Starship Conquistador (Conquest of Stars Book 1) by Sid Kar

black, red, yellow or any combination thereof to
camouflage the starship from visual scanners. This was accomplished by painting
over the permanent coat with another layer of usually transparent millions of
glass nanoparticles through which different colored light could be passed. But
the silver paint was interrupted at some places with stripes and markings with
rose red and black which were the official colors of the Starfire Empire.
        Two big towers rose up near the top
rear of the ship and held a large screen in between them that displayed
Starfire Empire’s flag: Red Square with a Black Composite Bow in the center.
These towers could be elevated down inside the hull at times of battle and were
more for display at a parade.
          The command room was enclosed by a
fully transparent, thick semi-spherical diamond layer that made it the hardest
section of the ship. Option was available to turn off the transparency from the
command room as there was a one way transparent glass layer before the diamond
layer. There was also an optional metallic shield that covered the rest of the
Starship that could be activated to cover off the outside.
        Raptor looked up and saw the beautiful
galactic space with uncountable stars twinkling across the entire arc of the
room. It made him feel nostalgic and romantic. This was why he had joined the
Army in the first place to travel across the space amidst the stars and it reminded
him of his early days as a spacefighter pilot.
        “VC is on its way on the rocketship,”
Col. Tollvyk informed him.
        “Great,” Raptor said, “I want to say a
few words after he arrives to the command room officers.”
        “Have you checked the entire officer
list, sir?” Tollvyk asked.
        “Hundreds of names,” Raptor asked,
“Why? Come up here.”
        The Commodore had an elevated throne
like circular personal section on a stage that was the highest in the command
room and was smack dab in the center of it all. There were two more circular
stages below with panels and instruments where officers who personally aided
the Commodore would take seats. Rest of the computers and controls were
arranged in two circles around the central section with walking space in
between. The Vice-Commodore’s section was in the inner circle and directly
beneath and front of Commodore’s. There was one set of stairs to reach the
Commodore’s throne and Tollvyk walked up to Raptor, handed him a list and
pointed to a name.
        Laser Fire Officer: Capitan Alvina
Lytar. Raptor read the name and his breath stopped for a few seconds. 
        “I…I don’t know what to say,” Raptor
whispered.
        “We will talk more about it in
private,” Tollvyk whispered back, “Don’t say anything now and give that
speech.”
        “Right…” Raptor said and Tollvyk walked
back down. The officers were slowly strolling in the command room and Raptor
looked around but didn’t see Alvina yet. He could not let his heart get the
better of him now and took deep breaths to calm himself and drank couple
glasses of water.
        Fifteen minutes later an older man who
was in his fifties but still had a head full of lush hair and a thick, walrus
mustaches and slightly wrinkled yet still hard face walked in and stood before
Raptor and saluted him sharply, “Vice-Commodore Barryett Wuft reporting for
duty, sir.”
        Raptor saluted him back and said, “My
pleasure to have such an experienced officer as my Vice-Commodore. Please step
up.”
        Raptor maintained a smile on his face
while VC Barryett walked up the stairs but he was not happy. He had been
shocked when he had first noticed his name. Barryett Wuft was the only officer
still present in the sixth frontier fleet who had actually been demoted. He
used to be a commodore himself more than a decade ago but had made some
mistakes in battle maneuvers whose exact nature was still a state secret.
Indeed, a large part of his