Chapter 9
This is Barnebus Stinson, Captain of the merchant ship The Phareon. It's been a week since we left Epsilon to the Alpha quadrant for the supplies. So far everything has been going smoothly and there has been no sightings of pirates. Lately there has been many pirates, even an all women pirate crew that came from the all-female planet Athena. When the exodus of Earth occurred, there were many people who disagreed with new world order and the like. Because of the many differences and dissenting opinions, there were colony ships that the people inside were made up of both all-male and all-female. Those ships chose to colonize other planets. One would ask, "How the fuck were they able to thrive and multiply without the other?" Simple, science. In order for the men to have children they made incubation pods to simulate a womb, or so I've heard, and the women tampered with their DNA and had in vitro fertilization. It's funny that the old saying that men are from Mars and women are from Venus would actually become true, although on different planets.
The women of the planet Athena were much crueler than the men of planet Aries. The women even have their own pirates. Those two planets took domestic fighting to a planetary level by attacking each other, it's quite hilarious and ironic. We, the other colonized planets, tend to avoid them because of their giant biases, superstitions and propaganda they have developed over the years against the opposite gender. The weird and sad incident was when the transgender planet was destroyed by both Athena and Aries. Although they were promoting peace and love for both genders and the mix of the two, Athena and Aries found them disgusting on a planetary level and wiped them out. Apparently that was the last time both planets have worked together. They later banned those thoughts or feelings throughout their planets so anyone claiming to be transgender will be killed. Since Epsilon is a neutral planet we kept out of it.
One of the funniest part about those two planets, is that they get many men and women to settle within their respective genders because of divorce on other human colonized planets. When they get tired of their wives or husbands, they tend to move to Athena or Aries. So when it comes to man hating or woman hating those planets are the "go-to". Even so, they both highly respect their elders. I have no idea why both planets made such lies to keep away from each other but we tend to stay clear when they start fighting.
A week later and we finally made it to the drop off point. "Mosby, status report on the dock" the captain ordered. "The dock is stable, we did receive clearance but they simply sent the authorization codes to dock and no other type of communication, sir" Mosby saluted. "Erickson, tell the crew to arm themselves, I don't like this silence." The captain commanded. "Yes, sir. Sir, do we set our weapons to stun or kill? Sir." Erickson questioned. "Stun, we don't know what we are dealing with yet. If we meet with an ambush tell them to set to kill no questions." The captain responded. "Sir, yes sir" Erickson saluted and left the command center. Captain Stinson pressed the intercom for the ship "Crew, this is your captain speaking. We finally made it to the Alpha quadrant drop off." The crew cheered, "But we encountered unexpected silence from the dock. Right now lieutenant Erickson should be briefing you all to have your firearms ready and be prepared to defend yourselves and others if you are able." The captain ended his announcement.
The captain refused to dock until he had confirmation of some type of communications from the docking station. The captain also made contact with Mr. Peter Morrell, the owner of the merchant company and the merchant ship, the Phareon, that the captain and crew work for. When Mr. Morrell responded, the captain was told to hold off on docking for 12 hours, after that he has permission to leave and return at another time. Mr. Morrell emphasized the crew's safety above all.
The 12 hours trickled slowly as the captain awaited communication from the docking station. It was at the last hours of the waiting period that the ship finally received communication from the docking station but it was in audio only. "This is the Alpha quadrant, Gamma docking station. We are having trouble with our communication systems and can only respond through audio at the moment" a woman answered. "This is Barnebus Stinson, Captain of the merchant ship Phareon. We are here to deliver the equipment that was ordered. We require the confirmation code in order to drop off the equipment." The Captain asked. Static sounded through the communication and the woman responded "we are having trouble with our systems so I can not give you the confirmation code at the moment. Can you be understanding and drop off the equipment? I will be able to give you the confirmation code later on." "In that case, we will return at another time. I can see that you are in no position to receive the delivery because of your systems so we will come back at a more convenient time." The Captain responded.
After a brief period, the static cleared from the screen and showed the woman who responded. "No wonder you are one of the best merchants in space, I knew we shouldn't have killed all the workers here. Now my dear captain, you will be handing over all the equipment and your ship to us" the woman demanded. "Unless it was you who made the order for the supplies, we will hand over nothing" Captain Stinson responded. "My crew already has your ship surrounded and to keep the ship in one shape and to keep your crew alive, I suggest you comply" the woman said in a domineering tone. Mosby rushed to the captain's side "Sir, there are energy readings surrounding our location, what should we do, sir?" Captain Stinson cut off the communications with the female pirate then said "First make sure that we are ready to make a hyper jump back toward Epsilon, how long will that take?" "About 45 minutes for a full jump sir, but if we make small jumps we can cut the time in half" Mosby responded.
"Patch me through to engineering" the Captain ordered, "Sergeant, if we were to make multiple small jumps back home, would the ship be able to make it through?" "Sir, we can make that happen in 15 minutes but since the engine is pretty old we cannot say for sure. Should we start with the jumps sir?" the sergeant asked. "Do it, we are due for a new engine anyway" the captain commanded.