One century after the war between the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za and Korh-Ah had dissipated, a great many planets had been freed from their slave shields. The Path of Now and Forever could go on and planets could thrive peacefully.
Throughout this time of peace, humans were able to expand their relationships with the rest of the universe's races, most of them in whom they established a peaceful relationship with, some of them were not so peaceful. By the time the 9th decade had passed since peace reigned in the galaxy, most of the races had established relationships that would allow them to coexist peacefully.
The races that were a part of the Alliance of Free Stars were capable of coexisting peacefully. And this would eventually include those who were originally not from the quadrant in which the war took place, like the Arilou La'leelay, the Orz and eventually, the shy Melnorme. In fact, after the 9th decade, a group of Melnorme emerged seemingly out of nowhere to populate a few of the worlds that they had been given coordinates to a long time ago, thus establishing Trade Masters who lived in this quadrant, amongst other careers.
Several star systems would be the homes of these peacefully coexisting races, having capital planets which were often highly populated. And nearly every race lived in these capital planets, including the business capital planet of Delta Libra.
Delta Libra's capital planet was the home of many powerful establishments, including a new scrap business that had just been approved.
Human Captain, John Michael, had just gotten the approval of Delta Libra's business agencies to start a business he knew well, the scrap metal business. He wasn't new to this business, but he now had the approval to make his new business a commercial one. It would not tie in with any other businesses, but because there were other companies that would gladly purchase scrap metals from them, it would easily become a profitable business.
What made getting the approval so easy was that not only did Captain Michael have excellent ideas for where to get materials, but he also had the know-all about putting a mothership together from scrap materials he found while cruising. This ship was aptly named the "Junk Heap". While it worked very well and held combat capabilities, it was pieced together from scrap materials, which made it look very much like the junk heap it was made of. It had crews quarters that featured 3 smaller quarters and 5 larger ones, a laboratory for a potential science officer and a cargo bay which also served as a scrap-compression area, since the machines to compress the scrap metals fit in the cargo bay. The Junk Heap also held a hangar, in case potential crewmates had ships of their own(asides from Michael's personal cruiser). The thing was, who was he going to hire?
He already enlisted four crew members on the spot, since he knew them well, the Androsynth doctors, XRGB. These Androsynth quadruplets were easy to hire, since scrap was a dangerous job if one was careless, so naturally, doctors were needed. Plus, they had established a good relation with the Captain prior to the business's approval, so they were naturally excited to see where it would take off to.
Soon after XRGB's hiring, he enlisted another very easy option, a childhood friend of his, Thraddash Mack-Gnurf. Mack grew up right besides Captain Michael, having been raised in the same area of Delta Libra as he was, thus they shared similar interests in searching for scrap to sell off to refineries. Since he knew where the best mineral refineries were, the nearest being on Delta Libra's second planet, Mack was able to make contact with them once they had a decent haul.
The next of Michael's crewmates was an old friend of the Captain's, the Spathi Sergeant Plibnik. He and Captain Michael met in military training as young adults and wound up becoming good friends throughout the course of their combat training. After hearing about the scrap business taking off, Plibnik brought to the Captain's attention that while they were looking for scrap, they may end up having to fight while they traveled. Hence why Plibnik was hired as Combat Sergeant.
The fourth of Michael's easiest hires was after the Melnorme Ultra-Trading Complex heard about the up-and-coming scrap business, sending a note to Captain Michael saying that they were sending one of their best-trained machinists and inventor to the Junk Heap. The note did not say who this was or what this machinist looked like, but when Captain Michael went to enlist them, he was in for a surprise. This machinist was a 30-year-old female named Inventor Lavender. To prove that she was who the Ultra-Trading Complex sent out, she presented to him a datapad of her work history, education and her qualifications, all in which matched up with the information the previous note shared with him. On top of that, as part of Michael's terms of enlistment, she proved that she was able to use the scrapping machines with ease and without instruction. One press of a button on the compression machine and she was hired. Besides the factor that she could fluently speak 12 different languages, Michael found her to be an indispensable part of the Junk Heap, since, at the time of the Junk Heap's first launch, she was the only qualified machinist they had.
The terms for enlistment also included housing in the mothership as part of their jobs, so letting his newly established crew settle into their designated quarters before their jobs could commence was important.
Since they were highly likely to travel to different parts of their quadrant, Captain Michael thought carefully about his company's rules, when it came to search-and-rescues that they might find. If they found wrecked ships that had survivors, then they would have to take these survivors on board and escort them to a designated planet or space station. Unless they would find possible recruits, that was part of the rules. Captain Michael assembled a crew meeting to get his crew up-to-date on this term in order for them to understand better what had to be done.
Now that the newly hired crew members understood and acknowledged their terms of service, they were more than ready to pursue their career.
The Junk Heap's first haul was found in a star system not far from Delta Libra, where they found scraps of metal and materials for creating ship batteries floating around in an asteroid belt. It was the Junk Heap's first official haul, and what a haul it was! It filled the entire cargo bay at once and heading back to the capital planet of Delta Libra, they were able to sell off their findings rather quickly, making an enormous profit. It was only the first haul and they made heaps of credits with just the first haul. It was more than enough proof to the crew that the Junk Heap's future findings would prove successful. This huge haul was an enormous boost of confidence for the entire crew, and what profits they made after the sale was divided evenly.
After the crew had a week to purchase goods either to install into the ship or to refill their supplies of essentials, the Junk Heap took off once more to explore. And thus, the Junk Heap's adventures would begin.