Aquila

Hello. I’ve been writing this story series called Aquila, which is kind of a Star Wars-y story, sans aliens, the Force, and Lightsabers. The premise is a corrupt government, which I call the United Federation of Systems (UFS), has been in power too long, and a rebellion has formed, which I am thinking of calling either the Resistance, or CO.UP., which stands for COordinated UPrising, that is going to overthrow the UFS. The story starts out with a saboteur crew, having stolen a hard drive with some sensitive information on it, are being pursued by one of the government’s prefects.

I’m not going to upload (if I can?) the first story yet, because the “first draft” is close to being done…like, two chapters away from being done! I will include an excerpt, though.

Pandora opened the door to the hold in question. It was dark in there, the only light streaming in from the open door. Her hand groped for the light switch on the wall. She found it, and flipped the switch. It made little difference though, as the lights needed replacing since she got the ship. But it made enough difference for her to notice that a foreign object now resided in the middle of the chamber. A monitor turned on, and the AI appeared on-screen.
“What is that?” she whispered, confused, curious and slightly afraid.
What she saw was a blue star-fighter sitting there in landing position. She saw from the small amount of light coming into the room that it had yellow or gold accents going across it at sharp angles.
<Azurewing star-fighter,> the computer reported. <Resistance markings. Four sub-light ion engines. One dual-shot plasma cannons on each wing. Two wing-tip mounted guided missile launchers…>
“Yeah, yeah,” Pandora said, cutting off the AI, “that’s enough with the technical specs.”
She started walking over to it, inspecting it, her hand holding her chin in though.
“I wonder if we could sell it…?” she said thoughtfully.
“It isn’t yours to sell,” a male voice said from behind her.
Pandora jumped, startled, giving utterance to a shrill yelp, spinning a one-eighty in the air. Inwardly, she slapped herself. Of course there would have been a pilot. How could she have been so blind? And here he was on her ship!
“Intruder alert!” she exclaimed, shrill with panic. This has never happened to her before. “Activate security systems!”
<Error. No such system present on ship.>
Pandora’s face fell. “Oh, right, I forgot I sold them,” she said, remembering her stretched budget. She jerked her head up, keeping it slanted in an authoritative stance. “Who are you?” she asked accusingly. “Where did you come from?”
The pilot raised his hands defensively, walking slowly out of the shadows. “Relax, relax,” he said, his voice calm. “I don’t mean you any harm. I was hiding from…well, I assume you’ve all ready met.”
“You mean that pompous prefect in the stiff suit?” she said. “Yeah, I met him.” She sauntered over, still trying to display an air of authority, coming in closer to examine him. “You an outlaw?”
“A rebel, specifically,” the pilot corrected.
<I did say that the craft had Resistance markings.>
“Uh-huh,” Pandora said impatiently, trying to keep the matters on the intruder. Then she figured that said matters were better dealt with quickly. “Well, it’s been a pleasure meeting you, but you really should get going.”
The pilot stared at her, his mouth agape in confusion and offense. “Wait…I just escape capture from my enemies, and now you’re kicking me out?”
Pandora sighed, placing her hands on her hips. She lowered her head, shaking it.
“I seem to be on some sort of UFS watch-list. They keep nicking my cargo. If I’m discovered harboring a rebel, we’ll both be in big trouble. So…goodbye.”
The pilot put his hand to his head in frustration. “Miss,” he said, trying to retain what patience he had left in his voice, “my craft is in need of repairs. In fact, I’m fairly sure that it lost a lot of parts on the way over here. And besides, I sent something here, and I need to get it.”
Pandora was confused.
“Sent something?” she asked.
“Yeah, a hard-drive. Where’s your teleporter?”
“In cargo bay two…” she said before she realized what she was doing. She was perturbed from this intruder’s presence, and not a little anxious, thinking about what would happen if that UFS gunship decided to drop in again unannounced. The pilot, meanwhile, had walked out of the cargo hold, and going down the wrong way to boot.
She ran to catch up with him, and tried to keep in pace with his long, determined stride. “What hard-drive?” she demanded.
“That’s need-to-know information,” the pilot said over his shoulder.
“It’s on my ship, I need to know!” Pandora countered, still following him.
The pilot stopped, rubbing the back of his head, sighing.
“Who do you think you are, anyway, just barging onto my ship?” she demanded, arms crossed.
“Look, miss,” the pilot said, turning to face her, “I don’t even know what exactly is on there. I just know that it’s sensitive information against the United Federation.”
Pandora cocked her head to the side in mild surprise.
“I know how to deal with stuff like that,” she said, arms still crossed. “Format the hard-drive.”
“That’ll delete everything,” the pilot said, thinking that her idea was clearly the opposite to a solution.
Pandora twisted on her heel, and started walking in the opposite direction.
“Exactly,” she said, walking away.

What do you think? Would any of you be interested in reading it? Please let me know your opinion. I’ll put it up here for you to read as soon as I’m done with it. 😀