by Chris Kuhn
All of them made me smile.
I didn't know who owned the ship, but it clearly hadn't been Udo. Maybe Pullings? He'd stolen it, maybe, or bought it under some condition whereby the contents had been included. Maybe the owner was dead. Maybe he'd gone bankrupt and the ship had been repossessed. Maybe that's what Mia had done for a living - repossessed ships. I suspected she would have been good at it.
"Hi," I said to the freighter, looking around the room. "I realize that I fired a railgun at you earlier, but now I'd like to be friends."
I had to get to the bridge, there was still a matter of an exploding anti-matter missile to contend with, and by my HUD's chronometer, I had less than 12 minutes left before this whole region of space would become white hot and angry.
Bridges are up, and usually somewhere in the middle-ish. Not always smart. Convention dies hard. I found the door to the bridge. There was no lock or touchpad. There was only a handle. I opened the door and moved through it.
Bridge.
Compared the the Pridemore, it was barely worthy of the name. The place was small, cozy but not cramped. It reminded me of the entire inside of the Felix, but bit more roomy. Two seats, two consoles, and wall-mounted restraints for several people.
Half Cockpit, half bridge.
I looked at the display on my faceplate. It showed an atmosphere, a livable environment in the room. I hesitated. The air was safe, and the suit was clumsy. I needed to work efficiently. I unsnapped the collar and lifted my helmet. The air rushed against my face and I smelled the faint aroma of incense and something that smelled a lot like a skunk.
I wormed my way out of the EVA suit, leaving the clunky thing on the deck. I climbed into the helms seat, feeling the soft cool fabric against my neck. I touched the panel with my bare hand and it sprang to life.
Unfamiliar, but - like the airlock – intuitive.
Status. Docking port damaged, lateral sensors disabled, fuel pump number six broken. Engines online. Reactor online.
Okay. We can live with that.
I checked the transponder to see if it was squawking a military or political affiliation. It wasn't. I supposed it wouldn't have been. Pirate ships doing pirate shit usually didn't broadcast pirate registration numbers. The transponder was neutral.
I'm a freighter. A nice ship. Let's make a link.
I turned off the transponder. I had no idea if the ship was stolen or borrowed or something else. The freighter might try to make links with the wrong kind of friends. The Melbourne wouldn't be here for another few hours, but they'd be scanning the area ahead of them. I was pretty sure that the massive energy released by an anti-matter explosion would interfere with their sensors to a certain degree.
Pretty sure. Certain degree. Not good phrases. Time to go.
I didn't know where to go, but it couldn't be here. I stared at the console, the screen asking for a destination. The easiest place to get to from here without much thought was in a lunar orbit over Dakarta's moon. Even if the missile's blast was big enough to destroy the planet, I'd supposedly have enough time to turn around and haul-ass to some kind of safe distance. I set a course for the moon, and the ship's flight computer did most of the rest of the work for me.
Less than two minutes later the Pit-Fiend was in orbit above the moon, and Dakarta was a tiny blue marble in an otherwise empty black sky. I sat and waited for something to happen, and less than two minutes later it did.
Even though I was over a quarter of a million miles away, the explosion produced a flash of light so bright I couldn't look directly at it.
Log 001: Full Circle
It's been four weeks now. Four weeks. I was hoping to gain some insight in that time.
I made it out to the Disputed Systems and registered under a false name. It wasn't hard. They didn't exactly have access to Navy personnel records. Even if they had, I'd probably be listed as deceased. I also looked up the registration number of my new ship. No matches. Either the number was fake, or someone had paid to have it wiped from the database. Either way, the result was the same.
Free ship. New identity. Fresh start.
Not a bad situation. It could have been better, but I'm still working on letting things go. The Pridemore's remains are still out there, drifting above Dakarta. Contained in the wreckage are the bodies of everyone I've known, to whatever variable degree, for the past two years.
Craig. Alicia. Wiley. Abeen. Coates. Yvans. Byers.
I couldn't mourn them individually, but I decided that I didn't have to. They had family for that. Back home - wherever they were from- people would gather and say things and comfort each other. They'd tell stories I'd never heard, share memories I hadn't been a part of. The people back home would do justice to the deceased, and they'd require no input from me.
At some point, I realized that I wasn't responsible for them; I just had to say goodbye.
I'm recording some of these logs because I owe it to my Pridemore family. I've done my part. If you are listening to them, now it's time to do yours. The Coalition needs to know what happened because the real Udo Adjani is still out there, and he still wants to attack Earth to prove a point. He is the real reason the Pridemore is gone, and everyone on board lost their lives because of his plans. If he isn't stopped, I can't imagine how many more will suffer because of him. I never expected the Coalition to believe me when the Melbourne showed back up anyway, and I didn't really feel like sitting around while people above my pay-grade spent years deciding whether I was innocent or not.
That's why you don't need to know my name. There were four women on my team, and I could be any one of them.
I could be any woman, really. It shouldn't matter.
So now I have to carve out a new life and a new name. I could have found work as a reactor technician, but that hadn't made sense anymore. I had my own ship - why not use it? Run cargo, earn money, answer to no one. Sounded nice.
Romantic, even.
The problem was that there were a thousand ships out there with larger holds and faster engines, and twice as many pilots to fly them. Just to compete, I'd have needed landing permits for major cargo hubs, charismatic deal-workers on the sidelines, and access to a marketing department. I had none of those things.
Just another refreshing spray from the Reality Hose.
A girl who was supposed to be dead - a girl with no government, no support network, no protection - had precious few options beyond the Coalition. After looking at my limited choices, I made the only one I could. I remember watching as they painted the new logo on my ship.
Free Trader's Legion.
Udo's organization. Mia's. The people who had ripped my old life away. I felt like a traitor. Or a coward. Or some delightful combination of the two. I consumed a lot of whiskey that night, but in the morning, I'd realized that things weren't that simple. Udo had been right - there were thousands of ships registered with the Legion. I was just one among many, and now I'd have protection and access to the best trade routes. My decision had been rational.
Understandable.
Some days, I'm even okay with it...
I may call myself a Free Trader now, and I may roam free, but I do so in the hopes that one day my real boss will come have a look at my pretty new ship; and I can finish what I started by putting a bullet in his brain.
Eventually.
First, though, I need to get this all down. I need to explain what happened, even if it's only for myself. That way, if anyone ever finds these logs and discovers who I am, they'll realize I'm not just another Jane Doe.
I saved the fucking world.
So... where should I begin?
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