Extract from the book “Confessions, an Admirals tale volume I”

For the past three years I had been a sailor in the Imperial navy, since that was what the state wanted of its citizens, whether they were willing or not, and despite my titanic efforts to avoid the whole war fate, or rather high command, had other plans for me!

Before the war I was running a shipping business and one day my ship was boarded by a pirate raiding party from the Republic and like any sane sentient with half a brain I immediately surrendered and asked for parole, which was a fancy way of saying: 'If I do not fight you and surrender all my goods, you will do me the honor of not introducing my brain to your axe'.

It worked out for the most part the aforementioned Republicans seemed alright, about as alright as killers and thieves and who knows what other kind of degenerates from one of the most savage dictatorship know to the galaxy could be.

It was only myself and Akanthos that day and I am grateful for the fact that none of the women who sometimes served on my ship where present.

Thrust me, those Republicans may look like pleasant fellows, with their silky long hair, pointy ears, shiny skin, and deep beautiful eyes and absolutely gorgeous humanoid anatomy( just because they tried to kill me, is not a reason to not try a few pickups!) but that's the only good thing about them.

Though I am not saying that their particular brand of savagery was worst than the one practiced by the Empire or Federation.

Oh no, we all had an equal timeshare in that, theirs was just of a different flavor, that's all.

You wouldn't want the old blood drunk taste buds getting bored now, would we?

And to be honest, as individuals, they were pretty decent fellows.

That is if you're not their rivals, of which the Imperium or Empire as it was called back then (and is still used in battle cries) found itself at that particular moment in time.

And so here we are, me and Akanthos, a couple of imperials on an Imperial ship, boarded by Republican pirates, when the relations between the two powers was not exactly what you'd call amicable.

Dandy, just dandy!

As they looted our ship taking almost anything and everything: pills, syrup, cushions, fabric and fabric samples for footstools (seriously what kind of pirates steals stool samples?) why at one point they opened the crates that contained bottles filled with alcohol.

The poisonous kind of alcohol that is not meant for consumption, but rather for use in chemical process!

And pirates being pirates they immediately opened the bottles and started drinking it, granted the alcohol was put into recycled wine bottles, but unlike what the press would want you to believe, we did not intentionally put them in those bottles in the faint hope that cutthroats would pop out of nowhere and start consuming them, but rather the fact that the bottles were cheap, at the ready, and reliable for our purposes, since our venture at the time was a small one and we needed every penny we could skim!

So I tried frantically to warn them, because honestly who deserves a slow and painful death?

That and the idea of being surrounded by a bunch of murderous cutthroats was more appealing that being surrounded by murderous cutthroats that would go crazy, and berserk, from drinking poison.

It's the little things in life that matter!

But my pleas fell on deaf ears, mostly from the fact that they did not speak imperial standard and I was not familiar with their language.

That and the fact that me and Akanthos were both tied up and gagged in a corner of the room, made my chivalrous intentions, motivated by selfish reasons of self preservation, doomed to failure.

Well, not a total failure.

The by then half-drunken pirates were having a good laugh at how the two of us were moaning and struggling with the ropes and gags, as we tried to stop them. And one of our viewers liked our impromptu mime show so much that he decided to reward me with a good kick in the chest that made me collapse to the ground and elicit a bout of laughter from his comrades.

A moment later the rest of our adoring audience joined in to let me know just how much they 'appreciated' my 'performance', and believe me it had been a major crowd pleaser with standing ovations and shouts for encore.

It only lasted a few moments but it fell like a few years had passed, buried alive in that pit of pain and blows, looking up and seeing all those silver haired evil grins, like a pack of rats clawing and biting at their prey.

Even so, I wanted to stop them from consuming the alcohol.

Now, I was not to fond of them back then, even before they decided to lay down a beating on me, and my opinion over the years has not changed by much, but even if they were a cutthroat band of thieves and murderers, who if they could they would have introduced me and Akanthos to some Carnetsars, but as I said before a slow and painful death in which you become blind, your insides burned, every muscle in your body spasmed and intense pain jolted throughout your whole being, was not something I would wish on anyone, not even them!

Well that and as I mentioned before if this is how they acted normally, you can imagine what kind of beasts they'd be from becoming half-crazed from the drink, for I lived it and even now, after all these years, I sometimes wake up in chills from the memory of that dreadful day.

But I couldn't do anything to stop them, and after their 'appreciations', "Drink up lads!" was the only thought going through my head back then.

So there as I laid there on the floor, and me and Akanthos watched them as they consumed the alcohol, all the while I counted down in my head the time until the effects would start kicking in.

Each gulp they took, each blink of an eye, each ticking off the clock on the wall became louder and louder and more intense with every passing moment.

I could hear my heart pounding in my chest, my breath was as heavy as a thunderstorm, my fists were clenched as the seconds ticked away.

The clock's seconds hand had by that point started to sound like bolts of lightning striking the ground, all was noise, all was chaos, and then it just stopped!

And then the madness began.

Eventually all that noise faded away, leaving nothing, not a single sound around us, as for a moment I could hear almost nothing, I ignored any sight, any feeling or sensation as I felt how the moment of judgment was about to arrive and when the damn broke, it swept everything away.

The first scream of agony erupted, then a second, then a third, then every pirate present shouted from how their eyes were being burned from the inside out.

It was like a lightning bolt struck the room, and from it a hellish choir that could be heard from all over the ship sounded off, as one by one the poor souls had their fates sealed.

As the grotesque scene unfolded around me, a sudden flash of light and a great boom came from my left side.

I turned my head to see what had just happened.

Much to my horror, I discovered that one of the pirates, in his pain induced frenzy, had fired an arrow into one of his comrades incinerating the poor, or fortunate, taffer in an instant.

In that moment any semblance, any potential off hope for this situation to be avoided was burned by that very same arrow, leaving nothing in its wake but fire and flames, as the pain crazed cutthroats around us started firing their bows and swinging their swords and maces around causing an inferno of fire, water, ice, wind, earth to engulf the corridors, of my ship and the pirate's ship.

As death and pain rained all around me I felt a hand on my shoulder, for a moment I thought that it was the reaper coming to escort me, and I panicked even more, since I could not reach the small necklace at my neck that held earth that I was supposed to clutch when my time had come, but turning my eyes to look death in the face, all I saw was a smile.

Akanthos, my ever smiling friend, had managed to get hold of a broken bottle and cut his bonds free, and bless his souls, for that kindhearted blackheart dragged my beaten and bloodied body to the sleeping quarters, where, after he untied me, we locked the doors and waited for the carnage to end.

I cannot recall how long we starred at that bolted door as the screams and moans came from the other side, as light of things burning danced on its edges.

We said nothing, only continued to gaze at what, for a small moment in the flow of the sands o time, had become the door to hell, as hoards of demons seemed to be just on the other side.

And then there were none.

For the sands of time, hell was something that was far beneath them, so the sands flowed on and left hell behind, and with their passing the horrible sounds eventually faded as well.

After waiting what seemed like an eternity, we armed ourselves with the axes that our ship had in case of fire outbreaks, opened the doors and cautiously peered out to have a look.

"Down the hole we go." I said to Akanthos as we opened the door and our eyes took in what had come to pass.

The once grey walls of the sip were now blackened from the inferno, ash, blood and bodies laid everywhere, excrement and piss pouring out of them, the walls also barred the scars from the weapons discharge and a foul smell of death permeated the entire hull.

The stench was our companion as the two of us made our way through that darkened corridor with nothing but the dead to escort us on our journey.

At least we hoped that they would be the only honor guard we came upon, and that we two were the only souls with still beating hearts aboard.

Myself and Akanthos continued our little journey throughout the ship, driven by a curiosity to see what was beyond the darkness, which when you stop to think about it was borderline suicidal leaning, but to our luck every pirate had consumed the alcohol.

Told you the Republicans were decent fellows after all!

As we marched forward we started to feel at ease walking amongst the piles of corpses, the sight of slaughter and butchery comforted us (yes, I know how it sounds).

After some time we located the captain of this pirate crew and never has a burned and battle ravaged corpse of a bloodthirsty savage looked so wonderful to me, though it wouldn't last I'd see, but you never forget your first.

Especially since somehow his great long beard survived the flames!

After a few gentle prods from my axe, which I did in a way that if he was still alive I could deliver a mercy stroke or just smash his face in while he was still down, whichever would have worked for me I was not a picky person, myself and Akanthos let out a breath of relief since they were all dead, meaning we had a monopoly on life on the ship, so we could finally relax.

I thought that the worst was over and I gave out a breath of relief, as I could not help but give a grin that was big enough, that it could not be anything but sincere, when all of a sudden the ship shook violently.

Akanthos and myself gave each other a look of worry, we both hoped that the warp sanctuary had not been damaged, when all of a sudden the sound of footsteps echoed throughout the ship as the door before us was blasted open and armed warrior poured in.

Much to our relief it was the Imperial Fleet who had boarded our vessel, the cavalry had arrived!

A little late for my taste, but that's big government for you! Especially one that at the time ruled over a third of the galaxy!

And I must say the look on their faces was priceless, behind me there was a corridor filled with battle scars, dead pirates all about and there I was bruised and bloodied, standing atop of the pirate captain with a bloody axe in hand( courtesy of my prodding of the corpse a moment ago to ensure that he had expired).

All the while I was with a great grin, a genuine smile of joy plastered on my face.

"Anyone care for some roast?" I could not help but say towards the stunned imperial troops that looked at me.

Who, after recovering from their surprise and hearing my words, gave out a hearty laugh.

And with that it was over for now, and we two spent the rest of the day with the troopers.

We exchanged food and spirits, the safe kind this time, stories, and I even told a few some rubbish fables that I half remembered, and half made on the spot, from my homeland. I even gave for free a few pendants and books to the warriors that came to help.

The day seemed to have ended allright, at that moment I felt like I was on cloud nine, but unfortunately for me, news of that incident spread far and wide, word of how Captain Metternich single handedly killed 50 pirate with his bare hands became the talk of the local subsector.

And each time the story was told 50 became 500, then 5.000 and the last version I heard before ignoring it was that I singlehandedly took down a whole sector's worth of cartels.

I thought it was insane just how out of control it got and how just how many took the stories at face value.

But people rarely let the truth stop them; they just decided that some truths were truer than others.

And with that they could believe what they wanted to believe…..every…single….TIME!!!

After that, a bunch of reporters came to cover the story and Akanthos being the kind man that he was, charged them like a high priest at a confessional, for each and every interview interview!

Want to get papers in reader's hands? Put papers in my hand!

Was what he said to them.

With that things seemed to be looking up for us!

We had gotten out of a tight spot alive, we now had a very healthy sum of money to help our business expand and we were small town heroes in our neck of the woods (something the ladies appreciated).

It was a small piece of heaven, but we were living in a very, very large galaxy.

One where any news could traverse it from one corner to another in about 3 to 5 days.

And the little tidbit about our 'incident' had reached a certain Commodore James Crackerjack.

He had heard of our little adventure and the brainless glory hound immediately showed up a few days later and demanded I transfer to his command.

The fact that I was a civilian and that my degree of 'potions making' by law protected me from drafting was completely ignored by the tosser.

Like I said, people have rarely been stopped by something as trivial as truth.

And despite my best efforts to get into his thick skull, the idiot continued to press the issue.

It was like talking to a wall, no matter what I said, he just looked at me with a half-confused look on his face and just continued to spout that I was to be his captain now.

He sincerely believed and not in a malicious way but rather a sincere way that he could do this, that I could transfer to his command, despite the fact that I never hold rank before.

Say what you want about Crackerjack, he was mad, ignorant and blind, but not evil, and myself, the victim of his folly, will fight anyone that says otherwise.

So, eventually perception became reality.

Under normal circumstances I would have walked away, but remember that he was not some regular loony, but a loony with a license to kill from the state.

And who am I but a coward?

And how can a coward defy the whims of a commanding officer?

That and Ol' James was not only a murderous fool, he was a murderous fool with a fleet of a thousands of warships at his back.

That genuinely tends to make win him most debates.

And so, much to my horror, they gave me my uniform, slapped a couple of golden buttons on my collar to show that I was now officially a Captain and thus I was dragged into the fleet.

Akanthos was ignored in all of this, that much was owned to the fact that sentients tend to only acknowledge the apparent leader of a group when that group allegedly does something impressive, and the fact that I somehow managed to convince Old Mad Jack to let him go on the grounds that he was my underling and he had to make sure my businesses were looked after.

Mad Jack came from money, and having some semblance of a brain, so he nodded and let it be so and I was glad for that, I mean no sense in both of us going to hell I suppose.

So that's how I found myself being torn from a safe place, becoming a newly minted Captain, given a ship which I christened 'The Vampire's Vengeance', with a crew that consisted at the top of the following:

-First officer: Lieutenant James 'Butcher' Centengu.

- Logistics officer Sergeant Alega 'Baker' Sovorovda.

- And finally my warlock Lieutenant Lloyd Colomas 'Candlestickmaker' Firebark.

With that I captained a ship, that I had no idea how to, and lead a crew that I did not know how, in order to fight battles that I wasn't trained for, all set during the various mini wars and full blown wars over the years leading up to The Great War.

Just another day in the Imperial Fleet I suppose.

And that my readers, is how my inglorious career began.

With poisoned drinks, crazy luck, a lot of pain, and my personal favorite stupidity; And of course the eternal questions of:

Why such a combination exists?

And what it has against good and honest folk?

And me of course?

Any answers?

Metternich per Pelasgiamus, Freelance Potions Maker