Chapter 1: Riker’s Intro

When I was six years old, the earth exploded. It wasn't a big deal for most, but for my family, it mattered. We were some of the few remaining people still living on our home planet. The destruction of the earth meant we had to seek out a home elsewhere in space. Humanity had homes all across the galaxy, so there were plenty of places to choose from.

The issue was money. The issue was always money. Space travel was more than ordinary; it had been for a few centuries. Regardless, traveling the stars was costly.

My parents, being the responsible human beings that they were, sold me off so they could afford a trip to a planet a few light-years away. They sold me to save themselves. I grew up working as a servant to an interplanetary collective while my mother and father started a comfortable new life. But I didn't stay where they left me. It took backstabbing, crooked action, and bent morality, but I earned my freedom. I started as Ryder, the boy no one wanted, but I became Riker, the badass space criminal.

By the age of 32, which was almost nothing in space years, I not only had my freedom, but I was also one of the most well-known people across the galaxy. I was infamous. I was hated. I was hunted. I was free.

But what about Orion. Why did I take in the teenage lemur?

There were a few inside jokes pilots and space veterans made. One such joke was the coincidence of every great star hero having an animal sidekick. It was a prominent joke, and some people took it more seriously than others. Countless establishments across the galaxy sought to profit from the selling of furry little animals and sidekicks.

"The Zoo" was a trafficking market that specialized in capturing and selling animal half breeds. Class C half breeds, animals crossed with other animals, were their bread and butter, but everyone had those. Class B half breeds, animals crossed with slightly human characteristics, were a little rarer. Class A half breeds, almost a perfect mix of human and animal biology, were tough to come by. Sometimes the only way to find a Class A was to make a Class A by illegally splicing human children with animal DNA. The Zoo promised it was all-natural, but criminals ran it.

As a person with crooked morality, I knew better than to take the word of anyone without verification.

Anyone could buy a class C for a pet, but owning a Class A was noteworthy. That's why I visited The Zoo. I wanted something with prestige. A high-caliber criminal such as myself deserved the finer things in life.

I didn't realize just how human Class A's were until I walked into the room they were held in. There were several of them, chained and restrained to walls forced to wait for their fate. All of them seemed malnourished and beaten. Seeing those sad kids chained up the way they were, took me back to memories I thought I'd long gotten over.

I had enough cash to buy one of them, but I felt so sentimental I took all of them. I took them. I shot the merchants in their heads, set the animals free, blew up The Zoo, and flew off with as many of the kids I could fit on my ship.

It was reckless and stupid of me to think I could get away with suddenly playing hero, but I was never the brightest bandit on a ship. I planned to drop the kids off on a planet far enough to start over. That's what I tried to do. Most of the poor, underprivileged brats were happy to have their freedom, but one refused to leave my ship.

His name, the lemur boy, was Orion. I could have forced him off my ship. I could have pulled a gun on him, but for some reason, I never did. While the other children ran away, Orion and I took to the stars.

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