Saatori!
Sector Unknown.
Rim Quadrant Between
The Earth Empire and
The Drazakian Dynasty
The doors of the bridge exploded. Pieces of shrapnel scattered across the bridge causing its crew to dodge. Captain Jacob Henderson of the freighter Gemini II turned to see Drazakian warriors, the elite specially trained Daakim, rushing onto his bridge. Henderson stood before his crew, a barrier between them and the Daakim. He contained his fear as the Daakim warriors moved around the semi-circular bridge. He watched as the disruptor rifles covered every man at his station. Out of the drifting smoke, armor blood red and stained with blackened streaks, stepped their officer. Henderson stood his ground and refused to budge, yet he felt his gut quivering. He looked over his shoulder, partly to avoid those orange pupils that stared down at him from the Drazakian face, partly to see how the rest of his bridge crew was doing. Then Jacob Henderson looked back at the Drazakian. The sheen of the Drazakii’s salamander-like skin glistened under the bridge lights.
"Listen," Henderson began, "I’ll give you whatever you want. Anything in the hold is yours." Henderson felt a chill running up his spine as the Drazakian leader smiled. Realization that the Drazakian could already take anything in the freighter’s hold was settling in on Henderson’s mind.
"I just want safe passage for me and my crew," he hastily added, "They’re just kids, really."
"Captain," the Drazakian leader hissed between sharp pointed teeth, "what I want you cannot give me." The Drazakian’s accent was clipped and harsh as he spoke basic. "I have need of your ship."
Henderson didn’t grasp the meaning. He watched the Drazakian leader pull his sidearm out of its holster, aimed and fired.
The bolt passed directly into Henderson’s head, the back portion of his skull and an ample amount of blood and brains scattered across the bridge’s command console. Saatori, the Drazakian leader, watched as the human carcass sagged backwards with a dull thump to the deck.
"Eliminate the others and dump their precious cargo," Saatori hissed. He could feel the rage in him as his mood stripes shifted to deep red, matching the color of his battle armor. "Vorpa, dispose of this garbage." Saatori nudged at the dead human Captain with his booted foot, "and set a course for the Capella system."
"Yes, M’lord," Vorpa replied, turning to relay the command. The other crewmembers of the freighter were still in surprised shock at the murder of their Captain. Two of them tried to run, twelve pulses fired. Twelve bodies joined Captain Henderson, their screaming pleas for mercy did not reach Saatori’s ear-holes as he turned and left the freighter’s bridge.