Shattered Paradise

[BlueDevil]

(Yes...I know...another fic likely to never get finished.)

Prologue

Ugh, what? You’ve never read this kind of story before? Oh, what’s that, you don’t even know what you’re gettin’ into? Well let me tell ye. It’ll probably sound cliché…well, maybe not, but hey, I’m not a special kinda guy anyway, just yer average space pirate, so it don‘t matter none no hows. ‘Cept I’m huntin’ down my misses…ye see, the woman stole my latest bounty. Well, I reckin’ we ain’t had the brightest past…mosta you romantic types out there wouldn’t understand. Ye got yer fancy roses and wine, sittin’ back with your babe on a starlit eve…I never had none o’ that sh*t. Nah, I had me a rock solid kinda woman who’d slap you down and kick dirt in yer face if you touched her wrong. What’s worse…the siren had me on a chain. I was blinded by my…watcha call it…love for the broad. Helluva lotta good that did me. She only wanted me for the money! And let me tell ye, she booked it when she finally got what she wanted.

I’ll let ye know this much. She said she wanted to take a break…er, a vacation of sorts…away from the piratin’ life. That was just a sh*t faced lie. Me and my buds, Clement, Ignacio and Bill, well, we dropped her off at Paradiso…it’s really nice outer colony world, ye know, with the beaches and the nice little drinks…and hey! Yer getting’ me sidetracked. Well, we went off to do this really big hit. It was actually a vacation of sorts for us too, ye see…Kelen, that’s her name…well, she’s an overachiever. We hardly ever got the chance to get our hands messy with ‘er around, know what I’m saying? So, with her gone, well, that meant that we got to kill sh*t! And boy, was this target big. Come this time around, we had a mission to raid Hellion, a military-class super-cargo ship. I mean, it’s one o’ them big bitches that can carry months worth of supplies to an entire colony. At least a kilometer long. Maybe even two. Well, see…upon arrival, we come to realize that ol’ Kelen there…well, she raided the sh*t outta that ship. By herself. Dunno how she did it, but that piece o’ sh*t was a pile of slag in space, and it was Kelen’s handiwork that we found when we got inside the ship. And ye know, she got the whole damn bounty too. And here’s the royally f*cked up part. We had a signed agreement with the contact. In a manner of speaking anyway. That bounty was ours!

So, here we are, me an’ my boys, huntin’ this redheaded viper down. Lotta fun we got ourselves into, eh? But we’ve gotta lead. She made one mistake. She left one o’ them poor military sons o’ bitches alive, and now we’ve got his ass. We’re comin’ and there’s not a damn thing she can do about it.

 

[BlueDevil]

Shattered paradisE
Chapter 1 Part 1
Rude Revelation

“Bill, light them engines up! We got ourselves some booty to catch!” Gil smirked, his dusty black feathered hair shagging about as he gave the order. A thin, scraggily neck beard had emerged earlier in the week, giving Gil the look of a backstreet bucket of scum. Perfect. It did make his bright blue eyes pop out even more though.

“Up yours.” Bill sighed, punching a few buttons and pulling a lever. Gil had no idea what any of the stuff he was doing actually was, but he knew it made the ship go, and Bill was good at making the ship go, so he accepted the assholish remarks, because only Bill could fly the heap of garbage. Ah, Throne, such a good ship, honestly. She really had a place in Gil’s heart.

Ignacio stepped onto the bridge of the frigate, “Hey Gil, you got any idea where the hell we’re goin’?” Ignacio was Gil’s best friend. Another true pirate at heart. But he was nice too. He’d give you a smile before he cut your throat and took your money. His brown head gave way to a perfect buzz cut and a nicely trimmed, thin beard, which edged off into a pointy goatee. A blue symbol was tattooed around his left eye, a marking of his tribe, liberated from its primitive ways over sixty years ago. While they’d been civilized and technologically boosted into modern times, his tribal ancestry was never forgotten. The tattoo was some kinda jacked up lizard looking thing, spiraling around his eye. Gil loved it.

“Just ask the asshole in the dungeon. Right now the only pointer he’s given us is that Kelen mighta headed back towards Paradiso.” Gil replied, the smirk from earlier still on his face.

Ignacio scratched his chin, “How do you know you can trust that guy? How do you know he knows.”

“Because I know that I know that he knows. Why are you askin’? Do you honestly think some sh*t face like him is gonna be ballsy enough to lie to four of the most wanted pirates in not just this sector of space, but sectors twelve, thirteen, fifteen and twenty-two?!”

“Do you think he even knows? He doesn’t even look like a soldier. Just some desk jockey. And besides, you can’t count this sector yet. We’re only wanted on one planet in one system. That’s not big news.”

Gil grimaced, “Stop gettin’ technical and sh*t with me ye pansy. We got our destination, and we’re goin’!”

“Do you really think Kelen would be stupid enough to go back to the exact same planet that we dropped her off at?” Ignacio raised a brow.

“Yeah, yeah I do. Wanna know why? ’Coz she’s a woman! And they are not only physically weaker, but mentally impaired as well!” Gil shook his fist triumphantly.

“Pfft, I think you’re the mentally impaired one here.”

“Hey! Look at it this way! You’ll get to take a nice swim in the oceans of Paradiso.”

“And get eaten by a leviathan? I don’t think so.” Ignacio shrugged, “Do whatever you want to.”

Gil nodded, bobbing a bit of his hair, “Yer damn right I will! And hey, don’t bring up any o’ that leviathan sh*t here! You know it’s a damn lie! They’re the sweetest things.”

“Yeah, with their razor sharp, flesh tearing, man goring fish fangs.”

Gil clinched his teeth, “Shut that hole o’ yers!”

“Aye.” Ignacio chuckled and walked off.

“Bill, ye got us on course yet?”

Bill spoke angrily, still looking at some of the data screens, “Yeah, we’re on a straight road to Paradiso, but with one stop.”

“One stop?! No, we’re not stopping fer sh*t.”

“Well we’re gonna have to, ‘coz Throne’s only got enough fuel to last us half the trip.”

“Ugh, well, where does that put us?”

“Right over Dystopia.”

“You’re a sh*t faced liar!” Gil shouted at the mention of the planet.

“Nah…hah, oh man. This’ll be fun.” Bill brushed his hair back and sighed. It was platinum blonde, stiff and short. A hanky was wrapped around his head covering hair line. The blue of the hanky somehow matched his rough but young complexion, Gil thought. He was still uglier than sh*t though.

“We’re gonna have to use the servo-suit to get fuel back to the ship, and it’ll be raw, so we’ll have to put it through the purifier.” Gil sighed as well.

“Yeah, and the natural life will be sure to give us a warm welcome.”

“I hate lizard men.” Gil growled.

 

[Dante's Stalker]

I'll sum up all my thoughts and impressions and concrit and whathaveyou in one statement.
Terry Pratchett has some serious competition coming his way.
Great work BD! Get it published. Dooooo eeeet!

 

[BlueDevil]

XD Well thanks

 

[Vergil'sBitch]

You are one hell of a writer BD. I love the imagery and banter between the characters.

 

[BlueDevil]

:'D Thankies, both of ye


XD

 

[BlueDevil]

-chapter 1 part 1 continued-

Dystopia was a planet that was greatly appreciated for its beautiful scenery, and on the rare occasion it could be shipped out of the system, the succulent fruit known as Ambrosia. However, the darker side of Dystopia was that it, in fact, was home to dozens of warring tribes of lizard men. And, not just your classic green, scaly, long nosed, animal men either. No, these things looked like they came out of a horror movie. Their dark, concrete-like skin was the result of many generations of the beasts living in acid swamps and adapting to the terrain, and their huge bodies are home to a disease that covers the outside of the skin in acidic pustules. Their red eyes only further their monstrous appearance.

Gil had been sent on a mission to get a shipment of Ambrosia from Dystopia once before in his life time. It was, as he recalled, the sh*ttiest experience of his life.

“Good times.” Bill said, tapping a few keys and pulling a blue switch that was oddly built in above his head. Orange lights lit up all over the interior of the ship. Bill pressed down on the local comms button, “Alright boys, hold on to yer britches, I’m sendin’ us into warp!”

Gil only hated one thing about space. Only one. And that was warping. Yes, it was the fastest way to travel the galaxy, and without warp drives being invented, humanity wouldn’t have progressed a tenth as far as it had, but damn did it make Gil queasy. And the feeling began now.

Throne began to whine and creak as the hull was pulled by some unknown force into warp. Gil didn’t know how the sh*t worked and he wasn’t paid to, so he didn’t worry about it. He only worried about keeping that atomic assload of fish he’d eaten earlier down as he braced onto some of the machinery sticking out of the wall.

The trip lasted five seconds before they emerged right next to Dystopia. The rays of this system’s sun, a gigantic yellow beast, were hitting Dystopia in such a way that from their angle, the planet shined a deep, golden color. A large ring of gases and tiny asteroids orbited the planet, slowly spinning around in unison with the giant rock. However, neither of these sites were as eye catching as the five battlecruisers looming a ways away. Gil’s eyes widened, “Whoa, get me a close-up visual o’ them things.”

Bill tapped a combination of keys that zoomed the nav-screen in on the ships. “Sh*t, looks like we got us some Coalition boys out ‘ere, Gil.”

“Damn, and I’m sure they noticed us. There’s no way their trackers didn’t notice our warp's heat sig. I’ll tell ye now, we’re gonna be fightin’ us some more than just lizard men.”

The comms buzzed for a moment. It was Clement. Clement was a really calm guy, silent and judging. He was ebony, of African origins. An earthborn. A big pink scar ran the course of his left cheek, which made him seem menacing. He had a goatee like Ignacio’s, but his hair was done up in thick dreads, pulled back. They were long enough to reach the back of his neck. He was also thicker than Gil, but slender at the same time. “Gil, would you mind explaining why we stopped over Dystopia, and why there are five Coalition battlecruisers, all of which are currently locked onto our position?”

“Because they’re all linin’ up to get a piece of yer mum, now don’t ask questions! We got a situation on hand!” Gil retorted.

“I noticed.”

Gil stepped up next to Bill, “Think ye can get us past them sh*t faces?”

“No, because I have the skills of an infant. Shut yer ass up and sid’own, I’m takin’ this bitch right by ‘em.” Bill smirked.

Gil grabbed his shoulder tightly, “Ye bat sh*t crazy?!”

Bill shrugged him off, “Nah, just that the richest deposit of gatherable fuel is on the side of the planet past them.”

Gil grimaced, “Ah sh*t, I’mma have to close my eyes for this’un.”

“Here we go!” Bill shouted right before he reached to punch up the speed, however, at that very moment, a beeping notified them that one of the cruisers had haled them. Bill looked over to Gil, “Whaddya wanna do, captain?”

“Open up the channel.”

Clicking a button, Bill squinted as the channel squeakily buzzed to life. Gil positioned his mouth next to the mic, “Hrm, this is Gil Daniels, Captain of Throne. Ye fellers havin’ a nice time out there?”

“Mr. Daniels, we’ll give you one minute to vacate the area. We have you registered in our database as a Pirate, and we will fire on you if you do not immediately leave Coalition space.”

Gil frowned, “Up yers, ye assfag. We need fuel, so we can’t vacate the area. We gotta land down below and get some.” There was a short, uncomfortable pause, which made Gil’s heart beat a pace faster.

“We cannot authorize your landing on Dystopia. Leave now.”

“You sh*t face! I just told ye we need fuel! I oughta kick yer ass!” This time, there was another pause, longer, but with no verbal response. The new message came in the form of a photon volley fired from the closest cruiser. “SH*T! GET US OUTTA HERE, DAMMIT!”

Bill frantically punched a few keys, “Sh*t, Gil, she’s gone to sleep on us! We’ve been dormant for too long!”

Gil cursed incoherently, kicking the walls of the ship as it slowly began to power up. It didn’t help. Three blue sparkling orbs of light crashed into the starboard side of Throne. In one second, a magnificent explosion of reds, oranges, yellows, blues and purples flooded the mid section of the ship. Sparks went flying from several pieces of machinery, lighting up the ship interior like fireworks in a night sky. Bill was thrown from his chair, landing into Gil as they smashed against the wall.

Bill struggled to stand up, “Well, it looks like they granted us permission to land.”

“What the hell are ye talkin’ about?” Gil grunted, getting up as well.

“They destroyed our gravity tethers with the blast, along with the starboard cannon. So we can’t retaliate, and we’re plummeting to what will most certainly be our doom.”

“Man, those photon cannons are the sh*r. Do we still have shields?”

Bill stalked over to his pilot’s station, taking a seat and jabbing his fingers against a few keys, “Shields are at forty-eight percent, Gil. You might not care, but at the rate we’re being pulled toward the planet, we’ll crash within the next twenty minutes.”

Gil looked from the screen to the viewport at the front, looking at the planet and then the five cruisers. He frowned, “Bill, we got another volley comin’ at us.”

Ignacio suddenly busted in, “What the hell is happening?! Why are we-”

“Shut yer hole, Ignacio, we’re dealin’ with some sh*t.”

The volley hit. More sparks flew, but no explosions or extreme damage. Gil raised a brow, “What the hell? What’d they just blast us with?”

Bill paused for a moment, reading the data coming on the cracked screen, “Seekers, looks like. Guess they’re gonna be huntin’ us after we crash.”

“Huh, there’s probably some kinda bounty on our heads.”

 

[BlueDevil]

Chapter 1, Part 2

The three men stood for a moment, watching the cruisers outside of the window. They simply stayed still. Then the beeping started up again, and Bill looked up at Gil, a blank look in his eyes.

“Hit the button.” Gil said.

“Will do.” Bill’s finger found its way to the comms button yet again.

The message was simple. “Be seeing you topside, pirate.”

Gil shook his head, “That was colder than a witch’s tit.”

Within the following few minutes, gravity finally had its way with Throne, and the frigate was pulled into the planet’s atmosphere. As it fell, the reddish illumination of the fire on the outside of the hull lit up the ship’s interior in an eerie red glow. Gil grinned right as Clement came onto the bridge, “Well boys, it’s been nice servin’ with ye. If we kick the bucket-”

Planetside collision in 10...

“-I want you boys te know, if we crash and burn and die in total and complete, mind boggling’ agony-”

9...8...7...6...

“-well, it has most certainly been one helluva fun ass, pirate cussin’ life!”

5...4...3...

Clement scoffed, “We’ll make it.”

2...1...

Within those ten seconds, Gil had watched the forested, marshy badlands of Dystopia get closer and closer right until the ship finally crashed into the ground. All four of the men were thrown about the ship, but none of them had been fatally hurt. The ship, however, was now upside down, and the trunk of a tree had managed to puncture the hull. Loose equipment and machinery was scattered about.

Bill sat up, rudely using Ignacio to help further himself into standing. Ignacio grunted and raised his brow at Bill, and then looked over at Clement and Gil, “How in the hell d’ya think we survived that.

Clement chuckled, brushing one of his dreads behind his ear, “If there’s one thing you need to know about crash-landing in the badlands of Dystopia, it’s that the most you will do is tumble through the thin trees and have a soft landing in the marshy ground, which is hardly a ground at all.”

Gil clambered up, coughing roughly, “Well, ain’t that nice to know. Damn, that was fun.”

Ignacio finally got up as well, “Fun? That wasn’t fun, that was f*ckin’ crazy.”

Gil chuckled, “Ah, brother, ye got no since of humor. Lightin’ up a little.”

“I’m sure if we’d crashed a few miles over, I’d have been light. A light, gory paste strewn across the wall.

Gil frowned, “Ugh, well, okay, let’s get out of this heap and find another way off planet.”

Bill walked across the ceiling of the overturned ship and kicked open the side hatch, “Well, at least we got our way out.”

Sunlight poured into the ship from outside, patches of shadows dotting the lit area, made from the leaves of the thin trees. A smell flowed into Gil’s nostrils, one that he could only describe as meat on a grill, “’ey Clement, since you know so much, tell me, is that the natural smell of this place.”

Clement nodded, taking in the smell himself, “Indeed. It is the fumes of the acid swamps on this planet. They cover the larger portion of the eastern hemisphere, which is where we have landed. Luckily, we are in one of the none-acidic patches.”

Bill grinned, “Alright ladies, get yer guns. This is a one way trip. No comin’ back to this useless, half-sunk piece of sh*t.”

Gil grabbed his gun from the ship’s armory compartment last, and headed outside with the others. Ignacio looked to the sky, “Fate does not smile upon us, brothers. It seems the Coalition scumbags have kept to their word.” He pointed up past the trees. Gil followed his fingers and noticed one of the battlecruisers emerging through the dense, yellow clouds. It looked massive from the ground.

“Damn, guess we’re playin’ cat’n’mouse until we can get off of this sh*t rock.”

“Hey, Gil.” Bill spoke up, “Why don’t we jack one o’ there dropships? They’ll probably set up camp in a remote location. We just gotta get sneaky and sh*t. Coalition standard procedure is to have easy access back and forth from planet to ship. That means there’ll be a nice dropship parked somewhere just waitin’ to be tooked.”

“Tooked? Eh, whatever. There’ll be a guard detail looking after the ship too, as well as the hunting patrol lookin' fer us.”

“Nothing we can’t handle.” Ignacio said confidently, checking his weapon.

 

[BlueDevil]

Will probably get back to this soon.

 

[BlueDevil]

//Update

Anyone who thinks this is worth continuing, send me a PM. I just wanna know. After April 5th, I should be pretty good to go with typing