Nervously he got strapped into little cobbled together piece of junk that didn't even look spaceworthy. It had been provided to him by the Academy, because his familia couldn't provide a real Corsair ship.
Nervously he launched his ship, and hopefully the rest of his life, into orbit. Amid the good lucks of nearby Corsairs, remembering their own trials, he started up his cruise engines and headed towards the Malvada Cloud, from whence he will return a Corsair, or not at all.
Upon entering the Malvada Cloud, Griseldas began shaking and sweating, something was wrong, slowly his vision started to fade to black, and his hands slipped from the controls.
Pushing through the pain and blackness, he felt drawn to a promising large chunk of rock. Donning his space suit, he went to search the rock's surface for his artifact.
He searched for an hour, digging up many interesting pieces of rock, but no artifacts. Nothing to take home. A failure. Dejectedly he sat down. Feeling the earth tremor beneath him he quickly stood up again, thinking the asteroid was coming apart. When he saw that it wasn't, he started digging. Almost right underneath the surface there was a small black rock, about the size of his fist. Ordinary. But from within came a very faint purple sheen, that rippled from one end of the rock to the other.
Stowing his treasure in the bucket of bolts, he set course for Crete, and the life waiting there for him.
After the party Griseldas was gifted a Gladiator Heavy Fighter. Not one of the fast, shiney, new Titans the wealthy familia's had, but a reliable ship, and one that would keep him safe.
At the tail end of the party, 2 things happened. The first was the casualty list for Griseldas' graduating class. A staggering 39% had not made it back from the Maldava Cloud. It seems that artifacts were becoming rarer and rarer.
The second, is that a distant uncle gave Griseldas a tip. He knew who to talk to to acquire above grade weaponry. And he had paid to get Griseldas two of the finest guns this individual could get ahold of. The only problem was that Griseldas would have to fly to Freeport 1 alone.
The next morning, he climbed into his new fighter, and gave thanks for the much sturdier construction job. He smiled as he saw the cockpit, his father had had the artifact installed on the left side, so Griseldas could always be comforted by it.
He took off from Crete, heading towards Omega 41. Passing through and into Omega 5, he felt a chill pass over him. Many Corsairs, Hessians, and bystanders died in this system. He resolved to not let such a fate befall him.
At Freeport 1 he received 2 weapons, that the contact only referred too as Dark Blossoms. He was told that coupled with his Tizona guns, he would be a force to be reckoned with, if he could learn to fly.
After watching the guns get attached to his new, beautiful, ship, he launched. The first ship he saw was a Daumann transport, who demanded to know what he wanted. Griseldas was not there to play the part of a pirate, but he growled and the Daumann pilot scampered away down the safety of the trade lane.
Just as Griseldas was about to pursuit, a Bounty Hunter Gunship arrived, and disrupted the lane.
Griseldas turned and growled, but the Hunter was not intimidated. Just as he was about to comment, a spike of pain flooded through his head.
Something about the way the ship looked, made it feel as if Griseldas had been destroyed by it before. An odd sensation, because he had never even seen such a ship before.
No matter, with the pain he could barely talk, let alone fight. So he powered up his engines
and set a course for home.
The Gladiator gave a weird shudder as it passed into Omega 41.
Almost home Griseldas thought. For all the horror stories of recruits never coming back, space hasn't been that bad.
And then he saw the blip of red on his scanners. Hessian! He recognized the spiked ship from his training, an Odin. A dangerous foe, but one that was already wounded. Griseldas could see the scoring and stress fractures on the hull. The Hessian evidently did not like his chances, not knowing that Griseldas was a rookie pilot, and began cruising away.
With the confidence of an adolescent, Griseldas gave chase, and caught up to the Hessian in the Omega 15 system. In this strange and alien place Griseldas was alone. And the Hessian wasn't running anymore. With his heart in his throat and bravado gone, Griseldas opened fire. Caught by surprise the Hessian's shield flickered, then went down. But Griseldas' aim was off, and he couldn't put any damage into the hull of the ship. Intent on getting revenge the Hessian returned fire.
Now soaked from sweat, both from physically wrenching his ship back and forth, and from terror, all the horrible stories of recruits caught out in space, over their heads came rushing back. But the training came back as well, the months of cruel instructors beating their knowledge into young Corsairs, all preparation for this one moment. Smiling, Griseldas bore down on the Hessian, guns thundering and shaking his cockpit.
The Hessian's shield collapsed, and Griseldas moved in for the kill, and flew into the Hessian's mine. Seeing it coming too late to dodge, Griseldas flung himself out of his chair and away from the viewport. The mine detonated, stressing his shields and electrical systems, throwing sparks everywhere. But the shields held. Slowly he climbed back into his seat, expecting the Hessian to show up and finish ship off. But he saw the Hessian climbing back into his own pilot's chair. Griseldas laughed, then blew off the Hessian's wing.
Triumphant, the young Corsair checked the logs, to make sure he got credit for the kill. Trapped in his escape pod, the Hessian could only watch as he started scanning the debris for stuff that he could take back to Crete. His instructors had taught him to always finish off escape pods, for an alive enemy was one that could come back and kill you or your friends. But Griseldas couldn't bring himself to fire upon the trapped man in the pod.
Griseldas' grin abruptly turned sour when red contact after red contact showed up in his scanner. They all bore the Hessian Tag, and they were all large.
Griseldas watched, paralyzed with fear, as 3 monstrous Hessian Cruisers appeared out of the clouds. With smiles visible across kilometers of space, they all began firing their cannons at the lone Corsair.
Dodging and weaving Griseldas began enjoying the game. The beams were massive, but slow. He found that by circling a ship, the gunners couldn't track fast enough, and the other captains didn't trust their gunners to not hit their friend.
And then a single beam grazed Griseldas' shield, collapsed it, and caused electrical shorts throughout his ship. Coughing from the smoke, he realized it was time to get out of there. Jumping into Omega 41, he went home.
The day after the battle in Omega 15, Griseldas walked past his ship in the hanger and smiled. The mechanics had already painted an Odin silhouette on his hull.
Launching, he found a Brotherhood member in orbit. Interested, Griseldas asked a question.
Puzzled, Griseldas thought for the rest of the day how he had known that information.