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For this little story, I played with several note-worthy modifications installed, and on easy mode, because otherwise it would end far, far too quickly.

tl;dr - I suck at FTL and I used mods. Enjoy.


Mods I used: Beginning scrap advantage [Which came with Grognak's mod manager]
Better planets and backgrounds v1.2
FTL Additional events and texts
KRS Turning the Tide
Weaponanza.

All of these mods were found here on the forums, including the manager, developed by the always pleasing Grognak.
Now let's get this scripture started!





A starship, out of nowhere, appears in a flash of bright light. It's Captain is a woman with long, silken hair of a dark hazel colour, with a steady but reflexive pilot's hand, and more balls than even the toughest man could boast.
Her Sgt. Of Capitol Artillery was named Jessica White, although they all called her Chesire, because of her huge smile, slightly delirious way of speaking on occasion and the fact that literally nothing could get her down. It was actually pretty scary sometimes. She got sad or angry so little people thought she was half-zoltan or something.
Then there's the Shields girl; Juliet. She is quiet, shy, and very girly. Not much else to be said. She talks so little that people often forget she is there, and she's just as smart as any engi you'll find selling his services.

Anyway.

Captain Emily stands, looking out of the windshield of the starship, at the countless stars and constellations that made up the known universe.

"Girls. We've got a mission." She says in a matter of fact voice.

"We know, you don't have to go through this all again, you know." The Shieldmaiden announces.

"Don't get a downer, Jules! She just wants to boost morale!" Juliet chimes.

"Thankyou, Juliet."

"So, as we've already been told, we have a teensy weeny little packet of information stored in our computers containing information about the Rebel flagship, the SS Muramasa. We must, I repeat, MUST deliver this to the Grand War Council of the Federation. Then, we'll go kick so much ass the rebels won't have enough to sit on. Right?"

The other women in the room nodded in agreement.

"Then let's go!"

Juliet rushes to the Shields Room, whilst Jess takes up sprinting on her way to the Weapons Bay, and immediately loads up an Artemis Shell, and starts charging up their ship's main weapon, an upgraded version of the Burst Laser II.

On the Bridge, Emily sends a message to her numero uno contact within the Rebel Fleet, asking for information.
Baran responds swiftly.

"You'd better get your curvy ass moving, girl. My commanders just tore your last frigate in two, and took all of the prisoners to the Composter to turn into energy."

And so she jumps.

They land at what appears to be a Planet Side Store. Immediately, Juliet and Jess jump at the opportunity to breathe some real air, and are sent down to check it out.

"Welcome to my humble shop, Humans." A Rock-Man bellows to them in a deep voice.

His skin is torn with scars and cracks, and he has a small ship's laser slung over his back- repurposed as an assualt rifle of kinds. He's obviously seen more than his fair share of combat, and just wants to avoid more.
Doesn't look like Jess and Jules would be a match for him anyway, so they just browse through his wares.

"Hehlow theere." Hisses a shady looking Mantis carrying two blasters at his hips.

Jess immediately looks away, and walks on, pulling the intrigued Shields Operator with her, much to the displeasure of the mantis, who scowled angrily and made clicked noises through his carapace.

Then a Zoltan came out of nowhere, begging to be taken away from this place, and that he needed only a few scrap to pay for his weapon back from a slaver in the next town along. Unfortunately, they couldn't afford the price he told them he was worth, and bid him a sad farewell.

"N-no... It's ok. I'll find another way to get it back, so I can get off this damned rock." He said in a downcast voice.

The Rockman scowled at the use of the word "Damned Rock" and the Zoltan immediately tried to make amends, before realising the Rockman wouldn't listen.

Then he sat down again and cried. Juliet cried a little too, but the already pessimistic Gunnery Sergeant pulled her away, as the Zoltan collapsed to his knees and began pounding a glowing fist against the dusty floor, crying about how his heirloom was lost.



They come back up about an hour later, with a crate of missles and a fuel tank or two on a small trolley behind them.

"There'd been a few people asking us to take 'em on for a bit of scrap metal, but only one of them looked any good and we couldn't afford him. Sorry boss." Jess says over the Intercom to her Skipper.

"It's alright, I'm sure he wasn't worth it anyway."

The ladies returned to their posts, with the quiet sobbing of a distraught Juliet coming over the intercom whenever her slumped body came to rest a hand on the blue button indicating that the user wanted to tell something to the others on the ship.

The ship jumps.

In the roughly 24 period of time where the ship is in the relative safety of faster-than-light travel, they all manage to get 9 hours of blessed sleep, eat a nice hearty meal a la Juliet, with delicious salty gravy and fluffy mashed potato, taken a luxuriously long bath and played a game of 'STL; Speedier than Lasers' together, they find that they jumped right into the gunsights of a Rebel Rigger.

An angry young man comes up on the vidscreen.

"We're going to destroy you, you Imperialistic Federation Scum! Prepare to feel the Wrath of the Rebellion!" Scans show he's charging up some sort of missile weapon, and an errant drone- already in pretty shabby condition- trails after the speedy Federation craft as it runs in circles around the Inferior rebel rigger.

The Rebels land a hit with its missile, and the ship shudders in response to the strain, but doesn't lose speed, and quickly returns fire.

"Oh hell yeah!" Jess screams down the intercom as the rebels' shield drop completely, and their weapons follow.

An unencrypted Intracom message is picked up from the Rebel ship, from the Helm to engines.

"Screw this, Jilson, I'm getting us out of he-" The message is cut off as the ship's engines are sent up in flames by a sharp missile shot from The USS Heartbeats.

"Jilson? JILSON?!" The man originally in the helm was shown running to engines on scans of the enemy, just before another burst of Laser fire tears their ship apart.

Emily cups her hand and shakes it at the wreckage, as one guy in a spacesuit pulls a gun on himself as he sees his dead crew around him.

Cowardly wanker Emily motions at the one survivor committing suicide.

There's whooping from the weapons centre, and a contented sigh from shields as the wreck is pulled into a nearby sun.

One less to fight later Thinks Emily.

"Chesire? You still standing?"

"Yup."

"Put some stew on the hob, I think we deserve something hot after our first fight."

"Aye aye!"

The ship jumps again, and the Rebels get another step closer too.

During the period of relative peace between FTL jump and landing at the beacon, they eat, have a shower and chat in the cafeteria- a repurposed storage bay. However, as soon as she gets the opportunity, Emily steals away from the other two sleeping cats and tries to contact her friend in the Rebels.
On her fifth try to get through to him, his dark haired head comes up on the vidscreen, rubbing sleep out of it's eyes.

"Yeah?" He mumbles, still half asleep.

"I need to know how far behind you guys are."

"Well, a few jumps or so. I don't really know. It's like, 2am in relative terms of time for me, and I don't know anybody on the night shift, let alone anyone who has a kind thought towards the feds like I do. That good enough?" He yawns.

"Yeah. Thanks. And..."

"And what, Emily?"

"It's good to see you again."

"Great. Can I go back to sleep now?" He returns the praise.

"You don't have to wake up for me." She says softly.

"You might not think it's important for me, but it is, and I like seeing your face just as much as you like seeing mine, if not more. Goodnight." The Vidscreen fades to black, and Emily curls up into a ball on the large, leather pilot's seat.


When she awakes she has enough time for a cup of coffee, and then they arrive at the beacon.
At first, nothing is amiss, but then a small orange shape floats into view.

Scans indicate life-forms aboard the Rebel ship, and a large amount of power being diverted to engines.

A forward scout.


The fight is short though, and it's engines go down first. They feebly return fire, but an Artemis puts one too many holes in their hull before they can repair their engines, and they explode in a ball of purple fire.

They must have been carrying a lot of fuel on them.

Shouts of cheer from the weapons echo up and down the ship, and Emily sips the rest of her coffee knowing that the Rebel fleet still has no advantage over them. For now.

They jump, and good old Chesire races down to the kitchen to start frying up some crispy bacon.

When they awake, they are confronted with a large earth-like planet. Further observations indicate that there is a race of intelligent but Pre-FTL humanoid creatures living there.

Emily decides to put her trust in these human-esque men and women, and descends into what appears to be their Capitol City.

As she steps out from the starship, a crowd of humanoids with slightly green tinged skin and naturally red hair greet her with enthusiasm, and their President, a woman named Ce'nedra welcomes them with literally open arms- all of the crew are hugged viciously by the joyous lady.

"My crew and I are on the run, I'm afraid, from a hostile fleet of men and women with starships, like ours. Theirs are far superior to ours in terms of armament and munitions, and- I feel so bad about this- but I must ask you if you have any resources spare that we could use to aid ourselves in our flight. If you wish, we can trade for th-"

"Trade won't be necessary. My people have experienced being on the run from greater forces- we know that any help is welcome. I will have arrangements for as much ore to be given to you as we can get into our trucks, and whatever munitions we can spare to be fitted into your ship, with the supervision of your crew, of course."

As Emily and the President bow to eachother, a young female of the race dashes forwards.

"Your Honour! Permit me to journey with these people! I want to learn as much as I can about them! Please let me come with you!" She begs the President woman and Emily to let her board the USS Heartbeats.

"Ah. Mai. This is my best Scientist, Mai. She's feisty, and brave, and knows more than most about cooking from nothing." Nods the President.

"If you're happy to have an extra pair of hands aboard, I'm happy to let her learn what she can from you."

Mai comes aboard, and the crew depart the strange but beautiful planet, taking metal, missiles and a lot of native cooking ingredients that Mai had been 'dying to get her hands on.'

"These things are just too expensive for a scientist like me! I'm glad Miss Bodie liked you, or I'd never have gotten to cook with these in a million years."

Now, officially, Mai is the person in charge of engines, but she's never actually seen an engine before; Mai is a bio-logical professor, not a physicist or an engineer. She spends all her time in the shields room with her new Sister from another Mister, Juliet. They swap cooking tips and just generally chat whenever they aren't fighting, and when they are, two pairs of hands are always better than two for keeping shields alive.

They jump again, and Mai waves goodbye to her homeplanet.

After a few jumps, a few sleeps and a few even more delicious meals than had been made with just Juliet at the ovens, they find themselves faced with a Federation fighter.

Being chased by a Rebel fighter.

"So this is your great enemy." Mai says quietly, stunned by the sleek mechanical beauty of the Orange ship.

"Yeah. I wouldn't get too attached to that shade of orange if I were you, I think Jess is about to burn it."


They engage.

The Orange painted ship is armed with a weak laser and a small beam weapon.

With a small laugh, Emily realises that they'll never penetrate her own ship's shields, and prepares to take the ship as a whole, and possibly recover any prisoners the fighter had aboard.

A brief fight shows that the current Heartbeat's armament is insufficient for ship-clearing, and the hostiles crumble into little scraps of metal as the Federation make first contact with eachother.

Only one of the ship who'd just been saved survived, and they join Emily's crew without a word of persuasion needed.

The Rockwoman, whose name is Hania, helps Emily strip the now derelict Federation fighter, and assumes a position near the centre of the ship, ready to put out fires when needed to.

More jumps. More food.

More sleep. The only few interesting things that happened inbetween jumps was that they discovered Hania the new recruit had the uncanny ability to snore very loudly when she was fed anything with beetroot in it. Consequently, all beetroot was jettisoned from an airlock near the rear of the ship.

Nobody liked beetroot anyway.

What also happened was that Baran Contacted Emily, instead of vice-versa. He brought some really excellent news with his handsome face on that videoscreen.

He also brought a skinny blonde boy with him.

"This is Lucius. He's a Fed sympathiser like me. And guess what else?" Baran asks Emily to guess at the other perk of this new find.

"What?"

"I work the night shift." Lucius said, in a not-overjoyed but also not depressed voice. He clearly wasn't horribly excited to make first contact with a Fed, and he probably wasn't too fond of the way Baran hugged him in excitement. In fact, he went bright red when he did so.

"Get off!"


"Anyway, Lucius needs to get back to bed, and I need to get back to my Frigate's Communications room before they notice me missing, but I, or Lucius, will speak to you later, yeah?" Baran nods like a demented puppy dog.

"Sure thing, pal."

"Oh, and by the way, Emily."

"What?"

"You totally owe me a drink when this is all over."

"Sure I do." She says, smiling at him.

"Bye Emily." Baran says.

"Bye Emily." Lucius says.

"Bye boys." Emily says.



Emily closed the chat, and jumps again, as her scanners show little to no things of interest in this beacon's immediate range.

She jumps into what she recognises as an Engi controlled sector.

Immediately, she is hailed by a gruff white-haired man, who looks a bit like Santa.

"Good day Madam."

"Hello, can I help you?"

"Yes. Your ship is well enough equipped, so I guess you can handle this job. A freighter I'd hired to deliver drone parts is a week late, and I need you to go and check on it. The idiots flew through a nest of pirates and the last word I hear from the Captain's mouth was 'This is bull.' ergo my need for a less stupid Starship Trooper to go and hunt down my missing cargo."

"What's my payment, pal?"

"Scrap of course, and a good amount of it."

"I'm in."

"I'm sending you their last known co-ordinates, alright? Save the crew if you can, but I won't lose sleep over the Captain's death in the very least; too stupid to live, some people are."

The Vidscreen turns black, and resumes it's customary view of the outside space as usual shortly afterwards.

Let's go hunt some cargo.

As she looks at the star map, deciding where to go to best get to her marked destination, Emily notices the faint red glow of a distress signal near a beacon. It'd take her crew further from their destination, but they've got to help out where they can.

"It's the Federation way." She states securely as she bolts down the Faster Than Light slipstream towards her new target.


Immediately upon arrival, shots are fired in their direction, and an Engi comes up on the screen.

"Sincere Apologies Protocol engage- I Regret that your craft is the most profitable prey in the area at present, alas it is my and my comrades living to take apart your craft and sell the parts on for food. My sincerest apologies.- Protocol end. Commence destruction."

The vidscreen dies, and the green glow of a Zoltan Shield surrounding an Energy Bomber take it's place through the windshield/Vidscreen combo device.

"My sincerest apologies to you, my dear engi."

Emily engages her engines, and tells her own comrades to charge weapons and shields.

"But I don't take shit from pirates."


Just before Emily's own lasers and rockets are sent on their merry way to the enemy's shield, the sounds of a teleporter ring through the entire ship. They are followed not by gunfire, though, but by a huge explosion.

"Teleporting bombs, what next?"

Thankfully, nobody was in the engine room when the bomb went off, but Hania and Mai both scramble to get the craft moving again as soon as they can.

As her own guns return glorious crimson streaks of light as fire, and bombard the shields dept. of the enemy ship, which is now without any advanced shielding from the Zoltans, their enemies' weapons drop down to 0% and the shields take a huge beating from the missile-stick too.

"Sucks to be you." Emily mutters as the final few shots dissipate into the hull, which is promptly peeled apart by the fire, and salvaged by Emily's crew.

On the way to the location at which the freighter was last seen, there is no contact from the Federation Sympathisers, and the only real event of any interest at all was that The USS Heartbeats jumped into a beacon populated by a small Mantis craft, painted with Outcast colours. Pirates everywhere nowadays.

Fortunately, the mantis craft makes no reaction to their sudden landing in it's beacon's zone, and continues on it's merry way, wherever that way may be going.

"Chesire, Jess, get our system power down low, I don't want to get spotted by these guys." Emily says over the intercom to her two systems operators.

Chesire, also known as Juliet, is the first to respond.

"They're as low as they can go, Cap, hide us behind that asteroid I see out the Starboard Bow!"

Emily makes a move for the asteroid, Impulse engines blaring softly in the hopes of not attracting any unwanted attention from the so-far oblivious Mantis Pirates, but at the last moment, Jess puts full power on the weapons.

"What the hell are you doing Jess?!" Emily screams down her little microphone attached to the breast of her uniform.

"What the hell are you doing Captain?! If you kindly look out your viewscreen, you notice several lasers just narrowly missed us!" Jess replies, not angry, but frantic.

The streaks of red hit the centre hull, and cause a few fires in the room Hania has made her home.

"Nope." Says Hania as she jumps repeatedly on the fires.

Soon enough the fires are out, and Jess' own weapons are charged for the assault.


The mantis ship's weapons charge slightly faster though, and they manage a burst of Hull Smasher laser before one of Jess' artemis is launched straight for their weapons systems. The green balls of light are absorbed by the shields, which Chesire and Mai promptly direct a little extra power to, for recharging.

Jess' own artemis misses it's target and continues on into space, as the pirates manage to cause a little pock-mark on Heartbeat's hull, as it somehow passed the shielding.

"Shit. Sorry guys. I'll get 'em next time." Jess apologises profusely.

And she does. A burst of bright red streaks across the empty space, and hits the smaller, faster moving object directly on the weapons room, causing the turbolaser and what looks like some sort of tele-bomb to be retracted back into the hull as power to those systems drops suddenly.

"BOOYAH! See, I told you I'd get him!"

The pirates launch one errant laser at them, which practically bounces off of their superior shields as close range as the pirate swerves in for a run of fire. Scans indicate that a being made entirely of nano-robots is repairing the weapons system at surprising speed, but not for long as another ace bolt of the Artemis strikes the already weak spot on the enemy's hull, causing all power to that system to drop completely.

Jess fires the burst laser again as the straggling ship tries to flee to the safety of a cave in a nearby asteroid and Emily flies after them, but the enemy pilot pulls something like an aileron roll in the midst of a little space debris, and dodges it all.

The next burst of laser fire rips a small hole in their hull, which is barely as cause for concern, but also lights several fires in the weapons room, which slowly consume the already ailing engi, as his mantis crewmate comes to aid him futilely. Gradually, all of the enemy crew are forced to leave the smoke-thick room containing the fires and the weapons systems as their condition grows too low for firefighting. The fire consumes the rest of their ship as they go along.

Eventually, the strain from the production of so much heat is too much for the tiny red craft, and it is pulled into two pieces.

THe crew of the USS Heartbeats have just enough time to salvage what they can before moving away as the wreckage is pulled into a nearby black hole.


The Heartbeats jumps away, before anything else happens, and lands at the site of a huge battle, that was already lost.

"What the hell happened here?" Emily says to the rest of her crew, now standing at the helm with her, as they look upon a merchant frigate that has been scorched and melted in some places, whilst obviously frozen in others.

"I don't think it matters any more... we have a job to do, don't we?" Mai suggests, eager to get away from that abomination of a space-wreck.

"I agree." Hania says bluntly.

"We were given a job. We were promised a reward. Let's go."

They salvage what they can of the cargo, and leave for the destination at which the cargo was to be delivered.

During the FTL jump, whilst Mai is taking a very, very long bath, and the others are playing some strange game named after an Italian plumber Mai had brought with her, Emily manages to get some time to herself in the Captain's chair.

Suddenly, a skinny blonde kid appears on the vidscreen.

"Hello? Emily?" Lucius says through his low quality speakerphone.

"Yes?"

"Well. Baran is asleep, so he asked me to talk to you for him- make sure you aren't lonely in space, or anything."

"I don't think it's possible for me to be alone in this ship. We have a very... dynamic crew."

"Describe them to me, I've got a lot of time; I just got off my duties."

"Well, there's me, who you know, A girl named Juliet who is always, always cheery unless something cute dies or something, and then she's inconsolable, who has just made great friends with a human-like alien named Mai who is a top scientist from her homeplanet of Nubescue, and Hania the rock-woman just mills about in the midsection of the bow, putting out fires whenever needed to. OF course, our gunnery sergeant is Jess, who really doesn't like rebels, so I'm a bit worried about introductions when this is all over, or before that. So yeah. My crew." Emily nods in a very 'not bad' manner.

"Well. I suppose I've got to tell you about my mates now, don't I?" Lucius says after digesting the information.

"That'd be cool."

"Well. You know Baran, and you know me. So... I guess Jackson counts as one of my crew, although I'm not captain of anything. He sits next to me at lunch and we work together in the Comms room, receiving and sending messages for the Rebellion. He's a cool guy, and he doesn't quite know what to think of this war. He only signed up because his brother did; if he had a choice, I think he wouldn't really be on anyone's side. He doesn't like what most of the Rebel Scout Captains do though, in blind hatred of your team. He despises people who hurt others for fun. He might make a good defector one day if I could persuade him whose side was the right side without being court-martial'd. Ummm... Oh yeah! Lucy. She's cool. She, my friend, is a conscript. She absolutely hates the rebels, and I have a good feeling about her joining our little band of dissidents as soon as we can get her. But anyway. I'm really tired. You don't mind if I just go to bed, do you?"

"not at all. Who's that other guy in the top bunk behind you? Another dissident?"

"Nope. My boyfriend."

Emily's mouth drops in shock.

Lucius grins.

"I'll tell you some other time, sister." The vidscreen fades to black.

"Well hot damn."


As they come out of FTL speed, they notice a small Engi Cruiser resting on an asteroid, broadcasting a mercantile signal in all directions.

As they come out of FTL speed, they notice a small Engi Cruiser resting on a moon, broadcasting a mercantile signal in all directions.

When they come to rest next to it, the engi walks out into the thin atmosphere generated by his craft and welcomes them into his moonside shop.

"My friends, my friends." He says in a stunning organic and without-protocol voice.

"What can I do in your service?"

Jess squeals with excitement and skips over to a huge cannon of sorts hanging on a rocky outcrop by the ship.

"A phoenix! A PHOENIX!" She squeals again and hugs the cannon before turning to the Engi.

"How much?" She holds it's robotic hand in both her palms.

"Well, originally 100 scrap, but I love seeing excitement in young people, so it can be yours for eighty, and judging from how much metal you brought out with you, you can also afford my old Crew Teleporter unit. It'd take up all your scrap, but I assure you it's worth it." He says, a broad, cheerful smile breaking out across his face.

"Let's get both." Hania says, tired of putting out fires, and wanting quite desperately to get aboard an enemy ship already.

And so they got both. Jess herself personally helped the Engi install the weapon onto their ship, and Hania tested out the teleporter by teleporting herself accidentally into the bathroom as Mai was taking a shower.

"I'm so sorry!" Hania yelled as she ran from the alien woman's blind nude fury.

"Maybe I need to know how it works a little bit more before testing it out..." Hania admitted to the laughing engi.

"N-no... you'll do just fine!" The engi showed her how it worked before waving them a fond goodbye.

"Oh, and I'm a traveling merchant, by the way. You might see me elsewhere too. My name is Bond. James Bond."

"Seriously?" Said Emily.

"I know."


They jumped again, with a new crew teleporter and a shiny new gun, into the beacon at which they were destined to meet the person who the cargo of the old, broken freighter was going out to.