“Twitch, hey, wake up!” an urgent voice penetrated my mind, ripping me from a pleasant dream. For a moment, I wasn’t even able to remember my own name, my mind not quite wanting to work just yet.

“What?!” I groaned, looking at the door and Airah who was standing in it.

“We just left hyperspace at system C-531 and there are multiple contacts nearby. I’d rather have you at the helm, just in case.” Airah explained, causing me to grunt in acceptance as I swung my legs out of the bed.

“Let’s see what’s going on there.” I said, as I stepped past her, feeling a little grumpy. But at the same time, I was secretly quite pleased that she deferred to me, even if it was a little silly. I was a trained pilot, so if I wasn’t the better pilot, I’d have wasted a great deal of time at the Academy. We had completed two jumps after hiding out from the Federation in the system I, in a fit of boredom, had dubbed Trash Pile and there had been other contacts, so there had been a reason for Airah’s agitation.

As I swung myself into the pilot-seat, I checked the readouts, taking in the situation. Due to our low mass, the Tyton had jumped quite deep into the system, the imprecise nature of hyperspace-jumps working against us in this case. The original plan had been to arrive almost tangential to the system, only just using its gravity well to navigate. Sadly, that hadn’t quite worked out and we had arrived straight-on, deep in the gravity well, not on its outskirts. Behind us, as seen from the primary, was a group of contacts, none close enough for a good identification but what the sensors displayed made me agree with Airah, those contacts were trouble.

Normally, people arrived in a star-system, plotted a course towards their next jump-point, accelerated to a comfortable speed and continued on a ballistic course, not doing a lot unless there was something in the way and they had to avoid it. Sure, space was huge and mostly empty but even a tiny meteor would be enough to make a massive mess if you ran into it with enough speed.

The contacts the computer had picked out did not act like that. We only had about a minute of data on them but it was quite obvious that they had nefarious intent. They had loitered in a position, roughly in the area where most ships would fall out of hyperspace if jumping into this system along the route we had followed as well and the computer had picked them up due to intermittent acceleration. Natural objects didn’t accelerate for no reason, giving them away. I had to suppress a chuckle when I realised that I was able to estimate their distance, simply by looking at the length of time between our arrival in the system and their obvious reaction to it. Whoever they were, the moment the flare of our hyperspace-jump had washed over them, some of them had started to accelerate towards us, pushing hard.

Airah had set a course before coming to get me, dashing away from them and from the gravity well, trying to get to our jump-point before they could catch up. It was a good idea, but whether it would work was dependant on the determination of our pursuers.

“Have they communicated?” I asked, reasonably sure that we weren’t dealing with Starfleet-ships.

“The usual, a claim that they are the lawful authority of this system, an order to cut our drive and prepare to be boarded.” Airah answered with a derisive snort. “I ignored them, I doubt speaking to them would do much good.” she added while sitting on her seat and pulling up more information.

“This’ll take a while, unless they’ve got hyperspace-capable fighters, those might be able to jump on us. Can you keep an eye on things while I get some tea to wake up?” I asked, only to see Airah shake her head.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“Don’t bother, I’ll get you your tea. I doubt they have fighters but I’d rather be safe than sorry.” she added, standing to go into the galley.

“Thank you.” I replied. It was the better way but I had been hesitant to ask her to go, make me some tea.

For the next five minutes, nothing much happened. Both sides achieved their rated speed and the reality that they wouldn’t catch us became apparent. Yet, for some reason, they didn’t stop their pursuit, making me frown in confusion. Unless they knew something I didn’t they wouldn’t be able to catch us, it was simple math.

When Airah returned with the tea, I was quickly looking through various read-outs, searching for that one data-point that might tell me why they were chasing after us without a chance to catch us.

“Thanks. Airah, can you try to see what I’m missing?” I asked, gratefully accepting a spill-free mug and showed her what I meant. She looked through the information, before answering.

“What if it’s not so much something we are missing but something they know?” she suggested, waiting for me to focus on her, instead of the ship’s sensors.

“If I wanted to make a living by preying on shipping in a particular Star-System, I’d map the hell out of that system. Think about it, you can, in theory, map out every rock in the system and their orbital elements, sure such a map would quickly deteriorate with every large ship moving through but for a few months, maybe longer, you could get a map that allows you to safely ignore your rated speed in certain areas.” Airah reasoned, making me cuss at the possibility.

“And if they regularly wait at one jump-point, they can simply map out the routes to different jump-points, giving them the option to catch up to their prey. Yeah, that sounds quite plausible. Huge effort up front, especially for pirates, but good pay-off if it works. And it would give them the relatively secure escape-paths, if they get disturbed by the Federation.” I muttered, not happy at the prospect of having to fight off what looked like a corvette and four cobbled together Starfighters. While I was confident in my ability to win against such a force, I also knew that fighting a needless battle was foolish.

The chase continued for another forty minutes, the pirates slowly catching up but not fast enough for it to matter. That is, until they suddenly started to accelerate again, pushing past what I was quite sure was their rated speed and suddenly, the equation changed. They would catch us, about twenty minutes before we could jump away. I took a moment to see how much faster we’d have to go to be gone before they got us and the result didn’t fill me with confidence. I was good but flying that much faster than the rated speed, in an unknown system, was foolish.

“Can you check if there are any small asteroids close to our vector?” I asked Airah, while checking something else, namely the exact specs of our antimatter-torpedoes. I was beginning to form a plan and when I realised that yes, the specs would work for what I had in mind, I had to smile.

“There are a few within a hundred thousand kilometers of our vector, why, what do you have in mind?” Airah asked, sounding both curious and a little worried.

“I need one that isn’t bigger than a few hundred meters and as close as possible. If it is moving opposite to our vector, that would be a bonus.” I explained, focusing back on my flying.

Moments later, Airah highlighted an asteroid, just eighty-thousand kilometers off our vector, quite close in stellar terms, making me change the vector, just a little.

“Ok, spill. What is going on in your mind?” Airah pressed, making me giggle.

“They think they know the system, right? What if we change that? We have antimatter-torpedos and I’m not afraid to use them!” I explained, grinning widely. “I’m reasonably sure that, if we hit the rock you picked, it’ll break apart and, at least for a few hours, act like cosmic buckshot. If they want to fly through that at top speed, they are either insane or stupid and most likely dead.” I added and I saw Airah nod in agreement.

“That…” she paused for a second, considering the idea I had just presented, “should actually work. Let’s do it.” she returned my grin, while I recalculated orbital elements, speed and distances.

The pirates would catch up to us, a minute or two before we slipped past that rock. But it was close enough that I was willing to risk speeding up a little, hoping that we wouldn’t run into anything.