If you're looking for the full collection of Memoirs of a Space Corsair, the following link holds them all, sorted by date published, so you can read them in order.

http://aspiring.org/memoirs-of-a-space-corsair/

Enjoy

I'm currently on holiday in in the beautiful city of Prague. Only been here a day, but the creative juices are flowing (get your mind out of the gutter I meant the intellectual ones). So far in MSC (Memoirs of a space corsair) we've not done much but there is our first proper space battle coming up, and some actual piracy - I'm going to base the world they go to fence.their ill gotten gains on the Czech capital I think. It makes sense, the more we leave where we came from, the more we try to capture the spirit of what we left... so in the future major colonies will be heavily influenced by their language/ethic groups in architecture and design. The architecture here is beautiful that it needs to be preserved in some fashion by the Czech speaking people 500 years from now.

I think it will be especially true of language/ethnic groups that lost much of their homes on Earth during the wars of 100 years from now. Well its war or catastrophic after affect of going over the green cliff (entirely depends how preachy I'm feeling when I write it).

Just need to break my current chapter and the show will really get going.

However, there is a new first, and that is my beautiful niece Phoebe, born two weeks ago today. She's amazing - well amazing probably isn't the most accurate description so far she's learned to sleep, poop, and cry, but who knows what she'll be doing this time next week.

Also, I have a pretty significant problem which interferes with my ability to write for any length of time. I started with carpal tunnel syndrome a few weeks ago, it was, and still is, really bad in my left hand, however now my right hand has all the symptoms too. I know have tubigrip covering both my arms in an effort to find release.

Carpal tunnel snydrome kind of caught me by surprise, I never thought i'd feel pain like this - even know as I type everytime I stretch to hit a key the pain is there, but ther are times when its excrutiating, especially at night. I've known people that suffered, and heard of plenty more - but I always figured it was constant discomfort rather than pain.

It does mean the limited time, and energy I have in my life for writing his decreased considerably, because I can literally only write during times the pain isn't so bad.

I'm not giving in though, in a couple of chapters time, Memoirs of a Space Corsair is really going to take off, and get into the exciting adventures in space, and I fully intend to enjoy it.

Meanwhile, while the muse is with me, and I'm able to write I'm trying to get as much of chapter five done as I can, since its a day off work today, but back tomorrow.

Doesn't matter with its a pen, a computer, or a phone - more technology is simply better, in my universe. Zero technology has its place, I mean sitting their doodling with an e-pen is kind of a waste, and drawing is better with a pencil on paper. That said, I have an Amazon Kindle, and it is all kinds of fantastic, and I don't feel the urge to go back to the printed word.

My point is, as I mentioned I love technology. However, in a strange kind of way I'm a traditionalist, I like my technology to be technological. I like that sometimes it requires a bit of brain power, some intuition, and a touch of luck to find my way round a piece of technology. I don't want a smooth easy user experience, if I end up with one, I'll only break down the veneer of civilisation covering the rugged peaks and valleys of performance that makes technology grand. I don't want easy, I want fun.

For me, its about fun – at the end of the day I don't need any of it, I could suffice with just the basics, even down to going back to pen, paper, and the printed world, I'd find myself happy enough at that. However, I do so enjoy new gadgets, new toys.

I've finally replaced my crappy Nokia 5800, I now have an HTC Desire running Android (which I'll be upgrading to Android 2.2 this evening, I'm far too impatient to wait for HTC's own upgrade of the operating system). Its an absolutely fabulous piece of technology – I don't even mind not having the things I normally miss in a phone (a physical qwerty screen, and resistive touchscreen). Okay, its not great for writing my Nokia E71 was, but it gets by, for short pieces, writing up ideas and such. I do feel kind of dirty, I'm not usually a Google fan (in fact I think Google are out of control, but those kind of things fix themselves in time, and my surrender to their mobile technology is hardly going to delay the downfall). Compared side by side with an iPhone (3GS, not 4, since I know no one with the new iPhone), and the HTC Desire wins hands down on all the bits that matter to me… and that really is the only measure that counts.

I did fancy the Motorola Milestone, but the new one is out soon – and I'm happy enough for the improvements to that to pick it up in a year's time when its cheaper. The first Milestone has a keyboard its true (major appeal), but its not the greatest writing surface, so figured I'd survive well enough just the touchscreen.

There are some things I do miss about the Symbian operating system, but Android isn't that different, its just as open and customisable – and it is firmly current generation, the aging Symbian system does feel old hat. Symbian^3 is out soon, and it looks swish (the whole N8 does), but for me, it hasn't come far enough from what I've seen of it. Who knows what Nokia will have out in a year's time, they look like to put out many phones, to match a whole host of needs – maybe Symbian^3 will come on in leaps and bounds, and it will leave Android and Apple with a massive headache as that hill they've been climbing to be a major mobile phone player suddenly becomes a lot steeper.

What I look forward to is the day we go buy our mobile phones from any company we want, and can then choose what operating system to have it on it. We're getting there, I hear tell rumours that Windows Mobile 7 might be installable on some Android devices, not sure if its vice versa or not. Of course, a model like that would lead to us having to pay for a phone, and the operating system, because licensing deals with manufacturers would go out the window.

In other technology news, my netbook is now at the point where its my perfect travel companion, its running Windows 7, has an extra gig of ram, and now has an extra large battery, combined with its existing smaller battery I can get quite a bit of time out of it between charges (between five and six hours), which is perfect for my holiday to Prague in four weeks time, and my following trip to the British Science Festival two weeks after that.

So yes, if you didn't get the message, I love technology.

Summary: This is the third instalment in a regular series I am trying to create, set some five hundred years in the future; it follows the trial and tribulations of one man as he tries to survive in a hostile galaxy. In the process, he will become a famous pirate with a cause, a corsair. Arsène Frassin recounts to us himself his life, and we are still early in his adventures. HE has survived captured by pirates, and life in captivity, now the next phase begins – slavery. The fourth chapter in this tale will be forthcoming, however enjoy the third chapter. If you’ve not read the earlier chapters they can be found at:

1^st Chapter – Captivity Part One – Terrors of Space

2^nd Chapter – Captivity Part Two – Induction

We were currently held in quarantine with slavers, and the night before we had been told that today we would be sold. Slavery wasn’t practiced in the Epsilon Eridani system, which was home to a large number of us, and we didn’t really know what to expect, other than what we had read about, or seen in vids.

We had known the door was about to open, the light that came through the small window in the door had been blocked briefly. Now as the door opened, we saw a man stood there. Previously, the only outsiders we had seen had been masked, in case we carried an infection of some variety, but this man had no mask.

I recognised him immediately from his eyes though, he had pretty much been with us since we arrived from our capture and transit by pirates to this space station. I didn’t know him really, he had barely said a word, but at the same time, I did have an affinity with him, having been with us since the beginning.

“Out,” he said in English, but with an accent I didn’t recognise, but gestured us to follow him.

We did as we were told, we had no option, the previous night, we had acted out against a traitor in our midst, and we had seen how they dealt with us. I still ached from the repeated hits by some sort of club or bat that had shocked me even as it battered me. Connor too knew the terrifying effect of those bats, having led the violence and earned a beating following by a club to the head with one of those things. Fortunately other than pain, it didn’t seem to have lasting effects, or I would have dreaded what a blow to the head with one could have done.

As we stepped into the corridor, there were wash basins, and fresh overalls to change into. This usually happened once a week, but we had been through this yesterday  - obviously we were to look clean and healthy before being sold in. Maybe it raised the price, we had been told by the traitor that fit and healthy slaves sold better, that is why we had had the relative comforts of our current cell.

A prison was a prison to me back then, but I must admit, it was a massive improvement on the month or so, we had spent in transit aboard the pirate ship that brought us to this station, there we had lived in squalid filth, with the only consideration to our wellbeing, a tube that fed a slop into a trough for us to eat. Here we had been fed meat and vegetables, given medication, been allowed to wash, and had a form of toilet to use, rather than just a corner of our cell.

All in all, looking back it may have been a cage, but it had its comforts. None of us knew what comforts, if any, would exist as we left this place.

“Wash,” the man said, pointing. We undressed, and did as ordered, and then dressed when we were finished. I noticed there was another, much younger man, stood back not involving himself, but watching. On his left hip rested a gun in a holster, on his right held by his belt was a baton, which I presumed was the same, or at least similar to what I had suffered the previous night. I never really got that good a look at it, I was far more focused on its affects.

The guard before us, who I had known in a fashion, gestured with a black oblong object towards the end of the corridor, and it rose up. I would never have figured it for a door, when we had arrived in this corridor, it just seemed a wall. I glanced back the way we had come in a month ago, and it seemed as a wall.

“Go, slowly,” the guard said, his hand and the oblong object still pointing at the wall. We did as required, and stepped forward, we took a few steps forward, the others fell in behind me. I guess as de facto leader of our little group, whatever was to happen would happen to me first. I wasn’t the oldest, the smartest, or the strongest of our group – I think it was more a combination of being old enough, smart enough, and strong enough, and without meaning to, I had said the words that would galvanise in the face of this oppression.  Leadership isn’t attained, it is conveyed, gifted, and I remember wishing I could give it back, and slip into minor anonymity at the back of the group. My friends, and the galaxy had other ideas, I had set the terms of our mission, our survival, and it was up to me to see us all through it.

We walked down the corridor, past where the wall had been, as we walked down I saw other doors. I could only imagine the people behind those doors, I spared them the briefest of thoughts, if they had been through anything like what we had, they needed a well wish – however our, present situation was of far greater import to me, if I’m honest. Survival is for the selfish.

We approached a point in the corridor where the beige/white walls turned to grey.

“Halt,” the familiar man said. We did.

I looked round,  I was stood on the divider between the two colours.  I looked ahead, but there was nothing to see, the grey part of the corridor split at a T junction just a few meters on, and I couldn’t see down either.

I hadn’t noticed a light above us, but suddenly we were bathed in green light. “Go on, and to the left,” he said, and we shuffled forward slowly  getting up to walking pace. We were nervous, I’ll be honest straight up, I was petrified, we were leaving what in affect was a safe place, for somewhere unknown. Right that moment, I regretted having to leave. I at least wanted more time to prepare myself, even after a month waiting for this to happen.

As we turned the corner, we approached another door, this wasn’t a pretend wall though, it was a heavy duty metal door. Our guard held out the black oblong remote, and the door split in two, moving sideways.

A blast of cool air hit me, and I looked into what I can only describe was a large administration area. There were people everywhere, many of them like us, in pale overalls being marched about. In gantries above, and by the doors and passageways I could see were man like our guard, in protective black overalls, with side arms and batons. I looked, and there was one standing just inside of the doors we were entering through.

“Go on,” our guard said, his accent thicker as he raised his voice above the ambient noise of the chamber. We walked forward, I looked round in wonder, this place was probably half the size of the warehouse I had worked in, but people were coming and going in vast numbers, the warehouse I’d been in had a few works, and machines for moving goods, but things rarely moved.

“Over there, isn’t that… oh, sorry,” Garth erupted, and quietened down. I think he thought he saw someone from the Reina del Mar,  I looked where he had indicated and I couldn’t see anything. With new awareness though, I did look round to see if there was anyone else.

“Keep your eyes forward and down,” our guard said, then added, “Take the next left, and up the stairs, stop at the desk.” There was no warmth, no feeling, it was just simple instructions.

We arrived at the desk.

“Unit 12c, group of eight prospects,” the guard reported to the board woman behind the desk. A man next to her turned to look.

“So that’s 12c, eh? They look like trouble,” he said.

“Let’s get them all scanned in,” the woman said, then she peered down at us, “You all speak English?” she asked.

We nodded, cautiously.

“Okay, just place your hand on this box,” she held forward a white box which our guard took and held at about chest height, “put your hand on it, and keep it there till I say otherwise. Understand?” she asked patronisingly.

I went first, and placed my left hand on it, the top of the box was like glass, as my hand made contact it lit up. I could feel something, it felt like a mild current. Then out of nowhere I felt a stabbing pain, just briefly, but I held my hand there.

“Very good,” she said emphasising the ‘very’ patronisingly. “Next,” she commanded. Chris was next, but in a few minutes we’d all been through the process and were rubbing our hands.

“Okay, we’re nearly done,” she said patronisingly reassuring, “Just need to sign or initial these documents,” she handed a digipad to the guard. He handed it to me.

I knew well what this was, but most nations laws, a slave had to volunteer to become a slave. It’s not that outlandish, someone in heavy debt might agree to be sold for debt, a poor person might choose to sell himself into slavery to provide for his family, or even just to have a chance at roof over his head, and whatever food he got as a slave. However, from what our traitor in the cells had said, it seemed like a fools choice. Now we had to make that choice, only he had said it wasn’t really a choice that it was sign or die.

It all ran through my head – he had been sent into that cell with us to indoctrinate us into believing this was now our lot in life, it was his job to make sure we were in some ways ready for what would come. Would it also be his way to ensure that when the time came, we would make the choice? Could it be there was the simplest of ways out?

My hesitation was drawing questioning looks, I had to make decision. The decision was made for me though, the guard without saying a word unclipped his gun from his holster, pulled it and put it Garths head.

He didn’t need to say a word, the threat was obvious, I picked up the pen on the side of the digipad and signed my name in the highlighted box, and stared at it with horror.

“Now to him,” the woman said gesturing to Chris.

We each signed the document, the gun passing to a different one of us each time. When it was Garths turn to sign, the gun was at my head – I guess it was an effort at fairness.

“All done?” the woman asked, taking the pad back from the guard. “Very well, take them to processing Tomas. Then I think its 12e next.”

He nodded, and gestured for us to walk up on up the elevated platform we were on to another set of stairs.

I made a mental note of his name,  swearing to myself that one day I would find vengeance, it was the start of a very long list, but at that point there was ‘Tomas’ and ‘Peter Bickle’, a fellow quarantined slave, or so we though, he was the traitor that sat in our amidst.

We were taken over to the processing area, this involved being urged to enter an actual cage, though the bars were some kind of plastic, we were visible on all sides but up and down. The cage itself, was a bit like an elevator, with cages packed above and below, and we were raised up, and lowered down as each cage was processed. It was an uncomfortable situation for the survivors of the Reina del Mar, for more than the obvious reason, we had been trapped in an elevator for hours prior to a brute, (who was also on that list, though I had no idea who he was), slaughtering most of our numbers, and capturing us, and bringing us here.

It took two hours for them to get to us, we had been held low for the last group to be processed before us, so we were raised up. Before us sat what appeared to be a meeting room, though no one was in it. Moments later, several people walked in, four of them dressed in sharp clean uniforms, and carrying digipads, the other three looked rougher,  and their clothing was more plain, black slacks, and either grey, blue, or red t-shirts.  The one in the blue top looked to be the leader of the group.

“Good afternoon gentleman,” one of the suited men said with a smile holding out his hand palm facing up, as was the fashion, to show no weapons were carried. He took a seat, while the other suited men stood.

The man in the blue t-shirt, grunted, and took a seat opposite, while the others hung back, watching the proceedings.

“Well, I see here you’re looking for eight slaves,” the suited man said reading his digipad, and tapping the screen a few times, purposefully.

“I’d rather have my money, but if this is what I have to settle for,” the man in the blue t-shirt said making no effort to hide the grievance from his voice.

“Ah yes, I see you were having some difficulties coming to an arrangement with an associate of ours. I see we helped with the negotiation of a satisfactory…”

“There ain’t much satisfactory about this, I have more use for money than slaves,” the blue t-shirted man said. He was a huge man, though he didn’t seem actually tall, he was broad across the shoulders, with a pot belly, but his arms themselves were massive, and looked to be solid muscle.

“Mr Hanslein, I’m not here to renegotiate the deal you made with my colleagues, and our associate. The agreement was for eight slaves to your specifications, all new. We have just…”

“I don’t hold no truck with this Mister business, it’s just Hanslein, or if a simple surname is too much for you, I be Karl. The deal we made is struck, I agree, but don’t be expecting me to be happy about – and if these slaves of yours aren’t up to scratch, I’ll be back,” the blue shirted man, Hanslein said interrupting the suited man, who was quickly becoming flustered.

“I can assure you…”

“Keep your assurances,” Hanslein said cutting off the suited man again, “Let me see the brutes.”

“Of course,” the suited man said, conciliatorily. He rose from his chair, and gestured towards the cage, our cage. Hanslein got up and walked over, the other men with him fell into step, almost in military fashion.

They walked back and forth before the cage, eying us with careful eyes.

“So what say ye?” Hanslein said turning to his men, “Are these acceptable?”

“Seems so,” said the man in the red t-shirt.

“Kennedy?” he asked the one in grey, “I know I promised you one to yourself, as repayment for saving my life, what say ye?”

“Hmm,” the grey, Kennedy, said mulling it other, before his gaze settled on Garth, and he nodded just slightly.

“Done, it’s a deal,” Hanslein said with finality. “We’ll assign the others duty as we get underway.”

The suited man approached, “We shall have them delivered to your ship sir,” he said.

“Gabe, Gabe, Gabe,” Hanslein said draping an arm over the suited man’s shoulders. The suited man wasn’t exactly tall, maybe 170 centimetres, but he visibly shrunk as his personal space was invaded, “That’s not my ship, that’s just my shuttle.”

“Of course,” Gabe replied, conciliatorily.

“Can I take mine with me?” Kennedy asked, he had what I judged to be a Gaelic accent. He was easily 190 centimetres tall, he was well built, but not as massively muscled as the leader of the group, he looked, however, far more menacing. I guess the best way I could describe it was there was a darkness in his eyes that made each one of us blanche, especially poor Garth who had been singled out as Kennedy’s.

“I’m afraid delivery must be made as a complete unit, sir,” Gabe was explaining, equally as wary of the man as we.

“Ah well, I’m sure I can find some entertainment up on decks in the meantime,” Kennedy said jovially, yet somehow still menacing.

“Ah, erm, it won’t take more than a few minutes to transfer these to your shi… erm, shuttle,” the functionary explained.

“Well get going then,” Hanslein said gesturing.

“Well, I just need your signatures Hanslein,” holding up the digipad.

“What am I signing?” Hanslein asked, his eyes narrowed on the functionary.

“Just a standard contract sir, we have to ensure the paperwork is above board,” he looked at the man with his arm round his shoulder, and decided to carry on, “This one states that you take ownership, and offers their value – which was agreed. The next few relate to proper treatment of indentured servants, and a statement acknowledging you are responsible for their wellbeing. The last one is just a form for accounting to acknowledging delivery to your care.”

“Uhuh,” Hanslein said, “Well I guess I can see my way to signing them. Then I’d like to be on my way.”

“Of course, sir,” the man said with a supplicant bow. He handed over the digipad, and used the opportunity of the man reading it to extricate himself from such close proximity.

I think from the moment I was put in the cage, I became a bit detached to all that was going on. Punctuated with moments of realising this was happening to me, and fear. If I had to single out my most useless, yet the one that proved most valuable, it was the sense of distraction when under pressure, when I would no longer be me, for just a short time, it has saved my life, or at least my sanity many times over the years. Though early in my life I considered it some deficiency on my part.

The men completed their business, and Hanslein and his men disappeared off into the station. We were kept waiting for a few minutes, then ushered out of the cage by a new guard, who lead us into another corridor. This one was grey, but had a green line running midway down the wall, for the entire length.

We approached an elevator, it was similar to the one that we had ridden in when we had first arrived after being freed from the squalid cell we had arrived in. We waited as the guard pushed the buttons on a remote, and the elevator gradually arrived at our floor.

The doors opened with a customary whoosh. Inside were boxes, on the boxes were chains and cuffs.

“Put them on, hands and feet,” the guard said gesturing to the chains.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider this was probably our last chance to escape. However I said seen this operation now, and it was well guarded, and all the doors and elevators seemed controlled by remote. Even if I ran, there was nowhere to go – besides it was a space station, there was only a finite number of places to hide, and food would be hard to come by for any length of time, and as Connor had noted earlier in the day, none of us knew how to fly a ship if we made it to one.

In resignation to my fate, I cuffed myself, hands and ankles as required.

“Sit,” the man said gesturing to the boxes and floor. Everyone but me and Charlie sat, instead we half stood, half squatted against the far wall.  We waited for a minute or two more, then the man got in the lift with us, and pushed buttons on his control, and we felt the gravity pull at us from the gravity plating, as the elevator rose.

When we arrived the doors opened again, the man gestured and we exited the lift in to the massive space we had arrived in. I realised now it was a hangar, and that we must be at the very top of the space station. I had seen space stations on vids, the area furthest from the gravity plating was used for docking, smaller ships actually entered the superstructure, to offload crew, passengers, and cargo – and reload when it was time to leave. There were containers all round, some where several times my height. Peter had told us that there were three trades on this space station, the Dangaus Atstumas, drugs, banks, and slavery – but from the cargo containers, there must be a lot of trade coming and going I realised.

We were escorted by our guard across the hanger, it was easily a three or four minute work before we stopped before a ship. I guessed this was the shuttle Hanslein had referred to. I could see why it was mistaken for a ship in its own right, it was huge, it could carry two of the cargo containers I had seen, and still have room to spare.

A door opened, with a hiss, as pressure stabilised, and then steps lowered down from a compartment beneath the door. They moved slowly, and surely, until they touched the floor with a scraping noise.

A man appeared atop the stairs, it was Hanslein himself, he gestured us upwards.

The guard behind us reinforced the command, and we rose up the stairway to the ship. Then suddenly we were out of the dim hangar, and into the bright lights of the shuttle.

“Through that way,” Hanslein said gesturing further into the ship, “Now,” he added authoritatively.

As we went through the ship, the man in the blue t-shirt stood down the cramped corridor, he was stood in front of a hatchway.

“Down with ye,” he said gesturing. I looked in, once again in the lead of the group, there were ladders leading down into a room. There were a few cots, and absolutely nothing else. I hesitated, not wanting to find myself trapped in another mysterious room, however a clout to my ear encouraged me to get on with the climbing down. I turned and lowered myself to the ladders and climbed down, and the others followed until we were all in.

“Behave,” the man said to us, then closed the hatch, I heard a click which I presumed was a lock.

“Welcome home boys,” Connor said sarcastically.

“Could be worse,” Tim said, showing an uncharacteristic brave streak, answering back to the fit, strong and usually combative Connor.

We were in the cell for a couple of hours, it actually wasn’t so bad, but we each feared this was the calm before the storm.

As I mentioned on stations, the main hangars tended to be at the part of the station furthest away from the gravity plates, it meant that gravity was less. Sometimes not by much, sometimes by a large amount. As we had walked across to the shuttle, I made a mental note of how much gravity there was, I had been considering some outlandish plot involving bouncing away – however if I were to rate it at the time, I would have reckoned on it being point eight Earth norm, which makes you feel lighter, but not enough to allow you to go flying about. Its why the cargo containers all stayed put. A reduction of point two though is still a great aid in ships taking off.

Because I was paying attention to gravity, I knew immediately when things became heavier, though it wasn’t a meaningful exercise as a mere few seconds later everyone else noticed too. An increase in gravity could only mean one thing for us, take off.  My fear was confirmed as the ship began to rumble. Taking off is not an easy business, it involves balancing all the downward ion thrusters of the ship to achieve steady lift. This is important inside a hanger, where you don’t want to rise too fast, or drift too much, and you needed to be able to line up with the huge airlock that would allow you to leave the hangar.  Even on my home planet of Epsilon Eridani c, take off and landings are tricky, and our native gravity is point four that of earth. You could still find yourself guided by gravity rather than thrusters, and at low altitude that meant hitting the ground in mere moments.

We knew when we had left the station though, at first we felt the momentum, and a loss of gravity, it was momentary as our own gravity plating came online, which acted as an inertial damper, as well as keeping everything on board in its proper place, and the crew fully functional. Without gravity plates, ships would be severely restricted on speeds, lest they pulverise everyone on board.

For about an hour, that was my last awareness of what was happening to the ship, other than a constant rumble, which must be from the main thrusters propelling us forward. If we changes course, or direction, I never felt it. I could only surmise we were on our way to whatever Hanslein considered to be an actual ship.

In this period of my life, there was a lot of waiting around, so let me cut to the chase – however much I wish for you to understand what happened, and how it happened, to the best of my memory we didn’t discuss anything of real import. Just our fears. Even with the best and most powerful ion thrusters, travel is not quick – for speed you had to be going great distances, so that distance just in between long and short was a slow process. Even when I was sure we had arrived at the ship – based purely on the sounds and the bumps, and changes in gravity, we still waited.

Some hours later, the door finally opened at the top of the ladder.

"Out," demanded a stern voice.

We each climbed the ladder, as commanded. Without further word we were ushered down the length of the shuttle. Seats lined either side of us, they were grey and torn, as if they had seen better days.  Back on my own planet, some of the older Intercity Coaches were in such a state, they had been in service for years, ferrying the poor and the unruly across the globe.

We approached the front exit hatch, and looked down. Where before there had been stairs, now there was a tube, with more leaders leading down.

"Go on," the stern voice commanded. In an effort not to meet anyone's eyes, I hadn't seen the man giving the orders, I didn't recognise his voice, and he had been stood behind the door when we left the room. Now I looked up at that voice, he was maybe a meter and a half, maybe a bit more, but strongly built, though not massive he barely looked to have a spare ounce of fat on him, it was all sinewy toned muscle. He was bald on top, but still hard thinning hair from the sides of his head down to his shoulders. I would describe it as a curious look - however it was actually terrifying, his stern voice, the wild hair were in contrast, order and chaos.

"Go," he repeated stepping forward, pushing the group ahead of him. I entered the tube and started climbing down. The others followed, as always since the last fateful night in our last cell, I was the de facto leader again.

At the bottom of the ladders, maybe six meters down, I passed through another airlock, and dropped to the floor with a thud. Gravity here was just slightly above what I was used to, but I didn't sustain an injury.

A new face was there to greet me, with a snarl. He gestured with a pistol for me to move to the right, so others could enter the corridor we were stood in. This man was easily half a meter taller than myself, he was a giant, and it surprised me he could fit in such a small space as the corridor. He was stripped to the waist, except for a strap of lever going across his body from his shoulder to his waist. He at least was wearing jeans. He glared at each and every one of us, the sheer hostility in the gaze was terrible to behold. and I looked away to take in my surroundings.

We were in a red lighted corridor, a T-junction within a ship of some sort. It must have been a large ship, to have corridors tall enough for our mountain of a one man greeting party. The walls were a uniform grey, though clean, and the floors were actually carpeted, it was a coarse black carpet, but impressive nonetheless. Somehow, deep down I expected to pass through the tube into the very belly of hell.

As the others joined me, we stood round, as closed to military attention we had ever been.

From down the corridor to the right, I saw Hanslein strolling purposefully. Hanslein was an impressive one hundred and seventy centimetres tall, square built, his black hair was thinning and cropped short, he was still in his blue t-shirt, but now it was covered with some kind of leather space jacket. It could have been synth-leather, I never had chance to find out, but leather itself is a rarer commodity than beef in the systems I knew of.

“Right,” Hanslein said stopping before us, inspecting us again. “So, ye be ma slaves,” he said it with finality. If any of us had been in any doubt about our role, and status of ownership, there would be no mistaking it now. “Well, this is the Nordenskjöld, this will be your home for as long as we see fit,” he gestured around him, as if presenting a grand palace, instead of two corridors. “Ye’ll be given duties, cleaning, messaging, cooking, and the like,” he said, then with a wicked smile, and leaning forward slightly as he did, he added, “And entertaining ma’ crew.”

I set my jaw square, a looked right back at him. I got the subtext of what he was saying, and I wanted him to know I wasn’t going to stand for it. Behind me, I could sense a slight shift of movement, my noble and brave friends were shifting to stand in a tighter group behind me. All except Connor, who seemed to stand up taller next to me, meeting the captains gaze.

“And we’ll be having no fights, yur all weak li’l shits that wouldnae put up much, but the crew might be appreciating ye for it more. We don’t allow women on board,” he said explaining, completely ignoring my bravado, which left me feeling slightly foolish for trying it, I at least thought I would receive violence. “Do ye have any questions?” he asked, but  he answered for us immediately, “No? Good. I’ll be putting Drid in charge of ye, if I hear you be causing him trouble…” he said pausing for affect, in many ways Hanslein impressed me, he was a showman, “Well let’s just make it a given ye don’t wan me hearing yore trouble, right? Good.”

“Sir,” the mountain of a man stood next to the Captain, who had been our very special welcoming party addressed Hanslein, “Where should we keep ‘em?”

“The brigs as good a place as any for now,” the Captain answered dismissively.

“Yes sir,” the big man agreed.

“Good man, good man,” the Captain mused, and then started to turn to  leave, but seemed to stop half pirouette, he pointed first at me, and then at Connor, “Names?” he asked.

I raised my head up, and pushed my chin out, refusing to show weakness, “Arsène,” I answered.

Connor followed my lead, knowing full well that something awful would probably befall us for our countenance, “Connor,” he said with a clear and deliberate air of menace.

“Hmm,” the Captain mused, “Good names. You two be mine, I expect ye to report to my quarters at oh nine hundred. Don’t be late, ye’ll be making things harder,” he said, finishing his turn then strolling back along the corridor he’d arrived from.

“Little shits,” the man mountain said mockingly, “Move,” he finished his voice suddenly getting deep and menacing as he commanded us.

We stood stock still, we didn’t know where to move.

“That way,” he pointed, “Now,” he added with a  growl. We shuffled along the other corridor from what Hanslein had strolled down. We were lead through several corridors, I realised that the Nordenskjöld must be a very large ship indeed. We had only been on the one deck, but already we must have covered hundreds of metres of corridor as we were urged on. Crew members would watch as we passed, some with disinterest, some whispering idle chatter, and others with eyes filled with more darkness than I wanted to contemplate.

Eventually we came to an open area of the ship, it was as if the walls of a standard quarters had been removed, and now it extended into the corridor, and into another quarter. There were thick tables, with built in chairs bolted to the deck floor, as we passed the threshold, the carpet stopped. In the first quarter opposite the second, appeared to be a kitchen of some variety, in the second, they was a fancier and larger table.

“Drid!” the man mountain called loudly.

“Hold your horses,” a voice shouted back from behind some sort of cabinet in the middle of the first quarter. “Driffield that you?”

“Yep,” the man mountain, Driffield, answered, “Captain sent me some charges for ye,” he added.

“Charges hey?” the voice replied. I saw a moment later where that voice came from,  he was about one hundred and fifty centimetres, chubby and his skin looked oiled, he wasn’t really frightening in the way the man mountain, Driffield,  was, it was more like viewing the product of an unholy sexual liaison between a man and an earth fish. “Reyt, let Drin be ‘aving a ganders at ye,” he said peering at the group of us with bulging eyes.

“You good?” Driffield asked the man, seeming eager to be away, I wasn’t sure at the time if it were to get rid of his unwanted charges, us, or to be gone from the horrible looking Drid. I’d never thought of pirates as fearful people before, but there was definitely something akin to fear in Driffield's eyes.

“Where they goin’?” Drid asked.

“Cap says they’re to use the brig for now, other than that, they’re yours to command,” Driffield said.

“Oh goody,” Drid said rubbing his oily hands together, “Mine indeed,” he muttered to himself.

Driffield left without further comment, his piece in our drama now passed.

“Reyt!” once again rubbing his greasy plump hands again. “I guess I be getting to tell ye what to do – ‘bout time old Drid had someone to order round. Don’t you agree, boys and girls?” he said leaning towards them, somehow his face was even more fish like and hideous than it had been two feet more distant. He turned away from us and surveyed the kitchen area, his domain, then turned back to us, and bent closer once again, “You,” he said staring at me, I wan’ that cooker spotless.”

I just glanced back at him – this odd looking man hadn’t really done anything to inspire me to obey, which may sound daft after being a prisoner for so long – however I may have had my freedom removed from me by force, I wasn’t about to give it away to someone who seemingly engendered no tools to remove my freedom.

I was wrong though, he cuffed me across the face so hard that I was on the floor before I knew what had happened.

Connor charged forward throwing a punch at the bulbous mound of fat, Drin barely noticed, but he turned around and swatted him, sending him reeling. I clambered to my feet, my jaw aching, but I wanted to protect Connor. Before I got further than standing, Drin lunged with his foot, right for my mid-section, it hit me winding me and doubling me up, he finished me off with a chop to the face.

“Stay down,” he bellowed, before he walked over to the prone Connor and kicked him in his side.

“Nae,” the mountain of fat shouted again, “Nae! Tha’ll be no disobeying ol’ Drin.”

The others had kept back, it wasn’t that they were cowards, just smarter than me and Connor – there was no chance of freedom in this, no chance of improving anything, it was just disobedience for disobediences sake.

“Yae,” he said pointing at Garth, “Take these tae to th’ med station,” Drin demanded as he gestured to me and Connor. I was just starting to recover my breath again, it felt like it was trapped within me permanently, burning, and I had almost forgotten what it was like to breath.

Garth came over to me, and helped me to my feet, the fight was well and truly out of me, my legs felt like Jell-O , and my jaw felt swollen from the two hits had taken. I’ve never been a person who was afraid to admit he was wrong, but that day, my assumption that Drin was nothing to fear, someone who had nothing to hold our freedom with, was wrong.

I knew I would do it again though, between the throbbing of the pain, I knew this was no different to exploring our cell when we had first been captured, it was about understanding the situation. Despite the pain and humiliation, I knew not to attack the disgusting Drin from the front, and if I attacked him, to make it count, not just a punch. We were teenagers, he was a full (overly full) grown man, despite his seemingly limited intelligence, and his apparent unfit condition I would only ever have one chance against that, a weapon. I had none now though, and I doubt I could have used one as I was, Garth was supporting me as we approached Connor.

Chris came over, and helped Connor to stand, Connor was grasping at his ribs.

“Nae!” Drin shouted, “Just ‘im,” he said indicating Garth. Garth collected Connor, putting Connor’s arm round his shoulder, and the three of us shuffled out back the way we had come.

As we came to the door, Garth stopped, and tried to look over his shoulder, “Erm…” he said trying to work out what to say, “Where’s the medical station?”

“Darn tha’ corridor, stairs, ba’ up ta corridor darn there, ‘bout here,” he said pointing below him, “Go left, an’ keep walking,” Drin said smiling. “Get it?”

“Yes,” Garth said.

I heard a sudden thudding, Drin was out of my limited sight, but suddenly I knew he was near, Garth was shrinking back, a movement that caused Connor to gasp as his ribs were moved suddenly.

“Sir!” Drin shouted, “Call me Sir!”

“Y-y-yes Sir,” Garth said stuttering.

“Go on then,” Drin retreated back. Garth started shuffling forward, dragging us with him. I never appreciated how strong Garth was until that moment, he had always just seemed normal, even wiry, but supporting two bigger older boys, didn’t seem to trouble him.

The sounds from the canteen behind us started to fade, but I heard Drin order Chris to do what I had originally been ordered to do. My little defiance, our little insurrection, had lasted but moments, now we were slaves, but I swore it was only for now.

I quite like the current theme, it seems a bit easier to read, but I will keep looking for that one pristine reading theme. I was tempted to find a plug in though, that allowed categories to have different themes set from the default. May be too messy for my liking though, I like a theme to run through, suits the Virgo in me.

Another change I've made is to install a plug-in that links a page to a category, and in a quick format lists all posts in said category. I figure this would be more helpful for storing the posts, plus I can build up the blurb (which I keep meaning to do), to help maybe get a hit or two off the search engines. You can see the one for Memoirs of a Space Corsair here. I'll hopefully be doing one for poetry too, just to make everything nice and accessible, and its listed in order of publishing (where as right now if you go to a category you see the most recent post - the two different views will hopefully suit new visitors, and returning visitors as they like).

Speaking of hits from search engines, most of my search engine traffic comes from people searching for 27th birthday poems, I wonder what they thought of mine when that turned up as the number six search result in Google. Actually my post is slipping a bit, it was third in the rankings, still it intrigues me though, and I'm wondering what will happen to my 28th birthday poem this September.

Anyway, just a quick admin message, hopefully a new chapter will be up tomorrow, if not then next Saturday. I was going to try and get loads written this weekend, however I was distracted by an amazing 24 Hours of Le Mans race, which I stayed up for and watched mostly from beginning to end (I think I clocked 20 hours, with two naps to see me through), and then of course an equally amazing (but thankfully shorter), formula one race from Canada. An absolutely fantastic weekend of sport, the only blip being a poor performance by England in the World Cup, but I'm not as into football, and not as excited as I usually am about the World Cup, so it didn't spoil anything. I'll also get some notes and thoughts about MSC written up - which I'm shaping into an authors commentary, over time.

Lastly if you have any problems with the new layout let me know, unless its to say I've no sense of style and/or colour, I already know but you can say so anyway.

Summary: This is the second instalment in a regular series I am trying to create, set some five hundred years in the futures, it follows the trial and tribulations of one man as he tries to survive in a hostile galaxy. In the process, he will become a famous pirate with a cause, a corsair. However, we’re not there yet, first we must learn where our intrepid anti-hero comes from, this second chapter follows on directly from the events of the first, after being captured by an unknown party from the Reina del Mar, a luxury liner, and seeing many of his friends die, or be maimed, he know must traverse a new reality, and find the steel within himself to be who he must be to survive. The third chapter in this tale will be forthcoming, however enjoy the second chapter. If you've not read the first chapter, it can be found here.

"What was that?" he exclaimed.

"What?" I asked, only realising the jolt had happened after I responded.

"I felt it," Garth said, "The whole room bumped."

"What do you think it was?" Tim asked.

None of us knew, but we hoped it was the start of the end of our captivity.  Whatever it was, for the first time since we had been locked up, it was a change to our situation not of our own making. We had been in our cell for weeks, during that time we had seen neither sight nor sound of anyone else, but the four of us here. We had been captured on the Reina del Mar, a luxury space cruiser, where we each of the four were labourers. With me were Chris (a good friend), and two others, Tim and Garth, who I wasn't that well acquainted with. I think, had things worked out differently, all four of us would have had a bond for life having shared the same hell.

If we thought that jolt was somehow exciting, half an hour later we practically jibbering hens as sirens went off.

"What is it?" we asked in various forms, as if more information would be revealed by repeatedly asking.

The siren paid us no heed though, it just kept going. It was a klaxon noise, a high pitched noise, followed two lower pitch noises.

It was Garth who recognised it first.

"It’s a docking alarm," Garth said, feeling a bit of confidence from how we suddenly all gathered round him, he was now the centre of our group, the man with the information.

"Go on," we urged him.

"Well back on the Reina del Mar, I do some work in the cargo hold when we docked at stations. That sounds like the buzzer that was used when the cargo doors opened," he said proudly informing us. "We must have docked," he added.

"Wonder where we are?" Chris asked.

Garth just shrugged, he had given us all the information we had. It didn't stop us speculating, and for the next hour, in fact that’s all we did.

Our theories ranged from the rescue we all hoped for by one of the major navies of this area of space, to the less certain prospect of one pirate ship in battle with another, that was now being boarded.

We had no real ideas, until there was another jolt, this one was much heavier, and definitely involved our area of the ship. We had the sensation of being moved, (something you don't really feel on a ship, due to the inertial dampeners in place, and the gravity plating commonly employed on large ships), with the occasional sudden jolt. We were sent careening across the room one time at a sudden sharp jolt.

After that there was nothing, even the sound of the klaxon was replaced by silence. By now were tired, smelly, dirty, bruised, battered and hungry, Garth had a nose bleed from when he fell. We were completely miserable and would have done anything to escape - only there was absolutely nothing left to do, but wait.

As it was, we only had to wait an hour (as far as I could estimate), before there was activity once more. This time noises came from the door, a stiff cranking sound, followed by a hiss of depressurisation.

We all sat bat up right, staring at the door like an animal caught in the path of a ground car, the door opened slowly. There was a bright light outside, but we could see the silhouettes of two men stood in the door way.

"We got four more," a muffled voice cried out in English.

We didn't know if this was better or worse than our situation so far, we didn't care we all made to get up.

"Stay there, all of you," the voice said his hand held palm out, and then the two men stepped back and shut the door.

"What the hell is going on?" Tim exclaimed loudly. Garth ran to the door trying to push it, but it was already too late, the door was shut, and there was a hissing sound as it sealed.

We all gathered to discuss what had happened, we weren't alone anymore, there was someone out there - we just didn't know who or what they wanted.

We spent another night in the cell, or what passed for night anyway, before the door was opened again. We awoke with a start as the clanking came from the door. We gathered at the opposite end of the cell, deciding it was better to be a united front far from the door.

The light outside was bright again, but this time there was only one silhouette in the door.

He pointed towards us, "All of you step outside now," he said his voice thick with authority, despite the mask he wore.

We slowly stepped forward, somehow I ended up in the lead of the group as we stepped towards the door. The masked man stepped back, and slowly exited the cell into the bright light, after so long in the constantly dull lit cell, the light hurt our eyes, and we all winced, barely able to see anything, but eager to after the drab grey walls that had been our only view other than each other and faecal matter.

I was shoved roughly back towards a wall, and instinctively knew I was to stay there, the others were pushed next to me, in a line.

"By Gods we have some smelly ones, I've seen mutant swamp rats of Ogle more hygienic then these fucks," a voice from further back in the light shouted, his accent thick, but unrecognisable to me. As my eyes adjusted, I saw he was glad in a black chemical suit, like the man who had brought us out of the room, he wore a similar mask too.

"Yeah well, let’s get'em cleaned up, they're no good to us like this," the first man said. He took several steps back away from us, we looked at each other uncertainly.

"Fire in the hole!" the man with the strange accent shouted excitedly. Suddenly a powerful stream of water hit us, full force pushing us back against the wall behind us. It was freezing cold, and I tried to avoid it, but the spray followed me, sending me sprawling, and pinning me against the wall still.

It was a brutal experience, and we were cold and sore afterwards, yet at the same time I was kind of grateful, it was the first time in a long time I wasn't covered in our own faecal matter. Small pleasures, as I have learned, are massive when there is no pleasure to be had.

"Right," the first man said, his voice a more recognisable Anglo one, I guessed he was from the Orion sector, having heard a similar accent from a trader near where I grew up. "He threw bags at us," and pointed at them, "Put those on."

We opened up the bags in front of us, inside there was some grey overalls, we eagerly stripped, and put on the fresh clothing, even though we were still wet from the water blast, it was an amazing comfort to be wearing clean clothing. I was starting to feel a bit more human, the hunger gnawing at me took a back seat for a little while, and the tiredness seemed to stay at bay.

None of us had said anything yet, all of us were silenced by a mix of fear and wonderment at all this going on. I knew we should say something, ask something, so I stepped forward, nervously.

"Excuse me," I said on the third time of trying to get noise to leave my throat, "W-Where are we?" I finally managed to ask.

The mask turned towards me, I could see his eyes, through the mask, they were the brightest blue I had ever seen, and they were cold, and impassionate.

"Move back to the others," his muffled voice commanded, and I felt I had no choice but to do as I was told.

We were walking from an immense room, I looked back at where we were coming from, and it was like a huge block of metal. My mind tried to process what was going on, but to no avail - the block of metal did not seem like a ship in its own right, besides the doors had opened straight into this huge area, (which in my inexperienced wisdom I took to being too large for a ship), so all I could imagine was our prison had been moved from ship to this cavernous room.

It was easily ninety feet high, metal was everyone, storage crates were in constant motion along beams of metal stretching as far as I could see. Glow orbs floated about here and there giving scant illumination to this huge space which seemed to absorb light like a starving man ate bread.

We were walked for at least twenty minutes, until we came to a squat building, about eight feet high, and at least thirty feet across, there were two large doors, easily ten feet long each, and a smaller door in between the two. I believed it to be a lift of some sort, and was proved correct as the doors opened by a click of a device in the blue eyed man’s hand.

The other man shoved the group of us forward, pushing on the two at the rear. I went into the lift with a very rational fear, our troubles started last time we were in a lift.

I doubt it is the manly thing to do, to admit fear, but in mitigation I was just X years old, I think,  inexperienced in space, but for a few months as a labourer, captured and tortured worse than any I prisoner I had ever heard of at that point in my life.

Once the lift doors closed, we stood in silence, I don't remember what floor the blue eyed man press, but we were moving upwards, and it was either very slow, or very far. I couldn't tell.

We reached our destination, with a shudder, it was a mechanical lift utilising heavy pulleys and weights, rather than the pneumatic system aboard much of our star liner. This place we were in had to be pretty old, though the lift itself looked remarkably in decent order.

Once the doors opened, we were ushered out into a large corridor that got wider, splitting into a v at the end.

"Right, you boys, you walked down there," the blue eyed man said pointing, "Don't run, don't make a noise, don't misbehave," he stated almost as if talking to children.

We didn't say a word, and followed the instructions, somehow it seemed better than the alternative, though the blue eyed man had never given an "or else", to let us know what punishment we faced.

As we walked past the splitting wall, the corridor angled to the left, behind us there was a whoosh sound as a glass panel descended from the roof. We looked back, each of us noting it with the awful recognition of recent experience. We mulled around in front of the glass partition, for a few moments until the second of the two men who had been with us since leaving our cell, ran up and kicked at the glass. We quickly ran forward, in fear.

"What's going on?" Chris cried out as we ran down the corridor, "What are we doing here?"

“Just move,” I said prodding him on, though I’d slowed to walking pace, he had stopped.

“I don’t like this,” he said walking alongside me.

“I can’t think why,” tired and afraid I resorted to sarcasm, it was, and still is one of my many vices. It shut Chris up, I wanted to say sorry, but I didn’t, we just followed the corridor. The corridor changed direction into a new corridor, the walls here were grey, and doors lined either side. We could see down to the end of a corridor, we stopped, confused.

“Look,” I said, pointing further down the corridor, “That door’s open.” I started off towards it, somehow the fear had left me, and as I set off, the rest of the group followed me.

I stopped at the door and looked in, inside were nine bunks, stacked in lots of three. Inside were already four people, I entered.

“Oh my,” said one of the incumbents, “Newbies.”

Everyone behind me stopped, suddenly wary of new people, especially the man that talked. Everyone else in the room was roughly my age, give or take a few years, the man though looked to be in his thirties. He wore dark overalls, compared with whites and greys that we wore, and the three other boys in the room.

I walked right up to him, I think by this point I had completely run out of fear, I held out my hand, “My name’s Arsène.”

“Well, Arsène, my names Peter,” he said gripping mine. “Welcome aboard the good station Dangaus Atstumas.”

“The what?” I asked, this wasn’t a language I was familiar with. While Peter and I were talking, the others of my group entered the room. As the last one entered, the door slammed down. I spun around.

“Don’t mind that,” Peter said warmly, “Just security making sure we don’t go roaming. They don’t like having to tenderise the merchandise,” he added.

“The what?” I asked for the second time in a minute.

“You boys no idea whats going on?” Peter asked, he gestured to the empty bunks.

“No, sir,” Chris behind me said. I approached the nearest empty bunk to Peter and sat down.

“We’ve just got here,” I said, hiding the origin of our arrival. Even at that age, in the situation I found myself in, I realised information was power, and a commodity to be carefully traded.

“Well, you boys be on the Dangaus Atstumas, it’s in the Lithuanian quarter Horologium system,” he said. “It’s not a good place for boys to be,” he said sombrely. The other boys that had been with him when we arrived were shaking their heads.

“Can’t be any worse than the hell we’ve already been through,” Garth stated.

“Well that depends,” one of the boys that had been here when we arrived said. He was quite lanky, I guessed he was a couple of years beyond my fifteen, he had sandy hair, shoulder length, though it could have been longer it was well knotted as if not cared for. “You could end up anywhere, with anyone, you hear stories, you know?” he asked redundantly, because we genuinely didn’t know.

“Don’t be frightening the poor boys,” Peter said chastising the boy.

“They oughtta know,” the boy said.

“Aye, that they do –but let me tell them,” Peter said sternly.

“Well gid on wit it,” another boy said from the bunk above Peter.

“Forgive the boys, we been here a while now, they’re a bit impatient, and though not a one will admit it, a bit afraid,” Peter said, glancing at the one above.

The sandy haired boy scoffed.

“First of all, I guess we should introduce ourselves,” Peter said, gesturing to the four original boys. “As I said, my name’s Peter, Peter Bickle, Earth born,” he said ‘Earth born’ with the scent of pride all Earth born said. It’s not so common these days, but back then, it was somehow fashionable to Earth born, celebrities, politicians would make a move to the Earth briefly so their child could have a dual nationality birth certificate, especially those from French systems, since Earth was in French controlled space.

Peter tapped the bunk above him, gesturing to the boy who had told him to get on with it, I guessed him to be about my age, though he was relatively short for his age. “I’m Connor Wilde,” he said, then added, “Of Caelum.” I had heard of Caelum, it was a called a nationless system, because no particular nationality had colonised it, it had offshoot colonies and space stations of most of the major, and some of the minor nations.

The sandy haired boy spoke next, “Charlie Desnos, of Epsilon Eridani c,” I definitely knew of Epsilon Eridani c, it was my home planet, back before I’d taken off as a labourer with a cruise ship.

I smiled at him, “I’m from Epsilon Eridani c too,” I said.

“Northern hemisphere?” he asked, and then continued before I could answer, “I’m from the south, though my parents were from Triomphe in the north.” That explained why he didn’t have a French accent. Most of Epsilon Eridani was French, though on my own planet, a large chunk of the southern hemisphere was home to Anglo-Saxon colonies.

“Yeah, I’m from the north, Pôle Nord,” I said answering his earlier question.

“Cool,” he said.

The last of the original boys was sat on the top bunk of the three that Peter was sat on, he looked down but didn’t speak. I felt he was younger than me, yet at least my height, he was quite solidly built, but his eyes looked like those of a child’s, frightened yet naive.

Peter caught my glance, “That’s Terry, he doesn’t say much, well actually he doesn’t say anything,” he said as way of explanation.

“How do you know his name?” Garth asked.

“We don’t, I named him, figure if a guy can’t have anything else, he should at least have a name,” Peter said with a warm smile.

“Well, guess it’s our turn,” I said gesturing to the others of our group, “I’m Arsène Frassin, of Epsilon Eridani c,” I nodded my head towards Charlie Desnos.

“I’m Chris Garland,” Chris said sitting up a bit straighter, “From Gordman Station in the Alpha Leporis system.”

Garth spoke up next, “I’m Garth Bruch,  from Epsilon Eridani b.”

“I’m Tim Murail, also of Epsilon Eridani b,” Tim stated.

“Well plenty of you Epsilon boys,” Peter said.

“Seems so,” I responded, then I got serious. “Now tell us whats happening here,” it wasn’t a question.

“Well,” Peter said, stalling now, he seemed to rally though, “Listen, we’re a friendly sort. We’ve all been in this room for at least a month now. We’ve also been round this system a bit. If you’re as new as you seem, whats to come is really bad news.”

“Like Chris said, we’ve already been through hell, while you’ve been enjoying the comforts of this clean room, we’ve spent weeks covered in piss and shit, we’ve had nothing but the very basic sustenance, and that ended up mixed in with the piss and shit. We didn’t have bunks, didn’t have anything but shit covered floor. We didn’t even get a window, like you have in the door there,” I said exploding, annoyed at having not got answers from people that obviously had them.

“Hey, calm down, I’m,” he glanced back at the others who were sat stone faced, “We’re just worried about you. This isn’t the easiest of lives, we’re all prisoners here, waiting slavery.”

“Slavery?” Chris asked.

“Yeah, there are three main trades on Dangaus Atstumas, drugs, banks, and slavery. So yes, you are now all slaves, slaves waiting masters,” Peter said solemnly.

I sank back in to the thin mattress of my bunk. I had no words, but in all honesty, at the time it didn’t seem all that bad compared with what we’d been through.

“So what does that mean?” Garth asked.

“It means, no one knows where we’ll end up,”  Charlie said. “It means whatever you’ve already been through, could be heaven compared with where you’ll end up.”

“I doubt that,” Chris said, over the years I’ve known Chris to be a twisted optimist, as far as he was concerned whatever came next would be better than what came before, and if something were worse, it wouldn’t count, it was just a reset of the bar. I came to admire that philosophy when times got tough, but back then it kind of grated on me.

“Right,” I said sitting up again, “Right now it’s an unknown,” settling the matter. “I, I guess none of us, know much about slavery,” I saw Connor’s eyes light up, I sized him up to be a sarcastic bully, so I immediately cut off whatever sniping comment he was preparing to say, “Other than obviously it’s a life of servitude to some kind of owner.”

“Yeah, it’s that, slaves are owned, you could be bought to clean out the sewers of a vast city on one of the terraformed worlds, pretty much worse conditions than your transit, or you could be servants to some rich businessman, ruler, or celebrity. That would be your lucky outcome. You could end up servicing a ship, that would most likely be unfortunate,” Peter said, with a sigh.

“Why would servicing a ship by unfortunate?” Tim asked, naively. I wasn’t exactly the most experienced man in space, I had so far only been on two ships. However, I had heard stories back in my home town, whose main function was as a port, about conditions on ships travelling space. It was said some pirates would take young boys, just to use them as objects of lust – most ships of the type didn’t allow women aboard. I realised just how bad a life as a slave things could become.

No one answered Tim, and the silence told him all he needed to know, or enough anyway, his face went bright red.

“So yeah, not good news. I’m sorry,” Peter said with genuine feeling in his voice, as he broke the silence. The silence however immediately fought its way back, and we spent the next few minutes in silent consolation.

“So what happens now?” I finally asked, I’m not sure how long had passed, but I felt the silence was beginning to crush me.

“Well, we enjoy what we’ve got,” Charlie said. “We have a clean rooms, they come in once a week and clean them out, let us walk the corridors a bit, providing we don’t misbehave. Give us clean uniforms to get into, after they’ve washed us down. We get fed twice a day, and while it’s hardly pièces montèes, but it’ll keep you going.”

“Why?” I asked, after the way we had been treated getting here, and what we feared to come, this was living like princes.

“A clean, healthy slave sells better,” Connor said, with venom in his voice. It wasn’t aimed at us, it was aimed at the situation, I guessed.

“How did you all come to be here?”

“Pirates,” Charlie said, his face lost all cheer, obviously memories played through his mind, and they weren’t happy ones. After a few moments of contemplation, he continued, “Was travelling out from C with my family, Dad had just a got a job with the TransLat manufacturing company, and needed to spend a year at their headquarters, so we were all going. We only had a small craft, wasn’t much for the pirates to scoop us up. Separate us out. Kill my father, and then sell me to here.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Don’t know what happened to my mum, and our two sisters,” he said sombrely.

“Might be best,” Peter said, which seemed to me a ludicrous thing to say, but I held my tongue, by virtue of age, I guess we all accepted Peter was the leader.

“I was sold,” Connor said, there was a lot of anger as he spoke, but he didn’t elaborate further.

“No one knows about Terry,” Peter said, “As for me self, I’m here as forfeit for some unfortunate debts.”

“Unfortunate debts?” I asked.

“Well, you know how it is,” he said, then he looked at us, “Well guess nice clean kids like you probably don’t. Got  into gambling, never really got out – then folks call in your markers, and when you can’t pay – you either end up in little bits, or they sell you to slavers, to recoup some of the costs,” he said matter of factly, then added “Of course sometimes they do both,” he said holding up his left hand, his index finger was missing at the knuckle.

“What about you boys?” Charlie asked.

“Well, we were labourers on a space liner, I guess we got hit by pirates. We didn’t know much of what was happening, we got captured by a guy who shot any Hispanics with us, us four made a break for it, were captured and left in the filthy room for maybe a month. Before arriving here,” I said, as succinctly as I could.

“I’ve heard worse,” Connor said vehemently.

“The month in that room, there was nothing worse,” Chris said assertively. “Every day, on our own, no contact with anyone, the only food feed through a tube into a trough. Some kind of paste. No sanitisation – by the end most of the shit and piss we sat in, slept in was our own.”

“Hey, still heard worse,” Connor said combatively. “And hey, if you feel the need to relieve yourselves, there’s a tube there – save you shitting yourselves like apes,” he added vehemently.

All four of us labourers rose, Chris took a step forward, his hands in tight fists, I put my hand on his shoulder and tried to pull him back.

“Boys, boys,” Peter said standing up, holding his arms out, making sure it was visible that he was blocking the room, separating the boys. “Let’s not be fighting among ourselves, no way to spend however long we’ve got together.”

I succeeded in pulling Chris back to a bunk, but his eyes were flaming coals, their burn was aimed straight at Connor. Connor glared back, with equal heat.

“Listen, they’ll be round with food soon – let’s just make it through a meal, and see what happens after,” Charlie said.

Peter returned to his bunk.

“Okay,” I said.

We spent the first few days trying to remain in our groups, four to each group, those who had been aboard Reina del Mar, and those who had been in the room when we arrived. We would all come together for meals, though we careful to keep Connor and Chris separate. For their part, if the violence wasn’t so certain between the two of them, I would say they both needed enemy as something to focus on.

The meals themselves were brought to us on trays, usually there was some sort of meat, and  an assortment of veg. Basic stuff, but actually decent fare compared with the slop we were used to. The food was brought by two men in masks, it was usually the two that had cleaned us and brought us here from our first cell.

Peter explained some of the nature of the world we found ourselves in, the reason we were in such a decent room, and kept clean was as Connor had stated, to keep us healthy so we would sell better, we were also in quarantine, so that if we carried any diseases, it would only affect a small number of slaves. Diseases were rife in the sealed communities of space, and any disease could wipe out large numbers of people quickly. A slaver would be held accountable by those he sold to, or communities ravaged by plagues carried by slavers, if their slaves were responsible.

Slavery was, and still is, legal and acceptable by a large number of colonies and stations across the colonised galaxy, though all slaves had to sign themselves into slavery, as a matter of formality. We would be expected to sign such documents when we came to be sold, we wouldn’t be given a choice, sign or die.

Our slavers, though they may seem decent for the relative comforts we were provided, were by no means tender-hearted, this was just the way they conducted stock prior to selling.

As days turned into weeks, we lost the separation of the groups, as we came to know each other, we shared stories of our lives, talked of our hopes and dreams, ignoring the realities of where we found ourselves.

Charlie for example, had planned on studying to be a doctor, which I think would have suited him. To my mind, at the time he was the smartest of our group.

Connor eventually let slip more of his story, it turned out he had been sold by his father, after his mother had died. His father had turned to drink, and gambling, and to pay off his debts, he had sold his youngest son. Connor also told me, if he ever got the chance he would slit his father’s throat for the betrayal, and probably his brother, though he hadn’t decided. I could appreciate his anger, I felt similar anger for the brute that had taken us, and killed the Hispanics in our groups.

Peter was a decent sort, but I must admit, I did have my doubts about him, something just didn’t seem right. It was clear to me, that the young and old, male and female were kept separately in the slaving quarters aboard the station, so why was Peter, a thirty eight year old man, kept with teenage boys.

Over the time, Peter also coaxed us into revealing more about ourselves, our lives, what education and skills we had. We were a diverse group.

Tim was actually hoping to become an engineer, and had already spent most of his teenage years studying, he had taken up as a labourer purely to gain experience in space. He had studied at Eridani b’s engineering school for two years, his sole aim was to maintain and tune the great engines aboard a cruise liner. He knew the names of all the major ships touring the quadrant Epsilon Eridani was in.

Garth wasn’t nearly as ambitious, he just wanted to make a decent living, he came from a pretty poor section of Eridani b (which in my snobbish prejudice assumed that was most of it), and his family had spent most of their savings to send him across to Eridani c, so he could seek employment with a space liner. They considered it his best chance of making something of himself. Garth, I knew from our time on the Reina del Mar was adept at purchasing things, and selling them on for profit. A skill Peter encouraged, trading among slaves was just about the only way to find the scant comforts that were available. He warned Garth to be discrete though, lest he be made an example of.

Chris, like me, just wanted to work aboard ships, each of us dreamed of being captains of ships. It was fanciful, and daft, but we were both well educated, Chris was good with computers, my own skill lay in languages, and mathematics.

Connor didn’t really much care, his only goal was to survive long enough to have his revenge. He spent much of his free time working out, he was by far the fittest of us. If anyone joined him in exercising to pass the time, it quickly turned into a competition – a competition that no one else could win. There was a fire to Connor that drove him further than of us could hope to match.

As I mentioned, Charlie hoped to be a doctor, though he only had first aider training, Peter assured him that even basic medical knowledge would be a boon in the lives before us.

Peter never let slip much more about himself, when we inquired whether he had a family, or what kind of gambling games he’d played (in the hopes of him teaching us something to get out of the boredom), he would always change the subject.

My unease at Peter’s inclusion in our group grew, though I didn’t really define that feeling until we had been there nearly a month. We were being taken out of our room to be cleaned, which involved basins, and cloths and us washing ourselves (no such torture as when we had first arrived). I hadn’t really paid much attention, but Peter would always wash off to one side, near one of the masked men.

The fourth time we were to wash, I manoeuvred to be nearer to Peter, I couldn’t hear the conversation, there was too much noise from the over six enjoying themselves getting a wash to hear – but I felt for sure the two men, Peter and one of our keepers were talking together.

I seethed with the knowledge, I knew from the experience these masked men never indulged in conversation with us slaves, something had to be different about Peter. I bottled up the knowledge, and carried on washing. After our wash, as was normal we were allowed to have a walk down the corridors as the bedding was gathered from our bunks. When we got back, the men were standing outside, as normal, we re-entered the room, and the door closed behind us. We set about making our bunks with the fresh sheets we had been left. We already had fresh overalls from after we were cleaned.

A few hours later, the food was brought to us, and as we set about our traditional gathering, I decided to act upon the knowledge I gained.

“So Peter,” I said between mouthfuls of some unidentifiable grey meat, “What games got you into trouble?”

“Oh the usual,” he answered, “What kind of ship did you fancy being captain of one day?” he asked, his usual response to a personal question was to enquire about something of ourselves.

I was having none of it, “What about your family? What’s happened to them with you being sold to slavery?” I asked making no attempt to hide the fire in my voice. I had stopped eating, so had the others. They had picked up on something in what I was doing, and whether they shared my concerns or not, they were seeing how this went.

“Well families make do,” Peter said, caught off guard by the interrogation, his answers were halting.

“So you have a family?” I immediately asked.

“Well, that’s kind of a sore…”

I cut him off, “So you have a family?” I repeated my question.

“Listen what’s this about?” he asked me back crossly.

“I just want to know about your family,” I said.

“Well I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, his voice rising as he fought to control his temper.

“What did you do for a living?” I asked, not letting up.

“I was a gambler,” he answered. His answers were always the same, and I felt they were almost prepared answers.

“And where did you find the money to gamble? Wait, I know you were in debt – but surely you had a job to earn money to start off gambling, right?” I had given him his premade answer, now I was challenging him to tell more.

“You little shit,” he erupted rising up from the bunk he was perched, “What the fuck has gotten into you? I don’t want to fucking talk about it.”

“Oh but you take great delight in encouraging us tell you all about our lives,” I answered, rising up with him, I fairly felt the air cackle with the righteous fire of my anger.

“I was just taking an interest in you…”

I cut him off again, realising something. “Our lives mean nothing to you,” I shouted back at him, “You’re more bothered about what we can do, what our skills our, what level of education we’ve had. Are you telling the masked men all about us?”

There it was, with all my suspicions out in the opening, the real truth was starting to form in my mind.

All the anger immediately left Peter with the question, suddenly there was fear in his eyes, “I w-wouldn’t do such a thing, I’m as much their prisoner…”

“You’re no prisoner,” I said angrily. The other boys had all risen from their bunks, and were lined up next to or behind me, we were an inquisition, righteous beholders of the truth, against the accused. “You’re no prisoner,” I repeated, “You’re no slave, you’re here to evaluate us, decide how best to sell us, right?” I challenged him.

As one, we took a step forward, we were now just an arm’s length from Peter,  though I couldn’t see the others, I felt as though their anger was equal to mine.

I was wrong, Connor jumped forward grabbing Peter. No one’s anger would ever equal that boy, and now he had a real enemy to vent it upon, a traitor in our midst.

Thump, thump, repeatedly he punished Peter with his fists. We stood back as Peter cried out in pain, begging for mercy, we didn’t care, and Connor heard none of it, he just continued to punch the prone Peter on the floor.

The door opened, but we hardly seemed to notice, until three men piled into the cramped room, one pushed as back to the wall furthest from Peter and Connor. We watched as one of them kicked Connor in the room. I tried to surge forward to come to Connor’s aid, but I was downed by a club to the stomach. I was incapacitated, by the shock, the batons were designed to stun a man with impact, and then an electrical shock.

I could only watch, as one man dragged Peter out bloody and prone, and the other beat on Connor.

Connor didn’t give up though, he was fighting back, until his assailant hit him across the head with a baton.

“Stay down, you little fuck,” the muffled shout came from the masked man.

“And you little fucks stay there,” the man holding us back said. I was just starting to recover my legs after the shock, and was pulling myself to my feet, I was hit again by the baton, this time in my legs, already shaky, they collapsed beneath me, leaving me on the floor, groaning in pain.

The two men followed the third and Peter  out of the door, and it sealed shut.

A voice came from the intercom, “Enjoy your little insurrection boys, you’ll be up for sale tomorrow.”

I felt hands helping me up, and dragging me towards a bunk, I turned to the side, and saw Chris and Charlie doing the same for Connor. Charlie did his best to give Connor a once over with what limited knowledge he had that would help in the situation. Connor for his part was unconscious, otherwise, I reckon he would be trying to beat down the door to finish what he had started.

Garth, and Tim were trying to ascertain how badly I was hurt – but I had problems speaking, it was almost as if my vocal chords were frozen. It was one of the most frustrating hours of my life as I realised I was paralysed, I wanted to speak, I wanted to move, but I could do neither. Fortunately it wore off, as irony goes, once it did, all I wanted to do was sleep.

We only had a limited sense of time in our imprisonment, when it was night the lights in the corridor dimmed, we were fed at lunch time, and then again an hour before the lights outside dimmed. Once a week we were taken out and cleaned, and allowed to stretch our legs. I had no idea what time it was when I finally woke up, but the lights were at full strength outside our little door window, and everybody else but Connor was awake, talking in whispers.

“You’re awake,” Chris stated as he saw me sit up.

“Yep, though kind of wish I was still asleep,” truth be told I hurt, badly, and felt like I wanted to be sick. I was suddenly glad I hadn’t eaten much before the drama the evening before.

“We were just talking,” Garth said.

“What are we going to do?” Tim asked.

“Like I said before,” Chris said with a sigh, “There’s nothing we can do. Unless you think you can squeeze down that thing,” he said pointing to the sewage tube we used for our toilet.

“They said we’re going to be sold today,” Garth stated, “Is that it? It’s all over?”

I just groaned and sank back into the bunk. I guess I fell asleep for a bit, well I know I did, because I was awaked with a shake.

“It’s me, Chris,” he said in so loud whispers he may have well have spoken normally.

“Yes?” I responded, trying to shake the sleep from myself as I raised myself up to sitting again.

“They’ve not been to feed us?” Garth chimed in, before Chris could answer.

“How long has it been?” I asked.

“A few hours we reckon, past when they’d normally feed us,” Chris answered.

I groaned again, but this time I didn’t give in to the urge to fall asleep.

“So whats the plan?” a weak whispered voice asked. I looked over,  Connor was up, and using the wall for support, the pain was obvious in his face, as much as the huge bruise covering his forehead.

I thought about it for a few moments, as everyone looked to me expectantly.

“I don’t know,” I finally answered. They seemed to deflate some. I think that was the first time, I ever felt like an actual leader, the thought came because I realised they were looking to me for answers, and all I could do was disappoint them. “I guess it means we’re to be taken out of here soon. Probably get fed just before they take us to be sold, or just after,” I reasoned, though it offered no improvements of fortune than not having any answer.

“We could fight them,” Garth offered.

“To what end?” Connor answered, “We’re on a space station, no one really knows where, none of us can fly a ship – and let us not forget they have weapons, and there’s probably more of them than us, oh yes, and let’s not forget they deal with people like us for a living.” It was an unlikely source of countenance to violence as a plan, but I couldn’t fault his logic. I hated him a little right then for being so right, even as I knew it would have been my answer to.

“We wait,” I said, “We don’t know what the future holds, it may not be so bad, but it’s probably worse than we’ve suffered so far – but remember, we have survived everything this universe has thrown at us. We have lived in depravity, caged like animals – no worse than animals, felt betrayal, and been beaten. We’ve been through two months of hell – but we’re here. We’ll survive whatever is next.”

I took a deep breath, and braved the pain in my abdomen from where I was hit and got out of my bunk.

“You really think it’s going to be worse?” Tim asked, meekly.

“Yes, probably. I don’t think our lucks going to change so easily,” I could see both Tim and Garth were on the verge of tears as the fear of the unknown tore through them, “But know this, all of you – I intend on changing that luck. I may not be able to do it today, I may not be able to do it for a decade, but I will get myself out of this shithole of a life I’ve found myself in. I don’t know how, I don’t know where, but I know I will.”

“If you do, and we’re not separated, I’ll be right there beside you,” Charlie said rising from his bunk.

“Your fucking nuts,” Connor called from his bed, then he tried to push himself forward from the wall. It took a couple of tries, but eventually he was standing, using the bunks above as support as wavered, “But hell, can’t beat the fucking insane, count me in.”

“Thanks, I think,” I said. “I didn’t say what I said though as a call to arms,” I tried to explain, “I doubt we’ll be sold together.”

“Nah, Peter said they sell slaves in job lots – only way to make money, unless a particular slave is good enough to sell alone. If we have any good fortune, I reckon we’ll be sold together, count me in,” I was stunned, it was Terry that said it. His voice was a bit uncertain, like he didn’t use it much, and in the time I’d known him he hadn’t used it at all.

“Well, I guess so. Peter was here to find out about us, and acclimatise us to life as slaves,” I said, “Maybe you’re right Terry.” I felt just the smallest sliver of hope enter my soul. It occurred to me to ask Terry something, “What is your name?”

He just shrugged.  It was almost as if I dreamed he’d spoken.

“Well I guess you know I’m in,” Chris said.

“Us too,” Garth said gesturing to Tim and himself.

For the next hour we chattered among ourselves, I saw Chris and Connor off to one side, talking and shaking hands. We had found a common enemy, a Judas in our ranks, and now we had a common purpose – one month in and our divisions as a group were now completely gone.

For the second time in my life, and in the second time in a few hours I reflected on what it was to be a leader – I hadn’t sought leadership, I just said what I felt. However, I realised leadership was two things, the power to crush those who didn’t follow you, and to raise up those who did. These processes aren’t separate, you did one then the other, which is how you get people to follow you. It is a philosophy that I have utilised all my life, only I got better at it with experience.

Before those few hours, I don’t really think I fully existed as an individual. It was only after our own personal battle, and coming together as a unit, did I truly believe I had become a man, a whole person in my own right.

It may not seem much to those reading this account of my life, but I truly believe that in those few hours I was recast from a boy into a man. Though the road was long and rocky, I guess for all I curse captivity, and life as a slave – I will never lose what I gained. All the punishments, the back breaking work, the fights, the menial labour never could rob me of what those few hours gave me. I believe it was the same for each and every one of us that shared that cell aboard Dangaus Atstumas.

Arsène Frassin

Summary: This is the first instalment in a regular series I am trying to create, set some five hundred years in the futures, it follows the trial and tribulations of one man as he tries to survive in a hostile galaxy. In the process, he will become a famous pirate with a cause, a corsair. However, we’re not there yet, first we must learn where our intrepid anti-hero comes from, this first chapter is about his launch into space, and the terrifying consequences of his reach for the stars. The second chapter in this tale will be forthcoming, however in the meantime enjoy this opening salvo of what will hopefully be a long and fulfilling tale.

I don't know who will read this or why, maybe it will make this humble man famous, and infuriate those that mean my end. I do not know. I can only hope, a true account of my life leaks out, and pisses off those that seek to vilify me, more than my due anyway. In small acts of vengeance a wrong man can find comfort I guess.

I sit here writing this in relatively sanitary conditions, (compared with some of my other experiences), a prisoner of corruption and criminals, you probably know the type, the ones that style themselves as "leaders of men", the governments of this galaxy.

If this is the end, it’s been a hell of a life, and I wanted to tell my side of it.

My name is Arsène Frassin, formerly of Pôle Nord, Epsilon Eridani c.

I was born there sixty-four years ago, in the Spring of 2522 (or 392PC depending on where you’re from). My father was a bureaucrat, a port accountant, my mother a store clerk at our town's OriMart (a retail wholesaler). You might think, given the account of my life I am about to retell, I would have had a hard, or repressive childhood, but actually it was okay, until I ventured into space. I went to a middle of the road school, nothing fancy, but efficient, well meaning, and thorough, did well enough academically, though I would say that it left me completely unprepared for the realities of life – there are some things I have learnt you just can’t teach, but I wish they could have.

On our town habitat on Eridani c, near the poles (appropriately named Pôle Nord as I mentioned), most of the business and job opportunities revolved around trade, transport and administration. Areas near the poles are the easiest and most efficient to land ships, and have them take off again after. Even with the relatively light atmosphere and gravity of our small planet, this was important. My first job was with the warehouse retailer where my mother worked, however I soon found it wasn't the career for me. I tried to join the local civil service, however times were tough and they weren't employing, despite my father’s position (which was recognised for its importance). Staying in our home city was limiting, it was a specialised place, however all my life I had watched ships land and take off, ships that had drifted among the stars themselves, travelling from world to world, across vast distances.

That I knew, back then, was what I wanted to do. I wanted to sail through the vastness of space, see alien worlds, and become one with the stars. I really did describe it as such back then, the wonders of youth, the poetical vision. I could have sought employment in other areas of our world, my education was good enough to apprentice in a number of positions, but space filled my vision and my dreams.

The following year I was old enough (15) to accept a commission aboard a star liner, and I signed up straight away. Star Liners were huge ships, carrying masses of people, and tonnes of cargo, and they were always hiring. I was to be a cleaner, I reasoned, being smart, and eager I would quickly rise up the ranks, and such a lowly position wouldn’t hold me for long, so it didn’t matter as long as I was sailing. Again the wonders of youth at such an innocent view of life, optimism abounded as I ventured into unknown waters.

I had only a week to get ready after signing up before I was to leave aboard the behemoth ship. I bid my farewells to my family, travelled round, having meals with relatives that I wouldn't see again for four years (which was a "season", or the standard length of a single term commission aboard space craft back then).

The ship I was commissioned on was the Norstel Spaceways deluxe cruiser Reina del Mar, which was only a moderate size ship, but of opulent quality for its high fare paying guests, and more than big enough to make my eyes bulge as I watched out through a scope hovering in space as its shuttles ferried back and forth.

After a life time of living in a sparse trade town and port, it was like walking through a dream. It was hard work, but the following few months went very quickly. In hindsight, these were probably the most content days of my life. My duties were usually cleaning, the upper decks of the ship were a constant battle to beat the wear and tear of so much footfall, the higher the decks the greater the expectation of the fare paying passengers that everything would be perfect. I had a certain sense of pride in what I was doing, though us labourers would never be acknowledged for the work we did, every time some overstuffed rich man or woman strode down one of my corridors marvelling at the perception – it was my hard work they were admiring.

With sadness and fortuity, these months came to an end. It was a September, in 2536, pirates had recently moved into the shipping lanes between Achemar to Phoenix solar systems, after a redeployment of a French base further towards Earth. The cruise liner had just dropped from light speed to an empty region of space, about four days out from Achemar.

Everything seemed normal, the captain was recharging the capacitors that gave the ship the ability to transcend the light barrier, the crew were going about their duties, knowing that in the evening (ship time), they would have some free time to laugh and relax. I was busy cleaning deck 32c, which was a corridor between some of the mid-range quarters and the dining hall, I could hear the afternoon opera wafting through the corridor, easing the burden of work slightly.

Within in an hour or two, the hopes of time to relax were dashed, a sound I had only heard a handful of times before in drills broke through the ship. The klaxons warning of a collision.

There were three labourers in the corridor with me, we were in the most luxurious area of the ship, and it was our duty this week to keep the expensive red carpets, both expensive looking, and red. We all looked at each other, panic started to work its way through our expressions - but only slowly, we each half wondered if this were some sort of drill. We had never known an unannounced drill; it was bad for passenger satisfaction, if there free time was rudely interrupted.

Indeed some very upset passengers were starting to enter the corridors, myself and the other labourers dodged questions, and headed forward with the crowd. Everyone wanted answers, everyone felt they deserved answers more than anyone because of the amount they had spent to travel aboard the luxury liner, and many were offering to pay us for information. We took some of the money and scampered with broken words of reassurance, after all labourer’s wages weren't very much, and we doubted in the confusion anyone would be fingering us for such a minor crime.

The panels midway up each wall of every corridor were directing passengers and crew towards the emergency airlocks. Crowds of people gathered around the emergency airlock on the deck we were on, hanging outside, waiting on instructions. We waited with them.

The klaxon suddenly shut off, which only multiplied the confusion, as no one knew if we should be getting into the pods, and who would activate the airlocks if we needed to be in them. I didn't understand what was going on, there were none of the senior crew members around, there should be several supervising the pods, whether it was a real emergency or not.

Then there was a hum as the corridor speakers came online.

"Ladies and gentleman, and all crew members," the Captains voice boomed. The Captain was a portly man, but he had a voice that seemed as deep as the rumble of the engines themselves, and it carried well across the PA system. "It is with deep regret that I address you know, however I want you to listen carefully. Firstly, there is no reason to panic. If we all remain calm everything will be fine," he said, there was an edge a nervousness about his deep voice, however all the same it was comforting for me to hear amid the chaos of the people gathered round the airlocks to the emergency pods.

"Secondly, I would like to ask everyone to return to their assigned rooms and bunks, this is very important. Please make your way back. We will be in contact shortly with more information," there was a click as the transmission ended.

Everyone stood in silence, staring at one another, none knowing what was going on, several dived for the escape pods, though these weren't yet active, so they were just hitting the door open button, and nothing happened. Most people filtered back through the corridors chattering loudly, each offering a question, or a theory about what was going on.

The labourers all started heading in the opposite direction, back towards the elevators that would take us down to the crew quarters, in the lowest part of the habitable decks. The ship, though small for its class still had thirty-five decks, so it took a dozen seconds for the elevator to descend to our deck, however when it reached our deck, we felt it halt but the doors did not open.

I looked around as confused as anyone else in the elevator, we were all fairly young, mostly teenagers, and a couple in their early twenties. There were about twenty of us. I knew most of them by sight, but only knew the names of a few – if I remember rightly, the ship carried nearly fifteen hundred crew, of which five hundred were labourers such as myself.

"Why won't the doors open?" Craig asked panicked. Craig was a shortish lad, with sandy hair, about my age, he was in the bunks next door to mine, though he was Anglo, he seemed to spend most of his time with us French speakers from the Epsilon system.

Chris was tapping the buttons on the elevator console, trying to get any sort of reaction. Chris  was one of my fellow bunkmates, and a good friend, so I knew him pretty well. He was a scant inch taller than me, with fully black hair (mine at the time was a dark brown), he was very lanky though, being of a more cerebral mind than most labourers who built up their muscle mass scrubbing and cleaning.

I looked over at what he was doing, but the console was dark, for all intents and purposes it was dead. "I don't understand," he declared, as he resorted to hitting it.

The violence was starting to have a reaction, but on us, not its intended victim. Frustration built, panic spread. I could see it happening around me, could feel my own ire building, as Chris's did, I grabbed him pulled him away from the console.

"Calm down," I said, trying to be as assertive as possible.

"Sorry, Ari," Craig said, taking deep breaths. Ari was my nickname aboard ship, even though many of the labourers came from my home system of Epsilon Eridani, and were French speakers like me, in space the common language was Anglo-Saxon English, I didn’t really mind, there were worse abbreviations of my name in English.

"How do we get out of here?" a Hispanic voice behind me said, I didn't see who, I knew three of my fellow crew in the elevator with me were Hispanic, but I didn't really know them all that well. The Reina del Mar passed through many territories, and picked up and dropped off crew as it needed to, there were many tribes of languages aboard, and for the most part each tribe consorted with its own tribe, having a shared language made for close knit groups - it wasn't antagonistic though, we each got along when on duty, and at crew occasions, it was simply in my few months aboard, I had stuck with French and English speakers, as I learned my way. I actually got on well with most of the crew aboard, I spent much of my years in education learning language, including Spanish.

I tried to pry the doors open, though as it turned out it was pointless. Elevators aboard big ships were air tight tubes, in case any deck was compromised by the cold vacuum of space. If the doors didn't open, they never would. There were probably emergency procedures for opening the doors, but they weren’t common knowledge, it was better to wait for an engineer to get to you, it had happened to me a couple of weeks back when there had been a fault, if the doors hadn’t lined up, there might not be a proper seal with the deck airlock.

We heard yells from outside the elevator, then a sound none of us were familiar with, it was like a series of thuds and muted bangs, followed by muffled screams.

We each looked frightened, none of us said a word, we dare not make a sound, we had no idea what was going on.

We were stuck in the lift for several hours, the sounds from outside moved further and further away, until they became so silent as to seem to no longer exist. However our problems still multiplied. Most of us were tired, hungry, and thirsty. The crisis had started near the end of our shifts, so we had been looking forward to food from the crew galley. Instead all we had between us were some small fruit, and a chocolate bar. The money several us had had foisted upon us, which was the official explanation we were giving each other, meant absolutely nothing in our present situation, though some bartering for the chocolate bar did go on.

Several hours more passed, we spent most of it sleeping, there was nothing else to do. We were awoken though, by the sudden sound of the doors opening, the hydraulics giving a whoosh, and the hiss of the air seal being broken.

"Wot 'ave we 'ere?" a gruff voice said. I looked up, through the haze of waking, to see a giant blocking most of the eerie red light from the corridors. The light inside the elevator wasn’t very bright, leaving just the mountainous silhouette.

All of us stayed where we were, afraid to rise, afraid to move, because none of us knew this man, he wasn't among any of the crew that we knew. I could sense this from every ones reactions, and of course no one greeting him by name, things are more obvious in hindsight than they were in the moment.

"Cum' on," he gestured for us to leave with his arm, waving it back towards the corridor, and then he stepped back to make room for us to pass. I looked out into the red lit corridor, there was a haze that shouldn’t be there, the air systems aboard the Reina del Mar quickly cleared smoke should there by a fire. In a closed environment such as ours, smoke was far more deadly than fire itself, suffocation was a terrifying prospect, nearly as much as sucking vacuum. I couldn’t see much else, I was fixated on the smoke, and the man that stood before us. As he stepped back, the red light lit up more of his detail, he was easily two meters tall, and big, it seemed at the time that his he must be most of a meter across. His grey and black hair seemed to be crawling out wildly from beneath a leather cap, and his beard was patchy, as if it couldn’t grow across large parts of a his face.

We didn't move, didn't dare move. His face reddened, "Cowards huh?" he said in a gravely whisper, "Tae the last man, eh?" he said, pulling from his side a monstrous looking pistol.

We started to rise, slowly, Craig though remained on the ground, he was whimpering. He had panicced before, I guess he had little tolerance for any situation out of the normal, and now we were in a terrifying no man’s land, to which none of us had been before.

"Aye, we'll be 'aving nae cowards," he pointed the pistol at Craig.

I bent down to Craig and tried to lift him up, but he stubbornly refused to move, I panicked myself, afraid for him. I kicked him, not hard, but enough to get his attention. He pushed my leg, and I went sprawling, and landed hard, the air knocked out of me. In the lower decks, gravity tended to be higher than Earth norm, because it was closer to the gravity plates that provided gravity to the whole ship.

"Remember boy," the gruff man said with menace, "T'wasn't me, that sends ya to ya maker," then he fired, I remembered the noise, it wasn’t a bang like you got on television with air popper guns, this was a screech. This I later learned was a sonic gun. Craig’s head exploded, blood and splatter was everywhere. Everyone screamed, and tried to make a break for it, the man put his left arm out, which wasn't holding the pistol, and blocked us from leaving. His right arm pointed the gun into the midst of those huddling to get out of the elevator.

"T'wasn't me, that sends ya to ya maker," he repeated slowly, almost softly, "T'was yer own choices," then he turned down to look at the remaining twelve labourers, "T'won't be forgetting that will ya?" he asked.

Every one of us stood stock still, unaccustomed to violence, and the threat of it that this stranger poised.

"Now, line up outside in da corridor, against da wall," he said with malevolent assertiveness, that and the threat of his gun were undeniable. Meekly we did what we were commanded to do.

"Nah, let’s be 'aving yer names," the terrifying mountain of a man said.

He went down the line, pointing the gun at each of us, and we gave him our names. I do not now recall of the names of our entire group, however I can never forget three such names. Their names, and their faces, and what happened after are forever seared into my brain.

I had already given my name, being three places in from the left, the man had started from the left, about five places, were the three Hispanic boys.

The man pointed his pistol at the first, "Name," he said.

"R-Rafael Balboa," he said, nervously, under the man’s glare, and Rafael visibly shrank as the scrutiny by the man became more intense.

However, he moved to the next Hispanic boy in line. He aimed the gun once again at the boy’s chest, "Name," he said. He wasn't really asking a question, he was simply stating an order.

"Juan Romero," the boy said, trying to keep his fear in check.  I will always remember him; he kept himself up right, and never shrank from the glare of the man. I think, he would have been a great man, if circumstances had been different.

The man moved on, "Name," he said, once more pointing the gun at the boy as he gave the order.

"J-J-Jason De la Vega," he stuttered, terrified.

The man stared at him for a few moments, "Español?" the gruff man asked.

"Sí", the boy responded.

"Ye 'ave an Anglo firs name?" the man inquired back in English once more.

"I-I," the boy stuttered, unprepared to be interrogated, none of the rest of us had been required to say anything beyond our names, "My mother was English," he said finally.

The man studied him for a few more seconds, and then moved on up the line.

After a couple of minutes, he had all of our names, he looked back down the line at us.

"Wot," he said loudly, then pausing, "Wot am I to do with ye?"

No one said a word, but we were all restless in our fear.

"Ye, ye, and ye," he said gesturing to Jason, Rafael, and Juan, "Git over dere."

Jason and Rafael stepped forward, but Juan hung back, I turned to look at him, and saw the panic in his eyes.

The gruff man reached a leather clad hand out and whacked the Hispanic boy across the side of the head, then grabbed him by the collar as he reeled and threw him into the other Hispanics.

"Do as ye told, all of ye," he shouted, then levelled the guns on the three Hispanic boys. He didn't say anything else, he just started shooting. It was all a bit of a blur, the shrieks of the gun merged into one, blood was everyone, everyone was screaming, and as one the crowd of boys bolted down the corridor, away from the massacre. I swear to you, to this day, the gruff man was aiming for their limbs one by one, but it all happened so fast, maybe I just append the cruelty on to his crimes.

As we approached the end of the corridor, we slowed no one knowing whether to go left or right at the T junction ahead, however as we slowed, people started falling and there were more screams, always preceded by the shriek of the gun which came from the gruff man’s pistol. The group split down both directions, I followed my friend Chris down the left hand corridor with six others.

In hindsight, it was pure chance, but following Chris is probably what saved my life, though in the months after I was never sure if that was a blessing or not.  I think in all my life, those few minutes were the most terrifying. They also, I think had a big hand in helping form who I would become.

It may seem like I'm short on details, it’s because I never really knew who the attackers were, who the gruff man was. It was nearly fifty years ago, and though I believe myself to be as sharp, mentally, as I ever was, some memories do fail me. I can make all sorts of excuses, but instead, I'll just recount what little I know of what happened afterwards.

After running left, we literally ran into a net, surrounded by a dozen men all laughing and pointing. There were four of us, and we were dragged in the net through the corridors of the ship to a docking port on the starboard side.

Then we were dragged through, a sudden drop in gravity made the journey through the dark rotten smelling corridors of a new ship only the smallest bit easier. Small reliefs are worth larger ones, I've learned in life.

We were dumped in a brig type cell, net and all, and simply left. The cell was probably a metre and a half wide, and eight meters long, and about three meters tall. It was actually larger than the more modest mid-ship rooms on board the Reina del Mar, though it felt cramped with eight of us in there, and the net.

The first two weeks in that hole passed excruciatingly slowly, and I skip over it because little happened to tell. There were four of us, myself, Chris, Garth, and Tim. We were all quite literally lost and confused, none of us had seen sight nor sound of another person since we had fled through the corridors of the Reina del Mar, and ran into the net that had brought us here. The closest thing to life outside the room we had come to was the slop that was pushed through an opening at the top of the door, which fed through a tube and landed in a trough further down where we could get to it. I don’t know what the slop was, I couldn’t identify any real taste, other than a slightly bitter after taste, and maybe some kind of milk substitute.

The first few days we had pleaded with the hole in the door that deposited our food, in the hopes of reaching anyone who was there. However no matter our pleas there had been no reaction.

We didn't know if there were more captives aboard, or if we were the only ones. We didn't even know who our jailers were, we had only seen the gruff man who initially captured us. None of us had seen those with the net that had grabbed us as we fled, it was just a blur. We had heard laughing, and mocking, and we had been kicked as the net was dragged through the rotten smelling ship, before reaching the squalid cell we now occupied.

"What are we going to do?" Chris whispered to me conspiratorially.

Chris and I had spent hours searching the whole of the cell. It had bland grey metal walls, completely smooth for the most part, where there was an access panel, it was nearly completely flush, and no amount of prying with our fingers would shift it. The room was tall as well, easily three meters in height, not that reaching the ceiling would have help us, the ceiling looked as uncompromising as the walls of the cell.

The only way in or out we could find was the door. It looked thick and heavy, though we hadn't seen it open, it was merely the feeling we had as captives. About a third of the way up the door (which stretched nearly to the ceiling from flush with the floor), was the trough which gathered the slop which came from the tube near the top of the door. Not all the slop landed in the trough, and around the door, after two weeks, the slop that had gathered there was a mix of fresh and fetid slop.

The slop however wasn't what made the cell squalid, there was no lavatory facility of any kind, we both urinated and evacuated in one corner of the six foot by seven foot cell, as far away from the food as possible, where it seemed others had done the same before us. Our sanitary problems were not contained to the corner though, two weeks was a lot of excrement to build up, and it was gradually travelling the floor, helped by our rotting shoes carrying it over the whole floor.

Our clothes were spoiled, back on the Reina del Mar, as labourers, we had worn simple white uniforms, with black belts. Now they were black and brown with the filth, as was any visible skin on any of the boys.

We slept in the middle of the room, wherever we happened to fall, we had long since given up on any kind of attempt at finding the cleanest, least squalid spot, it no longer mattered.

"What are we going to do?" Chris repeated his question, waking me from the distraction of my thoughts.

"Oh, sorry," I said gathering my wits, I found it very easy to kind of disconnect my brain, and look at things from an abstract perspective. It didn't do any good, but for a little it would feel less personal, like watching a reality show from a holovid terminal. "What can we do?" I said once I thought about it.

"I don't know," he said with a heavy sigh. "We have to do something though, we're going to die in here at this rate," he added.

"I doubt we'll die," I said with a certainty I did not feel, "Why keep us alive this long? They must want something."

"What though?" Garth said, sliding over.

"I don't know! Do I look like I've been out of this cell to find out?" I said snapping.

"Gee," Garth said sarcastically, "Who woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning," he added softening the mood a bit. We all giggled, there was little enough to laugh about, and it was easy to get stressed and snappy in the cell.

"Okay," Chris said, suddenly animated, "There's one place we've not checked yet."

"Where? We've looked across every wall centimetre by centimetre, we've tried the door, and we tried the ceiling," I said defensively, and then the realisation dawned on me.

"The floor," Chris said finishing my thought for me. "We checked most of it," he gestured to three quarters of the floor, "But we didn't check there," he said pointing at the refuse pile. The refuse pile, though small before we arrived. It was now large, and spreading, and we hadn't looked beneath the refuse, our pride had potentially cost us dearly.

"Must we?" Garth asked wrinkling his nose in disgust.

"Got anything better to do?" I asked.

"We're already filthy, and we'll probably catch some infection sooner or later anyway," Chris said arguing for his idea.

"This is going to be gross," Tim said sliding over, in the same manner Garth had.

"We need to do it," Chris said, "I don’t want to stay here much longer. Do you?"

"Chris is right," I said, supporting the idea. I desperately wanted out of the cell, and so far we had nothing. We could be here for years longer, for all we knew. We weren't truly sure how long we'd been here, there was no night and day cycle, the glow panels round the top of the wall were permanently on, giving off a duller than normal light. On the Reina del Mar, you could tell roughly the time of the day by how bright the corridor lights were – full brightness for day, dimmed lighting for the nights – and in the guest rooms there were viewing panes on the wall that should day and night scenery depending on the time of day.

We said no more words, no one argued against not doing it, everybody wanted out, and now it was a case of whatever it took. We had literally nothing to lose, but the smallest illusion of dignity. We approached the pile of piss, and shit with trepidation, no one wanted to be first, but Chris after a few moments of silence plucked up the courage and plunged his hands in and dragged the wet and loose top layer away. Over the next two hours we took it in turns, dragging more and more of the shit away, making a hole down to the bottom. The pile was about two foot deep, and as we get further down, the work got tougher, and as the refuse became harder with age.

Finally we reached the bottom, but it was just more of the metal, we didn't stop though, we had long since gone past the stage of gagging, so we made the hole bigger, and bigger, in the morning of the second day, after working shifts through the night, we finally found something. About two feet back from the corner we found the start of a grate. We dug furiously, and finally uncovered the whole thing. It was barely a foot square, but to us it was a massive triumph.

For a few minutes, we felt good, we had achieved something, though we had to ignore the state of the grate. It was obvious it was meant to be drainage, maybe some act of kindness towards prisoners long since forgotten. Looking into the grate it was solid with brown and black rotting faecal matter.

"Now what?" Garth asked dejectedly, maybe in the heat of the moment he actually believed we could find a way out of the cell. I didn't really believe it, but I must admit, I was betrayed by a sense of failure.

"We keep digging," Chris said, as he tried to pry up the grate, Tim began helping him. It took hours, amid the squalid filth, the smell that we could never quite become acclimatised to, but we managed to raise the grate.

We were tired, and we realised we had been working at the grate into what we considered our evening, and we also realised food had not been put through the slot in the door. None of us said anything, we didn't acknowledge the lack of food, we just carried on.

Maybe two days had gone by, we dug in shifts, two sleeping, two digging, with a few hours where we were all awake. We had long since finished the last of the slop in the trough on the door, and were getting hungry, but we didn't let that stop us, indeed we figured that we now had no choice if they had stopped feeding us. At the end of the two days, I think we had made it all the way down a foot through the filth. None of us had any idea how far down it was, but we continued anyway, survival drove us, pushing us past the stink, pushing us past our hunger, barely a word was spoken, we just got on with the job.

It was the morning of the third day, or what past for morning, when Garth and Tim started shouting and swearing. Me and Chris had been catching some sleep, and woke with alarm.

We enquired what was up.

"Look for yourselves," Garth said pointing.

We went over to our hole, and looked down, through the pallid browns we saw down three feet, and the grate our fellow captives had discovered.

"We're not getting out of here, are we?" Tim asked, dejected.

"We'll just have to move that grate," I said, not willing to surrender. It may have been little hope, but it was something to do, something to aim for, and we needed that. "I'll go down, and try to move it," I leant over the hole, it was now too deep to reach the bottom with my hands, so I shuffled myself over, and lowered myself down further. Someone grabbed my legs to stop me falling all the way into the hole.

I tried for several minutes to pry the grate loose, but lack of purchase wouldn't let me get a grip.

"Up," I shouted, and several hands pulled me back from the ledge. I took a moment to catch my breath, "I couldn't get leverage," I reported.

"Okay, let’s get down there and try and get some," Chris said, not giving in on our only hope. However, the hope only lasted an hour.

I was down the hole again, being held up by Chris and Garth, trying to pull up the grate that we had cleaned off without own clothes. I swore loudly as I saw what was stopping the grate. Chris and Garth pulled me back up again.

"What's wrong?" Garth asked.

"The grate is fitted into the wall, there is no way to pull it up," I sighed, sinking to the floor in a pile of excrement, the last vestiges of dignity escaping. "It’s useless, all useless."

Everybody joined me in sinking to the floor. That was it; we were out of hope, out of energy, out of food. Whoever took us robbed us of everything we possibly had.

I sat there thinking about my life, regretting ever having left my home planet, of daring to venture into cold, dark, dangerous space.

Thus was my introduction to the rigours of space. I hope you understand this part of my life I have only written about in brief as to give you an idea where I came from. I was not born a pirate, or a corsair, I did not come from a rich family, but nor I a poor one. Circumstances conspired to leave me with nothing, and it was a long time before things really changed for the better. I think I was in that cell, for maybe a month, but at the end of the month freedom was no more promising.

Everything that happened came from situations I found myself in, or opportunities I made, along with friends, colleagues and enemies along the way. I wanted you to know  where it all began. This is my story, I will probably have many months to write it all down, my current captives are far more civilised barbarians, than those of my first capture. Though eventually I face execution for my crimes, I think my greatest crime was simply that of survivor.

Not a day goes by that I don’t remember the people who died on board the Reina del Mar, especially the cold brutality the killed Craig and the three Hispanic boys. I swore I would survive, and I would never again be the weak against the strong. Of course the universe played me a fool, many times I was indeed the weaker force against a stronger one, but I survived. Sometimes only just. I will try and write more tomorrow, if I can beg of my current jailers some more paper.

Arsène Frassin

© Jonathan L. Lawrence, 2010

The first two chapters of my Memoirs of a Space Corsair are completed, and edited (though I offer no gaurentee to the quality of my self-editing, especially in the small hours of the morning). I've really gone for a bleak start to my characters adventures, and the third chapter will largely be bleak, though of course I can not keep it in such bleak a circumstance, I'm fairly sure if it continued into a fourth chapter, Arsène Frassin (my main character), would probably but aside his principles and simply off himself. He's been through a lot, poor lad.

Hopefully these first two chapters give you a hint of the potential in this boy, trapped by circumstance. It is the foundation for the character, and ultimately the whole series of stories I have planned.

Hopefully, once we move out of these initial chapters, each entry will actually work as its own short story, but feed into the overall plot I intend. However, I must admit, the first three chapters, and possibly into the fourth are sequential, and intended to be read as such. I want to try and keep a word count of between 5,000 and 10,000 per instalment, just because its neater than trying to read 30,000 words in a single posting, and more convenient for the style of writing I want to achieve. As we do move into later chapters, and each adventure is one instalment (albeit with the possibility of an adventure or two being split across two instalments), it should feel a bit more like the pulp fiction of the first half of the twentieth century. I suppose I should come up with a garish and extravagant cover or two to go with milestones in my story.

I am finding this project very exciting, and its been relatively easy to write (albeit in between work, and family), but I can honestly say, the editing has been a lot tougher. I'm sure if I were to re-read either chapter through right now, I'd probably find another hour or two of changes to be made. There is little time for that before the first chapter publishes, so I shall let it lie, plenty of time before the scheduler posts up the second chapter though.

I had to have a little think about the impact of posting a story online, just as with poetry, I want to share my creative works, but a part of you does wonder, what would I do if someone misappropriated my ideas? I've of course added "© Jonathan L. Lawrence, 2010", but also a disclaimer at the beginning, spelling out that this is mine, and mine alone. This may be overkill - however when I ran forum for writers, way back when, the issue of copyright did come up, and I can appreciate the wronged parties point of view.

I want to do a post on copyright, (I did do one previously, but it was more an idea, rather than a real look at the subject), and will probably do this week. I sometimes think copyright isn't really reflective of the time, yet at the same time, I want my creative works protected as I share it with the world. There has to be a balance somewhere, and maybe it lies with the creators rather than the law to find that balance. Of course I am, in my small, untalented way, a creator, so I'm biased.

Anyway, I hope you read and enjoy the first two chapters, and I hope not keep those that do enjoy it waiting with the third and fourth.

Au revoir,

Sage

P.S. Feedback, good or bad, is always welcome - it makes me feel important that someone felt enough about what I've written that they would say something about it. I am an egotist after all is said and done, otherwise I wouldn't be here. Plus, it might just help shape me into a real writer, then if I was ever published, I'd have to acknowledge your contribution - (bribery gets you everywhere, or it does in Arsène's corrupt world).

So, yes writing with music really does help me. Of course it has to be the right music, it can't be too exciting, or too catchy, and anything below three and a half minutes should be considered carefully - if the songs are changing too much you'll pay more attention to the change. Or I would anyway, but I am easily distrac...

Ooooh Diet Coke, thanks.

Where was I? Oh yes, I'm easily distracted. Back last year, I had planned to do monthly ten song playlists - but I got distracted, I also got writers block, so it never really happened. What I've done this time, now I'm writing again, is to make a longer playlist, and call it a seasonal writing playlist.

I've got quite a mix of music in my summer version, it’s mostly easy listening, rock, and alternative, with a touch of pop - it works well as background music, while still giving pace to help put fire into the writing process.

If you other suggestions for a playlist for writing music, long or short, feel free to add them to the comments.

Since I got Spotify, it allows me to share my playlist with people - so if you want to have a listen to my summer playlist, just click here.

Click more to see the playlist without Spotify

Spandau Ballet - Gold
Marina And The Diamonds - The Outsider
Boston - Foreplay/Long Time
A Fine Frenzy - You Picked Me
Son House - Downhearted Blues
The Kooks - Naive
Muse - Assassin
ORF Symphony Orchestra - Montagues And Capulets
The Who - Baba O’Riley - Original Version
Green Day - ¡Viva La Gloria!
Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way
Placebo - Every You Every Me
Savage Garden - To The Moon & Back
Ultravox - Vienna
Muse - Knights Of Cydonia
Muse - Resistance
Muse - Take a Bow
Muse - Starlight
Marina And The Diamonds - The Outsider
Panic! At The Disco - From A Mountain In The Middle Of The Cabins
Panic! At The Disco - The Piano Knows Something I Don’t Know
Jace Everett - Bad Things
Muse - I Belong To You [+Mon Coeur S'Ouvre A Ta Voix]
Dido - Look No Further
Muse - Sing For Absolution
Lily Allen - The Fear
Spandau Ballet - Gold
Sublime - Garden Grove
Reel Big Fish - Where Have You Been?
Sweet - The Ballroom Blitz
Bad Company - Ready For Love
Blue Oyster Cult - (Don’t Fear) The Reaper
Blue Oyster Cult - Burnin’ For You
Boston - Foreplay/Long Time
Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger
Garbage - Push It - Re-mastered 2007
Apocalyptica - Bittersweet
Scorpions - Rock You Like A Hurricane
Iron Maiden - Fear Is The Key
Iron Maiden - Weekend Warrior
Iron Maiden - The Apparition

Hope you enjoy - have a happy summers writing.

Sage