Alen heard pirates had been getting worse lately, but somehow, it never struck him that he'd have to deal with them, at least not so soon into his career! As an officer, even a new and lower-ranking one, his place was on the bridge.
As he raced across the ship, he wondered how this could go down. Maybe they could just surrender their cargo and get away with their lives. The cargo was probably insured anyway, so there wasn't any reason to fight, right? As the bridge doors opened, he caught the tail end of what was probably the captain's rant. "over my dead body!" That...didn't sound good.
The rather terrifying man on the other end of the vid screen smiled. "I was hoping you'd say that!" Then the screen went black.
Alen was looking back and forth. "What just happened?"
The captain grunted. "These idiots just bit off more than they can chew; that's what happened!" He then looked over at his first officer. "Reid, get the men geared up and be ready to lead a counter-offensive to repel boarders." Then turned to the pilot. "Make it look like we're running, but not too fast. Only use countermeasures to disable any warheads they might launch. I want to save our teeth for when they get close enough to launch boarding vessels, then we bloody them a bloody nose!"
Alen looked back and forth, confused. "Why not just give them what they want? Isn't the cargo insured?"
The captain laughed. "Why pay for expensive insurance when we could invest that money elsewhere! Besides, after we teach these scoundrels a lesson they won't get to learn twice, we can collect their bounty, sell their ship and supplies, and make a pretty penny in the process! Don't worry. You'll get the same share you were promised before. The pie just got a lot bigger, which means your slice did too!"
Alen wasn't so sure, but the rest of the bridge crew were all smiling. The smiles were twisted, but they were smiling nonetheless. Alen felt like they'd done this before, and he suddenly wondered what had happened to his predecessor.
-
Belegose watched as the merchant vessel turned and began to run, but it wasn't moving as fast as he thought it would. Either their ship was in worse condition than he first assumed, or they were trying to bait him in.
These merchants probably thought they were dealing with the standard desperate motley crew of pirates. Well, that was fine by him. It was time to find out who had more aces hidden up their sleeves. Belegose turned to his crew. "Bring us in, but soften them before we get too close and launch breaching pods. I don't want any surprise broadsides!"
The merchant vessel seemed to be running, but it was still half-hearted at best. The captain didn't seem all that cowed, either. Belegose was guessing they had somewhere between a half and a full dozen battle suits and probably some hidden armaments on the ship's hull, and maybe their shields were boosted beyond what was necessary for navigational purposes. They probably assumed they could knock out a bunch of the boarding craft, then fight the rest off in close quarters. After that, they'd try to take the fight to his ship.
Well, he had a few surprises of his own, and it was time to unleash a couple of them! "Send out Viper's One and Two!"
The commsman nodded. "Aye, captain!"
-
Alen fought the urge to check if his personal sidearm was loaded again, instead choosing to pay attention to what was happening. Suddenly, a shout came out from the commsman, who was also apparently in charge of scanning. "Captain, they're launching smaller craft!"
The captain grinned. "Landing craft? Already? Alright, time to..."
The commsman cut him off again. "No, sir! They're too small and fast! I think they're one-man fighters!"
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
For the first time, the captain's smile slipped. "Fighters? How the hell do a bunch of pirates have fighters?" Then, after a moment's thought, he shook his head. "Damn it! Go ahead and open fire. Knock those ships out of my void before they cause us any real trouble!"
-
Belegose watched as the fighters sped away from the ship and unleashed their first salvo, only to frown. There were some smaller explosions on the merchant ship's hull, but it wasn't likely that the personal fighters had breached their shields yet, which meant it was the first of their prey's surprises.
As what was evidently a cosmetic portion of the ship's hull fell away, he could see what was apparently a missile emplacement hidden underneath. Most merchants didn't bother with things like missiles, as unlike traditional arms, each missile was a significant reoccurring expense that was not worth the cost unless you were expecting a notable return on investment. If he hadn't forced their hands early with his fighters, those could have posed a significant problem for his ship. As it was, he couldn't really afford to lose both his fighters either. It was unlikely this ship had enough cargo to make up for that kind of loss. "Take down any missiles they fire and concentrate everything else on the shields protecting that missile emplacement! Tell the Vipers to focus on staying alive until we've punched a hole they can exploit."
Now looking a little more grim-faced, his crew nodded and acknowledged before turning to their tasks.
-
Alen noticed the crew wasn't grinning anymore. This was apparently turning out to be more of a fight than expected. He remembered Erik's words about getting with a new crew at the next port and was starting to think that if he survived, it might not be a bad idea. He made a mental note to ask if their cargo was insured for future jobs. This was insane!
Comms kept them updated. "Sir, most of our missiles are getting shot down, but a few are getting clear. However, their small craft has evaded any direct hits, though one is noticeably slowing down, likely due to shrapnel damage. Their main ship seems to be focusing its fire on the shielding around the missile emplacement!"
The captain grimaced. "Start rotating so they can't focus on one spot, and take out that damaged fighter now!"
-
Belegose watched as the merchant's vessel started rotating, a telling sign he'd done some significant damage to their objective. "Tell the vipers to focus fire on the missile emplacement they're rotating away from us. Once we take that out, they're ours!"
Switching his personal screen to a split view from the Vipers, Belegose watched as the much faster and more maneuverable fighters easily kept up with the merchant ship's rotation, even while switching from evasive maneuvers to an attack run. Just then, the merchants got off another salvo. As the vipers rocketed forward, they fired, taking out the missiles as best they could. Both were jostled by the explosions but continued to speed forward, firing on the shields protecting the missile emplacement.
Static interference was visible around the shields, indicating they were near failure when several shots pierced through. A fraction of a moment later, a series of secondary explosions indicated the remaining warheads had detonated.
Sensing victory, Belegose started to smile, only to frown again when only one of the vipers peeled away, the other still speeding toward the ship. He patched his comm directly through to the fighter. "Viper two, pull up, you idiot!"
The reply was clearly panicked. "I can't! The controls aren't responding!"
Before Belegose could reply, the fighter crashed into the merchant's vessel, putting more than a bit of a dampener on the taste of victory. Still, only one fighter down wasn't too bad, and the rest of the merchant's shields seemed to be failing. He turned his attention back to the crew. "Recall Viper One and pull up beside the merchant vessel. Launch breaching pods when ready."
Feeling the vibrations as the pods launched, Belegose did some rough math and figured that while this had been costly, they'd still come out ahead. That was when a new set of familiar small explosions went off on the hull of the merchant vessel. After a fraction of a second of processing time, Belegose shouted. "Fire everything we've got at that second missile emplacement!"
-
After a set of explosions shook their ship, a grimly satisfied-looking comms officer announced, "We took out the returning fighter and crippled their main ship. Escape pods are launching, but they managed to take out our second missile emplacement first. They also got off a salvo of something toward us I can't identify. They're too big to be missiles but too small to be any kind of craft..."
Alen noticed the captain's grin was gone entirely as he responded. "Damn, they've also got breaching pods! Who the hell are these guys? Do we have anything left to take them out before impact?"
The comm's officer shook his head. "We're hitting them with what little we've got, but they took out anything big enough to knock them out of the void. Impact in ten."
The captain toggled the comms to his first officer. "Reid, they've got breaching pods incoming in five. It's gonna get bloody."