You leave your villa and go to visit "The Patient". There's no harm checking up on your two crewmembers as well as making sure the ship herself is properly prepared. You leave your hovercar in the starport's garage and walk the rest of the way, admiring the starship's powerful towering shape. This beautiful piece of machinery is of Imperial design; the same class the Empire uses in her battlefleets. This class of ultra-heavy fighters is the largest craft in known galaxy still agile enough to dogfight. How exactly they managed to create this marvel of technology twice the size of the second largest fighter and almost as agile is a close guarded secret. It took a lot of time, connections, legal and otherwise, as well as money, to get your hands on this beauty.
The specifics of being a privateer vessel drove you to make a number of modifications to the craft, to make it better suited to operate alone, rather than in a large fleet, as it was designed to. While you had the humongous main gun of the original replaced with a much smaller, albeit still fairly powerful laser, you also improved the shields dramaticly and reinforced the hull structure. As a result, you have a fairly agile ship that is still able to bite back well, while withstanding unimaginable kinds of punishment. Anything "The Patient" can't outrun she can outgun, and then some.
The main airlock hisses open, letting you into the decontamination chamber. Several minutes under the routine influence of various sprays and rays designed to neutralize harmful bacteria or viri you might have brought from the outside, and you are finally admitted into the tight confines of your spaceship. You are greeted by Sindie, one of your two copilots and crewmembers. Sin is a talented 23 year old pilot and mechanic, who you had with you for as long as you had this ship. You ransomed this pretty girl with short blond hair from Imperial slavery where she ended up after the corporate starship she helped pilot fell victim to one of the numerous "off the books", "involvement denied", pirate-style attacks by the Imperial Navy. Since then she has been loyal to you in more ways than one'd expect from a crewmember. You often stayed up through her shifts to keep her company instead of sleeping in anabiosis chambers on long voyages. A smile touches your lips as you think of all the fun you had when the two of you were billions of miles away from another human being. Of course, there was also Elbie, the third and last member of The Patient's crew, but she didn't count, as she was always in anabiosis during Sin's shifts, just like Sin was during hers, differing little from an inanimate object. Elbie is the more experienced mechanic at her 30 years old, but not as good a pilot as Sin. She is dark-skinned, big-bodied and extremely strong, courtesy of her heavy-gravity home planet. You lured her a couple of years ago from the Federation's Mobile Infantry ranks.
"Captain!" Sin exclaims jumping on you with a tight hug, which, by accident or design, pushes her lovely C-cups constrained only by a thin T-shirt against you. "We didn't expect you until tomorrow," she says after letting go of you, "but I'm sure you'll like what you see here. We're almost ready. Elbie's just finishing up some maintenance work on the shield generators. We finished with the fuel scoop system and just had all the missiles you ordered loaded. A200's. The most powerful stuff you can find on Kappa. Are we going to war or something, captain?" Sin asked trying to read the answer in your eyes, knowing that she wouldn't get one from your lips.
"Can't tell you that, Sin."
She pouts her pretty lips and lets out a disappointed sigh. "I knew you'd say it. Well, what part of the ship do you want to inspect first, captain?" |