Chapter two

       "What did you just say?"

        As the head of the department of intergalactic commerce I rarely had a reason to shout at people, I usually make my points by signing documents or giving facial cues that made it clear to my subordinates I wasn't very pleased. People usually crap their pants when I simply raise one of my eyebrows so it was rarely necessary for me to resort to such an uncivilized act like shouting but today I was truly angry and no facial expression was enough to express my displeasure.

        The man that I was staring at had sweat running down his forehead, he was fidgeting around as if he could run away at any time, "The pirates came after we were gone and robbed the merchants that we were using as our bait for the sting operation."

        I put my elbows on my desk and placed my chin upon my intertwined fingers. I looked over the top of my glasses at the man who was now staring at the floor like it could somehow help him escape, "So let me get this straight, you were using a real merchant ship as bait to catch pirates then you made the decision to leave said ship behind and you were surprised when pirates came and robbed it? That is what you are telling me, is it not? I apologize for the repetition but I want to make sure you know exactly how stupid it sounds."

      "I'm sorry sir."

       "Are you really? Because I don't think you are nearly sorry enough. Remove this man from my sight and make sure that he is made an example of. We at the D.I.C. do not tolerate incompetence like this, former Lieutenant Carl . Men , make sure that Mister Carl here doesn't have any 'accidents' on his way out of the building."

        The two large men standing behind Carl grabbed his arms and frog marched him out of my office while he wailed and screamed for help. 

        After the screaming died down I focused on the file in front of me, it was a compilation of all the known and suspected facts on the pirate crew that managed to rip me off yet again, the crew of the famous pirate ship, the Vishnu.

         I tapped on the glowing screen of the holo-file and it expanded nearly filling out my entire office with images of the strangely shaped ship in the process of committing some crime or escaping from the authorities. The ship had six 'arms' sticking out from its needle like body which earned it the name Vishnu. At the back, the needle like body is attached to a sphere which was a reactor taken from a freighter ship. The massive reactor was almost as large as the rest of the ship. It was a very clever piece of engineering that the scientists in our own organization had been unable to replicate.

          Which brings me to the crew of the Vishnu, I touched one of the flashing icons and the pictures of the rampaging Vishnu was replaced by the images of a scrawny old man with fluffy white hair , this was the man responsible for designing the Vishnu, Professor Albert Tillman. This nut job was performing illegal genetic experiments with human subjects in a government funded facility. When someone eventually noticed and he was caught he claimed that since all his subjects were rapists and murders it made it all okay, to his sick and twisted mind what he was doing was perfectly justified. He was on his way to a maximum security asylum for the criminally insane on a distant asteroid when he was rescued by the current Captain of the Vishnu,the legendary 'two face' Callaghan but I will leave him for last.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

          I pressed another icon and this time the images were those of a beautiful woman with very light brown eyes and sandy blond hair which was probably the reason why she went by the alias 'Sandy'. Very little was known about her before she joined the crew of the Vishnu. She was an excellent pilot as was evident in the images of her literally flying in circles around the 'state of the art' vehicles of both the fleet and the DIC. She didn't have any records before she joined Callaghan which is impossible in today's world. The leading hypothesis is that she had procedures done to alter everything from her face to her figure to her finger prints. 

        I pressed another button and images of an old bulky looking Mech pancaking newer looking Mechs filled my office. Derek 'the tank' Baldwin was a famous fighter in the intergalactic Mech championships until his manager stiffed him and run off with all his money. He was in deep shit with some loan sharks when Callaghan swooped in and offered him some help , in exchange he made Tank 'the muscles' of his operation.

       The next icon showed the profile of a promising young cadet in the star fleet who spiraled into addiction and got fired. Brad 'twitch' Gonzalez was then picked up by Callaghan and now he shoots down the ships that he used to work in.

        And last but certainly not least, I pressed the largest icon and pictures of a variety of people popped up. Bruce 'two face' Callaghan was a suspected ex-member of some intelligence agency but nobody was willing to take the blame for unleashing this bastard on the universe. He was like a freaking chameleon , nobody knew what he really looked like but he was one slippery motherfucker. The current captain of the Vishnu had an illustrious career of impersonating several highly placed officials, including myself , to steal billions of credits from the government which was probably what he used to pay for the Vishnu. When I saw my own picture laughing at me , a surveillance picture from when he impersonated me, I got so angry that I accidentally broke the holo-file I was holding making all the images flicker and disappear.

       I hated that annoying bastard more than anybody in the universe, not only did he steal using my face but he also fucked my beautiful wife. Oh ,how I would love to get my hands on him.