The dust had settled and a little time had passed, people went about their business. Officers doing officering, techies doing tech stuff, the Nori doing a lot of mental stability counciling, and Rackham and Bonnet scrubbed walls for a week. They hated it, they hated the work part but even more so to them it felt sacrilegious to remove the organically grown mold patterns that adorned almost every surface of the ship.
'Commodore Anicetus Blomar 'The Floating Menace' duke of ... ' The Nori skipped the rest.
'Wishes to inform all of you that you are to gather in the mess hall for an announcement that is to be made. Your presence is mandatory and required immediately without exception!'
Blomar waited for his crew to gather while he sipped on his coffee, he had been waiting for this moment for a while now. It would seperate the weeds from the chaff, it would set the basis for his conquest of the galactic rim. He had prepared a speech, he had thought it through, but figured that as he was an impulsive person that he won't quite stick to its script. It was a bit of a tradition for him, but he was good at speaking on the fly and motivating people to do whatever it was he wanted from them came naturally to him. Overall he wasn't worried. He couldn't be. He needed the indomitable aura of confidence that he slowly had build up from scratch and that had wierdly begun to reinforce itself from the feedback of his subordinates. His crew trusted him, with their lives. The new ones didn't know it yet but they would, soon.
The Messhall began filling up. There were humans, humanoids, people that looked ... different. And the oddball blob person that he knew worked in the reactor maintainance team. His officers were there, standing behind im at attention.
'Gap'n the crew is assembled' Sybill whispered in his ear from behind.
Blomar turned his attention to the small crowd, there were about fifty of them, probably less soon. His Gaze swept over them, his back straight like a stick, his expression firm. He raised his arms to quiet down the mumbling and shoving.
He began, very quietly:
'Thank you for coming.'
He loosend his Tie a bit to give his neck a little more space and breath, it was a very old fashioned tradition in his family, one of the few things he had taken with him from his old life. He needed it, it anchored him to the person he was.
'You all know, aswell as I do that this is overdue.
You have been wondering what it is, why you are here,
in this shabby room, on this old ship, on this journey without a goal.
It is time, for you to know.
Soon....
but first, let me tell you who you are!
You are the exception. Exceptional not in traits or qualities, yet, not in origin or destination.
But in purpose.
You are the crew, look to your sides and remember the faces of your fellow mates, they will become the best you could hope for. Trusted mates, friends, family.
Our journey will be long. Long for us. But longer still for everyone else.
When we return, those that you have known, loved, hated, despised or plainly ignored, will have been dead for centuries. Such is the nature of interstellar travel, we have accepted it. It is the cost of what we stand to gain.
There will be other dues to pay. Lifes to be lost. Dreams to be given up on.
But, it will not soley be us on us to pay the price. We will crush our competitors with extreme prejudice. We will pillage the weak, break the frail and loot the rich.
Our virtue is cruelty without equal.
Only to be surpassed by our generosity to those who are loyal to us.
There will be times when you think that all is lost, that what we do is an exercise in futility, in foolishness.
That we are but the jesters of the Universe.
Embrace it. Because we are.
They will hate us, look down upon us, ridicule us but we shall prevail.
We will play the ultimate joke on everyone.
Our names will be forever written down in the histories of the galaxy,
whispered in fear by children of men who dare not utter them aloud.'
'Uhm Cap'n' someone interjected, 'that all sounds very inspiring and gruesome n all but what isit we r actually gonna do?
'excellent question! I will be getting to that soon... '