Well here it is, my Diary, of how it all began.  I was 21 and my Father had just died, he was the only family I had left at the time. I had nothing to keep me there......... well.  I will let you read what is written and find out for yourself. My name is Nicholas Payne and this is my story:

Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2965
My father died just last week. He was the last of my family; I have no one left now, just myself.  I sold all that we owned and got a job as a crew member on a freighter bound for the Britonia sector.  I have never been to that sector, I was born and raised in the Liberty sector, and haven't really did much traveling. This job might turn into a promising career.

Thursday, Oct. 5,  2965
I start my job today,  I haven't seen the ship yet,  but one of my crew mates "Badger" assures me that it is no picnic. I met up with Badger at about 8:00am in the bar district near the docks, and we headed to the port together. It wasn't far really; the ship was docked really close by, and let me tell you, Badger was right. The ship was a very old design, "Draymen class" I believe. My father used to talk about them. It looked like a giant jelly roll with a couple of old fusion engines attached to the rear. Fusion engines, this is going to be a long ride. I guess it will be too much to ask that it receive an upgrade to the new Ion engines, they are much more powerful and more efficient, but I guess it's the Captain's prerogative. Oh well, might as well make the best of it.   Oh yea, before I forget, Badger, he's pretty cool. An old man in his early 50's or so. He says he has been with Daisy longer then anyone, even the current Captain. I can only assume "Daisy" is the name of the Ship.  Badger seems friendly enough, but I only just met him, we shall see.

Friday, Oct. 6, 2965
I met the Captain today, well sort of met him. Kind of a rough looking fellow in his mid thirties, a little quite though, at least he didn't say anything to me. The look in his eyes though told me that he has seen and experienced a lot of what goes on out here in the vastness of space. He did a ship wide inspection today and well, we all had to be on duty for that. I guess so he knows what kind of people he has in his crew or something.  Badger tells me he is easy to get along with, but very stern and set in his ways. It looks like I better get on his good side right away then.

Monday, Oct. 9, 2965
We are finally underway. I have been sitting in my bunk thinking of my Father and how proud he would be that I have found a job and am making a life for myself. Truth is I have been bored all weekend, nothing exciting really happened. Badger got drunk and was a little wild on Saturday. Ahh yes Saturday, we had a small party, I wasn't really in the partying mood though, my mind was on other things. Anyway we left dock a little over an hour ago, took awhile to get out of the atmosphere.  What a trip that was, bumpy all the way, I have the bruises to prove it too. The Captain could have at least warned us, and Badger, all he did was laugh himself silly when I fell out of my bunk. I guess it was a little funny, hahaha. Badger told me, after he caught his breath, that it was best that I experience that first hand, that way I would know what to expect, but I have a sneaky suspicion that he didn't tell me on purpose, just so he could get a laugh.

Thursday, Oct. 12, 2965
We made it to one of the trade lanes, just waiting for clearance to enter the lane. Apparently they are making us wait, because there was an attack of some sort up the line somewhere. Pirates I would assume, we are quite far from the capitol system so the police are kind of thin out here. I just hope the police are here now, if we get attacked by Pirates, this thing well be a sitting duck. We couldn't even hope to outrun any pirate with these damn old fusion engines. I'm starting to doubt if it was such a good idea to get a job on this tub. But of course, Badger assures me this thing can handle itself in a fight. Badger must have been born on this ship; his pride is pretty blatant when he talks of "Daisy".
         
2 hours later. They finally let us in the lane. I guess they got it all cleaned up, it was relatively fast though, must not have been much damage.  Badger tells me that we will be following this trade lane until we reach the edge of the system, where we will use a jump gate to get to Britonia space, then, finally, to our destination. Overall the trip should take about a week. I just hope we don't run into any trouble on the way there.

Friday, Oct. 13, 2965

Well, Friday the 13th, ancient history says the people use to believe this to be an unlucky day, well for my sake, I hope they were wrong. There have been police fighters patrolling the trade lane though, so that’s a good sign, I even saw a couple of battle cruisers, must of been a serious threat to call those out here, whatever it was that was going on out here yesterday.

Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2965

We finally made it to the jump point, I tell ‘ya, these fusion engines are slow, even in the trade lanes we were holding up traffic. One of the police fighters come up along side of us and provided escort for the last half of the trip. It was a little embarrassing.  But now that we are at the jump point our speed shouldn't be a problem now, everyone travels at the same speed when using jump points, it’s almost instantaneous.

Badger tells me that we won't be going in right away; he has access to the bridge so I guess he heard something.  I was right, he did hear something, apparently our sensors picked up a shadow; we are being followed. The question now is, who is it? I knew it was a bad idea to board this tub. Oh well, a job is a job, even if it does kill you.

Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2965

The Captain has decided to see if we can lose whoever it is that is following us, so we did a few maneuvers and wound up hiding behind an asteroid. We had to shut down all systems, and the sensors are on passive, so we should not be all that visible on our shadows sensors. Running silent is not very comfortable, when the Captain says shut down all systems he means it, they even shut down the gravity generator and life support is at minimal operation, so its cold, and Badger and I are floating aimlessly about our quarters. More bruises. {Ouch, damn ceiling}

Friday, Oct. 20, 2965

Finally, after 2 days of periodic active sensor sweeps and playing possum, the Captain feels its safe enough to continue on. We should have been at our destination by now, but I guess its better safe then sorry. I guess we aren't carrying any perishables, I wonder what we are carrying. Maybe I will look tomorrow, I well have to be quiet about it though, only authorized personnel are allowed down there. Badger tells me to not worry about it, I will get paid very well when we reach our destination. I hope Badger isn't hiding anything, we have become good friends in the past couple weeks.

The jump point was pretty clear, not to much traffic. I think it might have to do with those 2 battle cruisers, they are still hanging around. I wonder what it was that got them out this far, I have heard of destroyers out this far, but battle cruisers, they are usually for the defense of the inner systems, not out here on the outer worlds.  Maybe there is trouble brewing between the houses, which could be one explanation, although I would hate to see war break out, I always thought that Britonia and Liberty houses were great allies and shared some of the same ideals. What would they have to fight about? Or maybe they are working together, maybe there is some new powerful pirate faction out there causing problems for both houses. If that is the case, then it would be worse then war, pirates don't stick to just military targets, they attack anyone and everyone. I hope they upgrade this tub before they take another job. I still have my doubts about Badger's statement, "Don't worry kid, Daisy can handle herself."

Saturday, Oct. 21, 2965

The jump was pretty smooth. I don't feel any better though, when we got into Britonia space, the same thing was greeting us, 2 Battle cruisers. I only recognized them from photos I have seen, bigger then I thought, they could easily match the power of any Liberty ship of the same class. Now I hope more then ever that the 2 houses are working together against a common enemy, If not.......well...I don't even want to think about it. Badger doesn't seem to be himself either; he has been a little more...serious then usual. I tried to ask about it but all I got was "get back to work kid".  The Captain also seemed a little more jumpy then usual, he was always pretty calm when I saw him over the past couple weeks, but now he seemed.....preoccupied. I wish someone would tell me what’s going on. The rest of the crew is also speculating about what is going on, so at least I'm not alone in the dark.

With what’s going on right now I decided to stay away from the cargo holds. I am almost certain we are carrying something valuable, at least to someone. I'm also guessing that we can expect the worse on the last leg of our trip. Damn I wish I would have stayed home.

Monday, Oct. 23, 2965

We are in sight of our destination, but we have stopped. The Captain has called Badger to the bridge, Badger went without hesitation, I did overhear him mutter something though, "I was afraid of this", and definitely not something I wanted to hear Badger say.  I hate being in the Dark. I decided to follow Badger to the bridge (without his knowledge though) when I got there, what saw was not what I expected, this was exactly like the bridge of a military corvette, but why would they have that set-up on an aging freighter? Badger was sitting down at what appeared to be a weapon station, the captain was at the helm and the navigator and sensor officer at the station next to him, there were 3 other weapon stations but one was empty.   The Captain didn't take long to notice I was there, he immediately ordered me to the aft weapon station, the only one that wasn't manned. I had to assure him I knew how to use by turning it on myself, it was a very new design, but I have seen them, my father used to take me to work with him when I was younger, he did ship maintenance and repairs at the space docks back home. When I looked at the monitor in front of me I saw the cross hair in the center, and the scene was like virtual reality, it seemed to wrap around you, so I was able to see everything in my field of vision, including peripheral vision.  And everything moved with you as you moved the controls, chair and everything; the cross-hair remained in the center at all times. Very impressive set-up if you ask me, that means between the four weapons stations we can see 360 degrees around the ship.  And if the helm has us spinning and rolling we will be able to see everything.  I only hope the weapons themselves are just as impressive as the control systems, because we sure aren't going to be outrunning anyone in this heap.

30 minutes later. The Captain said only one thing, "Fire at will".    So when I saw them coming I reported it and open fired, again I was taken by surprise, the weapons were also new. I have only heard of them through rumor at the bars, "Tachyon Gattling Canon". They have a high rate of fire and they hit HARD, they don't have a great range though. I wonder what other surprises this ship has. My first shot didn't reach the target, I wasn't aware of the range restrictions of the weapon. The Captain informed me to wait until they are within 500k to fire. Ok 500k it is, although that seems a little close, (in space 500k is almost right on top of them) when I saw one of the targets I was tracking come into range I opened up on him, it didn't take long, about 1.5 to 2 seconds or so and he was vaporized. So Badger wasn't exaggerating, Daisy can handle herself.

2 hours later.  We have been fighting off these unknown hostiles for 2 hours now, they appear to be the same design of ship that was shadowing us in Liberty space, though they seem to be only short range fighters, they must have a carrier nearby. I wonder what those Battle Cruisers are doing right now; we could certainly use their help. 

30 minutes later. The unknowns seem to be thinning out, they aren’t coming in as fast. It could be that they are getting tired of fighting with us. So far our shields have hardly had a work out. I wonder if they were only testing us to see how powerful we are. If that’s the case, then we have been shooting at drones the past 2 hours. I wonder if the Captain knows, he must, he doesn't seem to be to worried at the moment. That’s when it happened; there was a massive explosion in the distance, so massive that our visuals were knocked out for a few minutes before flickering back on, not to mention a huge shockwave that rocked the ship so bad that I fell out of my chair onto the floor. Whatever it was that exploded, it was big. After everything settled down the Captain ordered the ship to resume course and one of the crew that were manning the weapon stations took over the helm. Badger and I were ordered back to our regular duty stations, and the Captain thanked me for my help before he left for his cabin.

Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2965

We landed a little while ago. It wasn't too rough, but the ship received more damage then I thought, mostly in the engine area. Seems they wanted to disable us. That only means one thing, whatever we are carrying, they wanted, in one piece. I am really starting to regret signing on now, I just have this feeling that we are not out of the woods yet. A few hours later my feelings proved to be true, Badger and I were heading to the bar, as usual, and we were jumped by 3 figures, all in black, they were kind of slim and very agile, and short. But we couldn't see anything else about them, they were completely covered. Well they made short work of me and Badger.  When we came to we were in the back ally behind a very lively bar, at least we won't have far to walk, heh-heh. The really strange thing was the only thing missing was the dock slip I had in my pocket. That could only mean one thing; they wanted to know where our ship was docked. I hope whatever security there is available at the space docks can handle whatever is coming their way.

1 hour later. Badger didn't think it was necessary to go and check on the ship, I don't know why he is always so relaxed about these things, but there is nothing I can do about it, so I might as well join him.. I decided to stick with Badger, basically so he wouldn't be alone if he, or we, were jumped again.

Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2965

I woke up with a terrible headache, that’s the last time I go to the bar with Badger. When we got back last night we found out that the ship was broken into, but the cargo was already unloaded and whoever broke into the ship didn't get anything, good news to say the least, I just wish I knew what it was we were carrying. I just heard we had another run, so we have to get ready for that.  That means 2 days of ship inspection and minor repairs if needed. Again the cargo is secret; this is starting to drive me crazy.

Saturday, Oct. 28, 2965

Everything checked out and we are ready to get underway, they loaded the cargo while we were doing routine maintenance, I didn't get a look at what was being loaded and I am a bit worried that we are going to run into trouble again.

Sunday, Oct. 29, 2965

Lift off, again.  This time I didn't fall off my bunk, but Badger laughed anyway. When we finally were out of the atmosphere, Badger became a little more serious then usual again. I can only hope we don't run into any trouble.

5 hours later. I spoke too soon, we were attacked by the same assailants as before, this time their carrier joined in the fight. I was asked to man the aft gunnery station again. We were doing well against the fighters but the Carrier had some heavy weapons of its own.  We tried to take down the carrier, but it stayed just out of range, it knew everything they needed to know about us. Finally it launched it own attack on us, the weapon used was unlike anything I have ever witnessed or even heard of, it was a single continuous beam that sliced our engines right off. It seems the trespassers we had on our ship the other night wasn't here to steal anything, they were here to get an idea of the layout of this ship. With our engines gone the Captain ordered us to abandon ship and he set the self-destruct. After a few minutes I understood why, we were being boarded. I didn't wait around long enough to get a look at our attackers, I went straight to an escape pod, and Badger was right behind me. When we got to the pod Badger said "Sorry kid, but I can't go with you", and he shoved me into the pod. Before I could get back on my feet, Badger had already sealed the door and hit the launch button. I did hear him say "I will see you soon" before the door sealed. Just after the pod launched, Daisy exploded, the force of the explosion rocked the pod around and pushed it further into space, far enough where I was out of range of any natural body in space.  I didn't see any other escape pods from the Daisy before the explosion, so I guess it’s safe to say I am the only survivor, Poor Badger.

Thursday, Nov. 2, 2965

I have been floating out here for a couple of days now, haven't seen anything really worth talking about. I only have a few days of air left, so I am going to turn down the life support to conserve energy and air. It will probably mean some sort of hibernation or something for me, I don't know, I never did understand all of this stuff fully.  Well here goes… There that should do it! I should be OK for a bit longer... now... maybe... someone will find me...