Slev Torrent - Deep Space – Aboard The Human Instinct

Slev was reclining in his chair, numbly watching soap operas with Otto. Flinching every time that damnable tapping noise echoed through the ship Tap tap tap tap tap. Otto looked over at him with an understanding and equally pained expression on his face. Tap tap tap tap tap ping.

Slev flinched one more time before heaving himself out of the recliner, almost throwing himself onto the floor. As he stepped onto his bathrobe with his new cybernetic prosthetic, he flailed for a moment, just managing to hold onto the sandwich in his hand. "Chitters, for fuck sake!” Taptap, then blessedly silence

Slev made his way to the armory, where Chitters had been poking at a small metal ball and was refusing to use anything other than his shiny new prosthetic to do it. "It's not even one of your arms, chitters. Please, for the love of God, don’t make us put the mitten on your leg again for our own sanity.”

Chitters cooed defiantly but didn't keep stabbing at the ball. "Jesus, okay, thank you..wait. Slev's eyes widened as Chitters snagged the sandwich from Slev and dashed from the room, leaping from one wall to the other before scurrying into an unlocked vent. “How do you keep opening those?!" Slev yelled after Chitters peering at his rapidly disappearing form through the grating.

With a grumble, Slev made his way back to his chair, wincing as pain still occasionally lanced through his leg where the cybernetic had been grafted to the still-working nerves. Slev didn't know too many of the specifics of what Otto had done to get him and Chitters patched up. Just that it had cost a fuck-ton of money, and he had been either unconscious or in a barely conscious medication haze for the better part of two weeks. They were well on their way to the Cormag system by the time he had his senses about him again. Then Otto had informed him of all the Boletela developments...and honestly. Slev really didn't want to think about that right now; he was stressed enough adjusting to the new limb and watching Chitters and himself almost die horribly.

Slev reviewed his notes on the Cormag star sector, three large planets loosely tossed around a single blue star, with the remnants of a dozen collided moons strewn about the entire system in truly vast asteroid belts. The system's location near the fringes of settled space stopped it from being a true hub of trade. But the copious amount of resources made it well worth the effort for multiple corporations to settle there. It was a lawless, industrious place.

Hard-working miners settled there with their families' many leasing mineral rights from the corporations and tried their hand at homesteading. Those that went this route had to content with harsh rocky wilderness and a massive amount of bandit and pirate activity.

There were also a dozen or more mega mining complexes dotted across all three worlds for those who just desperately needed a job. hard labor for little pay, but they were well defended from the bandits and pirates. It was a place, like many others, where you had to pick between living under the relative safety and oppression of the planet's corporations. Or you went it alone with far more autonomy and danger.

Slev focused in on Cormag One, the first settled and most populous of the three habitable planets. The capital city of Saxum has a myriad of indispensable services. A full starport, medical facilities for him and chitters to follow up at, and good restaurants.

Most importantly, they had a physical bounty guild where he could ask around about Alister and pick up some jobs to supplement their disconcertingly dwindling funds. Slev was looking forward to the bounty guild, and one of his favorite things was chatting fellow hunters up and seeing what kind of awesome gear they used. Not to mention, they tended to have great bars and more than a few gun stores in very close proximity. Slev was betting this was one of those star systems that didn't have much in the way of prohibitive weapons laws.

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Tansental's laws on guns were that as long as the corporations are cool with you having a rocket launcher, no one else can say anything. He was betting Cormag was more like, As long as it isn't nuclear, we don’t care side of things. He guiltily glanced towards the armory.

A few more days passed, and the calm and contemplative nature of space travel was occasionally broken by a mischievous mantis. Otto spent most of his time repairing Slev's armor and working on side projects. He emerged from the armory only to eat, watch a few episodes of a soap opera, and sleep in a hammock he had strung up in the commons room.

Slev himself managed to disassemble and clean every item in his rather vast arsenal at least once. He also made damn sure to read everything he could about Cormag that was publicly available. Knowledge of customs and laws was always useful in his line of work.

Slev's other side project was more training for chitters. Otto had expressed concern about how smart the little guy might actually be, and Slev was absolutely starting to agree with him. Chitters was consistently able to open any door on the ship that had a button.

He had laid in wait in the kitchen for Slev to open the lock box that held his treats. Completely invisible, he had waited directly next to the box. The second it was unlocked, Chitters burst from stealth and grabbed the box, only foiled when he held it sideways and was unable to fit it into the vents with him. He still managed to get away with full handfuls of jerky.

Slev stood in the empty cargo hold, Chitters across from him, scythes raised. Slev shouted a command, "Disarm!" Slev jumped backwards.

Chitters jumped on the wall rather than just advancing straight at Slev. Slev fired paint shots at Chitters but wasn’t able to score a hit as Chitters bounced from floor to wall to ceiling to floor again, all the while alternating his camouflage in striating colors that matched the dull metal of the hold. The effect was extremely disorienting.

Chitters finally launched downward from almost directly overhead of Slev. Slev whirled out of the way, spiraling heavily into a wall as he put too much oopmh into his thrust-assisted dodge. Chitters, seeing him lose balance once again, disappeared from sight and bounced himself off multiple walls before launching at Slev from the wall right behind him. Slev cursed, and the smaller, grabbing scythes ripped the pistol from his grasp as Chitters shot by him. Then, with a happy warbling prance, he proudly brought back the pistol to exchange for a treat.

Slev smiled, “Godamn! Who’s the best little mantis?"He gave Chitters some of the oh so precious jerky, “Your shiny new leg isn't slowing you down at all!”

Chitters looked towards the metalic limb, “Chchchcr ttss,” and poked Slev with it as if to say you owe me more jerky. I could be living happily in a cave on my nightmare world. But instead, I'm stuck in space with a one-legged asshole and an octopus.

"Fine, you seem to have it down enough for us to call it a day anyway." Slev emptied the rest of the reinforced snack fanny pack Otto had added to his armor.

A sudden lurching of decreased momentum knocked Slev off his feet and sent Chitters sliding across the floor.

Slev hauled himself up and slapped a hand on the intercom control panel. "Otto, what now?” There wasn't an immediate answer. Slev began rushing up the stairs, with Chitters right behind him.

Slev slid to a stop in the cockpit. Otto was frantically doing something in the copilot's chair. Rather than interrupt, Slev slid into the pilot's chair and looked at the readouts. The ship had just decelerated them on the very edges of the Cormag system.

The cockpit itself was awash in eerie blue light, and he could just make out an asteroid belt in the near distance. He pulled up the scanner readout and realized what was happening: the ship had emergency decelerated them because there was a gravitational anomaly farther ahead. This was absolutely a trap of some kind. The only saving grace they had was that most ship scanners probably wouldn’t have dropped them quite this far out.

Otto finally spoke, "In the edges of the asteroid field ahead. I'm seeing three ships chasing one transport vessel.”

Slev cursed, “Fucking pirates, any SOS or identification from the ship that they are trying to bag?” Slev angled the ship to an intercept heading but didn't accelerate any yet.

Otto tapped furiously for another moment. "One moment, pulling it up now,” there was a confused blorp noise from Otto. “The craft being chased is broadcasting as the SS Gold Rush?" Slev turned around and looked at Otto with wide eyes.

Otto hit a few more buttons, and clear audio played. A man with a deep, gruff voice just oozing in a southern accent. "Mayday, Mayday, Carl Johansson of the SS Gold Rush being attacked by fucking pirates! I am not gonna be able to evade for long. Can someone kindly come pull my ass out of the fire!” the message played again on loop.

Otto looked up at Slev, who was already frantically deploying weapons. "Slev, that's a human, isn't it?”

Slev slammed the throttle forward, pinning them to their seats and forcing Chitters to cling on for dear life. With a voice strained under G-forces, “Fuck yes, it is!”

The Human Instinct rocketed forward, massive blue plumes of energy coursing behind it. Then the second set of engines engaged, slowly ramping up so as not to liquify the ship's occupants. A shimmering star of gold, green, and white streaked towards the glittering of energy weapons in the edges of the asteroid belt.

Two massive cannons slid from the top and bottom of the ship's center, folding out into position and locking into place, barrels tentatively whirring. The edges of the wings flared as though scales were peeling off, exposing several dozen missile ports. Finally, the tips of each wing extended a small, orb-like protrusion that sparked ominously with restrained green lightning.