Prologue

Alice Sarah Cornwell daughter and only child of Fleet Admiral Guis Cornwell had never been afraid before today. oh she'd been scared before, hiking small trails thru deep canyons, getting cuaght out in deep water when the tides change, or that one time a drunk driver hit her automated air car. but in her 16 years of life she'd never been truley afraid before. It started 20 minutes ago when the passanger liner she had been returning to Paleriseus, the capital planet of the Paleris Republic, on from her summer vacation on the resort moon of Travor rocked under her. then came the annoucment of Pirates. ransom and extortion were common crimes in unclaimed space like the rocky lifeless systems on the shortest route from Travor Paleriseus. closer to the Capital there would be system pickets to stop this but this far out the only protection was for higher escort ships or if your lucky a fleet scout escort moving in the same direction. or you could just play the odds after all with all the cargo, passenger, and private vessels in space your chances of being targeted by pirates was close to one and a million. unfortunately for Alice and the other crew and passangers of the S.S. Caroline someone had to be that one. now her and the other passengers and crew had been hearded into the lounge and been robbed of all their money and jewelry. but that wasn't the worst part the pirates had begun talking of taking booty and they didn't mean more treasures. the leader of the bandits a disheveled looking man with an unkempt beard and an ornate but rusty looking antique gun powder revolver and malicious grin pointed at her. " your first deary" the other passangers all backed away as he grabbed her wrist tugging her from the group. she looked around frantically but no one would meet her eyes there was nothing they could or would do no one was going to help her. or so she thought. from a bench in the back of the room a loud sigh rose up. the noise was a combination of annoyance and resignation. " I was hoping that this would just be a normal robbery and we could deal with all of this later when the civilians weren't around but no" said a sarcastic male voice, a hand reached up and put a hat on the table and a young man no older then twenty sat up. dark brown hair close cut in a military style though disheveled as if he had been napping, just shy of six feet if Alice had to guess, average build and a put apone exprision as if the neighbors dog had just pooped in his yard " but nooooo you had to go and up the slimeball factor to 11 by trying to abduct that nice young lady. do you know how much more paperwork this is gonna be with civilians involved?" the man said rubbing his face. the pirates all spun and pointed their pistols at him the other three using much more modern laser pistols. " who the fuck are you?" the pirate captain snarled at this man who had to be crazy Alice thought. " me? oh I'm James Tiberius Kirk of the Star Ship enterprise " nobody said anything for a secound the man claiming to be kirk sighed again " no ones a fan of the classics anymore. fine. Geronimo" things moved so quickly Alice could barely track them despite having played a lot of sports growing up with fast pace events. first a women who had been slowly inching towards Alice with her hands on her head pulled a needle from her hair and threw it into the throat of the Captian holding Alice's wrist while two men drew sub compact two shot blasters from hidden holsters and shot the other three who were turning away from the " Captain" who had ducked back under the table that had absorbed a single shot one of the prates had gotten off. one of the ships crew suddenly produced a hidden blaster as well and started to grab a young boy and pull him infront of him as a shield when thump came from under the table and the man collapsed the three " Passengers" with hidden weapons yelled clear Alice recognized them as professional soldiers. the man on the bench sat back up with a military rail pistol in his hand. " no one appreciates the classics Seargent its a shame" one of the men where clearly soldiers holstered his blaster and saluted. " Sir if by classics you mean 500 year old earth flat screen science fiction thats only loosely accurate then no Sir I'm afraid your alone in such cultured tastes" the man on the bench stood up and returned the salute " you have such a nice way with words Sgt. but hey at least the mole gave himself away that means we can be done with this hunt." the man who Alice now thought may actually be a captain but not like any she'd ever met around her father. he then turned to the women whos hair had fallen down to her shoulder blades once the needle was removed. " Private Lin a throwing needle really? I know your the best knife and thrown weapons specialist this side of the Yamato boarder but you know nonstandard weapons require extra paperwork right? that being said you'll diffenantly need to show me how to do that later" the Private bowed slightly " yes master" the Officer face palmed " don't say that in public people are gonna misunderstand case and point look at the young lady shes blushing totally misunderstanding you" Alices face grew even warmer as she realized the officer was pointing at her. the private did a slight bow again " my apologies mast-sir". the officer just rolled his eyes. looked at the Caroline's Captain " sir if you do not want this unfortunate circumstance to accure again might I recommend not being the only ship not paying for or traveling with security in a known pirate area it would reduce the likely hood of such events in the future" turning to the last of the soldiers " signal the fox give Commander Fluffy" the officer coughed " do not call her that, Commander Flufenhiem my regards and ask her to bring the fox along side we will move the bodies onto the Pirates vessel undock and send these fine citizens on their way" he turned to walk out the door when someone hollered " wait who are you?" the officer stopped spun around and gave a slight bow " ah my apologies how remiss of me Captian Alan Tell at your service" the door closed between Captian Tell and the rest of the room. as the three soliders chuckled at thier Captains antics. No this man was nothing like the Officers who surrounded her father he was way to informal with his crew and unprofessional not the model officer her father always went on about. so why did her heart flutter when she remember his cheeky grin when the door closed?