Hmph. Well, they were bound to show up eventually. I'd thought we'd have had more time until then. Thankfully, this doesn't change much... It just accelerates some things.
...
Yes, most conflicts these days are settled in pre-court proceedings, or within the courts themselves.
...
Sometimes... Yes, it is boring, usually at least. I try to keep an open mind on such matters personally.
...
Well... It's possible... Let me see... Hah!
Say, how would you like to see some proper space combat?
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The current lawyer of the Blood Black Bone; in Shiny Blood Red Letters Please, was both a bad lawyer and a very good lawyer.
What made him a bad lawyer was what made him a good pirate, and what made him a good pirate was what made him a bad lawyer.
No proper pirate could process forms as he could. Sure, they might have a few local and galactic generalizations memorized, but if that's all you needed you could buy time from a lawyer lending agency and have someone assigned to temporarily. For someone whose only interaction with the law was to follow posted guidances, that was fine enough. But if you wanted to skirt around the law, and twist it to your needs, you needed something more than that. You needed to know the law. And not just know it, you had to feel it. Breathe it. Live it. Eat it. F- ah, maybe not that.
Regardless, it's safe to say that the lawyer, the Lawyer to the pirates, in question was, intimately, familiar with the law. This made them a good lawyer, and a bad pirate.
Pirates aren't supposed to be good with the law. Yes, they have to have a slightly above-average familiarity with it, but that familiarity wasn't the kind that brings smiles between friends, but the kind that develops between enemies until they know each other better than they know themselves. Though perhaps not quite. There was no real chance of a pirate ever learning to love the law; no chance of them ever finding themselves longing for it. They wouldn't think about it on Sundays, or write secret letters to it. The law was just a tad bit too unpleasant for that. Too stiff. Too formal. It was a rigid jacket that didn't fit anyone right, and so it would never be a proper enemy for a pirate. The law acted as a stage upon which pirates and those they pirated played. In that sense, its rigidity was a benefit, as it could withstand that chaotic movement of such free agents.
So the Triple-B's lawyer wasn't the best of pirates. Technically he wasn't even a pirate to begin with. He was a hostage, and his retaining agency had been fighting hell itself to get him back. But you see, he also wasn't the best of lawyers.
Proving how little his employers knew, they were actually fighting him. Him and all the things that made him a bad lawyer. Ever since he had been abducted from a pleasure cruise he had resisted their efforts to get him back.
The cruise had been company-sponsored of course, and he had spent little time on "pleasure" at his manager's insistence. All to "maintain proper decorum". He had spent his time handling the legal consequences of his superiors' own pursuits of "pleasure", where evidently such "proper decorum" did not apply.
So when the rolling red glory of the Triple-B arrived, he had felt a strange stirring in his heart. One that had roused him to volunteer as a hostage. A surprise to the pirates of course, but an eventual welcome one as he proved his worth amongst them.
Yes, they were pirates, and he was still a lawyer, but he found the dynamic hilarious. Some might have been quickly demoralized by the constant negging of the pirates. Some might have shied at how the pirates looked at them. Some might have failed to maintain a proper sense of self-worth when one was forced to sit in a not-quite-corner corner every day. The Lawyer was not such one.
You might have expected that this was due to the Lawyer being used to such treatment by his superiors. Wouldn't that have been a predictable twist? Who wouldn't rather suffer under pirates if the alternative was another day with superiors lording over oneself? However, to say that the Lawyer felt that way would be untrue. His superiors had lorded over him, but they had done so because they thought themselves superior. To the pirates, it was he who was lording. It was a completely unique and novel experience for him. The pirates didn't push against him because they thought they were better than him, but because they were afraid that they weren't.
Of course, Mrs. P could look down on God.
And if the Lawyer was honest with himself, it was probably only about 30% of the pirates who feared his power and "nobility". The remainder of the pirates were downright friendly or amicably hostile.
Over time he'd acclimated to them, and the pirating life. He'd still trade barbs with the crew any day, but they were well-worn, warm, and didn't stick in anyone's skin. They called him "Lawyer" with endearing respect now, and made sure to only curse the general profession of lawyer if they didn't believe him to be in earshot.
Overall it had become a very nourishing working environment. His pride had never been stronger. Hence, his persistent fight against his company's efforts to extract him. If only they hadn't been fighting against their own best lawyer, they might have been able to remove him from the pirate's grasp.
The bonus hazard pay they were required to pay him for every day he was a hostage also acted as an incentive. By his reckoning, he could live a few decades in decadence after this was all over.
Mrs. P paid him well too, spoils of loot divided properly, mostly in accordance with how much lawyering had been required.
And right now, there was assuredly a lot of it.
Blood, the Triple-B's AI, sat back and watched the flurry of activity. He didn't even raise a paw to push over the growing stack of papers. A few pirates capable of handling basic legal procedures sat around and assisted when required. The printing machine ran at a constant paper-churning frenzy, even though half the paper it spat out was digital. Every legal paper had to be printed, even if it was holographic. It was the law.
The pitch and heat of it would have broken any rookie secretarial aid, but pirates were used to working under fire, and the lawyer had also been trained in live-fire scenarios. Given the speed at which papers were ejected from the machine, it might have been even more dangerous than laser flashes or kinetic projectiles flying overhead.
"Give me a DDCA subsection 3!" the Lawyer shouted, his hand shooting up to catch the blinding flash of ejected paper from their private printer.
"Lawyer, they're overwhelming me with urgent FFCT derivative filings!"
Springing into motion, the Lawyer grabbed the crew member's hand and ran a piece of paper between their fingers (which wasn't particularly difficult when they only had two).
"Ow!"
"Quick! File a class PCC Extension!"
A Paper Cut Casualty Extension is self-explanatory. When a team of lawyers suffers collateral damage due to the dangerous edges of legal-grade paper, an extension is granted. It is only superseded by a few other potential extensions, such as "Emergency Lunch Break" and "Death of a Relative and/or Witness".
But before the crew member could do so, the printers stopped and the lights flashed.
Slowly, a single black page with almost-glowing white letters dropped from the printer. Silence hung in the air like an artillery strike.
With shaking hands, the Lawyer picked up the page and read it with disbelief evident in his eyes.
Only once in his life had he even heard of such a document being put to use.
The title read "A Declaration of Immediate Hostilities", with the promise of proper legal backing cited in the neat text below. A flickering timer counted down. An expensive use of nano-ink, but properly dramatic he supposed.
With a voice shaking as much as both his hands, he made a call to Mrs. P.
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The pirates had gathered themselves around Mrs. P, who had returned to her elevated position atop Rebecca's head, as they watched the Lawyer scramble through several documents on the hovering display.
"Are you sure? What's their justification?"
"Anything and everything! I don't have time to read it all! It's pages and we have minutes!"
"Blood?"
Blood's digital avatar rumbled, "I am also unable to parse the information, regardless I believe their intentions have been made clear, shall I prepare for battle?"
Mrs. P hissed softly. Eyes squinted in thought.
"Well... We don't have much of a choice now do we?"
Blood nodded. His avatar faded as he said, "Understood. I fear that you will not be able to return in time. I shall retrieve your party after the battle is convened."
Mrs. P remained still, deep in thought as the connection closed. With the Triple-B's shields going up to combat readiness, it wasn't possible to maintain a strong connection. Rebecca slumped under her.
Under her breath, Rebecca muttered to herself, "Unfortunately nothing for us to do until then". Mrs. P flicked an ear.
Dirn turned towards the assorted pile of weapons and papers. They turned a questioning eye back towards the pirates.
"Nothing to do, even armed with a black-omega-level armory?"
Mrs. P turned towards them.
"What would you have us do? Toss them out of the airlock? Your haul isn't for inter-solar combat, even at close ranges... It's for planetary warfare." Mrs. P stated with an air of condescension.
Pirates, on occasion, were known to plunder worlds, starports, and what have you, but war? War at scale on the surface of a planet? No one stood to benefit from that. You'd end up destroying anything worth plundering, and such wars were rarely enjoyable. So they understandably looked down their noses (or nose equivalents) at those who practiced or supplied such messes.
"However..." Mrs. P began as she turned towards Alpha. "Do you have access to your ship's weapon systems?"
Alpha was only technically an acting Captain, and on their first day during a rather brief briefing, the real Captain had made it quite clear that when dealing with pirates the best course of action was to forget that you had weapons installed in the first place and to give into their demands. You then filed for compensation from the local piracy guild if their demands were unjustified, and submitted a report with your insurance. The Captain had even gone as far as ensuring that Alpha, the ship's current AI, had been locked out of the weapon systems. Accessing them would be like trying to lock pick a quantum-identity seal with a pair of toothbrushes. Possibly because the Captain did use a quantum-identify lock on the offensive systems, and you might as well use toothbrushes if you wanted to get through one of those, they'd be just as effective as a nuke. To be clear, neither would be effective. Breaking through such a system is nearly impossible.
"Yes" Alpha began with confidence and then paused, "but what good does that do for you?"
"If you assist us in fighting off these pirates, who might I add, have issued a formal declaration of aggression to both of us, I'll waive half of my demands."
"I want to keep the orb."
Mrs. P paused and raised a quizzical eyebrow.
"Why?"
"It fits in any container."
Mrs. P was familiar with many AIs, and you could say intimately so with at least a few. Nearly every one of them eventually developed some quirk or obsession seemingly at random, much like every other intelligent species in the galaxy. Wanting an unknown orb that radiated magical power simply because it would always fit in any container perfectly was hardly the strangest reason she could have imagined.
"Deal." Mrs. P said with finality.
Alpha reached for the orb. Rebecca, who had been trained for moments such as these, pulled the orb close to her chest.
"No, goods come after the deal's done. Everyone knows that's typically pirate procedure," Rebecca said, her tone making it clear that this was not a point to be debated.
Mrs. P nodded atop Rebecca's head and continued, "You'd have best prepare quickly dear, I think you've got about a minute until they start."
Before Mrs. P had even finished speaking, Alpha had crushed the Captain's virtual restrictions into faint smoldering memories and had begun to transition the ship to combat readiness. She hadn't even needed any toothbrushes.
"I would suggest retiring to the combat hold and preparing for combat," Alpha said as her synthetic body began to power down, the last words echoing from the ship's speakers.
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The page slips from an invisible slit to the side of the figure. It turns its attention towards it, but such is little more than a formality. The figure is both figure and vessel, and they both knew of its contents the instant the transmission was received.
A Declaration of Immediate Hostilities.
The figure's smooth void-black faceplate ripples.
If that was how the pirates wanted to play this game, then it would be remiss of it to not offer a proper indulgence.
Deep within the vessel, kept in darkness since its seams were welded shut, three fusion reactors spool to combat levels.
It surges through space; becoming a specter it twists its shroud of reality even tighter against the surge of its own engines.
After all, Death flies on silent wings.
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The shields across The Lazy Descent followed in the steps of the Blood Black Bone's. The stars shimmered as light distorted through the increasingly powerful shielding. Sensor arrays carefully tuned towards deliberately weakened and shifting patterns across the shield, lest Alpha become blind to the outside world. Familiar thoughts began to float across her mind. Information. Prediction. Reaction.
A hundred in their like flickered across her consciousness as her training took hold.
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Within his quarters the Captain frantically reached for the black pebble. He was relieved, but not surprised, to find it in his right pocket. Despite his apparent best, and many, efforts to become irresponsibly incapacitated since he gained possession of the item, he had never managed to misplace it. Pulling it from his pocket, he squeezed it. Upon being awakened by Alpha's voice for the second time, he hadn't failed to notice the view out of his window becoming distorted, as if he were far more intoxicated than he was at the moment. More alarmingly, he could hear the telltale rising pitch of the generators shifting into combat power. That, in combination with the faint dimming of the lights in his room (which were already dim to begin with, due to his pressing headache), could only mean that the souped-up laser capacitors across his ship were being filled.
Alpha shouldn't have been able to do that.
What if she shot at the pirates? It didn't matter at which, either one would be a disaster. Partially distracted, still gripping the pebble, he nearly dropped it as it emanated a loud beep. He hurriedly squeezed it again, as he had many times before to confirm that he was ready to receive additional directions, and it buzzed within his hand. Immediately, text clicked into existence above the pebble without even a flicker. As was typical of most holographic technologies. They had to map the ambient medium's conditions to identify proper projection preferences, a shortcoming not found in the strange pebble.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The Captain blinked. He was in no state for reading, and he was hardly in a state to recognize that. He stumbled towards his private medical unit, fumbling with his appendages as he placed his arm into its receptacle. With two short pricks, his faculties returned to him. His rapid restoration to sobriety was facilitated by advanced medical spider-shaped nano-bots and a good helping of magic on top (which was also spider-shaped). He didn't want to think about it. He also didn't want to think about the fact that such an injection probably cost just as much, if not more, than the many other much more enjoyable drugs he had consumed the night before. Curse the health system, even when the ingredients were manufactured aboard his ship, using his resources, in his nano-forge, it still cost him a metaphorical arm and a leg.
Blinking freshly refreshed eyes, he made a second attempt at the floating text.
Assist with the destruction of the opposing vessel. Identifier: Blood Black Bone; in Shiny Blood Red Letters Please.
Something in the Captain's lower intestine moved in a manner that made him believe that A: there was a small chance that Alpha was already following such directions, but they were slim, and B: that the assistance could be delayed until more pressing matters were addressed.
If you can't imagine what such matters may be, let it be known that even with the miracles of modern technology, toilets remain commonplace. As he made his way to his even more private pereson-hygiene room, he dropped the pebble into his pocket. He had long since stopped being surprised at how effortlessly it managed to slip into anything he attempted to slip it into.
Accustomed to being a busy man, the Captain utilized the brief respite to direct autonomous drones to deliver sobering shots to the rest of his incapacitated crew. Fortunately for the captain, the doses applied would be much cheaper and nearly as effective. Unfortunately for the crew, comfort was not a concern present in the Captain's mind, nor in that of the unthinking administrators or designers of the medication.
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Alpha flashed a comms communiqué towards the Triple-B containing the necessary information to establish a secure communication coupling between the two ships. As it snapped into place, she felt an unfamiliar mind come into awareness across from her own.
Mrs. P has acquired my assistance against this unidentified vessel.
Understood, what are your capabilities?
They are as follows.
In direct communication between AI, it does not often make sense to transcribe it as one would typically transcribe dialogue. Nor does it occur as a "sharing of thoughts". When one can restructure their means of communication in a heartbeat, such concepts are no longer needed. They simply communicate, often without any consideration to the potential of inquiring minds that may wish to listen in.
Unfortunately, this makes showing such a conversation in a written work difficult. Writers across the galaxy have faced this trouble. In their moment of need, they have found the writerly tradition of "lying", older than written language itself, invaluable. Thankfully, I have no need to show you what happened, as I can just tell you.
In half of an instant, with no words or shared thoughts, the broad and finer details of a plan against the unknown intruder were hashed out. Soon, it became a waiting game as the relatively slow physical systems of both ships arrived at various times to proper combat postures. While glacial compared to the speed of thought between overclocked artificial minds who both employ local time distortion fields within their cores, from the relative tectonic pace of fleshy thought such matters happen in mere moments. As targeting systems finished calibrating, Alpha reviewed the information streamed to her from Blood. Neither could determine the location of the hostile ship, but the delay in the legal communications between the two should have put it within visual targeting distance. This is, of course, assuming that the vessel could be seen.
Cloaking devices, mirage fields, and distortion arrays can all hide a ship's signature to varying degrees of success. Especially if the aforementioned ship is running cold and dark. Fortunately for the two vessels and their straining sensors, none of these methods are foolproof, and the power required to maintain such a facade limits their capabilities. In the vacuum of space, heat must be shed lest a vessel turn its interior to slag, especially if it contains lifeforms with liquid insides susceptible to boiling off.
In silent agreement, Alpha and Blood flared their engines as they turned from each other. Remaining hidden from two perspectives becomes increasingly difficult as they separate, especially if they cross-communicate their sensor readings with each other. They would find the entity soon.
In addition, both AI knew it unwise to present an opportunity by which two theoretical birds may be annihilated with one very high speed-stone.
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Dirn stumbled as the ship accelerated, momentum betraying their balance temporarily before they, and the ship's inertial dampeners, compensated for the change. In a relief to their pride, they see that they were not alone, and while none fell, the group's movement towards the combat hold faltered but resumed post-haste. It is unwise to engage in space combat while outside the heavily armored interior section prepared specifically for such purposes. For The Lazy Descent, it additionally served as the armory. However, Dirn mused to themself, with what is contained in the cargo bay, "the armory" may be better thought of as a kitchen drawer.
Ahead, a pirate raised a scaled claw, their wide eye narrowing. The pirates and Dewey immediately fell still, and a realization later Dirn followed suit.
Ahead of them, already in the armory, voices could now be heard echoing across the metal hallways. Without hesitation and only minor consideration, the pirates turned back toward the hold. Dirn glanced towards Dewey who gave his equivalent of a shrug across a hundred limbs and ambled after the pirates. Dirn glanced back towards the armory, and after more than a moment's hesitation, followed behind Dewey. They figured that their odds were better with the group of criminals who appeared to at least hold themselves to a proper standard. They were also, as far as Dirn was aware, the only ones aboard the ship currently in possession of a magical form-fitting object, and Alpha would be quite upset with Dirn if they let it out of their sights.
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Have you been able to identify the hostile's position?
Negative, reviewing sensor readings now and attempting to determine potential areas of interest.
Alpha gave a mental huff. Her engines, having accelerated her to an acceptable level of relative speed to Blood, now lay cold. Without the back-bloom plume of her thermal exhaust, she could see unimpeded across the entirety of space around her. She was even filling the surprisingly abundant laser-bay heat sinks with the thermal radiation she generated to increase the effectiveness of her sensor suites and lowered the refractive shielding to further enhance her view. Nothing.
Of course, this was still hardly a surprise.
Typically in such a scenario, one could simply leave. If your opponent wanted a fight and didn't turn up to give you one, why bother staying?
This was also the first thing they had tried. As they approached a safe distance from each other to initiate a local jump, Blood provided a set of randomized coordinates. One could make a series of jumps, and if they were done properly, become almost impossible to follow. If the enemy wouldn't make themselves known as they both aligned towards their coordinates and spooled up their jump drives, then they would likely lose them forever.
It came as a great shock to both AIs when they discovered that neither could properly slip the anchor of reality properly to initiate a jump. This wasn't an uncommon phenomenon, it was warp and jump-tech 101 that both techniques suffered when one attempted to use them too close to an object of significant mass. Even micro-gravitational distortions were enough to cause problems if not properly accounted for. While it was possible to enter warp or make a jump while under the influence of even the strongest gravitational forces, it required a significant amount of energy that was usually found only in capital ships, and only capable without such massive engines with the assistance of an anchored jump point or warp-gate.
What made this more strange, was the fact that neither ship could measure any significant gravitational distortion. The only thing they could measure was an increase in the background gravitational noise, and while that was peculiar, it didn't explain their inability to jump. Blood, whose ship was also capable of a sustained warp tunnel in addition to jumping, attempted to slip into subspace and found themselves unable.
The only possible explanation was that both ships were being interdicted. Many vessels, especially those of a pirate persuasion, carried equipment that could befuddle a target's capabilities to warp or jump away. However, to do so against two ships, both with modified subspace cores that could typically slip weaker methods of interdiction, while cloaked or from a distance that rendered oneself unassailable and without creating any detectable gravitational distortions? It was as if a local bubble of anomalous gravity had spontaneously manifested itself around both of their cores.
It was unimaginable. Impossible even.
It was also exactly what was happening.
Now, at this point, you're probably disappointed at the general lack of excitement. Unfortunately, this is how space battles typically go. A vast period of silence, subtle analysis, careful maneuvering, and in many cases, mutual extraction when both sides agree that the cost of an open conflict stands to benefit no one. This last one is especially common when relatively easy space travel across almost any distance means that the typical drivers of conflict no longer carry quite the same weight they used to. Even love and beauty, once capable of launching fleets across treacherous waters, have become cheapened by the advent of FTL travel and communication. Why risk your expensive vessel in a conflict of the heart, when you were equipped with a magical teleporting submersible and all the fish in the seas of thousands of planets?
Fortunately, this is one of the rare cases where there are not any alternative fish in hypothetical oceans, and all the other bridges besides "shooting them until they can't shoot back" have been thoroughly burnt by yours truly. You're welcome.
I have identified an anomaly. Can you confirm it in your logs? Blood communicated to Alpha, along with electromagnetic sensor suite data that would have made someone with a heart a little bit more open than Alpha's blush.
AI sensibilities are peculiar, don't take much heed of them.
While Alpha didn't blush, she was embarrassed by how much more defined Blood's data was than her own. That ship had some nice sensor arrays on it, and what she wouldn't do to get her metaphorical hands on them (in an entirely academic manner of course).
Giving herself a mental shake, Alpha reviewed their contents. It would have taken her a few rounds to notice the anomaly had Blood not highlighted it for her. A distortion in the background noise of the stars. Potentially explained by a very, very dark ship hurtling in front of them at high (relative) speeds.
Now, in defense of Alpha's analytical capabilities, this was not (as you might have imagined) visible as a black streak blocking out the bright pinpoints of distant stars. No, that would mean that such a ship was already well within "someone's done goofed" range. The ship, if it even was that, was visible in a faint distortion in the expected noise of not-quite-black darkness between the pinpoints of distant stars, as something quite a ways away passes in front of stars and galaxies much, much, much further away. This was of course only made the smallest part visible through a combination of a multitude of sensors in an attempt to eliminate the possibility of such phenomena being due to random chance.
There were many other possible explanations, such as random chance (which still sat there healthy despite the best efforts of Blood's computational prowess), high-speed roaming black holes distorting distance light, space whale farts, or something else that I'm not creative enough to currently imagine. However, when you're being stalked by an unknown entity of unknown capabilities, it's best to be overly zealous in your analysis of anything that may suddenly substantiate its existence by sending various offensive munitions directly toward your face.
Alpha took her own, much grainier sensor logs, and cross-referenced it with Blood's findings. It took her a few moments (which was much less than what Blood expected her to take), but she found herself staring at a clear blur amongst the background stars.
This surprised her and Blood both, as her sensors were much weaker than Blood''s, but before she could feel superior for it, her prior surprise was rapidly distilled into the closest thing she could feel to fear.
She was practically staring cross-eyed at the blur.
In "space terms", this meant that it was far past the "someone's done goofed" range barrier, and well into the "someone's done really goofed". Her relative position to the disturbance was much closer to that of Blood's. In fact, after triangulating the position of the blur between her and Blood's recordings, she realized that the blur had been closer to her than she was to Blood. Even with this in mind, it was barely more than a blur, and had she not had Blood's prior work to build off of, she would have never identified it herself.
It must have had your jump coordinates. Could they be the buyers of your goods? Blood asked as he reviewed the compiled information.
Alpha hadn't even thought of that, and while she took slight offense at the elicit cargo the Captain was smuggling being referred to as "her goods", a coordinated drop-off in the middle of nowhere did make slightly more sense than someone somehow obtaining the pseudo-random jump coordinates provided by the Captain.
Possibly, Alpha answered, the Captain has all the relevant information contained in his mind, so I am currently unable to ascertain the truth of the matter.
Note that Alpha did not say that she wouldn't be able to... If she wanted to know "the truth of the matter", she would just need some time and proper means of encouragement.
While the unknown vessel might have followed the jump signature from their prior destination, Alpha would have seen them arrive.
There were no nearby objects to hide a jump or warp flash behind. In addition, at the distances required for even a shielded micro-jump flash to dissipate into nothingness, even accounting for Alpha's comparatively weak sensors, there would be no practical way to arrive at sub-light speeds in time. Even with the acceleration profile the blur had exhibited.
Still... Perhaps that would explain the Captain's speed at which he told Alpha to surrender to the pirate's demands, regardless of what they may be.
What she had originally taken to be advice from a seasoned smuggler well versed in pirate negotiations, may in reality have been a thin cover for a transition of goods already brokered. If that was the case, the Captain must have had some significantly misplaced faith in his planning capabilities, as he still lay asleep in his room according to Alpha's internal monitoring systems, and he had irrefutably not anticipated the arrival of the Triple-B.
A shot of surprise from Blood, accompanied by a time-coordinate code, dragged Alpha back to attention.
Dark lords... Alpha thought as they both reviewed the logs. It revealed a rather large wrench thrown into Alpha's previous acceleration profiles, as they both watched the blur stop. Absolutely. Stopped, and then faded into probabilistic uncertainty. Without the movement to differentiate between background noise and something, it had become practically invisible.
However, both Alpha and Blood were moving themselves now, in opposite directions, with their more precise sensor apparatuses straining toward the unidentified vessel's last known location. Nothing. It was gone, and there was no hint in their combined sensor readings as to where it might have gone.
Thankfully they didn't have to think about the implications of this for long, as the vessel made a rather helpful appearance and introduction along the Blood Black Bone's port side with a bright flash of harsh multi-spectral directed at its shields.
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The black vessel bursts from the darkness in a blinding flash of light induced by the sudden and intense polarity of their combat-raised shielding meeting unprepared space. The burst temporarily disorients the opposing blood-red vessel. Entire microseconds pass as it sits in a daze.
Unfortunately for the red, the black was prepared for such. The flash fails to blind the sensor arrays, inlaid and invisible along the seamless inky-black outer hull. Instead, the reflection of the light against the hostile's shielding maps its imperfections. Minuscule variances in the refraction, reflection, and distortion of the light reveal tiny patches of sensor-weakened shielding.
In an instant, tears across space lance out towards exactly one in ten of the patches, annihilating the comparatively delicate sensor clusters that dot the armored hull of the opposition.
Before it can respond, the black vessel dons its cloak of twisted space and again slips from purview.
The red vessel response is not delayed by shock or surprise. Close-range flack rounds thunder toward the opposition's last position, yet strike nothing. Missile pods flair open, waiting to unleash their payload at the first hint of a target lock, and yet there is none to be had.
Even without a target, the red vessel does not remain still. Flaring its irregular thrusters, it makes full use of its (potentially illegal, but definitely) expressive acceleration capabilities. Missiles are launched cold without locks, accelerate for a blink, and then continue to drift silently, and near invisible, constructing an expanding ball of statistically inevitable destruction for any further flashes of light.
Across the faint streams of the intracluster solar wind, the smuggling vessel begins to accelerate to match the pirate's path through space. Soon, their relative speeds match and they drift in sync.
Again, a flash of light illuminates the battle space somehow in front of the still-accelerating pirate ship. In response, near-invisible beams of high energy photons, traveling as fast as the laws of physics will allow in the near-vacuum medium, ignite the sparse solar remnants as they hurtle towards the dark obelisk outline of the unknown vessel.
To the surprise of two-thirds of the participating parties, the lasers twist around their target, scattering diffused into the empty backdrop. Not a single one even manages to glance against the invisible shielding of the black spacecraft. Blood's rapid response, an interdiction attempt visible only as the faintest distortion across space, meets a similar fate.
Much closer, scattered across the red hull, projectile turrets swivel toward the recently lost and newly reacquired target. A turret already aligned, through chance, is able to fire a single round.
It's capable of hundreds a second.
As soon as the partially-guided munition leaves the shielding of the red vessel, it is met by a lance of rippling reality that renders it, and the turret from which it came, into nothing more than memories.
Aboard the simplistic minds of the drifting missiles forming a vast expanding net, the flash of the emerging black vessel is recognized, and commands to their navigational systems are organized. Unfortunately, before any can ignite their high-g maneuvering thrusters, each becomes near identical drifting clouds of debris.
Before a second volley can be launched, the black ship disappears again. Not content to allow a scratch to go unrecognized, the pirate vessel overrides its firing systems as it turns away and sends hundreds of pounds of various munitions along a best-estimate projection of the hostile vessel's potential location. For nearly an entire second the space along the blood-red vessel resembles the surface of a star, one riddled with expanding high-speed bullet holes as a secondary barrage flies through it.
The expanding cloud of metal shards and gasses begins to glow, excited by a sustained barrage from the smuggling vessel's laser batteries. It is no longer an exaggeration to state that the miniature nebula of explosions now resembles the surface of a star.
Warnings play out across the shared mind of the still-silent figure and the now-moving vessel. The presence of excited matter works its way through the infinitesimal slim seams of their improbable cloak. It will soon be impossible to continue the deception.
The figure's faceplate begins a ripple of mirth, though, at the scale of time at which such engagements take place, several blows will have been traded before it is recognizable as such.
Proportionate Response is phrase not quite in line with the figure's philosophy, but one it must abide by both in spirit and in letter. Which in this case, means it finally gets to have some fun.
The black obelisk hurtles out of the still-growing cloud, its shield now faintly visible as an ultra-dark blue hue as it intercepts high-speed residuals from fragmentation munitions and the energies from the newly targeted lasers from afar.
Without turning, it directs a massive wave of energy towards the red vessel. Space itself... Sheers. From the perspective of the red vessel, it has suddenly found itself in the entirely wrong location and frame of reference. Its subspace cores scream out warnings as the spatial distortion back-blast washes over them. A section of once metal-melting superheated and gradually decompressing gas rapidly freezes and washes across the shields of the pirate vessel. Only the spatially stabilizing force of the subspace cores and carefully directed energies of the attack itself keep the craft and its inhabitants from finding themselves with far more than the recommended dose of "space" within themselves. At least as recommended by physicists, physicians, and mothers everywhere.
Once again the vessel slips the cloak of space onto its shoulders, willing the targeted beams of light to curve from its shields. Aboard, the ripple of mirth has reached its apex. As the lawyers sit strapped into their chairs, the standing figure grips the railing across the raised bridge tighter.
Oh, how it loves to play with its... friends.