Odin’s Revenge jumped deep into the outskirts of the system. Haldor had never been out this far from the STO border before, but all the other systems closer to the STO border were being picked over by the larger pirate crews. He couldn’t compete with only four in his warband. But they were four brothers and sisters he would trust his life with.
“Anything?” he asked Freya, itching to find something to justify the fuel expense of heading so far out.
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Haldor. Odin’s sensors take time. Unless you upgraded em without telling the rest of us.” The rest of the crew chuckled at Freya’s jab.
“Maybe I will with your cut if we find anything,” Haldor shot back, earning a feral grin from the woman and another round of chuckles from the rest of the crew.
He really hoped they found what everyone was looking for, he needed a big take if he wanted to move into Asgard and become part of the central family.
The corvette he had inherited from his father, and his father had inherited from their father was old, but it was well-maintained. And even though it had less firepower than a gunboat, he preferred the extra armor and maneuverability that the ship provided. The extra space was nice too, it meant he could have more than two people aboard.
“Active transponder ping,” Freya said excitedly. “Coming through as a mining vessel. If nothing else, we can at least chase that down.”
“Guarantee a ship of that size would have at least one engineer as well,” Ivar added. “I heard Lagertha is still paying good credits for techies.”
Haldor grimaced at that. Not the credits, those were always welcome. But trying to board and capture people was always a mess. “That’ll be the last resort unless we come up with nothing else.”
It took a few more minutes before Freya gave him some good news. “Looks like there could be a ship in orbit around the fourth planet. There also seems to be a station. Can’t really get a good view from this far out. Whad’ya wanna do, boss?”
Haldor rubbed his chin as he thought. They were already coasting into the system, but sooner or later their jump would be detected. If he wanted to surprise the people here, he needed to speed things up. “Lock in and get us to that fourth planet as fast as possible. I want hourly updates on the passives. If it looks like we got spotted, turn on the active scanners.”
His crew cheered and they quickly buckled themselves in as Ivar powered up the drive.
***
“Looks like someone spotted us, Boss. The mining ship is running for cover at the planet.”
“So much for surprise. You know what to do Freya.” The woman smiled and engaged the ship's active scanning. It would give them a much better idea of what was out there over the outdated camera system aboard Odin’s Revenge.
“Holy hell!” Freya exclaimed. “They have three ships in orbit. A frigate is docked at what looks like a refueling depot and the other two ships are just floating a distance from the planet. The ships are all damaged though, and other than the reactor on the docked ship, the rest are cold. And even that reactor isn’t outputting much heat. It’s probably in standby mode.”
He pulled up the sensor readings to his console. Capturing a ship, especially a frigate would be a huge win, even if it was damaged. With the other two ships being cold, it was likely their reactors were offline and their activation keys removed, making them worthless. With luck, they might be able to swap out their corvette’s activation crystal on one of the gunboats. But that would leave them vulnerable for hours if not days depending on the level of security aboard the ship and be a poor trade since he would have to abandon his own ship to do so.
The more he looked at these sensor readings, the more he was leaning toward hitting the gunships. He wouldn’t be able to take them, but they might have something worth taking aboard. The frigate had a huge chunk missing and one of the engines was completely gone. If it flew at all it would be a miracle. The other ships looked to be in slightly better condition but they were just floating out there. That fact was what eventually decided it for him. If those ships were left to drift, they were likely scrap. He also needed to take the gamble or he would never measure up in the eyes of the Lagertha.
“Get us to that station. Is there any chance we can beat the mining ship to the planet?”
“Unlikely. They were much closer to the planet than we are now.”
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Haldor couldn’t discount the mining ship having weapons. No sane captain would come out here unarmed. Then again, he had run into a lot of fools who did, so who knew? “Any sign of what punched holes in those ships?”
“The damage to the frigate looks to be done by multiple missiles. The other damage looks to be from projectiles. Sensors aren’t picking up any weapons systems in orbit except the ones on the frigate.”
“Are they active?”
“Hmm, hard to say from this distance. I can give you a better answer as we get closer. Don’t need to worry about its missile tubes though, it's facing away from us.”
He wasn’t sure he agreed with that assessment, but it would make the missiles easier to shoot down if they had to turn around before accelerating toward them. “What about planetside.”
“Just looks like some old structure. It is rather large though. How much you wanna bet this is what that Anazi bastard was after?”
Haldor smiled. “That sounds like a bad bet on my part. The fact that the frigate is active and isn’t broadcasting a transponder tells me everything I need to know. Those three ships probably belonged to Anazi. Looks like he bit off more than he could chew out here,” Haldor laughed. “Adjust our heading and keep the station and ship between us and the planet. If they do have ground-based defenses, that should give us time to bug out.”
“Got a shuttle leaving the station. Looks like they are abandoning the frigate,” Freya stated triumphantly. “You may have been right about the ground-based defenses, boss. Looks like we got movement around the large structure on the surface. The sensors are having trouble penetrating the sulfur-rich atmosphere though.”
He grunted. “Keep an eye out for launches. We can hide from anything else behind the ship.”
***
“What are they doing?” Alexander asked.
He had been called up to the security room when the ship was first spotted by Captain Na. It was obviously a pirate ship but their initial headlong rush into the system had turned into a very cautious approach.
“It looks like they are trying to use the station as cover as they get closer,” Lucas responded.
The geostationary orbit of the space station made it easy to program the capsules to fly to it, but it seemed like that choice was coming back to bite him in the ass now. “Are the weapons aboard Eden’s Fury ready to go?”
“Yup,” Lucas replied. “Just drawing them in closer before we activate them as Captain Matthews suggested.”
Alexander nodded. He had spoken to Matthews a bit about how to utilize the ships in this manner. The Captain was the one to suggest turning them into unmanned weapons platforms until they were in flight-worthy condition. Matthews was clear that the ships wouldn’t be much good at range, but if they could draw an enemy close to them, they might be able to surprise an enemy.
“The guns are already oriented toward them?” Alexander asked in concern.
“Yes, Alex, quit worrying. We did that as soon as we realized what course they were coming in on. I’m surprised they didn’t pick up on the weapons reorienting, but I won’t complain.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just nervous. How’s your brother doing?”
“Eh,” Lucas shrugged. “He’s getting the remaining guards in position to cover the entrances in case this group decides to land. Although that would be a very stupid idea on their part. Unless they have a bunch of missiles and a nuke to match the previous pirates. And I somehow doubt that little ship could carry twelve missiles.”
***
As they got closer, Haldor started to feel like something was off. He asked Freya multiple times to rescan for further weapons, but she kept coming back with no other weapons in orbit, and his constant requests were getting on her nerves. The mining ship was staying on the far side of the planet from them so it wasn’t likely to be a threat. Odin’s Revenge could out-accelerate that mining ship to capture it or flee if it came to that, but not before it made it to the cover of those surface weapons. So what was off with this picture?
He couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching him. “Freya, give me a video feed of the frigate. I wanna see it for myself.”
She glared at him but sent the feed to his terminal. He wished he had one of those fancy holo displays to make the image larger, but he would have to make do with the screen size he had. He moved the image around and frowned. He could see where the turrets stuck out from the hull, but not the barrels. Haldor zoomed in on the image. It got grainy the closer he tried to zoom but he finally saw what had his hackles up. The guns were pointed directly at them.
He was about to shout, but Freya cut him off. “Incoming!”
The ship jerked hard as Ivar pulled it to one side to try and avoid the incoming fire. It wasn’t fast enough. A series of metallic clinks shook the ship before he heard the atmosphere venting. “Ivar, get us the fuck out of here! The rest of you, suit up.”
Haldor grabbed his helmet and was just about to put it on when something flashed through his vision. White hot pain gripped his abdomen and he dropped his helmet on the floor and reached down. His hand came away wet with blood. He stared at it in mute bewilderment before another round tore through the bridge and removed any further thought.
***
“The guns are out of ammo, Alex. But the ships definitely drifting. Wanna send Branston out to make sure?”
“No. I don’t want to risk our only pilot in case anyone is still alive aboard that ship. Record its trajectory, if it hasn’t fallen into a moon or planet in the next few weeks, we can ask Na if he’ll recycle it for us.”
“You don’t want to tow it back?”
Alexander looked at Lucas. “How many rounds did you fire at it?”
“…Uh, probably more than strictly necessary.”
“It’s not worth fixing if you hit it with even half of those,” he stated.
Turns out, it didn’t matter what plans Alexander had. The issue of the ship resolved itself a half hour later when its reactor containment failed. Without gravity to keep the damage contained as it would on a planet, it did resemble an explosion. The ship turned white hot, before bulging outward into a relatively slow spray of molten material. It was quite something to watch, but it was also a strong reminder of what would happen if a fusion reactor failed. They would need to clean that mess up or at least track the path of the debris to ensure nobody ran into it on accident.