Captain Tarsik was one of the most intimidating men to ever set boot on a rocketship. Like all fashionable men of the twenty seventh century he wore a cape but unlike the rest of them his was tattered from years of fighting off pirates and grappling with local thugs when deals went bad. He wore it like a badge of honor just as he did the scars that adorned his face and formidable body. The cape’s yellow fabric hung loosely against his Service-issued poly-synthetic uniform that glistened with an iridescence that changed its color from blue to purple depending on the angle it was viewed from.
The Service was a loose organization that banded together merchantmen and mercenaries. It had become a powerful entity in galactic trade and was comprised of nearly a hundred thousand ships and crews from all across known space. With the advent of the Nielson-Cobarro Drive in the late 2270s humanity had spread out to hundreds of colony worlds scattered all across the galaxy and whatever one world lacked another often had in spades, this is where the Service came in. The men of the Service adhered to a rank structure, but only a loose one. In practice the captain, and often owner, of each ship was in charge of his own destiny. Assignments were passed down via tele-wave but most captains bartered with one another to trade assignments or postpone mundane ones for more lucrative ones. The entire system was rather complex but Captain Tarsik was a master of it. That’s not to say that he was fond of it however. He often ruffled quite a few feathers by doing whatever he damned-well pleased and it earned him more than a handful of enemies. He’d made even more friends though with his courageous, sometimes downright brazen, actions. Many a ship captain in the Service owed their lives to Captain Tarsik of the infamous rocketship Honshu. When queried by crewmen he’d always said that the name came from some distant memory of Earth, an island where (supposedly) his ancient ancestors had lived. He often talked, over plenty of whiskey of course, about how his great-great-great-great-great-great (the number often varied) grandfather had been admired as a “sumo warrior” for his great physical strength.
The truth was, of course, that most folks in known space knew virtually nothing of their heritage and that if they said they did they were lying. The early days of colonization were hectic and so much got lost in the scuffle. Hell, even well into modern times things were still a mess. It was so hard to keep track of the comings and goings of over a trillion human beings that had scattered throughout the stars, many on alien worlds. Most folks assumed that the entirety of human history was out there somewhere but that it was just so scattered that getting a clear picture of it was fairly difficult. Only in recent years had scholars began to come together via the tele-net to even start the process of piecing it all back together. It was very likely that their task would not be complete for many generations to come, long after Captain Tarsik and the crew of Honshu was long dead and their bodies were drifting amongst the stars.
Their most recent trek had brought them to the backwards alien world of Kessela to trade for precious minerals, a venture that was sure to bring an easy return for the captain and his crew. The ship’s first mate was Ansul, a Martian. He stood upright like a man and for most intents and purposes looked pretty similar but he was covered in a thin layer of white fur, was stockily built, and had pupils considerably larger than those of a human. Having long-ago gone underground to escape the changing conditions of their home world Martians had adapted well to subsurface living. So on planets like Kessela he often wore dark welding goggles to shield his sensitive eyes from the brightness. Today he wore them beneath his helmet, or “bubble” as the men liked to call it since it was little more than a transparent polymer sphere that covered the user’s head and supported a breathable atmosphere. Both Ansul and Captain Tarsik wore them as they descended the Honshu’s loading ramp and stepped onto the crunchy alien soil to oversee the final loading of the ship. Both of their capes flapped in the thin winds of Kessela that was composed of more methane than either of them would have been able to tolerate had they taken their bubbles off. Ansul was the only other “man” on the ship the captain allowed to wear a cape and that was because he owed his life to the sarcastic little Martian many times over. Even then Ansul only wore his when he felt like being a bit pretentious. Most of the time he could be found wearing a simple mechanic’s uniform and a vest with an array of pockets filled with a wide assortment of tools.
The captain tapped a button on his belt and spoke into the tele-wave, “Is that the last of them?”
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One of the men pushing the heavily laden nega-grav sledge spoke back to him in between heavy breaths, “No sir. One more sledge behind us.” His sentence was nearly cut off as other crewmen, out of line of sight, began activating their tele-wave units frantically and screaming for help. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to the hill that hid the nearby native village from sight. The last sledge crested the hill and the captain instantly saw why they were panicking. A barrage of arrows was pelting the sledge and its contents as well as the two men who were pushing it.
“They changed their mind sir!” one of the desperate men yelled into his tele-wave.
“You, get your asses in gear and get that sledge on the ship double-time!” Tarsik yelled at the first team of men who had stopped to see what the commotion was all about.
The natives who called themselves Keshik were about 5 feet tall and very lanky. They walked about on four legs and had two arms that were long and quite strong, this made them excellent bowmen. Luckily for the crewmen of the Honshu standard issue Service uniforms were made of a material that was designed to stop penetrating blows from sharp objects like arrows and knives, at least most of the time. It still hurt like hell though and the captain knew that at any moment the Keshik tribesmen would be upon them and all it would take is a club to the helmet to be all she wrote.
Tarsik and Ansul leapt into action and ran like mad for the top of the hill. “What happened?” he screamed into his tele-wave as he approached the sledge.
“I guess they realized that ostrich feathers weren’t really worth over a ton of sapphires and emeralds sir.” Crewman Jones responded, all the while ducking arrow fire.
As they crested the hill the captain gestured to Ansul to help the men push the sledge and he reached for the spiral-ray pistol that was always at his side. In one oh-so-familiar move he dropped to his knee, unholstered the weapon and trained his aim on the nearest Keshik tribesman who was by now only about ten meters away. A calm squeeze of the trigger and the outdated, yet still very deadly, gun shot forth a spiraling helix of proton energy that vaporized the tribesman’s bow right out of his hand. At the sight of such a display the rest of the locals ceased their approach and simply stood there with their bows drawn and pointed at Captain Tarsik’s body.
“How we doing back there?”
“Loading the last sledge now sir.”
“Excellent, Ansul cover me!”
The captain turned and bolted for the ship only to be greeted by the impact of what were probably two dozen arrows against his back. He knew it was going to happen but that didn’t make it hurt any less. As he ran down the hill he saw his first officer standing on the loading ramp, blaster in hand. Ansul unleashed a few bolts of green proton energy at targets cresting the hill. The captain couldn’t tell if he was actually hitting anything or if they were just warning shots. The Martian preferred not to kill when possible so the latter was more likely. Tarsik’s sheer bulk made the sound of his boots hitting the loading ramp ring out, clearly distinguishable even over the sound of Ansul’s blaster fire.
“Faust, we lift in three!” he yelled into his tele-wave. He was addressing Emily Faust, the ship’s pilot and the only human female serving onboard.
“Copy sir.”
Crewman Jones had already jumped into action and had smashed the button against the bulkhead that began the process of raising the ramp and filling the loading bay with Earth-typical atmosphere. Tarsik began walking up the quickly ascending ramp but suddenly winced and clutched at his back. A single arrow out of the barrage that he’d sustained had managed to puncture his Service uniform and was now lodged a few inches from his spine near the middle of his back. His first officer put out a supportive hand but the captain turned it away. The natives were still over twenty meters away from the ship when the hatch finished sealing but even through 120cm thick armor plating the sound of wooden arrows harmlessly plinking off of the hull could be heard, if only just. The sound was quickly overwhelmed by a rush of fresh air into the two levels that made up the Honshu’s loading bay.
“You’d better get up to Doc and have him take a look at that.” Ansul told his boss as he removed his helmet.
The captain only gave his X.O. the slightest of nods as an acknowledgment that he’d heard him before he removed his own bubble and sat down on the sledge. He gave his crewmen a slight smile that said “Job well done.” then reached back and snapped off the arrow.
The drone of the Honshu’s engines slowly turned into a roar as she prepared to lift and the tribesmen who had been pelting her with projectiles quickly turned and ran. By the time her neutron rockets achieved full power and scorched the ground they were safely back in their village. Above thatched huts they watched as the alien rocketship soared into the sky and slowly disappeared into the haze of Kessela’s upper atmosphere.