Lucius Drake
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Now Drake had a new plan: to capture a [[Krasnikov Generator]] from a Coreship and install it to the factory ship he had captured. His target was the UIS ship running the low-traffic Gettysburg/Victoria-Earth hop. In a daring raid, Drake and his Raptors attacked the ship and evaded his pursuers with an unharmed generator and a brand new Coreship. | Now Drake had a new plan: to capture a [[Krasnikov Generator]] from a Coreship and install it to the factory ship he had captured. His target was the UIS ship running the low-traffic Gettysburg/Victoria-Earth hop. In a daring raid, Drake and his Raptors attacked the ship and evaded his pursuers with an unharmed generator and a brand new Coreship. | ||
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| + | With their new mobility, the Raptors became more daring than ever, staying just ahead of their pursuers. With the enormous energy requirements to generate a Krasnikov tunnel, and few sources of Uranium available, larger payloads were needed. And this was becoming harder and harder. A mistake was inevitable. | ||
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| + | In 2138, while fleeing an American fighter squadron in [[Griffin]], Drake's astrogator made that mistake. Confused by the abnormal gravity readings on the jump between Griffin and Hydra, he set the co-ordinates incorrectly. When they emerged, they were in the unrecognisable black of space. Locating what they thought was [[Chimera]] from gravity readings, they made a second hop. But it was not Chimera that they had jumped to, but [[Avalon | ||
Revision as of 10:17, 14 December 2007
Admiral Lucius Drake (2342- ) was born to two engineers on the mining colony of Hades. Never one to stay planet-side, he left at an early age, becoming a pirate. From simple beginnings, he is now known as the Terror of the Black Reaches, Commander of the Elysian Fleet, and leader of the Raptorian Empire.
Biography
Beginning his life in the last quarter of 2342, Lucius Drake (then Henry Taggart) grew up on the penal colony of Hades in the Hydra. The colony itself was a miserable place to live, and seeing no future for himself there, in 2358 he signed onto a freighter travelling the Diemos-Hades route. Though only sixteen years old, because of Hades' low gravity, and frequent hormonal supplements, Drake (calling himself John Rankin) appeared much older. The ship took three circuits before beings attacked by pirates. The pirates seized food, water, mechanical and medical supplies, and left the crew relatively untouched.
Yo Ho Ho
With his prospects as a freighter crew-member looking more and more boring the longer the pirates remained aboard, Drake made the choice to abandon his crew and smuggle himself aboard the pirate vessel. He had no attributes the pirates felt they could use, until Drake began to speak. So charismatic was he, that speaking from the airlock chamber he still managed to swing the situation his way. He convinced the pirates that he only wanted to join them, and that his mechanical skills were exceptional. Debating amongst themselves in the ship venting atmosphere, the pirates decided a mechanic would be a useful addition to the crew. He claimed his name was Lucius Drake, and has not gone by any other since.
The ship he joined was called the Raptor, a converted civilian ship pressed into service as a raiding vessel. It was as misnamed as it was slow. Its captain, Rufus MacIlwain, picked on the weakest of trading ships, avoiding military targets and thus existing on the margins of galactic society. Drake soon took his place as MacIlwain's right hand man, and when the captain was killed in a raid gone wrong, Drake was unanimously voted captain. He was twenty three, and the year was 2365.
Building a Fleet
His first step as Captain was to raid a prison transport to Styx for a supply of guns, and then his home moon itself, for a new crew. He kept the transport vessel, and left his old crew to the knives of the prisoners. Now armed with two ships and a cut-throat pirate crew, Drake left the Hydra system. Using deception, forgery, and his honeyed tongue, he and his crew arrived in the Chimera System. Accidentally finding himself orbiting the uninhabitable planet of Glaucus, Drake's unnatural luck had him find a scuttled American vessel. Leaving a crew to repair the ship, Drake began raiding the area. Over the next three years, with luck and money, Drake acquired a further two British ships, and replaced his older, slower ships with black-market Soviet vessels acquired from New Ukraine. He now had a fleet of eight, including a Soviet factory ship.
He named this fleet the Raptors.
Now Drake had a new plan: to capture a Krasnikov Generator from a Coreship and install it to the factory ship he had captured. His target was the UIS ship running the low-traffic Gettysburg/Victoria-Earth hop. In a daring raid, Drake and his Raptors attacked the ship and evaded his pursuers with an unharmed generator and a brand new Coreship.
With their new mobility, the Raptors became more daring than ever, staying just ahead of their pursuers. With the enormous energy requirements to generate a Krasnikov tunnel, and few sources of Uranium available, larger payloads were needed. And this was becoming harder and harder. A mistake was inevitable.
In 2138, while fleeing an American fighter squadron in Griffin, Drake's astrogator made that mistake. Confused by the abnormal gravity readings on the jump between Griffin and Hydra, he set the co-ordinates incorrectly. When they emerged, they were in the unrecognisable black of space. Locating what they thought was Chimera from gravity readings, they made a second hop. But it was not Chimera that they had jumped to, but [[Avalon
