Golden Solitude

Oh "Golden Solitude", how I miss your velvet lined rooms and ready access to the fun stuff. My first official assignment on a ship, one that ferried the rich from their gilded spires and palaces to a vacation resort on a pleasure planet a few hundred million kilometres away.

A trip of a few days, a few days of fun and indulging in the some vices.

I have quite a few, courtesy of those four years of service on board the "Golden Solitude". In all honesty, I got all my vices from serving and rubbing elbows with the lords and ladies. I like my cigars, only the best and most exotic of leaf for me.I like my wine and strong spirits, which I am not that picky about as long as it warms the spirit and dulls the mind.I like a good game of chance, especially when the odds are stacked.I also very much love and adore those fey creatures of the opposite gender. Many a fine lass had graced my suite over the course of those trips. I don't like opiates and narcotics much though. I know enough about that poison through personal use, something I greatly regret ever doing to this very day.I'm not driven by my vices, but I am not one to deny them either in all honesty.

Of course, I had my duties, but who cared about that? I had subordinates who did their work well enough before I came along, so why interfere now? An easy four years you know? Thanks to some vague contact still maintained with my family I was well-funded and stacked the for many nights spent mingling with the guests under the pretence of keeping an eye out for trouble. Outside of the odd drunk no trouble there really.

I did get challenged to a duel once because some nob claimed I violated his daughter's honour by admiring her and favouring her with a sly wink. I also did something else with her, to which she consented mind you, but that was only after beating her daddy dearest in a fair fight with drawn blades. Guess I am a scumbag like he said.

Best four years ever but all good things must come to an end some day. Just another day, got myself a sleepover buddy for the entirety of the trip and had just secured a nice fortune for those nights when I had to "keep tabs" on the guests.

But who decided to drop by for a few games of cards and drunken pillage?

Mother. Fragging. Pirates.

They crippled the engines, used assault boats to board us, quickly seized the bridge and killed the command crew. I was at my station at that time and helped the security forces fend off the attackers. But they were too many and the damage the ship sustained was too severe.

We had to abandon ship.