Savior of the Damned
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
A Star Citizen inspired novelette by Brian ‘kinshadow’ Murray
Part 1 - Sins of the Code
Slowly through the void, the ship tumbled. Like a predator lurking in tall grass, the Grim Fortune securely observed the universe with her stunning array of sensors and sat nearly invisible with her black than black hull. Only the momentary flashes of a distant battle threatened to force the beast into action.
A fully outfitted Drake Cutlass class fighter, she was equipped for the most stealthy of missions. Passive circuits strove to mask her electronic signature and cool the hull exterior, absorbing any stray radiation and shunting it to her heavily shielded heat capacitors. Her electroskin hull plating darkened her natural metallic color to match the blackness of space and allay any visual inspection. Even the ship’s windows were currently black and opaque, like the dark menacing sockets of an animal’s skull.
Inside the cockpit, her captain stared intently at his displays and swam in a sea of holographic data. Many of the screens showed different views from a battle taking place over a hundred kilometers away, augmented with vast arrays of supplemental information. Clockwork thoughts kept pace with each of the vectors, weaving guesses and probabilities with the sophisticated dogfight tactics unwinding before him. His mind strove to take in every detail and time his next move with perfection. Only the rapid staccato of tapping metal threatened to break his concentration.
“Damn it, Billy! Stop tapping your frelling foot!”, the captain shouted.
“Sorry, Logan. I just got the jitters. Its been awhile since I’ve had a real shot ya’ know?”, Billy squeaked. His robotic replacement leg thudded back to the deck as he fought for control of the cheap neural interface circuits.
“Just shut up and keep your eye on you monitors! Let me know if you see any buoys launched at the jump point.”
Logan sighed. Billy was just too old, too slow, and too dumb for this work. His only real selling points were his dependability and experience. Despite his wits, Billy knew the shape of things and what the odds were. If things went sideways, Logan knew he could trust the old pirate to at least keep his word.
The captain’s attention shifted back to his monitors to keep up with the vessel being attacked. They had been trailing a Vanduul raiding party for several weeks, catching and losing the trail a hundred times, waiting for them to strike a big fish that could be snatched away. Finally, several minutes ago, a Constellation class yacht jumped into the system where the alien tribe had been waiting. The Vanduul pounced and swiftly surrounded the ship. The Stella’s short-range P52 fighter had been launched and summarily destroyed in the first twenty seconds by combined fire from the four attacking Vanduul Scythes. The alien craft flew like enchanted dancers, spinning and twirling with complex bursts from the their many thrusters. Bursts of light from the Stella’s weapons flew out in every direction, but the multi-colored fire just illuminated the alien fighters without touching them. Their asymmetric forms and large blade-like starboard wings made the battle seem almost like a supernatural occurrence. Like a squadron of angels escorting a humpback whale through a lightning storm.
For a time, both sides traded blows and the Vanduul tribe’s support ships stayed out of weapons range. The Constellation’s turrets pushed the fighters back as she wove between the attacking fighters. Only after the main drive had taken a direct missile hit did the battle become more decisive. Venting ion-rich plasma into her slowly churning wake was the metaphorical blood in the water the attacking pirahna had been waiting for. The Vanduul began slowly taking out the Stella’s remaining maneuvering thrusters and disabling weapons as she tried limping back to the jump point. Capture was imminent.
“Now?”, asked Billy. “She can’t have much fight left.”
“No, the main turret is still firing. We can’t do anything with that thing still up.”
Just as Logan said this, a Vanduul Scythe drove directly at the Stella’s main gun. Each fire of the canon was artfully dodged by the attacker with a pirouette of indefinable grace. The Scythe didn’t even bother firing and instead engaged its afterburner at close range, sideswiping the Constellation's hull. The move neatly sliced the turret off the main ship with the alien fighter’s blade-like wing and caused an eruption of atmosphere and metal debris. Emergency countermeasures flashed along the gap, quickly suppressing the venting life-blood.
“Now we go”, said Logan as he hit a button on his control panel. Several things happened at once: The Grim Fortune’s stealth heat capacitor vented into their engine to generate a phantom jump flash, missile pods on both sides of the ship launched a series of decoy signal transponders that gave the impression of a mixed UEE naval squadron, and the electroskin hull changed the color of the ship to a bright white, emblazoned with a UEE Search and Rescue logo.
The Vanduul responded immediately. Each fighter spun and burned its engines in the direction of the tribe’s carrier. Within moments, the Vanduul had jumped from the system, not wanting to risk the raid or whatever booty they already carried on a UEE entanglement. The chaos of the scene melted away leaving the crippled yacht floating in its own chum.
“This is UEE S and R team bravo alpha zero niner. Do you read me, Constellation class vessel?”, Logan said smoothly into his com unit. Billy sniggered and his foot starting tapping again.
“Oh thank God!”, said the other ship. “They almost had us! We have injured on board and we’re leaking atmosphere. Can you help us out?” A combination of desperation and relief saturated every word.
“Of course, that’s what we’re here for.” Logan, clicked the mic off and put the ship on a docking course with the Stella. As he looked over his shoulder at Billy and said with measured tones,”Are you ready?”
“Sure as the black, you can count on me!”, Billy said with a toothy grin and what looked like false enthusiasm. The smile looked odd on a old man with a huge bushy beard and wearing a bright orange UEE medic’s jumpsuit. The bulky plasma rifle he was clutching didn’t make him any saner. “Done this a million times! No worries at all.”
Logan grunted noncommittally as the docking collar engaged the other ship. With a click and a hiss, the boarding door opened and Billy jumped through while concealing his rifle behind his oversized artificial leg. A steady metal clang followed the old pirate as his foot banged against the decking.
Logan firmly gripped his sidearm just in case the other crew got wise too quickly. His eyes peering intently at the open hatch, waiting for any movement of air or twitch of shadow to give away a would-be attacker.
After several drawn-out seconds, the sound of plasma shots echoed from the docked ship. Logan waited for the com to light up with BIlly’s grinning mug before easing his grip on his gun.
“All clear, Cap!”, Billy’s face was way too close to the com’s camera and it distorted his smile into something even more grotesque than normal.
“That was fast.”, Logan commented, giving Billy a skeptical glare.
“Only one was still able and he was just a young merc. Still wet behind the ears.” Billy scratch his own ear as if to provide illustration to the outdated saying. “I don’t think this is even their ship.”
“Alright, get to work. See what repair facilities they have and open the cargo bay.”
Logan hit another button on his console to initiate his tried and true boarding methods. The Grim Fortune’s cargo doors opened and two spider-like robots emerged. One scuttled over to the main drive and began to furiously work on patching the thing back together, first concentrating on stemming the leaking plasma and debris. Bright white arcs of the robot’s welding arm lit up the area in stark monochromatic contrast and illuminated the growing ion cloud surrounding the ships. The other robot began shuttling cargo from the Constellation's hold to the Cutlass. Logan could see several long boxes being loaded and smiled for the first time in a good while. The Grim Fortune couldn't hope to hold all of the cargo, but ones’ eggs should always be put in multiple baskets.
“How’s it look over there”, Logan asked as he punched his com.
“Not too shabby.”, answered Billy.”We could probably limp to the next system in a couple minutes.”
“Well, that shouldn’t be … “ Logan started saying before an alarm suddenly began blaring from his monitors. Warning brackets highlighted ships jumping into the system with the word ADVOCACY highlighted in ominous red letters. The reason was obvious: One of the Constellation’s buoys must have made it to the jump point to report the first attack.
Despite wearing UEE colorings, their forged transponder codes would be instantly recognized as false by the Advocacy cruisers. On top of that, even if they had the right codes, any hardened agent would know the UEE navy didn’t use the Drake Cutlass for any of its operations. The thing was almost purpose-built for piracy.
“FRAK! We’ve got the Big A in-system!”, Logan shouted into the com. He steadied himself and looked directly into Billy’s eyes. “This is your call Billy. You better get your ass back here if you’re coming with me.”
Billy squinted for a moment and shook his head. “I’m too old ... This is my last chance for a decent score and ship of my own.” Billy looked confident and composed, but he could hear the metal foot tapping through the link. “Burn your engines hard and maybe they’ll think we both fled. I only need a couple more moments...”
“See you around, Billy”. Logan said with a nod as he hit the disengage button. There was no hesitation. They both knew the risks and followed the same code. Every man had the right to roll his own dice and, if a man chooses his fate, no man should tell him otherwise.
The collar retracted as the cargo bay doors closed with the plunder-bot just making it inside. With a couple of quick maneuvering thrusts the Cutlass was clear to light up the night with its engines. The afterburner burst blew out the thick surrounding ion cloud in every direction causing a miniature nebula and a distinct trail for the newcomers to see. The Constellation looked to be surrounded by its own glowing halo.
Looking over the data from his sensors, it looked to Logan like the ruse had worked. All five of the Advocacy cruisers flew past the Constellation and started gaining on the Grim Fortune. Not really built for straight-away speed and heavy with cargo, the Cutlass was no match in an all-out race. Logan just hoped he could dodge them until he hit the lesser known beta jump point in the system.
Just as the cruisers started to close, two of them peeled off and started to burn hard back to the Stella. “Oh Frell”, thought Logan. “You better hurry up Billy.”
Holographic weapons-lock warnings sprung up around the cockpit and the Cutlass reverberated with plasma hits. With a quick jerk of the controls, the Grim Fortune spun in space, flinging chaff in all directions. Incoming Advocacy missiles blossomed in the metallic cloud and rocked the ship to her timbers as the cruisers arced past. Shield alarms began flashing and screaming their shrill warnings. The agents were setting up for another run and would be caught back up in a moment to try and finish him. Afterburners flared again as the pirate ship tried to make a final push for the jump point.
Logan looked down at the console and saw a hazy view from the repair-bot’s camera back on the Stella. The ion cloud was still thick around the ship, but it was clear that one of the Advocacy cruisers was in the process of docking and the other had its guns trained on the pilot’s cabin at near point blank range. The repair estimate still had way too much time left.
Logan closed his eyes and sighed. Billy knew the risks and what would happen if he got caught. Execution was likely and Logan sure wasn’t going to gamble that his name wouldn’t be brought up before hand. You roll your dice, you live with the pips.
With a button press, the repair-bot detonated directly over the engine it was working on. Microseconds later, the Constellation’s anti-matter generator breached and the ship shredded itself with fire, like a miniature sun igniting in the gaseous nebula. Both the docked cruiser and the one floating off the bow were caught moments later, adding to the cascading explosions and expanding cloud of fire.
Logan gritted his teeth as he dove into the jump point
Part 1 - Sins of the Code
Slowly through the void, the ship tumbled. Like a predator lurking in tall grass, the Grim Fortune securely observed the universe with her stunning array of sensors and sat nearly invisible with her black than black hull. Only the momentary flashes of a distant battle threatened to force the beast into action.
A fully outfitted Drake Cutlass class fighter, she was equipped for the most stealthy of missions. Passive circuits strove to mask her electronic signature and cool the hull exterior, absorbing any stray radiation and shunting it to her heavily shielded heat capacitors. Her electroskin hull plating darkened her natural metallic color to match the blackness of space and allay any visual inspection. Even the ship’s windows were currently black and opaque, like the dark menacing sockets of an animal’s skull.
Inside the cockpit, her captain stared intently at his displays and swam in a sea of holographic data. Many of the screens showed different views from a battle taking place over a hundred kilometers away, augmented with vast arrays of supplemental information. Clockwork thoughts kept pace with each of the vectors, weaving guesses and probabilities with the sophisticated dogfight tactics unwinding before him. His mind strove to take in every detail and time his next move with perfection. Only the rapid staccato of tapping metal threatened to break his concentration.
“Damn it, Billy! Stop tapping your frelling foot!”, the captain shouted.
“Sorry, Logan. I just got the jitters. Its been awhile since I’ve had a real shot ya’ know?”, Billy squeaked. His robotic replacement leg thudded back to the deck as he fought for control of the cheap neural interface circuits.
“Just shut up and keep your eye on you monitors! Let me know if you see any buoys launched at the jump point.”
Logan sighed. Billy was just too old, too slow, and too dumb for this work. His only real selling points were his dependability and experience. Despite his wits, Billy knew the shape of things and what the odds were. If things went sideways, Logan knew he could trust the old pirate to at least keep his word.
The captain’s attention shifted back to his monitors to keep up with the vessel being attacked. They had been trailing a Vanduul raiding party for several weeks, catching and losing the trail a hundred times, waiting for them to strike a big fish that could be snatched away. Finally, several minutes ago, a Constellation class yacht jumped into the system where the alien tribe had been waiting. The Vanduul pounced and swiftly surrounded the ship. The Stella’s short-range P52 fighter had been launched and summarily destroyed in the first twenty seconds by combined fire from the four attacking Vanduul Scythes. The alien craft flew like enchanted dancers, spinning and twirling with complex bursts from the their many thrusters. Bursts of light from the Stella’s weapons flew out in every direction, but the multi-colored fire just illuminated the alien fighters without touching them. Their asymmetric forms and large blade-like starboard wings made the battle seem almost like a supernatural occurrence. Like a squadron of angels escorting a humpback whale through a lightning storm.
For a time, both sides traded blows and the Vanduul tribe’s support ships stayed out of weapons range. The Constellation’s turrets pushed the fighters back as she wove between the attacking fighters. Only after the main drive had taken a direct missile hit did the battle become more decisive. Venting ion-rich plasma into her slowly churning wake was the metaphorical blood in the water the attacking pirahna had been waiting for. The Vanduul began slowly taking out the Stella’s remaining maneuvering thrusters and disabling weapons as she tried limping back to the jump point. Capture was imminent.
“Now?”, asked Billy. “She can’t have much fight left.”
“No, the main turret is still firing. We can’t do anything with that thing still up.”
Just as Logan said this, a Vanduul Scythe drove directly at the Stella’s main gun. Each fire of the canon was artfully dodged by the attacker with a pirouette of indefinable grace. The Scythe didn’t even bother firing and instead engaged its afterburner at close range, sideswiping the Constellation's hull. The move neatly sliced the turret off the main ship with the alien fighter’s blade-like wing and caused an eruption of atmosphere and metal debris. Emergency countermeasures flashed along the gap, quickly suppressing the venting life-blood.
“Now we go”, said Logan as he hit a button on his control panel. Several things happened at once: The Grim Fortune’s stealth heat capacitor vented into their engine to generate a phantom jump flash, missile pods on both sides of the ship launched a series of decoy signal transponders that gave the impression of a mixed UEE naval squadron, and the electroskin hull changed the color of the ship to a bright white, emblazoned with a UEE Search and Rescue logo.
The Vanduul responded immediately. Each fighter spun and burned its engines in the direction of the tribe’s carrier. Within moments, the Vanduul had jumped from the system, not wanting to risk the raid or whatever booty they already carried on a UEE entanglement. The chaos of the scene melted away leaving the crippled yacht floating in its own chum.
“This is UEE S and R team bravo alpha zero niner. Do you read me, Constellation class vessel?”, Logan said smoothly into his com unit. Billy sniggered and his foot starting tapping again.
“Oh thank God!”, said the other ship. “They almost had us! We have injured on board and we’re leaking atmosphere. Can you help us out?” A combination of desperation and relief saturated every word.
“Of course, that’s what we’re here for.” Logan, clicked the mic off and put the ship on a docking course with the Stella. As he looked over his shoulder at Billy and said with measured tones,”Are you ready?”
“Sure as the black, you can count on me!”, Billy said with a toothy grin and what looked like false enthusiasm. The smile looked odd on a old man with a huge bushy beard and wearing a bright orange UEE medic’s jumpsuit. The bulky plasma rifle he was clutching didn’t make him any saner. “Done this a million times! No worries at all.”
Logan grunted noncommittally as the docking collar engaged the other ship. With a click and a hiss, the boarding door opened and Billy jumped through while concealing his rifle behind his oversized artificial leg. A steady metal clang followed the old pirate as his foot banged against the decking.
Logan firmly gripped his sidearm just in case the other crew got wise too quickly. His eyes peering intently at the open hatch, waiting for any movement of air or twitch of shadow to give away a would-be attacker.
After several drawn-out seconds, the sound of plasma shots echoed from the docked ship. Logan waited for the com to light up with BIlly’s grinning mug before easing his grip on his gun.
“All clear, Cap!”, Billy’s face was way too close to the com’s camera and it distorted his smile into something even more grotesque than normal.
“That was fast.”, Logan commented, giving Billy a skeptical glare.
“Only one was still able and he was just a young merc. Still wet behind the ears.” Billy scratch his own ear as if to provide illustration to the outdated saying. “I don’t think this is even their ship.”
“Alright, get to work. See what repair facilities they have and open the cargo bay.”
Logan hit another button on his console to initiate his tried and true boarding methods. The Grim Fortune’s cargo doors opened and two spider-like robots emerged. One scuttled over to the main drive and began to furiously work on patching the thing back together, first concentrating on stemming the leaking plasma and debris. Bright white arcs of the robot’s welding arm lit up the area in stark monochromatic contrast and illuminated the growing ion cloud surrounding the ships. The other robot began shuttling cargo from the Constellation's hold to the Cutlass. Logan could see several long boxes being loaded and smiled for the first time in a good while. The Grim Fortune couldn't hope to hold all of the cargo, but ones’ eggs should always be put in multiple baskets.
“How’s it look over there”, Logan asked as he punched his com.
“Not too shabby.”, answered Billy.”We could probably limp to the next system in a couple minutes.”
“Well, that shouldn’t be … “ Logan started saying before an alarm suddenly began blaring from his monitors. Warning brackets highlighted ships jumping into the system with the word ADVOCACY highlighted in ominous red letters. The reason was obvious: One of the Constellation’s buoys must have made it to the jump point to report the first attack.
Despite wearing UEE colorings, their forged transponder codes would be instantly recognized as false by the Advocacy cruisers. On top of that, even if they had the right codes, any hardened agent would know the UEE navy didn’t use the Drake Cutlass for any of its operations. The thing was almost purpose-built for piracy.
“FRAK! We’ve got the Big A in-system!”, Logan shouted into the com. He steadied himself and looked directly into Billy’s eyes. “This is your call Billy. You better get your ass back here if you’re coming with me.”
Billy squinted for a moment and shook his head. “I’m too old ... This is my last chance for a decent score and ship of my own.” Billy looked confident and composed, but he could hear the metal foot tapping through the link. “Burn your engines hard and maybe they’ll think we both fled. I only need a couple more moments...”
“See you around, Billy”. Logan said with a nod as he hit the disengage button. There was no hesitation. They both knew the risks and followed the same code. Every man had the right to roll his own dice and, if a man chooses his fate, no man should tell him otherwise.
The collar retracted as the cargo bay doors closed with the plunder-bot just making it inside. With a couple of quick maneuvering thrusts the Cutlass was clear to light up the night with its engines. The afterburner burst blew out the thick surrounding ion cloud in every direction causing a miniature nebula and a distinct trail for the newcomers to see. The Constellation looked to be surrounded by its own glowing halo.
Looking over the data from his sensors, it looked to Logan like the ruse had worked. All five of the Advocacy cruisers flew past the Constellation and started gaining on the Grim Fortune. Not really built for straight-away speed and heavy with cargo, the Cutlass was no match in an all-out race. Logan just hoped he could dodge them until he hit the lesser known beta jump point in the system.
Just as the cruisers started to close, two of them peeled off and started to burn hard back to the Stella. “Oh Frell”, thought Logan. “You better hurry up Billy.”
Holographic weapons-lock warnings sprung up around the cockpit and the Cutlass reverberated with plasma hits. With a quick jerk of the controls, the Grim Fortune spun in space, flinging chaff in all directions. Incoming Advocacy missiles blossomed in the metallic cloud and rocked the ship to her timbers as the cruisers arced past. Shield alarms began flashing and screaming their shrill warnings. The agents were setting up for another run and would be caught back up in a moment to try and finish him. Afterburners flared again as the pirate ship tried to make a final push for the jump point.
Logan looked down at the console and saw a hazy view from the repair-bot’s camera back on the Stella. The ion cloud was still thick around the ship, but it was clear that one of the Advocacy cruisers was in the process of docking and the other had its guns trained on the pilot’s cabin at near point blank range. The repair estimate still had way too much time left.
Logan closed his eyes and sighed. Billy knew the risks and what would happen if he got caught. Execution was likely and Logan sure wasn’t going to gamble that his name wouldn’t be brought up before hand. You roll your dice, you live with the pips.
With a button press, the repair-bot detonated directly over the engine it was working on. Microseconds later, the Constellation’s anti-matter generator breached and the ship shredded itself with fire, like a miniature sun igniting in the gaseous nebula. Both the docked cruiser and the one floating off the bow were caught moments later, adding to the cascading explosions and expanding cloud of fire.
Logan gritted his teeth as he dove into the jump point
Part 2 - Thieves in the Night
The rhythmic sounds of thudding wet flesh filled the expanse of the landing bay. With a fierce grunt, Logan punched the rough hewn rock wall again. Blood was already splattered in a sloppy circle where he had been hitting it for the last ten minutes and the floor was already moist with his sweat. Anger, hatred, and every other dark emotion drove his mind like a locomotive.
Somewhere in the back of his psyche, fragments of his remaining sanity bubbled to the surface. Logan’s hands fell to his sides and he dropped to the metal-grated floor, painted in a hue of resignation. With a half-hearted kick, he propped himself against the rocky hanger wall and stared at his only meaningful possession in the ‘verse: his ship, The Grim Fortune. A little worse for wear, the repair bills would be far from his worst he’d ever had. His grief was more for the loss of time and the near promise of greater fortune.
Logan used his shirt-sleeve to dry the sweat off his stubbly face and frowned at the blood on his hands. With a quick press of holographic buttons on his wrist-comm, a stubby med-bot popped out of the bottom of the Cutlass fighter and made its way over to him.
“I know this is station is pretty backwater, but even we have a gym ... of sorts. It’s even free for those who rent private hangars.”, said a tall dark-skinned man striding across the landing bay. “We even have a complementary barber-bot to cut that damn pony-tail for you too.”
“Yeah, and you should know that most people that rent private hangers probably want to stay private.”, said Logan with while glaring back. His heart wasn’t in it though and he quickly turned his attention back to the robot lasering his knuckles back together.
Sammy Kim’s face split into a wide grin as he stood akimbo. Bald as a baby’s butt and muscled like a man who liked his strength stims, Sammy was high-level enforcer for the Gun Dogs, the current owners of this asteroid base. Gun Dog laze-tattoos showed prominently around his neck to show his affiliation and rank to those with the right knowledge.
Turning his attention to the Cutlass, Sammy remarked, “You look like you got your ass handed to you. Get into another scrape with the Five Stars?”
“No”, Logan sighed with resignation. He knew Sammy wouldn't leave alone until he got the story. In his defense though, that was probably part of his job on the station. “Those are Big A scorch marks. Got caught with my hand in a cookie jar five jumps west of here. I was forced to float old Billy.”
Sammy grunted. “Tin-foot Billy? Well, his days were pretty numbered anyway. He was up to what? Three blue-sticks a day to keep his nerve feedback down? You probably saved him from starvation or a vagrancy airlock.” Looking back over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow, “Get away with anything?”
Logan furrowed his brow. “Yeah, I almost forgot. I did get something before I had to bail.” Half-jumping to his feet, his anger fled out of mind and was displaced with remembered booty.
The cargo doors of his Cutlass slowly opened as Logan approached. Sammy came alongside and peered in with him. Three long boxes sat in the hold, each around four meters long and secured with auto-webbing. Along the side of the boxes were strange, inhuman markings.
Sammy whistled between his teeth. “That there’s Xi’an writing. I think you might have a good score after all.”
Logan’s spirits lifted even higher and he began capturing holos with this wrist-strapped comm unit. A couple of quick clicks later and the data (plus some credits) were off to a black market intel contact. If those crates were worth anything, his guy would know.
“You know, Amadda got back from her Eastern raid last week.”, Sammy said around a huge grin and finished with a wink.
“Oh yeah?”, Logan cough and said nonchalantly. “Is she ahh...”
“Still into you? Yeah, you could say that. You could also say that she’s a total cast-iron irritable bitch when you’re not here. So, yeah, I’d say she misses you. Right now, she’s probably hanging in the Hole on call with all the other Dog pilots. I’d guess she’s also likely drunk as a Banu gopher on holiday.”
“On call?”
“Yeah, didn’t you hear? The Jump Blades have been slaving heavily along the frontier, trying to really up their trade. Word has it they’re selling the zombies direct to a Tevarin cartel and have gotten all comfortable with their new wealth and alliances. Comfortable enough to settle old grudges. We’re expecting trouble any day now”, Sammy had stopped grinning, “I wouldn’t stay too long if I were you. Getting caught in a siege isn’t much fun.“
“Oh, I’m not staying long, but I wouldn’t be worried if I was. This is the best run waypoint west of Gallum. How about I buy you a drink at the Hole!,” Logan elbowed Sammy in the ribs with a grin as he thumbed his wrist-comm to close the cargo bay. Letting the situation get tense was never good for business. Sammy nodded, but didn’t smile and stood for a moment staring, lost in thought.
Together they left the docking bay through a set of metal doors doors and a short corridor that functioned as an airlock when the dock was in vacuum. All of the walls were carved from the bare material of the asteroid itself and several zero-environment suits hung on pegs. None of them looked all that well cared for.
“Welcome back to Bullet Bay”, said Sammy as he slapped Logan on the back a waved at the crowded bazaar.
The concourse of the asteroid was wide and multi-level, held together with a minimal number of support beams and lacking any expensive features, like windows. Lights hung on exposed wires and utility pipes rumbled in their brackets while snaking between the bulges in the walls. Make-shift stalls along the crowded concourse walkways housed a mix of humanity and alien dregs. Everything from black-market drugs to stolen ship parts were displayed on the booth walls, shelves, and carpets. Side corridors led to small carved-out rooms housing the more expensive or exclusive items.
The Gun Dogs were a fairly successful gang, so Bullet Bay’s facilities were relatively top notch for what was essentially an abandoned asteroid mining facility. The air smelled only slightly stale and most of the worst odors were filtered. Still, the station was by no means a paradise to anyone without the black heart of a pirate. Eyes trailed after them and fingers hovered above secreted weapons. Every soul aboard had an edge to them that hinted at either desperation or violence.
The Hole was the main Gun Dog bar on the asteroid. Several rooms of carved rock, chained together and littered with mis-matched metal tables. A heavily muscled bouncer stood to one side of the doorway and nodded solemnly to Sammy. Neuro-enhancing tattoos spidered over his visible skin and light glowed menacing from holographic eye implants.
They walked through the bar, dodging between tables and weaving patrons. The drink dispenser looked to still be functioning despite the fact it was half-way hanging out of the wall and leaking a green ooze onto the floor. Garrish ad-holos decorated the walls and vid screens displayed what most Citizens would consider questionable entertainment. The conversations were a mix of hushed tones with shifty eyes and parties of raucous laughter and blatant drunkenness.
As they near the rear-most room, the atmosphere began to sober a little. Less laughs and more stares. Someone appeared to be dragging a body through a door the back of the bar, but no one was looking directly at it. A line of sticky red fluid on the floor pointed toward a small table in the corner populated by a red headed woman and a dozen or so beer bottles. Similar stains marked the wall beside her, a fresco paying homage to the tense violence surrounding them.
"Yo, Amadda! Look what jumped in-system!", Sammy yelled over the noisy bar, hooking his thumb back at Logan.
The woman looked up, pushed her bushy red hair out the way, and showed a stunningly beautiful face sporting a black eye-patch over her left eye. To Logan, she reflected a picture-perfect model of everything right in the world of piracy. Amadda grinned a lecherous smile and said, "Damn, that's a fine sight! Where the frell you been Logan!"
"Chasing banshees. You know how it is." Logan said in his best off-hand manner. He knew fully well that trailing Vanduul raiding parties was one of the more risky forms of piracy. Just trading with the Vanduul wasn’t easy credits either, but sniping their kills is not a sane man’s occupation. “What happened to your eye?”
Amadda arched her eyebrow for a second and then then smirked. “Just a holo-patch, cheaper than an implant and no nasty risk of tissue rejection from these cheap chop-shops. Benny’s Salvage ‘acquired’ a gross of them; good price.” She flipped up the patch to reveal her other green eye. Text and data vectors flowed over the inner patch surface, overlaid on a pass-through view from the outside.
"You gotta place to stay tonight?”, Amadda asked. Blood on the wall appeared to kill the need for idle chatter.
“Well, that’s my exit cue.”, said Sammy
---
Logan awoke to his beeping wrist-comm. After quickly wiping sleep from his eyes and disentangling his limbs from Amadda’s, Logan made his way to the other side of the smallish rock-hewn room and slid the toilet screen around him.
Ship status pings had caused the beeping, but there was a message in his queue from his data broker that he’d been waiting for. With a press of the comm, a small holographic bust appeared in his palm. A pale bald man of indeterminate age stared at him and started speaking.
“Good news Logan! The equipment you waved me looks to be highly marketable. Those are Xi’an torpedos from an experimental research group. Their nature is unknown as that will take data cracking on the cases themselves. I’ve attached a custom cracker that includes a Xi’an translator with contextual neural config. Your acceptance of the message will credit my usual custom service fee.” The face paused, looking mildly concerned, “By the way, I saw traces of other unauthorized entrants on the systems I used to collect this data. You’re not the only one wanting info on those torpedoes. Watch your six. Out.”
The holo ended with a confirmation dialog. Logan pressed the acceptance and downloaded the program. He then pushed the files to his ship computer to run and started reading his comm ping log, expecting a repair report from the stations bots. Instead, the Grim Fortune alerted him with a error: Cargo in transit.
The ship computer error and the holo-message stirred together in his head and screamed at him. Logan slammed the curtain aside and leaped across the room grab his pants and gun holster. Amadda rolled over and tilted her head, questions in her green eyes.
“My cargo’s getting jacked!” he said while running pell-mell into the concourse.
The corridors were still crowded as there were no official waking hours on the asteroid. People just kept the circadian that suited them, which was usually whatever planet they were on last. Dodging through a hodgepodge of black market dealers and pirates, Logan ripped through the station. Still adjusting to the cheap 0.8 artificial gravity, several booths and tables were claimed as unwitting manslaughter victims of his mad dash. Finally, with almost cartwheeling arms, Logan skidded into the airlock corridor leading to the dock. The door at the end was shut tight and vacuum warning indicators strobed red.
Looking through the door window, Logan’s worst nightmare unfurled into reality. The ceiling of the bay was open to space, docking doors retracted and harsh starlight bleeding through. A bulking, modular Drake Caterpillar hovered above the bay. Microbursts from thrusters firing in rapid succession to fight the augmented gravity of the asteroid base. Gas particles shimmered in a solid line stretching from the ship to the bay floor. A tell-tale sign of a tractor beam active in what was left of the bay’s atmosphere. Of course, the Xi’an torpedo case hovering halfway to the vessel and creeping upwards was an even bigger giveaway.
A crew of four guys in jet-black zero-environment suits and holding plasma rifles stood in a rough circle around the the beam. One last crate hovered a meter above the bay floor, suspended by an attached hover-pack. They must already have the third container on the Caterpillar.
The scene took an instant to take in and Logan knew he had very few options with only seconds left. Grabbing a suit off of the airlock wall, he struggled with the cheap clasps and bulky connections. Articulated synth-muscle joints tried to form-fit themselves to him to increase his agility and make up for the loss of motion range. Unfortunately, the left arm seemed to be defective and kept spasming, slowing his progress.
Amadda rounded the corner and slammed into the wall beside him, grabbing the second enviro-suit.
“I comm’ed Sonny. He’s asked the patrol to circle back, but their pretty far out. None of the sensors can even see that damn ship. Sonny only believed me after checking the bay holo-cams.”, Amadda said in rush, backing out of the airlock.
“OK, well, I’ll try and delay them. Back me up as soon as you can”, Logan said in a muffled voice as he snapped his helmet on. With a slap of his hand on the control panel, the inner door closed and the airlock cycled. As soon as the bay door started sliding up, plasma bolts began peppering the airlock’s rock walls.
Gripping his pistol tightly, Logan dove forward firing randomly in the direction of the thieves. A bolt grazed his suit right before sliding into the cover of barrels along the side of the bay. The suit shuddered with venting atmosphere as it quickly tried to pump repair-foam into the rip. At least the emergency measures were still working.
More bolts vibrated the barrels, melting the metal and creating pools of quickly cooling slag. This cover wouldn’t last long. Logan thumbed his wrist-comm and holographic controls projected through the suit fabric of his arm. The computer aboard the Cutlass responded and accepted a sequence of instructions.
Moments later, the main engines fired a test pulse with reverse thrusters firing in tandem to keep the ship from moving. One of the thieves was vaporized in a flash of fire and the rest were knocked down by the initial burst of particles.
Logan spun around the side of the barrels and fired at the hover-pack attached crate. The pack blew on the second bolt and the torpedo crashed to ground, crushing the pelvis of one of black-clad thieves he had just knocked down. Twitching and thrashing were the only signs the thief remained alive and in excruciating pain.
More bolts ripped into the barrels as the last two thieves rose. Logan spun back into cover only to see Amadda striding through the open door. Confidence and experience came with her, spreading like rolling fog. With a casual sweep of the rifle the two thieves were blown back in a shower of air and frozen blood.
“Aim assist”, Amadda said through her helmet-comm as she smiled, tapping her helmet next to her eye patch. She pointed her rifle up and started firing at the Caterpillar, but it’s shields has already engaged. The second torpedo was gone.
With a silent burn of its thrusters, the Caterpillar sped away from the base, weaving between the smaller orbiting asteroids.
Logan fumed and punched the landing bay wall.
The rhythmic sounds of thudding wet flesh filled the expanse of the landing bay. With a fierce grunt, Logan punched the rough hewn rock wall again. Blood was already splattered in a sloppy circle where he had been hitting it for the last ten minutes and the floor was already moist with his sweat. Anger, hatred, and every other dark emotion drove his mind like a locomotive.
Somewhere in the back of his psyche, fragments of his remaining sanity bubbled to the surface. Logan’s hands fell to his sides and he dropped to the metal-grated floor, painted in a hue of resignation. With a half-hearted kick, he propped himself against the rocky hanger wall and stared at his only meaningful possession in the ‘verse: his ship, The Grim Fortune. A little worse for wear, the repair bills would be far from his worst he’d ever had. His grief was more for the loss of time and the near promise of greater fortune.
Logan used his shirt-sleeve to dry the sweat off his stubbly face and frowned at the blood on his hands. With a quick press of holographic buttons on his wrist-comm, a stubby med-bot popped out of the bottom of the Cutlass fighter and made its way over to him.
“I know this is station is pretty backwater, but even we have a gym ... of sorts. It’s even free for those who rent private hangars.”, said a tall dark-skinned man striding across the landing bay. “We even have a complementary barber-bot to cut that damn pony-tail for you too.”
“Yeah, and you should know that most people that rent private hangers probably want to stay private.”, said Logan with while glaring back. His heart wasn’t in it though and he quickly turned his attention back to the robot lasering his knuckles back together.
Sammy Kim’s face split into a wide grin as he stood akimbo. Bald as a baby’s butt and muscled like a man who liked his strength stims, Sammy was high-level enforcer for the Gun Dogs, the current owners of this asteroid base. Gun Dog laze-tattoos showed prominently around his neck to show his affiliation and rank to those with the right knowledge.
Turning his attention to the Cutlass, Sammy remarked, “You look like you got your ass handed to you. Get into another scrape with the Five Stars?”
“No”, Logan sighed with resignation. He knew Sammy wouldn't leave alone until he got the story. In his defense though, that was probably part of his job on the station. “Those are Big A scorch marks. Got caught with my hand in a cookie jar five jumps west of here. I was forced to float old Billy.”
Sammy grunted. “Tin-foot Billy? Well, his days were pretty numbered anyway. He was up to what? Three blue-sticks a day to keep his nerve feedback down? You probably saved him from starvation or a vagrancy airlock.” Looking back over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow, “Get away with anything?”
Logan furrowed his brow. “Yeah, I almost forgot. I did get something before I had to bail.” Half-jumping to his feet, his anger fled out of mind and was displaced with remembered booty.
The cargo doors of his Cutlass slowly opened as Logan approached. Sammy came alongside and peered in with him. Three long boxes sat in the hold, each around four meters long and secured with auto-webbing. Along the side of the boxes were strange, inhuman markings.
Sammy whistled between his teeth. “That there’s Xi’an writing. I think you might have a good score after all.”
Logan’s spirits lifted even higher and he began capturing holos with this wrist-strapped comm unit. A couple of quick clicks later and the data (plus some credits) were off to a black market intel contact. If those crates were worth anything, his guy would know.
“You know, Amadda got back from her Eastern raid last week.”, Sammy said around a huge grin and finished with a wink.
“Oh yeah?”, Logan cough and said nonchalantly. “Is she ahh...”
“Still into you? Yeah, you could say that. You could also say that she’s a total cast-iron irritable bitch when you’re not here. So, yeah, I’d say she misses you. Right now, she’s probably hanging in the Hole on call with all the other Dog pilots. I’d guess she’s also likely drunk as a Banu gopher on holiday.”
“On call?”
“Yeah, didn’t you hear? The Jump Blades have been slaving heavily along the frontier, trying to really up their trade. Word has it they’re selling the zombies direct to a Tevarin cartel and have gotten all comfortable with their new wealth and alliances. Comfortable enough to settle old grudges. We’re expecting trouble any day now”, Sammy had stopped grinning, “I wouldn’t stay too long if I were you. Getting caught in a siege isn’t much fun.“
“Oh, I’m not staying long, but I wouldn’t be worried if I was. This is the best run waypoint west of Gallum. How about I buy you a drink at the Hole!,” Logan elbowed Sammy in the ribs with a grin as he thumbed his wrist-comm to close the cargo bay. Letting the situation get tense was never good for business. Sammy nodded, but didn’t smile and stood for a moment staring, lost in thought.
Together they left the docking bay through a set of metal doors doors and a short corridor that functioned as an airlock when the dock was in vacuum. All of the walls were carved from the bare material of the asteroid itself and several zero-environment suits hung on pegs. None of them looked all that well cared for.
“Welcome back to Bullet Bay”, said Sammy as he slapped Logan on the back a waved at the crowded bazaar.
The concourse of the asteroid was wide and multi-level, held together with a minimal number of support beams and lacking any expensive features, like windows. Lights hung on exposed wires and utility pipes rumbled in their brackets while snaking between the bulges in the walls. Make-shift stalls along the crowded concourse walkways housed a mix of humanity and alien dregs. Everything from black-market drugs to stolen ship parts were displayed on the booth walls, shelves, and carpets. Side corridors led to small carved-out rooms housing the more expensive or exclusive items.
The Gun Dogs were a fairly successful gang, so Bullet Bay’s facilities were relatively top notch for what was essentially an abandoned asteroid mining facility. The air smelled only slightly stale and most of the worst odors were filtered. Still, the station was by no means a paradise to anyone without the black heart of a pirate. Eyes trailed after them and fingers hovered above secreted weapons. Every soul aboard had an edge to them that hinted at either desperation or violence.
The Hole was the main Gun Dog bar on the asteroid. Several rooms of carved rock, chained together and littered with mis-matched metal tables. A heavily muscled bouncer stood to one side of the doorway and nodded solemnly to Sammy. Neuro-enhancing tattoos spidered over his visible skin and light glowed menacing from holographic eye implants.
They walked through the bar, dodging between tables and weaving patrons. The drink dispenser looked to still be functioning despite the fact it was half-way hanging out of the wall and leaking a green ooze onto the floor. Garrish ad-holos decorated the walls and vid screens displayed what most Citizens would consider questionable entertainment. The conversations were a mix of hushed tones with shifty eyes and parties of raucous laughter and blatant drunkenness.
As they near the rear-most room, the atmosphere began to sober a little. Less laughs and more stares. Someone appeared to be dragging a body through a door the back of the bar, but no one was looking directly at it. A line of sticky red fluid on the floor pointed toward a small table in the corner populated by a red headed woman and a dozen or so beer bottles. Similar stains marked the wall beside her, a fresco paying homage to the tense violence surrounding them.
"Yo, Amadda! Look what jumped in-system!", Sammy yelled over the noisy bar, hooking his thumb back at Logan.
The woman looked up, pushed her bushy red hair out the way, and showed a stunningly beautiful face sporting a black eye-patch over her left eye. To Logan, she reflected a picture-perfect model of everything right in the world of piracy. Amadda grinned a lecherous smile and said, "Damn, that's a fine sight! Where the frell you been Logan!"
"Chasing banshees. You know how it is." Logan said in his best off-hand manner. He knew fully well that trailing Vanduul raiding parties was one of the more risky forms of piracy. Just trading with the Vanduul wasn’t easy credits either, but sniping their kills is not a sane man’s occupation. “What happened to your eye?”
Amadda arched her eyebrow for a second and then then smirked. “Just a holo-patch, cheaper than an implant and no nasty risk of tissue rejection from these cheap chop-shops. Benny’s Salvage ‘acquired’ a gross of them; good price.” She flipped up the patch to reveal her other green eye. Text and data vectors flowed over the inner patch surface, overlaid on a pass-through view from the outside.
"You gotta place to stay tonight?”, Amadda asked. Blood on the wall appeared to kill the need for idle chatter.
“Well, that’s my exit cue.”, said Sammy
---
Logan awoke to his beeping wrist-comm. After quickly wiping sleep from his eyes and disentangling his limbs from Amadda’s, Logan made his way to the other side of the smallish rock-hewn room and slid the toilet screen around him.
Ship status pings had caused the beeping, but there was a message in his queue from his data broker that he’d been waiting for. With a press of the comm, a small holographic bust appeared in his palm. A pale bald man of indeterminate age stared at him and started speaking.
“Good news Logan! The equipment you waved me looks to be highly marketable. Those are Xi’an torpedos from an experimental research group. Their nature is unknown as that will take data cracking on the cases themselves. I’ve attached a custom cracker that includes a Xi’an translator with contextual neural config. Your acceptance of the message will credit my usual custom service fee.” The face paused, looking mildly concerned, “By the way, I saw traces of other unauthorized entrants on the systems I used to collect this data. You’re not the only one wanting info on those torpedoes. Watch your six. Out.”
The holo ended with a confirmation dialog. Logan pressed the acceptance and downloaded the program. He then pushed the files to his ship computer to run and started reading his comm ping log, expecting a repair report from the stations bots. Instead, the Grim Fortune alerted him with a error: Cargo in transit.
The ship computer error and the holo-message stirred together in his head and screamed at him. Logan slammed the curtain aside and leaped across the room grab his pants and gun holster. Amadda rolled over and tilted her head, questions in her green eyes.
“My cargo’s getting jacked!” he said while running pell-mell into the concourse.
The corridors were still crowded as there were no official waking hours on the asteroid. People just kept the circadian that suited them, which was usually whatever planet they were on last. Dodging through a hodgepodge of black market dealers and pirates, Logan ripped through the station. Still adjusting to the cheap 0.8 artificial gravity, several booths and tables were claimed as unwitting manslaughter victims of his mad dash. Finally, with almost cartwheeling arms, Logan skidded into the airlock corridor leading to the dock. The door at the end was shut tight and vacuum warning indicators strobed red.
Looking through the door window, Logan’s worst nightmare unfurled into reality. The ceiling of the bay was open to space, docking doors retracted and harsh starlight bleeding through. A bulking, modular Drake Caterpillar hovered above the bay. Microbursts from thrusters firing in rapid succession to fight the augmented gravity of the asteroid base. Gas particles shimmered in a solid line stretching from the ship to the bay floor. A tell-tale sign of a tractor beam active in what was left of the bay’s atmosphere. Of course, the Xi’an torpedo case hovering halfway to the vessel and creeping upwards was an even bigger giveaway.
A crew of four guys in jet-black zero-environment suits and holding plasma rifles stood in a rough circle around the the beam. One last crate hovered a meter above the bay floor, suspended by an attached hover-pack. They must already have the third container on the Caterpillar.
The scene took an instant to take in and Logan knew he had very few options with only seconds left. Grabbing a suit off of the airlock wall, he struggled with the cheap clasps and bulky connections. Articulated synth-muscle joints tried to form-fit themselves to him to increase his agility and make up for the loss of motion range. Unfortunately, the left arm seemed to be defective and kept spasming, slowing his progress.
Amadda rounded the corner and slammed into the wall beside him, grabbing the second enviro-suit.
“I comm’ed Sonny. He’s asked the patrol to circle back, but their pretty far out. None of the sensors can even see that damn ship. Sonny only believed me after checking the bay holo-cams.”, Amadda said in rush, backing out of the airlock.
“OK, well, I’ll try and delay them. Back me up as soon as you can”, Logan said in a muffled voice as he snapped his helmet on. With a slap of his hand on the control panel, the inner door closed and the airlock cycled. As soon as the bay door started sliding up, plasma bolts began peppering the airlock’s rock walls.
Gripping his pistol tightly, Logan dove forward firing randomly in the direction of the thieves. A bolt grazed his suit right before sliding into the cover of barrels along the side of the bay. The suit shuddered with venting atmosphere as it quickly tried to pump repair-foam into the rip. At least the emergency measures were still working.
More bolts vibrated the barrels, melting the metal and creating pools of quickly cooling slag. This cover wouldn’t last long. Logan thumbed his wrist-comm and holographic controls projected through the suit fabric of his arm. The computer aboard the Cutlass responded and accepted a sequence of instructions.
Moments later, the main engines fired a test pulse with reverse thrusters firing in tandem to keep the ship from moving. One of the thieves was vaporized in a flash of fire and the rest were knocked down by the initial burst of particles.
Logan spun around the side of the barrels and fired at the hover-pack attached crate. The pack blew on the second bolt and the torpedo crashed to ground, crushing the pelvis of one of black-clad thieves he had just knocked down. Twitching and thrashing were the only signs the thief remained alive and in excruciating pain.
More bolts ripped into the barrels as the last two thieves rose. Logan spun back into cover only to see Amadda striding through the open door. Confidence and experience came with her, spreading like rolling fog. With a casual sweep of the rifle the two thieves were blown back in a shower of air and frozen blood.
“Aim assist”, Amadda said through her helmet-comm as she smiled, tapping her helmet next to her eye patch. She pointed her rifle up and started firing at the Caterpillar, but it’s shields has already engaged. The second torpedo was gone.
With a silent burn of its thrusters, the Caterpillar sped away from the base, weaving between the smaller orbiting asteroids.
Logan fumed and punched the landing bay wall.
Part 3 Let Ride the Wild Hunt
The Grim Fortune leapt from the asteroid with vengeance in her eyes. Jets of anger flowed from her multitudes of maneuvering thrusters; A concert of kinetic energy fighting the overlapping gravity wells. The result evoked images of a hound cut loose, weaving through a forest after her query. The scent of the hunt in her nose. The prey in her brain.
Logan pulled up shortly after clearing artificial gravity surrounding Bullet Bay. Repulsor fields from the station kept the rest of the smaller asteroids from falling into the station’s gravity well, but they were an almost immediate danger once taking off. Dodging between a couple of large and mostly stationary rocks, Logan spun his fighter around to to wait for Amadda.
Bullet Bay was fairly well disguised for what it was. Visually, your first glance or two would be pretty well thwarted, but you’d start to notice the artificial lines with a more concentrated stare. Also, the heat and EM fields generated by such a large station are not really feasible to capture. Any serious scans light the place up relative to any of the surrounding rocks.
A quick blast of thrusters on the horizon signaled the arrival of Amadda in her Hornet. The light military surplus fighter with small swept back wings was bristling with guns. Together with its nimble movements, a double-barreled turret behind the cockpit swiveled with Amadda’s gaze and showed the craft’s combat focus.
Logan’s comm beeped with the channel synchronization.
“Those weren’t just any thieves. Those were Jump Blades.”, Amadded said through the asteroid comm interference
“Why are Blades taking a chance like that for a couple of torps? ”, Logan swung his Cutlass around to push out into the asteroid field.
“Well, I thought about how you told me you came across the cargo. The inexperienced crew and all. I think those were just couriers. Purposely green and uninformed in case the Advocacy caught them.”, Amadda drew her Hornet alongside. He could see the active scanning pulses her fighter sent echoing through the asteroid field.
“Well, that seems a bit risky, What keeps them from running off with the cargo?”
“Normally, they’d have an escort shadowing them. They must have been separated by the Big A. Maybe even the same cruisers that knocked you around.”
“You mean I’ve got Blade loot in my hold ?!”
“Yeah and we better catch the Caterpillar before he jumps or you’ll be on their frell-list till you die. Sonny’s got a patrol on the jump point, so we gotta find him in here. That’s assuming his stealth tech hasn’t already got him out of the system.”
“Great. This fiasco just doesn’t end. Alright, you take the jump side of the field spin and I’ll take the other. Let’s scan spinward until we flush him out.”, Logan swung away from Amadda’s fighter and began weaving a large arc through the floating mountains..
The asteroid field was the system’s only distinguishing feature. Millions of kilometers long and hundreds thick, the slowly moving flow of rocks was a haven and hazard to it’s inhabitants. The asteroids ranged from dust to small moons and formed a long lazy ring orbiting the lonely star, the result of some long forgotten planetary collision. In a billion years, a new planet might start forming from the debris, but, for now, it was a pirate’s paradise.
A special sort of insanity awaited those hunting in such environments. For the large majority of the field’s distance, enough space existed between the rocks to not give any trouble to fighter sized craft. Kilometers upon kilometers of swimming through a river of stone, churning along with a current in the direction of the field’s orbit. Despite the easy flying, danger and chance lurked around every corner from rogue boulders and hidden foes. Even the regular comfort of your collision alarms had to be disabled as they would constantly be set off by the field’s slow churn. Pilots must dance the knife’s edge between mind numbing monotony and harrowing danger.
For hours they searched through the field. Rocks streamed by and scanners beeped a constant stream of checks, but Logan’s screens remained free of enemy contacts. Only Amadda’s Hornet kept him company in the void. Time stretched by.
Suddenly, contact, but it wasn’t a ship. “Swarm on your six!”, Logan screamed into the comm.
But Amadda already had it covered. The Hornet spun in place without turning or slowing. Flying tail-first, her asteroid-free trajectory held steady while she swung her guns at the incoming missiles. One, two, three blooms of light lit the surround rocks as the e-signature seeking explosives were ripped apart by blasts plasma.
Logan, swung his gaze back and forth, looking for the source. Nothing showed on his sensors and he could see nothing out his forward cockpit windows. Wait, there! A maneuvering thrust, right around a large asteroid anti-spin from them.
“Got him!”, Logan yelled, kicking in his afterburners. Recklessly, he skidded the Grim Fortune around the intervening rocks. His shields flared with missed calls and the smaller rocks tumbled away,
The Jump Blade pilot must have seen his mad dash, as he quickly fled the asteroid cover. The skin of his craft was black and and he continued to have no sensor impression, even when visible. Weapons-lock refuse to acquire.
“Damn it!”, Logan screamed as he hammered on his weapons fire. Plasma shots vaporized rocks and splintered nearby asteroids. A pair of missiles leapt from their tubes, shooting only in a straight line with no targeting programmed. The Caterpillar twisted with ease and the metal spears slipped past. Both detonated in on impact with a large rock, blowing out a cloud of atomized dust and jagged stone engulfing the fleeing thief's ship.
Logan pulled parallel to the expanding cloud, sliding around it without getting further blinded. The Grim Fortune made swift circles around the expanding dust storm, confident the prey was confined. Amadda quickly joined in tightening the net, but the dissipating cloud soon made it apparent their quarry had slipped through.
Suddenly, the Hornet twisted and her afterburner flared, “He’s got to be headed anti-spin in the belt. I’m going to get ahead of him. Let’s get him like I got those settlers on Cloud 9.”
Logan smirked. He’d heard enough of Amadda’s war stories repeated ad nauseum to remember the tale. The Grim Fortune’s stealth capabilities engaged and began moving from rock to rock in zig-zag pattern through the field, stopping briefly at each asteroid.
A short while later, the ship-board computer console started to flashing,”Cracking complete. Successful decryption”. It took Logan a moment before he remembered the Xi’an torpedo hacking program he’d started running earlier.
“Find device description and read it back to me.” Logan said, moving to the Cutlass to the next asteroid.
“Ministry of Expansion project number 5467907238542. Long range atmospheric adaptation system, processing component. Device adapts existing planetary surface materials to produce breathable atmosphere. Transformation reaction is limited to enough planetary mass to generate 967 square kilometers of atmosphere at 1 NXA of pressure. Separate containment component provides a portable dome to contain new atmosphere and establish quick settlement, forward base, or refugee camp.”
The news hit Logan like Scythe. “What the frell! A fraking terraforming kit! All this fuss over a something for refugees!”, Logan slammed his hand on his console. He felt lost. What was all this really for?
“Heads Up! I’m flushing hin now!”, Amadda barked over the comm.
Logan started and shook his head to clear it. Still grimacing in frustration, he pulled hard on his control grip and punched the acceleration. All pretense of stealth fled as he needed to get clear of the field quickly. Roughly a hundred kilometers down spin, bursts of debris and clouds of dust began to appear in rapid sequence. Logan kept his trajectory firm, splitting his attention between his sensors and his windows. He could pick out Amadda’s Hornet snaking between the asteroids, just ahead of the chain reactions, but the Caterpillar alluded his sight.
As the Cutlass cleared the majority of the rocks, a second blip appeared on his sensors. Amadda was manually painting the thief and they were approaching the asteroids Logan had just been working on. Once he knew where his prey was, he could pick him out of the asteroid movements below. Streaks along the Caterpillars side showed damage where the last explosion had caught him, but no serious damage was apparent. The Caterpillar’s turret was returning fire to the Hornet with brief flashes and flurries of kinetic rounds.
“You’re almost there. Pull back.” Logan signaled over the comm.
Amadda began to trim her speed and slightly curve. It took only a moment for the thief to detect something was wrong, but it was already too late. Logan jammed a button on his comm and the missiles he had planted among the asteroids detonated.
Just like Amadda’s earlier display, the area erupted into a storm of stone spears and dust. The big difference was that the Caterpillar was in the middle of the storm this time. The thief's shields flared and failed under the barrage. His afterburners struggled to get him free, but the hoard of rock had already damaged his engine too badly. Even his stealth systems failed and his signature shown clear even as bits of his ship broke apart.
“Do you think we can salvage the …” Logan started into his comm right as the Caterpillar detonated in silver fire. The rocks and dust around him turned black in the cloud and then vaporized.
“That’s odd. I’ve never seen a ship pop like that.”, Amadda said of the comm.
“Yeah ... interesting. Let’s get back to the Bay. I’m exhausted.”
---
“Hey, Amadda, do you see jump flashes. Like a whole bunch of them?”, Logan comm’ed. His sensors were blaring warnings at the unusual activity.
“Yeah, there’s some major traffic up at the point. Hold a sec. I’ll see if we’re close enough to patch in the Bay.”
“There you frell you are!”, Sonny’s voice blurted over the comm. “We’ve got a major Blade incursion going are here and we need all hands to the jump point to handle these bastards.”
“Huh. Well, that must be why the Caterpillar hid in the field. He knew reinforcements were coming.”, said Logan
“Sonny, is the Bay alright? You OK will all hands on fighter detail?”, Amadda voice sounded of genuine concern.
“Oh the Bullet Bay is built of tougher stuff. No worries at all unless the Blades happen to show up with a capital ship.”, the humor thick in Sonny’s voice. The Jump Blades were pretty successful, but they weren’t that rich. Only a handful of cartels had hit that level and even their major ships were stuff of myth and legend.
Alerts sounded in Grim Fortune. A major jump incursion lit up the sensors immediately focused on a large object: Long, bulbous, and bristling with turrets.
“What the frell is that!”
In sober tones, Sonny said,“That would be a Tevarin capital ship.”
Logan groaned.
The Grim Fortune leapt from the asteroid with vengeance in her eyes. Jets of anger flowed from her multitudes of maneuvering thrusters; A concert of kinetic energy fighting the overlapping gravity wells. The result evoked images of a hound cut loose, weaving through a forest after her query. The scent of the hunt in her nose. The prey in her brain.
Logan pulled up shortly after clearing artificial gravity surrounding Bullet Bay. Repulsor fields from the station kept the rest of the smaller asteroids from falling into the station’s gravity well, but they were an almost immediate danger once taking off. Dodging between a couple of large and mostly stationary rocks, Logan spun his fighter around to to wait for Amadda.
Bullet Bay was fairly well disguised for what it was. Visually, your first glance or two would be pretty well thwarted, but you’d start to notice the artificial lines with a more concentrated stare. Also, the heat and EM fields generated by such a large station are not really feasible to capture. Any serious scans light the place up relative to any of the surrounding rocks.
A quick blast of thrusters on the horizon signaled the arrival of Amadda in her Hornet. The light military surplus fighter with small swept back wings was bristling with guns. Together with its nimble movements, a double-barreled turret behind the cockpit swiveled with Amadda’s gaze and showed the craft’s combat focus.
Logan’s comm beeped with the channel synchronization.
“Those weren’t just any thieves. Those were Jump Blades.”, Amadded said through the asteroid comm interference
“Why are Blades taking a chance like that for a couple of torps? ”, Logan swung his Cutlass around to push out into the asteroid field.
“Well, I thought about how you told me you came across the cargo. The inexperienced crew and all. I think those were just couriers. Purposely green and uninformed in case the Advocacy caught them.”, Amadda drew her Hornet alongside. He could see the active scanning pulses her fighter sent echoing through the asteroid field.
“Well, that seems a bit risky, What keeps them from running off with the cargo?”
“Normally, they’d have an escort shadowing them. They must have been separated by the Big A. Maybe even the same cruisers that knocked you around.”
“You mean I’ve got Blade loot in my hold ?!”
“Yeah and we better catch the Caterpillar before he jumps or you’ll be on their frell-list till you die. Sonny’s got a patrol on the jump point, so we gotta find him in here. That’s assuming his stealth tech hasn’t already got him out of the system.”
“Great. This fiasco just doesn’t end. Alright, you take the jump side of the field spin and I’ll take the other. Let’s scan spinward until we flush him out.”, Logan swung away from Amadda’s fighter and began weaving a large arc through the floating mountains..
The asteroid field was the system’s only distinguishing feature. Millions of kilometers long and hundreds thick, the slowly moving flow of rocks was a haven and hazard to it’s inhabitants. The asteroids ranged from dust to small moons and formed a long lazy ring orbiting the lonely star, the result of some long forgotten planetary collision. In a billion years, a new planet might start forming from the debris, but, for now, it was a pirate’s paradise.
A special sort of insanity awaited those hunting in such environments. For the large majority of the field’s distance, enough space existed between the rocks to not give any trouble to fighter sized craft. Kilometers upon kilometers of swimming through a river of stone, churning along with a current in the direction of the field’s orbit. Despite the easy flying, danger and chance lurked around every corner from rogue boulders and hidden foes. Even the regular comfort of your collision alarms had to be disabled as they would constantly be set off by the field’s slow churn. Pilots must dance the knife’s edge between mind numbing monotony and harrowing danger.
For hours they searched through the field. Rocks streamed by and scanners beeped a constant stream of checks, but Logan’s screens remained free of enemy contacts. Only Amadda’s Hornet kept him company in the void. Time stretched by.
Suddenly, contact, but it wasn’t a ship. “Swarm on your six!”, Logan screamed into the comm.
But Amadda already had it covered. The Hornet spun in place without turning or slowing. Flying tail-first, her asteroid-free trajectory held steady while she swung her guns at the incoming missiles. One, two, three blooms of light lit the surround rocks as the e-signature seeking explosives were ripped apart by blasts plasma.
Logan, swung his gaze back and forth, looking for the source. Nothing showed on his sensors and he could see nothing out his forward cockpit windows. Wait, there! A maneuvering thrust, right around a large asteroid anti-spin from them.
“Got him!”, Logan yelled, kicking in his afterburners. Recklessly, he skidded the Grim Fortune around the intervening rocks. His shields flared with missed calls and the smaller rocks tumbled away,
The Jump Blade pilot must have seen his mad dash, as he quickly fled the asteroid cover. The skin of his craft was black and and he continued to have no sensor impression, even when visible. Weapons-lock refuse to acquire.
“Damn it!”, Logan screamed as he hammered on his weapons fire. Plasma shots vaporized rocks and splintered nearby asteroids. A pair of missiles leapt from their tubes, shooting only in a straight line with no targeting programmed. The Caterpillar twisted with ease and the metal spears slipped past. Both detonated in on impact with a large rock, blowing out a cloud of atomized dust and jagged stone engulfing the fleeing thief's ship.
Logan pulled parallel to the expanding cloud, sliding around it without getting further blinded. The Grim Fortune made swift circles around the expanding dust storm, confident the prey was confined. Amadda quickly joined in tightening the net, but the dissipating cloud soon made it apparent their quarry had slipped through.
Suddenly, the Hornet twisted and her afterburner flared, “He’s got to be headed anti-spin in the belt. I’m going to get ahead of him. Let’s get him like I got those settlers on Cloud 9.”
Logan smirked. He’d heard enough of Amadda’s war stories repeated ad nauseum to remember the tale. The Grim Fortune’s stealth capabilities engaged and began moving from rock to rock in zig-zag pattern through the field, stopping briefly at each asteroid.
A short while later, the ship-board computer console started to flashing,”Cracking complete. Successful decryption”. It took Logan a moment before he remembered the Xi’an torpedo hacking program he’d started running earlier.
“Find device description and read it back to me.” Logan said, moving to the Cutlass to the next asteroid.
“Ministry of Expansion project number 5467907238542. Long range atmospheric adaptation system, processing component. Device adapts existing planetary surface materials to produce breathable atmosphere. Transformation reaction is limited to enough planetary mass to generate 967 square kilometers of atmosphere at 1 NXA of pressure. Separate containment component provides a portable dome to contain new atmosphere and establish quick settlement, forward base, or refugee camp.”
The news hit Logan like Scythe. “What the frell! A fraking terraforming kit! All this fuss over a something for refugees!”, Logan slammed his hand on his console. He felt lost. What was all this really for?
“Heads Up! I’m flushing hin now!”, Amadda barked over the comm.
Logan started and shook his head to clear it. Still grimacing in frustration, he pulled hard on his control grip and punched the acceleration. All pretense of stealth fled as he needed to get clear of the field quickly. Roughly a hundred kilometers down spin, bursts of debris and clouds of dust began to appear in rapid sequence. Logan kept his trajectory firm, splitting his attention between his sensors and his windows. He could pick out Amadda’s Hornet snaking between the asteroids, just ahead of the chain reactions, but the Caterpillar alluded his sight.
As the Cutlass cleared the majority of the rocks, a second blip appeared on his sensors. Amadda was manually painting the thief and they were approaching the asteroids Logan had just been working on. Once he knew where his prey was, he could pick him out of the asteroid movements below. Streaks along the Caterpillars side showed damage where the last explosion had caught him, but no serious damage was apparent. The Caterpillar’s turret was returning fire to the Hornet with brief flashes and flurries of kinetic rounds.
“You’re almost there. Pull back.” Logan signaled over the comm.
Amadda began to trim her speed and slightly curve. It took only a moment for the thief to detect something was wrong, but it was already too late. Logan jammed a button on his comm and the missiles he had planted among the asteroids detonated.
Just like Amadda’s earlier display, the area erupted into a storm of stone spears and dust. The big difference was that the Caterpillar was in the middle of the storm this time. The thief's shields flared and failed under the barrage. His afterburners struggled to get him free, but the hoard of rock had already damaged his engine too badly. Even his stealth systems failed and his signature shown clear even as bits of his ship broke apart.
“Do you think we can salvage the …” Logan started into his comm right as the Caterpillar detonated in silver fire. The rocks and dust around him turned black in the cloud and then vaporized.
“That’s odd. I’ve never seen a ship pop like that.”, Amadda said of the comm.
“Yeah ... interesting. Let’s get back to the Bay. I’m exhausted.”
---
“Hey, Amadda, do you see jump flashes. Like a whole bunch of them?”, Logan comm’ed. His sensors were blaring warnings at the unusual activity.
“Yeah, there’s some major traffic up at the point. Hold a sec. I’ll see if we’re close enough to patch in the Bay.”
“There you frell you are!”, Sonny’s voice blurted over the comm. “We’ve got a major Blade incursion going are here and we need all hands to the jump point to handle these bastards.”
“Huh. Well, that must be why the Caterpillar hid in the field. He knew reinforcements were coming.”, said Logan
“Sonny, is the Bay alright? You OK will all hands on fighter detail?”, Amadda voice sounded of genuine concern.
“Oh the Bullet Bay is built of tougher stuff. No worries at all unless the Blades happen to show up with a capital ship.”, the humor thick in Sonny’s voice. The Jump Blades were pretty successful, but they weren’t that rich. Only a handful of cartels had hit that level and even their major ships were stuff of myth and legend.
Alerts sounded in Grim Fortune. A major jump incursion lit up the sensors immediately focused on a large object: Long, bulbous, and bristling with turrets.
“What the frell is that!”
In sober tones, Sonny said,“That would be a Tevarin capital ship.”
Logan groaned.
Part 4: Let Slip the Dogs
Millennia upon millennia etched the history of the lonely solar system upon the surface of the asteroid. A history of unfathomable waiting punctuated by violent collisions and always followed by more waiting. Movement itself was the only true constant as the energies of the universe toyed with this relatively small piece of matter. Suddenly, movement had a new definition as a previously unfathomable acceleration built, bringing the asteroid to a barely subluminal speeds. Time stretched again for a moment …
Violence resumed as the defensive canons of the Destroyer atomized the incoming asteroid with a constant barrage of kinetic rounds. The resulting fragments ricocheted off of the strengthened, forward shields and a return volley of large-bore plasma rounds and capital-class torpedoes began making their way toward the the Bullet Bay resting in it’s asteroid field nest.
Repulsor fields immediately began moving a shield of rock to block the incoming fire while pulling more of the smaller asteroids into the Bay’s railgun magazine. Back and forth the titans fought as the Tevarin-made ship slowly closed the distance. A no-mans-land of death existed in the space between them as the immense firepower devastated other, smaller craft without slowing.
“Stay on my nine and watch my shots! We won’t get any second chances.”, Amadda said over the comm in her own unsettling brand of fire and ice.
The Hornet dove into the melee, swerving between the packed squadrons of pirate craft. Logan fought to keep the Grim Fortune in formation while training his gun on Amadda’s lead and not colliding with the hail of deadly obstacles. This was no disorganized fight. Piracy took skill, teamwork, and agility. For every low born scallywag and street urchin turned thief, there was an ex-military, ex-militia, or seasoned bounty hunter behind them. Those who didn’t follow orders and earn their pay got culled pretty fast for shares.
Formations attacked in unison, concentrating fire and pulling off before exposing themselves. Wave after wave collided in a dance that would be the envy of the most graceful of planet-born birds. Plasma and laser weapons formed an intricate pattern of fire; a woven net of death that began to slowly fill the area with the flotsam of disintegrating ships.
Many of the fighters were the typical Drake Industries manufactured pirate craft, Cutlasses and Caterpillars. Some military surplus Hornets and converted Gladiator bombers spotted the mix with the occasional commercial-oriented Freelancer. Regardless of the ship, the pirate fleets fought with ferocity not usually seen. No booty could be seen getting caught in tractors. No ships could be seen being boarded. The presence of the Jump Blade capital ship had made the matter serious. Such an event could not guarantee the usual chance at leniency, which would normally only require a new swearing of allegiance in exchange for one’s life. No parley meant no ‘code’.
“That Lancer lost his wingmen, let’s finish him.”, Amadda said as she swung her guns toward a Freelancer strafing the edge of a Gun Dog fighter squad. The new hail of fire caught the Jump Blade by surprise and he was venting engine coolant before he could swing away from battle and retrain the weapons. The ship strained to reposition itself and face its new foes, but that didn’t make it an easy target. Despite its usual commercial focus, this ship was fitted for battle with a menacing turret that wasn’t shy about wearing down Logan’s shields with a barrage of explosive shells.
“Fire in the hole!”, squealed Amadda as she launched a missile at close range and immediately twisted her Hornet. Her burners lit hot as the missile impacted the Lancer and turned the craft into a beautiful ball of light. Logan pushed his skills to the limit attempting to match Amadda and put every thruster on his Cutlass to use.
The swift maneuver put them ship-to-ship with motley squadron of refitted Blade fighters. Too close to make a concerted effort, each side squeezed off pot-shots and forced a break in ranks. The move pushed Amadda into steering the Hornet back toward the Destroyer, but it’s defenses were luckily still trained forward in defensive positions. The lack of notice wasn’t really negligence, since there were few weapons that could damage such a beast and they weren’t typically carried by your average pirate fighter.
“Hey, I’m a bit light on ordinance after the asteroid field. Just so you don’t get any expectations, OK”, Logan said over the comm between heaving breaths and the thudding of his heart.
“That’s no problem. I’m out too.” Amadda said nonchalantly.
Out of nowhere, a small-moon-sized asteroid swept in front of them, barely missing their ships and taking out an entire formation of Cutlasses. Only brief pops flashing on the rock’s surface signaled their passing. It happened so fast, Logan couldn’t even tell whose side the fighters had been on.
“Maybe we should get away from this big boy.” Logan said, trying hard to keep his cool. The Jump Blade capital ship loomed in front of them, still rolling to avoid the passing asteroid.
Together, they pulled parallel to the Destroyer and began angling off. The close view gave them a better impression of what they were dealing with: an aging relic that had been restored to service. Large riveted metal patches decorated the hull along with copious amounts of new life-support units. The Tevarin atmosphere would be roughly compatible, but any human contingent would find the other biological accommodations lacking.
The whole ship gave the impression of something risen from a past-war graveyard. A hodge-podge of new weapons had been grafted onto the turrets and a reinforcing skeleton could be seen surrounding the landing bays. Even the Jump Blade’s blue dagger sigil had been crudely painted on the hull in several places, reinforcing the second-hand look.
“What a fraking mess!”, Logan exclaimed.
“Mess or not, that thing out-guns us and will be our death if we don’t figure something out.”
Just then, a light fighter barreled out of the Destroyer’s bay. Late to the battle and in a hurry to get somewhere, the little craft had already engaged its afterburners and added some fresh scorch marks to the new supporting girders.
“Look out” Logan screamed, but it was too late.
The snub fighter collided with the back of Amadda’s Hornet. Her shield flared as the little craft exploded, destroying the back half of Hornets fins and engine. Plasma and debris erupted as the craft spun uncontrolled and threatened to tumble back into the mass dogfight.
Logan knew only desperation. Quickly he matched speed with the tumbling hulk and grabbed his tractor controls. Trying to fully stabilize or actually tow the craft was pointless. The tractor would simply overload. His only hope was to push her away from the thick of battle enough to get some time back. Of course, the venting engine meant he had a tight schedule no matter how it turned out.
Gently, with a series of tractor pulls and bumps with his shield, Logan managed to get the crippled Hornet away from the main thrust of the fighter waves. Thankfully, the advancing Destroyer and surrounding dogfight helped to keep the action relatively contained and moving. Despite the sweat drenching Logan’s face, getting her out of the fight wasn’t really the hard part. He was mainly worried about someone spotting him while he attempted the next part of his plan.
No answer came over the comm so Logan was unsure what state Amadda was in. He didn’t have a lot of time to debate the possibilities, so he simply didn’t. With gritted teeth, he clicked his helmet into place, grabbed a tool pouch, and hit the docking hatch release. The atmosphere vented as he hung onto the docking clamps and stared at the spinning ball of twisted metal in front of him. The cockpit looked in tact, but it was hard to tell for sure.
Logan pulled a hand-jet from the pouch and squeezed off some thrust, trying to match the spin of the Hornet before grabbing hold. Pain eclipsed his vision and his arm gave the distinct impression of being ripped off as he held tight to one of the boarding rungs. Logan screamed and bit down as he waited for the pain to dissipate, his body’s angular momentum catching up to the spinning fighter. It took him a couple of moments to ascertain for sure his arm was still attached and had popped back into its socket. The taste of blood filled his mouth.
Logan pulled the tool bag up and looked into the window. A rapid, nauseating smear of stars reflected in the window forcing him to strain to focus on the interior. He could barely make out the form of Amadda, but she wasn’t moving. At least she had her helmet on.
Logan opened the flap of the tool pouch and saw for the first time that it wasn’t his. “BILLY” was written in large block letters on the inside. He couldn’t help but smile as he pulled a cutting torch free and began dismantling the cockpit. Frack the code, he wasn’t going to leave her.
It took several minutes to get her free of the metal cage, Every few moments, Logan would turn to look at the venting engine, hoping to see some warning if it was close to exploding. When he finally pulled her free, Amadda’s suit seemed to be giving strong vitals, but she was completely unresponsive. His own suit periodically chirped with heart rate warnings; a secondary beat to compliment the thudding in his ears.
Several timed bursts of the hand-jet later and Logan was colliding painfully with the Grim Fortune, Amadda in tow. Minutes crawled by as he drug her inside and repressurized the cabin.
“Hey, wake up!”, Logan gave her a quick shake, exhausting his stock of medical knowledge.
“Huh?”, Amadda rolled her eyes groggily and suddenly shot straight up and banged back into her seat. With a quick shake of her head she slowly and somewhat menacingly said, “Where is my ship...”
“Over there”, Logan said hooking his thumb at cockpit window. “You’re welcome to go back if you like.”
“Frell me..”, pain and surprise fought for control of her facial features. The Hornet’s corpse looked especially lifeless with it’s cockpit cut open; it’s lifeblood spilled across space.
Logan, pulled the Cutlass around and began moving back toward the battle. From here, it wasn’t looking too good for the Gun Dogs. Their numbers had dramatically thinned and the Destroyer was getting dangerously close to the Bay. Beam weapons lanced out from the capital ship, blasting gouges in the station before the rock shield could get in place. If it got in any closer, that asteroid trick wouldn’t work so well anymore.
“Sonny, can you read me?”, Logan asked over the comm.
Long seconds past. “Ho! Damn you long haired bastard! You’re still alive?”
“Yeah, and we’re wondering if there is much of a plan left?”
“Well, we didn’t have much of one to begin with … so, no. Not unless you’ve got a capital-killing torpedo hidden up your ass.”
Logan laughed. Of course he didn’t have a …“TORPEDO! I almost forgot!”
Logan gunned the afterburners and pushed the Grim Fortune to her acceleration limits, aimed straight for the Destroyer.
“What the frell are you doing?”, Amadda demanded.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got a hunch”, Logan consoled, though he could feel Amadda’s doubting stare.
As he got within weapons distance of the Destroyer, he cut his main thrusters and swung the Cutlass around while punching up the cargo bay controls. The rear door cameras showed a rapidly growing view of the Tevarin-made metal monstrosity.
“Computer, set the Xi’an device to activate in 5 seconds.”
Logan hit is afterburners, leaving the cargo he had just jettisoned on a collision course with the capital ship.
“Let’s just hope they are more concerned with what’s in front of them than some junk floating in their rear.”
4..3..2.. The Xi’an torpedo detonated just above the hull of the Destroyer. A massive cloud of silvery dust bloomed over the back quarter of the craft. It was unclear if the region was completely unshielded or if the dust just wasn’t repelled, but the silvery substance settled unimpeded over the hull.
For several moments, the battle continued to rage as normal, then black spots began appearing over the affected region. Several points of the hull collapsed in and great jets of atmosphere began billowing out. Weapons fire trailed off and the whole massive craft began to list as the crew inside suffocated on the Xi’an gasses infecting every part of the ship.
The Jump Blade fighters were quick to respond. Without the power of the Destroyer behind them, they fled en masse to the jump point. Gun Dog ships harried them the entire way, paying back any remaining debts in blood.
The violence of the scene cleared fast and, within moments, the Grim Fortune sat peacefully observing the aftermath. A stormy cloud of unearthly colors now obscured the asteroid field, illuminated from within by the last gasps of the dying space whale.
“So ... you know anyone that can repair a capital ship?”, Amadda said.
Logan smiled.
Millennia upon millennia etched the history of the lonely solar system upon the surface of the asteroid. A history of unfathomable waiting punctuated by violent collisions and always followed by more waiting. Movement itself was the only true constant as the energies of the universe toyed with this relatively small piece of matter. Suddenly, movement had a new definition as a previously unfathomable acceleration built, bringing the asteroid to a barely subluminal speeds. Time stretched again for a moment …
Violence resumed as the defensive canons of the Destroyer atomized the incoming asteroid with a constant barrage of kinetic rounds. The resulting fragments ricocheted off of the strengthened, forward shields and a return volley of large-bore plasma rounds and capital-class torpedoes began making their way toward the the Bullet Bay resting in it’s asteroid field nest.
Repulsor fields immediately began moving a shield of rock to block the incoming fire while pulling more of the smaller asteroids into the Bay’s railgun magazine. Back and forth the titans fought as the Tevarin-made ship slowly closed the distance. A no-mans-land of death existed in the space between them as the immense firepower devastated other, smaller craft without slowing.
“Stay on my nine and watch my shots! We won’t get any second chances.”, Amadda said over the comm in her own unsettling brand of fire and ice.
The Hornet dove into the melee, swerving between the packed squadrons of pirate craft. Logan fought to keep the Grim Fortune in formation while training his gun on Amadda’s lead and not colliding with the hail of deadly obstacles. This was no disorganized fight. Piracy took skill, teamwork, and agility. For every low born scallywag and street urchin turned thief, there was an ex-military, ex-militia, or seasoned bounty hunter behind them. Those who didn’t follow orders and earn their pay got culled pretty fast for shares.
Formations attacked in unison, concentrating fire and pulling off before exposing themselves. Wave after wave collided in a dance that would be the envy of the most graceful of planet-born birds. Plasma and laser weapons formed an intricate pattern of fire; a woven net of death that began to slowly fill the area with the flotsam of disintegrating ships.
Many of the fighters were the typical Drake Industries manufactured pirate craft, Cutlasses and Caterpillars. Some military surplus Hornets and converted Gladiator bombers spotted the mix with the occasional commercial-oriented Freelancer. Regardless of the ship, the pirate fleets fought with ferocity not usually seen. No booty could be seen getting caught in tractors. No ships could be seen being boarded. The presence of the Jump Blade capital ship had made the matter serious. Such an event could not guarantee the usual chance at leniency, which would normally only require a new swearing of allegiance in exchange for one’s life. No parley meant no ‘code’.
“That Lancer lost his wingmen, let’s finish him.”, Amadda said as she swung her guns toward a Freelancer strafing the edge of a Gun Dog fighter squad. The new hail of fire caught the Jump Blade by surprise and he was venting engine coolant before he could swing away from battle and retrain the weapons. The ship strained to reposition itself and face its new foes, but that didn’t make it an easy target. Despite its usual commercial focus, this ship was fitted for battle with a menacing turret that wasn’t shy about wearing down Logan’s shields with a barrage of explosive shells.
“Fire in the hole!”, squealed Amadda as she launched a missile at close range and immediately twisted her Hornet. Her burners lit hot as the missile impacted the Lancer and turned the craft into a beautiful ball of light. Logan pushed his skills to the limit attempting to match Amadda and put every thruster on his Cutlass to use.
The swift maneuver put them ship-to-ship with motley squadron of refitted Blade fighters. Too close to make a concerted effort, each side squeezed off pot-shots and forced a break in ranks. The move pushed Amadda into steering the Hornet back toward the Destroyer, but it’s defenses were luckily still trained forward in defensive positions. The lack of notice wasn’t really negligence, since there were few weapons that could damage such a beast and they weren’t typically carried by your average pirate fighter.
“Hey, I’m a bit light on ordinance after the asteroid field. Just so you don’t get any expectations, OK”, Logan said over the comm between heaving breaths and the thudding of his heart.
“That’s no problem. I’m out too.” Amadda said nonchalantly.
Out of nowhere, a small-moon-sized asteroid swept in front of them, barely missing their ships and taking out an entire formation of Cutlasses. Only brief pops flashing on the rock’s surface signaled their passing. It happened so fast, Logan couldn’t even tell whose side the fighters had been on.
“Maybe we should get away from this big boy.” Logan said, trying hard to keep his cool. The Jump Blade capital ship loomed in front of them, still rolling to avoid the passing asteroid.
Together, they pulled parallel to the Destroyer and began angling off. The close view gave them a better impression of what they were dealing with: an aging relic that had been restored to service. Large riveted metal patches decorated the hull along with copious amounts of new life-support units. The Tevarin atmosphere would be roughly compatible, but any human contingent would find the other biological accommodations lacking.
The whole ship gave the impression of something risen from a past-war graveyard. A hodge-podge of new weapons had been grafted onto the turrets and a reinforcing skeleton could be seen surrounding the landing bays. Even the Jump Blade’s blue dagger sigil had been crudely painted on the hull in several places, reinforcing the second-hand look.
“What a fraking mess!”, Logan exclaimed.
“Mess or not, that thing out-guns us and will be our death if we don’t figure something out.”
Just then, a light fighter barreled out of the Destroyer’s bay. Late to the battle and in a hurry to get somewhere, the little craft had already engaged its afterburners and added some fresh scorch marks to the new supporting girders.
“Look out” Logan screamed, but it was too late.
The snub fighter collided with the back of Amadda’s Hornet. Her shield flared as the little craft exploded, destroying the back half of Hornets fins and engine. Plasma and debris erupted as the craft spun uncontrolled and threatened to tumble back into the mass dogfight.
Logan knew only desperation. Quickly he matched speed with the tumbling hulk and grabbed his tractor controls. Trying to fully stabilize or actually tow the craft was pointless. The tractor would simply overload. His only hope was to push her away from the thick of battle enough to get some time back. Of course, the venting engine meant he had a tight schedule no matter how it turned out.
Gently, with a series of tractor pulls and bumps with his shield, Logan managed to get the crippled Hornet away from the main thrust of the fighter waves. Thankfully, the advancing Destroyer and surrounding dogfight helped to keep the action relatively contained and moving. Despite the sweat drenching Logan’s face, getting her out of the fight wasn’t really the hard part. He was mainly worried about someone spotting him while he attempted the next part of his plan.
No answer came over the comm so Logan was unsure what state Amadda was in. He didn’t have a lot of time to debate the possibilities, so he simply didn’t. With gritted teeth, he clicked his helmet into place, grabbed a tool pouch, and hit the docking hatch release. The atmosphere vented as he hung onto the docking clamps and stared at the spinning ball of twisted metal in front of him. The cockpit looked in tact, but it was hard to tell for sure.
Logan pulled a hand-jet from the pouch and squeezed off some thrust, trying to match the spin of the Hornet before grabbing hold. Pain eclipsed his vision and his arm gave the distinct impression of being ripped off as he held tight to one of the boarding rungs. Logan screamed and bit down as he waited for the pain to dissipate, his body’s angular momentum catching up to the spinning fighter. It took him a couple of moments to ascertain for sure his arm was still attached and had popped back into its socket. The taste of blood filled his mouth.
Logan pulled the tool bag up and looked into the window. A rapid, nauseating smear of stars reflected in the window forcing him to strain to focus on the interior. He could barely make out the form of Amadda, but she wasn’t moving. At least she had her helmet on.
Logan opened the flap of the tool pouch and saw for the first time that it wasn’t his. “BILLY” was written in large block letters on the inside. He couldn’t help but smile as he pulled a cutting torch free and began dismantling the cockpit. Frack the code, he wasn’t going to leave her.
It took several minutes to get her free of the metal cage, Every few moments, Logan would turn to look at the venting engine, hoping to see some warning if it was close to exploding. When he finally pulled her free, Amadda’s suit seemed to be giving strong vitals, but she was completely unresponsive. His own suit periodically chirped with heart rate warnings; a secondary beat to compliment the thudding in his ears.
Several timed bursts of the hand-jet later and Logan was colliding painfully with the Grim Fortune, Amadda in tow. Minutes crawled by as he drug her inside and repressurized the cabin.
“Hey, wake up!”, Logan gave her a quick shake, exhausting his stock of medical knowledge.
“Huh?”, Amadda rolled her eyes groggily and suddenly shot straight up and banged back into her seat. With a quick shake of her head she slowly and somewhat menacingly said, “Where is my ship...”
“Over there”, Logan said hooking his thumb at cockpit window. “You’re welcome to go back if you like.”
“Frell me..”, pain and surprise fought for control of her facial features. The Hornet’s corpse looked especially lifeless with it’s cockpit cut open; it’s lifeblood spilled across space.
Logan, pulled the Cutlass around and began moving back toward the battle. From here, it wasn’t looking too good for the Gun Dogs. Their numbers had dramatically thinned and the Destroyer was getting dangerously close to the Bay. Beam weapons lanced out from the capital ship, blasting gouges in the station before the rock shield could get in place. If it got in any closer, that asteroid trick wouldn’t work so well anymore.
“Sonny, can you read me?”, Logan asked over the comm.
Long seconds past. “Ho! Damn you long haired bastard! You’re still alive?”
“Yeah, and we’re wondering if there is much of a plan left?”
“Well, we didn’t have much of one to begin with … so, no. Not unless you’ve got a capital-killing torpedo hidden up your ass.”
Logan laughed. Of course he didn’t have a …“TORPEDO! I almost forgot!”
Logan gunned the afterburners and pushed the Grim Fortune to her acceleration limits, aimed straight for the Destroyer.
“What the frell are you doing?”, Amadda demanded.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got a hunch”, Logan consoled, though he could feel Amadda’s doubting stare.
As he got within weapons distance of the Destroyer, he cut his main thrusters and swung the Cutlass around while punching up the cargo bay controls. The rear door cameras showed a rapidly growing view of the Tevarin-made metal monstrosity.
“Computer, set the Xi’an device to activate in 5 seconds.”
Logan hit is afterburners, leaving the cargo he had just jettisoned on a collision course with the capital ship.
“Let’s just hope they are more concerned with what’s in front of them than some junk floating in their rear.”
4..3..2.. The Xi’an torpedo detonated just above the hull of the Destroyer. A massive cloud of silvery dust bloomed over the back quarter of the craft. It was unclear if the region was completely unshielded or if the dust just wasn’t repelled, but the silvery substance settled unimpeded over the hull.
For several moments, the battle continued to rage as normal, then black spots began appearing over the affected region. Several points of the hull collapsed in and great jets of atmosphere began billowing out. Weapons fire trailed off and the whole massive craft began to list as the crew inside suffocated on the Xi’an gasses infecting every part of the ship.
The Jump Blade fighters were quick to respond. Without the power of the Destroyer behind them, they fled en masse to the jump point. Gun Dog ships harried them the entire way, paying back any remaining debts in blood.
The violence of the scene cleared fast and, within moments, the Grim Fortune sat peacefully observing the aftermath. A stormy cloud of unearthly colors now obscured the asteroid field, illuminated from within by the last gasps of the dying space whale.
“So ... you know anyone that can repair a capital ship?”, Amadda said.
Logan smiled.
Notes from the author:
- This is the end of this story, but not these characters. Don’t worry, you’ll likely see some of them in upcoming stories from Dread Citizen
- This is a living document. As more info on Star Citizen is released, I may go back and ‘ret con’ story changes. If you happen to read this story twice, it probably isn’t your imagination if a detail or two gets changed.
- New stories are likely to intersect each other, so keep an eye out. :)
