a story of the Spiral,
written by Griever
Copyright 2003/2004(c)
-----------------------------------
I.
Three kilometers of hull, one of which housed the engineering section and their toys, the artificial gravity generators, the power-plants ... the forward two sections were where the passenger decks were, the bridge crew did their work, and the kitchen staff slaved over meals.
A sterling silver in color, fast, safe, luxurious, the Miranda had been the pride and joy of Silver Nova Spacelines. Their poster ship, a revival of old myths and romanticism and an avenue of money-hearding as well.
It was a tarnished thing now, the hull plating bent and twisted around where the defensive weapons had been, a great chunk of the rear section missing - drives and power-plants as well - and the silvery hull tarnished by scuff marks and impact furrows.
To the man standing before the huge window that looked over the space-dock facilities at Point Orlitz it was one of the saddest sights he'd ever seen. But more than that, it was one of the sights that could drive him into a white-cold rage if thought about too intensely.
Of those he'd had his share as well.
Walking a cathedral of the Church of the New Epoch, between their mind-wiped drones and the fanatically devoted madmen, for example.
He'd seen the state of what remained of the crew and passengers ... those left behind and not taken by whatever bastards had organized it all ... and ever since the Lady in Viridian had brought the onetime passenger liner in from its resting place among the stars he'd felt no different than he had when he first saw them with his own eyes.
He hated crusades, mostly because most of the ones that happened had happened because of things that he felt were not worth the trouble. Religion, fear, self-righteousness.
Yes, he hated them with a vengeance, especially since he'd had to deal with being on the wrong end of far too many for him comfort.
"Mr. Katz? Major Auburn will see you now." the voice of the woman sitting behind a small desk to one side of the big doorway behind him informed.
But while he may have felt like that about crusades, this wasn't about to become one. A hunt, yes, and most definitely an execution. Rather than a crusade, a quest.
'Hypocrisy and justification. My two best friends,' if thoughts could have conveyed self-disgust, these would have. Followed by a mental smirk.
***
The plot flickered as a course was laid in, a fluorescent green line leading from their current position to their hyperspace vector with several sets of coordinates on both ends.
It was hardly a large bridge, and hardly a large ship all the same, but Cecelia Cartwright had no real desire for anything larger than what she had there and then. And, in all honestly, nobody could really blame him ... only her singularly weird sense of style.
At a tonnage of nearly a megaton, the Harpy was small for a freighter, relatively speaking. It had originally been just a run-of-the-mill Farseeker class military transport, though the last time it had been simply that was some twenty years in the past.
The Cartwrights were a moderately wealthy family, owners of a fairly successful trading concern that had holdings in Humanx, Taiidani, Cameron and even Andermani territory. While definitely not as widely renowned as some corporate behemoths the likes of the Taiidani native Wayland-Yutani, or the Manticoran Houseman Cartel, Cartwright Trading had a reputation for being dependable and reasonably quick to deliver. And even though it had a far-spanning reach, it was still mostly a family business. All in that family seemed to share a passion for space travel, and had commanded a vessel of their own on runs for at least five T-years straight.
As with all families though, they too had a black sheep. Fortunately it hadn't been anything drastic that had garnered Cecelia Charlene Cartwright that 'title'. She'd merely declined to give her command _up_ and follow the rest of her siblings and cousins into the managing field of things.
Instead, she gathered up what savings she'd put to the side in the years as one of the company's ship captains, and left to make her own lot in life.
It hadn't really come as a surprise when she surfaced a year or so later, with her own ship and crew, and as quite a successful freelance. Where exactly she'd gotten the frigate was a question in its own right, though in light of her rather numerous contacts with the Centauri, both the military and civilian sectors, it wasn't a particularly _difficult_ question.
The original Farseeker had been a Centauri ship, a military transport designed to be used for when a force needed refills of missiles and other projectiles in a hurry. Built with the typically Centauri hulls as a basis, though the overall effect was unusual in its own right. At nearly a kilometer in length and five hundred meters width, it looked like a flying ovoid from the right perspective. The bridge was set forward, unusual in Centauri designs, and the ship itself was well armed and armored for a transport. At least, the original Farseekers had been.
Cecelia hadn't been much of a purist, but instead settled for doing what was _effective_, and had an approach that favored the unusual. The Harpy had long since stopped resembling its former self, though the shape at least remained largely unchanged. Since its owner hadn't gone into bulk shipping, deciding instead to ferry spoilable goods on those occasions the ship _did_ serve as a light freighter, most of the space had gone towards improving performance, increasing armor and modifying weapons. But the main point of divergence were the three docking ports, one in the middle of the upper hull and two at the sides of the lower. Each was rugged, rigged for durability, and used to haul the _rest_ of her small flotilla through hyperspace.
Three heavy gun-vettes, each weighing at nearly 20ktons of weapons, armor and realspace engines, were much more effective than any combination of arms the "Harpy" fielded on its own. Gave more versatility as well.
Actually, one of the gun-vettes was currently departing Point Baker, the semi-military deep space station that lay behind them. Baker was the farthest out Humanx base on the edge of the so called Buffer Zone, and the main restocking point for that area as well. And though a force of Commonwealth space navy ships had been assigned for its protection, there were far less of them here now then there had been six months ago - the previous time the "Harpy" had made a stop there. There were far more freelancers, though.
Cartwright recognized a few of them. The Lady in Viridian was there, as was the Destry and a handful of others they'd encountered on the spaceways from time to time.
She knew exactly why that was so, and had actually taken on her present assignment because of a similar reason. The reson for the assignment being the wrecked hull currently resting in one of the drydock facilities of the outpost. Or rather, several of its passengers.
There was quite a sizable bounty allotted, coming from various personal sources of the relatives of the people who'd lost their lives or simply disappeared.
Vengeance could be a powerful motivator.
The Gunrunner closed, being so much lighter and having a significantly better acceleration curve than the bulky Harpy. The gun-vette was sixty meters in length, and half that in width. A blocky thing of semi-modular design, the Runner was a custom job from the bowels up, and despite its looks it performed admirably.
Their other two 'vettes, Whistler and Ja-Jinku weren't quite up to par with it, capabilities-wise, but good enough in their own right. And didn't look like kludges of random components welded together into an approximately ship-like shape, which was always a plus.
"Hail from the 'Runner, Ma'am." Spaulding was a thin, balding man in his late thirties, and one of the original crew of the Harpy. He'd served as sensors and communications officer ever since the first time she'd come aboard, and did his job admirably.
"Patch through," she nodded, eyes on the main screen. It flickered, and changed from auxiliary plot display to the caption of the gun-vette's bridge.
"Morning Skipper," the captain of the Gunrunner said cordially. His customary round spectacles glinted slightly in the bridge lighting as he inclined his head.
"I take it the flight plan's still the same as it was in the brief? We're coming in to dock, topside. ETA 20 minutes, plus minus three."
"Affirmative. Anything you could dig up stationside?"
"No real information, but we _did_ get some new hands for the pounder contingent. Seems that they dropped their resignation with the Lady."
"Oh? Any particular reason? Or did you just pick up stragglers who got discharged for Heavens know what out of the kindness of your heart?" she raised an eyebrow.
"The Lady in Viridian was, according to them and hearsay, the ship that discovered the Miranda." came the reply. "In fact, most of those whom we'd picked up had been part of the first boarding party from the Lady to enter and recon the Miranda. When it reached them that we'd be going after the bounty ... That aside, they can pull their share."
"Alright. We'll discuss this in detail when you get on-board. Debriefing at 1800 hours ship's time, in the briefing room. Roachburn and Faysle will be joining us as well. Be on time."
"See you then, Ma'am." the screen flickered out and the auxiliary plot was pulled up again.
***
"Well, the modus operandi, the viciousness of the attack, and ..." the stocky Centauri held up a wickedly bladed dagger. "... the calling card, all point towards the Red Mist group."
Nobody asked how he'd gotten his hands on that dagger. It was probably just as well that they didn't.
The briefing room aboard the Harpy was moderately spacious, oval, and had a circular crysarmor view-port canopy that took up a fair part of the ceiling directly above the round conference table standing in the room's center.
Cecelia Cartwright sat opposite her three gun-vette captains, her XO with her - to her right.
Dran Faysle fiddled with the dagger in his hand, flipping it over his knuckles before actually noticing what he was doing and setting it down again sheepishly. The captain of the Whistler was a rather flamboyant young Centauri, who had a seemingly never-ending energy supply and couldn't really seem to sit still for more than five minutes at a time. For all that, he was perhaps the most intense of them all, when focused on something in particular. Confident but not arrogant, he was a quick thinker, though he often sought complex strategies where there were none and tended to over-analyze things when he had time to do so ... and sometimes even when he didn't. With his first officer keeping his mind on important things, he was an exceedingly able commander.
To his left sat a rather severe blonde, her face set in a near-perpetual scowl that was only enhanced by the scar which ran from over her left eyebrow over her temple and disappeared into the hairline, it's only mark afterwards a strand of white hair among the sandy-blond locks. Erika Roachburn was a straightforward person, hardened by life on the Rim and an ex-system defense commander. Her approach to things was quick and decisive most of the time, following the philosophy that it was better to act risk making a mistake than not act at all and wake up with a gun to your head. The Ja-Jinku was her ship, and perhaps the most tightly run one of either gun-vette and even the Harpy itself.
Last was a slim man of average height, with purplish eyes behind round spectacles and straight shoulder-length hair that fell around his face in strands of alternatively ashen and light brown. He called himself Stork, and even though he'd been with the Harpy and her escorts for the shortest time of those currently sitting at the table with him he'd made his way towards command of the Gunrunner rapidly; through a mix of a head for the tactical end of things and a certain charisma that made his often-melancholic self seem in control no matter what.
Each of them certainly knew _of_ the Red Mist pirates, because it was rather hard to make way through the Zone without hearing about them. Certainly, their brutality was notorious, as was their inventiveness. And with good cause, apparently, since only the latter could have allowed them to ambush the Miranda. The liner had been sufficiently armed to scare off anything short of military craft, and even then you'd have needed at least a heavy cruiser to take it down ... disabling it, which was what the pirates had obviously done before shooting it full of holes, would have been exceedingly difficult. And yet, there had been no traces of hull wreckage other than those left by the Miranda. Which meant that they'd either cleaned up after themselves - a thing nigh impossible to do without leaving traces, really - or that they'd simply suffered no casualties.
"So, they somehow forced it out of hyperspace, had it _surrender_, then sacked it and all?" Roachburn was skeptical. "If they did, then what the hell are we doing here? They had enough force to pull this off ..."
"Which I doubt they did," Cartwright cut in. Roachburn didn't glare, but simply huffed before showing some interest.
"Leaving sabotage," Stork said. "It's easier to believe that Nova needs to pay better attention with their screening than that a pirate group could amass that potent a force. It's also more plausible. They're not military, they have their differences, their discipline is nearly nonexistent no matter how _vicious_ they may be. Not the most agreeable bunch, even with one-another."
"Then do we go over the personnel logs and see what dirt we can dig up? No, there's little use now, is there?" Faysle nodded more to himself than to the others. "Give Moonshine a visit, and see what word of mouth says about this and the Mists is my bid. Little else we can do with our current information level, really."
"Agreed." Stork nodded his assent.
"... fine." Roachburn nodded as well.
"Then we'll go to Moonshine. We'll need to put together two or three groups we'll send out to gather whatever information we can, anonymously." Cartwright summed up. "From there on, things will depend on what we can learn. As little as I like such a situation, there's nothing more we can do at the moment, like you said Dran."
***
II.
The airlock hissed open, slightly jerkily as if it hadn't been getting the maintenance it ought to have been ... which wasn't that unlikely seeing where this was. The walls were scruffy, a mix of old plating in a color that had long ceased to be somewhat off-white and was now a dingy gray and newer patches of plasteel as well as 'combat glue' of colors throughout the spectrum.
'Looks held together by rust and dirt more than any of the so called repair jobs.'
Stork pushed up his spectacles, the shaded lenses throwing a datanet directly onto his eyes' retina, and stepped forward. Gravity was lower, but it wasn't something he did for the first time so he avoided the customary introduction of Mr. Head to Ms. Ceiling which so many tourists went through during their first few times crossing gravity zone boundaries.
Not that Moonshine had a lot of tourists on it ... actually, none at all. It wasn't one of the places you read about in a travel mag. Or rather, it was, but on the list of places that you really ought to have avoided in the first place.
Two pairs of boots made contact as smoothly as he did, on either side of the man. His extra eyes for the duration.
Oh, certainly the purple-eyed man felt comfortable enough ... hells, he'd spent a big part of his life on a strife through places of this sort ... merely preventive measures. And also a sort of test. Of the three teams dispatched from the Gunrunner, each had two seasoned crewmen and one of the new additions.
The other crewman was a tall, dusky skinned spacer veteran going by Fiddler. Tried and true, and big enough to intimidate a Klingon, actually. Scary looking too. The newbie was taller than Stork but not reaching Fiddler's height or mass. A plain-faced man with short brownish hair and murky green eyes who'd given the name Katz. As good as any.
The two other groups were out there already, trying to catch up on the by the by and fish for useful information. Merely in different sectors. Stork's group was to comb through the C-Zone, or part of it at least.
Good thing too, since C-Zone was nothing but a freakishly huge market, mostly of the gray variety. It was a place to start in the least, and a fair chance at picking up something relevant at the most. They wasted little time.
Most of the Zone was made up of dingy corridors, with a few larger warehouse spaces converted to bazaars ... well, perhaps converted is a bit of a strong word. What happened resembled fungal growth more than anything else, in that the bazaar that had started in one of the warehouses slowly expanded, reaching out into the neighboring ones as well. As for the ambience, it was that of these sorts of merchant sectors throughout the Spiral. To be specific though, someone once said that there was nothing you couldn't dig out in the Moonshine Bazaar if you were willing to go deep enough ... and get your hands dirty. Kinda like a junkyard.
You risk cutting yourself on some shrapnel if you dig too deep without being careful in both cases.
The three made their way through the Bazaar, eyes skimming the crowd slowly, casually. Most certainly not unusual in this sector of space, or on this base, so they were given a once-over and left alone after various self-preservation instincts told their owners that these were too much trouble for them to bother with.
***
Steel met steel with a resounding clang, the two blades locking as their wielders both threw all their strength forward.
"Aven't changed at all, 'ave you Fitzy?" the voice had a light burr to it, making it sound casual and relaxed ... Fitz laCruz knew it well enough, and his shoulders tensed, eyes skipping from watching the dueling sword-wielding automatons on the arena to the man who'd unceremoniously taken a seat across the small table from him.
Yes, he most certainly knew this man. It was a hard face to forget, once you've seen it. Especially from the wrong end of a blaster. What made it worse was that the man could and did remain so damn cordial all of the time, not really letting on what he was feeling.
Other than the hard face, roughly as expressive and warm as a piece of flint, the man was rather average in looks. Last time Fitz had seen Gavin, the man had been playing bodyguard for a low key smuggler who often took a stop or two in Moonshine if his path took him past it. It was then that the rather shifty fixer had gotten a dose of healthy respect for his current opposite.
"Gavin! What a pleasant surprise ..." he began, and was cut of by a snort of the addressed.
"Can it, ya wouldn't ken pleasn't if'n it bit ya in the arse."
"Oh, err, well in that case, no, I'd rather I'd never seen you again," laCruz cringed slightly when Gavin smirked. The man was unsettling, to say the least. "But since that's out of the question now, what do you want?"
"Oi, ya wound me, ya do." he ignored the muttered 'I _wish_' from the fixer. "Now, Fitzy, what do people come to ya fer, other than the obvious? I'm just 'ere for some information, if'n you can deliver that is."
***
"Nothing," Stork said, coming out of the shady bar. The cig he'd lit somewhere along the road, out of frustration, hung from his lips and left a faint grayish wisp of a trail in his path. "Next section."
"That was, what, five now?" Fiddler shook his head. "I don't like this."
"Me neither," Stork agreed. "They're afraid. I can feel it in my bones when I ask them."
"Makes sense. We've seen what the Mist can do, after all," said Katz, leaning against the wall to one side of the entrance. "Subtle doesn't seem to be working, does it?"
"No, regrettably enough." Stork nodded. The man hadn't been all too talkative, handling his role in the background well enough certainly. "Come on, there's still some places to try yet."
***
There are several signatures that herald a firing beam weapon. The obvious, at least for several of the usual laser types, is a discharge of intense light. Heat is only involved if and when this happens in an atmosphere, or if a surface is intersected by the beam.
Grasers are roughly the same, but more intense and adding to background radiation.
An x-ray laser, on the other hand, leaves no sign in the visible spectrum at least, especially when no atmosphere is involved, but shows up handily in other view modes.
That being the case, the only thing that can tell you someone is going to fire a laser at you _before_ it's actually fired is the energy buildup, which can fade into the background easily enough unless you know where to look for it, and exactly what you're looking for as well.
Particle beams do more damage, but don't move at the speed of light, really. Also, the emissions are more notable. Plus, the characteristic buildup of energies and magnetic flux isn't as hard to miss as a laser's power-up is.
Railcannons and mass-drivers work with focused magnetic fields driving the projectile forward, and their signature isn't all that easy to track, even if it's characteristic, when the caliber is small enough. Or the weapon is masked.
Missiles, on the other hand, need a lock on, and take a lot more time to actually get to the target than any of the abovementioned armaments. And they're vulnerable to countermeasures. Which is why you should really know better than to use them in the first strike of an ambush, unless you have a lot to spare and can launch a really big volley as an opener. Or the target is unarmed.
Which was not the case here, therefore, going against all conventions of the stereotypical dumb grunt bad-guys, they did _not_ use low-g LRMs to start off their takedown of a target well within energy range.
Moonshine was a semi-legal base, in that it just skirted the edges and didn't give a damn about most rules and regulations. There was nobody there to enforce them most of the time, after all. And with pirates and such wanting to 'prey' on such a 'defenseless little outpost' it's lack of being defenseless was handily overlooked by anybody who _did_ come by to check on them.
Still, it wasn't exactly a BattleStation, and its combat computers were a wee bit old. And even if they _did_ work correctly, the armaments had to be aimed. An unaware target wouldn't have been bothered by some shifting amongst the defensive measures of the station.
The Gunrunner proved that it was _not_ an unaware target.
And unlike the station's defenses, it's own targeting systems and response programming was damn near milspecs level.
Unfortunately, being docked left the ship's ventral turrets - all of two each of which had been outfitted with a 20mm rotary railcannon and two interceptor class laser clusters, as well as two MRM missile launcher batteries, each containing twenty GPU class 'Firewight' missiles - blocked by the station's own bulk.
Fortunately, being docked in one of the outer sections meant that the fore, aft, and dorsal weapons were still free. Meaning the twin Grasers which made up the main forward firing armaments, two laser clusters on the aft, and dorsal weapons that were on par with the ventral ones.
Power surges to weapons systems pointed at the ship were treated as hostile action, the battle computers did their work, and a defensive barrage from the ship sent several rather ragtag station defense turrets to their makers. Or the local scrapheap. In many cases those were one and the same. The few that ended up managing a salvo before being obliterated found that Gunrunner's armor plating was rather sufficient to withstand a scattered barrage.
And then it all snowballed.
***
Gunfire was not a rare thing to find in the cramped corridors of Moonshine base. It came with the territory. Blaster bolts seared their way through synth-cleaned air, leaving trails of ozone behind and scorching walls, ceilings, and occasionally even their intended targets. Though it was certainly what could be called a cover rich environment.
The antique revolver was broken open, brass casings falling from the cylinder, and moments later being replaced by fresh bullets via speed loader. It was definitely not a rapid fire weapon, its ammo capacity pathetic by modern day standards set thanks to needler guns and sub-munitions firing holdout pistols. Blasters and other energy weapons aside. It was long barreled, unwieldy, and you had to know its quirks to work it with anything close to accuracy.
Stork stood, briefly abandoning cover, and aimed. A bolt of superheated plasma encased in a flimsy magnetic bottle shot past, singing some of his hair and making sure he'd not need to shave the right side of his jaw for the next few days. He ignored the near miss, and in a single fluid motion raised his weapon, took aim, and fired.
The noise was fantastic, a loud roar that shook the corridor, and again it sounded as the bespectacled man fired off the remaining bullets in his weapon's cylinder, Fiddler and Katz adding their own arms to the salvo.
Cerplast armor layering is relatively cheap, and a fairly common and effective technique to enforce clothes. It's a fair bet that a blaster shot, or another energy discharge of moderate striking power, would be dissipated by the protective material. Needlers wouldn't have enough inertia to penetrate, and HV low caliber ammo was effective five times out of ten in that regard.
That being said, a .454 round could only be considered a low caliber round by someone deaf and blind. The Magno Custom AP .454 round, in fact, was something that left _you_ with a good chance of being half deaf _after_ it was fired.
Psychological effect of firing that sort of howitzer in an enclosed space aside, it let shards of shattered tactical armor fly like so much confetti during Madi Gras.
Stork ducked behind the exposed piping again, breaking his weapon open and reloading, letting the still smoking casings chink to the ground.
"Clear!" yelled Katz. He immediately went down to a crouch behind a discarded loading crate, propping his own pistol, a 2010 model Colt slabside up. Staggered retreat was the name of the game, and Fiddler broke cover a moment later, backing off and past Katz's position. Stork did the same.
Katz fired off a trio of rounds for effect, to keep the enemies' heads down, and broke off to follow the others.
"Coming up on cross section 42D, left here!" Fiddler informed, a data-lens overlapping one eye and throwing information right onto the retina. Stork used his spectacles in a similar manner.
"We need to get back, as fast as we can," the Gunrunner's captain told them, between breaths. "They've fired on the 'Runner. Looks a more hard-handed approach is warranted."
"No shit," Katz muttered, ducking his head after hearing the characteristic snap-hiss of a blaster bolt flying past.
They turned at the intersection, Fiddler jerking a cylinder from his belt pouch and throwing it over one shoulder. It bounced off the wall of the corridor they'd come through, and went off with a loud popping sound, spewing thick white smoke in their wake.
"That's one path they're not going to be taking anytime soon," the burly man commented as they ran.
"Nerve gas?" Katz frowned. They rounded another corner. Only a few hundred meters more to go.
"Neurotoxin. A homebrewed paralysis cocktail. Won't off them, but nobody coming through for the next fifteen is going to be able to move very well for a few hours. Or at all." Fiddler grinned crookedly.
The sounds of gunfire greeted them again, coming from up ahead. This time they were slightly different, the sharp crackles of lightweight coilguns breaking up the background buzzing hiss of magnetically bottled plasma and laser discharges.
Their comsets crackled.
"Riots here, cap, we've got 'em pinned at the dock," an insanely cheery voice greeted them. Another corner.
The Riots were what passed for pounders on the Gunrunner. A twenty four man detachment, six four man fire teams, organized into two squads. Not a crack unit by any right, but its members were chosen for competence in the field first and foremost. Which they were apt at proving, and were doing so presently. Two fire teams were laying down the smack, or in this case the covering fire, on a bunch of station security types. The difference between even moderate training plus the ability to work as a team and lack thereof was stark.
"Sitrep!" said Stork, as Fiddler and Katz went about barring the narrow path they'd come from access. Not hard to do. Just close the emergency hatch, and block the release with a bit of creative electronics tampering.
"Just got 'ere m'self, boss," came the reply. Gavin McKinnon fell into a crouch beside the bespectacled man, coilgun slung over one shoulder. "My contact got a wee bit antsy when we were leavin', so it's safe to say that there's where we need ta look ... or rather, we got something I ken is coming from above. Whoever's runnin' this joint don't like us much, he don't. I hear the 'Runner castrated their topside defensive, an' the Whistler's movin' in on intercept. Ja-Jinku an' Harpy are catching strays that've started buggin' out when it hit the fan. The usual."
"So we need to get to the shaker," Stork nodded to his XO. "Your show, Mac. I'll stay out of your way and try to make heads or tails of it all on the bridge."
"Right," the man replied with a grin. "We'll bag 'em for ya, chief. Ya getcher arse back to the coffin."
***
The blue and white of hyperspace was a mesmerizing sight, as always, and Katz sighed as he collapsed onto his bunk. The cabin was a solo, though only large enough to stretch out in lengthwise, and only as wide as to allow for both arms being stretched out to the sides, palms flat against the bulkhead on both sides. It had a small view-port as well. On a ship as small as the Gunrunner this was a bit of a luxury, no, a lot of a luxury.
*ka-chink*
The 2010 was more than adequate a gun, sturdy and reliable, but it needed a bit of maintenance every now and then.
His hands moved with a deft precision that could only come from long familiarity and practice, expertly dismantling the weapon and setting the parts aside. The hum of a portable lapframe sitting on the table a ways off was the only other sound in the cabin.
"... so the Riots went through the resistance and caught up with the 'management' of Moonshine. They seem to have gotten something from the subsequent interrogations, since we've joined up with the Harpy and set off almost immediately after they were done. The station's still there, banged up but going strong, though they've had to pick a new 'management'. That'll keep the fires nicely toasty under their feet. If they're too busy squabbling with one another they'll likely not be able to do anything about us anytime soon. Their predecessors are warming seats in the brig. Not going to endear the Harpy with the twilight elements any, but they're going to be handed off to the first patrol we run across. That's what the Gunrunner's Captain tells me. I did get something out of this entire debacle, though. A little upper on the chain of command, and I got from maintenance tech and aux grunt to part of shipboard security. Got me a cabin for myself, which is a plus. It's also more interesting than going over burned out circuit boards and such on my shift. That's all for now. Close log."
The lapframe beeped in confirmation.
***
III.
"Ja-jinku here, we're ready for action."
"Whistler's combat ready, and clear for detach."
"Gunrunner, all in the green."
"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen," the Harpy's captain acknowledged. They'd had their chance to test themselves before, against pirate bands and sometimes the private security compliments of some independent merchant marine, but never quite against what they'd assumed the Red Mist would have. Still, there was no other way, since if they made less than all due haste then the group would certainly manage to find out that they'd raided their people on Moonshine. And what with their rapid relocation of rally points, they could well arrive too late to catch up with them _anyway_ if they took their time with notifying Humanx authorities themselves.
The fact that it was the only way that gave a chance of success which was within reasonable parameters didn't mean that Cecelia had to like it, though. And neither did her crews.
It changed little of the fact that they were going into a hastily mapped system, knowing only roughly the enemy strengths and configuration.
"Outing in three, two, one ... dropping into n-space." her helmsman informed. The white and blue of hyperspace opened up before them, and the Harpy plunged into starlit blackness.
The holographic tank in the middle of the bridge lit up, displaying the star system in all it's lack of glory. A single red sun, small by galactic standards but giving off far excessive amounts of IR band radiation. Four planets, on a semi-plane set of orbits around it, the first two blackened husks and the third a swirling mass of gasses and electrical discharge. The fourth was farthest off, farther than the first two's distances from it put together would be, and a frozen wasteland.
"Helm, put in an intercept vector for the fourth planet, loping around it and under the ecliptic. I want a plot to the Lower Zenith to be a distinct possibility from that point." the helmsman nodded at the instructions, instantly adjusting the Harpy's orientation and laying in commands. "Spaulding, show me what you're seeing."
The plot lit up with several icons, all spaced throughout the inner three planet areas. None confirmed, but all possibilities of drive signatures. Too hard to tell at the range and with the space characteristics. There was always the possibility that the star's emissions were screwing with their sensors ... no, the _fact_ that they were. It was why you had sensor techs after all, to help the sifter programming go through and interpret the incoming sensor data.
"Nothing definite, but we're on it. We'll probably get more definite readings once something starts happening, which isn't really ... well what do you know ..."
Three icons turned orange, the red in their vicinity winking out partially, and acceleration vectors appeared from them.
Score. At least two were here. Whether that was a good or a bad thing still remained to be seen.
"Alright people, get ready, we have about an hour 'till we pass around the fourth planet. Battlestations everyone. Trask, you've got the conn. I'll be in conference. If nothing comes up, give me a ring in forty five."
***
"Hyperspace footprint, Upper Zenith point. We have one exit confirmed by the rig."
It wasn't near the efficiency of professional military run outfits, but for the private sector the equipment provided and the skills of the users were pretty damn good. The Kestrel's bridge was a hodgepodge affair that, while not looking all that pretty, worked very well.
Standford Heai was a tall man, skinny and with a slim, sharp featured face. He'd been at his current occupation for quite a while now, and before that had done something fairly similar, if a bit more on the legal side. He liked to think that he'd managed to instill some professional attitude in his crew, even though he could hardly say that about the boarding parties. Oh well, one couldn't have everything you wanted. In his case, he'd have preferred a well trained crew for at least his ship, if not all of them, but that would have been to close to compromising the operation in its entirety.
"Anything more precise?" he asked the sensor tech.
His ship was not as much of a junker as some of the others could be taken for. The old and tried design of a Kasha'kryjk class light cruiser was past its prime, yes, but not past its usefulness. He had a sentiment for it, actually, the class being that of the first ship he'd ever commanded.
Ordwell was the ship's name, also after Heai's first command, and he admitted he was sentimental towards the name. After all, it was the first ship he'd led into live fire, the first one he'd gained credit for leading. He was no tactical genius, and no strategic one either, but he was dead set on following rigid safety precautions and was not beyond accepting and adapting other people's ideas to best suit the situation. In short, a tactical hack, but one that was extremely apt at choosing the best of solutions he'd ever stumbled across in regard to the given problem.
"Big contact, from the exit discharge anyway," came the reply. "Too slow to be military, too fast for a surveyor. The way it's heading, it'll pass Four in around an hour. Looks like it's heading for the Lower Zenith ..."
***
It wasn't all that unusual for ships with navigation systems that were a little aged or uncertain to double check their star charts, hopping through hyperspace in a leapfrog pattern, emerging at various waypoints along the primary path to ascertain their position thanks to their grav beacons. In fact, it was a favorite method of some of the less wealthy tradesmen and other sods who didn't have the money for any navigations equipment more sophisticated than a rudimentary star-chart and quantum space gravitic detectors.
The message was passed along, and drives were lit. Four 'destroyers', not much more than lightly armed and armored hyper-capables, were sent along an intercept vector, to cross the path of the newcomer right after passing the Fourth planet of the system.
***
"Contact, four of them. They've got around thirty, thirty five kays tonnage as far as I can tell," the Harpy's sensor officer informed. "What we have of them from this range says that they've got drive irregularities. Their sensor coverage isn't really up to par either, and they're going to lose us anyway once we're in the Fourth's shadow. I'm also reading two other contacts in-system. Light cruisers, by the looks of it, though I'm not really sure."
***
"Oh, wonderful. Remind me to shoot Rodriguez when they come back," Heai cursed. He'd sent the light units hoping that they'd be able to intercept the newcomer easily, but nothing was going according to plan today it looked like. For one thing, he really should have remembered that Rodriguez's crew was alright in most respects, but they got sold short on the nav section. Their resident nav officer was laid low with a case of cranial trauma after a freak surge due to a burned out capacitator made his console blow up in his face. It wasn't even the explosion that hurt him, but it startled him enough that he'd jerked back, tripped, and fell really unfortunately. A one in a hundred chance, but it had happened, and Rodriguez had too much pride to actually draw help from one of the other light units until his own nav healed up. Meaning he ended up using a rookie from his own crew most likely.
Well, no. Now it was another rookie. The first one was probably already taking a walk through the vacuum because he fucked up the simple interception.
"Helm, lay in an intercept course. We want to catch them in the Lower Zenith," he commanded. Well, the man reasoned, it wasn't _all_ bad. The merchant didn't have a retreat course now, his four lights being in a position even a rookie nav couldn't fuck up if their target decided to turn around. He probably didn't have much in the way of high resolution sensors either, since he didn't retreat as soon as he spotted something out of the ordinary via the Upper Zenith.
He gave them a few more minutes before the merchant would notice the incoming destroyers. That they'd be in the shadow of the Fourth planet just a few minutes after _that_ would give him one thing to worry about and, hopefully, he'd not notice his cruisers moving into position for a little while longer.
Hmm, maybe it was better that his main force would engage this one. After all, the trade routes didn't really scratch this system, and as unlikely as it was that the ship was survey, there was one other option that would explain the use of the system.
Smugglers.
He knew Finster, one of his informants and sometime smuggler himself, used this system as a go-between in his runs through the Zone, so it was logical that there would be someone else thinking along those same lines.
It even fit the ship profile. Large enough for a small trader, but too small and fast for any of the legit outfits. Meaning the nav systems that were missing could have been replaced by drives, keeping most of the hold intact for freight, but also ... well, smuggler ships were usually moderately well armed. He had no doubt that Rodriguez's lights could deal with one of those, but not without some blood on their side. Whereas they'd like to have this ship as intact as possible, so a show of force with the main body of force would work better.
***
"Coming into the shadow ... now," Spaulding informed.
"Let them loose, Trask." Cecelia Cartwright told her XO.
"Aye, Ma'am. Letting them loose. Docking clamps released." Trask nodded, running a coin across his knuckles, fingers moving nervously. Aside from that one little habit there was nothing in either his posture or his features that betrayed the man's nervousness and excitement.
"Confirmations from the 'vettes, Ma'am. They're clear." the sensors and comm officer said.
"Record: Keep with the battle plan. Good hunting. Harpy going into comm silence. End recording. Send it, Spaulding, and then go back to playing possum."
***
Three bursts of cold-jets separated the gun-vettes from their carrier, and their own reaction drives kicked in moments later to bring them even farther apart. The Whistler and Ja-Jinku sped off in directions opposite to each other, along trajectories that would lead them away from the Harpy while going along a nearly parallel path. If all went well then they'd reach optimal spread for the appropriate defensive pattern a few minutes before the enemy was expected to come into firing range.
The Gunrunner, on the other hand, immediately turned around and began, for the brief period that the planet would still shield it from enemy sensors, bleeding off speed.
***
"Time, Mac?"
The Gunrunner's bridge was small, no more than seven meters in length and five in width. The 'center seat' was elevated, set rearmost and overlooking most of the chamber. There was no holotank, the plot and tactical being projected onto the main monitor set into the forward wall. The helmsman's seat was along the left wall, slightly forward of the center and surrounded by a number of navigational displays. Weapons was opposite the helm, to the right side of the chamber, while the sensor officer sat behind that. The only other station was that of the XO, a little to the right of the captain's, and doubling that seat's instruments, if on a slightly smaller scale.
Gavin McKinnon, executive officer of the Gunrunner and chief of the gun-vette's pounder detail, looked up from his own navigational plot.
"Ten to weapons range, an' I think we can pull thirteen to fifteen 'fore we get 'em wondrin'. Leavin' shadow in one fifty."
"Silent in fifty. Give the call, Mac." Stork said, focused on the plots shown by both the instruments of his own station and those that were displayed on the main screen.
"Silent in fifty, aye."
Tension was nearly palpable, broken only by the sudden stillness of thrusters disengaging and battle lighting that came on when sensors were thrown to full passive and communications cut. And the voice that came a minute later.
"We have a view, sir. Calibrating the receivers ... pulling up onto the plot." even if the Gunrunner was the most heavily armed of the three vette's that were the Harpy's parasites, and had the most chance of surviving the coming confrontation with minimal damage, its passive sensors were not quite as good as those on board the Ja-Jinku. Still, they and their operator were apparently more than enough to catch the four pseudo-destroyers without alerting them ...
"Weapons?"
"We're green sir. Ready at your command."
***
Diego Rodriguez liked to think himself a fencer. Actually, he _was_ quite a fencer. One of the best in the sextant, given a rapier and an enemy who kept to the classical styles ... he could boast with taking down a chipped and juiced opponent in a duel, and not being injured in the process.
On the other hand, he had the flamboyant attitude and arrogance to match, as well as the heartfelt conviction that his skills with the sword would make him a grand tactician. He also had a tendency to gamble away any winnings earned in the span of several days, and ignore otherwise sound advice only because of his temporary irritation.
Still, as much as he boasted, he _was_ a decent tactician. His family, what was left of the aristocracy of a once prominent and rich Rimworld, had seen to it that he received an education. Unfortunately, he never could pay attention very well when he was attending the navy academy he'd been sent to. Even with that, he could have eventually been made into something of a strategist, tactician and commander worth his salt. Were it not for the fact that his home-world was taken a few years into his time in the academy, by a longtime family rival. Revenge hadn't been anywhere near his agenda, and even if it had been, he lost what little of the family fortune remained in his hands afterwards due to a few very unfortunately placed bets. Since tuition had been rather expensive ... well, he left. The four ships that remained in his family's hands, now in his, were at the time still in decent condition ...
... this, due to a combination of unfortunate choice in business ventures and lack of monetary funds to ensure their upkeep, did not last. Still, he was lucky enough, if you could call it that, to run across Standford Heai. A month later, the first raid by the Red Mist pirate group, future scourge and bogeyman of the Buffer Zone, took place.
Still, that was a few years ago, and in addition this was far from a 'combat situation' in his mind. Another bit of plunder, not really needed at the time since they were still living off the pay for their last job - that had taken a bit of planning to pull off, and a bit of funding to get the tools necessary to complete it in the first place - but a shame to let through their fingers.
Maybe if they'd been more careful. Or less sure of themselves ...
... after all, the Zone's patrols were generally not very motivated, and in other cases simply barged in with no subtlety at all, giving warning enough for them to bug out before they were in range.
A few years ago, he'd have been more careful. The again, a few years ago the Zone had taken far more of the Humanx, Taiidani and Centauri notice than it did now, and they'd all fallen into a sort of languidness.
As alerts started blearing across the bridge of his ship, Diego Rodriguez suddenly felt icy fingers running down his spine as he remembered a long since buried bit of instructions he'd caught in another place and time.
'...and remember, Murphy _will_ catch you with your pants down. It's just a question of when.'
***
"Fire." said Stork. A single key was hit, initiating the fire plan that had been fed into the battle computer. There was no sound, other than the sudden absence of the capacitator noise which had before hummed subtly in the background.
Space between the Gunrunner and its primary target, based upon the formation pattern of the four hostile ships and the badly shielded comm traffic exchange, lit up with the brilliance of several hundreds of suns as both spinal mounted Grasers discharged. It was only an instant of energy pulse, but it charred past the armor of the pseudo-destroyer as if it weren't there at all. The capship class weapon took up almost a quarter of the ship's total arms tonnage, and used up enough power that rapid fire was not an option ... or would burn the relays if even attempted.
Still, there really was no need for a second shot against any target of that size. The great gaping hole that was left, burned straight through the pseudo-destroyer that had been Rodriguez's personal ship, was more than enough to take that craft out of the equation.
Now, a destroyer is around 30-45 ktons, usually. More than 3/4 of that is taken up by the hyperdrive motivator and coils. That leaves from 7 to 15 ktons over for weapons, armor, engines, life support and crew compartments. A gun-vette like the runner is slightly above the 20 kton mark, usually. And those 20 ktons are used _only_ for weapons, armor, thrusters, life support and such. Because it's not nearly as maintenance intensive as an h-capable ship, due to the lack of hyperdrive, crew is also reduced and even more space is left available.
In case of the pseudo-destroyers the Red Mist used, the h-drive left place for some laser clusters and a few missiles. Frankly, none too impressive, but when you're on a budget and mostly up against merchants, weapons of any sort are enough. They had the cruisers for taking on the escort, after all ... an armed merchant wouldn't be too much of a stretch, their rudimentary weapons and defenses not overly hard to crack ... but when faced with a ship that had more weapons loaded than the four, now three, ships collectively carried, hit them without any sign given beforehand, started off with a burst of ECM strong enough to seriously scramble their 'battle computers' if they could be called such for a few seconds at least ...
... the second and third ones were hit moments later, two streams of osmium spikes going at a fair fraction of .c tearing into their armor and nearly through the hulls in their entirety. The second ship's power-plant flickered, flared, and went up in a fusion powered supernova that tore apart its damaged ally.
The last one stayed alive long enough for its sensor officer to recover some semblance of sight, spot the missile signatures from four 'Firewight' MRMs heading their way, and let off a small scream ...
***
"Oh, fragggg ..." Fiddler heard Katz mutter as g-forces pushed them against their respective safety harnesses. Battle maneuvering was distinctly different aboard a small ship like the Gunrunner than, say, a full-fledged destroyer or the Hydra. For one thing, no power was wasted for the artificial gravity systems, and most of the inertia compensators were brought a notch or two down as well. Meaning that there was more juice for the weapons and defensive measures to run on, even if only slightly, but there was about zilch in the ways of personal comfort.
Each person was strapped into their own acceleration couch, and they had the fortune of being in the relatively un-cramped security section. Engineering was perhaps the hardest place to be during combat conditions, mostly because of the noise - the aural damping field was dependant in part on the anti-grav, and protective headgear was the norm so the techies didn't go deaf in the process of doing their duty. Much the same conditions were to be found in the missile bays, though those were relatively low maintenance and only needed up to three techs for maximum safety, while they could well do with none at all if the situation demanded it.
"You get used to is," the big man told the newbie. "We're doing 180 in accel again, though. Looks like there wasn't all that much there."
"Meaning the Harpy got the big kits to deal with, I wager," Katz replied. "Not that I like getting shot at, but that's not really comforting a thought."
"Never is when the hyperdrive goes off on its own," nodded Fiddler, before another burst of acceleration made sure they were quiet for the next while, merely focusing on holding out under the strain.
***
---------------------------------
this is a rough draft of the first half of the story, and I'll probably tweak it later on.
I'd been meaning to have it done by now, but other than most common real life stoppers, as in various study related issues, I've also come down with the flu recently. Not good for productivity at all. *sigh* Not to mention the lag on my study projects that this caused. Or that I missed the first New Years' party I'd actually had every intention of attending because of it. I think these bugs are trying to make up for lost time or something ... grr ... I hate being sick.
--
-Griever
'deadlines hate me. the feeling, in this case, is entirely mutual.'
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>I assume this is supposed to be Harpy, not Hydra?
You assume correctly. I think that my fingers and mind ran away briefly when I was writing that part. I wasn't in the best of conditions at the time. Corrected version will be dumped into the forum Saturday evening.
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Couldn't make it, sorry ... I've been playing code-bunny for the past few days, so I'm feeling pretty much drained right now. That, coupled that it's time to get back into the academical grind tomorrow, _and_ a bout of persistant flu, does not make me happy _or_ inspired ... I'll post more sometime around the weekend, weather, health, and study plans permitting.
-Griever
my brain feels as if it's been turned inside out.
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