Forums » Role Playing
Thank you kind Sir. Now, back in your box cretin
would you like some cheese with that WHINE. ;)
Edited due to demand as per the initial statement.
If you are offended by it in any way, if you feel I have used your name incorrectly or if you have any comments, please let me know and I will correct it. You can reach me here or on hortan.sigma@gmail.com
Further discussion, please use the CHRN webby. Thank you
If you are offended by it in any way, if you feel I have used your name incorrectly or if you have any comments, please let me know and I will correct it. You can reach me here or on hortan.sigma@gmail.com
Further discussion, please use the CHRN webby. Thank you
I'm in total agreement with what SharkTank stated earlier.
Consider this a official CLM response.
Consider this a official CLM response.
...Wow, it's a story, guys, and a damn good one at that. Whytee often uses some creative license in his tales, so while I can see people wanting to let him know that the real policy isn't how he described, I'm not sure why people are turning on the VODrama (tm).
why am i not in this story?
Well, that's fair enough, but Chaak had already given a succinct and very graceful explanation of the true situation, and Lecter had done his part departing from the jocular and even-keeled tone of the discussion with his usual aplomb. Usually CHRN are the ones poking fun not-so-light-heartedly, so it just seems a bit silly to react like this to some gentle fun-poking in the other direction. But this is all entirely off the topic of the thread, which is Whytee's to command, to control.
Chapter 11.
Star Buck floated through space with all the grace a twenty tonne slab of armour with attached weapons and engine could muster. His eyes were focused on the radar readout that provided the real source of information in space, capturing small stuff that the human eye could not see. Not that his eyes could be called human in any sense that would make sense to a biologist from the Dark age of science in the 21st century. Although they looked exactly like the normal eyeball Mk I, the nanotech inside his eyeballs were the most advanced that the Serco military could muster and allowed him to see deep infrared as well as detect x-ray and gamma rays without aid. The enhanced fluid lenses were able to provide him with a nine-time magnification and his brainpal could further enhance the image, process it and enable him to identify the type of coin held by a person in a dark room at over five kilometre's distance. And coins were precisely what his radar was finding right now, silver coins scattered next to each globe of junk. He scanned the type of coin and frowned. Not a currency that he was aware of, nor did it give a result when he sifted it through his brainpal. Some kind of stylised boat with a gaunt man was depicted on each side with letters in a dead language, a language his brainpal deciphered as being Greek. It didn't make any further sense to him and he filed it for further reference for when he came back to Sol II. He sent a report containing everything he had seen so far, back to headquarters, better let the techs have something to analyse.
He jumped through the wormhole and exited to Sedina, Seragyn following immediately after in his own Prometheus. The two pilots aligned their ships for open space with an ease born of many hours of practice and set the course for Daltas Hold.
###
Trulo swung his feet in towards the xithricite surface of the station and activated his gecko soles, setting the grip to maximum power. Fastly secured, he shoved the heavy sonic drill into position and started on the slow process of making holes in the immensely hard xithricite armour plating. Most of the time he was happy enough that the habitation module was protected so well but it didn't exactly make his job easier. They had installed 19 engines so far, all Behemoth class, and only needed this last one before they could attempt spinning the module up and extract energy to the station itself. The engines were aligned with all the care the Skin Crew could muster; just one tenth of a degree's misalignment would eventually destroy the hub. Sweating like a pig even with his suit's climate control blasting on maximum, he finished the last hole and swung the sonic drill to his side.
"Ready for you Diet."
He released one gecko'd foot and stepped aside to allow the five tonne engine to be put into place.
"Be nice pop de ultima runnim sure?"
"Yeah, I am dead-tired. Just hope this works. I have run out of ideas at this time."
"Narry a tinker."
Trulo translated from Bractus into normal UIT standard language. Not a problem. He wished silently and prayed to the almighty and ever fickle Guh that Diet would be right. He watched as his crew placed the engine, connected the fuel tubes and the control cables with expert efficient movements. They finalised the operation and started heading into the EVA dock. Trulo stayed outside, connected to the station by his tether and one gecko soled boot along with Diet. Trulo waited until his crew was safely inside before sending the all ready signal to Migunfane. Immediately, the engines powered up and a three metre long spear of plasma thundered out of the engine in front of him. Well, he imagined it would be thundering in an environment where sound could propagate but out here it just looked like someone turned on a billion-watt metre long lamp. The station groaned with the force and he could feel the vibrations through his soles. So far it was nothing worrying. The station wheel moved ever so slowly, the millions of tonnes were at least a thousand times more mass than the engines combined had been designed to move. It worked, however. The wheel of the station turned and would pick up speed with time. Trulo realised he had been holding his breath and exhaled, grinning like a madman.
"All crew, this is Trulo. Looks to be working. I'll need three mechanics to overwatch, the rest can get the Skins off and go for food and rest. Diet, you come up with a rotation plan. Well done all of you, Trulo out."
Trulo patted the engine for good luck before turning towards the EVA port. He was ready for sleep.
###
Eggert slapped the paper onto the desk. "Son of a Betheshee beardog." The other three persons sitting near Eggert turned in surprise at hearing the young man swearing. He didn't sense them. Instead, he tore the paper off the desk and ran to Fletholm's office and stormed in.
"You are so not going to believe this boss."
Fletholm looked up at him, half a sandwich in his mouth and both of his hands securely grabbing the other sides of it. Apparently he decided that taking the bite out of his mouth would do more damage than continuing and started chewing. He placed the sandwich on the table and wiped his fingers methodically.
"Thpweak" The words were half muffled by the mouthful of bread, vat-grown lettuce, synth-ham and Almost-Cheddar™. Eggert was too excited to say anything and instead handed the intercept to Fletholm and waited for the reaction. He was disappointed; the commander merely put the paper on the table and grabbed his sandwich again for another delicious bite.
"Well?"
Fletholm looked up and pointed to his sandwich. "Eating." Fletholm proceeded with eating his sandwich slowly and methodically.
Eggert tried to stand still and wait but failed miserably after ten seconds.
"Right, so Asteroth and his band of merry psychopaths have found some way to avoid being killed in grey and are still alive and active. To be honest I always thought they would be able to slug it out, lie low and then reappear like warts or herpes. And now it seems like they have something that Xang Xi needs badly. Or rather, someone if the text is to be believed," Eggert started pacing, his hands gesticulating as he thought aloud, "which I have no reason to believe we shouldn't do. I wonder how many of them are left after the TPG and TGTF punishment patrol that killed Ahriman and ripped them from Latos. And who is it they hold that they can extort that amount of money from Xi? And... Sir, are you even listening?"
He turned and looked at Fletholm, who had in the meantime finished his sandwich and was now picking his teeth with a piece of a plastic fork. Fletholm lifted his brow and nodded in the direction of a piece of yellow paper that had a large GSS-SECRET written in red on the front page. Eggert grabbed it and skimmed the content.
"By the Great Void, is this for real Sir?" He looked at his commander with what could best be described as awe.
Fletholm looked surprised at Eggert, he was not used to being called Sir. "Yeah, it seems that we aren't the only ones with a tap. And it seems that GSS is on this one even more than we. I just don't get how or if this ties in with the apparent blockade in Latos. Go and see what your contacts can tell you and we'll meet up in three hours. I'll alert UPK, if GSS is right we may have another full-blown war on our hands here."
###
Cat scanned the orders without reading it, uploading it to her brainpal for further reference when she was in her ship. The only thing she was interested in right now was who was flying wing. She nodded slowly as she read Shlimaziel's name; she was mostly paired with him following the incident a couple of months ago. She didn't mind that, they had worked okay together during that incident and their fighting styles as wingmates was mutually supportive. Cat would usually dive into the combat with complete abandon, hammering away with energy weapons while Shlim would work to the sides and snipe away with explosives.
She walked into the launch bay and saw him standing ready at his Warthog, red and golden helmet in hand.
"Shlim," she said, greeting him by uttering his name.
He raised his hand and waved, "hi Cat. Looks like another fun day for the lean mean Viper team, eh?"
Cat wasn't much of a talker, even less of a cheerful person, but something about Shlim always cheered her up. Her facial muscles, as well as the rest of her body's muscles, were under her complete control and she would usually keep a blank face regardless of the situation, but this time she smiled. It seemed appropriate. For the benefit of Shlim off course. He smiled back, a wide honest smile.
"Say, when we come back, wanna go for a drink or something? Or a juice, I don't know if you even drink alcohol, they have a new juice bar in the mall that is really good, fresh, tasty, healthy and everything, I mean, if you haven't got anything else to do?" His speech pattern, normally the clipped and precise sentences that indicated a Dau accent, seemed to have disintegrated into something... different.
She could see from his body language that he was really insecure and nervous right now and her brainpal indicated four options. She discarded option number one as being highly unlikely; he had never shown fear of flying before. Strat was not around, so she easily discarded option two as well. That left only option three and four, equally basic for hu-norms but requiring different responses. Cat couldn't really taste anything, the sense of taste having been rewired to serve as a chemical detector instead. In normal humans, a sense of taste was almost essential to determine if food was corrupted or poisonous but most substances were harmless for her anyway. And the chemical detectors would detect the ones that would really harm her fulfilling that archaic need. She didn't much care for the healthiness of the juice either; she could subsist on the gunk delivered by food tubes directly from the algae vats for months on end. The only item she craved from time to time was Sedina Chocolate, as the heavy doses of serotonin could be used to temporarily boost her brainpal interface functions, the closest she got to a high. However, it seemed there was only one way to test which of the options it was.
"Sure."
His nervousness disappeared and was replaced by a sense of achievement that proved option number three was the correct one. She grabbed her helmet and walked over to her Warthog, her brainpal running scenarios at an accelerated pace. Interesting, she had never been in this situation before. She had no idea what to do. She had never been in that situation either. She needed to ask someone she could trust. She consoled herself with the fact that it wasn't option four; that would have been awkward.
Star Buck floated through space with all the grace a twenty tonne slab of armour with attached weapons and engine could muster. His eyes were focused on the radar readout that provided the real source of information in space, capturing small stuff that the human eye could not see. Not that his eyes could be called human in any sense that would make sense to a biologist from the Dark age of science in the 21st century. Although they looked exactly like the normal eyeball Mk I, the nanotech inside his eyeballs were the most advanced that the Serco military could muster and allowed him to see deep infrared as well as detect x-ray and gamma rays without aid. The enhanced fluid lenses were able to provide him with a nine-time magnification and his brainpal could further enhance the image, process it and enable him to identify the type of coin held by a person in a dark room at over five kilometre's distance. And coins were precisely what his radar was finding right now, silver coins scattered next to each globe of junk. He scanned the type of coin and frowned. Not a currency that he was aware of, nor did it give a result when he sifted it through his brainpal. Some kind of stylised boat with a gaunt man was depicted on each side with letters in a dead language, a language his brainpal deciphered as being Greek. It didn't make any further sense to him and he filed it for further reference for when he came back to Sol II. He sent a report containing everything he had seen so far, back to headquarters, better let the techs have something to analyse.
He jumped through the wormhole and exited to Sedina, Seragyn following immediately after in his own Prometheus. The two pilots aligned their ships for open space with an ease born of many hours of practice and set the course for Daltas Hold.
###
Trulo swung his feet in towards the xithricite surface of the station and activated his gecko soles, setting the grip to maximum power. Fastly secured, he shoved the heavy sonic drill into position and started on the slow process of making holes in the immensely hard xithricite armour plating. Most of the time he was happy enough that the habitation module was protected so well but it didn't exactly make his job easier. They had installed 19 engines so far, all Behemoth class, and only needed this last one before they could attempt spinning the module up and extract energy to the station itself. The engines were aligned with all the care the Skin Crew could muster; just one tenth of a degree's misalignment would eventually destroy the hub. Sweating like a pig even with his suit's climate control blasting on maximum, he finished the last hole and swung the sonic drill to his side.
"Ready for you Diet."
He released one gecko'd foot and stepped aside to allow the five tonne engine to be put into place.
"Be nice pop de ultima runnim sure?"
"Yeah, I am dead-tired. Just hope this works. I have run out of ideas at this time."
"Narry a tinker."
Trulo translated from Bractus into normal UIT standard language. Not a problem. He wished silently and prayed to the almighty and ever fickle Guh that Diet would be right. He watched as his crew placed the engine, connected the fuel tubes and the control cables with expert efficient movements. They finalised the operation and started heading into the EVA dock. Trulo stayed outside, connected to the station by his tether and one gecko soled boot along with Diet. Trulo waited until his crew was safely inside before sending the all ready signal to Migunfane. Immediately, the engines powered up and a three metre long spear of plasma thundered out of the engine in front of him. Well, he imagined it would be thundering in an environment where sound could propagate but out here it just looked like someone turned on a billion-watt metre long lamp. The station groaned with the force and he could feel the vibrations through his soles. So far it was nothing worrying. The station wheel moved ever so slowly, the millions of tonnes were at least a thousand times more mass than the engines combined had been designed to move. It worked, however. The wheel of the station turned and would pick up speed with time. Trulo realised he had been holding his breath and exhaled, grinning like a madman.
"All crew, this is Trulo. Looks to be working. I'll need three mechanics to overwatch, the rest can get the Skins off and go for food and rest. Diet, you come up with a rotation plan. Well done all of you, Trulo out."
Trulo patted the engine for good luck before turning towards the EVA port. He was ready for sleep.
###
Eggert slapped the paper onto the desk. "Son of a Betheshee beardog." The other three persons sitting near Eggert turned in surprise at hearing the young man swearing. He didn't sense them. Instead, he tore the paper off the desk and ran to Fletholm's office and stormed in.
"You are so not going to believe this boss."
Fletholm looked up at him, half a sandwich in his mouth and both of his hands securely grabbing the other sides of it. Apparently he decided that taking the bite out of his mouth would do more damage than continuing and started chewing. He placed the sandwich on the table and wiped his fingers methodically.
"Thpweak" The words were half muffled by the mouthful of bread, vat-grown lettuce, synth-ham and Almost-Cheddar™. Eggert was too excited to say anything and instead handed the intercept to Fletholm and waited for the reaction. He was disappointed; the commander merely put the paper on the table and grabbed his sandwich again for another delicious bite.
"Well?"
Fletholm looked up and pointed to his sandwich. "Eating." Fletholm proceeded with eating his sandwich slowly and methodically.
Eggert tried to stand still and wait but failed miserably after ten seconds.
"Right, so Asteroth and his band of merry psychopaths have found some way to avoid being killed in grey and are still alive and active. To be honest I always thought they would be able to slug it out, lie low and then reappear like warts or herpes. And now it seems like they have something that Xang Xi needs badly. Or rather, someone if the text is to be believed," Eggert started pacing, his hands gesticulating as he thought aloud, "which I have no reason to believe we shouldn't do. I wonder how many of them are left after the TPG and TGTF punishment patrol that killed Ahriman and ripped them from Latos. And who is it they hold that they can extort that amount of money from Xi? And... Sir, are you even listening?"
He turned and looked at Fletholm, who had in the meantime finished his sandwich and was now picking his teeth with a piece of a plastic fork. Fletholm lifted his brow and nodded in the direction of a piece of yellow paper that had a large GSS-SECRET written in red on the front page. Eggert grabbed it and skimmed the content.
"By the Great Void, is this for real Sir?" He looked at his commander with what could best be described as awe.
Fletholm looked surprised at Eggert, he was not used to being called Sir. "Yeah, it seems that we aren't the only ones with a tap. And it seems that GSS is on this one even more than we. I just don't get how or if this ties in with the apparent blockade in Latos. Go and see what your contacts can tell you and we'll meet up in three hours. I'll alert UPK, if GSS is right we may have another full-blown war on our hands here."
###
Cat scanned the orders without reading it, uploading it to her brainpal for further reference when she was in her ship. The only thing she was interested in right now was who was flying wing. She nodded slowly as she read Shlimaziel's name; she was mostly paired with him following the incident a couple of months ago. She didn't mind that, they had worked okay together during that incident and their fighting styles as wingmates was mutually supportive. Cat would usually dive into the combat with complete abandon, hammering away with energy weapons while Shlim would work to the sides and snipe away with explosives.
She walked into the launch bay and saw him standing ready at his Warthog, red and golden helmet in hand.
"Shlim," she said, greeting him by uttering his name.
He raised his hand and waved, "hi Cat. Looks like another fun day for the lean mean Viper team, eh?"
Cat wasn't much of a talker, even less of a cheerful person, but something about Shlim always cheered her up. Her facial muscles, as well as the rest of her body's muscles, were under her complete control and she would usually keep a blank face regardless of the situation, but this time she smiled. It seemed appropriate. For the benefit of Shlim off course. He smiled back, a wide honest smile.
"Say, when we come back, wanna go for a drink or something? Or a juice, I don't know if you even drink alcohol, they have a new juice bar in the mall that is really good, fresh, tasty, healthy and everything, I mean, if you haven't got anything else to do?" His speech pattern, normally the clipped and precise sentences that indicated a Dau accent, seemed to have disintegrated into something... different.
She could see from his body language that he was really insecure and nervous right now and her brainpal indicated four options. She discarded option number one as being highly unlikely; he had never shown fear of flying before. Strat was not around, so she easily discarded option two as well. That left only option three and four, equally basic for hu-norms but requiring different responses. Cat couldn't really taste anything, the sense of taste having been rewired to serve as a chemical detector instead. In normal humans, a sense of taste was almost essential to determine if food was corrupted or poisonous but most substances were harmless for her anyway. And the chemical detectors would detect the ones that would really harm her fulfilling that archaic need. She didn't much care for the healthiness of the juice either; she could subsist on the gunk delivered by food tubes directly from the algae vats for months on end. The only item she craved from time to time was Sedina Chocolate, as the heavy doses of serotonin could be used to temporarily boost her brainpal interface functions, the closest she got to a high. However, it seemed there was only one way to test which of the options it was.
"Sure."
His nervousness disappeared and was replaced by a sense of achievement that proved option number three was the correct one. She grabbed her helmet and walked over to her Warthog, her brainpal running scenarios at an accelerated pace. Interesting, she had never been in this situation before. She had no idea what to do. She had never been in that situation either. She needed to ask someone she could trust. She consoled herself with the fact that it wasn't option four; that would have been awkward.
Lovely.
Chapter 12.
The pancakes were extraordinary good today, the koffee brewed to perfection and the toasted bread was the exact shade of burned that he liked. The workout had helped on his hunger and he was perfectly aware that his stomach's cravings helped on his taste buds. Still, on the list of best breakfasts ever, this one was definitely in the top ten, if not top five. He wasn't the least bit jealous on The John Eldritch, Combat Miner. This was precisely how it should be. He took another bite of the toasted bread and looked across the table. Well, that was the other part of a perfect breakfast, good company along with it. He stopped biting his toast and grinned at the pool of syrup that covered Chi's pancakes, at the tall glass of genuine Eo orange juice with two straws and at himself sitting with a piece of toast in his mouth for a full minute before biting. Chi cut the pancakes into small pieces, ensured that they were all soaked, deeply concentrated and oblivious to John watching. When they were all soaked, she took a bite of dripping pancake and looked up just as she took the bite, looked up at John admiring the act.
"Impressive amount of syrup you can scoop up with one pancake," he said pointing at her plate with his koffee cup.
Chi placed the cutlery on the plate, grabbed her napkin and wiped her mouth slowly, looking at John over the white fabric. She dropped the napkin and laughed.
"Practice. I can't help myself when it comes to Soggy's homemade synth-maple syrup. Sometimes I think I should order syrup with pancakes, not the other way around." She grabbed the cutlery again and focused once more on her pancake-bites. John leaned back and sipped his koffee while watching the pancake-bites disappear without her spilling a single drop of syrup.
Elfin bells on the wind. He was thinking of the tinkling sound of her laugh. Like elfin bells on the wind, he was sure he had heard it somewhere. Or read it, like elfin bells on the wind. . He liked the sound of it.
"Excuse me?"
John focused on Chi and tore himself away from the thought. "Yes?"
She smiled a mischievous smile at him. "You said something about elfin bells?"
John looked confused and then embarrassed before waving in denial with his hand. "Oh, just something I read once." He must have said it aloud. He could kick himself.
Chi wiped her mouth again, her eyes a fountain of mischief directed at John. "Something you read. I see. So, what are you up to today?"
"The game is on later so I thought I'd drop in at the TGFT lounge and see it. You should come along if you aren't doing anything." He extended his hand towards TGFT.
She looked over at him in mock horror. "John Eldritch, are you inviting me on a date?"
John put his cup on the table and extended his hands in front of him denial. "No no, nothing like that. I mean, you are practically a part of TGFT now with you being official PA liaison and all."
Chi put the napkin down on the table and looked John directly in the eyes. "In that case, no thank you."
John frowned his forehead as the meaning behind what she just said, started to manifest itself inside his head. He was just about to say something when his pda started chiming; alert A-2, calling for immediate response. He looked over at Chi who looked like she was waiting for something.
"Gotta go Chi, just been beeped and it looks like a crisis meeting. Listen I'll… make it up to you, 'kay?" He could see that was not what she had waited for, not what she wanted him to say. Damn, it was not what he wanted him to say.
Chi looked down at her hands and then nodded. "Sure, another time," her voice low. She looked up at him and smiled, a forced smile rather than a happy smile.
John downed the last of his coffee, grabbed his jacket and looked back at Chi before walking out of the restaurant. She looked unhappy now. He stopped outside and considered going back in before uttering a muffled "Why can't I win sometimes?" He moved off, towards the TGFT part of the station.
###
Star Buck's Prom floated lazily with Seragyn and Da Gu on his wings, approximately ten kilometres from Daltas Hold with nothing but vacuum between his ship and the station. The station looked like nothing he had ever seen, with a belt of plasma flames girding the torus that housed the accommodation and mercantile areas of the station. The torus was moving ever so slowly, maybe producing a twentieth of a G, where it would be spinning to provide at least 0.8 G at normal speeds. He had been perplexed at this when he first saw it, enough so that he had asked Seragyn to find out what it was for. In the meantime he had contacted the station official to figure out why the shipments of weapons-grade xithricite had stopped. He opened a connection to Skycommand and Folks via his brainpal. The answer was immediate, they had been expecting him.
"Looks like it is a malfunction of the station's power supply. I spoke to the stationmaster and he promised that the problem would be solved within the next day or so. With the stockpile we already have it shouldn't be a problem I reckon. And anyway, we are getting the load they have now and will escort it back to the quartermaster's as soon as we are finished here."
"Roger, if it is only a day's worth of delay it will probably not be a problem. We should have enough stockpiled to last us a week at least."
"Agreed. Apparently they have requested the missing part and it should arrive shortly. Somebody blew up the first shipment. I asked if they needed help with security but they declined. Apparently they have filed a request for help with UPK."
"That'll help I am sure. I'll flag it for further observation and increase the patrols in the area. Lucky for us it looks like the thrice-cursed 'Tani are running on lowest war setting right now, so we'll be able to spare the fighters. Right, see you when you get back, Folks out."
Star Buck sent the message on to Seragyn and Da Gu and leant back in his seat. Now there was nothing to do but wait for the xithricite convoy to undock.
###
The coded message came through to UPK HQ with a Z priority. The watchkeeper glanced at the recipients and considered his options. In reality they should have been three on duty that evening but due to budget cuts, only one person was on guard. On a normal day that would have been entirely okay and the message would have been passed without any delay. This was not a normal day, this was the reason the watchkeeper had been contacted almost a year ago. He didn't know who his contact was, he only knew that he paid well and would pay especially well for any messages containing any of his alert words. This one had several, KAOS, enhanced security, Latos, Sedina, the list was long. He scanned the message with his hand scanner and opened a connection to the public service number he had been given. The channel opened after only a slight delay. The voice on the other end was short and precise with an accent that was pretty hard to place. Maybe Dau, but hard to put your finger on.
"Do I know you?"
The watchkeeper grimaced, he hated the code-name they had given him. "This is Mighty Mouse."
The line went silent and a second later the added slight hissing of a secure channel started. "We are secure." The accent in the other end was now replaced by the flat tones of the encryption programme.
The watchkeeper grabbed the handscanner with slightly trembling hands. "Right, I have a real gem for you. Are you ready to receive a data squirt?"
"Send." The answer was as patronising as it was short. Off course they were ready; they were always ready. The watchkeeper sent the data he had scanned from the message.
"Received, your payment will be in your account as usual, reward based on the value of the information. If UPK follows up on it we expect the details. Any more?"
The watchkeeper shook his head, knowing that he was alone and that the intended recipient couldn't see him. "No, not as of now. Out." He stabbed the button as fast as he could, intent on shutting them off instead of them shutting him off. He loathed his other employers but he loved their credits. He grabbed the message and phoned his real employer, the UPK boss.
###
Lambin whistled tunelessly as he packed essential kit for the no doubt soon to be upcoming patrol. Stuff like imitated beef jerky, soda pop and caffeine enriched self-heating Koffee cups. He checked the inventory, nodded to himself once and then closed the cockpit. He turned and grabbed his daypack, ready to head off to TGFT for some rest before the mission. A sweet smell of Eo roses attacked his senses and he looked up.
"Hi Lambin, got a new rig?" She nodded in the direction of his shining Hunter Green Valkyrie.
"Oh, hi Mercy. Yeah, the old one got splattered all over Latos, unfortunately with me inside. Been a while." Lambin smiled widely, he had always like Mercy Machine.
Mercy smiled back and cocked her head slightly to the right while slightly narrowing her eyes, "been busy. You said that your ship was lost in Latos; wouldn't have been in O-12 recently?"
Lambin nodded slowly, the memory not a particularly pleasant one and enough to wipe the smile from his face. "Yeah, got jumped by six rats and I had to protect Hortie so I didn't get any of them." He shrugged.
Mercy nodded in sympathy, "Interesting. Well, good to see you again my friend, take care now." She grabbed his shoulder and squeezed it gently.
He smiled again, how could he not? "You too Mercy."
He turned and watched her walk over to the unmarked Atlas-X that was docked next to his Valkyrie and board it through the side-door. He frowned in surprise, he thought Mercy only flew Behemoth class ships. Something was going on for sure.
The pancakes were extraordinary good today, the koffee brewed to perfection and the toasted bread was the exact shade of burned that he liked. The workout had helped on his hunger and he was perfectly aware that his stomach's cravings helped on his taste buds. Still, on the list of best breakfasts ever, this one was definitely in the top ten, if not top five. He wasn't the least bit jealous on The John Eldritch, Combat Miner. This was precisely how it should be. He took another bite of the toasted bread and looked across the table. Well, that was the other part of a perfect breakfast, good company along with it. He stopped biting his toast and grinned at the pool of syrup that covered Chi's pancakes, at the tall glass of genuine Eo orange juice with two straws and at himself sitting with a piece of toast in his mouth for a full minute before biting. Chi cut the pancakes into small pieces, ensured that they were all soaked, deeply concentrated and oblivious to John watching. When they were all soaked, she took a bite of dripping pancake and looked up just as she took the bite, looked up at John admiring the act.
"Impressive amount of syrup you can scoop up with one pancake," he said pointing at her plate with his koffee cup.
Chi placed the cutlery on the plate, grabbed her napkin and wiped her mouth slowly, looking at John over the white fabric. She dropped the napkin and laughed.
"Practice. I can't help myself when it comes to Soggy's homemade synth-maple syrup. Sometimes I think I should order syrup with pancakes, not the other way around." She grabbed the cutlery again and focused once more on her pancake-bites. John leaned back and sipped his koffee while watching the pancake-bites disappear without her spilling a single drop of syrup.
Elfin bells on the wind. He was thinking of the tinkling sound of her laugh. Like elfin bells on the wind, he was sure he had heard it somewhere. Or read it, like elfin bells on the wind. . He liked the sound of it.
"Excuse me?"
John focused on Chi and tore himself away from the thought. "Yes?"
She smiled a mischievous smile at him. "You said something about elfin bells?"
John looked confused and then embarrassed before waving in denial with his hand. "Oh, just something I read once." He must have said it aloud. He could kick himself.
Chi wiped her mouth again, her eyes a fountain of mischief directed at John. "Something you read. I see. So, what are you up to today?"
"The game is on later so I thought I'd drop in at the TGFT lounge and see it. You should come along if you aren't doing anything." He extended his hand towards TGFT.
She looked over at him in mock horror. "John Eldritch, are you inviting me on a date?"
John put his cup on the table and extended his hands in front of him denial. "No no, nothing like that. I mean, you are practically a part of TGFT now with you being official PA liaison and all."
Chi put the napkin down on the table and looked John directly in the eyes. "In that case, no thank you."
John frowned his forehead as the meaning behind what she just said, started to manifest itself inside his head. He was just about to say something when his pda started chiming; alert A-2, calling for immediate response. He looked over at Chi who looked like she was waiting for something.
"Gotta go Chi, just been beeped and it looks like a crisis meeting. Listen I'll… make it up to you, 'kay?" He could see that was not what she had waited for, not what she wanted him to say. Damn, it was not what he wanted him to say.
Chi looked down at her hands and then nodded. "Sure, another time," her voice low. She looked up at him and smiled, a forced smile rather than a happy smile.
John downed the last of his coffee, grabbed his jacket and looked back at Chi before walking out of the restaurant. She looked unhappy now. He stopped outside and considered going back in before uttering a muffled "Why can't I win sometimes?" He moved off, towards the TGFT part of the station.
###
Star Buck's Prom floated lazily with Seragyn and Da Gu on his wings, approximately ten kilometres from Daltas Hold with nothing but vacuum between his ship and the station. The station looked like nothing he had ever seen, with a belt of plasma flames girding the torus that housed the accommodation and mercantile areas of the station. The torus was moving ever so slowly, maybe producing a twentieth of a G, where it would be spinning to provide at least 0.8 G at normal speeds. He had been perplexed at this when he first saw it, enough so that he had asked Seragyn to find out what it was for. In the meantime he had contacted the station official to figure out why the shipments of weapons-grade xithricite had stopped. He opened a connection to Skycommand and Folks via his brainpal. The answer was immediate, they had been expecting him.
"Looks like it is a malfunction of the station's power supply. I spoke to the stationmaster and he promised that the problem would be solved within the next day or so. With the stockpile we already have it shouldn't be a problem I reckon. And anyway, we are getting the load they have now and will escort it back to the quartermaster's as soon as we are finished here."
"Roger, if it is only a day's worth of delay it will probably not be a problem. We should have enough stockpiled to last us a week at least."
"Agreed. Apparently they have requested the missing part and it should arrive shortly. Somebody blew up the first shipment. I asked if they needed help with security but they declined. Apparently they have filed a request for help with UPK."
"That'll help I am sure. I'll flag it for further observation and increase the patrols in the area. Lucky for us it looks like the thrice-cursed 'Tani are running on lowest war setting right now, so we'll be able to spare the fighters. Right, see you when you get back, Folks out."
Star Buck sent the message on to Seragyn and Da Gu and leant back in his seat. Now there was nothing to do but wait for the xithricite convoy to undock.
###
The coded message came through to UPK HQ with a Z priority. The watchkeeper glanced at the recipients and considered his options. In reality they should have been three on duty that evening but due to budget cuts, only one person was on guard. On a normal day that would have been entirely okay and the message would have been passed without any delay. This was not a normal day, this was the reason the watchkeeper had been contacted almost a year ago. He didn't know who his contact was, he only knew that he paid well and would pay especially well for any messages containing any of his alert words. This one had several, KAOS, enhanced security, Latos, Sedina, the list was long. He scanned the message with his hand scanner and opened a connection to the public service number he had been given. The channel opened after only a slight delay. The voice on the other end was short and precise with an accent that was pretty hard to place. Maybe Dau, but hard to put your finger on.
"Do I know you?"
The watchkeeper grimaced, he hated the code-name they had given him. "This is Mighty Mouse."
The line went silent and a second later the added slight hissing of a secure channel started. "We are secure." The accent in the other end was now replaced by the flat tones of the encryption programme.
The watchkeeper grabbed the handscanner with slightly trembling hands. "Right, I have a real gem for you. Are you ready to receive a data squirt?"
"Send." The answer was as patronising as it was short. Off course they were ready; they were always ready. The watchkeeper sent the data he had scanned from the message.
"Received, your payment will be in your account as usual, reward based on the value of the information. If UPK follows up on it we expect the details. Any more?"
The watchkeeper shook his head, knowing that he was alone and that the intended recipient couldn't see him. "No, not as of now. Out." He stabbed the button as fast as he could, intent on shutting them off instead of them shutting him off. He loathed his other employers but he loved their credits. He grabbed the message and phoned his real employer, the UPK boss.
###
Lambin whistled tunelessly as he packed essential kit for the no doubt soon to be upcoming patrol. Stuff like imitated beef jerky, soda pop and caffeine enriched self-heating Koffee cups. He checked the inventory, nodded to himself once and then closed the cockpit. He turned and grabbed his daypack, ready to head off to TGFT for some rest before the mission. A sweet smell of Eo roses attacked his senses and he looked up.
"Hi Lambin, got a new rig?" She nodded in the direction of his shining Hunter Green Valkyrie.
"Oh, hi Mercy. Yeah, the old one got splattered all over Latos, unfortunately with me inside. Been a while." Lambin smiled widely, he had always like Mercy Machine.
Mercy smiled back and cocked her head slightly to the right while slightly narrowing her eyes, "been busy. You said that your ship was lost in Latos; wouldn't have been in O-12 recently?"
Lambin nodded slowly, the memory not a particularly pleasant one and enough to wipe the smile from his face. "Yeah, got jumped by six rats and I had to protect Hortie so I didn't get any of them." He shrugged.
Mercy nodded in sympathy, "Interesting. Well, good to see you again my friend, take care now." She grabbed his shoulder and squeezed it gently.
He smiled again, how could he not? "You too Mercy."
He turned and watched her walk over to the unmarked Atlas-X that was docked next to his Valkyrie and board it through the side-door. He frowned in surprise, he thought Mercy only flew Behemoth class ships. Something was going on for sure.
awesome
Hortan, I'm sure you'll be glad to hear this is fun to read while mining. ;)
hehe, yes tarenty. I hope I can keep it up:)
Chapter 13.
The active council was assembled and seated except for one seat, when John arrived. The silence was almost oppressive and the grim faces did not bode well for the situation. Still, he received a smile and a wink from Faustino and a nod from Wild Gramps. He smiled back and didn't notice the slab of meat that stepped in front of him. He walked directly into Riddik and looked up and up at the mountain of muscles.
"Hi Rid." John grinned at the Sercan warrior.
The amplified voice seemed to boom like distant thunder. "Who are you?"
John frowned up at Riddik and extended his hands from his sides. "What do you mean?"
Riddik pointed with a slow side-nod of his head over to a 1:10 John Eldritch “Alien Plant-Horror Exterminator” Action Figure that was placed in a suitable pose on his normal seat. "You look like that John Eldritch fellow, just smaller."
John grinned and extended his arm to Riddik who clasped it securely, hand around wrist, the Sercan warrior way. "Good to be back my friend."
Riddik grinned back, "good to have you back brother." He stepped out of John's way, moved to his own seat and dumped himself into it.
Ecka nodded to tsreknor once John made a short pitstop at the bar where he poured a White Russian and seated himself. The head of GSS gathered his papers and cleared his throat.
"Gents, as part of our regular scouting activities regarding the recent incidents in Latos, we sent out two pilots to investigate as part of a normal convoy to Sedina. The pilots encountered heavy pirate activity of an, until now, unknown composition and affiliation that resulted in the retrievable death of one pilot. We lost communications with the other pilot and soon after we intercepted a message through means that are of need to know only, meant for a Xang Xi high official that called for a substantial ransom. The coincidence seems a bit too close for comfort and we have reason to believe that the message is tied to the increased pirate attacks and the disappearance of out pilot. We have the received confirmation that UIT security has come to the same conclusion as well. To sum it up, it seems we have a missing pilot who we must assume is captured and held for ransom by the mercenary group KAOS."
The silence became tangible. Nobody wanted to ask the question everyone of them needed to ask, nobody wanted to hear that their particular best friend was the one held captive. Eventually, Ecka broke the silence.
"It is Hortan 'at is missin'. We hae bin unable tae reach his ship since abit fifty-three seconds efter th' explosion 'at tair Lambin's ship apart. His life support pod hasnae bin activated an' his clone-implant hasnae squeaked. Tae pit it bluntlu, we hae nae idea whaur he is.
Once more the silence descended and everybody looked over at John.
"I fail to understand your message Sir. You are talking about a combat mission, about Latos and then about Hortan. Are you sure you haven't swapped something?" John asked.
Ecka was about to answer but was interrupted by tsreknor. "If I may explain Sir? John, it was not a combat mission, it was a mission to observe and if attacked, run away. It was expected and predicted that with Lambin's fighting skills, Hortan could evade any potential attackers with little effort and report back to GSS."
John looked down towards the table and stared intensely at it, focusing with all his might. He tried to keep calm, but in vain. Keeping his voice a tad lower than normal, he couldn't hide the venom in his voice. "What do you mean Hortan could evade any potential attackers? If it wasn't for the fact that his mining ship is a huge slow unarmed target, he has absolutely no experience in either running or fighting. He just sits tight and hopes for mercy in case of anyone or anything attacking him. Why the hell do you think he is limited to mining seven sectors in Helios and those sectors only? How the hell could you come up with a chicken-brained scenario like this?" Without noticing, John had half-raised himself out of the chair and increased his voice, the last sentence almost a shout.
"What would you want me to do? It is not as if we were spoilt for choice here. I know that the guild is for free traders but there are sometimes that the guild requires you to do something that is unpleasant or hard for you and this was one of the times. Everyone else was busy, I judged and the simulations predicted that Hortan could manage the situation even as a pacifist provided he took the precaution that he needed a ship that could run. That is why I ensured that the mission orders were very specific on that part." tsreknor looked unhappily at John.
"You judged. Hortan does not HAVE a ship that can run, he cannot MANAGE any "situations"", John made brackets in the air with his fingers to emphasise, "he cannot take care of himself, as a matter of fact, with him being as naive as he is, he probably misunderstood the orders and thought it was a friendship patrol. What the hell were you thinking? Didn't you…"
"Enaw!" Ecka's voice bullwhipped across the room, punctured the argument, deflated egos and captured everyone present. "Ah am nae sure ay th' parameters ay th' mission but Ah can vooch fur an' ensure a' fowk haur 'at it was dain wi' th' utmost diligence an' Ah stress completely whitit malicioos intent. Sae lit us gonnae-no throwin' blame an' discuss what-coold-have-beens an' crack oan wi' solvin' th' problem at hain insteid."
Ecka leaned back, confident that his councillors would come up with a plan. He grabbed the dented and scratched pewter cup that was placed in front of him and poured a small dram of Pylatis Delicht from his equally battered silver flask. Well, for Ecka it was a small dram, for most people it would be what they drank for the remainder of that evening and probably the rest of the week as well. John leaned back, arms folded in front of him.
"Now, we do not have enough information to go after Hortan, as I assume is the thing everyone here wants. So I have calculated a series of intelligence runs that hopefully will find the whereabouts of KAOS, and by virtue of that, Hortan. You will see that you are paired, I suggest full combat ships everyone," tsreknor said, squirting flight data to the PDAs and brainpals of the councillors.
"Riddik, you will see that your mission involves teaming up with a member of ONE, I hope that will work for you?" Riddik nodded. "Right, and John, I have you along with Wild Gramps on Daltas Hold, I believe you have some connections there. Questions anyone?"
Ecka cleared his throat, "Cooncillors, thes guild wulnae rest until we hae secured Hortan back haur again, safe, healthy an soond. Weel, as healthy and soond as he normally is."
The pilots chuckled at that and moved out to their ships.
###
Cat nestled inside the Vulture as securely as in the metal womb that had gestated her the twelve months it normally took for a Serco creche-born warrior to come to term. Or the twelve moths it took to bake a Sercan as the Itani was fond of saying. Shlim's Hog was slightly behind and up-left in standard combat patrol formation, the radio silent as usual on a Viper combat patrol. They jumped into Latos O-12 and scanned the system, nothing apart from some debris. Strangely, the debris was in two clusters, one the standard ship's remains, uncomfortably mingled with life support pod debris as well, and one cluster in the roid field.
"Nothing on my screen Cat."
"Lets check out the debris in the roid field and then on to Sedina."
Shlim keyed his mike twice for acknowledgement and followed her ship easily. The Hog was more powerful than the Vulture, but not anywhere near as nimble. The debris was scattered around the roid-field in an oblong twisted torus shape centred on a large ice roid. Cat set her brainpal's ballistic sub-computer analyse the data and super-imposed the findings on the HUD. She sent the data to Shlim's ship computer and waited for the reply.
"A pillow fight? Someone had a pillow fight?"
"Looks like it. And the insides edges of the centre of the torus look to be burned badly as does the ice-roid. Whoever fought this pillow fight fought hard."
Cat was about to upload the data to the Viper database when her proximity sensors pinged softly. "Look alert Shlim, inbound ships."
"Yeah, I am on it. Looks like a small convoy of two 'Moths and a Centaur. Two Centurions and one Vulture as escort. Wanna fly security? Looks like it is going our way."
Cat flicked her standard hail towards the convoy and received an affirmative in reply. "Looks like it Shlim. You go left, I'll go right."
The reply was muffled by a heavy burst of static that preceded a trio of emergence rings that disgorged a single fighter each. The matte black ships attacked the convoy with a fusillade of flares easily destroying the two Centurions and damaging the Vulture. Cat engaged the turbo to close as fast as possible with Shlim overtaking her slowly. One of the ships, a Corvus Marauder, turned towards their ships and fired a flare in Shlim's direction. He dodged it easily but in the process hid it from Cat who took it head on. A quick turn and a violent stab at the front thrusters pulled her twenty metres away from the rocket itself but not out of the shrapnel range. The impacts on her lower armour shook the light fighter like a toy in the hand of a giant and the armour readout plummeted to a measly 45% of normal. Shlim managed to close and hammered a flare into the Marauder, following with a stream of positrons that stitched a line of holes across the front armour on the Marauder.
"I have him Cat," the excitement made Shlim shout into the microphone and apparently made him forget his training. Lesson number one was that you never ever left your wing alone and by closing and twisting in order to get a firing solution, he moved beyond the Marauder, getting the heavier ship between himself and Cat.
"Shlim, break off, we are here to observe and report," Cat tried to position herself in order to get a clean shot at the pirate without hitting Shlim, to draw some fire and help him to disengage. In vain; another of the pirate fighters, a Valkyrie X-1, pumped positrons into Shlim's rear armour and ripped the armour to shreds. Cat could only watch as Shlim's Warthog disintegrated in a flash of actinic fire. Fortunately his life support pod had been ejected and was now drifting away from the expanding remains of his ship. Cat turned sharply and disengaged from the melee, the Marauder in hot pursuit. She flicked her SSCU on, encrypted for Viper HQ.
"Patrol mission number 4177 reporting heavy pirate activity in Latos O-12. Requesting mission parameter override."
The reply was almost instantaneous. "Negative 4177. You are to fulfil parameters, acknowledge."
Cat acknowledged and buried her frustrations with no little effort. She kept on the outskirts of the engagement envelope, the Marauder chasing her relentlessly and watched in impotent anger as the traders were dispatched one by one. With her observing everything through her sensors as she was supposed to. When the last tradeship had been blown apart, the Valkyrie joined in chasing Cat around while the remaining pirate ship, an Atlas X started chasing life support pods. Cat saw with horror as positrons speared the first pod. She couldn't let this happen again, not now, not ever.
"Patrol mission number 4177 requesting immediate assistance. Viper down. Requesting emergency mission parameter override."
The voice on the other end was easily recognisable; it was Strat. "Negative 4177, keep within parameters. Launching an assistance flight as we speak, they will be there in three minutes." A second passed in silence before the voice resumed, this time with more empathy, "hang in there Cat, help is on the way."
Chapter 13.
The active council was assembled and seated except for one seat, when John arrived. The silence was almost oppressive and the grim faces did not bode well for the situation. Still, he received a smile and a wink from Faustino and a nod from Wild Gramps. He smiled back and didn't notice the slab of meat that stepped in front of him. He walked directly into Riddik and looked up and up at the mountain of muscles.
"Hi Rid." John grinned at the Sercan warrior.
The amplified voice seemed to boom like distant thunder. "Who are you?"
John frowned up at Riddik and extended his hands from his sides. "What do you mean?"
Riddik pointed with a slow side-nod of his head over to a 1:10 John Eldritch “Alien Plant-Horror Exterminator” Action Figure that was placed in a suitable pose on his normal seat. "You look like that John Eldritch fellow, just smaller."
John grinned and extended his arm to Riddik who clasped it securely, hand around wrist, the Sercan warrior way. "Good to be back my friend."
Riddik grinned back, "good to have you back brother." He stepped out of John's way, moved to his own seat and dumped himself into it.
Ecka nodded to tsreknor once John made a short pitstop at the bar where he poured a White Russian and seated himself. The head of GSS gathered his papers and cleared his throat.
"Gents, as part of our regular scouting activities regarding the recent incidents in Latos, we sent out two pilots to investigate as part of a normal convoy to Sedina. The pilots encountered heavy pirate activity of an, until now, unknown composition and affiliation that resulted in the retrievable death of one pilot. We lost communications with the other pilot and soon after we intercepted a message through means that are of need to know only, meant for a Xang Xi high official that called for a substantial ransom. The coincidence seems a bit too close for comfort and we have reason to believe that the message is tied to the increased pirate attacks and the disappearance of out pilot. We have the received confirmation that UIT security has come to the same conclusion as well. To sum it up, it seems we have a missing pilot who we must assume is captured and held for ransom by the mercenary group KAOS."
The silence became tangible. Nobody wanted to ask the question everyone of them needed to ask, nobody wanted to hear that their particular best friend was the one held captive. Eventually, Ecka broke the silence.
"It is Hortan 'at is missin'. We hae bin unable tae reach his ship since abit fifty-three seconds efter th' explosion 'at tair Lambin's ship apart. His life support pod hasnae bin activated an' his clone-implant hasnae squeaked. Tae pit it bluntlu, we hae nae idea whaur he is.
Once more the silence descended and everybody looked over at John.
"I fail to understand your message Sir. You are talking about a combat mission, about Latos and then about Hortan. Are you sure you haven't swapped something?" John asked.
Ecka was about to answer but was interrupted by tsreknor. "If I may explain Sir? John, it was not a combat mission, it was a mission to observe and if attacked, run away. It was expected and predicted that with Lambin's fighting skills, Hortan could evade any potential attackers with little effort and report back to GSS."
John looked down towards the table and stared intensely at it, focusing with all his might. He tried to keep calm, but in vain. Keeping his voice a tad lower than normal, he couldn't hide the venom in his voice. "What do you mean Hortan could evade any potential attackers? If it wasn't for the fact that his mining ship is a huge slow unarmed target, he has absolutely no experience in either running or fighting. He just sits tight and hopes for mercy in case of anyone or anything attacking him. Why the hell do you think he is limited to mining seven sectors in Helios and those sectors only? How the hell could you come up with a chicken-brained scenario like this?" Without noticing, John had half-raised himself out of the chair and increased his voice, the last sentence almost a shout.
"What would you want me to do? It is not as if we were spoilt for choice here. I know that the guild is for free traders but there are sometimes that the guild requires you to do something that is unpleasant or hard for you and this was one of the times. Everyone else was busy, I judged and the simulations predicted that Hortan could manage the situation even as a pacifist provided he took the precaution that he needed a ship that could run. That is why I ensured that the mission orders were very specific on that part." tsreknor looked unhappily at John.
"You judged. Hortan does not HAVE a ship that can run, he cannot MANAGE any "situations"", John made brackets in the air with his fingers to emphasise, "he cannot take care of himself, as a matter of fact, with him being as naive as he is, he probably misunderstood the orders and thought it was a friendship patrol. What the hell were you thinking? Didn't you…"
"Enaw!" Ecka's voice bullwhipped across the room, punctured the argument, deflated egos and captured everyone present. "Ah am nae sure ay th' parameters ay th' mission but Ah can vooch fur an' ensure a' fowk haur 'at it was dain wi' th' utmost diligence an' Ah stress completely whitit malicioos intent. Sae lit us gonnae-no throwin' blame an' discuss what-coold-have-beens an' crack oan wi' solvin' th' problem at hain insteid."
Ecka leaned back, confident that his councillors would come up with a plan. He grabbed the dented and scratched pewter cup that was placed in front of him and poured a small dram of Pylatis Delicht from his equally battered silver flask. Well, for Ecka it was a small dram, for most people it would be what they drank for the remainder of that evening and probably the rest of the week as well. John leaned back, arms folded in front of him.
"Now, we do not have enough information to go after Hortan, as I assume is the thing everyone here wants. So I have calculated a series of intelligence runs that hopefully will find the whereabouts of KAOS, and by virtue of that, Hortan. You will see that you are paired, I suggest full combat ships everyone," tsreknor said, squirting flight data to the PDAs and brainpals of the councillors.
"Riddik, you will see that your mission involves teaming up with a member of ONE, I hope that will work for you?" Riddik nodded. "Right, and John, I have you along with Wild Gramps on Daltas Hold, I believe you have some connections there. Questions anyone?"
Ecka cleared his throat, "Cooncillors, thes guild wulnae rest until we hae secured Hortan back haur again, safe, healthy an soond. Weel, as healthy and soond as he normally is."
The pilots chuckled at that and moved out to their ships.
###
Cat nestled inside the Vulture as securely as in the metal womb that had gestated her the twelve months it normally took for a Serco creche-born warrior to come to term. Or the twelve moths it took to bake a Sercan as the Itani was fond of saying. Shlim's Hog was slightly behind and up-left in standard combat patrol formation, the radio silent as usual on a Viper combat patrol. They jumped into Latos O-12 and scanned the system, nothing apart from some debris. Strangely, the debris was in two clusters, one the standard ship's remains, uncomfortably mingled with life support pod debris as well, and one cluster in the roid field.
"Nothing on my screen Cat."
"Lets check out the debris in the roid field and then on to Sedina."
Shlim keyed his mike twice for acknowledgement and followed her ship easily. The Hog was more powerful than the Vulture, but not anywhere near as nimble. The debris was scattered around the roid-field in an oblong twisted torus shape centred on a large ice roid. Cat set her brainpal's ballistic sub-computer analyse the data and super-imposed the findings on the HUD. She sent the data to Shlim's ship computer and waited for the reply.
"A pillow fight? Someone had a pillow fight?"
"Looks like it. And the insides edges of the centre of the torus look to be burned badly as does the ice-roid. Whoever fought this pillow fight fought hard."
Cat was about to upload the data to the Viper database when her proximity sensors pinged softly. "Look alert Shlim, inbound ships."
"Yeah, I am on it. Looks like a small convoy of two 'Moths and a Centaur. Two Centurions and one Vulture as escort. Wanna fly security? Looks like it is going our way."
Cat flicked her standard hail towards the convoy and received an affirmative in reply. "Looks like it Shlim. You go left, I'll go right."
The reply was muffled by a heavy burst of static that preceded a trio of emergence rings that disgorged a single fighter each. The matte black ships attacked the convoy with a fusillade of flares easily destroying the two Centurions and damaging the Vulture. Cat engaged the turbo to close as fast as possible with Shlim overtaking her slowly. One of the ships, a Corvus Marauder, turned towards their ships and fired a flare in Shlim's direction. He dodged it easily but in the process hid it from Cat who took it head on. A quick turn and a violent stab at the front thrusters pulled her twenty metres away from the rocket itself but not out of the shrapnel range. The impacts on her lower armour shook the light fighter like a toy in the hand of a giant and the armour readout plummeted to a measly 45% of normal. Shlim managed to close and hammered a flare into the Marauder, following with a stream of positrons that stitched a line of holes across the front armour on the Marauder.
"I have him Cat," the excitement made Shlim shout into the microphone and apparently made him forget his training. Lesson number one was that you never ever left your wing alone and by closing and twisting in order to get a firing solution, he moved beyond the Marauder, getting the heavier ship between himself and Cat.
"Shlim, break off, we are here to observe and report," Cat tried to position herself in order to get a clean shot at the pirate without hitting Shlim, to draw some fire and help him to disengage. In vain; another of the pirate fighters, a Valkyrie X-1, pumped positrons into Shlim's rear armour and ripped the armour to shreds. Cat could only watch as Shlim's Warthog disintegrated in a flash of actinic fire. Fortunately his life support pod had been ejected and was now drifting away from the expanding remains of his ship. Cat turned sharply and disengaged from the melee, the Marauder in hot pursuit. She flicked her SSCU on, encrypted for Viper HQ.
"Patrol mission number 4177 reporting heavy pirate activity in Latos O-12. Requesting mission parameter override."
The reply was almost instantaneous. "Negative 4177. You are to fulfil parameters, acknowledge."
Cat acknowledged and buried her frustrations with no little effort. She kept on the outskirts of the engagement envelope, the Marauder chasing her relentlessly and watched in impotent anger as the traders were dispatched one by one. With her observing everything through her sensors as she was supposed to. When the last tradeship had been blown apart, the Valkyrie joined in chasing Cat around while the remaining pirate ship, an Atlas X started chasing life support pods. Cat saw with horror as positrons speared the first pod. She couldn't let this happen again, not now, not ever.
"Patrol mission number 4177 requesting immediate assistance. Viper down. Requesting emergency mission parameter override."
The voice on the other end was easily recognisable; it was Strat. "Negative 4177, keep within parameters. Launching an assistance flight as we speak, they will be there in three minutes." A second passed in silence before the voice resumed, this time with more empathy, "hang in there Cat, help is on the way."
ZOMG mysterious pie rats killin traders!? I love this story so much more now.
Cat's gonna be roasted by the time Strat's calv get there.
I find this hilarious.
I find this hilarious.
[Insert Name Here]'s gonna be roasted by the time Strat's calv get there.
A common enough outcome for [VPR] endeavours.
A common enough outcome for [VPR] endeavours.
Chapter 14
Asteroth smiled a crooked smile, the kind of smile he reserved for those rare occasions where life outperformed fantasy. He let the transcript go and allowed it to settle lazily against the bulkhead while he swam over to the fairly large hookah and grabbed a pipe-tube. He inhaled deeply and let the smoke drift out of his nose like some ancient dragon while he let the implications run amok inside his head. Clearly some advantage had to be wrought from this piece of mis-information, be it money or influence. Preferably a nice combination, where the guild could extract both in prodigal amounts.
He inhaled another dosage of the extremely potent neuro-toxin that was in the burn pit of the hookah. Human norms would collapse in cramps by as little as a hundredth of a gram but to a Serco Warrior, the modifications to the nervous system was so extensive that the reaction to the neuro-toxin was a heightening of the warrior's senses. Naturally, as with almost all artificial substances utilised for recreational use, it was highly addictive and massively damaging, especially to the brainpal/brain interface which was why it was illegal to use not only among simple human norms but also in Serco land. What to do with the information, his brain cooked three scenarios up in no time, discarded them as too likely to go belly-up before deciding on a plan. He smiled, well internally he smiled, his features remained passive as the smoke dissipated around his face. He sent a signal to two of his people. This would take tact on one hand and mindless violence on the other. No doubt William Cutting would be the perfect candidate for the second job.
###
Star Buck escorted the heavily laden robot transport ship through the wormhole and exited to Latos O-12 in the middle of the remains of a convoy that was in the process of getting killed. Explosions from flares and warp-cores flashed violently in his view and he brought his weapons online with a smooth and well-rehearsed movement. His brainpal analysed the fight and flagged it at once as a trade convoy from UIT that was getting killed by pirates, nothing of interest. He placed his Prometheus between the convoy and the pirates but did not take further action. He sent a coded message to Da Gu who exited the wormhole just behind him, informing him of the situation. A lone Viper was dodging heavy fire from two apparent pirates. ONE had no quarrels with VPR but neither did they help the vigilante guild. The IFF of the VPR ship pinged in on his screen and he raised an eyebrow in curiosity. Well, he raised one in his mind, his features remained as if cut in granite. The VPR was a Serco pilot by the name Cat. He sent a query to ONE HQ asking if he should help her out. The delay in answering was slightly longer than normal but was a negative. Actually, it was an order that he was forbidden to. A longer explanation was attached but was too long to read before he had to exit out of the system. He sent the only help he was allowed to, he wished her the Lady's Luck and jumped.
###
The heavy multipurpose slug pistol had been polished to a sheen many times before and probably didn't need to be polished at this time, but Atice like doing it. Actually, he liked taking things apart and then re-assembling them which was one of the reasons he hadn't been able to stay at the Serco Fighter Pilot School, but that is another story. With expert movements he disassembled the weapon and checked it for faults, grates or scratches. None were found, not even with Atice's enhanced vision and he proceeded to polish the already blank gun metal with the rag he always packed with his weapon. It wasn't like he had anything else to do, he was stuck in his Centurion for at least four hours more on high-ready alert with Ishathis in the other ship to his side. Not that he minded, it was vital to have an Immediate Response Team, but he preferred to be out there among the starts, doing the patrolling himself. With a barely audible whisper of well-oiled metal against well-oiled metal he slid the parts together and loaded the ammunition, checking the ammunition indicator as it turned from red to green, at the same time interfacing with his brainpal and bringing a targeting reticule up directly upon his visual nerves. He holstered the weapon and the reticule disappeared. What to do now... Fortunately for the navigation computer's integrity, the warning light on the launch bay turned from red to amber and his cockpit door closed. A launch alert message along with a vector popped onto his navigation display, Latos O-12. He acknowledged and waited for more information, checked Ish's ship to the side and gave him a thumb’s-up when he looked back. Apparently team 4177 was in trouble. He displayed today's flights but was interrupted by Ish on the private channel.
"It is the junior flight. Some kind of scouting, looks like one is podded."
Podded, meaning that one had been forced to use his emergency life-support. Then the next message would be, ah yes, there it was. The Emergency Warthog received its launch order and shortly after his launch warning turned green. He activated the locks and felt the familiar almost suction-like effect as his craft was drawn down and then pushed out of the station at a gentle point 5 G. He pushed his throttle full forward and thumbed the turbo, propelling his ship forward at 200m/s alongside Ish's. The rescue was on the way.
###
Lambin made a slight adjustment to his course and watched with satisfaction as Shna followed the correction only milliseconds later, staying above and to the right of his Valkyrie. Just to alleviate boredom, he corrected his course again and watched as Shna corrected as well. They jumped into Caelestis Watch and scanned the system, coming up with only the normal security flight. Lambin grunted his annoyance; he had hoped they would pick something up. They flew together out to the 3k mark and jumped in unison to B-5 and the wormhole interface to Helios. A single ship appeared on his radar and he sent an IFF query, expecting a reply if the ship was a friendly or even a neutral ship. He grunted his surprise when the reply came back with the name "KAOS: PINHEAD". He hadn't expected to see a KAOS ship appear as friendly, no with their history and definitely not if they had caught Hortan and kept him as prisoner. Lambin thumbed the turbo and boosted toward the radar echo and was even more surprised when he saw that the ship was a Centaur Mk III. Lambin activated his cargo scanner and ran the beam across the Centaur.
He was hailed in response, "Greetings trader; fly safe." Not what he expected from KAOS, actually this was looking pretty strange. The result came up on his display, an environmental pod shielded by an active device that kept him from discovering what was inside the pod. Maybe the pod contained Hortan's lifepod, it was definitely possible considering the size of it and it fit the information they had. Lambin keyed his comms again, "Pinghead, stop moving and cease jamming the cargo reader."
The reply was swift. "The name is Pinhead and by who's authority?"
Lambin shook his head in anger, what the hell was this pirate up to? "By the authority given to me by TGFT and UIT." There, a small lie but maybe enough to scare the rat into complying.
The comms keyed and the voice on the other end chuckled, "I am an Itani citizen, this is grey space and my guild does not recognise the collected misfits that you call free traders and miners as a power to be reckoned with. Adios sucker."
The Centaur jumped out and Lambin set his navigation system up to follow the ship. Ukari D-1, acitvate jump engines, tear through reality, appear into... nothingness. The KAOS member had avoided him somehow and Lambin punched his fist into the navigation computer, the impact a flat crack of broken knuckles too loud in his cockpit. Shna appeared some 860 metres away and immediately hailed him.
"Where is the baddie?"
"He must have set up a double jump. Lets guard the exits, apparently he was coming from Helios so he is likely to be going to grey or UIT space. You take the Arta interface, I'll take the Latos one. Keep alert and do not engage alone." Without waiting for a response, Lambin jumped to the Latos interface and scanned the sector. Bingo, running hot for the wormhole, unfortunately with a 4k lead. Muttering obscenities under his breath, Lambin sent a signal to Shna at the same time he boosted for the Centaur. His battery drained fast and he had to turn the turbo on and off to conserve power for the chase and to keep his regeneration time low for when he needed everything for the wormhole transfer. That meant that his prey jumped out at around the time Shna jumped in, and too early for Lambin to have any chance of interception. He still tore through the wormhole, but only to see the Centaur jump to the safety of open space. Declaring that the pilot of the Centaur was an unlikely combination of pork and grease and was somehow involved erotically with his own mother, he clenched his fist for another thump at the navcomp and instantly regretted it; his right hand knuckles were well and truly smashed. Gently, he typed up an after action report to GSS while plotting his return course to TGFT HQ. He would probably need some surgery; he could see bones sticking out.
###
The tech didn't really resent having Eggert around, didn't mind his constant staring over his shoulder at the datastream in his holo-display and it didn't really annoy him that Eggert hammered questions at him like bullets from a gatling turret. What he really hated was the litter of sunflower seed-shells that he left every-bloody-where. And the small pieces of sunflower seed that he managed to spray on everything when articulating p's. So when the information they had been waiting for appeared in the holo-web, he was more than willing to hand it over to the spook.
For Eggert, it had been fantastically interesting to see actual data mining and especially to see how his tiny stealthed limpet mine managed to highjack a normal message from a VPR fighter and embed its signal in the datastream. The process was hideously complicated but guaranteed that nobody would find the tracker. He knew precisely what to look for, or rather, the tech did, and it had still taken them the better part of an hour to actually find the stream. But now they had it and Eggert copied the information, but not the format. The signal would delete itself after a couple of minutes to ensure that the carried kept safe. It wasn't often that the UIT intelligence branch, better know by its short name of I-2, had an advantage over the bigger nations and when they did they wanted to keep it for themselves. At least until the secret item could be traded for something even more valuable. Right now he had the information they needed to investigate who was killing off the traders in Latos.
Asteroth smiled a crooked smile, the kind of smile he reserved for those rare occasions where life outperformed fantasy. He let the transcript go and allowed it to settle lazily against the bulkhead while he swam over to the fairly large hookah and grabbed a pipe-tube. He inhaled deeply and let the smoke drift out of his nose like some ancient dragon while he let the implications run amok inside his head. Clearly some advantage had to be wrought from this piece of mis-information, be it money or influence. Preferably a nice combination, where the guild could extract both in prodigal amounts.
He inhaled another dosage of the extremely potent neuro-toxin that was in the burn pit of the hookah. Human norms would collapse in cramps by as little as a hundredth of a gram but to a Serco Warrior, the modifications to the nervous system was so extensive that the reaction to the neuro-toxin was a heightening of the warrior's senses. Naturally, as with almost all artificial substances utilised for recreational use, it was highly addictive and massively damaging, especially to the brainpal/brain interface which was why it was illegal to use not only among simple human norms but also in Serco land. What to do with the information, his brain cooked three scenarios up in no time, discarded them as too likely to go belly-up before deciding on a plan. He smiled, well internally he smiled, his features remained passive as the smoke dissipated around his face. He sent a signal to two of his people. This would take tact on one hand and mindless violence on the other. No doubt William Cutting would be the perfect candidate for the second job.
###
Star Buck escorted the heavily laden robot transport ship through the wormhole and exited to Latos O-12 in the middle of the remains of a convoy that was in the process of getting killed. Explosions from flares and warp-cores flashed violently in his view and he brought his weapons online with a smooth and well-rehearsed movement. His brainpal analysed the fight and flagged it at once as a trade convoy from UIT that was getting killed by pirates, nothing of interest. He placed his Prometheus between the convoy and the pirates but did not take further action. He sent a coded message to Da Gu who exited the wormhole just behind him, informing him of the situation. A lone Viper was dodging heavy fire from two apparent pirates. ONE had no quarrels with VPR but neither did they help the vigilante guild. The IFF of the VPR ship pinged in on his screen and he raised an eyebrow in curiosity. Well, he raised one in his mind, his features remained as if cut in granite. The VPR was a Serco pilot by the name Cat. He sent a query to ONE HQ asking if he should help her out. The delay in answering was slightly longer than normal but was a negative. Actually, it was an order that he was forbidden to. A longer explanation was attached but was too long to read before he had to exit out of the system. He sent the only help he was allowed to, he wished her the Lady's Luck and jumped.
###
The heavy multipurpose slug pistol had been polished to a sheen many times before and probably didn't need to be polished at this time, but Atice like doing it. Actually, he liked taking things apart and then re-assembling them which was one of the reasons he hadn't been able to stay at the Serco Fighter Pilot School, but that is another story. With expert movements he disassembled the weapon and checked it for faults, grates or scratches. None were found, not even with Atice's enhanced vision and he proceeded to polish the already blank gun metal with the rag he always packed with his weapon. It wasn't like he had anything else to do, he was stuck in his Centurion for at least four hours more on high-ready alert with Ishathis in the other ship to his side. Not that he minded, it was vital to have an Immediate Response Team, but he preferred to be out there among the starts, doing the patrolling himself. With a barely audible whisper of well-oiled metal against well-oiled metal he slid the parts together and loaded the ammunition, checking the ammunition indicator as it turned from red to green, at the same time interfacing with his brainpal and bringing a targeting reticule up directly upon his visual nerves. He holstered the weapon and the reticule disappeared. What to do now... Fortunately for the navigation computer's integrity, the warning light on the launch bay turned from red to amber and his cockpit door closed. A launch alert message along with a vector popped onto his navigation display, Latos O-12. He acknowledged and waited for more information, checked Ish's ship to the side and gave him a thumb’s-up when he looked back. Apparently team 4177 was in trouble. He displayed today's flights but was interrupted by Ish on the private channel.
"It is the junior flight. Some kind of scouting, looks like one is podded."
Podded, meaning that one had been forced to use his emergency life-support. Then the next message would be, ah yes, there it was. The Emergency Warthog received its launch order and shortly after his launch warning turned green. He activated the locks and felt the familiar almost suction-like effect as his craft was drawn down and then pushed out of the station at a gentle point 5 G. He pushed his throttle full forward and thumbed the turbo, propelling his ship forward at 200m/s alongside Ish's. The rescue was on the way.
###
Lambin made a slight adjustment to his course and watched with satisfaction as Shna followed the correction only milliseconds later, staying above and to the right of his Valkyrie. Just to alleviate boredom, he corrected his course again and watched as Shna corrected as well. They jumped into Caelestis Watch and scanned the system, coming up with only the normal security flight. Lambin grunted his annoyance; he had hoped they would pick something up. They flew together out to the 3k mark and jumped in unison to B-5 and the wormhole interface to Helios. A single ship appeared on his radar and he sent an IFF query, expecting a reply if the ship was a friendly or even a neutral ship. He grunted his surprise when the reply came back with the name "KAOS: PINHEAD". He hadn't expected to see a KAOS ship appear as friendly, no with their history and definitely not if they had caught Hortan and kept him as prisoner. Lambin thumbed the turbo and boosted toward the radar echo and was even more surprised when he saw that the ship was a Centaur Mk III. Lambin activated his cargo scanner and ran the beam across the Centaur.
He was hailed in response, "Greetings trader; fly safe." Not what he expected from KAOS, actually this was looking pretty strange. The result came up on his display, an environmental pod shielded by an active device that kept him from discovering what was inside the pod. Maybe the pod contained Hortan's lifepod, it was definitely possible considering the size of it and it fit the information they had. Lambin keyed his comms again, "Pinghead, stop moving and cease jamming the cargo reader."
The reply was swift. "The name is Pinhead and by who's authority?"
Lambin shook his head in anger, what the hell was this pirate up to? "By the authority given to me by TGFT and UIT." There, a small lie but maybe enough to scare the rat into complying.
The comms keyed and the voice on the other end chuckled, "I am an Itani citizen, this is grey space and my guild does not recognise the collected misfits that you call free traders and miners as a power to be reckoned with. Adios sucker."
The Centaur jumped out and Lambin set his navigation system up to follow the ship. Ukari D-1, acitvate jump engines, tear through reality, appear into... nothingness. The KAOS member had avoided him somehow and Lambin punched his fist into the navigation computer, the impact a flat crack of broken knuckles too loud in his cockpit. Shna appeared some 860 metres away and immediately hailed him.
"Where is the baddie?"
"He must have set up a double jump. Lets guard the exits, apparently he was coming from Helios so he is likely to be going to grey or UIT space. You take the Arta interface, I'll take the Latos one. Keep alert and do not engage alone." Without waiting for a response, Lambin jumped to the Latos interface and scanned the sector. Bingo, running hot for the wormhole, unfortunately with a 4k lead. Muttering obscenities under his breath, Lambin sent a signal to Shna at the same time he boosted for the Centaur. His battery drained fast and he had to turn the turbo on and off to conserve power for the chase and to keep his regeneration time low for when he needed everything for the wormhole transfer. That meant that his prey jumped out at around the time Shna jumped in, and too early for Lambin to have any chance of interception. He still tore through the wormhole, but only to see the Centaur jump to the safety of open space. Declaring that the pilot of the Centaur was an unlikely combination of pork and grease and was somehow involved erotically with his own mother, he clenched his fist for another thump at the navcomp and instantly regretted it; his right hand knuckles were well and truly smashed. Gently, he typed up an after action report to GSS while plotting his return course to TGFT HQ. He would probably need some surgery; he could see bones sticking out.
###
The tech didn't really resent having Eggert around, didn't mind his constant staring over his shoulder at the datastream in his holo-display and it didn't really annoy him that Eggert hammered questions at him like bullets from a gatling turret. What he really hated was the litter of sunflower seed-shells that he left every-bloody-where. And the small pieces of sunflower seed that he managed to spray on everything when articulating p's. So when the information they had been waiting for appeared in the holo-web, he was more than willing to hand it over to the spook.
For Eggert, it had been fantastically interesting to see actual data mining and especially to see how his tiny stealthed limpet mine managed to highjack a normal message from a VPR fighter and embed its signal in the datastream. The process was hideously complicated but guaranteed that nobody would find the tracker. He knew precisely what to look for, or rather, the tech did, and it had still taken them the better part of an hour to actually find the stream. But now they had it and Eggert copied the information, but not the format. The signal would delete itself after a couple of minutes to ensure that the carried kept safe. It wasn't often that the UIT intelligence branch, better know by its short name of I-2, had an advantage over the bigger nations and when they did they wanted to keep it for themselves. At least until the secret item could be traded for something even more valuable. Right now he had the information they needed to investigate who was killing off the traders in Latos.
"but neither did they help the vigilante guild"
Yea yea, that's what they all say.
Yea yea, that's what they all say.
Chapter 15
The two pirate ships kept flying as an effective screen between Cat and the slowly moving life support pod that contained Shlim. Every time she tried to move past them, they changed position and forced her back with a deadly stream of energy fire. She scanned deeper and sorted the cargo crates from the pods. An incoming signal interrupted her, it was Strat that informed her that the QRF had been launched and that the next set of fighters were being readied. Useless, then they would be in time to see the pirates disappear and gather the destroyed pods. Another pod was speared, the insides explosively expanding into the vacuum, ending another life. Cat tried once more to come closer to Shlim's pod but was pushed back by the concentrated fusillade of neutrons and positrons that criss-crossed space in front of her. Working every trick she knew, she managed to avoid the beams but it only put her further away from the pod. Reduced to an observer's role, she allocated every erg of energy to her brainpal to come up with a solution to the problem. Actually, one cargo crate item stood out, a Tokomak Fusion Generator control box. A plan formed in her head, a plan that would mean that she would either be destroyed along with the others or maybe, just maybe, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. A couple of pulses from her thrusters placed her where she needed to be for the plan to work. Lights, Camera, Tape rolling, 3, 2, 1
###
Chi frowned at the message on her screen. Her request to go to Daltas Hold and assist in searching for Hortan had been denied by the PA board. Instead she was put on a counter-intelligence mission in Dau, something that could obviously wait. She wanted to help finding Hortan, she was much better at finding people than most of the TGFT pilots, she was.... too deeply involved she realised. The acknowledgement of what she had known for some time hit her like a wet blanket, goose bumps appeared on her arms and she had to blink several times in order to focus on her assignment. Right, she had to go to Dau and meet with a gentleman at the main government plaza. Without thinking she punched up all locations close to the plaza where she could keep a tab on the TGFT pilots, then erased it again. She closed her screen and grabbed the necessary kit for the mission and walked down to the common people mover, the modified Teradon class ship that served to move people between the stations in Dau. She passed the queue and was just about to enter the VIP portal when she reconsidered. She turned and moved down to the launch bays, calling up her Warthog Mk II, ensuring the cargo space had the equipment that she might need. This wasn't in her orders but she could cover it under unforeseen problems if the brass asked her. No matter what, she needed some explanation for why she wanted to bring a heavy-duty cutting laser and a xithricite plasma torch to the capitol of Dau. She would dream something up on the way, something with salvage.
###
Chaakin scanned the cargo thoroughly while letting Ardenus and kalb keep the Snake on the defensive. Most of the cargo was food, water and government-issue plasma guns with accompanying government issue battery packs. The only item that stood out as a thing of value was in the ball of scrap that had once been an Atlas class trade ship, a Valent control box. Unfortunately it was too big for his own cargo hold but should fit nicely in Azrael or Ardenus' once he was finished playing with the snake. Every move the snake made towards the life support pod of the other snake was countered by heavy fire from the to CHRN pilots, prolonging the time it took before Azrael finished killing the other UIT pods. Chaakin shook his head but understood the reasons. He flicked the comms switch;
"Hey Riki-Tiki-Tawi, are you going to pounce on the snake or what?"
The strain in Ardenus' voice was apparent but nothing alarming, "it is a slippery bugger. But I think we have the bastard now."
Chaakin noted how his pilots herded the snake towards the roidfield and away from the lifesupport pods. Something nagged him and he began to run some vectors in his head to see where the snake could go. Another pod had its transponder extinguished by a well-placed stream of positrons, the unlucky passenger disappearing in the shape of a mist of pink crystals into the vacuum. The possible routes the snake could take appeared in his HUD with green, yellow and red in order of possibilities. A couple of options appeared that could become a mess and Chaakin took measures to guard against it.
"Ard, makes sure the snake can't intercept the cargo, Azrael, finish the job and get on with bagging the loot."
He moved his own ship to cover the wormhole in case someone was rushing to the rescue, no doubt the snake's HQ would know what was happening by now.
"No problem Rave, we are on it."
Chaakin noted with great satisfaction how his pilots moved in response to his commands like the wheels inside a well-oiled machine. Azrael boosted to the last UIT life support pod and, savouring the kill, circled it twice before drilling a five-centimetre hole through the centre mass skewering the person inside on a spear of protons. Only one life support pod remained, the one that contained the snake pilot. Azrael turned the Atlas towards the pod and moved at a leisurely pace towards it, intercepting it in seven seconds. Chaakin returned his attention to the other snake pilot and cursed. The pilot had managed to move towards the cargo from an angle that allowed for a quick course change to the snake pod. The turbo on the Vulture was opened on full throttle, a spear of flame fifteen metres pointing away from the pod. The Vulture would intercept the pod before Azrael unless...
"Azrael, shoot the Vulture."
Chaakin saw the minute change in course from the Atlas and expected the Vulture to be engulfed in explosions from the flares and disintegrating armour from the positrons shortly. Instead he saw the Atlas shift slightly back to targeting the pod. He frowned and then guessed Azrael's intentions. He wanted to kill both of the snakes at once when the Vulture had to open the cargo bay and present the un-armoured cargo hold. A correctly placed flare would do it, or at the very least damage it enough that it would be in the kill range for the mega-positron gun he used for secondary armament. It was showing off but not in a bad way. Chaakin boosted in the direction of the soon-to-be-dead snake, just in case, when a duo of arrival rings manifested themselves around 2000 metres away. The snake back-up, and not rookies this time. The ships were identified as belonging to Atice and Ishathis, two veterans and dangerous foes indeed. Chaakin broke contact with the damaged snake and positioned himself to block access to the cargo and thumbed the comms to Ardenus.
"Ard, you had your chance. Mission first, get the cargo and let Azrael deal with the snakes. Kalb, you are on the two new arrivals, I'll be on your six. Azrael, as soon as you are finished, come in from the dorsal position flares blazing."
An explosion lit his right inside cockpit when the flare Azrael had fired went off to his left. Chaakin didn't stop to check if kalb was engaging, he knew the old warhorse would be thundering towards the newcomers and he knew that Azrael would obey orders as well. His position right now was to snipe at the snakes while kalb's heavier ships fixed them with rockets. Azrael would finish it when he arrived, just as they had trained.
###
It had been a while since Wild Gramps had been to Daltas Hold but he was fairly sure that the main habitation module in the shape of a Catherine Wheel was a fairly new addition. A pretty one at that with fusion flames in different colours, depending on the purity of the fuel as well as the heat venting capabilities the engine that was providing the fireworks. He approached the dock slowly with John Eldritch behind him and called Station Approach for clearance. No response on the regular channel. He frowned and switched over to the emergency channel. A signal apparently on repeat whispered through, "...for nearly a week now. The power is slowly trickling back but we can barely run the oxygen scrubbers. Signal end. This is Daltas Hold Approach. No services are available due to a critical malfunction of the main power supply. You may dock but cannot be assisted n launching. You are advised not to dock as no services are currently available and you will need to bring your own life support equipment as the station has been without power for nearly a week now. The...."
Wild Gramps shut the channel and opened one to John instead.
"Interesting, did you get this John?"
"Yeah, the emergency broadcast seems to be looping."
"We haven't heard of this in GSS, sounds pretty bad."
"Wanna go in anyway?"
Gramps checked his onboard inventory, he should be okay for quite a bit with the kit he had on-board. This was not what they were here to do but could be potentially important. He was quite sure that ts could cover their absence for a bit.
"Yeah, are you covered with gear?"
"Always Gramps. I figured we'd go with the infiltration gear?"
Gramps agreed and checked his own suit. Fully charged and ready. He dropped a signals buoy and gently steered his ship into the docking bay, pushed it into the holding clamps and suited up before opening his canopy. The bay was no less hospitable than the outside of the station and he had to move through the vacuum over to the manual airlock to gain access to the station. John clapped his shoulder and together they bounced over to the open outer door of the airlock, shutting it securely behind them. Gramps opened the manual air valve and little air-devils appeared around their feet, disturbing the dust that had gathered on the ground from a week's disuse. When the chamber had filled sufficiently, the room was full of tiny dust-motes that swirled in chaotic patters and obscured the headlight that illuminated the room, impairing their vision. Gramps opened the door.
The two pirate ships kept flying as an effective screen between Cat and the slowly moving life support pod that contained Shlim. Every time she tried to move past them, they changed position and forced her back with a deadly stream of energy fire. She scanned deeper and sorted the cargo crates from the pods. An incoming signal interrupted her, it was Strat that informed her that the QRF had been launched and that the next set of fighters were being readied. Useless, then they would be in time to see the pirates disappear and gather the destroyed pods. Another pod was speared, the insides explosively expanding into the vacuum, ending another life. Cat tried once more to come closer to Shlim's pod but was pushed back by the concentrated fusillade of neutrons and positrons that criss-crossed space in front of her. Working every trick she knew, she managed to avoid the beams but it only put her further away from the pod. Reduced to an observer's role, she allocated every erg of energy to her brainpal to come up with a solution to the problem. Actually, one cargo crate item stood out, a Tokomak Fusion Generator control box. A plan formed in her head, a plan that would mean that she would either be destroyed along with the others or maybe, just maybe, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. A couple of pulses from her thrusters placed her where she needed to be for the plan to work. Lights, Camera, Tape rolling, 3, 2, 1
###
Chi frowned at the message on her screen. Her request to go to Daltas Hold and assist in searching for Hortan had been denied by the PA board. Instead she was put on a counter-intelligence mission in Dau, something that could obviously wait. She wanted to help finding Hortan, she was much better at finding people than most of the TGFT pilots, she was.... too deeply involved she realised. The acknowledgement of what she had known for some time hit her like a wet blanket, goose bumps appeared on her arms and she had to blink several times in order to focus on her assignment. Right, she had to go to Dau and meet with a gentleman at the main government plaza. Without thinking she punched up all locations close to the plaza where she could keep a tab on the TGFT pilots, then erased it again. She closed her screen and grabbed the necessary kit for the mission and walked down to the common people mover, the modified Teradon class ship that served to move people between the stations in Dau. She passed the queue and was just about to enter the VIP portal when she reconsidered. She turned and moved down to the launch bays, calling up her Warthog Mk II, ensuring the cargo space had the equipment that she might need. This wasn't in her orders but she could cover it under unforeseen problems if the brass asked her. No matter what, she needed some explanation for why she wanted to bring a heavy-duty cutting laser and a xithricite plasma torch to the capitol of Dau. She would dream something up on the way, something with salvage.
###
Chaakin scanned the cargo thoroughly while letting Ardenus and kalb keep the Snake on the defensive. Most of the cargo was food, water and government-issue plasma guns with accompanying government issue battery packs. The only item that stood out as a thing of value was in the ball of scrap that had once been an Atlas class trade ship, a Valent control box. Unfortunately it was too big for his own cargo hold but should fit nicely in Azrael or Ardenus' once he was finished playing with the snake. Every move the snake made towards the life support pod of the other snake was countered by heavy fire from the to CHRN pilots, prolonging the time it took before Azrael finished killing the other UIT pods. Chaakin shook his head but understood the reasons. He flicked the comms switch;
"Hey Riki-Tiki-Tawi, are you going to pounce on the snake or what?"
The strain in Ardenus' voice was apparent but nothing alarming, "it is a slippery bugger. But I think we have the bastard now."
Chaakin noted how his pilots herded the snake towards the roidfield and away from the lifesupport pods. Something nagged him and he began to run some vectors in his head to see where the snake could go. Another pod had its transponder extinguished by a well-placed stream of positrons, the unlucky passenger disappearing in the shape of a mist of pink crystals into the vacuum. The possible routes the snake could take appeared in his HUD with green, yellow and red in order of possibilities. A couple of options appeared that could become a mess and Chaakin took measures to guard against it.
"Ard, makes sure the snake can't intercept the cargo, Azrael, finish the job and get on with bagging the loot."
He moved his own ship to cover the wormhole in case someone was rushing to the rescue, no doubt the snake's HQ would know what was happening by now.
"No problem Rave, we are on it."
Chaakin noted with great satisfaction how his pilots moved in response to his commands like the wheels inside a well-oiled machine. Azrael boosted to the last UIT life support pod and, savouring the kill, circled it twice before drilling a five-centimetre hole through the centre mass skewering the person inside on a spear of protons. Only one life support pod remained, the one that contained the snake pilot. Azrael turned the Atlas towards the pod and moved at a leisurely pace towards it, intercepting it in seven seconds. Chaakin returned his attention to the other snake pilot and cursed. The pilot had managed to move towards the cargo from an angle that allowed for a quick course change to the snake pod. The turbo on the Vulture was opened on full throttle, a spear of flame fifteen metres pointing away from the pod. The Vulture would intercept the pod before Azrael unless...
"Azrael, shoot the Vulture."
Chaakin saw the minute change in course from the Atlas and expected the Vulture to be engulfed in explosions from the flares and disintegrating armour from the positrons shortly. Instead he saw the Atlas shift slightly back to targeting the pod. He frowned and then guessed Azrael's intentions. He wanted to kill both of the snakes at once when the Vulture had to open the cargo bay and present the un-armoured cargo hold. A correctly placed flare would do it, or at the very least damage it enough that it would be in the kill range for the mega-positron gun he used for secondary armament. It was showing off but not in a bad way. Chaakin boosted in the direction of the soon-to-be-dead snake, just in case, when a duo of arrival rings manifested themselves around 2000 metres away. The snake back-up, and not rookies this time. The ships were identified as belonging to Atice and Ishathis, two veterans and dangerous foes indeed. Chaakin broke contact with the damaged snake and positioned himself to block access to the cargo and thumbed the comms to Ardenus.
"Ard, you had your chance. Mission first, get the cargo and let Azrael deal with the snakes. Kalb, you are on the two new arrivals, I'll be on your six. Azrael, as soon as you are finished, come in from the dorsal position flares blazing."
An explosion lit his right inside cockpit when the flare Azrael had fired went off to his left. Chaakin didn't stop to check if kalb was engaging, he knew the old warhorse would be thundering towards the newcomers and he knew that Azrael would obey orders as well. His position right now was to snipe at the snakes while kalb's heavier ships fixed them with rockets. Azrael would finish it when he arrived, just as they had trained.
###
It had been a while since Wild Gramps had been to Daltas Hold but he was fairly sure that the main habitation module in the shape of a Catherine Wheel was a fairly new addition. A pretty one at that with fusion flames in different colours, depending on the purity of the fuel as well as the heat venting capabilities the engine that was providing the fireworks. He approached the dock slowly with John Eldritch behind him and called Station Approach for clearance. No response on the regular channel. He frowned and switched over to the emergency channel. A signal apparently on repeat whispered through, "...for nearly a week now. The power is slowly trickling back but we can barely run the oxygen scrubbers. Signal end. This is Daltas Hold Approach. No services are available due to a critical malfunction of the main power supply. You may dock but cannot be assisted n launching. You are advised not to dock as no services are currently available and you will need to bring your own life support equipment as the station has been without power for nearly a week now. The...."
Wild Gramps shut the channel and opened one to John instead.
"Interesting, did you get this John?"
"Yeah, the emergency broadcast seems to be looping."
"We haven't heard of this in GSS, sounds pretty bad."
"Wanna go in anyway?"
Gramps checked his onboard inventory, he should be okay for quite a bit with the kit he had on-board. This was not what they were here to do but could be potentially important. He was quite sure that ts could cover their absence for a bit.
"Yeah, are you covered with gear?"
"Always Gramps. I figured we'd go with the infiltration gear?"
Gramps agreed and checked his own suit. Fully charged and ready. He dropped a signals buoy and gently steered his ship into the docking bay, pushed it into the holding clamps and suited up before opening his canopy. The bay was no less hospitable than the outside of the station and he had to move through the vacuum over to the manual airlock to gain access to the station. John clapped his shoulder and together they bounced over to the open outer door of the airlock, shutting it securely behind them. Gramps opened the manual air valve and little air-devils appeared around their feet, disturbing the dust that had gathered on the ground from a week's disuse. When the chamber had filled sufficiently, the room was full of tiny dust-motes that swirled in chaotic patters and obscured the headlight that illuminated the room, impairing their vision. Gramps opened the door.
Chapter 16
The pirates had moved as she hoped they would, manoeuvring to protect their valuable cargo and allowing her to have a free run towards the remaining life support pod, the one containing Shlim.
Action. Cat stopped dodging like a mad and focused on the spot between the two pirates, closing fast. The two pirates moved in response and covered the area between them with a barrage of anti-particles. Cat pushed the front dorsal thrusters for half a second and then fed all power to the turbo overdrive, propelling her Vulture towards the life support pod. She channelled every spare erg of power her body could provide into her brainpal and initiated "bullet time", the process that bypassed her normal wetware and instead processed everything inside the brainpal itself. Time slowed immensely, every second was stretched out to ten, but at a cost.
She ran the vectors through her brainpal and saw her own line intercept one and a half second before the Execution Atlas. It would have to be enough. The timing would be incredibly tight but it was the only chance she had. If only the Atlas killer would hold his fire for a second.
She saw the small change in course and realised that the Atlas was going to fire on her instead of killing Shlim. After the first ten-second, her brain had heated with a full Kelvin. Scenarios hammered through her brainpal with the most likely to succeed scenarios emerging on top in a continuously changing list of factors. None of them allowed for the survival of Shlim and most didn't allow for the survival of any of them. The only place on her Vulture where the armour hadn't been penetrated was on her bottom and if she was to pick Shlim up, she had to open the cargo opening in the bottom and thus negate what armour she had. Unless... Desperate situations calls for desperate means and Cat did something she would never have thought professional or even remotely clever; she disregarded her brainpal's suggestions and relied on her intuition instead, keeping the enhanced reflexes running. Three Kelvin and rising at a steady one Kelvin per ten-second, she would have at the best another three ten-seconds before her brains started taking permanent damage. She shunted almost freezing water through her helmet heat exchanger to buy herself another ten-second. She twisted the Vulture so she would have her vulnerable top armour between the pirate and Shlim's pod when she intercepted the pod. The pirate shifted ever so slightly, targeting the intercept point and perhaps hoping to get both of them at once. Two rings of exotic matter preceded the Immediate Response Team.
###
Azrael didn't feel anything as the Vulture twisted the cargo bay away from his Atlas, presenting its perforated and torn dorsal armour and as far as he could see, slightly off target. He didn't feel any need to show off, he didn't feel any satisfaction with the kills he had made so far. He felt about as much as a Tornado feels when it tears through a collection of pre-school children; nothing. He merely killed as much as he could, as efficiently as he could. The Vulture would surely be torn asunder by a single flare, the probably life support pod that followed would either be damaged from the blast or be easy prey for his megapositron canon. And the two new arrivals meant that he needed to do this as efficiently as possible. He fired his flare at the rendezvous point, stringing beads of positrons above and below the Vulture, forcing it to either intercept the flare, abandon the pod or take the positrons directly on the armour. It was a perfect shot.
###
Atice winced at the armour read-out he received from Cat, less than 17% left and almost all of it on her ventral parts. A quick visual scan of her fighter showed damaged parts tethered to the ship by the wires that were supposed to power or control those parts, at least two cockpit breaches had been sealed by yellow emergency-foam and the left aft wing was torn clean off. Not that the wing mattered. Unlike true spaceships like the Behemoth or the Valkyrie, the Vulture had been designed to be an atmospheric fighter as well as a vacuum fighter but the ship would easily work without the control surfaces. Atice sent an order to Cat on the encrypted Viper direct radio channel.
"Hang in there Cat, we have another flight here in a minute. Break clear and escape."
She didn't reply; instead he saw the battered atmosphere-leaking Vulture move with an apparent deathwish towards the pod that contained Shlim.
"Ish, we need to engage the Atlas and get the rookies out of there."
"I agree Atice, you take him out, I'll cover our rear until Strat and Niut arrives."
"Roger, I'll alert the medic-Hog, we are probably going to need it."
Atice could hear the chuckle as Ishathis responded, "Not as much as these rats are going to need it."
Atice grinned, that was why the medic-hog had an armoured medical bay with room for prisoners as well. He thumbed the turbo and thundered towards Cat's ship that was now less than a second from the flare's proximity fuse detonation.
###
The corridor was empty, dark and filthy, a layer of... well, Gramps hoped it was inorganic matter, a layer approximately five centimetres thick on the deckplates. Gramps slowly panned the helmet-light over the corridor, ending at a particularly large bundle of filth and rags. Guess it wasn't all inorganic. John's light played all over the ceiling and came to rest on the bundle as well. A deep voice broke the silence inside Gramps suit.
"Probably nothing Gramps. Otherwise we are in deeper shit than I could have imagined."
"Yeah, I hope you are right. Just, lets proceed with caution. How's your atmo reading?"
"Pretty good actually. Higher levels of carbon dioxide. Traces of nervegas, probably trylene or some other pacifier agent. Quite a bit of soot in the air as well, maybe they had a fire. It would be breathable if needed. Bloody cold though, temperature is 251 Kelvin."
Gramps noted that even as John was reading from his suit's sensors, he was at the same time grabbing his Omni pistol, setting the power to stun. Gramps agreed with the implicit threat assessment and found his own heavy pistol. He flicked the safety off and then back on to be certain of the weapon status, an old habit ever since he had been a raw recruit. They moved on down the corridor, dust motes playing aerial dodge games in the lights. Posters showing the entertainment, services, shopping or communications available on station hung colourless in the white glare of the helmet lights, a heavy frosting covering them in panes of ice. Further along the corridor a faint flickering could be seen down the left side; a service light still functioning. Under the light was a single person clad in a large orange fake fur coat and pants, working at something inside the wall itself. He turned to John and Gramps, adjusted the light away from their direction and moved the heavy furred cap further back on his head. His wide face that was obviously unwashed and gleaned of fat, split in a wide grin that showed a full rack of milky white teeth underneath the heavy black moustache. John returned his Omni gun to the holster, opened his helmet and grinned back.
"Shodda known you lot would com' round. Bar's clos'd John."
"Buzz, good to see you. Wanna fill us in?"
"Do you have Mists?"
John nodded and produced a silver flask from his left side utility pocket. Buzz grabbed it eagerly and took a long pull, pocketing the remains.
"Nice, like coming back to life for the first time. Forces a bit of heat into me as well. Lemme finish this and I'll take you to the head honcho."
He returned his cap to its former position, returned to the electric wires and started working again.
###
Cat started the corkscrew manoeuvre at the precisely correct moment, opening the cargo hatch half a second into the twist. If this would have any chance of success, the pod needed to hit the edge of the cargo hatch and bounce into the cargo space, allowing her to close the bay door before the explosion and save them both. The pod impacted slightly to the side on the hatch, hammering into her cargo space with a tooth-shattering impact. Cat continued the twist and closed the cargo door per reflex, not using her slow biological wetware but trusting completely on her cybernetic implants and the calculations of her brainpal. It almost worked. She could see the flare warhead thunder towards her on a spear of expended rocket fuel, could see the warhead explode and almost flinched as the shrapnel hammered into the side of her fighter. The left frontal wing was torn almost completely off, the cockpit canopy was crushed and penetrated in several places, the engine armour disintegrated and the small rudders disappeared spinning into the void. The ship computer noted catastrophic malfunction and triggered her pod ejection but she cancelled the command with her brainpal. A fistful of positrons destroyed her weapons; another hit the fuel valve regulator effectively killing the main propulsion. Yellow crash-foam expanded and covered the leaks in the cockpit, stopping the further decompression. Cat stopped the bullet time, it wasn’t helping anyway anymore, and noted the temperature inside her skull. 331 Kelvin; just short of catastrophic and irrevocable damage. She looked over at the Atlas and expected to see death arriving in the form of positrons any time, saw the flash from the heavy gun below the ship and...
The pirates had moved as she hoped they would, manoeuvring to protect their valuable cargo and allowing her to have a free run towards the remaining life support pod, the one containing Shlim.
Action. Cat stopped dodging like a mad and focused on the spot between the two pirates, closing fast. The two pirates moved in response and covered the area between them with a barrage of anti-particles. Cat pushed the front dorsal thrusters for half a second and then fed all power to the turbo overdrive, propelling her Vulture towards the life support pod. She channelled every spare erg of power her body could provide into her brainpal and initiated "bullet time", the process that bypassed her normal wetware and instead processed everything inside the brainpal itself. Time slowed immensely, every second was stretched out to ten, but at a cost.
She ran the vectors through her brainpal and saw her own line intercept one and a half second before the Execution Atlas. It would have to be enough. The timing would be incredibly tight but it was the only chance she had. If only the Atlas killer would hold his fire for a second.
She saw the small change in course and realised that the Atlas was going to fire on her instead of killing Shlim. After the first ten-second, her brain had heated with a full Kelvin. Scenarios hammered through her brainpal with the most likely to succeed scenarios emerging on top in a continuously changing list of factors. None of them allowed for the survival of Shlim and most didn't allow for the survival of any of them. The only place on her Vulture where the armour hadn't been penetrated was on her bottom and if she was to pick Shlim up, she had to open the cargo opening in the bottom and thus negate what armour she had. Unless... Desperate situations calls for desperate means and Cat did something she would never have thought professional or even remotely clever; she disregarded her brainpal's suggestions and relied on her intuition instead, keeping the enhanced reflexes running. Three Kelvin and rising at a steady one Kelvin per ten-second, she would have at the best another three ten-seconds before her brains started taking permanent damage. She shunted almost freezing water through her helmet heat exchanger to buy herself another ten-second. She twisted the Vulture so she would have her vulnerable top armour between the pirate and Shlim's pod when she intercepted the pod. The pirate shifted ever so slightly, targeting the intercept point and perhaps hoping to get both of them at once. Two rings of exotic matter preceded the Immediate Response Team.
###
Azrael didn't feel anything as the Vulture twisted the cargo bay away from his Atlas, presenting its perforated and torn dorsal armour and as far as he could see, slightly off target. He didn't feel any need to show off, he didn't feel any satisfaction with the kills he had made so far. He felt about as much as a Tornado feels when it tears through a collection of pre-school children; nothing. He merely killed as much as he could, as efficiently as he could. The Vulture would surely be torn asunder by a single flare, the probably life support pod that followed would either be damaged from the blast or be easy prey for his megapositron canon. And the two new arrivals meant that he needed to do this as efficiently as possible. He fired his flare at the rendezvous point, stringing beads of positrons above and below the Vulture, forcing it to either intercept the flare, abandon the pod or take the positrons directly on the armour. It was a perfect shot.
###
Atice winced at the armour read-out he received from Cat, less than 17% left and almost all of it on her ventral parts. A quick visual scan of her fighter showed damaged parts tethered to the ship by the wires that were supposed to power or control those parts, at least two cockpit breaches had been sealed by yellow emergency-foam and the left aft wing was torn clean off. Not that the wing mattered. Unlike true spaceships like the Behemoth or the Valkyrie, the Vulture had been designed to be an atmospheric fighter as well as a vacuum fighter but the ship would easily work without the control surfaces. Atice sent an order to Cat on the encrypted Viper direct radio channel.
"Hang in there Cat, we have another flight here in a minute. Break clear and escape."
She didn't reply; instead he saw the battered atmosphere-leaking Vulture move with an apparent deathwish towards the pod that contained Shlim.
"Ish, we need to engage the Atlas and get the rookies out of there."
"I agree Atice, you take him out, I'll cover our rear until Strat and Niut arrives."
"Roger, I'll alert the medic-Hog, we are probably going to need it."
Atice could hear the chuckle as Ishathis responded, "Not as much as these rats are going to need it."
Atice grinned, that was why the medic-hog had an armoured medical bay with room for prisoners as well. He thumbed the turbo and thundered towards Cat's ship that was now less than a second from the flare's proximity fuse detonation.
###
The corridor was empty, dark and filthy, a layer of... well, Gramps hoped it was inorganic matter, a layer approximately five centimetres thick on the deckplates. Gramps slowly panned the helmet-light over the corridor, ending at a particularly large bundle of filth and rags. Guess it wasn't all inorganic. John's light played all over the ceiling and came to rest on the bundle as well. A deep voice broke the silence inside Gramps suit.
"Probably nothing Gramps. Otherwise we are in deeper shit than I could have imagined."
"Yeah, I hope you are right. Just, lets proceed with caution. How's your atmo reading?"
"Pretty good actually. Higher levels of carbon dioxide. Traces of nervegas, probably trylene or some other pacifier agent. Quite a bit of soot in the air as well, maybe they had a fire. It would be breathable if needed. Bloody cold though, temperature is 251 Kelvin."
Gramps noted that even as John was reading from his suit's sensors, he was at the same time grabbing his Omni pistol, setting the power to stun. Gramps agreed with the implicit threat assessment and found his own heavy pistol. He flicked the safety off and then back on to be certain of the weapon status, an old habit ever since he had been a raw recruit. They moved on down the corridor, dust motes playing aerial dodge games in the lights. Posters showing the entertainment, services, shopping or communications available on station hung colourless in the white glare of the helmet lights, a heavy frosting covering them in panes of ice. Further along the corridor a faint flickering could be seen down the left side; a service light still functioning. Under the light was a single person clad in a large orange fake fur coat and pants, working at something inside the wall itself. He turned to John and Gramps, adjusted the light away from their direction and moved the heavy furred cap further back on his head. His wide face that was obviously unwashed and gleaned of fat, split in a wide grin that showed a full rack of milky white teeth underneath the heavy black moustache. John returned his Omni gun to the holster, opened his helmet and grinned back.
"Shodda known you lot would com' round. Bar's clos'd John."
"Buzz, good to see you. Wanna fill us in?"
"Do you have Mists?"
John nodded and produced a silver flask from his left side utility pocket. Buzz grabbed it eagerly and took a long pull, pocketing the remains.
"Nice, like coming back to life for the first time. Forces a bit of heat into me as well. Lemme finish this and I'll take you to the head honcho."
He returned his cap to its former position, returned to the electric wires and started working again.
###
Cat started the corkscrew manoeuvre at the precisely correct moment, opening the cargo hatch half a second into the twist. If this would have any chance of success, the pod needed to hit the edge of the cargo hatch and bounce into the cargo space, allowing her to close the bay door before the explosion and save them both. The pod impacted slightly to the side on the hatch, hammering into her cargo space with a tooth-shattering impact. Cat continued the twist and closed the cargo door per reflex, not using her slow biological wetware but trusting completely on her cybernetic implants and the calculations of her brainpal. It almost worked. She could see the flare warhead thunder towards her on a spear of expended rocket fuel, could see the warhead explode and almost flinched as the shrapnel hammered into the side of her fighter. The left frontal wing was torn almost completely off, the cockpit canopy was crushed and penetrated in several places, the engine armour disintegrated and the small rudders disappeared spinning into the void. The ship computer noted catastrophic malfunction and triggered her pod ejection but she cancelled the command with her brainpal. A fistful of positrons destroyed her weapons; another hit the fuel valve regulator effectively killing the main propulsion. Yellow crash-foam expanded and covered the leaks in the cockpit, stopping the further decompression. Cat stopped the bullet time, it wasn’t helping anyway anymore, and noted the temperature inside her skull. 331 Kelvin; just short of catastrophic and irrevocable damage. She looked over at the Atlas and expected to see death arriving in the form of positrons any time, saw the flash from the heavy gun below the ship and...