AAR: More like "ARRR", am I right? (Pirate)

[Stavetor]

AKA "Captain Collins flies the Shrike around Sector Prime and blows things up". Be warned, this one is long (and it took me most of the day to write up, so if you like it, let me know).

Captain's Log 1.1.4590, 10950 days to go.
I know I haven't exactly been the model officer over my career, but I still wasn't expecting to get my application for a captainship back with a big red "LOL" stamped on it, and a handwritten note from Major Brass underneath saying "Seriously, never bother me again." Merry [expletive] Christmas to you too, Brass! That was just over a week ago. This week has gone by in a drunken blur. My brain was still doing its best to break free from my skull and go hide somewhere when I found myself sitting across from a grinning Lextor Mucron. He shook my hand, said "Congratulations, Captain Collins. You leave in 48 hours." and showed me out of his office. Over the next 2 days, I pieced together that I'd been given command of this ship, the Shrike, and a mission to bring back as much valuable booty as I can in 30 years. Thirty years! Thank God this chair is comfortable, because I'm going to be spending a LOT of time in it.
Navigation has plotted a course for Aldebaran, 3.3 light years away, and Glory is in the rear-view, getting smaller by the second. Off I go. I hope I've got a good crew, because if not, this could be a long thirty years. Or a very short one, if you catch my meaning.

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Captain's Log 4.10.90, 10851 days to go. Aldebaran.
What was I saying about the crew? What a bunch of clowns. Everyone on this ship is a washout from somewhere, be it Fleet, Marines, Science Corps, or what have you. I guess I fit right in. At least they know who's boss. I had a rough first week, but after that drinking contest with Security Chief Gohoda, things got better. He's a beast of a guy, and beat me pretty soundly, but I guess I held my own long enough for the rest of the crew to start showing me some respect. At least they've stopped doing "air quotes" with their fingers when they call me "Captain".
Aldebaran is a bit of a washout. Just some dead hunk of rock orbiting the star, and a freebooter ship orbiting that. The captain was a lady, and pretty good looking, too. I couldn't convince her to come along for the ride, though. All that talk about grand adventure among the stars, but in the end she wanted something tangible before she signed on. Everyone's a mercenary these days.
Off to Trianguli. It's 5.2 LY away.

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Captain's Log 9.13.90, 10695 days to go. Trianguli.
Who would have thought it? I've found proof that God exists, and He's got a strange sense of humor. We found the weirdest damn creature wandering an island Mariana, this system's planet. Ladysmith, our resident xenobiologist, identified it as a "Three-Headed Threep". Who spawned this thing, and why? It's sentient, but only barely. Maybe we can get it to clean this place up a bit. If nothing else, torturing it should provide some comic relief over the next 3 months as we head off to the Sigma system.

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Captain's Log 1.2.91, 10584 days to go. Sigma.
Nothing interesting here, just a barren little planet with a thin atmosphere, barely capable of sustaining life. Interestingly enough, though, Owens in Engineering found an anomaly in the Hydrogen Fusion Drive, and when they looked into it further, it turned out we had a Plasmaworm on board. Owens is keeping it for a pet.
From here, it's 5.7 LY to Zwirble. It's a yellow star, so hopefully we find an inhabitable world.

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Captain's Log 6.23.91, 10412 days to go. Zwirble.
We found a wreck on the planet below. Nothing left but a Nebular Extent Calculator- the jungle had swallowed everything else of value. No sign of the crew anywhere, and we're not sticking around to find out. This place is spooky. We'll be at Iblis in another four months.

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Captain's Log 11.18.91, 10264 days to go. Iblis.
This planet's only world, Zorn, is a toxic nightmare. Again we found the remains of some alien wreck below, so we sent the Threep down to investigate. It didn't come back with any extra heads, so I guess things weren't too bad down there, but I still wasn't about to send any of the crew. The little turd actually found something useful, though- the ship still had a working Plasma Blaster. It took us a week and a half to bring it back and get it installed where the Impaler Missile rack used to be, but I think it was worth it.
We're heading back to Aldebaran. It's 10 LY away. Sensors indicate that freebooter babe is still around, so maybe the sight of us having picked up a little loot will bring her around this time. We could use the backup as we head further afield of Glory. Things have been pretty easy this last couple of years, and I'm worried that it won't last for long...

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Captain's Log 9.18.02, 9960 days to go. Back at Aldebaran.
I convinced Captain Walker (aka "Sunset Sue") to come along for the ride with a few kind words and sending over the Nebular Extent Calculator as a goodwill gift. A better deal than I've gotten from most of the women in my life.
We're off to Jewel, 12.5 LY away, just on the edge of the Evil Darkness (the closest of this sector's nebulae). Gonna be a long trip.

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Captain's Log 12.28.03, 9494 days to go. Jewel.
A whole damn year and then some in space, and then a man lost to a Purple People Eater on some barren desert world. Great. The thing jumped out from behind some rock grabbed one of Gohoda's red-shirted security monkeys while they were scouting the planet's surface. While it was busy eating, it was distracted enough for the rest of the team to subdue and capture it, so at least it wasn't a total loss. You know, except for the guy who got eaten.
I hate this [expletive] nebula. There's a little red dwarf worth exploring just a few LY from here, but with our engines it would take us forever to get there. So it's back to Glory, 15.2 LY away, and then from there we'll see how it goes.

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Captain's Log 8.10.95, 8904 days to go. Glory.
Lextor was NOT happy to see me when we stopped in for a visit at Tiber. He settled down after I explained to him that we were heading out again once we got resupplied. Keeping him from seeing the goods we'd picked up over the years was tough, but I really couldn't have him finding out that all we had to show for nearly 5 years out there was a couple of strange creatures, a Plasma Blaster, and a sister ship.
I sold him the Purple People Eater (I don't want to know what he's going to use it for, but I can guess) for a few hundred bucks, and with that plus the trade-in for our Neptunium Railgun, we got a nice shiny new Gauss Cannon on Hope. It took 10 days to get it installed, but it was worth it. Now we're headed to Angel, another 15.2 LY run. It was good to be back, but better to get flying again.

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Captain's Log 11.14.96, 8443 days to go. Angel.
In orbit over Althea, a pretty (but boring) marine world. The only excitement we've had for quite a while came when someone overheard Owens screaming and freaking out in the engine room. We all came running in to find out what was going on, and he was flustered over a Chaos Weevil that was trying to eat his Plasmaworm. Rasmus, the Science Officer, managed to isolate it, just in the nick of time. Owens wanted to kill the Weevil, but we managed to calm him down. As long as we keep them apart, things should be fine. Maybe the Weevil will be worth something.
From here, we head to Auric, 6.2 LY away.

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Captain's Log 5.20.97, 8256 days to go. Auric.
Now this was a good day. The planet below, Kree'Ark, turns out to be inhabited by these weird birds that will trade anything for anything. They seem to just do it for the love of trading. If that's not a pirate's dream come true, I don't know what is. We traded our crappy Electron Matrix shield for a beautiful, brand new Temporal Flux Shield, our old Hydrogen Fusion drive for an Ion Flux engine, and the old Impaler Missile for a Positron Scrambler (which will replace the Plasma Blaster). We're going to spend a few weeks installing all our new goodies and hanging with the natives, and then we're making the 12.8 LY trip to Ceres.

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Captain's Log 5.27.98, 7884 days to go. En route to Angel from Ceres.
Holy hell! We're lucky to be alive. After 329 days in orbit (I really like those new Ion Flux drives), we dropped out of warp only to find ourselves surrounded by some very ugly and hostile aliens. Ladysmith identified them as Urluquai. It took us all of 10 seconds to realize that we were outnumbered and outgunned, so we turned tail and ran. With the upgrades we've put in over the last few years, I'd pit the Shrike against any one of those ships in a fair fight, but there were just too many. So now we're headed back to Angel.

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Captain's Log 3.30.99, 7577 days to go. Angel.
Angel hasn't gotten any more interesting since we were here last, so we're off to Inferno, 13 LY away.

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Captain's Log 5.31.99, 7515 days to go. En route to Inferno from Angel.
Things were going so well, until Navigator Kohin pointed out the black hole sitting right in front of us. At least we found out now, instead of after having wasted a year in flight. Back to Angel again, and then from there it's 16.5 LY to Efreeti.

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Captain's Log 9.26.4600, 7032 days to go. En route to Angel yet again.
Screw this quadrant. Efreeti is surrounded by an asteroid field, and as we navigated our way through it, we noticed a big old rock headed right toward us. We altered course, and it changed its own course to intercept. Kohin had heard of these things. They're living asteroids called "Tchorak", and this one was what they call a "Vent Mother", the biggest and meanest kind of all. No way we could go toe to toe with that. So we're back to Angel yet again. I hate that damn system. From there it's 20.5 LY to Zubenelgenubi, a dual system right between the three nebulae.