Flora Cove
When we last saw the crew of the starship Morning star they had solved the mystery of the giant Space Jellyfish or something.
“Captain’s Log-”
“Why do you keep a log anyway?”
The illustrious Jack stares at the stowaway.
“You’re not part of an exploration venture, you don’t work for an agency, for any government, you don’t work for anyone actually. Who are these logs for?” demanded the man.
“My Memoirs.” replied our handsome Jack seriously.
“Your Memoirs? Who would read that? Who would want to read that? Who even are you?”
Our cynical Captain only looks blankly at the man in front of him, “Who are you again?”
The pitiful stowaway’s face turned red with frustration. “Did you seriously forget who I am, again!? You’ve only destroyed my livelihood and kidnapped me!”
“Doesn’t sound familiar,” said Jack with a shrug.
As the forlorn stowaway shouts his name at our daring Captain a loud blaring sound fills the ship drowning out all sound.
“What is that horrid sound,” exclaims Jack as he rushed into the cockpit of his ship.
“Emergency signal,” shouted Drake over the blaring tone. “It’s one of the old ones, comes through really loudly over modern equipment.”
“How do we shut the thing off?”
“With these old systems, it’s got to be shut off manually from the ship sending the signal.”
“Can we just get out of range?”
“Captain,” said The talented Pilot patiently, “look at the ship.”
Jack stopped, his jaw slack as his mouth began to water. What he was looking at was an Imperial ship from somewhere over a century ago. A centuries-old, Class A Transport ship, with heavy security and reinforced plating. The classification code emblazoned on its side made our impish Captain’s knees weak all that passed through his mind was, “Loot.”
***
As the airlock opened a seeping mist spread around Jack’s feet. The Captain and his ever-capable engineer, McCall (who currently still appears human) enter the ship. Drake was left aboard to watch the miserable stowaway, to make sure he doesn’t touch any of Jack’s stuff.
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“Down the hall to the left,” explained McCall gesturing that way. “is the main chamber where much of the ship’s power is routed.”
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“That’ll be where the crew is kept,” Replied the Greedy Captain, “But, we don’t care about them, unless they’re some form of Superhuman they’ve long since passed on. We’re looking for where they kept their stuff.”
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McCall looked down at the tablet in his hands, blue light illuminating his face in the dark corridor. “There’s a big compartment to the right, likely the cargo bay.” He looks up and points down the hall, “You go that way and take the fourth door on the left. That should be what you’re looking for.”
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“Make sure you turn off that emergency signal before you do anything else.” The impatient Jack rushed down the corridor.
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“One, Two,” the Thoughtful Captain counted as he moved past the doors. He always counted out loud when it involved numbers he cared about.
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“Three,” He seemed to always lose track if he didn’t.
At the fourth door, he came to a stop and after a deep breath he let out an anxious, “Four.”
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The Door slid open ominously.
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Jack reached into the doorway of the dark room searching the inner wall for a light switch.
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A click sounds as the Captain’s fingers found what they were looking for and a blinding light floods Jack’s vision.
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***
“Where would I even go?!” Screamed the worthless stowaway in frustration. “We’re literally in the middle of nowhere! Docked on an abandoned ship”
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“It’s not about where you would go,” The Bored Drake had pulled out a monitor and started playing a game. “It’s about you not touching the Captain’s stuff.”
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“I don’t even want to touch his stuff it’s all junk!”
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“The captain is proud of his collection of useless junk, and he doesn’t like strange stowaways touching any of it.”
“I’m not a stowaway! YOU PEOPLE KIDNAPPED ME!”
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***
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The sound stopped and the screens around The Accomplished Engineer began to come to life. Thudding sounds spread throughout the ship as lights slowly turned on one after another.
McCall saw before him a monitor displaying the ship’s condition, another displaying the manifest with a camera showing the cargo hold, where he recognized his captain blinking in the sudden light. Most worryingly, there was one showing the crew and their status.
The worried McCall pressed his fingers to the communicator by his neck. “Captain, we have a problem.”
***
“Are you sure about this Commander?” asked the red-shirted security chief.
“That man,” answered the blundering Commander whose name rhymes with smirk. “has interfered with our missions on multiple occasions now. We need to catch him and put him away before he can cause any more harm.”
“But sir, just who is he?” inquired the red-shirt.
The Commander stared forward.
The red-shirt shifted uncomfortably unsure if his commanding officer would even answer.
***
Hyper-literate Jack ran his fingers over the raised ancient graphs. “Do you know who this is?” He said turning to McCall.
“No, but I’ve seen that writing on some of your books.”
The astonishingly skilled Captain turned back to the pod before him. “This body would be worth a fortune back home. Is he still alive?”
“Looks like it, sir.” The Expert Engineer played with the tablet in front of him.
“Can we move him to the ship?”
“I believe I could make room for him in a cargo bay, but we’ll be limited about what else we could take with us.”
“It won’-” Jack suddenly looked up and started checking the other pods.
“What?”
“Did he bring his dog?”
“What?!” McCall seemed genuinely shocked and confused.
“His DOG!” Exclaimed the ambitious Captain, “He’s worth more with the full set! His dog, his spear, belt, bow, ETC.” he continued walking towards unsure McCall seeming mildly unhinged. “Just him is worth a fortune but all combined that’s priceless. We could buy a whole pleasure planet! Never need to work at anything again. Pay the best bribes, wipe our history. We’d be untouchable!”
The Astute Engineer pulled up the tablet and quickly clicked around, he didn’t really understand what was happening but his Captain was invested in a way he had never seen him. He pulled up the names for all the pods and handed it to his impatient Captain.
“There!” Shouted the Ecstatic Jack pointing to a name on the tablet, “get them both on the ship and give me the tablet; I need to find which containers are his.”
The elated Captain ran down the hall as McCall let out a heavy sigh and began looking around for any way to move the pods.
***
Sitting in the corner of the pilot’s cabin, the insignificant stowaway stared blankly at the paneled floor. He heard a low hum as McCall’s jury-rigged hover dolly brought in the first pod. What have I done to deserve being dragged around by a bunch of pirates? He thought to himself. Was what I did to that alien being really that bad?
A scraping sound followed by a resounding thud as McCall moved the pod to the floor, and the hum grew louder for an instant before fading again as McCall headed back to the Flora Cove to get the next pod.
It must have been, must truly have been that terrible.
***
“Commander!” Shouted the Blue-shirted crew member monitoring the sensors. “We’ve spotted an object ahead.”
A smile played across the face of the Imperial pompous Commander whose name rhymes with lurk. “Finally.”
***
The joyful Captain found the container he was looking for just as McCall arrived with the hover dolly. “Good, Help me get this thing on here and we’ll be done with this ship.”
After some effort, the two of them lift the container onto the dolly and returned to the Starship Morningstar.
Jumping up when Jack entered the stowaway started shouting some more nonsense about being kidnapped and demanding to be dropped off somewhere. The Cavalier Captain gave him no attention and just kept instructing McCall on where to put the container. After everything was settled Jack dug through the container to find a weapon he was looking for, the stowaway peskily shouting at him the whole time.
The Proud Captain found a corner in his quarters that perfectly suited the Polearm. “There,” he said proudly. Turning around toward the shabby madman who fell into stunned silence from the stony face Jack threw in his direction, “Who are you again?”
A twitch formed in the sorry stowaway’s face. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t utter a single word. All he could manage was to stare at the man before him, who could not remember for more than a handful of seconds who the wretched stowaway was or why he was on his ship. After a while, his shoulders dropped, his chin sunk into his chest, and the Captain had already moved onto the Pilot’s cabin to talk to Drake about undocking from the Flora Cove.
***
The communication console buzzed, but the woman just sat there; she knew who was calling. Tapping her stylus against the wall beside her, she stares away trying to find some reason to avoid answering the call. Jack was her least favorite person from the colonies, hell probably her least favorite person in the galaxy, maybe even the whole universe. A call from Jack felt worse than a surprise inspection from the Alliance. After a heavy sigh, she answered the call.
“What cou-”
“I’ve found Him!” shouted Jack cutting her off.
Placing her face in her hands she let out another sigh, “what?”
“I have FOUND HIM.” Jack said slower pronouncing the capital letters of the last two words.
“Found who?”
Instead of answering Jack tilted the camera back and slightly to the side, capturing the gleaming Three-Pointed Double-Edged spear.
Her jaw dropped to the floor. “I-is th-that?” she stuttered out.
The knowing Captain moved the camera back smiling.
***
The Ornery Commander stood by as the oblong object was lowered by the ship’s tractor beam onto the shuttle bay floor, his red-shirted security crew standing by. As they approached to examine the large capsule-like thing it released a pulse and the top opened revealing a holographic projection of Captain Jack.
The Hologram stood silently as the red alert alarm blared throughout the Engagement.
“Commander!” Montgomery’s voice called over the Commander’s communicator. “The engine’s fail-safes have all activated, it looks, like some kind of quantum flux fluctuation occurred in the Fold drive core.”
“What does any of that mean Montgomery?” Asked the Commander tersely.
“We’re dead in the Water, Commander. It’ll be some time before I have her running again.”
“How long will that take?”
“eight hours, sir.”
“We don’t have that kind of time, Montgomery, we need to get after them now.”
“All right, Commander, I might be able to get it done in two but I’ll have to push it.”
The Hologram started speaking as the Contentious Commander turned off the red-alert. “By now, You’ve turned off the red-alert and noticed the damage the pulse did to your ship.
“I’d advise you to stop following me, Commander. There’s nothing pursuing me will gain you other than headaches and frustration.”
***
The pathetic Stowaway paced back and forth impatiently waiting for Jack to finish his call so he could shout at the Captain again about his kidnapping.
The Ever-busy Jack walked out looked straight at the Stowaway and then right past him to go talk to his faithful engineer who had been standing nearby. “How long do you think our little toy will keep the Alliance ship busy?” inquired the inquisitive Captain.
“A couple hours at most, Captain.”
Jack paused for a moment, “I suppose we should give them something a bit more challenging to deal with then.” A sinister smile played across the roguish Captain’s lips. “What do you say, McCall, we give them a superhuman problem to solve?”
***
After the Alliance’s finest Engineer, Montgomery, had finished unlocking the last failsafe, the Engagement set off again after the Starship Morningstar. It took a couple of hours but they finally arrived at where the Floral Cove floated by itself with its distress signal blaring across the speaker on the bridge.
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“What is that god awful noise?” shouted the irritated Commander over the din.
“That ship’s distress signal.” Answered Hot-headed Jones pointing to the Floral Cove on the view screen.
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“Can you shut it off?”
“Not from here Captain, we’d have to go aboard.”
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“Then just leave it and continue af-”
“Commander!” interjected the Blue-shirted officer manning the sensors, “There are life-signs aboard.”
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“What?” The Obstinate Commander put his face in his hands and sighed. He knew his duty, he knew he wasn’t supposed to just leave now, not when someone was in actual distress. “What kind of ship are we even looking at? Who could be alive on there?”
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“It’s an old Terran craft, Commander,” answered the blue-shirted officer. “I would guess it was built centuries ago.”
“Then whoever is on board probably came from THAT man’s craft!” The Commander slammed his fist against the arm of his chair. “Let’s dock immediately!”
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The Engagement docked with the Floral Cove, and The Commander, Montgomery, the ship’s doctor, and a historian familiar with the time period the ship was from, pass through the airlock onto the ship.
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“Thank, goodness!” shouted the distressed stowaway shouted as the away team approached.
The domineering Commander took one look at him and then threw him bodily through the airlock to the waiting arms of his security team who arrested the Madman.
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“What kind of ship is it?” Asked the Commander.
“A sleeper ship,” replied the enthralled Historian. “Given the length of time required to travel between planets back then it became necessary to place the crew in suspended animation to make the trip.”
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“Miraculously, they all seem to be still alive.” said the nervous Doctor staring at the device in his hands. “It’s unheard of; anyone surviving this long on suspended animation.”
Montgomery switched off the distress signal. “Amazing, I’d love to tear this thing apart and see how it all works. A real relic like this!”
“That’s all interesting,” the haughty Commander snapped a bit impatiently. “But we need to find out what THAT man wanted here.”
“Commander,” The eager Doctor seemed overly excited. “It seems shutting off the distress signal started something. One of the sleepers has had an increase in heart rate, and respiration is beginning.”
The imperious Commander and crew ran to where the crew was being kept, arriving just as the lid slid off one of the pods and a toned muscular mountain of handsome sat up.
His luxurious flowing raven hair draped across his shoulders, his tanned skin gleaming over his rippling muscles. “How long?” his voice was like honeyed silk.
“How long. . . How long have you been sleeping?” Asked the Baffled Commander Quizzically.
The Golden Adonis nodded.
“Nearly Two centuries.”
“Amazing,” Commented the beguiled Historian in sheer amazement as she wiped the drool from her lower lip.
The Adamant Commander whose name rhymes with clerk introduces himself as the Commander of the Starship Engagement.
“I see.” Replies the Golden God.
“And your name?”
“I have a few questions first,” said the man, whom they could not quantify as beautiful, as the word would lack the meaning of pure beauty that he represented. “What is your heading?”
“We’re in pursuit of a scoundrel by the name of Jack, who recently stopped by on your ship.”
The “man,” to describe him as such would be to deny the pure radiant godliness of his form, looked around the room. “What was he doing on my vessel?”
“We don’t know, we were hoping maybe you would have some clues to what might be missing.”
“You will revive my crew.” demanded the immaculate figure.
“That’s not a question, and I will do no such thing until I know your name!” was the Willful Commander’s stern reply.
The supreme being stared intimidatingly at the insufferable Commander whose name Rhymes with twerk. “Khan, is my name.”