Disclaimer: This writing is based on the video game "Elite: Dangerous" made by "Frontier Developments". I do not own any aspects or properties of the video game or anything within the video game, nor do I make any claims of having any affiliation with the game's development, other than being a consumer of and a player. All characters are to be seen as fictional.
This story/ writing is still a work-in-progress, and may be a long piece or a "slow burn". There is no definite ending. Other entries may be shared in the future and this one may be updated likewise. I will gladly welcome any form of criticism and feedback from readers and authors.
Prologue
This journey begins as we follow a trio of pilots who have known each other for quite some time during their initiation through the "Space Pilot Administration" courses. The first pilot is named "Damen Josac", but is also known and referred to by others as "DJ" or by his callsign "X-ray-Three-Hotel". He is a tall, scrawny man who currently pilots a large bulky cargo ship known as the Type-9 Heavy, which he uses primarily to haul and deliver bulks of cargo. He's been requested to handle a mission; to deliver 1,024 tons of cargo by the faction he's joined and been a member of for some time. He has accepted this mission and will follow through with its objective, as he is no stranger to hauling shiploads.
In his early days of starting out as a pilot, he's taken the career path of mining asteroids to sell their valuable resources. Since then, he's been unexpectedly greeted with the misfortune of running into looters and pirates. They're the degenerates of space who act out of greed to siphon cargo from defenseless miners and traders who are trying to make a living selling honest goods. They take what they've plundered to later sell on the black market. Being in supercruise, or FTL (Faster-Than-Light) travel won't save you either, for the use of a frame-shift interdictor can allow these crooks to pull ships out, and back into normal space. The main method of stopping this is to align with the escape vector highlighted by the ship's display within the canopy. The chances of escaping an interdiction can depend on the pilot's skill, capabilities and their ship's characteristics, meaning a ship with awkward mobility will have a tough time handling interdictions against one that is more nimble. When a pirate has realized the hauler has precious cargo, they will demand their target to jettison part of the shipload from their hold for them to soon take. If they refuse to comply or do not act upon their orders quickly, the pirates will begin assaulting the ship, threatening them until they get what they want. If luck is on the victim's side, the hauler can escape from their attackers by returning jumping to another star system. Damen has since learned from his experience, growing to defend and attack the scourge of the galaxy that are pirates. But given that he's in a compromising ship, he's called upon two pilots known since his early days of journeying across the stars; Liara Humiri and Olivia Humiri.
Liara Humiri and Olivia Humiri are twin sisters who have gone through gene splicing to acquire fox traits, that being fox ears and a fox tail. Gene splicing is a magnificent procedure that is carried out through grotesque careful surgery, manipulating the body's gene structure to add, support, and even grow these wild various external traits to the body. The more traits and features you'd want to add, the more painful and even dangerous the operation can be. There are still limits to this procedure. The pain is often so great and traumatizing that it is highly stressed for the procedure to be done with anesthesia or any strong pain neutralizer. Any pilots who undergo this transformation will have to be temporarily grounded before and after the surgery takes place, as the nerves adapt and support their newly adopted animalistic body parts. There are other side-effects with these altercations, as you can gain traits of the animal(s) you've chosen to splice yourself with. Since these genes are artificially inherited, they may have a small chance to carry over to future generations.
Damen, Liara and Olivia have been in touch with each other ever since they've been assigned as a temporary wing by the "Pilot's Wing Association"; a program that allows solo pilots to find and form up to a 4-man flight group with other space pilots alike. The three were never assigned a fourth person, and have gotten along well enough to keep contact with one another. The twins have been requested by Damen to help escort him as he makes his rounds to deliver the haul from the primary station to the receiving station. The twins have decided to gladly aid him with his contract. This isn't the first time the girls have been asked to help him with a task like this.
They've accompanied him throughout some of his mining trips, and have even accepted contracts like this themselves. They've seen how greedy and unruly the horrid thieves of the black can be. With that knowledge, it didn't take too much discussion for the twins to agree with aiding Damen. They've helped each other with of their careers of being space pilots. Even when there were times things haven't ended as they intended...
Liara and Olivia are given the authority from Damen to defend him and attack any threat that manages to pull him out of supercruise to steal the mission goods. Some looters may be warded off after their noticing escorts or if their ship has taken too much damage, but others are not easily frightened and will even risk their lives for a small fortune.
The trio has just exited a hyperspace jump and arrived into the system on their mission. Each of them flying their spacecraft. Damen's aforementioned large cargo ship, the Type-9 Heavy, is also outfitted with weapons in case an attacker comes in the way of his mission. His ship's weaponry consists of two small multi-cannons and two medium cannons, all of which are gimballed that can track and any target in front of the ship, with the final piece of his armament is a single medium-sized seeker missile rack to deal significant damage to targeted ship's hull and modules. Though the ship's is large and sluggish characteristics make it hard to stand a fight alone, it suffices with supporting his bodyguards in heated moments.
Liara soars in her Cobra MkIII; a small multipurpose ship she has outfitted specifically to take on a combat role. Her ship's weapons are two gimballed beam lasers for eliminating shields, and two small seeker missile launchers for hull damage. The Cobra MkIII is a small and maneuverable ship, and a viable choice when fending off bandits.
Olivia has taken to space with her Vulture, another small ship that only has two large weapon mounts; and she has chosen to outfit her ship with one large gimballed multi-cannon, and one large fixed plasma accelerator. Her plasma accelerator is where the ship really shines, as such weaponry excels at dealing damage to a ship's shields and hull equally. Olivia has great confidence in her ability to aim her ship on target with an enemy's movement to use such a powerful weapon.