My vacation is over and I got my hands on a new laptop so it is time to put it to good use and give you a brand new chapter. I have separated the glossary into a separate post. Below you can find a link to it.
I have also added a new intro to the story in chapter 1 (however this may be irrelevant for those that are reading chapter
By the way, I will encourage people to write what they DON’T like about my story. Especially stylistic criticism will be appreciated. I have noticed that only one of fifty that reads this chapters coment on them and never had a negative comment been given.
Without such critisism I can't evolve as (hobby) writer. The whole point of this story is to give me "combat experiance" for more advanced stories which I plan in future (A warstory and cyberpunk novel not set in X-Universe).
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Links to other chapters:
Chapter 7: Among the rogues
Chapter 6: Anger of the Giants
Chapter 5: Awakening of the storm
Chapter 4: Trade run to Hell
Chapter 3: Old connections
Chapter 2: Means for revenge
Chapter 1: First kill
Glossary of Unknown Heroes
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Chapter 8: The Hunt begins
If prisoners on “Michelle 12” correction facility had energy left from today’s work to lift their heads and look at the sky above them, they would have seen a sight rare even for the Ringo Moon’s sector. Thousands of small star-like lights hovered above them, appearing and disappearing in intricate patterns, shifting colors like Boron rainbow fish.
These lights with purely esthetic function, belonged to the largest floating casino in the Known Universe, a modified passenger cruiser. “The Pearl” as she was known moved endlessly around the universe, to whatever place her customers desired. One of her passengers, wealthy Argon from Omicron Lyrae, had paid the captain six-numbered sum to come here, two thousands meters above “Michelle 12” prison. And so “The Pearl” was here, above the prison, with its passengers using ship’s optic sensors to gawk at the wretched creatures below them.
Otto listened to their comments about the prisoners below them, about how they were getting what they deserved. He despised people who took pleasure in suffering of fellow humans. Disgusted by smiles and cheers from people watching the prisoners, he turned away and headed to his favorite gambling hall, “Bacchus”. With its supposedly “antique” style it catered to Argons, especially wealthier pilots like Otto. Female hostesses, scantly clad and with plenty of esthetic bioimplants, walked around serving free drinks, smiling and urging the gamblers on.
Otto ignored the spectacle around him and walked to the tables that allowed bets up to one hundred thousand. He gambled only on “The Pearl” and his game was Blackjack.
Otto was in the loosing streak, having lost almost 80.000 credits last night. He had still 35.000 credits left and having not much time left on the ship, he decided to play few last high-bet games before quitting. An Argon hostess, spotting his empty glass, replaced it with a full one and at same time pressed her enhanced bosom against him, smiling flirtingly. Otto knew the trick and ignored it. The girl’s job was to distract the gamblers from their games, further increasing gamblers’ chances of loss. Seeing that she had no effect on Otto, she stayed few moments longer to see if anybody would give her any tip. The man next to Otto, grinning like an idiot, put few chips in the small pouch, intended for the tip money, strategically placed in her cleavage. Otto knew that trick too. Nothing on “The Pearl” was accidental; everything was geared towards milking every last credit visitors had on them.
He concentrated on the two cards he had been dealt. He turned them over. Fourteen in total. Dealer revealed his second card. Sixteen in total. Otto asked for another card. Twenty! Otto felt happy first time in last two days, only to see the dealer taking another card that had the value of five. Blackjack!
Otto felt again his despair growing. The rules on “The Pearl” allowed gamblers to buy one additional card beyond the first three. Otto paid 1000 credits and got another card. He hoped for value of one that would give him 21 in total, allowing him to keep his money. He turned it over. The gray color of number 3 written in several numerical systems reflected the color of his face. Otto was down to 26.000 credits.
He decided to play “all or nothing strategy” which had made him both rich and poor on his previous stays at “The Pearl”. He signaled for new game and pushed all his chips on the betting square on the table, indicating that he wanted to bet all. The dealer, with bored expression on his face, gave him two new cards. Otto turned them over. Two cards with value of ten each, twenty in total. He felt cheerful again, but then remembered the last round and forced himself to stay calm and focused. The dealer revealed his two cards. Eighteen in total. In other establishments across the universe, dealer would be forced to stay now, but not at “The Pearl”. Dealer took another card from the machine that was constantly mixing cards from thirty different stacks. He put the card on the table and then turned it over. It had the value of eight, giving Otto the victory. Otto had now 52.000 credits. The dealer started to shove over Otto’s newly won credits over, but Otto indicated that he should place them on the betting square. His high stakes had attracted few onlookers before and the rumor of 52.000 credit bet attracted few more. From nowhere, two hostesses appeared, pretending to check if anyone’s drink was half-empty or warm, in the process rubbing their bodies against Otto. Probably sent by the floor manager, Otto thought disgusted by the vulgar display. He turned his two cards over. Nineteen, a good number, Otto thought. He would probably stay. Dealer turned over his two, revealing two cards with value of ten each, beating his cards value of nineteen. Otto cursed. Having nothing to loose, Otto asked for another card. It was one with value of two. The spectators cheered before Otto realized that this meant that his winnings were doubled and that he had 104.000 thousand credits.
Pretending to be unaffected by his sudden turn of fortune, as if it was the most natural thing in the universe, he calmly asked the dealer to transfer his winnings to his account. Besides, it was nothing to be happy over – he ended with 4000 credits more than he began with. He could have earned that much in four hours escort job. Otto waited until dealer talking in his throat-microphone transferred the money and then walked away to nearest bar. Turning his head back, he could see dealer smiling briefly before turning his attention to other gamblers at the table.
Otto went to his favorite bar, taking care to take the route where he would be most difficult to follow, trough crowds and shops before turning back walking the same way for few mizuras. He wanted to shake off any potential mugger that might have followed him. The security was tight on “The Pearl”, but Otto knew from the experience that there were plenty of desperate individuals aboard who might have lost everything they had last stazura. Being once on the receiving end of shock baton was one time too many for Otto…
Satisfied that he had not been followed, Otto entered the bar and ordered a drink. Taking one look around to see if any familiar face was around, he saw a pair of bloodshot eyes peering at him under an old-fashioned pilot helmet. They belonged to a face that looked vaguely familiar to Otto, which he could not pin a name to. Then he spotted a blue nametag on the man and smiled.
Pietr Lebedov was a man Otto had done some dealings with early in his carrier. Pietr was a former cook in Army that was expelled when his drug habit was discovered. Now he worked in one of many “security advisors” companies that had popped up like mushrooms after the rain, during wars in last decade. Such companies were in reality mercenary outfits that were from time to time hired by big corporations to take out bothersome, but less politically well-connected competition, especially in independent sectors. Pietr had managed to place himself in economy department for one of the expanding companies, “Freelance Marine Corps”.
Otto sat next to him, placing his drink on the table and saying, “You too are here to gamble away your money or what Pietr?”
“Well…I admit that I had some luck lately. You too must have “salvaged” ship or two,” Pietr said grinning, reveling two rows of yellow teeth.
“Not as much luck as you apparently,” Otto answered, pointing to the blue nametag where Pietr’s name was written in golden letters. Such nametag meant preferred customer status aboard “The Pearl” and was obtained if visitor had paid docking fee of 15.000 credits. Otto, like majority of pilots aboard, had used shuttle service to arrive at the casino ship.
“Yeah, I landed a major contact. Snatched it right in front of nose of “Space Security” too!”
“Independent systems?”
“Not at all! Not at all, my friend!” Pietr answered giving him a wink. Otto could see that whatever drug Pietr had taken, was starting to work. Pietr looked like he wanted to burst from desire to tell him about this “large” contract. Otto decided to stay and listen. It was always wise to stay updated on current developments in Universe’s politics.
“You see Otto, the job is just a kidnapping from a pirate base…”
“That doesn’t pay much, does it? Unless we are talking about some large base with many pirates prepared to side with the man or woman you guys are supposed to catch…”
Pietr chuckled and shook his head vigorously, “No, our employer had reached agreement with pirates. They will look other way when our boys arrive at the station…”
“So…Why is the payment great then?”
“I figured it out. It is old tale about some idiot ripping his boss off and escaping with loads of credits…We were told to deploy most of our men. But it is just kidnapping we are talking about here, so it aren’t right to deploy fifty men, right? I did some snooping and discovered that the employer that hired us, a Split, is just a front for NSM. Large company, you might have heard about them…”
When NSM was mentioned, Otto turned his eyes at Pietr, tuning all his senses to whatever little man was about to say. Pietr, unaware of the change in his acquaintance’s mood, continued his story, obviously being proud about his achievement of discovering the real employer,
“You know we were afraid of being set up or something, so everyone relaxed until I discovered that this stupid Split…”
Otto, anxious to see if his fears were well founded interrupted Pietr, “How can you be sure that pirates are keeping their promise. What pirate crew are we talking about?”
“Relax friend. We are talking about Carrick’s Boyz here. Carrick doesn’t mess with us mercenaries especially when the operation is taking place in Argon space, you know at that wreck of station they have in The Hole sector…”
Pietr continued talking, sinking more and more in dream induced by mistan powder he took half stazura ago. He did not notice that his conversation partner was long gone…
“Everybody ready? All right then, on three then,” the leader told his group of six mercenaries, speaking in throat microphone in such way that his voice could only be heard by other members of group equipped with headphones receivers. All of them were in Station Security strike groups before joining the mercenary company and that is why they were chosen for tasks such as this one. Someone wanted person living in the room they were about to storm, kidnapped and transported to the system’s Trading Station. Easy job, big money. Just the kind of assignments mercenary companies dreamt of.
The group’s leader checked his weapon one more time, signaled to the man that was to be first in, to get into his position. Taking a deep breath, he began silently counting.
“One…Two..Three!” At the moment his said “three”, six men moved like one, using a handheld auto-battering ram to break the door open. Next moment their bodies were torn by many shrapnel flying at subsonic speeds trough air.
Erich was waiting for explosion before taking action. He had moved to a room couple of doors away from his original one when he had found stiff body from a junkie in front of his own door. The junkie had suffocated on his own saliva, when the poison Erich had applied to door had paralyzed him. Apparently, he had tried to break in Erich’s room. The cyberborg did not take any chances and moved in another vacant room. Then two days later, a silent alarm that was linked to micro-sensors in corridor awoke him, rigged to be triggered by movement of an armed sentient. Using his augmented vision, he could observe movement and preparations by men in the corridor. When the bomb exploded, he opened his door and started to shoot. The corridor’s lights were all out but that was no hindrance to Erich. Within tenth of sezura, he established that assailants were wearing night vision glasses and consequently the explosion had temporally blinded them. Using his TG-21, he quickly killed survivors. Somebody tossed in a flash grenade in the corridor. Erich’s optical implants easily compensated for the sudden flash. Three men stormed behind the corner, but before they managed to spot their target, three thuds could be heard and they fell to the ground dead. Erich guessed that opposition had more reserves behind the corner so he picked up a SLR from one of the dead bodies. One more flash grenade came, flying trough the air. Erich caught it in the air and tossed it back. He waited a moment for explosion before rounding the corner. Another six-man team. They too had the NV glasses on and blinded by explosion, were shooting wildly. Erich shot them all with SLR. One by one, they all fell to the ground. Erich looked confused at their bodies, seeing no burns from the laser beams. Then he understood. The SLR, as matter of fact all the weapons assailants used, were set on stun. He changed it to kill setting and finished them off. Erich had his suspicions about who wanted him captured.
He began advancing slowly towards the station’s docks, choosing the shortest route. My every move is probably watched, Erich thought spotting an old-fashioned surveillance camera. Probably the attacking force had hacked in the surveillance network. Or had reached some agreement with pirates. Perhaps pirates were also involved, in which case Erich was in deep trouble…
Raising his weapon, he shot the camera. It might anger the local pirate clan but at least not my every movement is monitored, Erich reasoned. He had no illusions about staying undetected whole time. The enemy could easily follow his progress by noting in which sector cameras went down. Then there were cameras so small that Erich probably could not detect them.
He began again advancing slowly, changing to MFD, magnetic field detection, vision now and then. Spotting a magnetic field, indicating presence of electronic components, he would switch to normal vision and check if it was a hidden camera he had detected. After few corridors, he was met with resistance.
They had placed a proximity mine on the wall, which he had fortunately detected trough wall with his MFD vision. Erich remembered the layout of this particular level with its many parallel corridors and he quickly chose different route. With his IR vision mode, he could see residents of the rooms. Some of them were obviously hiding under their beds. Erich guessed that they must have heard the laser fire. Wise idea, probably. The attackers almost certainly attacked every Argon male on sight.
He picked up by audio enhancements, sounds of four attackers conversing. They were too far away to be heard clearly, but Erich could figure out what conversation was about.
“…didn’t walk into that trap…”, one muffled voice could be heard.
“Donna’s lifesigns…Must be dead too… ”, another voice added.
“I…out of here…more than one…”
“Intel said one man…Perhaps pirates joined the fray ” first voice suggested.
“Carrick said…One way or…out of here. Not worth…”
Erich could not hear the rest of the conversation since the men seemed to move away. With little luck, they might have pulled back giving me clear way to the docks, Erich hoped. He continued to advance slowly anyway, keeping to the shadows, scanning for the cameras and taking them out. After few mizuras he began meeting people in the corridors. Apparently, residents of the station did not expect the trouble to spread outside the residential area and went with their business as usual. This presented Erich with new problem. Every one of those people could be the usual scum that frequented pirate bases such as this one, but there were also chance that assailants were hiding among the people on the dock level, waiting for their chance to attack him. Nearly all of the people he saw were armed so he had to assume the worst. He hid the SLR under his jacket and continued slowly, watching for suspicious behavior.
Suad awoke. It was still three at night according to the station’s local time. An irritating noise could be heard from the computer demanding his attention. Suad moved his head to see what the fuss was about. The computer’s hologram projector showed the symbol for message drone arrival. The adrenaline surge awoke him completely. Message drones meant usually trouble. Suad’s section chief used COMSAT when he had important news or orders for Suad. Only two men used message drones to contact Suad.
He jumped out of his bed and ordered his computer to show the uploaded contents of the message drone. Seeing the type of drone, the IC 486ER Extreme, the type favored by Otto, Suad concluded that something unexpected had happened. The hologram projector showed a 2D representation of message’s contents. It looked like a regular update for Suad’s space ship database, with an explanation about the changes in this version. He copied the text to his computer’s volatile memory and then disabled the communication between his computer and Station’s network. Suad then ordered the computer to decode the message using a prearranged keyword. Most of the decoded text was gibberish, except of few words. Taken together they said:
“Erich’s whereabouts are known to the enemy. Mercenary group “Freelance Marine Corps” hired to kidnap him on the Carrick’s Lair station in the Hole. Heading to mentioned sector. Can be contacted by COMSAT, my nick is “ews105”. Will contact you trough usual methods if further developments.”
Finishing reading, he ordered the computer to shut down and waited few mizuras for volatile memory, which depended on power to retain its contents, to empty. Then he turned it on again, reconnected to the Station’s network and plotted the message drone to deliver a message to one of the systems asteroids, by colliding with it. After that was done, Suad connected to the naval intelligence network.
Few tazuras ago, Suad was given access to the EYE Network. Initially Suad had thought that this monitoring system would make travel for Erich very difficult since ship-id changing software, use of false id and such, would trigger the EYE’s alarm systems. But now Suad could use the EYE to his own advantage. The hologram projector showed the feed from the space surrounding the Carrick’s Lair pirate station. A mega-transporter, early series Elephant TL, could be seen some distance from the station. No pirates were flying CAP which in itself was a telltale sign that something strange was going on. The spy satellite picked up a communication between station and the TL. Suad hoped that it was not an encrypted signal and told EYE to give him a passive access to the channel used. He was lucky.
“What is happening in there!? The life signals of three squads went down couple of sezuras ago!” a woman could be heard saying. Computer’s voice analyzing software told Suad that she was with 98,78 % certainty anxious, something Suad did not need a program to know.
“They went down! Jerry, Xien, Donna, they ALL bought it! This isn’t a malfunction I tell you! I hear the first squad being blown to pieces. There is only four of us left and just two of us armed. We tried to lure them into a trap but they picked other way so we pulled back to the bar. They seemed going towards the docks before according to pirates before pirates cut the conversation.”
Analyzing software told Suad that the men speaking was 67 percent “highly anxious” and 25,6 percent “very afraid”…
“You said “them”. Info said only one, top two men. You detected more men? Pirates confirmed presence of only one man”
“To hell with Carrick Boyz! They probably set us up! Get me out of here!”
“Calm down, I am sending a M5 to pick you up”
“You better do! Don’t leave us here!”
Conversation ended. Then another channel opened between station’s flight control and the TL, also this one not encrypted.
“What’s going on? I though we had a deal?”
“This is Carrick’s Lair to “Big Money” mega-transporter: The price went up…”
“We had a deal. Fifteen grand to the big boss and five to his Boyz!”
“Well, how should we put it… The Boyz like to be on the winning side. And it seems that there is massacre going on here… Lot of “Marine” blood… Our cameras are also going down – all of it expensive equipment…”
“Are Carrick’s Boyz going to get involved actively on opposition’s side?”
“Not for all the credits in entire galaxy baby. This is scary business and we want nothing to do with it…”
“How about passive involvement as before for five grand extra?”
“Like position info? Make it ten baby…”
“You get eight and that’s it!”
“Fine, fine… You got yourself a new deal”
“So where is the enemy and how many are they?”
“Just one man…And he has entered the B dock”
Erich looked around looking for a fast ship. He saw two Argon men speaking with each other, one of them leaning on a civilian Discoverer light ship. Erich approached them quickly and asked the one that was leaning on the ship, “Is this ship yours?”
“Yes, why do…” the man began, but was interrupted by Erich pointing the SLR in pilot’s stomach.
“You will take me on a trip in your ship.”
The other man started to reach for his laspistol that was in a holster tied to his hips. With his free hand, Erich took out his own laspistol and before the man had chance to react, he shot him twice, once trough each hand. Few heads that had turned to see the cause to the screaming turned away quickly when they saw Erich holding the SLR.
“Do you agree to my proposal or do I have to kill you?” Erich asked the pilot.
“You could just ta..ta..take the ship and leave me alone here. I...I..I could gi..gi..give you the access codes,” the pilot said, visibly shocked by seeing his friend crippled by laser fire.
“Sorry, I never took a pilot license. So back to my question. Does your life end here or will you do as I suggested?”
“Guess I..I..I will do as you suggest”
Both men climbed into Discoverer. With shaking hands, the pilot started the engine and went trough the undocking procedures. The flight control gave them outgoing priority. After leaving the station, Erich ordered the pilot to fly with max speed to Herron’s Nebula sector. Trough cockpit he could see the station’s laser towers and the huge TL parked short distance away. Erich hoped that the towers would remain silent. They did and the fast M5 ship quickly came out of their firing range. The stench of urine filled the small cockpit. Erich guessed that the pilot had wetted himself.
After hearing the pirate station confirming to the Mercenary TL “Big Money”, that their target was aboard the Discoverer that had just undocked, Suad knew that Erich had once again preformed a miracle. He knew also where Erich was heading. Suad quickly dressed and hurried to station’s hospital section. Once there he started the hospitals computers and opened a channel, via COMSAT, to “ews105”,
“Hello Otto, this is Sonra Friend,” Suad said after seeing that communication was established. He deliberately used his code name in the communication; both men knew that EYE was always watching and hearing. Otto’s identity could not be hid from the EYE but Suad’s could. To the EYE it would appear as a communication between the station’s hospital and Otto’s ship “Salvager’s Luck”.
“Otto here, communication quality is good. Three gates away from my destination.”
“Our friend obtained transport already to the arranged location.”
Otto’s laughter could be heard trough the channel, “Should have guessed. I am changing course. Anything else?”
“No. Communication terminated,” Suad said terminating the channel to Otto’s ship. He felt tired. It was time for him to get some more sleep.
An AI has no need to sleep. They are always awake, always active. Since an AI is artificial creation of many lines of adaptive code, it has no need of “recharging” as the human body did.
While Jane slept, Stella played with the Naval Intelligence databases. They contained tons of information such as ship’s information, intercepted communication between ships and stations, stock market reports, etc… that no human ever viewed. Mostly such databases existed for the benefit of the data mining. In early days of “observed society”, agents went trough information manually, trying to find the hidden connections shuffling trough huge heaps of cellulose-based paper. Then with advent of civilized age, also called the computer age, computers took over the job, first the electronic ones, then spintronic ones and finally quantum computers. But as time passed, the information gathering tools increased their efficiency, while information analysis tools couldn’t keep up with ever increasing information that was gathered. Not that there were any less gathered now that EYE was up and running, Stella concluded.
Past thirteen stazuras she had been running searches, looking for anything that was connected to the case Jane was working on. She was just finishing her last search for “NSM” as keyword in communication intercepts between sources outside the company and news media.
Finally, after thirteen hours of work, Stella found something. A “security consultant” company’s headquarter ship was sending a call for one of their employees that had just rented a room aboard a nearby station:
“Hey Jerry, come back here. Lebedov has landed us an easy big bounty job”
“You sure about that? Because I am about to get the first proper shower since we entered Argon Federation space. This better not be one of those stories that crackhead comes up with…”
“No this is real shit man. The big boss checked it himself. Some NSM big shot wants someone ‘napped. Come over to the “Big Money”, we are leaving for the Hole in half stazura.”
“All right. I am coming over. Give me the details”
Stella decided that this was something promising enough to investigate further. She used the EYE to see where the ship “Big Money” went to. Then, just as Suad was awakening by his computer’s sounds, the AI followed the conversation between the ship and the pirate station. Stella heard the panic and disbelief in the voices as the mercenaries went down, one by one. The AI knew that a certain cyberborg was aboard the pirate station. Stella calculated that Jane Freedman had slept long enough. It was time to wake her up and tell her about the discovery.
Herron’s Nebula system belonged officially to the heartlands of the Argon Federation but Erich had chosen this system as agreed extraction point with Otto because of the presence of the huge nebula placed close to the East gate. Once a spacecraft entered this nebula, its sensors went crazy. No matter how advanced they were, once inside the Herron’s nebula, all they received was the white noise. Erich saw that a familiar Harrier light ship seemed to take coincidently a parallel course to the one they took.
“Where to now,” the pilot asked. He had calmed somewhat the last half stazura, but Erich could sense the man’s anxiety.
“Go to the 0,1500,0 relative to the gate. Turn 90 degrees to the right, maintaining the vertical position,” Erich instructed.
The ship continued. One Customs patrol approached, scanning the ship. Erich have not considered such possibility. If they discovered something illegal aboard, Customs ships would order them to shut down their engines. A chase was the last thing Erich wanted.
“Would they found anything illegal?” he asked the pilot.
“No man, I unloaded my shit back at the Carrick’s Lair”
“I certainly hope so…”
Erich luck seemed to hold this day. Founding nothing, Customs patrol went after another ship.
Erich watched them go trough cockpit window.
“How long am I supposed to hold this position?” the pilot asked turning his head towards Erich.
“18K more. And keep the ship steady! Otherwise we may both die earlier than planned…”
The rest of the trip went in the silence. They entered the nebula and quickly their sensors stopped working. The gas that seemed green outside the nebula was black once the ship entered the nebula, since the density of the gas was so great that the sunlight did not penetrate more than few meters inside the nebula. The pilot seemed obviously nervous being here. If there were any junk floating around they could collide with it and the ship could easily get critical damages.
“Take it slowly until you reach 18K,1500,0 relative to the East gate. And I want you precisely to be at that point when you shut down the engines.”
“What will happen once we are there?”
“How long until we are there?” Erich deflected the pilot’s question.
“Five mizuras at most…”
Erich stood back from his seat and opened up supplies locker. As expected he found there a EVA suit and a med kit. He opened it up and found some tape. Erich looked around for some more useful items like a recharger or a spare energy pack but he found nothing. SLR showed only 12 percent of the charge left.
“We are almost there,” pilot announced. He tried to turn his head so he could see what Erich was doing. The pilot found the SLR pointing to his head.
“I repeat. It is critical that you steer precisely the last fifty meters,” Erich reminded him. The pilot concentrated back at his flying. The tiny sweat beads were appearing on his forehead.
“Ok, I am right on the spot you have ordered me position the ship at. What happens now?” the pilot asked.
“First program the ship to fly on autopilot to dock automatically to the Trading Station in 12 stazuras. Let it broadcast the S.O.S signal entire time.”
“I can’t program the emergency signal. It has to be manually set of,” pilot said.
“That’s fine with me. You can set it of right now,” Erich said, feeling safe that the signal would be distorted until ship exited the nebula. He rummaged trough his suitcase until he found the spray box with the Shandar spider’s poison.
“Wha..What’s that? You ain’t going to snuff me now?” the pilot asked looking at the spray box with his eyes wide open and his under lip shaking from the fear.
“Relax. If I wanted you dead, I would have simply used this,” Erich said waving the SLR.
“Are you one of those that drug the pilots and have their ways with them?” the pilot asked even more afraid than before. Erich looked at him confused for few moments before understanding what the man was talking about. He shook his head, realizing that whatever he said to the pilot, he was not going to alleviate the man’s fears. So he simply sprayed the man’s face with the paralyzing spray. The man’s face was that of utter terror and as he tried to rise himself from the chair, he fell to the ground. Erich waited few sezuras before using the tape he found in the supplies locker to tie the man and afterwards positioning him in a safe position so the man would not choke accidentally. Satisfied with his work, he used the SLR to shoot equipment to pieces. If the pilot awakes earlier than planed, he would not have any ways of reprogramming the autopilot or communicating with the outside world.
Erich climbed into EVA suit before entering airlock. He waited until pressure was realigned, before opening the outer door and pushing himself outside, using the thrusters at minimal strength. It was pitch dark and nothing could be seen trough the suit’s visor. Erich remember how everybody discouraged the space walks in the nebulas. All the horror stories he had heard came to his mind. Then his outstretched arms felt a resistance, like meeting a wall. He cut the thrusters and activated his magnetic boots. Seeing absolutely nothing, he stumbled around before he found what he was searching for – a lever that opened an airlock. Once inside he could see again and he closed the door. Hiss of the pumps realigning the pressure could be heard. The inner door opened. Familiar face smiled to him and Erich smiled back, removing the helmet of the EVA suit.
“What took you so long?” Otto asked.
Medium sized Xenon destroyer D51.3421 felt compelled to proceed faster than usual with the upgrade of his control ship than the usual procedure. Its outer patrols had fought the first skirmishing battles with the new threat. Even the heavy fighters were incapable of stopping the new ships.
The first upgrade of A88.0087 went badly since the version of the HDL standard used by the destroyer did not incorporate the support for hardware used by the ancient A88.0087. Usually the destroyer would ask higher instances for advice. However, being unconnected to the Xenon Sector meant that destroyers CPU was forced to take decision in its own hands. It decided that it would be best if it scrapped an L fighter and few N fighters to make complete overhaul of the A88.0087, making a new series.
D51 series were obsolete by Xenon standards and not very smart as such. Connected with many Xenon CPUs this obsoleteness was not necessarily a disadvantage since many task could be run in parallel. However isolated in this desolate sector it meant that D51.3421 was not capable of understanding that it departed from the original orders.
D51.3421 realized that an A-series ship rarely would need weapons so it left it out from the design. Since it was a warship and programmed always to assume that a spacecraft would move in a combat zone, it decided that it would be wise to equip the new ship with huge high performance engines giving it capability to escape from any trouble. It also decided to greatly emphasize the new ships desire to survive. Using the planets ancient Xenon factories, D51.3421 produced new CPU component using the newest Xenon design it had in its databases.
Design phase and synthesis went rather quickly, in just few mizuras. The implementation of the new design took long time, almost a wozura. By the time D51.3421 was running the first power up of the new unit, the enemy ships were pounding its shields, having destroyed destroyer’s entire fighter force, having arrived much more quickly than old A88.0087 had predicted. The destroyer’s shields held and its defensive batteries dealt with enemy spaceships. Just as D51.3421 thought that victory was at hand, a new spacecraft jumped in some distance away. It appeared to disintegrate but it parts transformed into new enemies.
Just as the shields were failing on the D51.3421, a new spacecraft awoke in its hangar. The various devices and robot arms were removed from it and test probes were detached. Complete power up was initiated. A89.0001 was online.
“So where to now?” Erich asked Otto. He found the travel in Otto’s Harrier to be far more pleasant than his trip in the cramped cockpit of the Discoverer. Erich could stretch out completely in the Teladi designed vessel, which was strange since Teladi was profit-oriented race that considered any not profiting area in a design to be wasted.
“Elisa’s Elysium,” Otto said with the smile on his face. He actually had once a thing going on with Elisa. Which reminded him that she should probably stay low once he arrived there...
Erich smiled too, having heard the story before. He turned grinning to Otto, “You think she had forgiven you yet?”
“No the bounty on my private parts is still alive last time I checked…”
Otto was probably the only man in entire universe that had this kind of bounty. First Erich had thought that Otto had joked when he first told the story. Until he checked the bounty BBS and found that the bounty was a real thing.
Elisa’s Elysium was the second largest pirate station, Anarchy Port being the largest. It was certainly the largest independent shipyard in the Known Universe. Bayamons, Mandalays and Orincos were mostly made here. The ships were not the top league, but Elisa being the only major supplier in the Independent Systems meant that both pirates and various planet-nations in the Independent Systems bought most of their hardware there. Erich personally had never been on the station since Elisa from some reason forbid presence of assassins or prostitutes on the station. The two groups were welcome to the station but if anyone tried to practice their tradecraft there, a trip trough the airlock without EVA suit awaited them. Teladi visitors, in their usual fashion, protested without making any impression on Elisa.
Erich reasoned that if any place were ideal for him to hide in this part of the universe, it would be Elisa’s Elysium. It was marketed as safe heaven fro any fugitive and no one dared to perform a raid of the type Erich experienced at Carrick’s Lair station. Anyone who was foolish enough to do that risked
And the best part of it all – the place was only two gates away. Erich lent back on his seat, watching the space trough the cockpit glass. In two-three hours time he would be safe.
The glossary can be found her.
Continue to Chapter 9
