Pinnacle Station

The click of the launch pad freed my ship, and the boosters kicked in a split second later. I flew upwards at an incredible speed. My hands and body felt like they were part of the chair. My mind completely blanked as I sat and realized what I was about to do with my life. For a moment everything went black. I awoke to the boosters detaching from my ship. I looked out the side windows and saw my classmates fire their bright blue engines and shoot upwards past the scattered sea of white clouds. I looked around, found the staging button, and pushed it. My engines seemed to explode me forwards as I continued upwards. I saw the exterminator class ships getting closer. They were Unisec ships here to protect us from any wandering party of bandits. They were giants compared to our Naranths. We rocketed past them when I got a transmission request. The front panel lit up with a panel to accept or decline the unknown request. I accepted it and a girl’s face appeared. “HEY, I heard you just graduated. I’m coming to get you!” “I’m assuming you’re Drem?” I asked “Yup. Hold on. Eenie Meeny Miney MO! Gotcha!” My radar detected a ship warped in from my right. It quickly closed the distance to me, and my visuals went black. The immediate jerk of my ship and the sound of exploding metal came from my right. Looking at the radar, I noticed I was inside the ship, possibly in a cargo bay. The diagnostics reported severe damage to the engines and turret and the glass on the front of the ship was cracked. Hull and chassis damage was at 75% and shields were offline. I sat still in my seat, took a deep breath and closed my eyes. The ship came to a stop and I sat in silence. A minute later, someone was tapping at my glass. I opened my eyes, and opened the driver hatch. “Gotcha” Drem said smugly. “What was the point of that?” I yelled furiously. “I was informed that you were ‘stubborn’. So I got you the forceful way, besides, this piece of scrap won’t get you far in the real world. You’ll at least need a cruiser. I’ll get you one at the next station.” “What if I liked this ship? I might have had plans for it.” I said “If you like this ship, then we can have it repaired, but you won’t be able to fly both ships at the same time. So it would be pointless.” She retorts. “Fair enough, where am I?” “You are on my ship now, the Ragnock. We’re close to a faction owned station. I know the guy who runs it. There is little to no ship traffic here, so we normally mine the asteroids for profit. When we get docked up, I’ll get you a new ship. I’d recommend investing in a mining ship so you can earn some money here. Plus, if you mine and sell in this station, you get a free bed and CO2 refills for your ship. It’s quite the bargain.” “I’ve never mined asteroids before.” I say a little cautious. “Bah, don’t worry. It’s easy money, but a tad boring.” She says walking back towards a set of stairs. C’mon. Let’s go back to the bridge.” Looking back at my now smashed Naranth, I quickly turn and follow her back to the bridge. The ship seemed bigger than it was. The cargo bay was the main part of the ship. It was big enough to hold hundreds of neatly stored Naranths. “What kind of ship is this?” I ask her as we get close to the bridge. “Hm, oh. It’s a mining floater. It does the job well, and is my biggest ship. I’ve probably had it for 3 years now. It’s almost bleached!” She squealed a bit as she said bleached. “Bleached?” I asked “Yea, it’s the unofficial veteran status with ships in space. All ships come with fancy colors painted on them, but the local star light ruins the paint job and start degrading the paint. So when somebody has ‘bleached’ their ship, it means they’ve had it for a long enough time to get very good at flying it. It’ll also usually have no color to it. Having a bleached combat ship is an impressive feat out here. If you see one of those around, try not to cause it trouble. That pilot will be incredibly dangerous.” “I take it most people lose their ships?” I ask with hesitation. “Not as much as reported by Unisec. Everyone is part of a faction, battles start when factions try to expand, or Unisec gets involved. There are also bands of pirates and crazy folk, but they usually don’t bother anyone that much. But I still wouldn’t fly too close to anyone, most people are on edge now days.” We’re standing in the bridge, and I can visually see the station now. It looks like a large asteroid was infected with buildings. Most of the surface is covered in white and brown buildings with a hole in the middle for ships to dock. “Welcome to Vegas 9.” Drem states.