May 10, 2210
Before we could even think about attacking the Ithians, we needed money and supplies which we, at the time, had very little of. In order to get money, we’d need to do direct battle with my unknown rival by smuggling shit from planet to planet better than him. Matt gave us our first run. We were to deliver fuel to the small colony on St. Outland. It was a small run, but a dangerous one because… well… fuel is flammable and a flaming ship spells instant death for those aboard. We weren’t being paid much, but we held out hope that St. Outland would have another run for us.
St. Outland was a very small colony on what was probably the worst planet possible. It was a plane that dealt with a permanent winter which meant that it was normally -30 in the summertime dipping down to -50 at night. You did not want to be on the planet during the winter unless you were crazy like the residents were. There wasn’t much in the way of resources so they depended on smugglers like me for their basic needs. You’d think with all the problems they had to face, there was no reason for them to stick around, and for the most part, you’d be right yet there was one key reason for staying. They were situated in the best possible area in the known galaxy, strategically speaking. If either side of this war had St. Outlands, they would be in an extreme advantage. Right then, the resistance had it and planned on keeping it.
The route was all part of a routine for me. Upon taking off, I went straight to work ignoring both Pat and Lyn. I don’t think Lyn liked being ignored very much and that put a smile on my face. Who does she think she is taking over my ship? Well, I set Eden on course around any major routes to keep away from any Ithian or Galactic Alliance patrols. After that was finished, I headed down to the engine room.
After my old crew left, I had to make changes to the way I did things. Normally, Eden needed an entire crew to operate or at least one driver and one person in the engine room to make sure things didn’t go boom. I don’t have that luxury anymore. I first started to plot courses that posed less risk to make up for this major handicap. If I did run into a patrol, I had no weapons and Eden was big and clumsy, so I would have to shut her down from the engine room to sneak past. That’s kind of hard for one man to do while he was also trying to drive from the bridge which was half way across the ship. The new course may be longer and less efficient, but safer.
Of course, if the unthinkable happened, I needed to be ready. I hooked up cameras all over and fed it to monitors in the bridge and the engine room. What that means is that if I’m in the bridge or engine room, I can see what is happening on the entire ship. I would monitor the bridge from the engine room and if I ran into a patrol, I would turn off the engines and sneak by silently.
“Hey Vick.” Lyn said from behind me, “Need any help?”
“You offering?” I said without slowing down.
“Of course.” She said after catching up to me, “You’re my crew.”
“I have a system,” I said, “I don’t need any help.”
“This ship is meant to be run by a crew though.”
“I have managed for two years. And the ‘ship’s’ name is Eden.”
“Eden, sure. But two years? Wow. That’s impressive. Hey, I meant to ask you.”
“What?” I stopped just outside of the engine room.
“What was your old crew like?”
“They were a bunch of idiots who abandoned me, but they were like a family to me.”
“I hope to achieve that someday.”
“I’m sure you do.” I opened the door and motioned her in.
“Quite a setup you have here.” Lyn said while gawking at my array of surveillance equipment.
“I made it all after they left.” I said quietly.
“What happened?”
“It’s a long story.” I said and sat down in my chair in front of a wall of computer screens that showed every room in the ship. Pat was sitting in the kitchen sipping on some juice. Where he got it, I have no clue. It was probably from when my crew left which made it possibly over 2 years old. I hoped he didn’t die in the kitchen and stink up the entire place.
“Can you tell me anything?” Lyn asked.
“I can tell you what they were like, I guess. Maybe one of the missions we went on.”
“That’s a start.”
“Well, we got a mission this one time on St. Outland. We were to rob a bank there for our employers, a terrorist group called the Tongs…”
----
December 15, 2202
“We’ve got a mission!” Captain Creed said as he walked into my bridge. He was wearing the green Galactic Alliance military uniform that he refused to take off even though he was AWOL. He had combed his short brown hair back and it actually made him look more proper than usual. He was also smiling more than usual, which told me that I wasn’t going to like the mission too much. Or I would like it. I could never really tell with that man.
“What is it?” I asked.
“We are robbing a bank. In St. Outland.”
“St. Outland? What’s the payout, 2 bucks?”
“100 dollars each. And if we succeed, we’ll be in for permanent work for the Tongs.”
“The terrorist group?”
“Man, you worry too much.” Creed said with a huge smile on his face, “Sure, they do some… Things that may or may not be ethical, but its permanent work! We will never be starving ever again!” He was very proud of himself; I could tell, “Set a course and meet us in the lunchroom. We’ll set a plan there.” Without waiting for an answer, he left leaving me to set the course. As much as I was nervous about working with a terrorist organization, I was happy to finally have something to do.
We had been drifting from settlement to settlement looking for some paying jobs but only getting minor runs making us just enough money to refuel the ship and get a little bit of food and water. I never thought I would admit this, but thank God for Clea’s garden. Her produce not only made extra money, but fed us on the dry spells. Of course, any extra money I made went to my coffee addiction that kept me awake and not murdering anyone.
“Elson,” I said over the intercom, “I need to meet with Creed. Can you come up here and keep an eye on things?” Elson was my protégé. I picked him up on Prime shortly after I joined up on Eden. I saw that he showed promise, though the Captain didn’t necessarily agree with me. After some convincing though, he agreed to let me mentor him but he was my responsibility.
“Yeah sure, Vick.” He said.
“If you run into trouble, let me know.”
“I think I can handle it.”
“Maybe so,” I said, “but I want to be here.”
“Fine.” Elson said. He sounded pretty angry at my rules, but he would get over it. I turned off the intercom and went to meet the crew. Since Elson was my responsibility, he wasn’t considered crew and was left out of discussions. He didn’t like that too much, but it was the deal. I was working on making up a full member, but it was slow going.
Everybody was already sitting around the table as I walked in. Captain Creed was at the head of the table with Clea to his left and Al to his right. Clea was the gardener and our resident bitch. She had fire red hair and dark green eyes. She normally wore plain t-shirts and torn up jeans and that day was no different. Al was our pet mute. We found him outside of a burnt down house in a small settlement unconscious. When he woke up, we found out he could only say one thing:
‘Al’
So we named him that. Since that day, he hasn’t left the Captain’s side and has turned into a bodyguard. He was really good with his two massive hunting knives. He had short dirty blond hair and brown eyes. His face was marked with countless scars from God-Knows-What and he wore some of the Captain’s left-over army fatigues.
Next to Clea was Aimi, our doctor. Not much can be said about her. She was a drunk. She had jet black hair and loved to get herself into trouble. Every time we had a mission, she wanted to go out with Creed’s squad and get some action. Every time, he turned her down. That day, she had her long hair tied back and wore a red shirt and a black skirt.
The siblings Clark and Rain were standing off to the side. They were our gun-people and I didn’t know much more about them. They didn’t talk much and rarely left the other’s side. They both had light blond hair and blue eyes and wore Galactic Alliance fatigues. When Creed went AWOL, he took both Clark and Rain with him.
The entire crew was there except for our hermit mechanic, Basil. She stayed in the engine room and took orders from me and never showed her face around the ship.
“About time.” Clea said as I poured myself a coffee and sat opposite Creed.
“Had to get Elson up there,” I said, “to keep an eye on things.”
“So he is useful.”
“Shut up Clea.” I said. She smiled at me; content with her work at getting me annoyed and made a gesture of zipping her lips.
“Now,” Creed said, “is everyone here?”
“Yes, get on with it.” Clea said.
“Alright. As you all know, we have a job. A bank job. Here is the plan.”
End Part 1
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