[b][I]William Windsor and his Crew - Flashback[/i][/b]

Outside Gill'home's habitable zone was the Gas Giant Gill'bright a planet the size of Jupiter around which the Windsor Autonomous Trading Fleet had constructed its own shipyards. These were ostensibly for the production of armed merchant ships which can survive the lawlessness of the frontier, but from the start, the shipyards were intended to be an illegal naval arsenal, capable of retrofitting armed merchantmen into warships or building the latter outright. Due to the Gill's Star System being seen as a 'cursed zone' by the Ascendancy plus copious amounts of bribery, this was overlooked. But now, William Windsor thought as the Queen Elizabeth moved closer to the Gas Giant, he had met Alexander Kherol, and found him to be someone who would not be fazed by superstition or money.

[i]You can always turn back,[/i] Windsor's own mind whispered to him. [i]Leave all thoughts of fighting behind, bow down to whoever rules the Post-War Ascendancy -[/i]

"Never," Windsor whispered to himself from his position on the ship's bridge, an insulated control room connected to the rest of the ship through cameras and sophisticated fiber-optics. As the rest of his crew turned to him in surprise, the young man said, "We're not turning back - Send a message to Shipmaster Calar and tell him to begin preperations to refit the Queen Elizabeth for war."

Shipmaster Calar was a Korta from the ex-vassal worlds who stayed loyal to the Autonomous Fleet despite his species being free from their forced oaths to the Ascendancy. Older than Windsor, he had served as one of the young man's father figures when his actual father had died in a freak accident long ago, and despite his earlier doubts, Windsor trusted him. As the small Elephant-like Alien sent a holographic projection to the bridge, he lifted his trunk as if to pat Windsor on the head, before saying in a hoary voice, "The time has come, eh?"

Windsor nodded, then said, "Yes. This ship's trading days are done for now - It must become a vessel for [i]war[/i]." 

War. He didn't love it, and only studied it the same way he studied disease, in order to cure it whenever it cropped up and to find new ways to resist ever having to use it. But in order to achieve his aims, he was going to have to use force - How he hated it, and how he hated how he felt there was no other choice! Shipmaster Calar's holographic projection patted him on the head then, saying, "There, there, Will - You know that there are some things worth fighting for."

Doubt left Windsor, at least for this moment, and the certainty of his vision filled him once more. Evidence backed him up, he was not going to concede his vision of a future to anyone, not even to someone who had superior military capabilities to him. He was merely going to adapt, to find someone who had the brains and training to match Grand Admiral Kherol's military mind. And of course, bend his resources to finding out more about the Grand Admiral's past and personality - Know thy enemy is an old proverb, after all...