Piracy in Space

I am 14 years old.

Given my age you would be shocked to learn that I am trying to sneak onto a pirate vessel by stowing away on one of the landing crafts that came back up to a very large pirate ship.

I've heard the pirates stole millions of credits from a huge merchant ship that they raided and destroyed. But while I'm on this very large pirate vessel it seems the empire has found the pirates and is closing in, intent on killing everyone inside and retrieving the credits for themselves. There is only one star destroyer out there but I know that one star destroyer has millions of stormtroopers, pilots, and other personnel inside. I know that soon hundreds of thousands of stormtroopers will be crawling all over this large pirate vessel. From space this pirate vessel almost looks as big as the star destroyer but I know the pirates numbers will be dwarfed by how many stormtroopers arrive.

It's shocking how the Empire's armies are so collosal that they can send hundreds of thousands of stormtroopers after just one criminal faction. It used to be unprecedented for that to happen but now it happens all the time.

I realized that the longer I waited, thinking about the vastness of what was about to happen, the less time I had to grab those credits. I wanted the credits because I wanted my own space-craft to go to other planets with friends and play holo-games, but my family is too poor to buy me a space-craft. We're not the kind of poor where you live in slums or you catch diseases and die of starvation, but we don't have enough money to buy much cool stuff, just food, water, house repairs, and if I'm lucky a holo-game or trip to some entertainment venue.

A sudden explosion rocked me out of my daydreams. It was followed by screams and soon afterwards, blaster fire. I knew I needed to move so I started sneaking through corridors, losing my way, not knowing where those credits were. I was stopped in my tracks as I saw imperial stormtroopers advancing in a hallway in front of me. They were about to kill me. I shut my eyes and prayed for a quick death. But then a large amount of blaster fire rang out from the sides of the hallway and the first five rows of stormtroopers were slaughtered by the pirates. They came out, intent on destroying those stormtroopers totally unaware of my presence.

One pirate went berserk, drunk on blood lust. He charged into the open, screaming and firing his gun wildly into the dense crowd of stormtroopers and running sideways. He was stopped in his tracts by a blaster shot to the head, collapsing him against the wall.

I grabbed his pistol and tried maneuvering around corners. I blindly rushed into another corridor hoping to get out of the crossfire. My prospects are not looking good here.

Without warning another stormtrooper was in front of me but, luckily for me, he got shot in the head. I used his corpse as a human shield against pirate blaster fire and then started running between the generators along the wall.

Now that the pirates are frantically looking for me, searching everywhere, I have to be more sneaky. I think I've gotten away until a pirate rushes at me from around the corner. I notice a small bit of spewing electricity coming from one of the generators and grab the pirate and shove him into the electric sparks, frying him in seconds. I ran before anyone could find the gruesome sight.

I heard blaster fire and saw corpses lying everywhere. Then I heard pirates talking. They said the credits were in a room just to the right of where the command bridge would be. I soon headed in that direction. I started to walk into a nearby elevator shaft, but the whole thing was gone when it opened up almost causing me to drop fifty feet to my death. I could see a huge battle raging down there, blaster shots lighting up the red room.

I saw a pipe that extended from where I was, all the way over to the stairs, that would lead to the command bridge. I took a deep breath and climbed up the closest wall, getting to the point where I could take a perilous leap towards the pipe. I barely grabbed, took a breath and started slowly making my way across the room to the stairs.

I looked down below and saw what looked like carnage in its truest form. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of men facing off down there. Blaster volleys were slaughtering dozens of stormtroopers and pirates in a matter of seconds, joining a field of corpses that were covering almost every inch of the ground. Explosions sent men flying through the area. Flamethrowers blazed, setting hordes of stormtroopers and sometimes pirates on fire. The air felt hot and dry, and it looked like the atmosphere was yellow with burning objects and people. The smoke rose all the way up to the one hundred foot ceiling.

At this point my pipe started to curve downward, bringing me too close to the battle for comfort. I was so worried that they would look up and see me. My game would be over before I'd even really begun.

As if fate hated me, one of the stormtroopers took a upward glance at that very moment, and noticed me maneuvering across the room on the pipe. He raised his gun to shoot me. I had to act fast. I whipped out my stolen pistol and shot him three times, sending him catapulting over a nearby piece of equipment. I knew I had blown it. The rest would soon turn up and shoot me. Thankfully, at this point, fate decided to lend me a helping hand, for it was so common for people to be shooting in this place that no one really noticed the man get shot by me.

I leaped down from the pipe and quickly went for cover. It looked like the pirates were gaining the upper hand here, the stormtroopers were dropping like plague victims as they retreated into a doorway. From my hiding place I caught a small glance of a stormtrooper cooking a thermal detonator. He accidentally threw it a fellow stormtrooper who had a flamethrower and was standing in the middle of the doorway. The thermal detonator exploded near the flamethrower, shrapnel rupturing the flame tank and igniting dozens of stormtroopers all bunched up in the corridor.

The flames ignited the whole hallway setting the walls and other objects ablaze. The pirates took advantage of this stupid mistake, and I did too. I make my way stealthily through the hallway looking at the events as if they were happening in slow motion. That moment was the weirdest moment I had ever seen in my life. I was watching the opposing forces bash each other with rifles, pummel each other on the ground, shoot each other at point blank range, and witnessing ignited victims writhe in the flames.

I finally escaped the hellish scene and got to the room with the credits. I opened a chest that said there was ten million credits inside. There were boxes, just like this one, all over the room, hundreds of millions if not billions of credits just in this room. But I knew I could only take one of these. Plus, ten million credits was more than enough to buy a space-craft, in fact I could probably get a pretty nice one with this much. Most space-crafts only cost one million credits. With ten million I could buy a space-craft with an entertainment section, plenty of cabins, holo-net connection, a kitchen, a living room, and plenty of food and drinks in the storage to go on long trips to other planets.

I grabbed the box and left as quickly as I could, headed for the landing deck. The aftermath of battle clearly showing with corpses stacking on top of each other. To me it looked obvious that the pirates were winning this battle. I saw the trails of corpses leading back to the landing bay, with way more stormtrooper corpses than pirates. When I got to the landing bay I saw another shootout going on.

I sighed very loudly in frustration. Why do I have to go through every freaking shootout on this stinking heap of metal! My angry thoughts were interrupted by a pirate getting a hole burned through his head and I knew I needed to get out of here before the pirates won and secured the place. I ducked underneath their ships and vaulted over low cover as the blaster shots flew around me. I hoped I wouldn't be seen as I stealthily passed through the battle hiding behind ship after ship.

I boarded a starship and soon took control of it passing through the battle and running over any stormtroopers who dared get in my way. Before I knew it, I was in outer space. Using the skills I'd learned from my dad, I flew toward my home planet. But this was a starfighter not a space-craft. I knew I would run out of fuel soon. I made it as close to the ground as I could before I crashed onto a street in my city. I saw stars explode into my vision as I was launched out of the cockpit. After what seemed like forever I stood up and looked around at the completely non-concerned faces of the other people, a lot even had disappointment on their faces. I ran back to my house knowing I was late for dinner and burst into the house.

"Your late." my dad said. "So what have you been doing all day?"

"Getting myself a space-craft." I said, grinning as I put the ten million credit chest onto the table.

I sat there for what seemed like forever glorying in the astonished faces of my parents and then I sat down to eat my cold dinner.