1 The Crew

"If you are watching this, heed this warning, stay away from planet WN42-42069 henceforth referred to as Terra Abominabilis, the abominable land, is the new name given to it as a witness to the horrors within, this video log is transmitted on all known broadcasting channels as well as to all Terran colonies, this log will be forever a warning to any who carelessly try to come to this planet"

The passenger cruiser was suddenly flooded by the incoming messages on so many comm channels, all of them were the same video log, separated into 50 fragments give or take, it was so overwhelming for the civilian cruiser that they had to go out of the flooding range, and into a distance that would let them safely communicate, they had downloaded the files and ran them through many security checks, they were just video files, nothing more nothing less.

Jordan, the comm officer was fuming, the overload of input almost fried his precious, hand-built and very illegal set-up, his captain allowed him to upgrade the comm centre but did not know how far he had gone, she would wring his neck if she knew, not even the most advanced military and research ships had anything close to what was in that room.

His piracy days had instilled paranoia in him, even after he turned legit and found this good job, he could not shake the feeling of being monitored, only when he was in his comm room did he feel safe. Here he could watch the world and no one would find out, even those who supposedly were watching him.

The captain was standing behind the console in the comm room, she looked at rows of data and analysis, she waited for Jordan to stop his awfully profane monologue, she was patient, Jordan was an ex-pirate, something like reason was out of the question on a moment like this, so she had to wait, if he did not have this temper, she would never have hired this paranoid ex-pirate, that decision has been one of the best she has made, even after he turned her comm room into something the governments from the earth that was would proud of.

Jester, as they called her, knew everything that happened on her ship, even if she acted as if she did not know, she knew that her motley crew needs some space to work at maximum capacity, therefore she was lax about breaking the federation rules on her ship, as long as it could bypass inspection, it was allowed, her crew always knew how to remain undetected and keep their dirty secrets buried away from the prying eyes of the federation.

Soon she was joined by the navigator and the engineer, the medic and the gunner, all of whom she hired among millions of applicants because they knew what they were doing, they had enough of a dubious background to stay away from trouble and the law, they also were unique in the way they did their job, too competent would be the only way to describe them.

The federation liaison was waiting outside of the comm room pacing about after his supposedly master key-card failed to open the comm room, where the main personnel, as well as the captain, were now doing something illegal for sure, he was having the grand plan and to expose their crimes and get a raise for foiling their evil plan.

To the captain, the liaison was just a burden forced on her by regulations, she agreed to have him on board but there was nothing in the federation rules that would stop her from changing the access codes to the main rooms after giving him a master card, such regulations were not added to the rule book because there had been a surge of suspicious suicides among the agents of the federation, they decided that a lax environment would make it easier for their agents to live longer, and catch more misdeeds.

This passenger cruiser was specialised in tourists, they would shuttle some rich patrons around a few star systems to see the scenery, land on some pre-terraformation planets, to hunt the wildlife, mine an asteroid, salvage a wreck, shoot at pirates and get a sneak peak across the star sector, maybe they get lucky and see the two other races that shared with them this sector.

For these kinds of cruisers, the federation had just enough regulations to keep the silk pants safe and sound, the rest was "international waters law", and this federation liaison was one such regulation, he would only act when something as obvious as piracy or its lesser sisters was undergoing, he thought a sudden shift in course and then anchoring out of the entire star system was a bit too unlawful, that is why he tried to get inside the comm room while spewing threats and trying to hack into the mainframe and override the systems with his federation authority, unsuccessfully for about 30 minutes now.

When Jordan calmed down, he sat in his comfortable and extremely luxurious chair, took out his cigarette pack, debated with himself for a moment before putting it back and tacking out a lollipop to suck on, his grizzly face did not look good with a lollipop between his lips, but he did not care, he waved his hands to reactivate the super-secret holograms, he was in no mood to keep hiding his tech after such an accident.

"Sorry Jester, this is hand made and can not be traced, illegal and is, what saved our behinds from being fried out of our comms when we hopped in, near this newly established planet, this idiot has gone beyond measure to make sure that even military vessels have to be towed away after reaching a certain point" he pointed at the screen where the first video log was playing, then waved to bring out 50 more holograms of the other fragments, they popped up, almost filling the entire room.

"Never mind that, should we make use of this or are we playing it safe this time?" the gunner asked Jester, but she said nothing, the medic spoke in her stead "this is too much, whatever is down there, the local government decided it was safer to kill anyone who comes here, I assume your gear should be around class 1, right?".

"Class S" replied Jonathan, but both were silenced by a glare from Jester, she was thinking, they were not allowed to talk when she thought this hard.