by Martin Perry
“What...have I ever done to deserve this 24?” Champion said, hollowed and cold. He was in shock. “What did they ever do to deserve this?”
The korakian and the rest of the gang shifted away, off of the projection platform and out of sight. Josia 24 moved ever closer.
“It should be obvious,” he spat. “You chose another, you chose them all, over me. You chose to do things without me in your life. You cast me aside like a cheap whore.” He crouched down, his eyes meeting the Captain’s, who had curled around on his knees. “I loved you Champion.”
“What are you talking about 24? You’re not making sense.”
“Let me paint an even clearer picture for you then,” joviality and theatre returning to Josia 24’s voice for a moment, “since it seems oh so hard to understand.
“These are Los Piratas de Elsevern. A homely crowd, not too fond of unwelcome visitors however. They have assisted me in bringing retribution on your head for all of this.” 24 twirled a finger into the air, directing his eyes around to the command deck that he couldn’t see. “They have assisted me in making you suffer for the fact you didn’t think me good enough for your team, good enough for you. That you went ahead and bought this ship, under my guidance, without ever thinking to offer the olive branch of partnership. Without ever thinking of me at all.”
“Josia, stop this now! You can still walk away from this," Champion said, struggling to start managing the situation, still processing the deaths that lay out in front of him.
“Quiet now. I pointed you in the direction of this ship, the best business opportunity this side of an undiscovered gold mine,” he said, his volume rising sharply, hands shaking the air. “And you left me to rot! On fucking Lunarkan! Now... Los Piratas are going to help me take it all away from you. They are going to help me punish you for denying my love.” With a click of his fingers, the lunark disappeared.
With that the first hit rocked Annie on her axis, the lagging anti-gravity systems noticing the change too slowly to stop the Captain being thrown to the ground. The impact brought him to his senses, and as warning lights began to flash, he hastily rose to his feet, wiping shame from his face and lurching toward his panel. Slamming a fist down against it, he activated the ship wide communications and took a deep breath.
“Crew of Jump Cannon,” Champion said, confidence returning to his voice, the menace of battle restoring some of his pride. “We are under attack by a War Class Lunarkan ship. Field team has been lost, I repeat, field team has been lost. Get to your battle-stations and prepare to engage.”
His fist slammed down again, and he turned to the gawking command deck crew.
“Navigation, take us behind the smallest moon. Evasive manoeuvres. We are faster. Use it.”
Maur had been down in maintenance when the first blast hit, and had just about got his wits together by the time the second round crashed into the retreating Jump Cannon’s starboard engine room, sending them in a corkscrew. He ran up the nearby stairs, getting to the walkways that ran above the operational level of each area of the ship. He headed right at the top, jogging toward the starboard bow and closer to his post providing support to the artillerymen on that side of the ship. Maur felt disorientated, and the faces around him spoke of the same, as they rushed away to meet the threat.
“Guys!”
“No time Maur!”
Charles and Kerra sprinted past him, careering toward the turret pods accessible from the walkways that circled the hangar. The soldiers were always the first to fire back, support staff like Maur were more often left in the background. He sprinted onward, desperately trying to keep it together. They had never faced a ship as strong as a Lunarkan War Class, and the evidence was already starting to show.
Charles and Kerra rose up in their bubbles, turrets protruding out to space. With four other pairs around them they sprayed fire back onto the War Class but with little effect. Artillery fire thundered past their heads, accompanying the red hot rounds that they were firing. A torrent of fire that the opposing ship had no trouble rebutting, protective measures launched into the sky to meet the barrage. They disabled it all save for a few rounds, artillery fire puffing into non-existance against the counter-measures.
“Fuck! Tell them to fire again!” Kerra shouted, hurrying the artillery teams into action in her mind. She could tell that they were more than outclassed, the War Class barely phased by the weaponry they had aboard.
Whether the artillery teams had launched further rounds or not, the battle would have gone the same way. Kerra watched with horror as the War Class' primary cannon heated, began to spin, then finally launching its powerful payload toward them. They had taken their time, had charged the cannon higher than before, and in the seconds before its impact Kerra knew that this third direct hit would eliminate whatever chance they had left of all getting out of this alive.
It ripped through their hull, the noise of the vacuum denying the victims their right to scream. Only Charles and Kerra's turret pod remained intact, the others were now just gold fish bowls filled with blood, streams of it fading into the black of space.
"We need to go Kerra," said Charles. She heard him, but the shock of such rapid loss made it a struggle for her to move.
“Captain, we’ve lost the starboard engine, the entire room has been ripped clean off the ship,” cried a stressed statistics assistant on the command deck, a puran woman named Themlia Yong. “We can’t maintain evasive manoeuvres crippled like this. Main weapons systems are down!”
“We do the only thing we can then.” He hesitated for a moment, deliberating just how overwhelmed they were. “We fire whatever we have. That includes the ship. We ram them.”
The ship wide communications had been on when he said it, his thumb still hovered over the button on his flat touch sensitive panel, and even among the carnage and death that was ravaging Annie, a silence seemed to fall upon the ship. It felt as though you could hear a pin drop.
“You heard Captain Champion,” it was Charles’ voice coming over comms, he had made it to the turrets along with Kerra. “Prepare for impact.”
The navigation crew hastily plotted a course, attempting to compensate for the missing starboard engine. Everybody in front of a weapon immediately opened fire upon the Piratas ship as soon as they circled around the side of the moon. The remaining engine was thrown up to full power, and they hurtled towards their enemy in a blaze of gunfire and artillery rounds.
“For those of you about to lose your lives,” boomed the Captain, “you will always be remembered as family.”
Annie impacted against the lunark ship, her underside fracturing the front of the craft that housed the opposing command deck, her sheer mass breaking through their shields with ease. The enemy crew members were thrown forward, silently hurtled out of fresh hissing vacuums, new wounds left by the screeching path they carved down the top of Los Piratas de Elsevern’s carriage. It was an intimidating creature, overlapping panels of lunark metals giving it the appearance of a great armadillo unable to protect itself against the massive rock that ripped apart her hull. Bodies from both ships were already floating in the space that surrounded them before Annie had even unlatched herself from her attacker. As she spun into the orbit of Elsevern, explosions could be seen aboard the lunark aggressor. With an almighty flash, its near-quantum engine imploded, leaving an empty space where rage once hovered.
On the surface of Elsevern a rescue team launched, having received the automated cry of Annie. Aboard her, only a lucky few and those locked in their own exclusive atmosphere survived. Twenty-two females dead, forty-six men.
“I’ve heard many species, from lunarks to korakians, say that our women are easy. That they will open their legs to anybody with a pistol and a mean attitude. The truth is much more simple than that, ladies and gentlemen, when you’ve been getting dick as tiny as ours for millennia, you greet the swinging low colonists with an open gate! I can’t say I blame them! You guys are mighty impressive!”
Part of famous puran comic Urian Doom’s sell-out stand-up tour, now available as a sim from all good retailers. Content unsuitable for most children, discretion is still advised for korakian parents.
Chapter Five
“The Captain has given us some requisition tasks to complete today team,” said Kerra, with an unusual level of pompousness in her voice. “We’re going into Cirramorr.”
The four of them were sitting in the dining area again, having just filled up on breakfast. Maur was feeling significantly better. His head was only thumping a little bit. The medication being crushed into his food was stopping any infections from spreading, while Dr. Beat’s repairs finished themselves off. A couple of times during the night he had woken with itchy feeling deep below the freshly sutured skin. The good doctor had slipped him a few nanos to try and speed it all up.
Busying themselves with the torn internal flesh, stitching it together and encouraging new cell growth through slow release medication stored in their tiny frames, these microscopic robots were expensive. He had either been given them because she had felt some sympathy for him, perhaps predicting the oncoming onslaught of humiliation he was about to suffer, or the Captain himself had authorised the spend. With such a small crew, one that as a registered ship of Earth they would not be able replenish until they returned home, it was worth keeping him healthy. Still, he could swear they were trying to make him itchy on purpose.
“And...” said Thom, shaking his head quickly from left to right and back again, leaning his chin forward while pushing his cutlery together.
Maur knew what he was digging for. Kerra had promised they could continue their detective work and take the gun to the historian she claimed to know. In all honesty, Maur was unmoved by the idea, his capture and resulting escape something he was keen to put behind him as soon as the nanos had finished up. Thom wouldn’t have listened to such sentiments as he had found quite a strong love of sleuthing since his combat training. They had been on Cirramorr for well over two months now, almost ready to leave and head back towards Earth. Fortunately for their own sanity, the Captain had permitted them to take on some work while they were there.
Josia 24’s betrayal had left him rattled, and as such they had been forced to find the jobs from local agents on the surface of Pura. Other than a couple of gunfights, both ending without casualty for the team of four, the majority of their time had been spent hunting down people who owed money to merchants and garages. Thom had demonstrated a keen nose for tracking, following clues with some gusto, and Maur’s ordeal was evidently too tempting for his attuned senses to ignore.
“And what?” blurted Kerra. She was toying with him, and the grin on Charles’ face gave the game away.
“We have jobs to do Thom. What is the problem?” Charles smirked.
“You know what! Don’t do this to me! You promised adventure and I want what I’m due.” Despite being a decent detective, he was no good at picking up on the rouses of friends.
“Not going to be much adventure picking up food, fuel and a few items for transport, Thom.” Maur had decided to join in, leaning back on the bench and stretching his arms behind his head. “But, if you’re good, we’ll let you visit the kid’s park!”
Charles, Kerra and Maur bubbled barely concealed laughter under their breath. Thom stomped his feet, grabbed up their empty plates and dragged them off to the kitchen. He attempted to make the whole thing look mature, as if he was walking away from a fight as the bigger man, but failed miserably. Maur saw him slide through the door into the kitchen and harass his one remaining assistant as petty redemption. The kid was probably used to it by now.
“He’s right though. We’ll get everything done and head over to the weapons guy,” Kerra directed. “I just don’t want him asking if we are there yet every five minutes.”
“Don’t get upset at the children Kerra,” Charles joked. “After all, at least Thom didn’t have a little accident last time we went out. Isn’t that right Shit-Stain?”
Fooling with Thom hadn’t taken their minds off Maur’s own disgrace. He gave them a dead-pan look, trying to beam his anger right into their minds.
“Ha. OK guys, lets go get suited up,” Kerra laughed, flipping her legs over the bench, unable to shift it back given Charles’ weight. “Thom! Get your sulky ass out here!”
They headed out of the dining room and took the short walk into the hangar. The purans had really done something special with it. Previously, it had just been an empty shell, intended for storage and very little else. A few old chairs and some ratty lockers had been thrown into the corner - the original locker area having made way for the women’s cabins back when Captain Champion had taken on Annie for the first time. Now though, the purans had cordoned off a proper prep room, at the far starboard side of the new hangar. The second floor they had put in, greatly expanding the overhead walkways, meant that cargo could be stored separately from the new suite of six scout vehicles and the two mobile fighters that could be deployed when they were in space. While the scouts were nice, with their rugged, angular grey-blue shells and massive tyres, they were nothing on the fighters. The team wandered past them, the new toys awarded prime location, facing out towards the hangar bay doors.
The Extreme Battle Adjustment Craft 150, or EBAC-150 if you preferred the short-hand, was the sort of thing that Maur had dreamt of maintaining when he was first earning his qualifications. Littered with bleeding edge technology, they were capable of independent near-quantum travel. On the weapons front, they featured two RAITT equipped automatic turrets, or Random Artificial Intelligence Turret Technology to use the long-form. Pilots, yet to be designated and most likely to be hired in as part of the new crew, would also have access to long range laser cannons, miniature versions of the new ones being fitted to Annie, as well as a healthy number of cluster missiles. With turrets that could predict random evasion patterns with alarming accuracy, this sort of arsenal made even Maur comfortable with the idea of strapping himself in. Sort of.
It was their looks that really got him though; being a craft-head at heart he felt himself able to appreciate their design more than the other crew members. The bodies were made of a single piece pearlescent white compound metal. A rounded nose, where the cannons two sat, finned out into flat wings that curved out behind the pilot’s pod, leaving an empty space. The sharp tips finished after the turret emplacements, the two RAITTs sitting comfortably at the rear of the ship, creating an inconspicuous convex either side of the pilot pod that would raise to reveal the gun when required. The propulsion systems concealed themselves too, with two underside hatches flipping out when you turned the EBAC-150 on, along with the missile bays. Best of all, the body morphed completely during near-quantum, the power from the standard engines being used to charge the metal, turning it into a malleable liquid. Once the on-board system were done configuring it, the ship took a much more dart-like shape while it travelled at its greatest speeds.
To actually watch that happen might be reason enough to enrol himself in flying lessons.
“Watch it!” shouted a puran worker, his tools clattering to the ground as Maur crashed into him. “Pay attention to where you're going asshole!”
Maur waved apologetically and jogged after his team into the plush new prep area. Red velvet walls ran around the room, with evenly spaced stools sitting in front of large gunmetal coloured tubes. There were one-hundred-and-forty of them in neat rows, one for each potential member of Annie’s crew. There were deep-set indentations in the tubes, where you could store lucky charms, non-ship-issue weaponry and family reminders. Only a few of the current crew had bothered to put anything in the slots, and the overall effort looked a little pathetic.
Maur, Thom, Charles and Kerra had chosen spots next to each other at the back of the central row – not one of them had a trinket yet.
“I do not like the idea of the new prep area being littered with crap,” said Charles with a grump in his voice. “I will apologise to no-one if I s
tamp all over their prized family heirloom in the midst of preparing for battle.” Nobody disagreed with the sentiment.
Maur slapped the tube, sending the space for personal effects into the floor, his personal armoury descending from the ceiling. He looked at his set of body armour. Bright red in colour, he had gone for flexibility over defence when he had picked it. It was intended to protect him from debris and chemical spills during vehicle maintenance after all, not for fending off attackers. As such, many smaller panels overlapped each other across the chest, back, shoulders and arms. Each panel was a different shape, although symmetrical with its opposite on each side of his body, and were curved rather than sharp-edged. There was an almost lizard-like quality to it. His sides were exposed with no panelling to cover them, but the sleek black under-skin was still capable of protecting from light projectile fire and a few laser rounds. The leg coverings followed a similar pattern, the black suit visible when you twisted your limbs. Boots were built in, with larger panels used given that little flexibility was required between the knee and ankle.
Kerra wore similar armour in a light green colour. Rather than the smooth panels that Maur preferred she had chosen components more like those that he had borrowed down in the sewer. It was a sensible choice, the gridded materials supported by their own structure and less likely to crack. Charles’ used this sort of material too, although his navy toned suit had far fewer individual panels and was designed to withstand real punishment. When they had taken Thom to get his first set of armour at Cirramorr’s Regent Military Supply, a seemingly endless superstore, he had tried on most of the dealers stock. Much to the chagrin of the assistant serving them, his false enthusiasm had waned after the twelfth full set had been pulled down from the racks.