Throttle Forty
The Cerberus prowled over to the busy station like a growling dog tugging at its leash.
Behind the controls, Diana grinned as the station grew larger ahead of her, and so did the ships arrayed around it.
“I’ve intercepted some interesting communications,” ChaOS said. “Though, using the word intercept is perhaps misleading.”
“Why’s that?” Diana asked.
“Someone is broadcasting across several frequencies. The same information is being relayed over and over: the location of a jump ring leading to the starting point of the Tyrant Cracker race.”
“One jump ring?” Diana asked.
“No, not quite. It seems as if one jump ring is leading to a system close to where the race will be taking place. That system has several dozen smaller gates, all pointing to the starting line. I think it will be safe to say that that will be the location of the actual start of the race.”
“Ah, so no traditional starting line,” Diana mumbled. A little louder, she said, “What about the finish line?”
ChaOS brought up an image before Diana. The entire front of the cockpit before her was a single screen, so the AI just cut out a square from that to display a map of a star system. The sun was slightly paler than the sun back in the Sol system.
The map showed seven planets, including two big Jupiter-like gas giants that seemed to have orbits that wouldn’t intersect. “The Bolgia system,” ChaOS said. “And this is Bolgia Five.” One of the planets, the fifth, was highlighted in red.
A series of circles, all glowing blue, appeared along the edges of the planet, all more or less out in empty space with nothing around to make them stand out.
“The finish lines are these gates. Though since the race is point-based, reaching the finish line first does not necessarily mean that one will be the victor. There are points earned for returning, though.”
“Alright,” Diana said. “Some schmuck is definitely going to head straight for the finish line. Maybe even exit camp and hope that literally every other racer gets blown up.”
“It is possible, yes,” ChaOS said. “The finish-line gates should all lead to a third system, where the winners and losers will be greeted. I suspect that they will lead back to this very system, in fact. Judging by the increased number of Federation warships gathering on the edge of the system, they are expecting some Bolgian ships to try and break through as well.”
“Oh, that would be clever,” Diana said. “So… alright, we go to the waiting system, jump to Bolgia, hit the main planet, then exfiltrate back to this system to get our award?”
“Assuming you are victorious, yes. There are also a number of media-outlet vehicles likely to participate in the event. I’m noting a drastic increase in system-wide ship traffic.”
“Makes sense,” Diana said. “If this is where the racers will be coming, then this is where the news will drop first. They probably have a sort of rotating system in place to carry news back and forth from Bolgia to here. How do we know that the exit gates are safe?”
“I don’t think there’s a way of knowing until they are used. The gates were dropped in-system recently, from what I gathered. Likely they are free floating across the system on low-power, and they might be disguised as flotsam or asteroids. It is also very likely that they have some form of self-destruction mechanism to prevent the Bolgians from repurposing them.”
“Got it,” Diana said.
She gestured, and the map receded to the side. The infodumping could continue later, when it became more relevant. For now, she focused on flying. A large ship was moving closer to Waitless Station.
In fact, several large ships were, but one caught Diana’s eye. It was actually a rather small vessel, except that small vessel had a massive ring hanging off the bottom of it, one large enough that most of the space stations Diana had seen so far would be able to squeeze into it if they didn’t mind chopping off a few bits that stuck out.
“That’s got to be the ship that’ll bring everyone else over to the starting line,” Diana said.
“Very likely. Its beacon marks it as the Tossed Unto Dawn, a mobile jump-ship. It is likely that the ship is designed to be taken apart and stored in a smaller form factor so that it can use the more standard jump-gates across Federation space.”
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“Nice, nice,” Diana said. “Can you spot any of the competition? I want to buzz past them and show them up.”
“Noted.” Rings started to appear around some of the ships ahead of them. “The nearest is the freighter six kilometres to down-port. I believe it belongs to the group run by Ven Geddi.”
Diana spun the Cerberus around so that she could point the ship’s more powerful sensors at the freighter.
It was clearly not a ship being used for its initial purpose. The freighter was like a large, rectangular box, with a long tube sticking out of the end of it. The tube had large doors fit into it that looked as though they could slide up and away to give access to the ship’s innards. One of those was open, and Diana caught a glimpse of the interior while a shuttle slid out of its dock.
She couldn’t see far into it, but it was clear that the freighter was converted into something like a carrier for a flight of smaller fighter craft and a few shuttles.
“Zil Rossi said that Ven Geddi would be participating with a bunch of fighters and bombers, right? You think that they’ll bring that freighter in too?”
“Unlikely. The freighter is clearly unarmoured and unarmed except for some civilian point-defence guns. It is even technically less armoured than its tonnage would allow it to be. In all likelihood, it will only serve as a carrier up to the starting gates and no further.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Diana said. “Save on fuel and wear on the little fighters too. And they can keep them out of sight, not let anyone know what they’re going in with.”
“As you say, Mistress.”
Diana turned towards the next vessel outlined by ChaOS. This one was a little smaller than the freighter, but it was clearly a warship, and a fairly impressive one at that. Long and narrow, with a pair of small wing-like protrusions on the sides and a raised bridge above it near the middle, she guessed that it was likely some sort of frigate.
“That ship, it’s got clamps on the side, see there,” she pointed. “Those Federation warships had those rings in about the same spots.”
“The vessel is broadcasting its name as the Rising Sun of Comcompan. It is an older model of Federation warships, specifically a patrol frigate.”
“You can buy those?” Diana asked. It was mostly just curiosity; military surplus wasn’t a new idea.
ChaOS took a moment to reply. “It seems that the ship’s registry marks it as owned by a planet-lord of the Federation, an erivadian called Aicia. It is possible that a person that was well connected was able to purchase an older, disused ship directly from the Federation.”
“Ah, alright,” Diana said. “Favouritism. Gun-wise, that thing looks pretty beefy for its size. Bet it has decent armour too.”
“You are likely to be facing off against an entire planet’s space force,” ChaOS pointed out.
“Yeah. I hope there are enough competitors to blunt the edge. Otherwise… well, we didn’t bring enough firepower to take on a whole navy solo.”
A fresh screen opened up to the side of their current system in three-dimensions, with dozens of dots appearing and moving towards Waitless station. “I count several hundred incoming vessels. Including those currently near the station, it is likely that the number of ships participating in the Tyrant Cracker event will number in the hundreds, possibly even in the thousands, though it is unlikely that we will see any capital-class vessels.”
“Yeah. This is going to be pretty tough. Even assuming we match the Bolgian armada one-for-one in sheer ship numbers, I wouldn’t want to gamble when one side is made up entirely of individuals who are just as likely to shoot each other than the enemy, and the other side has a prepared and presumably trained navy.”
“This race is seeming more and more dangerous by the minute, Mistress. Do you think it is perhaps wise to back out?”
“Nah,” Diana said. “I like it when the odds are against me!”
The AI simulated a sigh. “Yes, of course, Mistress.”
“Let’s just hope that the competition’s half as good as I am, because if they are, then we won’t have to worry so much, right?”
“Yes. If the others are as reckless as you are, then the Bolgian armada will have a lot to worry about. Any ship can be a weapon if it flies fast enough, after all.”
***