A sci-fi story with weird aliens and big guns. (no title)

[jack cloudy]

Here's the first few pages of a story I'm writing. I don't have a title yet, but there's going to be a big amount of explosions from time to time.
My problem is, I think that my main character gets thrown into the story a bit too fast. I would really appreciate any advice on how to slow the beginning a bit down. Especially some ideas for what to put between the launch of the Glorious Rustbucket and the arrival of the Profitable in the Gateway system would help. Anyway, here's what I've written so far.



,,Affirmative, Glorious Rustbucket . You are cleared for launch.” ,,Roger that, Miltown starport. Glorious Rustbucket is now departing.” After saying that, Steve Erwing got out of his seat and moved towards the navigation console. With just a few button presses, he moved his ship out of the large hangar of the space station. The Conrad class light freighter was the latest attempt of a scrap yard dealer at making some extra money. The original hull was actually one of the Saturn XV rockets that were used to destroy the rebelling Mars colony four hundred years earlier. There had been made some heavy but cheap modifications. The hull had been reinforced with an airtight layer of titanium, but he didn’t quite trust it and had decided to wear a spacesuit when onboard at all times. The original rocket engines had been removed for a nuclear fusion power plant. The power plant powered the fusion drive-ring as well as everything else. For the actual cargo carrying, a platform had been welded on the front of it. Underneath this platform were six hook-ups for cargo containers while a cheap laser turret was put on top of it. Despite being armed, the Conrad stood basically no hope in a fight. Its low power engines gave it insufficient acceleration and manoeuvrability to outrun any possible attacker, its armour wasn’t even powerful enough to withstand multiple laser shots and the laser itself was the weakest weapon available. Still, it was the best that his uncle’s representative managed to get. ,,When you’re old enough, I will give you your own spaceship.” And here it was, just one week after reaching the age of twenty-five, the official age at which you’re allowed to take command of your own ship, if you passed basic training off course. It was too bad that relations between the TCU and his uncle’s MEA were a bit tense, otherwise the representative might have been able to buy him a Sacol merchant or something similar. Oh well, if he would just stay within the system and within the patrolled drive lanes it would be safe enough. Once he had made some money ferrying rocks from the asteroids towards Earth and food back, he might be able to upgrade.

Five years later. (TCU date 2513)

With a flash, the TCU heavy merchant Profitable emerged from the Wormhole.
On the bridge, its captain watched as his crew did their job. He turned around when he heard the door opening and with a simple kick against the wall, he floated over towards the newcomer with the gracefulness of someone who has been in space for a long time. ,,Are we there yet?” ,,The Gateway system. Honestly, are you sure about this? Tensions between the Terran Colonial Union and that bloody Multi-racial Exploration Alliance have been rising again. The profitable is a TCU vessel, her class is built using the same hull as a heavy cruiser. They might feel threatened.” ,,Oh, I’m sure it’s okay. My uncle send me a letter and asked me to come here.” ,,Your uncle? He’s not one of those stupid MEA’s, isn’t he?” ,,There will be no problem, I assure you. Actually, I didn’t want to come here, but I figured it might be a chance to get myself a Horizon cheap. My Conrad has had her days.” ,,I heard about the Conrad, you must be very brave to dare fly one of those.” ,,Actually, I’m not that brave, I wore a spacesuit all the time!” ,,But you are smart, I like a man who doesn’t take any risks.”

One of the crewmembers onboard the bridge tried to gain the captain’s attention without turning around. He couldn’t turn around, because he was strapped to his chair to make sure he couldn’t accidentally float away from his console. ,,What is it?” ,,I’m picking up some signals, about a thousand kilometres away, coming in fast.” ,,Well, what are you waiting for? You know I don’t like this system, so give me an ID.” ,,Off course, sir. Hold on for a minute….Got it. I’m picking up two Horizon class light explorers.” ,,Horizons? I hate those bloody flying darts. They don’t even use any damn fine human built engine. I’d sure love to give the order to extend the navigational shields to combat capacity and power up the weapons, but what do you think, my passenger?” ,,Maybe you should try to hail them first. They probably know you’re here since you passed trough one of their star lanes and they would be very stupid if they did not put any sensor array nearby and if they wanted to kill you, they could have opened fire a long time ago.” ,,Very well. Comm, put them on speakers.” It took a few moments to find the frequency the Horizons were broadcasting, but after that they heard their captain as if he was floating right next to them. ,,This is H-024 to Merchant vessel Profitable. Please allow us to escort you to Gateway station. There have been some pirates around lately.” ,,And you think that two of you can hold of a bunch of pirates?” ,,Well uh… yes. We’re more than capable of protecting you, don’t worry. We’ll now cut communications and enter formation.” The voice of the Horizon’s captain disappeared and the two Horizons matched speed and heading with the much larger merchant vessel. ,,Bloody arrogant MEA’s. Everybody knows that those Horizon’s can’t fight of any pirate that’s powerful enough to make an escort necessary.”

An old man was waiting for the passenger in a corridor of the large station:,, Steve, good to see that you’ve managed to come. I see that you didn’t use the Conrad I’ve given you to get here. Oh well, it can’t use any star lanes so there’s no way you could have gotten here using it in the first place. I actually wanted to give you a real ship, but the moment that guy said he was with the MEA they kicked him out of the door. And I thought it wouldn’t be so bad if I would send a human.” ,,As talkative as ever, aren’t you uncle? Funny name you gave to this system, it’s nothing but a bunch of asteroids and only one star lane, so where is it a gate to?” ,,Haha. I’m sure you want to hear that. Well, I’ll tell you all about it later, but this system contains the only official access point to fluxspace.” ,,Fluxspace? What is that?” ,,Told you, I’ll tell you later. First you need to freshen yourself up in your room, and I’ll tell you all about it during diner. It must feel great to have gravity again, even if it is created by rotating a station.” ,,Fine, but before I go, I wanted to ask you if there are any Horizons left for sale. I’d like to go back home under my own power.” ,,Horizons? Forget the Horizons! Just wait till after diner and I’ll show you a ship.

Takan Erwing looked up from his data pad when the door buzzed to announce that someone wanted to enter:,, Come on in.” Steve entered the room and sat down at the other side of the table. ,,Ah, Steve. Go ahead, feel free to eat. I know they don’t serve this back in the TCU, but that bunch of racists don’t know what they would taste if they ever tried the Bohcktan kitchen.” ,,You were going to tell me a few things?” ,,Ah yes. I’ll start at the beginning. You know that the TCU, the Bohcktan hierarchy and all those other civilizations don’t like each other. Now, the Multi-racial Exploration Alliance is founded by those who believe that’s stupid. I’m proud of being one of them. The MEA tries hard to maintain an independent status without trying to provoke any of the races, which I can assure you is a very hard job. In the meantime, we use our Horizons and any commercial vessel we can buy to explore the galaxy and build stations to extract any natural resources we can find. For example, this station was originally built as a large mining station to take advantage of the wealth of asteroids that can be found here. But one day, one of our mining droids stumbled upon a material he couldn’t penetrate, later we found out that it’s called Fluxtanium. When we went to investigate, we found the wreckage of a ship that had apparently crashed here. An unusual design. A cube shaped middle hull, four wings placed in an x shape. Cylinders on each wing. The Cylinders are called Reblock Engines in case you want to know, but I don’t quite know how they work. Anyway, we also noticed that large pieces were missing. Some of it is off course caused by the damage it had sustained, but the rest must have been from escape pods. We took it home and started analyzing it. We never figured out how it worked, nor did we ever managed to reverse engineer it. We did figure out that one system seemed to be used as some sort of engine. This system was completely inside the main structure of the ship so it wasn’t a normal engine.” ,,How did you find out that it was an engine?” ,,Well, believe it or not, but among several different languages on a plate that was welded to it, we found something very unusual.” ,,What?” ,,The words were written in a funny dialect, but it has clearly evolved from an old version of English, probably from about 1850.” ,,What?! You’re lying.” ,,No, you’ve got to believe me! It said:,, careful, fluxgate opener, always make sure that this system is functioning within the design specifications before attempting to enter fluxspace.” I decided to install it on one of our Horizons. They wanted to have it fly unmanned, but I insisted on going. So I flew of and activated it. It did work, but it appears that we’d forgotten one vital piece of equipment. You see, I entered fluxspace, but I couldn’t move. Not in any direction. Luckily, while I was over to check if there was any problem with my engines, another ship appeared and dragged me over to a station, a station that was inside fluxspace! There I met the beings who had built the crashed ship. Long story cut short, they took my ship and instead allowed me to ride home as a passenger onboard one of their own.” Steve stood up:,, Uncle, have you been taking some kind of alien drug?” ,,I still haven’t convinced you, have I? Fine, I’ll give you proof, you just have to believe me after that. Follow me.”

Steve followed his uncle and decided to get away from here as soon as possible. To do that however, he had to get himself a ship. The Profitable had left as soon as he entered the station. He’d need to buy a ship just as he’d planned to do:,, look, uncle. Just let me buy a Horizon and forget about all this. And try to get some help.” ,,You’re not going to get a Horizon. And now I want you to follow me.” He opened a door in the corridor and stepped onto a platform that hung inside one of the four large internal docks. Steve followed him and looked at the ship that was being built.

,,Wow, that thing is about twice as big as a Horizon. Since when does the MEA build ships that large?” ,,Since we’ve found a system that’s filled with resources and since we received a few upgrades. This ship is based on the technologies that the beings I encountered in fluxspace gave me. We’ve entered trading relations and are now preparing to launch our first ships that are completely based on their technology instead of using modified horizons. This is the MEAS Wanderer, the first ship of our brand new Wanderer class medium explorer. You won t believe me when I tell you what this thing can do. It carries Uniblock Engines for the main thrust, which are Reblocks but without the turnaround capability so its deceleration capabilities are quite a bit lower than its forward acceleration. Furthermore, it carries a functional fluxgate opener and also includes the fluxdrag compensator which is necessary to be able to move within flux space. Its secondary faster than light system is a starstream accelerator that can give you one light-year a day when activated. Its weaponry consists of two gauss auto cannons, which are placed inside those two turrets that you can see on the dorsal and ventral surface of the main hull. These weapons have got the same rate of fire as a laser gatling, but are a hell more powerful. You can compare them with the mass drivers found on heavy warships. Two more of these are mounted in the nose with heavily reduced rotating capabilities. It also carries Pulson missiles. Its primary sensor array doubles up as the largest weapon available to the ship. This system is far beyond anything available to the TCU and the weapon it incorporates is what we call a megabolt cannon. This weapon can easily level a city, knock out the shields of the most powerful ships you know and destroy just about anything that you can find on this side of the galaxy with a single shot. Its shields use the entire hull of the ship as a projector and are rated as having a max capacity of 500, using the TCU standard shield ratings.” ,,What?! That’s as much as a heavy cruiser!” ,,And the last system is what I’m most proud of, but I won’t tell you just that.” ,,And you think I’m going to believe your whacky story just because you have built a big ship?” ,,I thought you were going to say that. It has been finished, so I would like you to take her out for her first test flight.” ,,You sure it’s safe?” ,,If it wasn’t I wouldn’t be coming with you.” ,,But you always loved taking risks.”

,,Slitter slitter phoeuw.” ,,What does that mean?” ,,Bohcktan look like big tentacled worms, they can’t speak like we do. It said something like being honoured to open the doors for the first flight.” ,,Ok, then I guess we shouldn’t keep it waiting.”
With a gentle push from her thrusters, the Wanderer slid out of the dock.
,,I’m going to level out, so grab onto something, because you won’t be feeling anymore gravity.” Steve said as he strapped himself in. ,,Oh, that won’t be necessary.” ,,Fine, have it your way.” With a touch of the button, the Wanderer accurately used her thrusters to counter the rotation she had received while docked and stopped rotating. ,,What?!” ,,Told you, that won’t be necessary. This ship is the first ship we’ve built that features REAL artificial gravity.”

Steve was shocked. After over five hundred years in space, the TCU still hadn’t found a better way to create gravity than by rotating or accelerating. There was also no other race known that did knew a different way, excluding the use of magnetic boots and the like. Either the MEA had suddenly made a huge breakthrough or….maybe his uncle wasn’t lying. ,,Ok, I guess that if it can do this it probably can also do everything else you said. But did you told me to come over here just for this?” ,,Actually, no. You see, we are currently talking about some sort of exchange program. One of their pilots will come over here and take command of the Wanderer. In exchange, we would send one of our people to serve on one of their ships. I thought it was a good excuse to get you away from those idiots of the TCU and see some more of the galaxy!” ,,What do they want me to do, if I go?” I heard that you’re going to be put in one of their fighter units.” ,,Fighters? And I thought that flying a Conrad was suicide.” ,,Oh, I don’t think that they’re going to put you in combat. And if they do, I heard that their fighters are actually shielded!”
,,Fighters with shields? Oh boy, this sure is the weirdest day of my life.” ,,Well, what do you say?” ,,Since I won’t be able to get out of here because you refuse to sell me a Horizon, yeah, count me in.”

,,Now, perhaps it’s better if you brought her back inside, we only wanted to see if it worked in normal sublight and it does.” Steve steered the ship back into its dock, but not without having to make some course corrections after noticing that it was much more manoeuvrable than a Conrad. ,,So, when do I leave?” Steve asked when they came out of the airlock. ,,They are already here, you were a lot later than I expected.” ,,It took a while to find a ship willing to take me here, not to mention a lot of money.” ,,I’ll take you to it.”

,,A beautiful sight, isn’t it?” The man said upon seeing Steve’s face after they’d entered fluxspace. ,,It sure is. So, where are we going?” ,,You’re lucky, I heard that they had a bit of trouble getting pilots for one of those new ships. And you’re going to see Orion!” ,,Orion?” ,,Well, yeah. As that old geezer may have told you, the Humans from the Orion Alliance are descendants of a bunch of humans that have been taken from Earth a while ago. When we met the others, we just happened to start comparing myths and legends. And as luck would have it, there was a myth that each of us had. We simply picked the name that everybody could speak without taking severe damage to their vocabulary organs. So it was Orion. Orion is the main industrial base in the OA. It is also the centre of all political, scientific and military operations. It is as heavily fortified as you can get it. Fluxspace missile platforms surrounding its fluxspace position, a combination of missile, projectile, beam and bolt platforms, platforms carrying tractor- or repulsor beams to throw enemy ships around or hold them in place and of course a big fleet. If they somehow manage to pass that, the planets and moons are all heavily fortified with point defence, electronic warfare, missile bases and in case of Orion itself, a class XX planetary shield.” ,,Are you at war with someone?” ,,Sort of, except that we don’t know who.” ,,You don’t know?” ,,Well, you see, we’re constantly being attacked by some sort of machines. Those machines seem to be capable of both tactical and strategic thinking. The problem is, we have got absolutely no idea who made them, why they are attacking us and where do they come from. There are rumours enough, but most of them are total nonsense, like that story that they would be built by some unbelievably advanced and old race that simply hates the idea of other sentient life but is too lazy to kill everything themselves.”


The trip from the Gateway system to Orion took only two days, despite being a trip of at least a hundred light years. When they dropped back from fluxspace into normal space, the shuttle was immediately surrounded by hundreds of ships, ranging from tiny one-man star fighters to massive several kilometres long battleships. ,,There she is.” The pilot said while pointing at a starship that was floating underneath a huge warship.


,,That’s the one? Doesn’t look too big, compared to that thing above her. Still, it’s bigger than anything I’ve seen before coming here.” ,,Come on, I’ll give you a tour.” The shuttle turned towards the ship and after a short time, flew at just a few metres from the hull. ,,I was allowed to take a look at the specs when I heard that I had to pick you up, so I can tell you a few things about it. The ship is called Supremacy, apparently it is a prototype of something that the brainies call a Warcarrier. Because it is the first of its kind, that makes it the Supremacy class Warcarrier OAS Supremacy. Now, I could talk for several hours about stuff such as the wires, life support, laundry and all that other stuff, but that’s boring. Instead, I’ll talk about the interesting things, weapons! Those big guns on front are called Stellar Converters. These meanies have got an insane range, not to mention a lot of firepower. The things between them are called Pulse Phasors. These guns may not have the firepower of the Converters, but they fire 180 shots each minute. They are mainly used against smaller targets, such as light cruisers. Now, the really big turret hanging under its nose is called a Death Ray. That thing’s firepower is simply insane. It can blow up most ships with one shot, even if their shields are still at full strength! Moving further towards the rear, you’ll see several things sticking out the neck. Those fire missiles. Their standard missiles are Fluxwave Distorters, but they can also fire different types. The much bigger things sticking out of the main hull behind it fire Neutronium Bombs. Those things are the most powerful type of explosive we have. The big turrets all over the main hull are equipped with Tri-Focus Plasma Cannons. These guns fire a big bolt of superheated plasma that can do some really big damage. Then we have three small turrets. These are fitted with Gauss Autocannons. Those things fire explosive bullets at a rate of 240 shots per minute using a particle accelerator. And our last weapons are the retractable antipersonnel guns all over the ship. These guns are mainly used against infantry during atmospheric flight, missiles, bombs and everything else that isn’t too big. These guns fire a variety of weapons, ranging from simple bullets as used in cheap rifles, trough flechettes to lasers. Their firing speed also varies, from the meagre 240 shots per minute for the lasers to the 200000 shots per minute for the flechette guns. I’ll drop you off at the hangar. You’re early, so you will be able to walk around for about three hours before you’re supposed to visit the captain on the bridge.”

The shuttle had no problem finding a place to land, since there were no other craft docked within the large hangar. Steve descended from the ramp and, after saying goodbye to the pilot, walked into one of the corridors to do some sightseeing. ,,You lost?” Steve turned around to look at the alien being who had spoke to him:,, No, I’m just looking around. Why did you ask?” ,,Well, You were pointing your face all over the place, so I thought you were lost. If you do get lost, just use one of the consoles placed in the walls.” ,,Thank you. Say, Are you by any chance evolved fro…” ,,No!” The alien hissed and walked away. ,,You should work on your social skills, human.” A deep grumbling voice said. Steve turned around and saw another alien:,, Social skills?” ,,Yeah, you don’t wanna get on their bad side.” ,,I’m sorry, but what did I do wrong?” ,,What did you do wrong? My, you talk like you’ve never even seen a Fellendai! When I was young, my neighbours were Fellendai. Anyway, to answer your question, don’t ask them about their origins, they’re quite sensitive about that. But how is it possible that you don’t know about that and….Ah, you’re the new one, from the others! You’re from that ZEA or something. That explains quite a bit.” ,,It’s the MEA.” ,,Whatever, Come on, follow me.” ,,Where to?” ,,To the bar. There’s good booze there and I need to teach you how to avoid getting killed because of a cultural misunderstanding.”

,,Now, before you start asking stupid questions again, I’ll explain it.” The alien said after they sat down in the ship’s bar. ,,They’re a genetically engineered species.” ,,Genetically engineered?” ,,That’s right. They’re essentially a big mix of human and other creatures genes. The same is true for my race. We’re all genetically engineered before we got dropped on our home planet.” ,,How do you know that?” ,,We found some factories. Both on Ascellion and Grabugrim. Now, apart from finding death members of our species and the most advanced equipment we’ve ever seen for this kind of stuff, we also found what we believe to be older prototypes.” ,,Then why do they make such a fuss about it?” ,,Well, do you know about some guy called Darwin? He lived around the time the humans of the alliance got nabbed and taken here. This guy published a theory on evolution. One of the nabbed humans had a book written by him. It’s in a museum right now but you humans didn’t welcome that idea. In fact, you felt embarrassed by the idea that you would have been descended from monkeys. Fellendai feel the same way about the fact that they’re constructs.” ,,Maybe I should apologize.” ,,Don’t even think about it! No, you’ll only bring the topic back up and make matters worse. The best course of action is to behave like it never happened. I do have a theory on why we are created.” ,,Sounds interesting.” ,,Make sure that a Fellendai doesn’t hear that. Anyway, I did some research when I was young didn’t know of anything better to do and noticed some interesting things. First of all both Fellendai and Klazuirg resemble some creatures from old human stories. We Klazuirg for example look remarkably like some pictures of something you humans call dragons. Hell, we can even spit fire!” ,,How?” ,,Nothing special, really. We just have an organ that creates a fluid. When we spit fire, we bring that fluid up into our mouth, apply a small electric spark using two small thingies at the front of our mouth to put it on fire and spit it out. Now, the Fellendai were a bit tougher, but I came up with something reasonable. Fellendai were supposed to resemble Werewolves, as I concluded from the fact that the earliest prototypes on Ascellion had wolf like features instead of catlike. For that you would use genes from various kinds of dogs and wolves. These creatures however, are too dependant. They would never get anything done because they would try to follow the rest of the pack. So our anonymous creators took that what looked a lot like it. Genes from different types of creatures such as lions, tigers, cats and stuff. Some of those are much more independent creatures and as a result more capable of doing what they wanted.” ,,That all sounds interesting, but it doesn’t tell me why they did that.” ,,That’s what I’m now going to tell. Both Dragons and Werewolves were feared, but nonexistent creatures. All of the Orion races, including humans, got a big load of technology stored in big warehouses of some sort. It’s also clear that we’re supposed to fight our war since the moment we opened these warehouses, a damn beacon was activated that brought the machines here! Now, when you’re going to fight against a foe that’s more powerful than you are, it is a logical decision to go look for allies. So we found each other. I believe that we’re meant to keep the humans in line. You see, humans have the tendency to take it easy, and they also have the tendency to focus on events that are not important during a war, such as the local championships of a sport. And what’s better to keep them in line than a bunch of terrifying monsters? I think they missed their target a bit. Some people think we’re rather cute and nobody seems to fear us since they know what to do and what not to do.” Steve casually glanced at his watch. ,,Oh, dammit! I’m supposed to meet the captain in ten minutes and I don’t even know where the bridge is!” ,,Looks like I got a little too caught up with my evolution theory. I’ll take you there, and teach you the basics in the meantime.”

,,First of all, They’ve got facial expressions, just like you, but that fur constantly gets in the way. So, that leaves three things to watch. Tail, pupils, ears. Now don’t look at the tail or the pupils. The tail is at the bottom of things and very complex and they don’t like it when you’re constantly staring at their eyes. Now, the ears. Ears moving constantly back and forth means nervousness or agitation. Ears focussed on one point, means that they’re either concentrating on something or angry. You better hope that those ears don’t point at you when they’re angry!
Ears hanging down a bit towards the sides means sadness or they’re just sleepy. Apart from that, the ears tend to make little movements constantly, but that’s just their way of picking up sounds. Ah, looks like we’re here. Good luck in there, human. I’ll wait here for you.” ,,I forgot to tell my name, didn’t I? I am Steve Erwing.” ,,My name is Tylcknyss ar’Qui. Now go, you don’t want to keep the captain waiting on your first day here, do you?”

The bridge was bustling with activity. Members of all three races he had already seen were busy at their consoles or walking around. A human man who was looking at the screen at the front of the bridge turned around and noticed Steve. He was a large man, with a thick beard and hear that had started to turn grey at the edges. He moved over towards the newcomer and inspected him with bright eyes that seemed to reflect a fire that burned inside the man’s soul. ,,Can I help you?” ,,Um, I was supposed to meet the captain of this ship. Could you please tell me where he is?” Steve said while hoping that he didn’t make another mistake like with the Fellendai several hours earlier. ,,You’re looking at him. Am I right to assume that you’re mister Erwing?” ,,That’s right, captain.” ,,Good, it looks like I won’t be getting a full fighter squad, so with you that makes three fighter pilots and two shuttle pilots for the ATC’s. I expect you to be up early tomorrow. I’m going to send you on a simple patrol with a Crossbow. They’re big and sluggish, so they’re excellent to practise in. Tell me, have you got any experience with fighters?” ,,Not really, apart from basic starship training which was done using old fighters. But from what I’ve seen here, those ships flew like big bricks with an engine attached to it.” ,,I heard about our little…technological difference, so I’ll just keep you away from stuff like the Eagles and Starstreaks for now. Here is your personal data pad.” The man handed a small flat device with a big touch screen to Steve. ,,It carries all the information you need, including a map of all non-restricted areas on the ship. I ask that you stay away from the armory’s and other high security area’s to avoid trouble. You’ve been given a standard human room. There are 500 people onboard this ship and 100 toilets. Notice that only 1/3rd of those are usable by humans, these are recognizable by the toilet symbol and the words human. You are to report at the briefing room just underneath the hangar at 20.00 OT. I’ve heard that you use a different timetable, 20.00 OT is equal to about 10.00 in you timetable. When you leave this room, the first thing I want you to do is to go to deck 15, room 25 and let the machine there measure you. When it asks you what to take, tell it that I want you to have the full package. Since I’m rather low on manpower, I might as well try to use what I have to the fullest. That’s all. Now I’ve got work to do, so please leave.” Steve left the bridge.

,,So, how did it go?” ,,The captain told me that I was supposed to fly a patrol tomorrow using something called a Crossbow and gave me a data pad. I also have to go to room 25 on deck 15. Anything else you might like to ask, mr. Ar’qui?” ,,Just call me Tylck. Crossbows eh? I suggest that you use that data pad tonight to familiarize yourself with the basic controls. It would be a shame if you crash one of those before you’ve even launched. Now I guess I’ll lead you to deck 15.”

,,Please state racial information” The machine said as a scanning device attached to a mechanical arm moved around Steve. ,,It wants you to say what race you are followed by your gender.” Tylck said when Steve cast a questioning glance at him. ,,Okay, umm…human, male.” ,,Racial information logged, please select your configuration.” ,,The captain said the full package.” ,,Error, please explain full package.” ,,He wants the full package eh? Well, I guess he can do that with that reputation of his, having commanded a Damocles and all. Here, let me answer for you. Mr. Erwing wants standard officer/pilot Powersuit with scout, heavy assault, melee, communications, infantry, anti-air, siege and anti-vehicle attachments.” ,,Configuration logged, please confirm.” ,,Umm, confirmed” ,,Configuration confirmed, order will now be send. Please expect shipment carrying requested equipment in the nearby future.”

,,What is all that?” Steve said as the machine moved its scanning arm back into its socket and deactivated itself. ,,Humans started with this about fifty years ago after making a frame that detects signals running trough the nervous system and translates those in commands telling what engines to use to enable immobilized people to move. Their next step was to create industrial versions that greatly enhance a persons strength to allow them to lift heavy things such as cargo containers. The last step is what you’re going to get. A suit, with life-support to enable it to operate in a vacuum, communications systems, wired link to the ship you’re flying, a hud and off course some powered engines to enable you to lift 300 kilogramswithout using your own muscles. On top of that, you can put some enhancement modules, ranging from a bunch of sensors and jets to lots of armour and big guns.”