"Nathan" the voice of my vice Captain screaming my name jeered me into full consciousness, reminding me that I was in the middle of a fierce battle. I was hit, but my suit took most of the damage, the plasma bullet from the hive gun of a Nithyan ship would leave you in bits and pieces. Fortunately the force shield around the jimba's hull reduced it's force, enough for me to still be breathing. 'I'll live' I thought.
I was Captain of the royal guards and had been assigned a special mission 'To escort the Lican princess back to her moon' which was by the way half a lunar month away from our sector of the galaxy. She had come at the requisition of our great lord Baltimus the supreme leader of galaxy N-24H.
The Licans were advanced in medicine, they had the best physicians In the whole galaxy, second to none. But were lacking in military power to a fault. Their moon was constantly invaded by outlaws, and their physicians were constantly under the fear of being abduction. Hence they struck a deal with lord Baltimus, a deal that greatly benefited the supreme leader. And so the silver force of our hydra soldiers were taxed with protecting them in return for elixis for the royal household, top generals and senators.
The supreme leader had requested to see the princess who was said to have healing powers, seeing she was a priestess as much as she was a princess. Although many guessed he would rather have her as his concubine than as a person physician, but nobody would dare spit such to the hearing of any hydra soldier.
The notorious Nithyans were military outlaws from galaxy SH-77F, charged for mutiny and exiled from their galaxy. Residing majorly on a wasteland planet in our galaxy, Lord Baltimus chose to ignore them. Over the decade they had grown uncontrollable, and had somehow gotten their hands on technology advanced beyond our galaxy's resources. They've had their eyes on the Licans for some time now, believing that after combining technology and medicine, they'll have enough to get back at the government in Nithya for exiling them. Although our military intelligence deciphered that there was another agenda to their obvious motive. Resulting in the often heated confrontation between our forces and theirs, as much as lord Baltimus would love to foster peace in our galaxy, the brazen attitude of those uninvited guests was not to be taken lightly.
On the 5th day of the third month of year 297AE (After Extinction) Princess Diana of Lica arrived in the royal court, I had escorted her and her convoy in the new royal battleship, 'the jimba', royals and senators receiving her in all their grandeur, her reception was the cynosure of all eyes. The visit lasted seven days, seven days of diplomatic engagements between the senators, generals and the Lican party, while the Princess had the attention of the supreme leader all to herself, during which the royal guards were on extremely high alert, even though no outlaw would dare attempt to infiltrate the royal court.
Three days ago on the 10th, our crypto team intercepted a transmission to the Nithyans, confirming an arm's deal, further decryption led us to the conclusion that the Nithyans would probably try to abduct the Princess on her return voyage. It was logical, they could never get to her while she is with the supreme leader, they won't be able to get her on Lica, so they would have to try something somewhere in between.Yesterday was the 12th, the third time in all of my career that I have seen the supreme leader show up at a briefing. 'This will be really stressful, but it's nothing new' I said to my squad on our way to 'the jimba'. I searched their faces for traces of fear and found none. The generals debated on sending us, stating that a battalion of hydra soldier would be enough to hold them off. But Lord Baltimus had faith in his royal bodyguards, we were the best among the top cadet's during our academy day, and we'd been recruited to receive special training as royal guards, a ritual that was centuries old, we were in short, a force to reckon with.
We were barely half a hour from our sector of the galaxy, when our ship began to detect multiple ships on the long range scan. "Are all defense systems online?" I asked, 'yes sir' a soldier battling switches at the work station console responded. "All civilians abroad kindly remain strapped in, Lican guards protect the princess, all royal guards on me, hydras to your defense stations, pilots await further instructions" a chorus of 'Sir' assured me that everyone understood my instructions.
All evasive measures to throw them off our tail proved ineffective, their ships were faster and we were way past the asteroid belt, so no escape. "We'll have to fight" I said over the Comms, "switch to offense and defense manoeuvres, royal guards put on your space suits, and ready yourselves for combat". 'Sir' they chorused again. We headed for the third bridge on the ship's hull, where we all mounted our plasma machine guns, activating the force field that would stop bullets from coming but allow the shots we fire to go through.
In less than five minutes we were overtaken by pirate ships, which as expected appeared to be from the Nithyans fleet. About a dozen ships were facing us on all sides, poised to attack. We were expecting them and we were prepared to fight. There was a pause, the three seconds it took me to sweep my eyes around the bridge seemed like an eternity. "Now" I said calmly, and in an instant everywhere lit up in different colour, plasma bullets flying here and there.
My vice Captain [Damien] was screaming orders to ensure a smooth offensive and defensive manoeuvre. The royal guards on the bridge had to focus on shooting down ships that were faster than 'the jimba'. Training after training and endless simulations had helped us learn to shoot in rythm with the battleship's basic manoeuvres, so we did not have issues keeping up with the vice Captain. After what felt like an eternity, we finally destroyed all of them, 'hurray' the Lican guards roared, but I had a feeling that this was too good to be true, just a dozen ships? 'Captain, the long range scan is picking up multiple hostile ships' a voice from the pilot's work station said. "Multiple hostiles incoming, back to your stations" I said into the mouthpiece, 'this is the real fight' I said to myself.
I had already called for reinforcement from the silver force, but it'll take them a while to come to our aid, "we are the royal guards, there is no turning back now. We fight through whatever they've got for us and bring the princess safely to Lica" before I could complete my speech, we were completely surrounded by about thirty ships. 'What the f**k' I heard Damien swear over the comms.
In an instant plasma bullets began to rain on us in every direction, Damien had come to the bridge to assess the damage on the Hull himself. 'Get back' I shouted, before I could start dispensing plasma bullets with my machine gun, a massive force suddenly hit me, and sent me flying. 'Am I dead? "Did a bullet just penetrate our force shield?" Is that the hive gun they recently acquired in the arms deal transmission we decrypted?' different thought were floating in my head as the pain hit me, 'oh, still alive I thought' as my body hit the floor.
"Nathan" my vice Captain screamed and rushed to me. One, two... five, I counted as he stabbed me with syringe after syringe filled with different elixirs. Everything seemed blurry, "ships from the silver forces are on their way, keep the princess safe" I said to him. All I could see before I passed out was Damien nodding, and different colours in the background.
The Voice of a robin singing greeted me as I slowly opened my eyes, everywhere was white, probably a laboratory, I was attached to different high tech machines 'brain simulation complete' an automated voice said. "Where am I?" I asked. Suddenly somebody in white overalls walked in through a door I did not notice before then, holding a notepad. No, this was a robot, it only had the appearance of a human on the front, it was completely metals and wires on the back. 'Excellent' it said enthusiastically, 'now I can finally submit my project.' My vision was clearer now, staring intently at the robot I got the shock of my life, it was Damien or should I say it had Damien's face. "What" I screamed and fainted.

Image from:

https://www.freepik.com/free-ai-image/space-travel-collage-design_94964696.htm#fromView=search&page=1&position=0&uuid=1a38b2af-2eab-4706-8b3d-8022f88b2a1b