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

officer and crew list was like this. He had spent
an entire day sampling some records and had found that most were mediocre and a
few were downright failures. Of course it was impossible to know the
backgrounds and records of most of the personnel as there were over fifty
thousand present on this ship.
        “Take a seat VC Barryett,” Raptor said
and pointed to the smaller, cushioned seat in front of the control panels table
of the Commodore.
        “Thank you, sir,” Barryett replied.
        “I don’t want to bring back any bad
memories for you but you were the Commodore of Starship Falcon for a decade,”
Raptor said, “I will need your advice.”
        “You can always count on my advice, but
do you want me to give you the best advice I can?” Barryett asked.
        “What is it?” Raptor said.
        “Always keep your own counsel,”
Barryett said, “You have been trained by the best officers in Starfire Empire
at the academy and you were chosen for some reason. Trust yourself and the crew
will fight with you all the way from deep space to black hole.”
        Raptor thought for a few seconds and
then said, “please assemble all the command room officers.”
        “Yes sir,” VC Barryett walked back down
and then made an announcement for all the officers assigned to the command room
to present themselves promptly. Within five minutes all had arrived and taken
their seats at their stations.  Raptor got up from his seat and spoke to the
communications officer, “Capitan Dorrvyk, please turn on the intercom for full
ship transmission and bring all crew to attention.”
        Capitan Dorrvyk flipped on a switch and
entered a code. He picked a transmitter and spoke and the voice went out in
every nook and cranny of the starship, “Attention! Attention for Commodore’s
announcement.”
        Then he put down his transmitter and
turned to Raptor, “Sir, intercom is ready.”
        “Attention officers and crew, this is
your commanding officer Commodore Raptor Warwyk speaking. I welcome you to your
new assignment, our new assignment together. Starship Conquistador, which will
be your home for months and for some years to come was newly built and shipped
out to the frontiers. You are the first batch to operate it, take good care of
her and she will take good care of you. It is the largest and most powerful
starship of the Sixth Frontier Fleet and you should feel honored to be chosen
for this ship and its first mission.”
        “The details of the mission will be
provided to you as per your rank and as required to carry out your duties. Your
duties and responsibilities have been uploaded to your personal StarCards.
Familiarize yourself with them.”
        Raptor paused for a few seconds and turned
his head to scan the command room. His eye caught capitan Alvina who was
standing in the crowd watching him intently but he quickly moved past her. He
was trying to choose his next words and was unsure if he should utter them. He
decided to go ahead, “Not all of us are the best. Not all of us have perfect
records. If you are one of them, consider this a second chance.” He knew that
meant quite a substantial fraction of them but they would not know it about
others as background records could only be accessed by select officers.
        “Regardless of your past, I want you to
do your best. Fight your hearts out,” Raptor said, “I will not allow the
memories of our great warriors and heroes of old to be sullied by surrender or
defeat. I will fight for victory or I will fight till death.”
        Victory or Death! The officers and crew
across the ship shouted.
        Raptor waited for a few moments for
chants to die down and then said, “Prepare for departure. Commodore over.”
        The flight and navigation officers in
the command room started working to prepare the Starship for departure from
their orbit around Planet Bravo.
        “Starship ready for