Louie leaned in close to Liam and slapped the back of his armored combat glove into his chestplate, his voice filtering through the proximity channel radio into the ears of the unenthusiastic repairman. “Lefty Liam, how’s it going? Been quite some time since the two of us were anywhere near each other on this big bitch of a ship. You still slaving away in that rusty shit-hole of an armory? Man I feel sorry for you, but somebody’s got to keep our irons tight, you know what I mean?”
Liam knew full well that his unwanted companion in this elevator ride was attempting another false extension of friendship, as he had been on the receiving end of the inevitable betrayal that came after. It was this same man that had been the target of one of their missions, but instead of killing him as the client had ordered the Rats instead tried to recruit him for a job. It was in the bar that they had met that Liam was shot with his own gun after making the offer of joining the pirate crew. Circumstances changed after that swayed the veteran officer's opinion on being a criminal, but even after all this time it still stung how ruthlessly the ex-cop had switched from a casual drinking buddy to a stone cold executioner. Liam's hand idly rubbed at the scar on his stomach under his suit, but refused to acknowledge the conversation.
Louie laughed at the sight of this presumably tough pirate engineer moping over old scars. He knew that Liam still held a grudge about that night in the bar, but to the officer turned thief it was just a faded old memory, one that ought to be forgotten. He nudged Liam shotgun arm with a dry laugh. “Come on, don't be like that, man! We got a raid coming on, so let's not let a little bad blood get between us before a good fight.”
Liam wished he could just tune this guy out, but aside from potentially breaking his own comms system there was no way aside from just ignoring him. A sigh that wouldn't be picked up by his transmitter slipped through his teeth, as he knew that Louie would just keep pestering him until he got a response. The little green icon that told him that he was broadcasting lit up as he grumbled his reply. “Bad blood? You shot me in the stomach, asshole. Then you show up a week later in a cruiser saying that you changed your mind after getting burned, like I had told you would happen if you went back to your boss who hired us to kill you. Just piss off and let me simmer, alright? Better for both of us that way.”
Louie scoffed, no longer willing to play nice with the man beside him that he found to be annoying. “Simmer any longer and you'll boil over. Listen, I already apologized and I've given everything I've got to the crew, you've got no right to hang that shit over me anymore. Live and let live motherfucker, life's a bitch so there isn't a point in whining. We're on the same team, so let's act like it.”
While checking the wall mounted indicator to see which floor they were on, Liam hissed a reply through gritted teeth. “We're not a team, just a bunch of miserable assholes stuck together on the same ship because the universe is a cunt. I'm not holding anything over you, I just have no reason to forgive somebody that tried to kill me with my own gun. Hard to live and let live after taking an irradiated slug to the gut and having to spend a month eating protein gel.”
“It's your own damn fault using that kind of ammo.” Louie tried to pinch at the bridge of his nose, only for his armored hand to bump into his visor. “Look, I just want to be sure we're cool going into combat together. Got enough problems in front of me that I don't need to be checking over my shoulder every five seconds.”
Despite the fact that he was actively considering shooting this prick who was lecturing him, Liam eased his hand away from where his sidearm was holstered and placed his hand on his hip. He gave Louie a glance that even his helmet could convey as being serious. “We aren't cool, but if you think I'm going to shoot you and leave you for dead on a dirty barroom floor like you did to me, then you might as well go fuck yourself. I don't shoot my allies, so as long as you call yourself a Rift Rat you'll stay out of my line of fire.”
Louie adjusted the strap to his rifle, no longer preparing for the worst. He tossed an idea in his mind around, wondering if this was really him talking. “That sounds a lot like something the captain would say. She probably told you off for this same shit with somebody else.”
“No, it's just how I am.” Liam hiked his shotgun arm up until it was slung over his shoulder, then pointed at the side of his head. “It's called having some self preservation skills, jackass. You really that the captain would let me live if I put a bullet in your head? Might as well fetch the dynamite and cigarettes myself and take a trip to the aft airlock after that. Can we stop talking now and just ride the lift in some blessed silence?”
Louie complied, though he only did so because he was getting bored of this conversation. The two stood silently within the clanking lift as it made its final approach to the hangar floor, the expansive area visible down below buzzing with activity. Liam let out a relieved sigh as some proximity chatter began to crackle in his helmet speakers, a sign that he would soon be free of this awful situation. The elevator finally shuddered to a halt at the base of the hangar floor, allowing Liam to walk slowly as the old veteran jogged on ahead, eager for combat.
The hangar was, as one would expect, an enormous space in which there were a handful of separate ships than the Korraine herself. Carts of ammo and missiles were being delivered to the two sleek triangular fighters on the right side, while an actual ton of bombs were loaded by robotic arms onto the boxy bomber on the left. Scattered around the hangar were other ships, mainly tiny single seat civilian ships or two seater cargo skiffs, and in the corner just behind and to the right of Liam was the mech Bay. He made a note of how the rusty titan he remembered being there was gone at the moment, probably forward in the waste recyclers being used to lift vats of sewage again. Lastly was the centerpiece of the raid, the half dropship half breaching pod abomination known as the Lamprey, sitting with its jaw like door hanging wide for the dozens of pirates to file inside.
Liam approached the entrance of the ship and was greeted by a figure wearing tropical camouflage armor that had additional optic arrays and sensor systems from head to shoulders. Teddy, a young marine they had picked up on some backwater jungle planet that was one bad week from having the civil war it was locked in turn into a nuclear rave. He was a good kid at heart, but if you give him a rifle and a spool of monofilament wire he'll have whoever you want dead brought back to you in a bag. Liam returned the greeting by nodding to him with a simple “hey”.
Teddy nodded back to him, then pulled a data drive from his belt for Liam to take. The marine's oddly child-like voice came over the mic with perfect clarity, as those added systems included better comms equipment than average. “Captain sent word ahead that you're taking point with the breachers. Hawkler got brigged at the last second, so I'm filling in as your partner. You want me on your good side or your bad?”
A growl went through Liam's throat as he realized what the captain was doing. She must have been even more angry about the plant than he thought. He shook his head woefully, realizing now that she was going to drag him through Hell and back for pranking her. “Your call wingman, whichever gives you better visibility.”
The two of them stepped into the black interior of the dropship, which was only illuminated by the red idle lights and scattered flashlights from people checking their gear. The breachers were the first to go in, which meant that the nose of the ship was where Liam was supposed to be. Lampreys were funny like that, having a massive cutting tool and grinder mounted on the front so they could cut their way into a ship as opposed to breaching an airlock. Some people loved the thrill of blowing open new doors into hostile ships, but Liam preferred doing so using long range bombardment tactics.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
He strode along the grated floor of the vessel, counting the heads and unique decals as he went by. There were all kinds of teeth, eyes, scars, tattoos, faces, animals, or just plain words on each and every armored combat rig. A total of twenty six heads in the main fuselage, the two pilots who would not be participating in the combat, four more up front comprising the other breachers, and Liam himself followed closely by his partner. Thirty-two wasn't a bad number for a raid, as bigger numbers meant bigger targets, and that entailed a higher risk and body count. The two of them entered the stunted cylindrical room that was the breaching Bay and attached their rigs to the wall mounted safety hooks.
The murmur of digital chatter coming from both the crews working outside and the boarding party in the back kept Liam from thinking about how he would smell coming out of the rig later, at least until the familiar voice of Louie came over the line from across the room. “Lefty's on point tonight? Shit, looks like we'll be in for a hell of a ride.”
Liam looked over at him and scoffed at the image of a snarling wolf painted on the right side of his helmet. He could only see the left side in the elevator, so seeing it now reminded him of how much he hated the gunmetal gray canine. Another pirate spoke, this one with a deep snarling feminine sounding voice that Liam recognized as Mabel the quarry worker, and chastised Louie. “Shut it DeRay, you know better than to piss off the ghosts. Last thing we need is another cursed breach ending with us looking down the twin barrels of a Rexxy.”
A collective shiver ran down the spine of the breachers, save for Teddy who was too fresh of a recruit to know of that event. They all remembered that unfortunate event where the Lamprey had breached into a military munitions transport, only to have the on duty security personnel of the freighter activate all six Rexxys, or Reliable Extermination Autonomous Combat Arms if you wanted to be specific. Much blood was spilt that day, all for a shipment of MREs and antiquated machine guns that the sector government was willing to lose if it meant baiting us into a trap. The Rats made it out of that firefight and subsequently became more elusive, cautious, and unpredictable.
Someone else added their opinion, though who said it was a mystery due to their poorly tuned transmitter. “Least we ain't following that putz Rico anymore.”
A chorus of agreement came across every line, even the fellow crew behind the breachers and the pilots seated above them. The mention of Rico sent the whole crew into a chain of arguments regarding the late pirate's leadership skills and combat potential, then off the rails into the topic of the best alcohol that the replicator can make. With the focus off of Liam he could quietly adjust his suit systems to work with the crew-wide friend or foe detection network properly, even though he knew that nobody would confuse him with a security officer's blue and gray uniform. The system crackled to life on his heads up display, showing each pirate's name or call sign next to a yellow circle focused on their center of mass. Now that he had that system working, he could spend what few minutes he had left before launch calibrating his gun arm.
The idle lights flickered as the on-board reactor spooled up with a comms-wide whine. Everyone instinctively switched from proximity radio to the designated mission frequency, only to have many regret tuning in right as their pilot was trying to fix his broadcast volume. Their husky pilot growled into her headset with maximum volume at first, but quickly adjusted it upon getting the feedback herself.
“TESTING, testing, testing. Ah, how is that? Da, we have good volume! Listen up Rats, we have mission data to relay, so remain silent or be tied to breaching nose. Our target is heavy cargo ship belonging to Panvaratia Heavy Industries. Our job simple: break in, break crew, break ship, keep whatever we want. Security is high, expect many droids and turrets in automated zones and security forces in pressurized compartments. Combat AI will be joining us for mission, arriving now.”
The entire raiding party took a collective breath as the menacing frame of the combat shell crawled onboard, the eight mounted appendages reaching up to anchor itself to the ceiling. The Rats had three AI on the ship, all three with their own personality and strengths, and all three with a reputation. One was notoriously unlucky and was said to have been responsible for more deaths on the pirate side than any opponent, another cold and calculating but slow to engage in combat, and the third would operate well to a certain extent as long as there was nothing going on aboard the Korraine. Until the seven foot tall warmachine on treads broadcast its voice there was no way of telling which host was hiding within, thus the pirates were all silently praying that today would not end with a friendly-fire accident of a plasma blast.
Two clicks came from the comms line as the AI integrated itself with the network, and a dreadful moment of silence befell the crew as they awaited the reveal of their mechanical ally's identity. A cold man's voice tinged with disdain came across the line like an echo. “Excalibur is here to aid you in destroying our enemies.Ferro ignique, Rats.”
A unanimous sigh of relief swept over the crew, as having Excalibur on the mission meant that they would have a somewhat competent AI operating as a marksman and tactical data relay. His main drawbacks were his indecisiveness and preference to only go for guaranteed kill shots, but if tasked with being just a tactician he was more than capable of real-time countermeasure deployment. Regardless of those faults and quirks, everyone agreed it was better to have him instead of his brother on a mission.
The thrum of the reactor began to pulse as the launch procedure automatically entered the standby state, all while the pilot continued her debrief. “Our breaching location lies in belly segment below shield generator. I not need to tell you this, but first objective is breaking that annoying thing before Lamprey is melted by it. You want ride home, you break shield systems. Our fighters will hit their weapons bay once we breach, so stay away from those segments if you want to keep living. Excalibur will relay orders as they come. Hostages are desired but unnecessary, so only kill if they have weapon. No Hyena, a meal kit is not weapon, no shooting doctors eating their lasagna.”
A short bout of laughter drowned out her next words, but the sudden thump of the pulse engines kicking on made the organic raiders’ stomachs clench from the rapid takeoff. A viewscreen in the breaching chamber showed the forward facing camera view of the Lamprey, upon which was an image of the hangar doors slowly screeching open to show the sparkling purple ion field of a warp shell skipping past stars and solar systems in minutes. It was obvious that the ship was slowing, and the sudden blare of the jump exit klaxon rang out through the ship as the purple shield began to fade. Despite being across the ship, the pulse bomb’s spooling could be felt on every screen and communicator as it distorted magnetic fields as it charged. Liam could imagine how his abandoned hand was sizzling within the magnetic stomach of the weapon now.
Another lurch came from the Korraine herself as she dropped out of superlight travel, followed immediately boom and roar of the magnetic cannon firing the pulse bomb at the target and the furious cooling of the strained capacitors that supplied the power. Another flicker went across every screen and HUD onboard, and like that the hunt was on. The Lamprey, the two fighters, and the overloaded bomber all shot out from the rear-facing hangar before making a complete about face turn towards the disabled freighter. Liam looked at the viewing screen with dread, now recognizing the specific division of Panvaratia Heavy Industries they were robbing: the Killjoy Arms Factory.
Their prey loomed before them like an enormous rifle pointed to the Korraine, nearly equal to her in length and twice as wide. Her red paint job did little to hide the massive black weapon batteries protruding from the port and starboard sides, or cover up the behemoth of a railgun that made up the entire nose of the ship. The back half of her was all cargo pods and engines, which meant that only a third of the ship would even have crew to contend with. Compared to some jobs the Rats had taken on this was easy, but that kind of mindset led people to their doom.
Liam was wondering why the target wasn’t firing at them when he heard the blaring alarm of an enemy lock on, and on the viewscreen saw a spider web of twenty anti-ship missiles heading towards them at full speed. Liam was no longer the only one soiled pants on that ship.