Simon was halfway to the target when his sensors screamed at him as another ship dropped out of warp at the far end of the trap.
He could only gape as the sensors told him this new arrival was a frigate. At first, he thought the pirates had laid a trap for him, but he soon picked up a transponder code, labeling the ship B.S.E. Eden’s Fury.
Simon went pale when he saw that. He didn’t know who the hell B.S.E. was, but he knew a warship designation when he saw it. Panicking, he tried jumping, only to realize he was caught in his own gravity trap. Unable to jump, he quickly changed direction as he spooled up his weapons. These ships were obviously traveling together, maybe he could do enough damage to the first ship to keep the warship from pursuing.
***
“Captain, there is a corvette class ship approaching Dawn, and it isn’t running a transponder.”
Mingyu swallowed hard. He knew encountering a pirate was a possibility when he accepted the job, but he hadn’t expected to run into them after only their second jump.
He pressed the button on his console to activate the ship's lasers. As they were powering up, he made a gesture and the holographic display quickly zoomed in on the ship. With another small motion, he targeted the vessel. It was fleeing, but the Fury’s computer alerted him that the smaller ship was activating its weapons. Mingyu may have let the ship go if it was just running, but it was clearly hostile.
Hesitating only a moment, he pressed the firing button.
Six beams flashed out and covered the distance between the Fury and this unknown ship in less than a second. Mingyu knew the lasers on the Fury were powerful, but this was his first time seeing them used on anything other than an asteroid.
The armor and hull of the corvette did little to blunt the deadly beams as they burned straight through the enemy vessel, leaving six glowing trails that nearly bisected the ship. Other than a few errant sparks, the ship went dead and continued on its course, drifting off into the void of space.
With the threat eliminated, he approached the Dawn and the item causing a localized gravitational field. It didn’t look the same as the one he nearly ran into when fleeing Gliese 667 but it seemed to perform a similar function, which was to destabilize a warp field by creating an artificial gravity well.
Captain Matthews had warned them about pirates using such devices more often, but knowing something and seeing it in person were two very different things. Mingyu found himself disgusted at such a perversion of artificial gravity technology, but that was pirates for you.
He radioed Alexander, letting him know what had just happened before he connected to Epsilon’s Dawn and pulled the ship through the system. He made sure to slag the device left behind by the now-deceased pirates. There was no point leaving it for some other pirate to find and they didn’t have the time or space to take it aboard.
***
Alexander was surprised that the pirates had set up some sort of trap for them. While it was true they were using the standard jump points, this area of space wasn’t heavily traveled. How had they known he was coming this way?
He would ask Captain Na if he could shed any light on the subject since he needed to fly the shuttle over there to pick up the replacement cable. He had hoped it would have been ready as soon as they entered the next system over from Y6X-3H2, but it had taken far longer to complete than initially planned.
He detached the power cables from the shuttle and spent some time ensuring there was no damage to the ship or the reactor before powering it back up and making his way to the Fury’s hangar.
Alexander hoped there wouldn’t be many cases of needing to replace parts on this trip. The whole process of removing the power cabling and reattaching it was rather long and involved.
With more practiced movements, Alexander set the shuttle down in the hangar without slamming it so hard against the deck this time. If he only needed to pick up the cable and leave, he could have done that without them pressurizing the bay, but since he intended to speak with Na, he simply waited after radioing the bridge that he was coming aboard.
Once the room had normalized, Alexander quickly loaded the huge wheel of high-voltage cable into the shuttle. It was heavy enough that even he couldn’t carry it with the gravity plating online.
When that was complete, he made his way to the bridge. This wasn’t his first time aboard the Fury, he had inspected every room after it was initially completed. Much like the exterior of the ship, the interior panels were painted as well. He went with a mostly white interior with blue accents for the baseboards and the areas covering the light strips that ran down the middle of each corridor and the ceiling.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Alexander had decided to go with concealed light strips because the white reflected enough light to make it easy to see and it didn’t leave any protruding surfaces to smack your head on in the case of an emergency. The blue trim also gave people an easy way to locate the grab rails that were integrated into the accent pieces in case power to the artificial gravity systems was knocked offline. The color scheme also made the ship feel larger on the inside, almost like you were standing under an open sky.
It was a stark difference from the utilitarian bare metal that Epsilon’s Dawn sported. The only nod to the STO’s design that Alexander incorporated, was the lines painted on the floor that pointed to certain areas.
He followed one of the lines marked in red and headed toward the bridge. On the way, he passed by the area where Krieger and his crew were sequestered. Before he left, he would stop in and speak to the STO Captain as well, just to see how his people were faring.
Alexander soon arrived at the blast doors for the bridge. It was biometrically sealed but he had added a workaround for himself. One that didn’t involve an easily bypassible security code. He placed his hand on the scanner and adjusted his external temperature to an exact degree. The panel then scanned for the outline of his hand before beeping once. After the beep, Alexander repositioned his hand and adjusted his temperature to the next in the sequence.
After completing the proper handshake, the heavy door slid open, allowing him to enter the bridge.
“How’s the ship treating you?” he asked as Na looked over at the opening door and smiled.
“About as well as can be expected considering the prototype nature of everything.”
“Oh? Anything I should look at before heading back?” If there was an issue, he wanted to know.
“Nothing critical. The biggest issue is with the heating systems. It's either too cold or too hot. But that last one might be attributed to our weapons fire. Six lasers produce a lot of heat in a very short amount of time and even the heat exchangers aren’t perfectly efficient at removing the heat before some of it soaks into the ship. Mikhail is looking at the environmental systems to see if he can adjust the regulation a bit better. Other than that, it's just some small things that can wait until we get back. What did you want to discuss?”
“You said the pirates laid a trap for us? How did they know where to place it or that we were even coming?”
“Yes,” Na said with a frown. “You remember those gravity traps that Captain Matthews spoke about?”
Alexander nodded.
“It was something like that. Only in a much smaller package. It seems the pirates are quickly improving upon their design. As for how they knew we were coming. I don’t think the ship did. I think the pirate was looking for an easy score and saw a wounded ship. If the pirates had known we were coming, they would have bailed. A single corvette is no match for a frigate even on a bad day. This was clear when it tried to run as soon as we jumped in. Not sure why we were so far behind either. We jumped within seconds of you from the last system, we should have come out at nearly the same time.”
“Hmm. Dr. Lund might be able to give a more definitive answer on that, but if I had to guess, it has to do with my fluctuating power. The replacement cable should fix that issue. Did you record the direction and speed of that ship? I don’t think it's worth stopping on our way back, but on the next trip out, it might be worth searching the vessel for answers.”
“Let’s hope so,” Na sighed. “If there are more pirates, we need to be as close together as our jumps will allow. Arriving minutes apart, or over a light second away could be disastrous. And yes, I saved the ship’s heading since I figured you might ask.”
Alexander thanked Mingyu for his swift actions against the pirates before he left the bridge and made his way to Captain Krieger.
He found the man typing up a report on his tablet in an office. It was located in what was commonly referred to as Marine Country if his memories of Earth Naval slang were accurate. Not that Alexander or BSE had Marines, but the ship was large enough to host around a hundred fighters if the need arose. Maybe he should rename it Hawk Country since he planned on working with the mercenaries much more in the future.
“I didn’t expect to find you writing reports,” Alexander said as he walked through the open door.
Captain Krieger looked up, not seeming surprised at all that Alexander was here. “An unavoidable part of my job I’m afraid. I’m writing notes to the families of those we lost.”
“Ah…” Well, now Alexander just felt awkward with his attempt at humor. “How are your people settling in?”
The man shrugged as he set down his tablet. “They are bored and restless, but that’s to be expected. I imagine it will be worse since the ship was just in combat. They aren’t used to standing around during situations like that.”
“You know about that?” Alexander asked in surprise. It wasn’t like there were alarm klaxons or anything. With so few crew aboard; it was simpler just to radio them all.
“When you’ve been on ships for as long as I have, you can tell when their weapons fire. It’s a little harder with lasers, but even those can be felt by the discharge of energy.” Alexander didn’t miss the fact that the man emphasized the word laser. It seemed he had figured out the Fury’s main armament.
That was fine, it wasn’t like he was trying to hide it or anything.
“Yes, we came out of FTL and landed in a gravity trap. It was only a corvette though, and they tried to run as soon as they spotted Fury.”
“Would it be possible to get a scan of the device the pirates used? The STO would be grateful to get their hands on any information about these devices. We know about them, but the pirates using them are quick to remove any evidence before any STO vessels can arrive on the scene.”
“As long as your people don’t attack us on sight as soon as we enter Varlen, I don’t see why we can’t share that information. Anything that hurts pirates, works in our favor.”
“Thank you, Mr. Kane. And I don’t think you’ll need to worry about the fleet at Varlen attacking you. You have an active transponder. Even if it is marked as a military ID, there are protocols for dealing with unknown military ships.”
That was good to know.
He said his goodbyes to the man and let Krieger get back to his somber duty before heading back to the shuttle hangar.
The STO captain wasn’t the only one with a lot of work to do. Alexander had about a thousand feet of cable to replace before they could jump to the next system. It was going to be a busy few days.