Chapter 1: The Beginning of An Adventure

Earth Calendar Date: October 23, 2285. Galactic Calendar Date: Galactic Era 8761. Galactic Federation Date: Federation Century 0726. Pirate Threat Level: Green, no threat. Reich Threat Level: Green, no threat. Visibility: 100%. Fuel Storage: 85%. All systems nominal.

The general information screen on the ship's cockpit glowed and beeped, processing and forwarding important information to the ship. The ship, a standard ICS courier ship, with the logo of the ICS, an upside down triangle with a ringed planet in the center with an envelope flying past it with "ICS" marked down on the bottom, orbited near the lunar mining and processing colony of Klindar. Owned by the Nembar Corporation, a fuel production and distribution company who's clients range from civilian racing enthusiasts to the top brass of the Federation's Star Fleet. Klindar mines and processes the mineral XG-28, commonly called "ExGe Fuel", typically for large scale cargo and battleships. The courier ship, however, has nothing relating to fuel to deliver to the colony. Instead, it is delivering much needed food and water rations to the workers of the mine. As no terraforming projects for the use of agriculture were made.

In the sleeping quarters lay a man donning the standard blue ICS courier jumpsuit, snoring quite loudly. This, was soon and abruptly interrupted by the loud blaring sound of an alarm, which shocked the man awake and actually made actually fall of his bed, careening to the ground with a loud thud. 

"Oww! Ah!"

Groggily he stood up, rubbing the back of his head, still half-asleep. He was 27, with short, dirty blonde hair and blue-grey eyes. The sudden sound of electronic beeping woke him up even more. He turned his attention to the screen placed on the frontal wall of the quarters, it turned on with a flash and revealed the rounded, balding face of a very angry looking individual.

"Jack! Jack! Just what the hell do you think you're doing!?"

Jack, realizing too late that it was his boss, Mr. Mulgey, stood at attention and perked up more, trying to hide he was sleeping in.

"Oh! Uh, hello, Mr. Mulgey! How nice to see you! Heh."

Mulgey, with eyes that seemed to small for his head, glared at Jack through thick, rounded glasses. Jack gulped, knowing that when Mulgey gave that sort of look, he was extremely angry, and Jack knew what he was angry about. But even still, Jack tried his best to hide it and pretend like nothing happened.

"Now, listen here, Jack. Do you know why I'm calling you? And just WHY I look this angry?"

Jack shrugged, making an 'I don't know' face in the process, trying his best to act like he didn't know the problem.

"Well, I'll tell you the problem is, you were supposed to deliver that food down to the colony yesterday! The miners are getting angry and hungry, they're starting to stage strikes! If this continues to happens, they might begin to rebel! And the Federation's military forces already got their hands tied behind their back dealing with pirates and the damned Reich! They can't put a miner rebellion on their already long list of problems! Now, tell me. Please, tell me. Just how and why were you a day late, huh?"

Jack sat down on the bed for a moment, trying to make the best excuse he could.

"Well... Uh. There... There was... Was a... Was a.. .Pirate... Pirate warning! Yeah, a pirate warning!"

Mulgey sighed and placed his forehead in palm of his hand, before looking up at Jack, putting a cigarette in his mouth and lights it up, taking a long, deep pull before blowing out the smoke. With a very tired voice he responded to Jack surprisingly calm and quiet.

"Jack... Listen here... You work for the Interplanetary Courier Service, an organization that is part of the United Federation of Free Democratic Planets, I have somewhat of a say in this service's working, thus you, and I, are agents of the United Federations. Because of this, we are notified about things that effect the Federation, like incoming Reich forces or pirate crews nearby. You're understanding this, yes?"

Jack nods, confused at how calm his boss is and at just what he's talking about.

"So," Mulgey continues to explain. "Because the ICS is Federation-ran program, you're on board a Federation craft, yes? And, being that you are on a Federation ship, you have something that ALL UF ships have, military, courier, political, civilian, doesn't matter, even many non-Federation ships have them. At the cockpit of your ship, there should be a decently sized screen on the control panel. That, my friend is the Integrated Real-Time General Information Processing and Displaying Screen. Or IRTGIPDS, but since both of those are mouthfuls, most folks just call it 'the general info screen'. This neat little screen can display all sorts of neat things, like how well you can see, your fuel storage, presence of pirates and the Reich, asteroids and nearby places of interest! Like planets, moons and stars! Isn't that cool?"

Jack nods some more, now getting pretty worried at this speech of Mulgey's.

"Now the coolest thing about these little doohickeys is that they aren't only meant for ships! That's right. About 10 or so years ago, the United Federation issued an executive order requiring that all buildings and facilities owned, used and relating to the Federation have these screens installed in them. And not just one in the whole building, they're meant to be in every room of the building! And guess what? Being that this fine building I am currently in is Federation property, do you know what I have in here?"

"Well, from the way it sounds, you got a general information screen in your office, right?" Jack responded, with confusion in his voice.

"Correct! And you know what? When you made your little trip to Klindar three days ago, you know what I didn't see on this screen in those three days? I'll tell you what I didn't see! A PIRATE WARNING. IN THE AREA WHERE YOU WERE TRAVELING THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO DAMNED PIRATE WARNINGS AT ALL."

Mulgey's loud and sudden shouting gave Jack a bit of a shock, causing him to jump up to his feet.

"

S-Sorry, sir! I... I took a bit of a break."

Furiously, Mulgey glared at Jack with deep, raging eyes. It seemed like the glare he was giving could almost shatter through his glasses and the screen he was talking to Jack on.

"Now, get in the cockpit with ADAM, the only competent person on this ship, who isn't even human! He's a damn android Jack! Now, go and deliver those goods and get back here before I reach my hands through this screen and strangle you!"

"Yes sir!" Jack obliged as Mulgey's angry, tomato-red face faded from the screen, ending the transmission. Jack sighed and left the quarters, throwing on his long, black overcaot and entering the cockpit where there stood a figure who had a slightly taller and somewhat more leaner figure than Jack, cloaked in a beige uniform of an unknown origin, it had a black belt around the waist to possibly carry a holster and black boots. Hearing Jack enter the room and turned to face him, his features very simplistic, a very plain face with plain brown hair and plain green eyes. He nodded towards Jack, acknowledging his presence. He spoke in a monotone, voice

"Hello, Jack. I heard Mr. Mulgey's shouts from here. He must have been very angry. What happened?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing." Jack plopped down on one of the two pilot's seats, spinning his chair to face the plain looking machine.

"Hey ADAM, any chance you can land this thing down now? We gotta deliver this stuff quickly."

ADAM nodded. He sat down in the second pilot's seat and turned his head to look at Jack and then looked forward again at the control panel. While looking down at the panel he spoke to Jack in his plain voice.

"Face forward and strap yourself in, Mr. Willings. We're going to begin the landing process."

Jack obeyed, turning the seat to face the control panel and window of the ship, strapping himself into the seat.

"Alright, alright. And no need to call me that, ADAM. Just call me Jack."

It sounded like ADAM almost mumbled a "whatever" before flying closer to the moon and then beginning the landing process. The ship safely touched down on Klindar's surface, where a large group of miners waited anxiously for their food to be delivered, after the food has given to the proper man, the head of the mess hall on the colony, Jack and ADAM headed back to their ship and flew back to the planet Gekdon-1, a geographically diverse planet with bustling cities full of business and commerce, to wide-stretching forests, mountains and dry, hot deserts. This also happened to be where one of the many ICS headquarters were. The ship finally arrived at the planet, landing down at the ICS' central docking station orbiting the planet before taking an Orbit to Surface Rapid Travel Capsule down to Gekdon-1's surface, landing at the ICS' central capsule returning and departure port. They exited the capsule, Jack rubbing his back complaining.

"Ugh, Those damn capsules are always too small and cramped. Even for one person, it's even worse when you're pressed against a bunch of metal!"

ADAM, not even looking at Jack, responded to his complaint.

"Well, I could say somewhat the same, that I don't want a mass of flesh and bones pressed against me."

"Oh come on, ADAM! You don't think it was crammed in that thing? A-And you don't need to be so rude about it, either..."

"I am a machine, Jack. I cannot have the feeling of being 'cramped'. But yes, I suppose you are correct that craft was, unfortunately, too small for us. But, if I am correct, don't they have larger capsules that can comfortably fit two people?"

"Yeah." Jack nodded. "They do. Problem is, we couldn't afford it, and Mulgey is pretty angry at us so I doubt he'd pay for a comfortable, luxury capsule. Anyway, we should get moving, he's probably oh-so patiently waiting for our arrival."

"Much obliged." ADAM nodded. Then both he and Jack picked up their pace, jogging up to the ICS headquarters, walking through the doors where a pretty looking secretary sat there, smiling. Jack and ADAM walked to her desk.

"Oh, hello there! May I help you two gentlemen?" She asked, still smiling.

Jack rubbed the back of his head and nodded, a bit nervous.

"Yeah, uh. My friend, ADAM and I, are supposed to go meet Mr. Mulgey as soon as we returned here. And since we just got here, you know..."

The secretary looked at Jack with an eyebrow raised and asked; "Then you must be Jack, correct?"

Jack nods affirmatively.

The secretary's smile slowly turned to a slight, perhaps nervous, frown. She stared at her computer screen for a moment and then looked back at the two gentlemen, and spoke.

"Oh... It's you two. Well, you guys ought to hurry up to his office immediately."

Jack nodded and grabbed onto ADAM's arm to pull him along. Unfortunately, Jack forgot how stiff ADAM could stand and just how heavy he was, so instead of Jack pulling along ADAM, his sudden and jerky stop due to the android not budging made him trip and let go of ADAM's arm, falling down on the ground face first. This garnered much attention from everyone, the secretary, ADAM and all others who were working in the lobby. Embarrassed, Jack walked to the Short-Range Floor to Floor Teleportation System in the center of the large lobby, with ADAM following along behind. They both stood still on the large metallic pad in front of this large machine and faced the large, bulbous motion sensor as it scanned them with a white light. It detected the two standing on it, and from a speaker below the motion sensor, a computerized asked the two;

"Hello and thank you for choosing the Sovrann Rapid Transport Corporation's Short-Range Floor to Floor Teleportation System as your prime choice of immediate, short distance transport! Where would you like to go today?"

"The top floor. Mr. Edward James Mulgey's office, please." Jack responded.

The system made a few beeps before engulfing the two men in bright, blue light originating from the metallic pad, the concentration of the blue light increased immensely, totally covering Jack and ADAM in this intense light before they and the light were gone in a quick flash. Then up in the highest floor, Mr. Mulgey's office, a flash of blue fight filled up the room, then as soon as came, it went away, leaving only two men, one being a very, very, very nervous man. They stood at attention as Mulgey spun his office chair from facing the window to the two. He was sitting back, looking quite relaxed. He leaned forward and rested his arms and folded his hands on top of the desk, looking at Jack and then at ADAM. Jack, his voice a bit shay began to speak;

"Well, uh... Um... Uh... H... Hello, Mr. Mulgey. I-It's quite nice to.. S-See you..."

"Cut the crap, Jack. Now, it's time for you to listen here and listen good, okay?" Mr. Mulgey told Jack.

Jack nodded, letting Mulgey continue to speak.

"See, Jack, you are one lazy man. No way to hide it, we have these sort of instances where you deliver the goods you were specified to late all too often. This, obviously displeases our customers, making them, say, use private couriers instead. And for the most part, those late deliveries always end up causing me, the ICS and the Federation trouble. Now, you could say that a lot of the ship-outs you run are not that 'important', but that cannot be said this time. What we were dealing with was the high possibility of an actual mutiny breaking out. That simply can't be overlooked, Jack. I'm sorry, but. It seems like I'm just gonna have to let you go. That's just how it goes."

Jack sighed heavily and looked down at the floor, looking at his feet. He sadly responded to Mulgey; "Yes... sir..."

"Now that I got you out of the way, I wanna talk to you, ADAM."

ADAM tilted his head and looked to Mulgey. "Yes? What is it?"

"Now listen here, ADAM. You're a good man- Er, Android. Anyway, you, sir, are a very reliable asset to this company, and I would like to ask you if you could please continue to work with us and continue to have the great benefits we have. So, how does that sound, huh? Up to it?"

ADAM stood silent for a moment, turning to look at Jack, turning to look at Mulgey and then looked out through the window. He turned again to look at Mulgey and spoke;

"I do sincerely apologize Mr. Mulgey, but, I cannot. I consider Jack to be much too much of a friend and I could never simply abandon him."  

Mulgey's face became very red, his hands quivering while they remove his glasses. With a total angry and almost hateful silence, he pointed toward the exit of the office, signalling the two to get out. Jack and ADAM obey him immediately, getting out of his office as soon as possible to avoid him shaking the very foundations of the building with his screams. Now, out of the office and a job, Jack and ADAM walk to their apartment, Jack sulking with his hands shoved deep into the pocket of his coat. They arrive to their apartment building, which isn't exactly in the most pristine part of the city, and enter. Unfortunately enough, this building does not have a teleportation system, and their apartment is on the 10th story of a 20-story building, making them trudge up 10 fleets of stairs. Finally, after he endurance test of 10 fleets of stairs, they reached the front door of his apartment, where a screen with an outline of a hand was right beside it. Sighing, Jack places his hand on the scanner, it scanned his hand and then turned red, making a loud buzz sound.

"What!? What's going on!?" Shouted Jack, as he put his hand on the scanner again, buzzing once again.

A mechanical beep and click could have been heard, and through a small slot in the door, a note and chip slid out of it. Jack took both the note and chip, reading the note slowly to himself. His face then became a ghastly pale, staring intensely at the note, gripping it tightly. ADAM, both worried and curious, put a hand on Jack's shoulder and looked at him.

"Jack? What's wrong? Are you okay?"

 

Jack shoved the note into ADAM's hands. "R-Read it! Read it for yourself!"

ADAM nodded and read it. Although he claims that he is a machine who cannot feel true emotion, his eyes widened with surprise. Looking up at Jack, he spoke;

"This says... We ave lost our apartment and all of our possessions and only receive a compensatory payment of 1,500 credit chips?"

Jack nodded. "Yup. That's the sad reality. Well. Since we don't have anything to our name besides the clothes on our backs and 2,000 credits, let's go to the shipyard, try our luck with a ship."

"Are you mad, Jack!? We cannot get any sort of ship for a mere 2,000 credits! We could not possibly even get some little one-man star-speeder!"

"I know, I know. But hey, maybe there's some build-up jobs we could get, huh? You once said you had skill with ship work, and I know a few things here and there."

"I- Jack- That was years ago!"

"So? You still gotta know some stuff, right?"

"Fine, let's say I do. Then what? How are we gonna pay for things like parts or tools or any of that?!"

"I really don't know right now. But hey, let's just go there and see what we see, huh? Come on!"

ADAM made a sighing sound and shrugged. Agreeing to Jack and following along with him to the Gekdon-1 Space Port, which was located in the Anagoarn Desert. Jack and ADAM searched the buying/selling lot heavily, looking for a decent deal on a decent ship that could fit at least two people. While on their search, an old man approached the two, with a smile on his face.

"So... I hear that you two been lookin' for a ship that'll get ya 'round and fit the both of ya quite well fer a cheap price, yes?"

Jack nodded.

"Yes. In fact we have. Why do you ask? You got one?"

"Yup! Sure do! Follow me."

Unsure, but hopeful of the man's claims, they followed him along to the ship he as selling. This ship in question, was fairly decent in size, able to fit plenty of people. It had a fading, coat of white paint, with two wings attached to the top of the ship, each wing fitted with a thruster. It's body was rectangular, but rounded, with a cone-like nose that was in blue and adored with a fading symbol of the United Federation's Star Fleet, a right-side up triangle with wings protruding from each side. The symbol was also on the port side of the ship. No doubt this craft was an antique of the First Civil War and probaly should have belonged in some sort of museum down on Earth, but it still looked quite usable. And in fact, seemed to give off an air of familiarity to Jack. He inspected the ship, intrigued.

"Well, alright mister. You got me. I'm in. How much? We only got 2,000..."

The old man put a hand on his chin and rubbed it, thinking.

"How about this, boy-o. I'll give it ya for 800 credits!"

Jack's face widened into a large grin, while ADAM's turned to one of suspicion. He neared closely to the old man, towering over him and questioned him.

"Excuse me sir, but why are you charging such a low price for such a ship? It is a ship of the United Federation, or at least it was. Did you happen to steal this ship and have the Federation currently searching for you and the ship? Or is it something else?"

"Oh, no need to get so pokey, Mr. Big Guy. I'm just feelin' a lil' bit generous, so I decided that price, okay?"

ADAM stared at the old man, his eyes squinted suspiciously. Then suddenly, close by to where the three were standing, an explosion and a scream was heard. This shocked all three men and put them into alert. When from the large cloud of smoke in front of them appeared a group of men cloaked in light, black armor and their faces totally hidden by respiratory masks. They ran up to the three and made the old man jump up and scream, his hands shooting up in the air. Jack and ADAM then raised their hands up slowly and bewildered. The largest of the men, aimed his beam rifle directly at the old man.

"Awwwwright, gramps! It's time to hand it over!"

"H-Hey! Listen, mister! I told your boss Leopold I would give him that money I owed him by next week! I told him, he knows!"

"After the boss heard that you got the Pegasus Zion in your possession, he said he wants that instead!"

Jack's eyes froze momentarily, not blinking. Slowly, he looked at the ship he was just about to buy, studying it carefully.

"Did... Did you just say this was the Pegasus Zion?"

The henchman turned to look at Jack. Although his face was not visible at all, it seemed to radiate annoyance.

"You know, I ought to shoot you for speakin' out of place and gettin' in the way of other people's buisness. But yeah, that's right. This is the Pegasus. What? You didn't pay attention in school or somethin', huh?"

He stared at the ship, it was all coming back to him, the stories he heard as a child, the pictures he saw, although it was dirtier and more worn-out looking than it did in those photos he saw many years ago, there was no doubt to the fact that the very ship in front of him was the Pegasus Zion, the fastest ship in all of the galaxy!

Tune in next time for another exciting chapter of Pegasus Zion!

Author's Note

Sorry for the long wait for the first chapter and just how long it is, I'll try to write shorter chapters in the future. Regardless, what do you think so far? The character interactions? The dialogue?