Captive Galaxy 1: The Bellerophon: Ambush
by J. W. Kurtz
Captain Tilman Wray didn't like working for a military controlled by lying, hypocritical, self-serving, and downright corrupt politicians. Maintaining his oath of service for the Sol system was a tough pill to swallow more and more each day. All the Sol colonies and Earth itself were only concerned with one thing: themselves.
When given the chance to purchase a starship, from one of the three major corporations advancing humanity into the stars, and freely run his own operation, in a blur he signed the contract. The corporations call corruption something else entirely. They call it business. At least they're honest about it.
Now, Wray plies the transit lanes in the depths of space, a free man, breathing recycled air, light-years from Sol, ferrying cargoes, hunting the rich shipping of rival corporations, and participating in industrial sabotage. Partaking in the latter being a key stipulation in his contract. It pays the bills. The best payout often comes from captured raw technologies once belonging to the vanished Minervan race. A race that disappeared 50,000-years ago. They left behind technological wonders believed to be key to advancing humanity hundreds-of-years. They're the only intelligent race, other than man, yet proven to have existed. So far.
Wray's profit margin is often as thin as the line between privateering and outright piracy that he and his crew flirt with on nearly every hop. Only strict adherence to a code keeps Captain Wray closer to the lesser of two evils. But not everyone of his crew want to follow this code mostly because it can get in the way of the bottom line...but also because some think killing is no big deal.
Outside the Sol system it is akin to the wild west, and it is here where private corporations duke it out in efforts to ever increase their power and profitability. On the return from a routine hop, believing a good profit imminent, the hunter has become the hunted in a region far more remote, vast, and deadly than the wild west ever once.
When given the chance to purchase a starship, from one of the three major corporations advancing humanity into the stars, and freely run his own operation, in a blur he signed the contract. The corporations call corruption something else entirely. They call it business. At least they're honest about it.
Now, Wray plies the transit lanes in the depths of space, a free man, breathing recycled air, light-years from Sol, ferrying cargoes, hunting the rich shipping of rival corporations, and participating in industrial sabotage. Partaking in the latter being a key stipulation in his contract. It pays the bills. The best payout often comes from captured raw technologies once belonging to the vanished Minervan race. A race that disappeared 50,000-years ago. They left behind technological wonders believed to be key to advancing humanity hundreds-of-years. They're the only intelligent race, other than man, yet proven to have existed. So far.
Wray's profit margin is often as thin as the line between privateering and outright piracy that he and his crew flirt with on nearly every hop. Only strict adherence to a code keeps Captain Wray closer to the lesser of two evils. But not everyone of his crew want to follow this code mostly because it can get in the way of the bottom line...but also because some think killing is no big deal.
Outside the Sol system it is akin to the wild west, and it is here where private corporations duke it out in efforts to ever increase their power and profitability. On the return from a routine hop, believing a good profit imminent, the hunter has become the hunted in a region far more remote, vast, and deadly than the wild west ever once.