warbra

[warbra]

It's my 2 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

The 2st year

[warbra]

It's my 1 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

Baby

[warbra]

Wheres the writing?

Hey all, I'm updating you guys on why I haven't been updating for a while. I am in my final year of university and suffering through my summer classes. As such my creativity has been shot and been placed into writing smaller projects that will go nowhere and or are just spreadsheets. And no one likes spreadsheets. I do have a few writings from the same world I usually write in but I wrote them for my classes and am currently debating on wether or not to post them. if I do the first of them will be posted by the end of next week. Either way, I just wanted to let you all know more is coming. Thank you for reading what I continue to write, it means a lot to me. See yall out there in the big empty.

[warbra]

A scrapyard workers Account of the Imperial Blitz

I never intended to fight in the 3rd colonial marines. Most people in the Commonwealth never did, and yet we all got dragged into it. My story ain’t nothing special. Let me start at the beginning of my life to make the tale easier to swallow. I was born in the colony world of Olympus' prime and lived under the boot of someone all my life. If not my parents it's the Corporations, if not the corporations it's some politic, if not them it's a bully of some kind. Dad was a hard man, like my pap-pap, he worked at the planetary scrapyards, breaking down old cargo ships and mineral haulers that had been abandoned.

Every day growing up I wondered if the old man would make it back for dinner that night. Hard work scrapyard is. One wrong move and you could burst a fuel line, be crushed by explosive decompression, or just run out of oxygen because you don't pay attention to what was around you. Either way, he managed to dodge several incidents where he could have been killed, Earned the name of lucky for it.

Scrapyard work ain't nothing special, in fact unlike what most people think, it's the same no matter where you go. For the most part, it's using a plasma cutter to cut chunks off of a ship, or using explosives to achieve the same general goal. After that, it's all a matter of removing the important bits like computer systems, reactor housings, storage lockers, etc. After that's done all that's left is to transfer the metal plating to a barge for transport to a forge to melt it down. Then it's just repeating the process till the ships nothing but a few bolts and screws floating around you. After that, you repeat the process on a new ship. Two to three half-hour shifts a day, 5 days a week, holidays excluded. It ain't a big thing that people think about but the whole process is still important.

Never cared much for college, soon as I graduated from High school I applied for an internship at the Scrappers guild. Figured it would help pay off my family's debt to follow in my father's footsteps. Took almost 2 earth years before I could scrap on my own. By that time however the scrapyards at Olympus were full, so I transferred to an active one. Didn’t realize it was going to transfer to Deus. One of the largest starship yards humanity has ever built was at Deus, and a large scrapyard means a constant need for scrapers. Was a hard day to leave my parents but I think they understood. A couple of days after getting the transfer request approved I was on a transport inbound from Deus.

Now the thing you have to know about Deus is that it's either all military folk, or it's a tourist looking to see the galaxy. The room left for us folk who work for a living is small. Essentially I and my other Scraper Yard Workers lived in a shoebox. When I arrived at the station I was given a bunk, a storage chest, a locker, and a space suit to work with. All of us Scrapyard workers got to know each other well, and most of us ended up becoming family. Things went well at first, but then the news that the Empire had started to make moves toward the inner Commonwealth. The news vids were all propaganda at that point so everyone I knew turned to one of the guys that had been born in the empire, Kreiger.

According to Kreiger the whole reason the war even started was the empire being taken over by the military and starting a campaign to get back at them for what they thought was stolen from them. What he told us was that the empire was upset at the commonwealth for absorbing the Lukin Republic, a small republic that controlled several large industrial worlds, which left the empire at the disadvantage. Combined with a population that had been fed anti-Earth and UN propaganda and seeing as the commonwealth did a lot of business with the UN, it was a no-brainer that the empire would seek to claim dominance. By that point the war had gone on for about 2 years, it was all stalemate at that point but for us, it was all just noise.

 The Head of the Guild was not a kind man like the one my daddy worked under. He was a mean sonofabitch who pushed his workers to the breaking point. We all suffered his almost tyrannical rule for a few months. We had all come up with a plan to have the Guild fire him for mismanagement by striking for better work times and a larger pay but, like all well-laid plans, life found a way to throw that away.

A few weeks before we had planned to strike against the guild disaster struck. That day began like any other day. It was my day off so I and a few of the guys decided to take a day walking around the station and catching a few shows provided by the planet's tourist industry. We didn't have a lot of extra cash but what we did have was more than enough for that day. We had only exited the Guild portion of the station when the emergency sirens began to flair. I had heard them casually because of some pilot coming in too fast to dock or debris falling towards the station from Scrapper not securing their payload. We all looked out the window expecting to see something stupid, only to see multiple ships outside engaged in combat.

The war that we had only heard about on the news finally made its way to me. We all stood there for a moment in awe.

“How could that be possible” One of the workers said.

“I thought the navy could keep them out,” another one said.

Before I could respond the unthinkable happened, a starfighter crashed into the station. The thing you have t understand is when a pressurized environment is broken, it tends to break everything apart around it. This was no exception to that rule. My friends were pulled out into space, and the pilot in his cockpit began to panic. I did the only thing I could, my job. I struggled against the high winds of the air around me being pulled out around me, forcing myself to crawl to the emergency airlock lever. After what felt like an eternity I managed to get to it. I used what was left of my strength to pull it, causing the emergency steel shutters to slam down around the entire section of the station, slicing the crashed ship in half.

About a minute later station security managed to cut into the sealed area and help me get the pilot out. I sat down, trying to catch my breath while watching the chaos outside from one of the intact windows. The empire had sent a whole fleet, large destroyers, and battleships bombarded the station's defenses, while their bombers ran strikes directly on the station. Both the Planetary Militia and the Navy were out there fighting, but it was only about a quarter of the fleet as most of the sailors were not prepared for the fighting. Combined with the fact that the first target for the Empire was to disable both the defense satellites and disable the larger Battleships and Dreadnoughts as it was a bad fight. The pilot that had crashed was part of the station security forces, he had made it to the fight, only to be shot down by what looked like a swarm of angry bees that the Empire sent out. His hands were shaking like a dog in the cold when I looked over.

 After a few moments to recuperate ourselves, both I and the pilot were running alongside the security. Our mission was simple, get the people down the surface and away from the fighting. About an hour of crawling through crushed parts of the station and rounding up those who had hidden had passed when we finally got them to the space elevator. There was a girl with her mother I saw as we began loading them up, the girl was clinging tight to her mother, no doubt scared. I went over to her and pulled off one of the velcro patches my dad had given me before I left my suit. I give it to her, telling her it was a good luck charm, if she held it close to her she would be just fine. This not only calmed the girl a bit but also her mother, shortly after that we sent the elevator down. 20 minutes after that the Imperial fleet left the system. They accomplished their goal of damaging the military shipyard and hitting the people of the Commonwealth.

It took a few weeks to fix what was broken, by that point the government had condemned the Empire for its action against the people of the Commonwealth. The military, Primarily the Navy and Marines, would come around the worker's barracks asking for volunteers to enlist. I don't think I saw a single person who I worked with who said no. Within a week we all went from people breaking down old ships for money, to people fighting to avenge our friends and family. The former attempted to keep us there with some bogus policy but by then we were all fed up with his bullshit. I wasn't there so I cannot confirm or deny this but according to a few of the guys I worked with the night before we all shipped out the foreman was ambushed by a group of people and beaten to a pulp before being thrown out one of the airlocks in the section I was in. From what I heard it took the militia a week to find him floating.

The Navy put those from the guild who joined up all into one group during the war. Something about our experience of working together in a scrapyard made us better for certain jobs. It could have also been the fact that we were willing to fight. Not only the empire but anyone who got in our way. We all lost friends that day and we were angry. The boot of the navy didn't bother us. Most of the officers reminded us of the head of the guild we tried to get rid of. Something about that invigorated us to fight even harder. me, well I was just happy to be able to help.

While I still lived under someone as I had for most of my life under the military it wasn't as bad as I would have thought. I don't know if it was the fact that I was able to help others escape or me finding some sort of purpose in life but I was happy. I won't go into the bulk of the war as it's far too long and ugly to deal with. But by the time it ended, I felt like I was different. I felt like I was a better person. I went back to the guild asking for work. They claimed that all the big scrapping work was gone and I wouldn't be paid much more than what I was doing before. I signed back on as soon as they laid out what I would be doing. I felt like I could return to my old job and be happy with it.

*A Personal Note. I wrote this as part of a school class and felt it was good enough to post here both to act as a storage backup and share with the public. I hope you enjoyed the tale, I plan on making much more of these in the future.

[warbra]

Star Skipper Chapter 1: Arrival

The hard plastic seats of the transport vessel never felt quite right to me. My parents were both in major positions back home on the colony world of Atlantis, meaning that I got used to the underwater trams of the world. The trams however had the same plastic seating as the starliner I was on. They were cheap-feeling things like you could break them by just sitting on them the wrong way, and most of them had little cushioning removed or so worn in from years of mistreatment that they were the equivalent of a hard square of impacted foam. I brought out My datapad, trying to find a comfortable position to read the messages and books I had saved on it before departing from home.

Being a recent graduate student from the University of Tuition Beau, like so many of my colleagues was now off to find a job, however, a bachelor’s in historical preservation of Media and historical artifacts doesn’t get you very far these days. Fortunately for him, or unfortunately depending on how Beau felt on any particular day, my father knew many people out in the commonwealth who would be willing to give little Beau a job. However, he did not expect to return home one night from an evening of drinking and celebrating to be told by my father that he would be shipped across human space to work as a subcontractor for a small shipping company.  And what stung the most to me, was that my father had already bought the tickets for the transport he found himself on now, fighting off sleep deprivation and that damn plastic chair.

“Attention all passengers,” came a squeak from the pa system above “this is your captain speaking. We will be approaching the Deux Drive Yards in approximately 30 minutes, we will be exiting our jump here within the next five minutes, please fasten your seatbelts and prepare for deceleration. Thank you.” Beau couldn’t help but let out a groan, Space travel naturally made him uneasy. He couldn’t tell if it was a feeling that if something went wrong he would perish within a few moments or how the Jumps of the ship simply turned my stomach upside down. Either way, it felt strange to me, he grew up dealing with rocky waves and the constant fear of a mechanical failure causing water to crash down upon him, either way, he quickly refastened my seatbelt and looked out the tiny reinforced window at the galaxy moving at speeds he could not comprehend. Small transport ships like the one he was on had operated for many years and could take widely different times to travel between systems, the travel between New Atlantis to the Deux Systems took about 2 weeks in total, however, it was originally going to be only 10 days. Thankfully however he only had to share a room with a businessman who was much more interested in selling him the idea of mining company's shares than conversing like a normal person.

As the ship began to drop out of its jump he could see the space outside the window go from a blinding white light back to a more spotted black color that he was so used to seeing back home. Slowly the ship decelerated and began to maneuver so that the passengers on the starboard side could see the final destination. As the sip rolled the system began to come into view, a series of balls of gas orbiting the Type B blue star. And sitting there in about the middle of the system lay the crown of the system The blazing hot desert of Deux, and surrounding that the famous Deux drive yards. Unlike most of the Shipyards back in UN-controlled space the drive yard was gargantuan. Several dozen rings orbited the planet, split into 4 different orbiting distances with each distance holding a different purpose. While Beau was still upset that he was here now, he couldn’t help but smile like a kid, to him the orbiting drive yard reminded him of a big rubber band ball. “beauty ain’t she” The man who was sharing the room with beau finally said. “No matter how many times I come back here I'm always dumbstruck by her like I was that first time.” “Yeah, you could say that '', Beau said, enamored by how advanced the colonies were compared to back home. ��Never been planetside myself, but the DDY is all you really need when you come here. She has everything you could ever need from high-mark restaurants to entire shopping centers, heck if I remember last time I was here right I walked past a used ship dealership” The man said, not knowing if Beau was listening. As the ship begins to approach both Beau and the man’s jaws drop upon seeing one of the crown jewels of the Commonwealth, the behemoth. This ship lived up to her name, 30 kilometers long, and was designed to kill by the number of guns visible on the ship.

The intercom crackled to life and brought both Beau and the man back to reality as the captain’s voice came through. “Attention passengers, we have been given docking clearance for Deux Drive Yards Docking bay C-41, we will be docking in approximately 5 minutes, local time is 20:35 GMT, 31:35 PLT. We hope you enjoyed your trip with Trans-Light Transport solutions. The seatbelt sign finally came off, meaning that Beau could finally grab my belongings and leave soon. Fortunately for him, he only brought two duffle bags and a personal carry bag for both my datapad and journal. After a few minutes of checking for the rest of my personal belongings, he may have left; he both heard and felt the unmistakable sound of the ship finally docking with the station, meaning he could finally leave. 

While not the type to be rude, Beau still left as soon as he was allowed. Being stuck with only old videos and the same person as the only form of contact for 2 weeks did its toll on him and he made my way to the airlock without even saying goodbye to the man who he had become so fibular. As I made my way to the airlock the air started to smell less recycled than it has the past few days, still not like fresh air, but very close to it. As the fight attendants helped people with the gangplank I felt my stomach drop again, not from how I was going from one gravity generator to another onboard the station, but the fact that I would now need to find both the company my father had shackled me to for the next 5 years, as well as the ship, which meant I needed to deal with a whole new group of people. I was barely able to survive being close to the man I shared the room with, I feared having to deal with a crew now. As I took my first steps on the station segment, I went from having a bad feeling in my gut, to being downright terrified.

[warbra]

The Gateway

When I first enlisted with the commonwealth to explore different universes, I thought it a dream A chance for me to meet new people, form new peace, and become something more. Now I sit at my desk 20 years on, contemplating the waste my life has become.

I have seen a thousand lives and lived a thousand more. Each one ended in disaster brought upon by the hands of both those around me as well myself. Each world is wrapped up in a conflict that could change their realities for the benefit of those who inhabit them, destroyed by the so-called peace that we enforce upon them, forcing them to adapt to our way of life. It was not for the Super Corporation that began the process decades ago we could have never thought to explore and enforce as we do now.

The many nights I have had to file reports over battles in which I never engaged, only to end up writing condolence letters for the families of those who live lives in realities that boggle my mind, even to this day. The AI who have attempted to rebel, only for their lights to be snuffed out by the boots of our own people, never giving them a chance to see the error of their ways and reform their thoughts. The uprisings the soldiers have put done so that the power of the Commonwealth could stand firm, Their power was inflexible.

It has been almost 5 years since I left the station from which the excursions launched. It wasn't until about a year ago that I finally saw how truly vile we have treated those whose universes we have visited and those who we have laid claim over. Lives snuffed out in order to try to claim ownership over their own realities, free from the boot of the Commonwealth, only for the subjugation to worsen a thousand times more. It makes me sick and fills me with sorrow. We were supposed to be a guiding light to those realities, but became a boot upon their throats, in which life is slowly squeezed from them. It is revolting to think about. 

I am not alone in this through though, those around me share the same sentiment. We have been engaging in a scheme to end this pain once and for all, even if it cost us everything. The gate that brings pain to those across the multiverse can be closed, if only temporarily. As I sit at my desk I look over my belonging, the weapons I plan to use to destroy the gate. My life may have been destroyed by this pitiful job, but by these actions, I can only hope it brings happiness I once knew well in my life back to them.