They marched through the expansive corridors of the ship, easily overpowering drunken guards one by one, scavenging their weapons as they made their way back up to the bridge.

"Good show Lucius! Easy as pie." His crew began to grow more and more confident every step of the way.

"Almost a little too easy…" Straddus whispered forebodingly, mirroring Luicius' thoughts exactly.

They made it to the cavernous corridor that led to the bridge and here there was definitely more resistance.

They were met with laser cannons, swinging swords and guttural cries.

The crew made it through mostly undamaged, using their combined military might to demolish every enemy in front of them.

They made it to the gigantic gates that opened into the bridge and with the firepower of a hundred guns, obliterated the door to smithereens, entering into the bridge, led by Lucius.

He did not see what he expected.

In the bridge, at the top of the control panel, atop a catwalk stood the captain.

She was smiling and began to clap her hands in a slow, patronising manner.

The hundreds of bloodthirsty, spitting, grunting, swashbuckling pirates that surrounded her began to join.

In the background was the bridge window offering a view outside, directly behind the captain a huge structure cast its shadow over the entire room.

The pirates all pointed their guns at Lucius and the crew.

"Drop em boys." A husky voice ordered from the captain's mouth.

The Rackermans crew found themselves dropping their weapons as their guts abandoned them, replaced by a feeling of peril.

Lucius, agitated at his mens cowardice and the futility of their escape tightened his grip around his las-gun.

Straddus put a hand on his shoulder and nodded.

He didn't say anything but Lucius knew what he was saying, they were clearly outnumbered and outgunned.

He threw his gun in front of him in anger.

"Well aren't you a fiery one." The captain taunted.

Lucius held a stern defiant gaze.

"Ten minutes until we land cap, big boss is on-station too." A navigator said from the console where he was plugged into the ship's circuitry.

The captain now wore a devil's grin.

"Just enough time for some fun." She chuckled before jumping down from her elevated platform to perform a cat-like landing in the open space in front of Lucius.

"Well what do we have here boys…" she mused as she began to strutt the floor in a manner that can only be described as feline, like an Orphean jungle cat, circling its prey.

The pirate crew unanimously chuckled through the chamber.

"A strong military man, come to rescue his crew…" she continued as she loped closer to the tense and dubious young man.

He could only see long red hair flowing from underneath the feathered captain's hat that shadowed her face.

"I wonder where you came from too… I don't remember your face from our pillage and I never forget a face…" She seemed to disappear and appear right beside his ear.

"Especially a pretty little one like yours…." She whispered much to the amusement of her crew, flustering Lucius.

"Demon! You're a succubus of the blight!" Straddus began to cry-out before she quickly slipped to his side and slit his throat.

His blood began gushing to Lucius' shoulder.

"Straddus! No!" He gasped, taking the man in his arms as he slowly knelt down.

The old man gasped in agony and surprise as the blooded poured onto his protege.

There was no hope, too much blood had been lost and so Lucius just watched in disbelief and despair as his commanding officer, his mentor and his friend died in his arms.

His soul slipped out as his eyes froze in a sort of dumb agony.

Lucius felt the devil pounding at his heart, giving him rageful, vengeful energy that propulsed him up and towards the captain.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

She gave a mirthless chuckle and gave an order with a hand signal.

Just before Lucius' sword could reach her throat, he was stunned by a barrage of shock canons from the pirate crew.

He was left twitching in a puddle of drool on the ground before her.

He looked up to see her face, eyes as black as coal and lips so red they would make an apple envious set in a cruel expression on a sharp, angular face.

She knelt over him.

"Tsk tsk my boy, didn't your parents teach you, tantrums are for toddlers?" She taunted before standing up and looking at the rest of his crew.

"We only have the resources for half of them as slaves. Boys, it's getting a little crowded here. Cull the stock." She said coldly.

Half of the crew were annihilated in front of Lucius as he lay in a helpless heap of self loathing anger. He attempted to scream in protest but could only manage a few gargled utterances.

"And him?" A henchman pirate asked the captain.

Who merely smiled and kicked Lucius out of consciousness.

"We'll bring him to the big boss…he's just too much fun…" he heard through ringing ears before everything went blank.

He woke up with a thunderous headache.

He was on another floor.

His eyes blurry and his head a cage of thunderstorms.

He tried his best to stand up on numb limbs but could only manage to get to his knees before his vision returned.

He was in a large room with dim lighting emanating from lanterns hung haphazardly around.

It was old and rickety and outside blew a tremendous space storm that rocked the place about.

In front of him was a sort of council that ascended to the top where a shadowy figure sat.

The woman that had knocked Lucius out was standing by the shadowy figures right shoulder, shooting a cutting smile at Lucius as he woke up.

"Well look who's decided to rejoin us!" She taunted as everyone else seated on the council table gave their chuckle or grunt of acknowledgement.

Lucius was nearly frightened into wakefulness as he registered the grotesque figures of some of the 'humans' sitting up there.

With cybernetic enhancements or strange and foreign forces twisting their visages into horrors of the cosmos.

"And who is it we have here?" A deep, rusty yet smooth old voice emanated from the man sitting at the top centre of the council pyramid.

Something in Lucius' mind snapped at that instant, that voice summoned a ghost from his past to come screaming in his ear.

"Father?!" He whispered out with wide eyes and a tingling in his stomach.

The man who was sitting stood abruptly, rolling his head to one side then the other.

"Walk into the light boy." The man said.

Lucius obliged, showing his beaten, bruised and bearded face with a boyish excitement painted over it despite the turmoil that he had endured to get to this point.

The older man peered his head over the desk in front of him to get a closer look.,

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Lucius is my name! It’s me father! I've come to look for you and now I've found you! It’s me Lucius!” He sang out in jubilation.

“I followed the stars just like you said and now here I am.” He continued not being able to stop, he walked closer and closer to the podium.

The demon jumped down to the floor and held her sword to Lucius’ throat, halting anything more from exiting his voice box.

“Move that tongue again and lose it.” She had lost her devilish grin and became as cold as ice.

“Malia! Put your fucking sword down.” The man's voice was as demanding as thunder and jagged as a saw.

He began to limp slowly down the stairs to the floor from where he stood.

The rest of the council was now dead quiet compared to the mumbled cacophony that they were not a moment ago.

The sounds of his footsteps echoed through the chamber.

He put his hand on Malia’s shoulder as a gesture to move.

She begrudgingly obliged.

Lucius could see his face now.

It was very different from the man he had remembered.

Long grey dreadlocks shrouded over his grey bearded face.

A face filled with scars and barely human looking with a cybernetic eye and cheek made of diodes and steel.

Lucius could see through the shoddy machinery into the clockwork that attached to his fathers brain.

It made him shiver a little but he could still tell it was his father.

“Father! It’s you, it's really you! I’ve travelled all over the galaxy trying to find you and here you are! I knew you were still alive! I knew they didn’t get you when you flew away that night.”

The man just dubiously eyed Lucius up and down, mostly with an expression of disbelief.

He zeroed in on the navy bravery medal that Lucius wore on his breast.

He lent in so close that Lucius could smell the fumes of the motors that were keeping his father alive. His bionic eye glowed red and crackled with electricity.

There was a long pause and Lucius’ smile drooped.

This was not the moment Lucius had envisioned for all of these years, there was something else in his fathers eyes, a wall of hatred that seemed to hinder his vision.

“No son of mine wears that fucking patch… Malia, take him to the brigg with his putrid poultry of a crew.” He turned away and began walking as he said the words.

“No! Father!”

“You won’t find your daddy here boy… here there be monsters.” Malia said with her taunting tone returning to her.

The rest of the council began whispering and mumbling and some even laughing at the debacle.

Lucius out of a downpour of desperation that spawned from an evaporation of hope simply tried to leap forward to his father, only to get punched in the gut by the sadistic Malia who hauled him up to her shoulder.

“Take him away…”

‘Tinkle tinkle’

“Stop!” The room went silent again.

“Put him down.” He swivelled round, his bionic eye turned green as he began to hobble back to the boy.

“But Cap’n you said-”

“Quiet girl!” He roared as he clasped Lucius around the shoulders, rummaged through his overcoat and snapped out the compass.

He stared at it for a moment, flickering his glance between Lucius and the object.

“Lucius… my boy… my son!” He hugged the stunned young man tightly.

“Everyone… out!'' The room immediately cleared with the exception of Malia who stood with an uneasy expression on her face behind the pair.

Darius shot her a glance that hit like a tsunami.

“I said, everyone.”