《Jonathan Forrest》


 Chapter One

    <h1>Chapter One</h1>


    *BOOMM* an explosion happens, and bulkheads slam down with loud bangs all across the ship in an attempt to hold in all of the precious oxegen keeping the survivors alive. The ship seems to lurch, knocking me and my sister off our feet. We were heading to the bridge to respond to the Red Alert our father had signaled. I slowly start to pick myself up.


    ¡°What the hell was that?!¡±


    I ask moving to a display on the nearby wall. I activate the display and pull up the damage report. The whole front of the ship is greyed out, with bright red scattered throughout where the grayed out area met the normal white area. That means the front was destroyed. The bridge was in the front. Our father was on the bridge. Our father is dead.


    ¡°No¡­¡±


    I let out a pained cry turning to face Amelia. She, just having gotten up as well looks past me at the screen and falls to her knees. She cries out upset. I pull up the ship''s sensors. A red dot, and a blue dot. A couple scattered yellow dots moving off in random directions as well. Red means enemy suggesting that this is either a known pirate, or is the one who had fired on us. Possibly both. The blue ship isn''t moving, and the red ship is approaching it. Definitely pirates, whoever they are.


    I pull up a ship¡¯s interface. We have a single missile launcher left. We had three for if pirates attacked but two were up front.The one remaining one is in the back. I set the ship to start turning around. The pirate damaged the engines too. Luckily the pirate can''t damage the engines anymore or they might destroy the cargo. The pirate will likely assume we are fleeing, but due to the lack of speed, the pirate would easily catch up, no matter how far we get. The ship finishes turning on, and because of the Red Alert, the missile launcher was already armed. I select IR missiles. IR missiles are Image Recognition missiles. That means they will turn to aim themselves at a target. Which in this case I have selected the Pirate''s engines. I press fire.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    The pirate, who''s shields were down for docking suddenly loses his engines. I change the IR to target weapons, and hope that I can hit them before he gets a lock on us. An alert starts to go off, they have a missile lock. I fire, and the IR hits their front launcher just as a missile launches, causing a large explosion. Amelia cheers, thinking that we completely disabled our foe. When the explosion clears up it reveals that the front of the pirate''s cockpit is blown apart. The pirate''s body impaled on the glass that made up the cockpit window, with blood floating around nearby. I hear Amelia throwing up behind me, and I taste vomit trying to come up for me too. I turn off the display hiding the gruesome scene from us.


    A hail comes in from the other ship. Not the pirate one, but the ship the pirate was moving to board.


    ¡°Thanks for saving my ass. When emergency services get us to the station, I¡¯ll come thank you in person.¡±


    A male voice says.


    ¡°Alright I guess, We¡¯ll see you then¡±


    I politely say. I then go and turn on our emergency beacon, and start the waiting game until someone notices, and comes to get us.

 Chapter Two

    <h1>Chapter Two</h1>


    It takes emergency services all of two hours to notice us, and send someone out to get us. Our ship gets pulled into the attached shipyard, and a couple militia officers pull up in a shuttle to the cargo bay airlock to pick us up. Inside the shuttle one of the officers asks us our side of what happened. I explain to him that our Father activated Red Alert from the bridge while we were down in the Recreation area. Something happened while we were on the way, and the whole front of the ship was destroyed, along with our father, and all of our personal possessions. I go on to explain that I pulled up a tactical display, showing a hostile ship approaching a third ship. That I then fired missiles at the enemy ship, one destroying the engine, and the other hitting a missile coming out of the hostile ship''s front launcher. And how that killed the pirate because of the size of the resulting explosion. Throughout my explanation the officer looks to Amelia for confirmation and she nods every time. The officer faces me after looking to Amelia one last time.


    ¡°Thank you for your cooperation you two¡±


    He says with a slight smile. Just as we finish, the shuttle docks with the station. When we walk out, a group of people are waiting for us. There is a man in a more formal version of the uniform the militia officers are wearing. There is a lady who is dressed in a fashion that suggests that she is a nurse or doctor. There is a reporter for some reason, and there is a man holding a cat carrier. That last man stands out quite a bit when compared to the others. The militia man comes forward first.


    ¡°Hello there young ones. I''m General Elijah Sands. But you can call me Sands. What are your names?¡±


    He looks to me first, and I reply,


    ¡°My name is Jonathan, sir. Jonathan Forrest.


    He looks to Amelia.


    ¡°That is my sister Amelia, sir¡±


    I tell him. He looks back to me and asks;


    ¡°Why didn''t you let her speak for herself?¡±Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    ¡°She is mute¡±


    I tell him. As he looks to her, Amelia gives a shy little smile and nods slightly. He turns to me again.


    ¡°Well, after you two are done with this,¡±


    He gestures to the other people in the room,


    ¡°Then come down to my office. I¡¯ll send directions to you via email.¡±


    He walks off, and the doctor comes forward. She quickly checks us for external injuries, and tells us to come down to the station¡¯s med bay later. The reporter comes third, asking about what happened. I explain that the pirate attacked us, and that I fired back because the bridge was destroyed. I didn''t go into any more detail, and when they tried asking Amelia about it, they didn''t get anything there either.


    Lastly the man with the cat carrier comes forward. He comes up to us and says,


    ¡°Thanks for saving me you two. I have come bearing a surprise or two in thanks.¡± He lifts up the cat carrier, and there are two kittens sitting calmly inside. One of the kittens meowed, and the man explained,


    ¡°These two little kittens have just reached the age of adoption. When you saved my ship you not only rescued me, but also these kittens and their mother. As thanks for saving us, I want to give you two these kittens to join you on your future adventures, whatever they may be.¡±


    I smile.


    ¡°Thanks for the kittens sir, but are you really sure you want to give them away?¡±


    ¡°I am very sure. They would have been put up for adoption either way, and this way they¡¯ll get to go on adventures, more than any simple person staying at a station.¡±


    I look at him confused.


    ¡°Who said we had plans for ¡®adventures¡¯? What if we do stay at a station somewhere.¡±


    ¡°I know that wouldn''t happen buddy. You have an adventurer¡¯s look in your eyes. You will definitely encounter action and adventure sometime down your path.¡±


    With that he puts down the cat carrier and walks off.


    ¡°You didn''t tell us what the kittens need!¡±


    I shout after him, but he ignores me. I turn to the cat carrier, and look in. The kittens still are just sitting there calmly. But I notice something beside one of the kittens. It¡¯s a piece of paper. Paper. No one uses paper anymore, where the hell did he get that from. I ignore that fact, grab the paper, and read it. It lists a type (and brand) of litter, and a brand of food with flavour preferences. It also has a note saying that the carrier has a card in it for getting a discount for whatever we get the kittens. I look to Amelia and shrug.

 Chapter Three

    <h1>Chapter Three</h1>


    So we''re stuck with two kittens, on an unfamiliar station, with no place to stay. I pull out my pad, and pull up the email app. The email app takes longer than normal to load up, and I find out why when the inbox shows that it has over one thousand messages. I look for emails that stand out to start. There is a message about going to the stations Med bay, that includes directions. I star that message and keep scrolling. A message from the general. I star that message and move on. A message with the title in all caps saying; ¡®CAT INSTRUCTIONS¡¯. I star that one, since it theoretically should be from the guy who just gave us the cats. I scroll down for the final time and nothing grabs my attention. Until the last email on the list. The first one I got since this. It is labeled ¡®Bounties: 100000 Credits Accumulated¡¯.


    I open that email before the others. It shows a set of lists. The big list has sector names. Each list has a sub list, with only one point on them. Beside the name has a number, and at the bottom is a total. Below the total is a request for bank drop information. The sublist has a single name on everyone of them, and four sectors are paying a bounty. Earth sector has the lowest bounty at ten thousand. The Sci-fi sector have a bounty of twenty thousand. Then there is the american sector at thirty thousand. Lastly the sector we''re in, the canadian sector, has a bounty of forty thousand. That¡¯s a lot of money.


    I show Amelia the list. She gasps in surprise but then gets a big smile on her face.


    ¡°Looks like we won''t need to worry about costs when finding a place to stay¡±


    I say with a smile,


    ¡°But we will need to get to a bank first.¡±


    I spend the next five minutes hunting down a map of the station on the web. It should have been simple as searches prioritize based off the system you are in, but it wasn''t on the first page of results. Once I find it,it takes me another minute to pay for it, only a single credit to buy it, and three minutes to download. Once it finally loads up, we start our trek to the bank. Along the way, a few independent reporters try getting more information off of us than the other reporter had, but I either ignore or dismiss them all. After an annoying ten minute walk, we finally get to the bank. The bank is a simple building, with a couple rooms to meet with bankers, and a few ATMs at a side. The ATMs aren''t really used, since no one uses physical currency anymore. In a corner is a stock exchange type system, and in another corner is a lottery machine. There is a counter in the center of the room, with a person sitting there. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    We walk up to the counter, and I start talking to the banker.


    ¡°Hello sir, how can I help you today¡± he asks me politely.


    ¡°Hi. We''d like to set up a drop account. I recently came into a large sum of money, but it isn''t in my personal account. The supplier of the money has asked for drop account details, but I haven''t set one up yet.¡±


    I tell him. Drop accounts are an innovation made sometime in the early to mid twenty-first century to make it so that people could have money given to them without revealing their real account information. A drop account immediately transfers money to a connected account, and can only get money deposited into it. It''s a nifty tool, and makes bank hacking harder.


    ¡°Ah. to set up a drop account we need your main account details and also an ID.¡±


    He tells me with a smile. He pulls out a pad, and I write my account details. I also pull out my pad and show him my ID.


    ¡°Very good,sir. I''ll have the drop account details emailed to you in ten minutes when our crew has set it up.¡±


    He tells me. Me and Amelia start walking out, on our way to the general''s office. Sure enough, ten minutes later the details for my brand new drop account come in on an email. At the notification I pulled out my pad, and forwarded the link along the email for the bounties. We reach a security checkpoint leading into the militia''s part of the station. Before i start talking to the guard, a notification comes in for the money being deposited to my account.


    We finally get to talking to the guard after all that logistics and walking. The guard says that the general is expecting us in his office, and tells us to leave the kittens here. Speaking of the kittens, I''m surprised that the bank didn''t throw a fit about bringing the kittens into their establishment. We continue down the hallway, and finally reach the general¡¯s office.

 Chapter Four

    <h1>Chapter Four</h1>


    ¡°Hello you two. Please, Take a seat¡±


    The general says the moment we enter the door. I thank him and we all go sit down at his desk.


    ¡°So what did you want for us sir?¡±


    I ask him politely.


    ¡°Ha! Right to the point. I like that.¡±


    He laughs before continuing,


    ¡°I have asked you here to see if you want to join the militia. We need good troops to help stop piracy and smuggling in this sector. You''ll get good pay, both of you can work together, and you will even get a ¡®free¡¯ ship to use while on duty. So, what do you say?¡±


    ¡°No thank you sir, I have other plans for the future, and don''t really want to get caught up in military matters.¡±


    I tell him. He sighs and says,


    ¡°Well if you change your mind, just email me, and I¡¯ll sign you up right away.¡±


    ¡°I will if I do sir.¡± I say as Amelia and I get up and start heading out. Our next destination is the Hospital.


    At the hospital, we are brought through a couple scans.


    ¡°So, how are you two doing?¡±


    One of the doctors asks.


    ¡°Good¡±This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    I tell her as Amelia gives a thumbs up


    ¡°Good to hear.¡±


    The doctor tells us as she brings us out to the office area.


    ¡°Now, a new experimental technology has been created, and we are one of the few hospitals who have been offered the opportunity to test run the product. The product is a computer that directly connects to your mind. The project is actually ready for commercial sale, but due to how new and experimental the technology is, It is pretty expensive. We can give you a twenty percent discount, and give you it for only 400,000 credits, since you defeated a pirate that has been bothering traffic to this station in recent months.¡±


    ¡°Whoa! 400,000 that''s alot. How much did you think that pirate was worth? We barely have 150,000 as it is, and a lot of that is going to have to go to getting us a ship, and some stuff for these kittens we we''re given¡±


    I tell her, shocked. She smiles and says,


    ¡°We¡¯ll keep the discount for you for two months, if you change your mind.¡±


    ¡°Okay¡­¡±


    I tell her, then we head out. Next stop the shipyard and our ship.


    When we reach the shipyard, I can finally see what shape our ship looks to be in. the whole front of the ship is a mess of broken hull plates, walls, and closed bulkheads. Towards the rear it looks for the most part okay though. The man in charge of our case here at the shipyard takes us inside. The airlock we use was just barely missed when the front of the ship was destroyed.


    ¡°So. we cleaned your ship, and made sure no conduits or anything would break. However we can''t start doing anything else before getting paid. In my opinion this hull is unusable. It would take less money to buy a new ship of this model than to repair this one.¡±


    The man tells us. I nod, and we continue into the ship. We reach the cargo bay.


    ¡°The boys think that nothing in here was damaged, but we can''t check anything without your permission.¡±


    Again I nod and we continue. We reach the living area and stop again.


    ¡°Nothing in here was changed. The four quarters are all as they we''re. The kitchen loose like it could probably get replaced, but again we didn''t know what you wanted done yet¡±


    He tells us.


    ¡°Thanks. We¡¯ll consider what to do. However, could you send us an estimated return if we we''re to sell her for scrap?¡±


    I ask him. He confirms and then leaves. Amelia puts down the cat carrier and opens it up. Luckily for our kitten friends, they have food and water in there. We cuddle our new kittens, and then go to eat.