Helen Debeau:  Chapter 1
by: Paul Vincent

   "Captain" yelled a tall brisk man wearing what appears to be a military uniform.  That man, is me.  Many times I feel tight in these green uniforms, wearing these stupid pontoon hats.  But that is our job, to protect and serve.  As I stand rigid towards my Captain with arms by my side wondering if he even heard me.  Captain Avery, a short slender man, turns around to look at me.  My bones begin to freeze up as the most respect man on the ship looks at me.  It felt like time had stopped when he looked at me.  One eye winked, while the other stayed open.  I took that as a sign that he wanted me to speak, and so I did.

    "They're requesting you on the bridge" I blurted out.  Perspiration dripped down the side of my head and down my neck as Captain Avery remains quiet for a short time with his head down fiddling with his fingers.   A lieutenant taps him on the shoulder as he turns around to his lieutenant.   The lieutenant whispers something into his ear.  The sound of silent words swishing between the two can be heard, but I'm not apart of this secret conversation.   Captain Avery nods towards the lieutenant and turns around and walks away.

    That lieutenant is my commanding officer, and also the person who sent me off to find Captain Avery.  The lieutenant walks up to me marching as if he was still in basic training and stops with a stomp.  The lieutenant turns towards me with a mean look on his face.  The lieutenant moves his face closer to me and begins to yell.

    "Private, what is your major malfunction" the Lieutenant bolts at me as if I had just killed someone.   "You were supposed to escort the Captain to the bridge were you not?"   The lieutenant wasn't easy on me.  And why should he have been easy on me?   We were on possibly they most important mission in the history of the human race.   This hundred million ton is supposedly going to defeat the entire Ghoul fleet.   This ship isn't even armed with any form of arsinal.  This ship isn't even going stop at Deep Post to re-fuel, we're just goingto continue on without fuel.  Not that I'm afraid or anything, soldiers aren't supposed to be afraid.

    "PRIVATE!" the lieutenant yells knocking me out of my deep thought.  "Get up there now and apologize to the Captain" the lieutenant yelled at me.  Not like it's not the first time he ever yelled at me.  The lieutenant makes it primary to yell at me daily.  In fact, I'm so scared of him I don't even know his name.  All I know him by is his field rank.

    I walk to the elevators and as I select the sector I wish to go to the doors immediately open.  A computer terminal lights up with all the elevator shafts towards the helm sector as I select the bridge.  It's obvious these computers are indeed new.  All the older models would force us to manually type in the exact place we want to go to by a number.  There would be a large list down the side of all the floors and sectors and we'd be stuck in the elevator for hours looking to find the one we need to go to.  Of course, I've only been on two ships thus far, so maybe I'm jumping to conclusions.  Or maybe this ship is so advanced that it can defeat the entire Ghoul fleet.  The Ghoul have their fleet streched across the borders with the most advanced weaponry known in existance.

    The elevator takes off like a bolt of lightning as a press the submit option on the elevator panel.  The elevator panel locks itself up folding in.  I lean back grabbing a hold of the rails.  I always did get elevator sick.  The elevator moves to an immediate stop, as the doors slide slowly I see the bridge.  I was never in the bridge before.  When they were taking the tour of the ship I decided to skip off.  I was only supposed to be working at the engineering bay the whole time anyway.  I am an engineer after all.  Than they "promoted" me to guard duty.  Sure I get paid more credits for less hours, but I still like the idea of being able to slide my hands across those computer terminals.

    As I look through those brime doors I see the most qualified men in the fleet sliding their fingers across terminals and information slides.  The captain stands now wearing a blue vest with a visual eye piece on his head.

    "Steer ahead" the Captain announces.   It was odd how the crew even understood what he had said.  Traditionally on sailing ships a captain would give directions to a person steering with a wheel, but we weren't on water, we were in deep space.  This crew has many people of different race than that of the Captain.  We humans do occupy the majority of the ssip, but there are also Octos and Bols on the ship.  But as he said those very words they all paid attention and knew he was referring to just "keep on course."  I trembled a bit but I let it out "Captain" I blurted out as the Captain's head completely turned around looking at me.

    "Yes, what do you want" the Captain returned to me queing for me to return something.  I took a deep breath and told him "the Lieutenant sent me to see you."  The Captain's eyes shun in the dimmed light.  His voice raised as he yelled out to me "What is this lieutenant's name private?"  He bolted back at me.  I felt nervous as sweat began to dip down my head again and down my neck.  The Captain seemed to notice that I was shaking and not a bone in my body was staying still.  "You're new on the job, aren't you private" the captain asked me.  I replied by nodding as I was still to nervous to address the captain.  "Come to my office, I'd like to have a word with you" the captain told me.

    I still confused on where to go stepped out of the elevator as one of his personel pointed to two sliding doors.  I stepped up to the doors as they automatically slid open.  I stepped inside and looked as the sliding doors closed on me.  This room was luxary compared to our living quarters.   All we were given was a queen sized bed, a food despenser and a closet for our clothing.  But the Captain's office was like a palace compared to our rooms.   It's obvious that he does his business in here and sleeps here as there seems to be a pull out bed on the wall.  The room is in a mess of junk food surrounding the office.  The captain doesn't keep clean, and most likely hasn't used his cleaning droid yet.  I decided I'd do him a favor and activated the cleaning droid.  A small droid slides out of the desk and scours around the room looking for things to clean.   The droid is programmed to make an assessment of the room's dimensions and what needs to be cleaned than makes a route to the fastest way to clean the room.  The droid itself is very simple, but it's programming is very complex.  People tend to take it for granted when using them.

    The droid opened up a closet to reveal a very decorated locker of suits in perfect fashion.  The droid slide and smashed me in the leg.  I fell into the locker as it closed the locker behind me.  I was locked in there.  Suddenly the doors to the Captain's office slid open.  Captain Avery entered the room as the doors slid behind him.  Avery pulled off his communications watch as I look at him through through a small crack in between the two doors of the closet.

    A screen turned on with a Ghoul on it.  It appears Captain Avery was already going to try and negotiate the defeat of the Ghouls before the battle had even started.  This is one of several reason why I respect Captain Avery.  He doesn't say no to anyone.  Avery looks around suspiciously.   This is probably a covert transmission that no one is to hear about.  I guess I should have never been in here.  But while I'm here I might as well listen to how he defeats the Ghouls.

    "We haven't met in a long time Avery" the Ghoul said to Avery as his snout slumped down with every word.  His orange scaley skin almost ridiculed me as I attempted to jump out and cheer on the Captain, but instead held myself still and continued to watch.

    "It's been long" Avery returned to the Ghoul in a amicable way.  I couldn't figure it out.  Was it the concept of befriend with your enemies before you kill them?

    "Do you have the quantum generator" the Ghoul requested of Captain Avery.  Captain Avery lifted up a box on his desk, I am to assume that holds this "quantum generator."  Maybe this is all a trick and it is in fact a bomb.  Or maybe the noble Captain Avery has been trading technology to the Ghoul all along and that is why they are always one step ahead of us with technology.

    "We'll make the exchange on Norad planet surface.  Norad is a neutral planet in all of this and would be a delikable place to make the exchange" Captain Avery replies.

    "Agreed" the Ghoul announces "we only take two officers each though."  The Captain nods in agreement to this as the transmission ends.

    I pant and sweat having absorbed the knowledge that I have.  I have found out Avery is a trader, he could even be a Ghoul in disguise.  The friendliness could have all been an act to convince me he was human.   I leaned on the door so I didn't faint from the stress.  The doors suddenly opens and I fell out flat on my face.  I felt like such a fool as I looked up to see Captain Avery staring at me.

    "Private, it appears we have more to talk about than I expected we would" Avery said to me as I looked up to him with eyes dazed.  I fainted, I had never fainted before but my eyes became heavy and I fainted in front of the Captain.