“So this individual is effectively acting as a cartel leader, yet has not been destroyed or prosecuted yet?”

“Who’s going to prosecute him, and under what law? He owns the law round these parts. He can just bribe the judges, or the governors, and if that fails hop to an area he owns and keep on doing what he does.”

“So this individual is about to try to claim me as salvage? Understood, charging anti meteorite defences for a warning shot.”

“Wait? What? You want to shoot at ZANE? Do you have any idea how bad a plan that is?” I felt the panic building, I’d only been talking to this ship a few hours, yet I had little doubt they would do it.

“Really? I felt it was a rather good plan.”

“Shoot Zane, and we get the entire system coming after us, and they won’t be playing nice, and with anti meteor weapons? Those things are designed to move rocks out of the way, not go up against frigates retrofitted into heavy gunships.”

“Maybe your modern anti meteor measures.” Reliance scoffed. “Taking aim.”

“Wait, just fire a warning shot, maybe we can bluff them that your main guns are up that way, send one across their bows.”

“Understood, firing warning shot.”

What happened then? The air seemed to tingle, and the entire ship seemed to shake as a shot was fired. I rushed to the bridge, calling up the view-screen, having a really bad feeling about this. Sure enough my feeling was confirmed, by the sight of a pile of debris.

“Reliance?”

“Yes Captain?”

“Remember when I said to fire a warning shot? One you said would be using your least lethal weapon?”

“Yes captain.”

“WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THAT?”

“It would appear that my power cells had been storing excess charge, not much, a few kilowatts here and there.”

“FOR THREE CENTURIES.” I wailed, We were so screwed, there was no way The Cartels were letting this go.

“I must admit, this warning shot may prove something more of a deterrent than initially planned.”

“I ask you to mildly shake them up, so we can make preparations to minimise looting, and instead you fire on the de facto leader of a system, create, and simultaneously fill a power vacuum. Paint a bullseye on our hull, and pretty much let everybody in the sector know where we are with a massive weapons discharge. On top of making us the richest target for a few systems, all by accident? What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Would a whoops suffice?"

I wanted to go back to my new cabin, and scream into a pillow, or go down to the hangar and tinker until I forgot all my troubles, but since doing so would only result in both the cabin, and the hangar being blown to hell when the cartels found out about this, it was time to do what we did best.

“Reliance,” I sighed. “I really hope that Boneyard hasn’t been found yet, because now we really need to lay low for a while. Lay in a course and get us the hell outta here.” ***********************************************************************************************

Nara had known Eileen, and Jenel since what felt like forever ago. They’d pretty much grown up diving the same dumpsters. Then the sisters had decided Eileen was the perfect candidate for “uplift.” A kid with multiple bad wounds, with no carers, well it had been pretty much a foregone conclusion from the start.

Then a few months ago she’d come back, and it was like looking at a stranger. She’d never been this cynical before. She even came back with a ship, they’d both tried to ask where she got it, but both “won it in a poker game”, and “legit salvage,” sounded quite unlikely to be the answer. She’d been acting screwy since then, and Nara wanted to believe the best of her, really, but she’d lived long enough to know that blowing up a cartel leader tended to be hazardous to your health.

Really she didn’t know what to make of all this, Eileen was acting less like herself, and more like she just escaped from one of those Vids she loved watching by the day. It was a little concerning, but every time Nara was about to give up and just walk away she’d see a little bit of the old Eileen poking through, and it’d suck her right back in.

Right now, though, even Nara, the eternal optimist, could see how much trouble they were in. The Cartel would go after their contacts, use trackers, maybe even sic The Sisters on them. The last was far more terrifying than the other possibilities. There were some unpleasant rumours about their testing procedures, and use of unapproved, stolen, or even Xenotech implants.

They had to get out of here, and fast. Later they would have words, but for now there was no time to let down their guards, so she did what she did best. Coaxing as much power as she possibly could out of the old consoles, ideally without them getting all zappy. After a few bad experiences aboard this or that old frigate, she’d taken to wearing rubber boots. But they only did so much.

Her fingers flew over the consoles, working to bypass the obsolete safety lockouts, under most circumstances that would definitely be inadvisable, but staying where they were or being slow enough for the Cartel to catch them would be even more ill-advised. They didn’t play nice, and it was hard to fight an organisation with so many old acquaintances in it. She couldn’t say she agreed with the choices they had made when they’d signed up, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t avoid fighting them for as long as possible.

She looked back, and wondered what in the world had dragged her into this situation, as behind her sensors picked up several small, but heavily armed ships, that were carefully following their trail. She vented the waste from the nacelles in the hopes that would mask them a little bit. It wasn’t perfect, but she really hoped it was enough.