Across the Galaxy: A Pirate's Path to Glory

Story time

My phone kept getting notifications which woke me up from my slumber. It was not a pleasant way to wake up and I had to remind myself to put it on silent. Sitting up in my bed I grabbed my phone and blurry tried to read the messages. When I was finally beginning to wake up I could see tons of pictures of me. Then I saw the headlines…

“Guys!” I slammed open my room and tried to find everyone else who seemed to be dying on the couch from a hangover. 

“Congrats criminal. But keep it down will you?” Valerie groaned as she slurped on her glass of water. 

“You’ve seen it already? But I never committed any of these crimes! Smuggling, stealing and MURDER?” 

“We’re pirates anyway. See it as a way to have kicked off your career!” Tristen said with a cheerful smile. None of them cared about it. But I guess when you are running away to become a criminal, this is the fate you have accepted. Checking the phone again I read the different articles and watched a few interviews. From Meiji and Ichigo. If her mother found her she’d be dead… 

Sylas started the radio and some music began to play from the speakers. Tapping along to the tunes, the worry began to slowly fade away. I knew I didn’t commit those crimes and it’s not like I wanted to return to the idol life anyway. With this as my reputation, it would be impossible to return. In a way, this severed all my ties with my home planet which was a relief. I stopped reading articles and thinking about how Meiji had betrayed me and said the rumours were all true. Instead, I tried to find information about the heartbreaker whip. But the information was confidential. Maybe Sylas could get the information for me? 

“Alright people, it will take a few days. Or maybe even weeks to get to our destination. It’s a bit outside Orion Nebula. So that we won’t die of boredom, I have some chores for everyone to do. I have to clean up my room for… Reasons. Dahlia, you can continue with inside reparations on the ships. I’m unsure how we are with parts and such… Worst case we’ll make a list for later. Zayn you can-” Tristen explained the situations and the chores. I hurried off to do reparations on the ship but the parts either did not fit the model or they belonged outside the ship and that was hard to fix while they were travelling. Repairing this usually is easiest when the ship is on the ground and parked. So it was cleaning duty. The kitchen, bathroom and the rooms. With music playing in the background, it wasn’t that bad. But Valerie did not enjoy it. 

Tristen was very strict, however. Since we had time to kill, he made sure every inch was clean on the interior. Next would be the exterior once they make a stop to tank the ship. Cleaning took a while since they rarely did it. But since Tristen had to clean, so did everyone else. Sylas was the only lucky one to avoid it because he had to be in the cockpit but he would take care of that later. 

Days later we made a stop at a nearby planet just outside Orion Nebula. It was rather small and was known for ships to stop by to do repairs, gas and food. Tristen checked the time and seemed to debate over something. Then he asked a question to Sylas who shrugged then nodded. 

“Alright, Dahlia. Sylas said the ship would function better if you could use our remaining parts for the ship.” Taking my tool belt and a rope I got to work while Sylas tanked and the rest went to buy necessities for the bathroom and kitchen. It took longer than expected to fix the ship so the others helped out and we left later that evening. Usually, when people tell pirate stories it’s full of adventures but this time it was rather tame. Returning on the ship, we were all exhausted and sat in the common room where we usually had our casual meetings. 

“Good job everyone. Ship is sparkling clean. I’m very proud, especially you Valerie. You kept your complaining to a minimum.” Valerie smiled and did a thumbs up before sighing. I observed everyone and noticed a strange detail about Tristen when he sat down beside me. He turned towards me and I saw how his eyes were different coloured. One of them was green and the other was purple. 

“Am I seeing things wrong or are your eyes?” Tristen looked surprised at first then laughed and brushed the hair out of the way when they fell over his eyes. 

“No, no. You’re seeing right. Ah, it’s a funny story.” He adjusted himself and leaned closer to me but no one else seems too interested but more sceptical. 

“So, as you might have noticed. I’m pretty stupid most of the time, I was through my childhood and that part will never change. So when I was around 15 I think? There was this girl who was interested in me, she was incredibly pretty with diamond-like eyes and golden hair. But there were rumours about her being very… Freaky in bed. Being the foolish boy I was, I went on a date with her and followed her home. She liked to lick sweat if I understood it correctly and put me in dangerous situations to make me scared and lick my sweat. And then… Oh god. She placed this sharp pencil close to one of my eyes and by accident, it was pushed into one of them. It hurt like a b***h and both of us panicked.” He began to laugh to himself as he shook his head. 

“When I came home my mother was furious with me.” 

“That’s not how you told it last time. You said you tripped and fell and hit your eye in a corner.” Zayn pointed out. Valerie leaned closer as well. 

“You told me it was your brother who gouged it out because he was jealous of you.” Valerie then added. Tristen seemed confused and rubbed the back of his head. 

“Whoops, I guess my memory is worse than I thought.” Tristen laughed it off but no one laughed with him. 

“So which story is the truth?” I asked, just feeling more and more confused.  

“Actually… It’s pretty lame. An infection got my eye. Then we couldn’t afford an eye that looked like my natural one. So I picked green. Good thing it’s my favourite colour.” No one bought it. Valerie just crossed her arms. 

“Here I thought it was cool and badass. However, it is you we are talking about. All talk no glory.” Valerie smirked while Tristen just smacked her. 

“But… How come you left to become a pirate. A captain at that.” I asked. Since he seemed to be already in a story mood, I maybe could take the chance to ask him. But if he told the truth or not was unsure.

“Ever since I was little. I felt like I wanted more out of life than to become a farmer or priest. I wanted to see the world and make a change. Whatever it was. And for an assignment for school, we had to go to a family tree. Most of my classmates did like mom, dad and so on. But I wanted to go deeper. Hoping that maybe, someone in my family wasn’t a farmer or priest. It’s like my prayers were answered… My family is related to the legendary red captain and blue captain.” His eyes glowed as if he had rediscovered the fact. 

“It was so wild. The legendary pirate sisters sailed across the galaxy. Except they were each other’s enemies. Knowing that it was confirmed that I am indeed destined for more. So I left, sought out pirates and got a chance to start my own crew.” I felt incredibly impressed. This man seemed to have tons of dumb but interesting stories in his life. While I didn’t have anything to share. We stayed and joked around for a bit before one after one, we headed to bed. I finally felt much closer to the rest of the crew. Slowly starting to feel… Home.