said Alvaro.

“Ah it’s Rosalia, Alvaro. Sit tight, we’ll be back on solid ground in a few minutes!”

Is there any sort of disaster that can result from nuking a planet too much?

Did you seize the planet shortly afterwards?

This is my first fiction which I had done during the last time this forum was up. Here we go.

Ch. 1

The 23rd Century. Mankind has been divided by a deadly civil war lasting for 100 terrible years. We do not know much, but we know this. Our ancestors divided into two camps, the Alliance, consisting of those from mostly western nations, and the Coalition, a power block headed by a Sino-Russian alliance with much of Asia and Africa behind them.

Despite promising early victories, the Alliance quickly realizes the overwhelming strength and technology of the Coalition, and begins suffering defeat after defeat. Soon, Earth is conquered by the Coalition. The western-friendly nations in Latin America are quickly overrun by their Coalition brethren and march towards the United States and Canada, while a Coalition army advances into Europe.

The Alliance launches into space, and begins to attempt counter-attacks, but quickly the inner planets are claimed by the Coalition. The Alliance fleet falls back to Neptune, losing the French and Italian fleets in the process.

They manage to reclaim the planets towards the asteroid belt, raising morale among the Alliance soldiers. Fate was not on their side, and they quickly realized that their victory was short, and the Coalition fleet punctures into the Alliance strongholds.

The Alliance realizes then they can not escape from certain destruction. In desperation, the Alliance draws up an escape plan- to send survivors of their nations far away from the Solar System to the Sirius Sector, which they had discovered some habitable planets as well as others with terraforming potential. It was from there they hoped that they could start anew from the issues that had divided man.

***

"I don't see anything yet", said Alvaro.

"I don't care", said Benito, "If it stays this way, this'll be a piece of cake!"

"Well aside from that, visuals are low", said Alvaro "All I see is the green nebula"

Alvaro looks down on his navigation computer. It had been a half hour since he was sent with his friend Benito to prove their worthiness to the Corsairs by collecting an artifact from the Graveyard of the Innocents. His eyes wonder towards his shield indicator which reads zero. This isn’t a bug he reminds himself. He had to do this unshielded, against the radiation, debris, or worse- enemies.

As his ship moves through the nebula, he begins to see the silhouette of wrecked ships, legionaries much like theirs. He knew these were ships of other pilots like Benito and himself who weren’t so lucky… that’s where the name came from, the “Graveyard of the Innocents”. He brushes by one of the ships, and can still see the shape of a body suit within the broken cockpit- ge tried to ignore that.

"Do you see this!” said Benito interrupting his thoughts.

Alvaro looks over at his friend who is hovering near a peculiar asteroid. As he moves closer, he sees many shiny objects, and he manages to smile for the first time in a week.

"Yes! Artifacts!", said Alvaro, "Lets take all of it, maybe we can get some good rep with thsi!. Why bring one when you can bring more!"

"Are you sure we won't get sick?', said Benito, "Remember we're unshielded, the radiation might kill us if we hang around too long…"

"Don't worry", said Alvaro.

The two begin sweeping the asteroid, collecting the artifacts with their tractor beams.

"I can't wait to see the look on their faces", said Benito.

"Yea, they'll probably give us nice ships and a big meal for bringing this much", said Alvaro. He takes one from his cargo bay "This'll be my good luck charm!"

Alvaro snickers to himself as he collects the artifacts. He looks at his gauge, and sees that he has collected 15 objects so far. At current Sirius prices, that could get him a share of 12,000 credits. His dreams are crushed when he hears an explosion erupt from somewhere, and he looks over to see disappointing laser beams which had impacted Benito.

"Oh shit...” stuttered Benito, "Someone is attacking us! Get ready to jump out!"
The two boys hit cruise engines and blast away from the area. Some missiles hit the two, and Benito’s engines are cut, sending his ship twirling into the depths of the cloud.

"Benito!!!”

He turns back into the nebula only to find a charred hull. He sees a small, badly disfigured body floating in the nebula. Alvaro tightens his grasp on the control stick.

"You guys are going to pay for this...", said Alvaro, “You cowards show yourselves!”

He catches a glimpse of the ship- peculiar and too quick to get a good picture. He fires a carefully calculated, small burst of lasers onto the ship, and destroys it out straight. He sets his sight on another ship that just appeared, and tries to chase it, but even his legionnaire can’t keep up with the strange ship

"Dang that thing is tricky...” said Alvaro.

The ship suddenly turns around and fires lasers in quick succession. Alvaro feels the sheer impact of the lasers, and one of his wings is cut clean off. One engine is damaged, making it impossible to go into cruise speed.

"This can't be it...” said Alvaro.

More ships suddenly uncloak, and back up their ally.

"I guess it was a good run then” snickered Alvaro.

His ship is pounded by the mysterious ships and his ship’s hull begins to break. His cockpit begins to cracks and the ships come back around for the finishing move…

Alvaro sees a white room, and feels some soft cloth on him. He looks around confused, and lifts him self up to get a better view of the location. He sports a man standing against a wall, who sees him as well. He rushes out of sight.

"Doctor", the man said, "He's coming around!"

Alvaro stretches and gets the fellow Corsair to come over.

"What happened?” said Alvaro, "I thought I was done for!"

"We got worried", said one Corsair, "None of the initiates had came back, usually a few of you come back, but none came. We came to investigate, and we saw a whole group of Bounty Hunters pounding your ship. They had broken through your hull when we came, but we held them off until they could get you out. Usually they don't attack the initiates; the goal is to survive the radiation, not fight.”

"But none the less, you proved yourself", said another Corsair who appeared in the room, "These artifacts are pretty large, and yours isn’t like anything I’ve seen before… It’s different somehow... You'll be on break for awhile; you've been through a lot"

"And make sure you get some good sleep", laughed one, "I'm going to be your squad leader when you're deployed!"

Alvaro looks around and sees a familiar man sitting in a chair off to the left.

"Alonso! You're going to be my captain!” said Alvaro

"Yea, your dad requested me, and I owe him for saving me back in Omega-5", said Alonso

"Where is he?” said Alvaro

"Octavio is still on Cadiz and won't be back for a while", said Alonso, "But you'll be deployed to Cadiz too once you're done with my training"

"So what now?” said Alvaro.

"Take a vacation, you have a week to yourself", said one Corsair, "We need good pilots like you to fight amongst us ASAP. Take a rest, you need it. "

Alonso and the other Corsairs say bye and leave him. Alvaro sits up on his bed and looks at the news happening in Sirius. Ever since the assassination of the Rheinland Admiral Schultsky during a diplomatic mission to Liberty a few weeks ago, Sirius has become a dangerous place. Rheinland had invaded Bretonia, and according to the current news, there is a massive buildup of Rheinland ships in the Sigma systems bordering Kusari space. Odd things were going on everywhere…

Alvaro looks on a small table near his bed, and sees an artifact. He recognizes it as one of the ones he picked up, a fairly large and delicate one. He calls a nurse to call Alonso back.

"What's wrong?” said Alonso as he returned.

"Alonso, could you give this to Benito's family", said Alvaro "This was his, and they need something that he had for his grave"

"Will do", said Alonso, putting his hand on Alvaro’s shoulders, "They'll appreciate this, now go back and rest."

Alvaro returns to his house looks at a picture, his now dead brother Miguel.

"Not quite yet, Brother", said Alvaro.

=====================================================================

A week later, Alvaro feels like himself again. He was practicing push-ups and some of his close combat skills when he heard a knock on his door. Alonso allows himself in.

"It's time kid", said Alonso

The two walk out onto the landing pad, holding two ships- a Titan and a Legionnaire.

"Here's a new ship for you", said Alonso

"What? Who gave it to me?", said Alvaro

"With love from the Elders", said Alonso, "They felt you went through too much to have to earn your own ship on your own means, so they got one for you. It's out fitted with good shields and the best weapons it can handle."

"Wow, It's a fine piece of work", said Alvaro patting the ship, "My old legionnaire was nothing compared to this"

"Yea, it's one of the new models", said Alonso, "But lets get going, we have a mission."

"Wait, straight to business? asked Alvaro, "They're just going to put me into a mission?"

“Don't worry", he said, "You've done well in the simulators and practices from what I hear, and this'll be easy, trust me. Anyways, there is a freighter about to enter this system, containing electronics and food. It'll probably have four light bounty hunter fighters contracted to escort it, but they're probably rookies."

The two launch from the pad and enter clear space. They enter a jump hole to Omicron Theta and wait in the Edge Nebula. Alvaro continues breathing nervously… this is happening too quickly. Alonso hails him again.

“Kid, don’t worry. Remember, we Corsairs have it rough. We have baptisms by fire as they say down in Liberty. Again, they’ll probably have some dipshit rookies who are nothing compared to you!”

"Why would they have rookies escorting it?” questioned Alvaro.

"They have their hands full with us and the Outcasts", he said, "We're just too good for them… here they come, get ready!"

A dromedary enters the cloud with four fighter escorts. Alonso's titan unloads a barrage of lasers on one of the escorts, destroying it swiftly. He immediately pursues the other ones.

"What are you waiting for!” yelled Alonso, "Go and shoot out the engines on that dromedary. Don't destroy it, we need the cargo!"

Alvaro begins chasing the Dromedary. He dodges its turret fire and fires laser beams in the engine. It explodes and the dromedary begins to slow down, and Alvaro can see the flicker of the shields as they begin to fail. A stray piece of debris hits the cockpit, and Alvaro moves his ship to see the damage- The pilot is sitting his chair, but with a large piece of metal impaling him into place.

"Well at least the cargo isn't damaged", he laughed.

Alvaro makes his way back to the battle and assists Alonso, but to his dismay Alonso had already taken down all of the ships.

“Damn it, didn’t leave any for me Alonso?” joked Alvaro.

"Well, what’d I tell you", laughed Alonso, "Wasn't that easy? You didn't even have to fight that much! And here you are asking me for some action when you were shit scared only a few minutes ago! The ship is intact I trust?”

"Yea, its right there", said Alonso.

The two make their way to the dromedary, but a ship suddenly goes in front of them. Alvaro recognizes its profile as a Sabre… and only two groups used such a ship in this part of space. One of them never attacks other ships. So this is obviously the…

"You two back away. This ship and cargo is now the property of the Outcasts", said the pilot.

"What would you want with food!” said Alonso "You have your damn caradime, isn't that enough!"

"Apparently", the Outcast laughed, "You haven't seen what ELSE this ship carries"

Alvaro scans the freighter and his eyes open wide. It contains heavy weaponry.

"The bounty hunters mixed up their contracts, and they had their rookies escorting heavy weaponry!” said the Outcast.

Alvaro sees that Alonso and the Outcast begin yelling to each other in their native tongue Apparently, Alonso’s mother was the offspring of a Kyushu whore and a Curacao mutt, and the Outcast was spawned from a Liberty prostitute with an STD and a retarded Outcast. During the argument, the Outcast tears open the hull and beams up the weaponry inside. He fires a missile, nearly hitting Alvaro, and speeds off with the cargo.

"Get on him!” yelled Alonso, "Only your ship can catch that bastard!"

Alvaro starts speeding up and fires a cruise disrupter, which brings the Sabre out of its fast speed. He begins to fight with the sabre, simply going around it in circles and taking potshots at it.
"Trying to fight that thing would be suicide", said Alvaro, "It's too heavily shielded!"

A missile hits him and takes off a large chunk of his shields.

"Where the hell is Alonso?!?” he grunted.

As if he answered Alvaro’s thoughts, Alonso comes out into the fray and fires a missile, destroying the engines of the ship. He proves too skillful for the Outcast and breaks through his shield and disables his ship. He stops short from killing him.

"Wait, I got a better idea", chuckled Alonso, "Beam up some of the cargo out of the ship and see if there are any survivors from those Bounty Hunters, They'll catch a good prize"

Alvaro beams up some of the cargo and finds one bounty hunter escape pod floating in space.

A few minutes later he returns to Alonso. He sees the Outcast’s ship missing.

"What did you do to him? Just destroy his ship?” asks Alvaro.

"I decided to show the Outcasts what happens when they interfere with our business", he started, "I tied him to his ship and sent him through the jump hole to an Outcast system. Without the protection of his ship as you know, the speeds in that warp hole will tear him apart alive. It's a good way to show who’s in power, and on top of all that, we get to kill an Outcast!”

Alonso could sense Alvaro’s confusion and horror, and immediately changes the topic.

"But forget that, we need to get back to Crete and give this stuff off. And you can keep the money from the bounty hunter you captured!"

The two make their way back to Crete, but before entering the hole, Alvaro asks Alonso a question.

“Alonso, why exactly are we fighting the Outcasts?”

He hears only silence on Alonso’s end.

"That's something you’re going to have to ask your dad", said Alonso, "He's good at explaining this topic…"

The two go through the jump hole back to Crete and give their items out. Alonso says good bye and leaves to Tripoli shipyard for another duty. Alvaro collects the credits for the Bounty Hunter and returns back to his house.

"That sure was boring...”, he sighed "I can't wait to go to Cadiz and kill some Hessians..."

End Ch. 1

Ch. 10 Alvaro hits his thrusters and blasts towards the three; Van Clausen to his left, and his father to his right. He hits his trigger and unloads his lasers, as do the others. Lasers go flying off everywhere, and smash against his cockpit. All he can see are the marks of the laser blasts against his cockpit. “Damn!”, he thought to himself, “Those guys are loaded!” He reaches for the “clean up” button, and presses it. The cockpit clears up, and he can see a Sabre blasting right towards him. He cuts his engines, pulls his stick towards himself, and blasts upwards, nearly getting hit by the sabre. He ejects out a mine, and the resulting explosion sends the other Sabre spinning out of control. He turns his ship back around and goes towards the Sabre, and unloads his lasers on it. He sees the lasers melt into its shields, and slowly he can see his lasers smash against the hull. He reaches for the missile launcher “DIE!”, he yelled He launches two missiles, and they smash against the Sabre, destroying it on contact. Suddenly, his ship goes flying off, spinning out of control. ”That ship was loaded with explosives…”, he sighed. He hits the stabilize button and the ship fires its boosters, and slows down his ship. He puts his radar on, and sees that Van Clausen and his dad took out the other ship. He turns towards Otto and hails him. “Any last words?”, said Alvaro “Yea”, he said, “Look behind you!” He turns his rear HUD view on, and sees that there is a squadron of 8 Sabres coming his way. “Don’t worry kid”, said Van Clausen, “We’ll take care of these idiots!” “Don’t let that guy get away!”, said Octavio Alvaro hits his engines and chases Otto. They blast towards the battle, and Otto takes a path right through the battleship formation. His ship gets hit by stray lasers from other battles, as well as the surrounding battleships. He keeps his ship on Otto, who leads him towards one of the battleships. They fly across the side of the battleships, weaving through the hail of the laser beams going towards the planet. Alvaro gets his crosshairs on Otto and squints his left eye as he steadies the crosshair. “Time for you to die!”, he said Suddenly, a laser beam fires from the surface, smashing against the hull. Debris flies everywhere, pounding into his cockpit. All Alvaro can see is the smoke from the ship spill out into space, and crew mates being sucked out into the darkness of space. All he can see in front of him is a swirl of gasses, debris, and the floating corpses of crew members being sucked out into the void. “Damn…”, said Alvaro, “I can’t see jack…” He reaches over to the button on the left side of his helmet, and presses it. His vision changes into a swirl of different colors, and he can see the outline of a sabre in the distance. He goes towards it, and exits the cloud. He presses the button once again, and exits again. He blasts towards him, following him around the cockpit, and to the other side of the battleship. Otto goes along the side of the ship, and Alvaro follows him. More laser beams erupt from the surface, pounding the battleship. Explosions erupt on the side of ship, and the battleship begins to turn towards the planet. He sees Otto take a sharp right through the hangar bay, and follows him through. He maneuvers his ship in, and can see the expansive hangar bay. All the Sabre’s are piled against the rear of the ship, and he can see pilots fall towards the pile of junk. He follows Otto through, dodging the falling ships, and to the other side. He can see the planeside “OH ****!”, he yelled, “That bastard!” His ship plunges into the atmosphere, and Alvaro looks around him, and can see his ship begin to glow red. Crete’s strong gravity is slowly pulling him in towards the planet, and he knows he must act soon, or he will die. He hits his rear thrusters, and positions himself to go the other direction, and hits all of his thrusters. The ship goes slow, and is pushed back by the debris of the ship. He reaches over to the master command console, and reroutes all of his power to his engines. His ship exerts a massive white explosion, and sends his ship flying in the opposite direction. He gets out of the atmosphere’s reach, and blasts over the falling battleship. Just as he gets over though, laser shots hit his left wing, and he can see the wing fly off into the distance. He can see Otto off in the distance, unloading his laser barrage. Alvaro hits his engines, and flies off towards another battleship, with Otto close on his tale. He begins to frantically reroute his power back to his weapons and shields. “Damn…”, thought Alvaro, “that was his plan the whole time… To catch me with out my shields!” Alvaro strafes back and forth, in deferent directions, using a piece of debris from the battleship. The piece of metal slowly descends towards Crete, and Alvaro is forced to move away from it. He looks up, and sees a twin trail of missiles coming towards them. “Oh crap…”, Alvaro said. He looks down at his HUD, at the progress meter. His hand is clutched tightly to the controls, and he is sweating all over. “50%..... The ship begins to blare off the “missile locked” alarm. …75%.... Alvaro can see the Hessian symbol on the tips of the missiles. 99%” He can see the missiles’ every marking now. Alvaro takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, and hears a humming noise. The explosion engulfs the whole ship, and the fiery orange cloud engulfs his ship. Alvaro blinks a couple of times, and looks down at the console. A voice comes over the intercom “Power reroute successful! Shields restored!” Alvaro punches his thrusters and flies towards away from planet side, going parallel to the falling behemoth. He looks over to the left, and can see the battleship begin to glow a bright orange towards the bridge, and it begins to break down. Alvaro looks in front of him, and can see the sabre waiting for him. He keeps his hands on the trigger, and blasts towards Otto. He begins to fire all his lasers, and Otto does the same. Their laser beams collide together, and create a massive light. Alvaro covers his right eye, and the bright light engulfs his cockpit. He struggles to see what’s ahead of him, but all he sees nothing. A jolt rumbles his ship, and he jumps and hits his head on his cockpit. ”I guess he ran into me…”, said Alvaro to himself, “Probably means that he’s in the same situation I’m in….” Slowly, his vision begins to come back to normal. He sees a green blur in front of him. Alvaro wipes his eyes, and suddenly sees a massive piece of debris from a battleship. “Oh crap!”, yelled Alvaro. He reaches down to his console and hits his rear thrusters, and pulls back on his control stick. His ship blasts parallel to the debris, blasting right past it. Alvaro types in some commands in to his nav-comp, and locks on to Otto’s position. He sees a radar display pop up, and sees a green dot- him, and a red dot- Otto. They’re right next to each other. “What the hell is this!”, said Alvaro, “It says he’s right next to me…” Alvaro looks right and left of him, and can’t see where Otto’s ship is. He looks up, and sees that he’s nearing the end of the debris. “He’s not around me…”, he said, “But then that means…” Alvaro reaches down to his thrusters, and engages it on full power, and blasts to the top. He releases a mine, and keeps a HUD view on it. He sees a sabre appear on the other side, and runs into the mine. His HUD view goes into static. “Now it’s time to finish this!” Alvaro goes back towards Otto, and begins to fire at him. He sees that Otto does the same, but only half of its power. Alvaro spins and strafes, and manages to dodge his shots, and lands many shots on the Sabre. He clips the other wing, and passes right by it. He looks up at his HUD, and sees that Otto is blasting towards the disabled battleship that they fought around a moment ago. “What the hell is he going back there towards!?” Alvaro brings down his radar and sees that another battleship is at the other side, receiving escape pods and stragglers. Otto is heading to a hole on the part of the battleship that still hasn’t entered the atmosphere. “That coward!”, yelled Alvaro, “He’s trying to run off!” Alvaro engages his cruise engines and blasts towards Alvaro. Within half a minute, Alvaro reaches Otto. They are right in front of the battleship, and Alvaro disengages his cruise engines and follows him through. Decks and layers of the ships zoom by, and Alvaro slowly gains on Otto. “I’m going to get him”, said Alvaro, “If he passes through the other side, he’ll be home free to the other battleship…and firing lasers will cause this thing to collapse on us…” Alvaro can see the battle through the hole, and knows that they are getting closer. He reaches over to his throttle stick, and pulls it all the way forward, and engages full thrusters. He blasts past Otto, and goes towards the exit. Just as he exits, he drops a heavy mine and blocks the hole. The battleship goes through the atmosphere, and Alvaro sees a bright orange glow around it. It gets engulfed, and the massive behemoth breaks apart, and falls to Crete. Alvaro feels bad for a moment, knowing that the man would probably feel immense pain, and suffer a slow death as his body was torn apart with his ship. Alvaro looks down at his hand, and slowly reaches over to the throttle stick to jump back into the defense of Crete, when suddenly he sees a shadow project over his controls. “What the…!?”, said Alvaro He looks up, and sees a man in a space suit waving at him. The man proceeds to the rear of the ship, and cuts the power. Alvaro hears the ship hum off, and sees the man reach into his belt and pulls out an object, which he inserts into the ship. Alvaro reaches over to his oxygen tank and connects it to his space suit. He looks up at his cockpit window, and sees it slowly opening. Alvaro reaches over for his knife, and sees the man come from the behind of his ship. He pulls himself out, and turns his magnetic boots to keep him on the ship. The man pulls out his own knife, and lunges at Alvaro. Alvaro pulls the man’s knife out of his hands, and throws him against the ship. As he throws the man, he can see the face through his helmet- A man with an eye patch over his right eye. The man lands against the ship, and picks himself up. “What…?!”, said Alvaro, “I thought you were riding that ship to your doom?!” ”Yes, it looked like I was screwed”, said Otto, “But as your ship passed, I was already out of my ship, and grabbed your wing. If that ship was something else, I would’ve not been able too, but those Titans are like cows; they won’t be able to out fly any of our ships. “Yet”, sighed Alvaro, “You guys were never able to defeat us, and had to use big ships to try to, and yet we are still the better pilots…” “You shut your mouth, trash!”, said Otto, “There’s no such thing as being fair in war! If you see a vunerablitiy in the enemy, exploit it for your victory!” He lunges runs towards Alvaro, and tackles him. Alvaro loses his grip on his knife, and it goes flying off into the darkness of space. ”Now we’re even!”, said Otto “Damn…”, thought Alvaro, “I’ve never had any combat experience in these kinds of situations, and Otto clearly has. I need to find a way to get him…” Alvaro looks back towards Crete’s surface, and sees a bright blue glow emerging from a spot on the surface. He smiles to himself, and tackles Otto, sending him flying out into space. “You idiot!”, said Otto, “Don’t you realize that I’ll just come back!” He sees Otto reach over to his boots to push his boosters, but before he could, a massive laser beam erupts and comes straight towards him. He gets his boosters on and franticly tries to get out of the way. He reaches out towards Alvaro, his left eye right open, and yells through the frequency “DAMN Y…!” He was cut short, and his whole body was engulfed and vaporized. Alvaro sees his body slowly vaporize, yet his face seemed to go away the slowest. The look of his eyes gets burned into Alvaro’s memory, and Alvaro continues looking at the passing beam. It disappears, and nothing is left, except a piece of his helmet and a tattered eye patch. Alvaro clenches the eyepatch in his hand, and returns back to power generator of the ship. He releases a nano-bot to repair his cut power, and pulls the remote control out of the ship’s engine. He can see the cockpit’s controls come back to life. He goes back into the cockpit and hooks the ship’s oxygen into his suit, and powers up his ship and flies back towards battle. His father and Van Clausen join up on his formation. “Did you get him!”, said Octavio “Sure did!”, said Alvaro, “Got blown away by a laser beam” “A fitting end!”, said Van Clausen, “For a rat like him” “The guy I was chasing…” Before Octavio could finish, a massive battleship emerges from planet side. Alvaro’s left eye opens up widely, and he sees an ancient battleship emerge. The insignia of the Corsairs is imprinted on the hull, and a simple label towards the rear of the ship. “Hispania” “What in the world?...”, said Alvaro. The intercom interrupts his thought “This is Commander Chavez calling all Corsairs, form up on the battleship that has been marked on your radar!” Alvaro blasts towards the battleship and forms up on Chavez’s formation. “What is that!”, said Alvaro, I thought that our sleeper ship was no where near here!” “That isn’t the sleeper ship”, started Chavez, “it just shares the same name. It’s of an ancient design from the earlier days of our people’s times, before we were sent to live in this hell” Alvaro looks back towards the ship, and sees that he is right. The ship is very junky, and looks old compared to the pictures of the battleships he saw on the holonet. He can see that there are many weapons emplaced on the ship, and can see that the ship will defiantly help in the battle. ”But Commander!”, said Alvaro, “There’s only one, and those Hessians have at least six of their own still operational!” ”Yes”, said Chavez, “We’ve outfitted the ship with heavy weaponry, but this battleship will need heavy support. Plus, this ship has something extra!” Alvaro looks back at the front of the ship, and can see it opening up to reveal a weapon. It glows blue, and fires a massive laser beam at one of the battleships, destroying it outright; Alvaro’s left eye opens widely. The Supreme Commander comes over the Corsair frequency. “Behold the power of our battleship!”, said Supreme Commander Ramirez, “It’ll take a while to recharge, so defend this ship, for it’ll turn the tide of battle!” Alvaro pulls back to his father’s formation, and follows him to protect the battleship. All the Corsairs form up on the battleship. “May our ancestors guide us to victory! LONG LIVE THE CORSAIRS!”, said Ramirez End Ch. 10 Feedback appreciated.

Seems like I didn´t make my goal. I have the chapter about half done, and it could be posted any time this week.

Thanks for the Comment. Expect the next chapter to be up by saturday or sunday. I´m crammed with school work this week, and I won´t have the free time to write a chapter up.

I don´t have much to contribute, but I can Beta test. Good Luck on your efforts!

Thanks for the advice. I modified the original story a bit with your advice, and I´ll keep those in mind when I´m writing the next episode.

Thanks for your comments Birdie, and others who´ve read the story Ch.9 Alvaro sees images from his past dreams, mostly that of the mysterious aliens. He sees them disappearing, years passing, and strange conversations. “They’re coming….” “Man the turrets!!!” “WARNING!” “Wake that idiot up!” He feels a jolt of pain, and slowly he wakes. All he sees is black, which gradually brightens to show some iron bars. He turns his head to the left, and sees two men throwing trash at him. “How does the rat like that!” said the guard “That’s probably the most food he’s seen in one place!” said the other Alvaro turns his head away, and looks to the left, and can see a hallway leading off into somewhere. He can hear the explosions of the battle as distant ”Booms”, and the blares of the intercom. Alvaro looks around, and sees that the guards are still there. He then hears the sound of a door sliding open. The guards fall silent and go over to the wall. He can see the shadow of something approaching. The mysterious person steps into Alvaro’s range of view, and he can clearly see his shape; a tall, massive man with a blond military cut with a long, black cape with the Hessian Insignia imprinted into it, as well as an eye patch on his right eye. He steps over to Alvaro’s chair, grabs Alvaro’s chin, spits right into Alvaro’s face. “I’m not sure why we bothered to dig you out of that mess”, he said, “We should’ve just let you burned with that tin can” The man turns Alvaro’s face over to the left, and can see Alvaro’s eye patch. “Oh Ho!” he said, “It seems you’ve seen your share of combat!” The man reaches over to his trench coat and pulls out a remote and pushes a button. Alvaro can hear some sliding, and the man turns around his chair. Alvaro can see a television mounted on the wall. It shows the battle and pans around towards Crete. What Alvaro sees causes his only eye to widen up; He can see massive fires on certain areas of the cities of the planet. “Why!” he yelled out, “Why the hell are you doing this!” The man punches Alvaro, sending him to fly off his chair. He tries to get up, but both his legs and arms are tied up. “What we do is our own business!” said the man, “but since these moments will be your last moments alive, I’ll tell you. Someone sometime ago approached us with a very intriguing offer. He approached our commander in Vogtland, and offered a large amount of credits- 10,000,000,000 for the extermination of the Corsairs, and 50,000,000 upfront for supplies. We don’t know why he wanted you guys dead or why he’d be willing to give out so much money, but we didn’t give a damn. We confirmed the guy had that many credits, so we’d work for him no matter what. We used the money to buy off blueprints for these warships you’ve been fighting. They look the same but they aren’t as any where close as powerful as the Rheinland navy’s, but the get the job done nonetheless! And plus, we’d have you guys off our side and have some new places for our ring…” That’s all Alvaro needed to hear. His train of thought drifted off, and the man’s words didn’t seem to matter. Alvaro wondered “Who’d want us dead? Even the Bretonians won’t go as low as a full blown extermination…” The man kicks Alvaro in the stomach, sending him flying into the bars. “That’ll probably be the last time I’ll ever get to hit a Corsair like that…”, he said. He makes a gesture to the two men outside the prison cell, and leaves. The two men salute him, and come inside. They grab Alvaro and drag him out of the cell, and go down the hall. Alvaro lifts his head up to the wall above him, and sees the words “Airlock” “Crap...”, thought Alvaro, “I’m in a really big mess now… How will I get out of this mess?” The men drag him towards a gate, and punch some numbers into a keypad. The door opens up to lead to another door, where he proceeds to another keypad to open the door. It opens to lead to another door, and they start pushing Alvaro towards there. They get a knife out, and break Alvaro out of his bonds, and push him to the ground. “We weren’t supposed to do that”, said one guard, “But it’ll sure be funny to see you squirm!” They start leading him to the last door, and Alvaro gets nervous. “Could this be it? Is this really the end of my life! It can’t be…” The door looms closer, and Alvaro closes his eyes, preparing for the inevitable. Suddenly, an explosion erupts and rocks the ship, and throws the three in different directions. Alvaro looks at the two guards, who are against the furthest door. He struggles over to the control pad, and raises himself to the keypad. He hits a button, and a warning alarm goes off in two languages “WARNING! AIRLOCK DOORS ARE OPENING!” and again in another language that Alvaro can’t understand. The two guards pull themselves up and go towards Alvaro, but the door shuts in front of them. He can hear the banging of the guards on the door, and then a deafening scream cut silent instantly. Alvaro takes a sigh of relief, and makes his way back down the hall, and struggles back to his jail cell. He reaches down to a pipe that the guards had thrown at him, and picks it up. He looks up at the sign, and another sign points to “armory”. A small grin goes across his face, and he goes towards the door to the armory. He knocks on it, and puts himself against the wall. A guard comes out of the room, and looks off to the other direction saying “Anyone there?” Alvaro grabs his pipe, and slams it into the back of the guard’s head. The guard falls over into the wall, and Alvaro grabs his legs and drags him into the room. He ties the man up and puts him in a locker. Alvaro goes over to the munitions rack, and grabs 4 weapons- two pistols, one assault rifle, and a shotgun. He starts making his way down to the hall, and starts thinking of things to do. “Should I go for the hangar bay?” “But then I’d still have to fight this battleship…” “Maybe I should go up to the bridge…” Alvaro goes into a small storage closet, and thinks about what to do next. “It’d be better for me to go to the bridge, and bring this big bird down…” He grins, and stands up, and makes his way to the elevators. He goes down the hall, and can see the elevators down in the distance. He steps towards them, and presses the down button. He stands there, and can hear some whirring. He turns around, and can see the camera behind him. He focuses on to its lenses, and can see them moving. “Oh ****…” Alarms start blaring off, and the intercom system begins to say “WARNING! WARNING! INTRUDER SPOTTED ABOARD THE SHIP! HUNT HIM DOWN!” Alvaro’s heart begins to thud, and he sweats uncontrollably. “Crap…”, he thought to himself, “Now the place is going to be swarming…” Alvaro keeps a hand on his pistol, and the elevator comes down. The door slides open and the guard standing there reaches for his weapon. Alvaro pulls out his pistol quickly, and shoots into his face. Blood gushes out every where, and splatters all over Alvaro’s face. “Didn’t know these things were that messy…”, he said to himself. He reaches down into the man’s uniform, trying to not to look into his shattered face. He pulls out some weaponry, and a keycard. He looks up at the elevator buttons, and presses the one labeled “bridge”. Alvaro gets out his Assault Rifle, and puts it to aim in front of him. The elevator opens up, and Alvaro unloads a barrage of bullets. Some guards in front of him fall down to the ground, riddled with bullets. He pulls out his shotgun, and aim at the guards above him. He shoots one, who falls down into the pit, and rolls behind a computer. Gunshots erupt, and Alvaro shoots up on the walkway above him, shooting the two guards on it. He aims up onto the platform above him, and shoots three guards. More gunshots erupt, and Alvaro looks up above him. He can see a cape, and can here some buttons being pressed. “There’s that bastard!”, he said to himself. The man then runs across the walkway, and gets into the door before he could shoot him. The other guards follow, not bothering to shoot him. Alvaro stands up and makes his way up to the platform above to the control panel. He stands and looks at the console, and suddenly the ship begins to turn. Alvaro looks into the window, and sees that it is turning towards Crete. “What the hell!”, he thought to himself, “This thing’s going on a suicide course! Unless…” Alvaro pushes more buttons on the command console, and brings up the cargo bay contents. He scrolls down, and sees an item that catches his attention. “Chemicals” “If this thing goes and blows up in the atmosphere… Those chemicals will disperse, and kill us all…” Alvaro pushes buttons frantically, trying to control the ship. He brings up the map for autopilot, and touches the ships near him. “WARNING! THE SHIP’S TRAJECTORY COURSE IS NOT SAFE! ABO…” Alvaro shoots into the control panel, and the ship begins to turn towards the nearest group of battleships. The ship turns away from Crete. He runs across the walkway, and opens the door. He runs down the hallway, and sees the sign: “Railway to Hanger Bay”. He makes his way down a hall and opens a massive door. The room has a massive rail system, with only one car remaining. Two guards try to run to it, and Alvaro runs as well. The guards go in, and Alvaro jumps in with them. The car blasts off, and the guards engage Alvaro. Alvaro punches one, and then grabs him and throws him off the car. His screams fill the hall, and the sound of the man being electrocuted. The other guard lands a kick on Alvaro, sending him to the front of the car. The guard pulls out a knife and jumps on Alvaro. He tires to slit Alvaro’s throat, but Alvaro grabs his wrist. The two try and get an edge over each other, and the guard slowly pulls the knife towards Alvaro. “Damn…”, Alvaro thought to himself, “That idiot is really going to kill me” Alvaro then remembers an old move his brother thought him, and gets his legs into position. He lands a powerful kick into the groin, grabs the man, and throws him off the car. Alvaro takes a sigh of relief, and makes his way over to the command console. He puts up the speed, and the car blasts towards the door in the front. Alvaro can see the ships of the hangar bay looming in front of him, and some empty rail cars blasting back towards the bridge. The hangar bay door starts to close, and Alvaro gets nervous. “NOO!”, he thought to himself, “I have to get through that door!” Alvaro pushes the speed control to maximum, and lies on the floor. The rail car goes fast, and runs right off the rail, and flies through the hangar bay door into hangar bay. Alvaro pokes his head out, and can see Sabres lifting off. A guard runs right by him, not bothering to kill him. Alvaro looks around, and sees his Titan in a corner, fully repaired. He runs over to it, and sees a guard running for it. He pulls out his assault rifle and shoots the man in his head. He jumps into the cockpit, and blasts towards the hangar bay door. He blasts through the Hangar Bay door, and looks behind him. The battleship begins to blast towards another battleship, and collides into it. The battleship ruptures, and explodes into a massive green explosion. The other ships around it spin out of control into Crete and burn up into the atmosphere. The other battleship goes towards Crete, and disappears into the atmosphere. Some blasts hit him, and he turns his ship around. There are three Sabre looming right in front of him, and the center one hails him, and a picture of a blond man with an eye patch appears- the Commander. “YOU BASTARD!”, he said, “You ruined my plans! But no matter, you’ll be destroyed soon by me and my two greatest fighters! You’ll regret the day you crossed paths with Commander Otto the scythe!” “Crap…”, Alvaro thought to himself, “ There’s no way I can handle those three by myself…” Another Titan pulls up next to Alvaro, and hails him. “HEY!”, he said, “You’re alive! Thank GOD!” “DAD!”, yelled Alvaro, “What are you doing here?” “What do you think? I’m here to help you fight those two bastards!”, he said. A Valkrie comes up next to him on the other side “Van Clausen!”, said Alvaro “Hey kid!” said Van Clausen, “You’ve already gone through your share of fun, now it’s my turn!” “Cut the chatter!”, said the Hessian, “It’s time for you guys to die!” The ships begin to get closer to each other, and Alvaro gets his hand on the trigger. He wipes his sweat of his face, and touches his eye patch. “Time to rumble!”, said Otto End Ch. 9 Feedback appreciated. Edited by - MercZ on 8/27/2005 9:13:05 AM Edited by - MercZ on 8/27/2005 9:13:57 AM Edited by - MercZ on 8/29/2005 3:45:48 PM

Another way to fix this problem is by buying a commodity, then selling it right back.

Another chapter. Thank´s to any who read it! Ch. 8 “All Corsairs”, said Chavez, “Keep on my lead until we can get close enough for contact with Corsair Command! Engage any fighters we get with, but do not engage battleships!” The Corsairs blast towards Crete, leaving the cloud behind them; Crete gets closer and closer, and the battle can clearly be seen. Massive battleships bombarding the surface of Crete, Fighters zooming past them, dodging their fire and engaging their enemies and explosions of fighters can be seen. “This battle is massive…” said a corsair “I only thought those damned houses could have battles this massive…” Alvaro is amazed by the size of the battle. It reminds him of movies he saw as a child of Stolen Holograms, most of which were pre-Sirius. Suddenly, his cockpit glows blue, and he looks over to the left of the ship; He sees a massive blue laser beam blast past his ship, illuminating his cockpit “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!!??!” yelled a Corsair “That’s the Planetary Defense System”, said Chavez, “Fired by many of the massive cannons based in Crete” “I thought only the houses had that?” said a Corsair “Shut it!” said Chavez “there’s a transmission coming from Corsair command” “Commander Chavez! Thank god you guys have arrived!” “What happened!” said Chavez “We don’t know!” said the man, “They popped out of nowhere! They’ve begun bombardment of the planet surface, and fighter wings have been dispatched to engage them. Help immediately! And try to fly clear of the battleships from the planet side. We are hitting them with out orbital bombardment cannons!” “Roger, are we getting reinforcements?” said Chavez. “We’ve been trying to contact Leon and Cadiz for hours now, but we’ve got no response” “Roger, we’re going to engage the fighters, let us do some prep work first!”, said Chavez “Roger!” said the man, “Long live the Corsairs!” He switches over to the squadron frequency. “All Corsairs on my wing! Engage any fighters you come in contact with! Try and stay away from the battleships!” “You be careful out there, Alvaro”, said Octavio “You too, dad”, said Alvaro Shouting of “LONG LIVE THE CORSAIRS!!!!!” comes on through the chatter. Alvaro can feel himself reaching over to the acceleration. He blasted towards Crete, with other Corsairs at his side. Soon, Laser fire began to hit their ships, and the Sabres began to engage them. Alvaro sees a Sabre closing in, and begins to fire at it. The Sabre too starts to fire at him. He sees the Sabre blast past him, and he reaches over for the mine switch. The explosion lights his cockpit. He heads over to another Sabre. One by one, he slowly destroys each sabre, and before he knows it, he can see the Landscape of Crete on the left side of his cockpit. He can clearly see the battle now. 100’s of fighters engaging each other, and battleships bombarding Crete. Alvaro engages a Sabre near him, and begins firing his lasers. His lasers hit the ship, but it doesn’t seem to do any damage at all. “Damn!” said Alvaro, “I don’t seem to be doing anything to it! Alvaro begins to fire rapidly on the sabre, chasing it through dogfights and around battleships. Alvaro locks his crosshairs onto the ship, and fires a barrage of electromagnetic missiles. The ship’s engine gets disabled. Alvaro gets the ship back into his crosshair and just as he was about to destroy the ship a massive laser beam fires from the surface, engulfing the disabled ship and pounding the battleship next to it. Alvaro narrowly dodges the beam, going downwards. He looks up and can see the debris from the battleship. A hole is left behind on the side, and many of its crew members are sucked out into the void of space. More laser beams fire from the surface of Crete, and Alvaro dodges them. He tries to make his way back to the other side of the Battleships, having to dodge fire from fighters and the battleships as well. Another orbital beam fires from the planet surface, and narrowly misses the Alvaro’s Titan, leaving a scarred mark on the hull. “****!!!” yelled Alvaro. He reaches over to his command console and presses some buttons. A scan of his ship’s hologram comes up, showing the weapons on the left wing severely damaged. His ship rocks around and Alvaro looks at his rear camera view, and clearly sees a Sabre unloading on him. He hits his thrusters and pulls up and brings himself behind the sabre, and unloads a horde of lasers on to it. The sabre explodes in a brilliant orange explosion. Alvaro pulls back towards the battle and pursues another sabre in his sights. He pulls up behind the sabre and puts the sabre in his crosshairs. “Goodbye, You bastard!” said Alvaro Before he could hit his trigger, something jolts his ship. He looks at his rear camera HUD; two sabres are engaging him. He hits his engines and begins to do a variety of maneuvers. Strafing, loop de loops, barrel rolls, and any other maneuvers he can think of; it’s no good. A couple of missiles hit Alvaro’s ship, jolting him from his seat. “NOO!” said Alvaro. He hits his cockpit controls over and over again. The ships come back around for a finishing move; he can see the sabres closing in on his ship. Suddenly, a blast of green lasers hit the sabres, and they explode into a large green explosion. Alvaro looks around for who fired the laser shots. Some chatter comes over his frequency “That’s for saving me back in Cadiz!” said the man. Alvaro looks over to the left of his cockpit, and can see a Valkrie pulling up in front of him. “Van Clausen!” said Alvaro, “What are you doing here? “I was in the middle of discussing something of utter importance to my clients’ interests when…” A laser beam fires off from Crete, narrowly missing the two. “BAHH!” said Van Clausen, “Cut the chatter! Reengage! The two break off, going back towards the battle. Alvaro locks his sights on to a sabre in front of him, and follows it closely. Alvaro sees that the ship is making a beeline towards a battleship. “Oh no you don’t! You’ll never see the light of day again!” said Alvaro. Suddenly a laser beam fires from the surface again, and Alvaro narrowly dodges it. It hits the Sabre he was chasing. As the explosion clears, Alvaro suddenly sees that he is blasting towards the battleship. “CRAP!” he yelled, “It’s gonna be too late to turn!” He hears a massive explosion, and he sees a hole in the hull of the battleship open up in front of him. He zooms through it, hitting pipes, metal and dead crew mates. He looks back behind him and sees the battleship crash down into Crete; engulfed by flames. He engages another Sabre and destroys it, but he didn’t notice that he got too close to a battleship. The battleship pours down a hailstorm of fire down on him, and his wings get chipped. “****!”, yelled Alvaro. His ship went out of control, towards the Hangar Bay. His ship enters the hangar bay just before it closes and goes right through the energy field. His ship’s hull gets severely damaged, but miraculously he still manages to get in the hangar bay. Alvaro sees his ship crash into a Sabre, and the impact causes him to black out End Ch 8 More to come soon

It´s an easter egg. Some people say that the monkeys represent Digital Anvil (Creators of Freelancer) and the robots represent Microsoft (Publisher). It´s been known though.