by Greg Dragon
“Is he serious?” Ina mouthed to Helga. “Do they not recognize that this is an Alliance warship?”
“All hands on deck,” Cilas shouted, rising to his feet with his hands still gripping the arms of his captain’s chair. “Apply full thrust and evasion maneuvers until I say differently. Get us out of this region and near that cluster of stations. Communications, hail the Genesian guard and let them know that we are here. I want an update of our status sent to Alliance command, and if there’s any Navy in the region, I want to know about it.”
Ina sat up in her chair, pulled on her restraints, and switched the controls into manual mode, which caused her chair to rise up and shift forward as she gripped the yoke and placed her feet up on the console. While she moved to outrun their ignorant pirate, Helga surveyed the starmap and selected a destination, which was close enough to a station to dissuade any violent action.
A thought came and went. They were running, and Cilas wasn’t the type to run from anything. No matter the loadout that pirate vessel had, it wouldn’t have the ordnance necessary to break their shields. Cilas could have simply ordered weapons online, and have them trace it into ribbons, eating whatever they threw back, knowing it was futile. But he had told them to run, to flee a weaker enemy, and he would have only done that if they were not allowed to engage.
“Commander, are we disallowed from fighting in this region?” Helga asked through private comms.
“You guessed it, but not for the reasons you’re thinking. Things are complicated here politically, and potentially volatile if we fire first on a vessel, pirate or not. Until they initiate violence, hold your fire, and let’s see if they’ll chase us to the station.”
“Not wise,” the pirate countered, openly showing his frustration at their noncompliance.
“Not wise he says,” Helga heard one of the crew members mockingly announce.
“Stow the chatter, it’s all hands,” she reminded him. “Keep your peepers on those readouts and your heads in the game.”
An alarm went off, screeching three times, followed by warnings flooding the screens on the bridge. “Shields under duress,” the system chirped.
“We have a tracer aimed at our port-side flank,” Zan suddenly announced from the far side of Helga, who had almost forgotten the Cel-toc was there.
“Working on it,” Ina shouted, taking the ship through a series of maneuvers to try and prevent the trace laser from focusing.
“They only have one tracer cannon, Commander,” Helga informed Cilas. “And our shields are dropping rapidly. That tells me they’ve put all power into weapons. If we counter now, they won’t have much to defend with.”
Cilas stepped down from the raised platform where his chair was housed, and hopped down to the deck where he could easily access the cockpit. “What the heck is he flying?” Cilas said. “I can’t make out anything up there. The cruta is using some sort of cloak that has our radars cracking and popping.”
“Chief Weinstar is working on the issue, Captain,” Zan said, her smooth, humanoid face looking the least bit concerned for the impending danger.
Helga showed him her hologram with the two blinking lights, but changed it to display simulated visuals, and the Ursula’s computer constructed the ship. “It’s a Louine cruiser, likely stolen and rigged. The ordnance is Alliance, that is our tracer, and the pew-shredders are pulled from a lizard’s zip-ship. These pirates know their way around shipbuilding. Considering where we are, it wouldn’t be a reach to say they hail from somewhere on one of these stations, or even the planet.”
“Great, so if I clear weapons, we’d be firing on our allies. The reports to follow would get to the council, and it wouldn’t be good for us,” Cilas said. “Still, they’re pushing it. What’re shields at?”
“78%, now 77%, Commander,” Zan replied, and Cilas looked up at the overhead and cursed silently.
“Come around and put our tracers on it,” he finally said. “I want her crippled, not space dust. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Commander,” the pilots said, and Helga found herself growing excited at the prospect of firing off the Ursula’s row of tracers. Inhaling the air, she let it out slowly, and then touched an icon on the console to access the ship’s intercom. “Engaging enemy warship, brace yourselves for a possible counter,” she announced. “Zan, bring tracers online, no change in power, reduce enemy shields, and target their engines. Disable her, expeditiously.”
“Targeting enemy vessel,” Zan announced mechanically. “Tracers active in 10, 9, 8…” She counted to zero, and through the port side windows of Ursula, the crew saw eight solid beams of light lock on to an invisible area, causing it to flash. Like a dying lightbulb, the pirate ship’s failing shields could no longer sustain their invisibility, and they attempted to put on space brakes to distance themselves from the Ursula’s cannons.
Now it was their turn to run, but they performed a maneuver to come about in an abrupt about-face, causing Ursula to shoot past her and allowing her space to try and beat an escape.
“Thrusters on her broadsides, of course,” Ina complained. “If I was going to glue together my own little terror ship, I would have thrusters on my broadsides, wouldn’t you, Helga?”
“On a ship that mass? No, it’s ridiculous.” Helga laughed. “Still, she’s making us earn our pay here, so they get some sort of credit for that contraption.”
Ina flew them after the cruiser, whose pilot was skilled, trying to stay in range long enough for the tracers to completely obliterate the shields. It was proving difficult due to the thruster situation. The pirate ship had the maneuverability of a fighter, and enough power to keep them chasing at a relatively harmless distance.
Helga thought about her Vestalian Classic waiting in the hangar, and how easy it would be to launch and pepper the cruiser’s shields into nothingness before completing the job of disabling it. The problem with that plan, however, was that Cilas wouldn’t go for it. The fighter was reserved for crucial situations where they had no choice but to have her risk her life. Speeding up the pursuit of a pirate would hardly qualify as crucial.
“Stay on it, I want that thing shut down,” Cilas said from somewhere behind their chairs. Helga was surprised when she heard his voice, expecting him to have climbed back up to his captain’s perch.
“Commander, the Genesian guard picked up our hails,” announced Jun Sunchar, a Meluvian communication’s officer who reminded Helga of Ina. “They would like a parlay.”
“Thank you, Ms. Sunchar,” Cilas said, straightening. “I will take it at my station.”
Helga kept an eye on their power reserves, which were slowly building up as the engine recharged from their earlier jump. There was something else as well; it was charging faster than she’d ever seen it. Alon Weinstar was likely the reason, Helga allowed, since before him there hadn’t been an engineer to bring Ursula up to her potential. “You’ve got enough for max thrust, Ida, just attempt to ram them. They will break to avoid collision, and open them up to our tracers easily.”
Ina nodded and did as Helga instructed, diverting more power to the engine, until the system screeched a warning, “Attention. Collision imminent and unavoidable at our current velocity.” As Helga predicted, the pirates changed course to avoid being struck, but instead of breaking left or to the right, they looped up and took off in the opposite direction.
“Arm energy cannons and target the thrusters directly,” Cilas shouted. “Try to stay on her this time, Ms. Reysor. And keep firing until her engine ceases to function.”
The pirates did what they could to avoid Ursula, whose onslaught had already disabled its shields. The energy cannons focused on the flank of the pirate vessel, ripping off sections of the thruster, eventually damaging the engine. Chunks of metal floated off in space, and the cruiser lagged, eventually losing all power and drifting helplessly along in space.
High-energy trace lasers reached across the gap to dance across the hull. Shie
lds rippled like puddles during rainfall, as Ursula calculated that they were down to 20%. It was an energy race, and the pirates were losing, and the calibrations to those cannons made by Alon Weinstar during those first cycles were proved to be worth it.
“Enemy shields have been depleted,” Zan reported. “Energy cannons locked on target’s rear thrusters. Estimated energy cost, 3%. Permission to fire.”
“Permission granted,” Helga said, leaning forward to peer past her controls out the window to where the enemy vessel was trying hard to avoid them. “Someone seems frightened all of a sudden, after speaking so tough about letting them rob us. Maybe next time they assess their target?”
“Wouldn’t have done much good. we look like a luxury skiff from the exterior,” Ina said. “And these are pirates; likely criminals, the lot of them. This would be the first and last time they see a wartime corvette. Even ex-Alliance would have assumed we were soft. These vessels were meant for scout operations, not playing the scrapper like we’re doing now.”
“Captain Sho would be happy his newborn vessel’s a success,” Helga said. “Top marks for deception since they attacked us, expecting us to surrender, and top marks for the new cannons. Made short work of those shields, it doesn’t even seem fair, and fresh after a jump working energy reserves.”
“Enemy ship successfully disabled,” Zan announced flatly.
“Good shooting, Ursula,” Cilas said. “The Genesian guard has asked us to leave and make our way towards that cluster of stations. They will board that cruiser and make some arrests while we dock and make contact with the local Alliance presence.
“Welcome to Genese,” Ina said. “We come into that, and we’re supposed to hang about out here waiting?”
“Yeah, that was some welcome,” Helga admitted before Ina raised a finger to ask her to hold while she received a message through her comms.
“That was the commander. We’re to find a Neroka Station to dock,” Ina said.
On approach from the Ursula’s vantage point, Neroka Station appeared as a short cylindrical tube rotating around an invisible axis point with four other tubes of the same design. In the center of this formation was a nest of trade ships transporting goods back and forth, a wheel of sorts, or “belt” reminding the Nighthawks of Sanctuary Station. But where Sanctuary was one massive station, these were all separate hubs owned by powerful, private conglomerates, each having its own name and purpose.
The exterior for the most part consisted of gray metal paneling, broken up only by lights, transparent, cloud-filled glass, and a smooth metal strip where the name of each station stood out in bright white Genesian glyphs. This made Neroka easy enough to find among the numerous stations that formed the belt. Ina took them in through central traffic, taking the scenic route around towards the interior of the ring.
Once they had located Neroka, she brought them to the entrance of the station’s tube, where there was even more activity from traveling ships. As they came in closer, Helga could see that there were miniature cities obscured by the clouds, visible on each tube’s inner face. There was a clutch of engineers in colorful EXO suits tethered to the exterior glass of these cylindrical juggernauts, running maintenance and repairs.
Flying through it felt surreal, with the artificial clouds printed on the glass just above the rooftops of the buildings. She imagined that inside it would look and feel much like a planet, creating a convincing home for the families living within these colonies. She could see open plains, lakes, and mountains, amid a patchwork of smoky, industrial plazas and residential buildings.
There were even aircraft visible through the endless glass and its artificial clouds. Transports on highways, hospitals, schools, offices; despite Genese being a massive planet, they had found a solution for extending life past its atmosphere. With a roll and a turn, they were heading for the only entry into the station. It appeared as a gap inside the glass of clouds, easy to miss but for the dancing lights on the rim.
Four smaller vessels flew out to scan them, drones checking for contraband and weapons. Ursula, being a warship already cleared by the Genesian Guard, would be allowed in despite their arsenal. Knives were allowed, but ballistics and laser poppers were a surefire way to earn a discharge from breaking this agreement. Cilas reiterated this to the crew over the intercom, reading the Alliance’s docking agreement plainly for all to hear.
Inside, Ursula roared like a titan as they rocketed past a cruiser twisted and leveled with the rotating ground. The skies about them were littered with industry, all manner of craft going about their daily routines. They reached the port, which could be described as a long silver saucer wedged into the side of a sunken building. Ina flew about it once to get a lay of the land then brought them down next to a row of smaller vessels.
The physics defied Helga, who expected a disaster when Ursula’s feet touched the metal surface of that precarious platform. It should have collapsed under the weight but when it didn’t she accepted that this was technology leveraging gravity and boosters. Engines were cut, lights came on, and a collective sigh could be felt from everyone who had been glued to their seats, staring out the windows.
Zan’s voice came over the intercom, “Welcome to Neroka, Nighthawks and Ursula crew. Landing gear has been deployed and the engines are cooling, so you are now free to move about the vessel.”
“Impressive flying, Reysor,” Helga said, complimenting Ina’s coolness throughout the chase, approach, and manual control that had brought them here. Before this assignment she had been worried that whoever they got for a pilot would be mediocre, but Ina gave her confidence. Ursula was in good hands, and acknowledging this removed the weight from her shoulders, though it still felt strange not being the one responsible for bringing them in.
“Thanks, lady.” Ina reached over and squeezed her forearm. “I don’t hear anyone vomiting their guts out, so I figured I did something right.”
Helga sighed. “Another day, another port. I wonder what this one will yield? Wealthy aristocrats with only an abstract knowledge of the war, or more starving children thinking that we’re Alliance saviors come to whisk them away.”
“If this was your standard satellite fuel stop, I would be prone to agree with you there,” Ina objected. “You saw what this was on our flyover. It’s not really a station, it’s more of a manufactured planet. The people who live here, or I should say, those born here, wouldn’t like us referring to their ‘world’ as a port. It’s so much more to them, and the attitudes here are bound to reflect that. This is Genese after all, the iron planet. They aren’t hurting for resources.”
So, it will be clueless aristocrats playing political credit games with no concern for the war then, Helga thought. “You’re right, and I don’t mean to leak air with my doom talk. It’s just that I’ve been to so many ports now, and they’re starting to feel the same despite the difference in planets, constructs, and people. All that aside, I wonder why we’re here, really.”
11
Soft music played from somewhere off in the background, and the air smelled of spices, food prepared with familiar seasonings. Fio Doro opened her eyes, expecting to be inside her apartment in the Basce City tenements. The music and scents she assumed came from a vendor downstairs peddling his wares, and, smelling and hearing it now, from her having left a window cracked from last night.
What she awoke to, however, was the aftermath of what she hoped had been only a nightmare. Losing Djesu to gunshots, nearly dying herself, and running into an ex-girlfriend who convinced her to board a shuttle to leave the planet for one of the stations. As her bloodshot eyes worked against the violation of the light, the memories rushed in like a flood, having battered a dam to the point of rupturing.
She remembered the trip, being seated amongst a crowd of travelers, telling her story in hushed tones to Zulia. It was all she could do to keep her emotions in check then, and she had been too tired and hurt to think clearly enough of skipping the incri
minating parts. Once docked, the disembarking was a blur, but she recalled taking a taxi, where again they were stuffed inside the vessel with a clutch of other strangers, loud with their chatter and impatient.
The rest was fuzzy, and the only thing she could assume was that she had crashed upon reaching Zulia’s station compartment. There had been an elevator and a lot of identical doors, but they had entered one near the end of a hallway, and that was all she could recall before waking up to the music and delicious scents. It felt strange here on the station, different, quiet but for the music whose volume was low and seemed to come from a vid-screen on the wall that Zulia left playing.
She lifted the sheets to find that she was naked, with freshly wrapped bandages over her wounds, and a note on the pillow next to hers, which read, “Gone to work until this evening. Left you some breakfast, but the food processor is stocked so help yourself.”
Fio sat up, wincing from a sharp pain in her shoulder, surveyed the apartment and its decor, and found that it was all pleasantly cozy. For a station rental it was much bigger than her old apartment. The furniture was curious, their design like nothing she’d ever seen in the city, and it made her wonder if they were expensive. Zulia had always been one for luxury, but she didn’t think a station job paid so well.
For instance, the cot on which she laid on seemed to grow from out of the floor tiles, like a raised basin of sweet-smelling cushions, and a mattress filled with pillows, soft as clouds. Above her hung a decorative light-fixture, suspended from thin metal poles attached to the ceiling. Wrapped about these poles high above her was a moisture system, comprised of thick metal pipes. These were a strange design choice, according to Fio, giving the apartment the feeling of living on a ship.
The compartment was a two-room shelter intended for temporary employees of the station. Nothing she was seeing made her feel this was temporary, however, and it made her wonder whether Zulia’s job was a trial for her to eventually become a permanent resident here. It was all so luxurious compared to even the nicer flats in Basce City, and Fio felt foolish for the many times she’d turn Zulia down when she’d suggested she give up crime to come seek work on one of these stations.