Chapter one
In Space a Future Brews
The solar system had a supernova star with only one habitable planet in the entire system, Bella Grande. It was beautiful, covered by deep blue oceans, seas and large bodies of water. Most of the landmasses were covered by a sea of grass-like plants. There were also large forests that dotted the countrysides. Most of the trees here were rather like that of coral than actual trees of Earth. They grew extremely tall but very slow since it takes thousands of years to grow. Unlike most trees found throughout the known galaxy, they had no leaves, instead had a fan like filaments catching particles from the air. All the broad-leafed trees never reached over three metres (“9.10” ft.). Do to the planets high gravity there were only a few mountains. It was about two hundred or so years ago. At first sight, it was a colonist dream seeing the huge heavenly body after a long trip in stasis. Only to find their dreams crushed as if by the extreme g-force on the surface. Some of the people opted to undergo high gravity adjustment training to try and colonize the beautiful planet. Still, very few completed the training and moved onto the planet surface. Bella Grande remained a sparsely populated colonized planet even after two hundred years since it was first discovered.
Orbiting in the cold dark side of the colossal planet was a mid-sized modern intergalactic spaceship named Little Tooth. It had the red, white, and blue colours of the Imperial Order of the known galaxy. The ship was large and undercrewed with only two people operating the large spacecraft able to carry 42 crew comfortably. They were in close orbit over a large peninsula of the planet watching for magical anomalies and, or rogue magic users. They were eight days into the mission that dragged on. The days seemed to get tediously longer as they sat in orbit. The days were thirty-four earth hours each rotation of the Bella Grande.
Joe turned to Fred. “I can’t take much more of this waiting. I still say there is something strange going around this planet that is causing all the false magical arcs of power? We’ve seen nothing to indicate any magic users or anything close since getting here, yet here we are still waiting, watching”.
Fred dressed in his starship uniform, which spotless and neatly pressed. He had dark brown skin, deep-set dark brown eyes, high cheekbones, and chiselled features — a big man 215-centimetres-tall (7 ft.) of solid muscle. He was an intimidating man with his voice to match his frame. He valued his strength over speed, and it worked for him because he was still faster than most people because of his training.
Joe dressed in the same fashion as Fred; it was the same style of uniform just a different rank. Only Joe’s wrinkled and not tucked in and was even lightly stained. Joe was somewhat of a pretty boy by other men’s standards. His skin was a smooth deep tanned colour, eyes were green, with softer features than most men. He was tall well over average height of humans yet still not close to Fred at 196 centimetres (‘6-6” ft.). He had a very athletically built physique. His muscles were nowhere near the size of Fred’s huge form. He went for speed over power, magic helping where his strength fell short.
A flash and a warning sound on the view screen drew his attention to the job he was currently assigned. It was coming from the same basic place as reported before. Joe jumped at the sound interrupting the silence and until the then boring day. “It’s about time; I can report something other than the weather and space traffic. Come on I want a little more than a simple spark, show me some real power”. Joe said as he was checking the screens and the gauges, it was a clear evening so it couldn’t be lightening. There was more than the lightening element in the arcs of power. With their more sophisticated scanners, they found the flashes had to be of magical nature. The arcs magical of power were not that great but were building up rapidly. They were too big for the size one would expect on a planet with no registered mages or sorceress; not even any magic users noted to be on the surface. Bella Grande was a magic restricted planet, after all; no magic users were allowed planetside. By the previous sensor reading these were small ones in comparison of some previous ones done by automated satellite monitoring. They abnormalities were getting to be so strong they had to have been glitches or powerful arcs of electricity, natural flashes of lightning was the biggest suspect. Even the planet overseers deemed them false readings, few mages can produce magical displays half as powerful, and those readings were well beyond normal. The magical power was getting more frequent over the last three years.
Not far off in a separate orbit, a cloaked Pirate ship was trying to view the same magic arcs of power, but with inferior sensors. The displays of emence magic were becoming more frequent on Bella Grande’s surface. It was just after dark on the small island in the southern hemisphere where the arcs of power were faintly visible from space even with their regular sensors.
The men and women on the ship were all strangely dressed, with ill-fitted odds and ends of stolen clothes. The odd thing about the crew of this pirate ship they all had shiny white teeth and fresh breath. The captain’s name, Brakon of the Bright White was an average height wise; his body was freakishly muscled. The infamous captain Brakon of the pirate ship hated bad breath and dirty looking teeth with a passion. That made the pirate ship famous, known as the Bright Whites. They were a ruthless bunch of magic hunters. They would find, steal, and sell things mostly to do with magical powers and didn’t care who they killed to get them. Captain Brakon while drunk once killed sixty people in an orphanage. Most were children between three and sixteen only six were staff. It was all for a reported magical water purifier a client wanted for his illegal use. What he was going to use it for prevented him from getting one through the proper channels when the Bright Whites captain Brakon delivered the stolen magical item almost to the deadline. When the receiving client found out how he obtained it, he refused to buy it. He wanted it stolen in secret, not mass murder. Almost needless to say, the captain Brakon killed and robbed the man along with everyone with him. His crew still laugh with him when he tells this story. His crew is not innocent by any means; all fifteen have similar stories if with a little less blood and gore.
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The pirates on the deck of their ship were watching the visuals sensors for bursts of power as they started seeing more of them and increasingly more powerful. The arcs of energy seemed to strike in a small rural area on an island not far off the shore of the main continent. Captain Brakon called out to a scruffy looking man in front of a scanner panel. “Can’t you get an any better reading than this specks of nova sized spaced dung, you bleat’in pile of excrement? If I had known, you were so useless I would have kept your wench of a wife instead. At least she would have been useful for something if you could get past the vile set of teeth in her mouth”.
For once Jead was glad his girlfriend had blackened some of her teeth. He knew what kind of man Brakon was. “Brakon this is the best I can do with these pathetic scanners we could steal after the last one burnt out. We never got the chance to steal something better. Maybe we should tear into that imperial ship and take their hardware.” Jead replied to the raving mad captain.
Captain Brakon quickly looked around with murder on his face. “Does anyone else know how to work that low-grade junk?”
One of the men stood up and answered him. “Yeah I know how to work the scanners, and I think I could do a better job at it too.” Within the blink of an eye captain Brakon drew out his concussion gun powered by magic and fired it at Jead’s chest. The results were not pretty, and it left only his hips and lower half in the seat. The rest of his body in little pieces over the interior of the bridge. All around the crew started to wipe off various human remains off themselves and equipment. No one was permitted to use magic on the bridge without captain Brakon’s permission
“Jead was as smart as spaced dung, but he had nicest shiny white teeth. See if you can find some of them if they’re not busted up give them to me. I want to keep some for my tooth collection.” Brakon said, happy with himself that he had just a few blood drops from most of the spatter. A moment later one of the female crew he never could remember her name handed him a lower jaw bone with a few teeth with a smile. He gave her a questioning look.
“It’s Brinda; my name is Brinda. I’ve been part of your crew for two years and not once you said my name”. She answered the unasked question with her fist on her tilted hips. Her attempts to look sexy went unnoticed as Brakon inspected the teeth still embedded in the piece of jaw bone he had in his hands.
Brakon cursed the dead man and contemplated shooting the other half still seated. “Stop looking for the rest; the little-spaced excrement had fake teeth.” He looked around at the rest of his crew. Jead was pretty must useless, but he did have a beautiful set of teeth. He looked up to the woman before him. “What’s your name, come here, you”!
“Brinda, B, R, I, N, D, A. I just told you how could you forget that quickly.” She stopped berating her captain as he gave her a sly smile thumbing the settings on the concussion gun. “Sorry captain,” she said with a smile and raised her hand in a placating manner.
“Let me see your teeth what’s your face,” he said with an evil grin. I want to know if they’re real or not”. He beckoned to Brinda and drew out a pair of pliers from a utility belt. Everyone knew what he intended to do to her. His preferred form of punishment was to pull teeth. She reluctantly approached him under the leering gazes of miscreants that were her fellow crew members.
Brenda knelt in front of the captain with a little quiver in her movements. She let him open her mouth and inspect her teeth. The pliers had a white enamel colour which he used to gauge the condition and brightness of one’s teeth. On one time, there was an increment scale he used to see how many increments off white they were. She had all her teeth, and all were as white as could be. She had one tooth that was slightly crooked and winced as she felt the plier grip the slightly offending tooth.
“This should hurt a little if I do it right. I believe I’m going to do it completely wrong and it will be extremely painful”. He said with a sickening grin. “I’ll make sure it’s all healed before I put your tooth back in all nice and proper.” He gripped the tooth and slowly pulled the tooth. Brenda’s head was pulled down too causing him to lose leverage. He put his gun to her forehead. “What’s your face hold still or I’ll find a reason not to pull that ugly thing out. The dead don’t need to have nice teeth”. He said with a big toothy smile showing his perfect pearly whites. “To me, teeth are like a picture that’s not straight, and I must make it straight. It will hurt as you never felt before, but in the end, your tooth will be perfect. For that service, I’ll only charge you half of my usual rate”. He said with a wicked grin getting ready to saviour inflicting pain on his crew member regardless of gender.
Brenda glanced around with her eyes as she held onto her knees to brace herself for the promised agony. The glint in the man’s eyes was disturbing because he was the most sadistic person she knew. She held her mouth open for the captain to pull her tooth. A chorus of laughter rose from the men and of women around her. They all have a beautiful mouth of teeth and soon she will too. With a little slow twisting and pulling her mouth was quickly full of blood and minus one tooth. He pulled it out and inspected it before jamming it back in. Brakon held the tooth in place and murmured a spell to set the tooth. The pain in her mouth didn’t ease even after the tooth was arranged perfectly.
“You, go wash out your mouth and let me see if I have to reset that crooked thing. Be quick about it I don’t have too much patience for foolishness. I wanna see those pretty whites and maybe I’ll remember your name”. Brakon told her and pushed her down with massive arms. He pushed her away, and the rest of the crew pushed, punched, and kick her as she left the bridge. She gave almost as much as she got even with the taste of blood on her tongue. She was going to get her revenge once her mouth didn’t throb with pain to distraction.
Brakon turned to the mess of the bridge and cast a cleaning spell. It was a sloppy spell but cleaned the bulk of the mess. The larger pieces still needed to be removed by hand. No one else had the magical spells for cleaning or removal on their M.A.D devices. Once the chair in front of the scanner panel was clear of body parts. He asked the man to bring up the reading of the surface where the magic was being used. It was only a slight improvement and considered replacing him too. He didn’t know if anyone else would want to substitute another dead man.