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Chapter one of Star Hopper (the finished product!) It is in the process of being self published and soon you can buy a copy (if you really like it that much) off of lulu.com! I've spent over two years on this thing and had to edit it myslelf and I don't pride myself in grammer so yeah, it has typos and lots of them. Don't leave anything about how there are so many typos I've tried to get rid of as many as I could find. BTW, the format isn't what it's supposed to look like, it is supposed to have no spacing but this is how it turned out.

Enjoy!

1

Ian hit the retro rockets as his star hopper came out of warp right in front of a planet. He jerked the stick to the left to dodge the gas giant.

"Oh god, that was close!"

He breathed a sigh of relief, but before he could relax anymore an asteroid smashed into his ship.

Ian grabbed the stick with both paws and pulled the ship out of the path of other asteroids. Finally, out of the way of the asteroid belt, he was able to relax. Ian reached for the speed dial and pulled back to a reasonable speed, one where he could actually see what was happening. But he was soon awed with the giant red star in its final stages of life.

"Hmm, look at that."

He spoke to his robotic friend, Bot,

"What?"

Ian used a finger to tap at the screen, it zoomed to the closest planet,

"There's two dead planets here, both were habited once, and look, they still have ruins. Although, there is nothing about the inhabitants in the Database. Bot, do you know anything about these?"

The small cat-like robot pounced up onto the control panel to get a better view.

"I can't say that I have, it must be a lost civilization or one that died out a long, long, time ago."

Ian thought about it more, "Do we have any information about the galaxy or solar system?"

Bot searched through his mechanical brain,

"I don't have anything but the name of the solar system, A11-21-00. It was never searched regarded as too...uninteresting."

Ian's Star hopper raced toward the space dock came into view.

"Well whoever they were, they had space travel. Maybe they left and never came back."

Bot quickly dismissed that remark,

"Not likely, besides if they did we'd have knowledge of it. Land on the closest station."

Ian piloted the small ship close to the first docking station and examined it,

"Looks safe, computer what do you think?"

The computer checked the docking mechanisms and safety attachments, on the screen it showed a red box around each section that it was checking, then switched to green when they checked out. Soon there were almost hundreds of little green boxes on screen.

"Check atmosphere inside, is it stable and is it safe?"

A quick scan later and the information appeared on the screen, it read.

"Stable atmosphere, breathable."

Ian looked back at his mechanical friend

"Looks safe, let's go."

He maneuvered his ship in front of one of the receivers, suddenly, lights illuminated the dock. Ian got ready to move in but mechanical arms reached out and grasped the ship.

Three loud clunks signified that the docking procedure was a success.

Ian stood up and stretched, "Let's go."

The door to the Star hopper hissed as it pressurized with the outside. The hanger that it opened to was incredibly dark, but when he placed one foot on the space station lights flickered on and continued to go down the hanger, which was empty.

"Woah!"

His little Star Hopper was dwarfed by the hanger. Bot's mechanical paws clicked as they hit the metal floor, "This is incredible!"

On the walls were instructions in an old ancient language, Bot scanned them.

"Ian, this is just...just I don't know what it is, I know almost 100,000,000 languages whether they be widely used or not, but I don't even have one thing on this one."

Ian looked closely at it, "You positive?"

Bot hopped onto a table next to the wall to examine the writing closer, "Nope nothing."

Ian's paw dragged along the wall as he walked along the hanger, he looked back, his little Star Hopper lay there.

"Bot?"

"Hmmm?"

"How do you suppose there is still power here, I mean it looks like this place was deserted a long, long time ago."

Bot sat and looked around, his eyes looking beyond the walls for the power source. Beyond the far wall lay a gigantic power reading, off his charts.

"Ian, I found it. It's in the middle of the station, but you might want to be aware it one of the biggest power sources I ever seen."

"What do you mean 'one' of the biggest?"

"The only power source I ever seen bigger then this is a star."

Ian sat there, speechless. This civilization had harnessed the power of the sun and put it into meager things like space docks, who were they, are they still around? He walked up to a glass door, a blue florescent light radiated through it, he could see is reflection. Himself a lanky fox with a fur color of grey, his mom was a fox, dad wolf, he took his father's coat. The clothes on him were baggy but well kept. Behind him his tail twitched a couple times. His dark blue eyes blended in with the door and slowly he walked to it. Compressed air hissed and the door slid open in two parts, one up and the other down, the hall way it lead to lights flickered on.

"Bot, which way to the power source?"

The robots eyes flickered several times, "Uhh, ok. Down this hallway, left, uhh, left again, right, and then straight down the hall for the rest of the way."

Ian followed the directions exactly the way Bot had described them with the lights flickering on every time he entered a new hallway. Until finally, he reached the straight hall which he ran down. His trail had brought him to a large steel door with a gigantic lock on it.

"Bot, cut it."

"With pleasure."

The animal like robot got closer and stared at the door, the robot bulled a small blow torch and started at the door. Bot worked around the lock, within several minutes it tumbled to the ground and Ian pushed the door with all his might, it budged. He pushed harder than he ever though he could and it opened less than a foot. Sucking in he slipped through, Bot followed. He gawked.

"Holy!"

There, in front of him was a mini sun, floating, encased in a plasma shield. Large wires connected to it and ran out to different ports and a computer terminal lay near the sun, Ian walked towards it. He studied it, "I wonder if it's voice activated."

Suddenly the screen lit up and a red holographic keyboard appeared in front of him. Ian looked back to Bot and smiled. Then the computer spoke to him in, what he presumed, was the dead language,

"What?"

It spoke again, and repeated what seemed like the same thing,

"Bot, what's it doing?"

The cat thought, "I don't know, it maybe is personalizing. You know looking for our language."

It kept at it, "Hey Bot, plug in, maybe you could upload our language."

Bot hopped up on the console and found a plug in, he whipped his tail around and flipped through several plug-ins on the tip.

"Ah, found one."

He plugged in with his tail and accessed the database,

"And I think you're good."

Suddenly the computer spoke, "Do you understand?"

"Yes."

It went silent, "uhhh, access database."

The monitor changed and it spoke, "Accessing files."

Three small dots blinked in quick succession and the computer searched, then it turned red, "Insufficient Data."

Ian couldn't understand, "what do you mean, 'insufficient data' you're the main port!"

"Query unanswerable."

He sighed, "Why insufficient? Was the data erased?'

Again the dots showed, the voice sounded, "manually erased, more data erased. Cannot continue."

Ian thought quickly, there had to be some way that he could find out where this place was or who built it. He kicked a rail and looked at Bot who was staring at him, then on Bot's mechanical paw he saw his answer, a barcode. He moved back to the computer,

"Where were you built."

"Query unanswerable."

He grunted, "Place of origin."

The computer displayed multiple words like company followed by the actual name of the company, but then it came to the answer he wanted, planet.

"Planet...Elusses."

"Date built...au4390."

Ian marveled in the two answers, one the planet being one he's never heard of, and two the date being over 500,000 years old, it's remarkable that it's still here and that the vacuum of space hadn't destroyed it. He sat there glaring at the sun and wondered if all of the other stations and facilities used this power. Suddenly the screen tuned red and it started shouting "warning!" over and over again.

"Bot what is it?!"

"How should I know?!"

Ian turned to the computer, "Computer, what's wrong."

After some seconds the computer finished it's scans.

"Four space vessels due in from the west."

"Damn, how'd they follow me? I left no trail!"

Bot disconnected from the console, "Your star hopper left warp residue and they were able to read that."

"Shit, shit, shit! How do I get out of this one?"

He sighed, "Computer, what are the stations defenses?"

It started a list of weapons that he'd never heard of,

"Pulse cannon, star beam, mini gun, plasma cannon, eradicate pulse."

Ian didn't have time to read the explanations of each. The station began to shake as the ships began to fire, but Ian knew them as battleships

"Shields at 85% Transmission coming in."

"What? Transmission? Send it through."

A mean looking wolf stood on the bridge of his flagship battleship, he spoke with a deep rumbling voice that could scare the hell out of you.

"Give it up, not even a space dock and survive four Battleships, just turn yourself in."

Ian stepped back, he didn't want to seem scared in front of him. He put up a front,

"Why? Just so you can kill me?"

The computer said that the shields were at 65%.

"Come on, you like being a space pirate? A life of villainy and treachery? You know what that means?"

Ian crossed his dark furred arms.

"Well yeah I know what it means!" He said sarcastically

The wolf on the other end slammed his paws on the chair he was sitting.

"You're gonna die right now or you could survive, that's what' I'm offering."

Ian yawned, he wasn't about to take the wolf's deal.

"Survive. Survive for what? Prison? I don't think so. Do you take me for stupid or something? Because I forgot, who's the person who has out smarted you on multiple occasions? Me? Oh yeah, it was me."

The wolf's mouth twitched as the comments soared past his ears.

"I'll tell them you cooperated." He gritted his teeth. "You might get less than a life sentence. I'm only offering it now."

Ian laughed.

"Oh, think about it. I've been like this for years. You think that a little talk is going to persuade me!"

The wolf shook his head, "I could have gotten you a break, but I guess you were too stubborn. Fire large cannons. Son, you've made the wrong choice."

"Shields 45%"

Bot began to get scared,

"What are you doing Ian, fire something."

He looked down,

"Just shut up, you're not my father at least not anymore."

Ian studied the weapon choices, he made a guess, eradicate pulse.

"What are you doing...what is that!" The wolf's mouth began to drop. "Helmsman, move! Move now!"

"I'm trying sir!"

Suddenly, the station shook and the all the lights went black a loud metallic crash flew Ian off of his feet as an angelic hum sounded through the station. He struggled to get up but when he did he ran to the nearest window. All he could see was a thin white circle expanding from the station almost like a ray of light. It impacted the first Battleship and tore right through it like it was made of soft butter exploding the ship into millions of pieces. It reached out towards the others, Ian saw the flag ship, his father's ship. A second before the line hit, the transmission sounded.

"Ian, I'm so sorry."

The light cut through and explosions followed, the four battleships were no more. Ian placed a paw on the window and watched as the pieces floated away to the sun. Bot stayed silent. A slow beeping of the station started and one by one the lights came on, when they came on Ian saw a steel shield that protected the mini star. He figured that it made the loud crash that threw him of his feet.

His paw slipped off the glass as the beeping continued, the computer sounded.

"Life pod detected, attempting rescue operations."

Ian dove to the computer, "No! Stop!"

The computer screen showed a video feed of the operation that was already underway, small robots drifted out, latched onto the single person pod and slowly brought it to the hanger. "Stupid station!"

He stomped off to the hanger, the computer screen followed on a path that was attached to the wall. Ian backtracked the way that Bot had told him to and ended up at the hanger again, there was his Star Hopper but also a life pod, single seat.

"Arrg, why'd it have to do that?!"

Ian reached for his plasma pistol. He walked up to the pod, gun in front of him ready to shoot.

"Bot, open it up."

The cat bounded up to it and used his tail to connect with the pod as it had done earlier with the computer, rundown lists scrolled across Bot's mechanical glowing blue eyes.

"Ah here we are!"

Ian raised the pistol as the door hissed and flopped open. He immediately jumped in and pushed the muzzle of the gun at the person's neck. He growled with his teeth but it slowly diminished as the smoke cleared and Ian got a good look. A good look at the beautiful vixen who lay in the pod. But it didn't add up, Ian thought, females weren't usually allowed on Battleships. Supposedly, battle was too fierce, they could be Doctors and nurses but not actual battle forces and the medical units. Aside from the usual first aid groups, they were always stationed on different ships from battleships because everything in a battleship was devoted to battle. Even the oven could be primed to explode if needed. She wasn't even dressed in a flight suit or other ship attire either, but a long white silky dress.

By her fur patters he realized that she was a fox like him only with orange and white, the acceptable colors. But her eyes were silver, a color seen in only one well known family.

"You'd better not hurt me!"

He obviously wouldn't, he never hurt females or anybody, unless they were a threat to him like if they had a plasma gun or something, but only then would he disarm them and hit them in the back of the head where they would get knocked out for the remainder of the raid. Ian hopped off of her and backed up, Bot unlatched from the pod and followed him. The fox removed her safety belt and stepped onto the station, and behind Ian the computer spoke.

"It would be wise to have her check in the Informatory, although race unknown."

He turned to the vixen and got closer to her, she flattened herself against the pod,

"Don't come any closer! You, you scum!"

Her eyes followed his paw, he took the hint and put his pistol away.

"I won't hurt you."

"Why?"

"I don't hurt girls." He took a quick pause. "It's, hmmm, too immoral. Unless they are a threat to my life, and you aren't."

Ian had a forced look on his face, one of sorrow.

The fox was appalled by the statement.

"How do you know that I couldn't kill you now?"

Ian sighed, it was so simple.

"Well, for starters you aren't carrying a gun, you're in a dress!" She growled,

"Uh, I could still. Uh, still." She pressed her back further up against the metal.

Ian smiled,

"Yeah nothing. I doubt they would give Princess Colleen anything." He scoffed "Stupid."

Her face suddenly changed, "what are talking about! I'm not the princess! Do I look like her, Princess Colleen is beautiful. I'm not!"

Ian crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes,

"Please, only the royal family has silver eyes and your dress? Come on give it a break. Plus, it would be almost impossible to get to the escape pod with that attack, you were already in it for quick escapes like the one you just did. But, it wasn't smart that they didn't give you any weapons."

Her eyes drooped down to the floor.

"Ah, so they did give you one. Bot, check out the pod and her."

Bot pounced into the small pod and pawed around.

"Nope, nothing!"

Next, he moved to in front of Princess Colleen, his eyes glowed a brighter blue as his x-ray's searched the fox.

"On the leg, there is a plasma pistol."

Ian walked up to Colleen and expended his paw, "give it here."

She reached down and pulled up her dress to grab the weapon from her leg. She held it in her open paw and extended it out, Ian reached for it. But just as he was going to grasp it Princess Colleen flipped it up and grasped it in her paw and pointed the barrel right at Ian's head.

"One shot, your dead!"

Ian sighed and scratched his ears, "I really wish you hadn't done that."

"But who has the plasma pointed at their face."

Ian brought his arm up hit Colleens wrist, it made her go off balance. He grasped the plasma pistol and pushed the Princess to the ground forcing her to let go of the pistol. He flipped it around and pointed it directly at her head, but he wouldn't shoot. She crawled back as Ian twirled the gun around and held it by the barrel.

"Don't do that again, please."

Ian opened the bottom of the gun and pulled out the plasma core, encased in a capsule. Then he gave it to Bot, who crushed it in his small jaws. A small blue explosion followed.

He extended a paw to help the princess up, who took the help. She dusted her white dress off.

"So princess, what were you doing on a battleship?"

She crossed her arms,

"I can't tell you."

Ian started to walk off, she ran after him,

"Why were you running from those battleships?"

He stopped and threw his head back,

"Well, I'm a pirate."

"I've heard lots about pirates, which one are you?"

Her curiosity put him off a little.

"One that doesn't like people knowing who he is."

Princess Colleen thought for a second, "Are you part of that band of pirates who like to hang around Yelta?"

Ian rolled his eyes. "No."

"What about Argrent?"

"Nope."

"F.N.V?"

"No! I'm Black Son ok?"

She marveled,

"Black Son! You're that pirate?!"

Ian winced, he hated his reputation. But it was the only one he had.

"Yeah, that's me, and I'm the son of the now dead Flagship commander. Also, I've made raids on places like Dreas or Kildran, and even Ridlyyn. Of course you've probably heard that."

Colleens stood reserved,

"Ridlyyn? Really, The supremacy, that's the capitol planet of the galaxy, how would you pull something like that anyway? What would you want from there? It's not like there is anything much of value aside from people."

Ian shrugged,

"What else, Plasma cores."

Colleen rolled her eyes,

"What do you do with all those plasma cores, sell 'em?"

Ian smiled,

"Sometimes, and sometimes I keeps them for my own personal proposes, like Bot here, I built him."

He bowed, well the best way he could. Colleen looked back at Ian's Star hopper; it almost looked like the metal was going to fall off any minute. The only thing that looked up to date was the shield booster and weapon systems. She made a face,

"Are you sure you're a pirate, you don't have a ship like one."

Ian took offence to that,

"Hey, you'd better not dis my ship! I've spent hundreds of hours on that bucket of bolts."

Colleen slouched and scoffed,

"But the stories I've heard were about, Black son and his crew. Where are they?"

He shrugged and sighed, it was sort of remorseful.

"Unfortunately, those are old stories, a year ago, my father killed them all. They were a good bunch, pawpicked and all that, would have taken a mouth full of plasma for me and I would for them. They replaced my family. But Commander Ashtin found us and he killed all of them and destroyed my ship. I bought that after I escaped."

He pointed to the ship.

"Built it up, built my friend here, and set out alone."

He turned and walked back to his ship, it was small not huge like a star jumper, the largest of the star series and not like a star skimmer the smallest. But it was good enough for four people to fit snuggly inside, with supplies. A fall down door hissed as hydraulics bought it slowly to the metallic floor. Ian's shoes clinked as they hit the floor.

"Bot, stay out here and make sure that she doesn't try anything. Also see what you can salvage from the pod then plug yourself into the computer and download as much information that you can. After that go ahead and plug yourself into the Hopper and get some shut eye."

His eyes scanned over to Colleen,

"Get into the cockpit and sleep there." He turned back and started up the ramp to the insides of the ship. "Oh!"

She stopped in her tracks, "What?"

"You'd better not try anything funny or you'll be in trouble and just to say I've rigged that pit so I'll know."

With that the fox disappeared in the darkness of the ship to have the door close behind him. When the Black son was gone Bot hopped up to the plate to be in charge,

"Miss, get into the cockpit?"

Colleen wasn't going to take orders from a small robot that she could probably break by stepping on him.

"Why, when I could sleep in the ship, I'm sure there's room in there!"

Bot's eyes turned a blood red as the LED lights were activated by his emotion simulator.

"Shut it and get there or you'll be in trouble."

Growling sounds echoed through the hanger, Colleen backed down.

"OK."

Bot hopped up to the front of the ship and placed his paw on a pad that was positioned near the rear of the oval window. It opened up and accepted the paw, and then, like a key, he pulled it out and the cockpit opened,

"Get in."

She followed the orders. After Colleen got settled Bot placed his paw back on the pad to lock it, the window came back into place and sounds of multiple locks could be heard and then silence. She watched Bot jump back down to the floor, but still couldn't hear anything. She just watched him continue with the duties that Ian had told him.