Name: Sarthak Chakrabarti

The family we are born with is often not the family we want or need. This was very true on both counts for Sarthak. At age 14, he ran away from home, on a journey for that family he never had. He thought he’d found it on a merchant vessel amongst the laborers of the ship. He seldom got what he hoped for. Those he hoped he would one day call brothers were slaughtered in a standard pirate raid. He alone was left alive when the captain of the pirates stepped in to save him.

With his potential family dead and his job definitely moot, he requested asylum with his invaders. The captain who had saved his life offered him a new one in his service, and with what little options Sarthak had, he accepted.

That was over a dozen years ago. He had stayed in the service of this pirate leader and slowly risen through the ranks. He was different than his fellow crewmates. While they were driven by greed, his driving force was the same as always: finding that place where he was truly accepted. When his crewmates tried to kill a poor bug stowaway, he held back, earning the respect of his captain, who ended the fight. That bug disappeared soon after, but his place of respect beside the captain stayed on.

For Sarthak the arrival and disappearance of that random bug were just what he needed. The captain happened to fall in love with that bug in the few days she was aboard, and in her absence, needed extra care and support. Sarthak became the rock on which this heartbroken captain leaned. His title was first mate, but as time went on he felt like the captain’s younger brother.

Until she returned. The captain forgot instantly about his brother, who had supported him through his years of heartbreak. His focus was only on keeping his love from disappearing again. Unfortunately, she didn’t disappear again. Sarthak did everything he could to scare her away, even throwing away their food supplies after a strange trip to save a random squirrel. All was futile, and the captain’s success in love was the end of Sarthak’s new brotherhood. He was still the first mate but no longer the rock the captain depended on.

Sarthak decided to take revenge on the captain for what he had done to the brotherhood. He attempted mutiny, and on failing that, escaped with the ship’s prime EMP (electromagnetic pulse) weapons. He would sell the weapons on the nearest planet, Laruta, and use the profits to employ his own pirate crew, his family.

While looking for a non-regulated space to land with his stolen goods, he was surprised to see the ship that had been the start of the end of the family he was building with his old captain. He scanned the ship and saw the crew inside. They were everything he had been searching for. If his scan did not detect the unique species in their group, he would have sworn they were blood relatives.

His envious contemplation was cut short when he saw an unknown ship engage full power on a direct course to collide with this ship of non-related family members. He had no idea who was planning on ending their lives to end those on this ship, but he knew that while he had failed to find his family, he could save this one.

He engaged his stolen EMP weapons, and both ships completely lost power. The ship containing the family he’d dreamed of floated forward, getting just out of the way of the now attacker's uncontrollable ship that slid by them.