“On the road again, I just can't wait…” Seth started to sing to himself before being cut off by an almost frantic Samantha.
“No! Please stop, I can't take any more of your singing!” She wailed.
Seth gave Neirdith a look for support but saw her similarly grim expression, grumbling to himself he sat back in his seat and crossed his arms grumpily. “Last time I try to do something nice for you.” She heard him mutter under his breath.
Creesh sighed audibly and Neirdith smiled faintly, the journey to the refining settlement was not long, but tensions were high. They were not entirely sure of what would be facing them there and so were all wearing their armour as they prepared to exit warp. It wouldn't do to be caught unprepared after all. As the translation timer ticked down closer and closer to zero Neirdith leaned forwards in her seat. Not that it would change anything, but the tension was like a physical thing, heavy and cloying like the scent of rotten fruit.
As the twisting lurch of the warp field going down shuddered through the ship, Neirdith saw everyone quickly checking their sensors. One by one they sent her a green light or an all clear. Everything looked good and the destination was free of potential hostile ships.
Raising the station on comms she began "IS Shining Knight to refinery, come in refinery."
After a few more tense seconds the feed returned a slightly fuzzy reply "This is the refinery station The End of The Line, we read you IS Shining Knight. Please state your business, there are nefarious raiders aswim in these parts." The voice said with a slight accent.
Neirdith smiled at that and calmly replied "It's going to be okay now End of The Line, we are here to bring the pirate known as Hungaro to justice. We have a heavily armed auxiliary ship and are here on business."
Silence followed for a little bit before the line once again crackled "Well that's some of the best news I have heard all year, please proceed to docking clamp one. I will meet you there personally, my name is Hurk, but everyone here just calls me the overseer."
Seth began to pilot the ship in on conventional thrusters. As they neared the station Samantha remarked "Wow, I see why they call it The End of the Line. It looks like it's on its last legs. That station must be at least four hundred years old judging by the amount of micrometeorite damage. And look at all those hull patches…" as she continued to mutter to herself Neirdith turned her attention towards her own screen.
The station was in a state of disrepair that went beyond simple neglect, it looked like someone had beaten it with a giant hammer and then left it to rot underwater for a hundred years, the thick armoured hull was scarred and pitted while the large support girders were slightly warped. The glazmite windows were grimy and many looked to have plates welded over their insides. There were a multitude of newer patches and welds all over its massive hull where jury rigged repairs had been done in a slapdash way. In her opinion the station looked like the place someone would get sent as a punishment.
The Shining Knight maneuvered over to one of the very few serviceable looking docking clamps that jutted under a large overhead roof like structure, the purpose of it was unknown to her. The dull thud of docking echoed throughout the ship and she stood along with everyone else. Turning around she saw Skorr standing in the doorway to the bridge and knew that Gloom would be situated in the comms room. Everyone else was on the bridge and in their full gear.
Creesh hopped out of her chair and chirped "Well, that was certainly eventful, Do you think that the docking port is safe to use in its current condition?" She asked Samantha.
Samantha looked at her terminal, seeming to mull over some sensor reading for a minute before replying "It should be okay, but either way, I'm not sure Skorr should come, if it's going to break, then Skorr will be the one to do it."
Skorr grumbled from the doorway "I don't like having to stay behind."
Neirdith was quick to reassure them "We will be okay Skorr, we are fully armed and we have our armour on. We can take Gloom with us if you feel uneasy."
"No, you are right, I just don't like feeling useless." The titan seemed to sigh, shifting on their tree trunk-like legs.
"We are just going to meet this Hurk fellow for information, then we will be right back." Neirdith said reassuringly as Seth nodded in agreement. Skorr just stood back out of view, apparently satisfied.
Samantha stood and walked over to Creesh as Seth got out of his chair as well. Neirdith looked them over and was satisfied to see everyone wearing their armour, Creesh in her light plate and Samantha looking like a warrior in her heavy armour. But again it was Seth that stood out in his powered suit, it covered the entirety of his body, the armoured exosuit making him look like some sort of strange statue.
Seth asked "Are we good to go?" She saw him smile as he looked around, holding in a laugh..
"Yes I believe so, Creesh, Samantha, you good?" Neirdith asked them, when they nodded she bade them all to follow her as she walked to the docking hatch.
Creesh said "I hope this Hurk has some useful information, something that will help us get the jump on these pirates."
"Oh I'm sure they will, they are in charge out here so they have to know something useful to us." Seth said flatly.
The group reached the airlock and they stepped in, Seth frowned as Samantha said "It's a good thing I checked these before the trip. The aft airlock had a leak that would have led to explosive decompression eventually."
Neirdith cycled the airlock and stepped out into the docking arm that attached them to the station proper. The walk groaned startlingly under their combined weight but held. As they entered the next airlock she let out a sigh of relief that she hadn't realised she had been holding in. The station’s artificial gravity seemed to be holding just fine, she felt the slight distortion as she exited the Shining Knight’s gravity field and entered the station’s.
The old station's airlock cycled and she found herself looking at a somewhat stout slaaveth male, he was wider at the shoulder than Seth with a vaguely humanoid build and seemed more solid. But the similarities ended there as he had pupilless dark eyes and shark-like teeth with scale covered skin.
"Welcome to The End of the Line." Hurk said with his arms out wide in greeting. Bowing his head slightly he said "Please come in. We should discuss business over a drink, as it is more comfortable to do." He started off and she followed him down the slightly corroded hallway. He took them through another airlock, the creaking of the panels making her wince.
As they walked she noticed the general worn out appearance of everything on the station. The walkways were polished to a mirror-like shine from the passage of tens of thousands of feet, and the walls were scraped and scarred in a way that suggested extreme age. The lighting strips in the ceiling were slightly muted and some flickered occasionally. Nothing seemed expressly broken, but it all had the look of a thing that was far past its prime.
"You no doubt are noticing the general shabbiness of this place, and are probably wondering why such a relic of a base is even still in use." Hurk said as if reading her thoughts, as she looked over to him he continued "The End of the Line used to be owned by a mining firm called Twin Stars Mining LLC, but was bought out ages ago. The new company tried to keep this place running for a time but were unable to justify the expenditure of keeping such an old base operational. They eventually ended up auctioning it and the mining rights off to a third party who held it in mothball for a few decades before gifting it to their youngest grandson.” He said a bit enthusiastically with a shake of his frilled head.
Hurk grunted as he kicked a wall panel who’s light was flickering. His percussive maintenance seemed to have done the trick as it stopped flickering, the light glowing a steady green. The slaaveth man nodded to himself before partially turning to her and continuing his story. “And that's where I come in. My grandfather cursed me with this place when I had my 20th naming ceremony, he always was a calculating bastard. I spent the next decade of my life getting this place running again and I am not too humble to say that I did a pretty bang up job. We have no leaks, the air is clean and the mess hall serves drinks between 10am and 11pm." Hurk said with a grin.
Seth popped himself into the monolog saying "Now you got my attention." Samantha laughed at his comment and Neirdith had to smile as well.
Hurk nodded enthusiastically and said "We are on our way there now, it's only a little after 8am local time, but why be the boss if I have to follow the rules right? Anyways, I have been turning a modest profit from this station for about nine years now, but these damn raiders started coming in and stealing my shipments. They generally don't hurt anyone, but there have been casualties. You know how miners are. They won't give up without a fight, especially if their paycheck is on the line. I have tried telling them to just give it to them, to avoid pissing off the raiders, but they are a tough bunch it seems."
Hurk passed a webbed hand over his eyes as if in pain before he continued. "That's why I'm so glad you're here, I have lost a few friends to those bastards but we don't have any armed ships or really even weapons. So I did the only thing I could think of and posted a bounty. I figured that any money I pay out will be more than fair for the safety of my crews and profits." He finished with a much more hopeful look on his face than when she had first seen him.
Neirdith replied "Well, we are here to help now. Do you have any ideas where they might next strike? Any patterns or predictable strike locations?" Hurk was quiet as he turned his attention to his worn out wrist assistant, the small arm accessory looking like it had been fished out of a trash compactor.
He tapped on it for a minute before answering "Yeah actually now that you mention it they do seem to favor one particular work area over the others. So, as you are probably well aware, we mine and refine tritium from the twin brown dwarfs and three gas giants in this system. What you may not be aware of however is the large asteroid belt that orbits the binary pair at a distance of about thirty four light minutes. It's full of metallic asteroids and we have been tapping them recently for precious metals. Now I know that gold and platinum are a pretty good bet, but we hit the jackpot as these pups are just chock full of rare earths like neodymium and promethium. It seems as though the raiders are most interested in intercepting these shipments in particular." Hurk said matter of factly, his clawed hand idly rubbing his scaled chin.
Nodding her head Neirdith started to form a plan in her mind. Looking at Hurk and asking "I have an idea, we will escort one of your ships out to the asteroid belt and wait for them to fill up on the minerals then escort them back. If they don't attack then we will continue to do so until they show up, but we might have to discuss fueling costs while we are doing it." She said, smiling brightly.
Frowning slightly Hurk replied "First off, if you take out Hungaro I will give you a discount at all my fueling stations forever. That bastard killed one of my best friends. And second, we already tried that and Hungaro seemed to notice the escort and attacked somewhere else." He said waving his hands in exasperation.
This time it was Samantha that interjected "So you are saying Hungaro probably scanned the ship for weapons then?" Hurk just nodded and frowned again, Neirdith looked at Samantha but she continued unabated "Well then I have the solution to both your problems, we just disguise the Shining Knight as the vinarfelien cargo runner it was originally and cover the guns up so they don't show on scans." She finished with a smug look.
Neirdith tried to think of a reason that the idea wouldn't work but was unable to think of anything, so instead she just looked at Seth who was smiling widely, he noticed her look and nodded his head. Creesh seemed to be on the same page as Neirdith, thinking it over. But as much as she didn’t want to admit it, it was a really good idea. The only question was how to accomplish such a task.
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And as if reading her thoughts Hurk asked "You want to turn your vessel into a Drekking Q-ship? And how exactly do you expect to disguise your weapons? I have seen the diagnostic scan of your ship, you guys are packing some major heat in that thing. How do you even power five beam cannons on a one hundred and twenty meter long ship?"
"One hundred and twenty two meters actually." Samantha corrected before answering "And The Shining Knight has a dual medium reactor setup, they compliment each other so no single system is bearing the entire load. We can fire all five lasers at once for a second or two at a time for much longer bursts." Hurk seemed impressed and Neirdith smiled. It seemed that her ship was starting to make a name for himself, Samantha certainly seemed attached to him.
Again Hurk asked "Be that as it may, the question of how to cover up five heavy beamers and all your vulcan cannons remains to be answered."
Creesh swiveled her head to look at Samantha before asking "Would it be possible to cover the laser ports with hatches that could be opened remotely? Then for the vulcans we could do the same thing but with blister hatches instead."
Samantha nodded her head and looked at Neirdith saying "I believe that it would work, and as long as the guns were not powered up they would be undetectable anywhere outside direct inspection."
Neirdith nodded her head and asked Hurk "I think that this is our best option for catching Hungaro, do you have a drydock we could park into, or how would you recommend going about the modifications?"
Hurk seemed to talk to themselves for a minute before turning to his assistant and typing away at it, as he finished and looked back at them he smiled, saying "No such facilities exist, but they won't be necessary, these engineers that I have here are used to more dangerous work in less hospitable conditions than this. They ought to make quick work of your modifications."
Neirdith asked "Is there a charge associated with these modifications?"
Hurk smiled and said "My guys would space me if they thought I charged you for helping us take these guys out. No, consider this a thank you for your willingness to help out. My only other question is how do you plan to make them think you are just a merchant ship? You have Vinarfelien thrusters so you are faster than my normal ships, and your transponder is not necessarily incognito either."
Samantha said "Oh not to worry, our communications specialist Gloom can change our transponder at will to whatever they deem necessary. We will just have them switch it to something more civilian sounding when we are acting the part. I'm thinking The Trombuly, I always liked that movie." Seth laughed at the obscure reference and Hurk gave a sharp toothed grin. Neirdith didn't understand the joke and so remained silent.
"Well, if we are in agreement over our course of action I see no reason to delay, the longer we let these pirates run around the more chance they have to hurt someone else." Neirdith said purposefully.
"Well, I guess I will have to take you up on that drink later then Hurk." Seth said a little mournfully.
Samantha patted him on the shoulder and said "Hey, it's okay, I'll go with you to get a drink anytime."
Seth smiled and said "Thanks Samantha." Before he moved to follow Neirdith and Creesh back to the ship.
Hurk gave her a nod and said “I appreciate this. You have the firepower to turn that slug into plasma.”
Neirdith smiled and shook his hand “That’s the goal.” Before turning to follow the others. Her tail giving the scaled man one last friendly wave as she glided down the hall.
The walk back to the ship was short and silent, everyone seemed to be thinking about this newest plan and its implications. As Neirdith and the others walked back across the docking clamp to the Shining Knight Seth pondered "So I guess we are going to have to let them board us huh?"
Samantha looked at him and said "Wait, why?"
It was Creesh that answered her as they stepped through the last airlock into the ship proper "If we cover the weapons and power them down we won't be able to activate the heavy lasers before they close with us, and the vulcans are not likely to cripple or otherwise seriously damage their ship. It’s at least light escort class, about eighty meters in length and armoured against micro meteorites and thus against small kinetics as well." As she finished Samantha's expression grew very thoughtful.
"I wonder if there is a way around that…" she mused quietly to herself, lost in thought.
Neirdith looked to Seth and said "I trust you can make use of the data that Hurk sent us to pinpoint the most likely point of entry, then we can simply station Skorr there and they won't be able to do anything other than surrender or die. I'm not in the mood to take prisoners if we don't have to. From what Hurk says these guys don't hesitate to kill if they feel even slightly threatened." Her assistant dinged at her and she answered the link to see Gloom's identifier pop up.
"Hurk has asked to speak with you captain, shall I patch them through?" Gloom's synthesized voice spoke to her.
Neirdith looked at the others chatting about the mission nearby and started off towards the bridge alone. "Go ahead Gloom, thank you."
As Gloom's identifier disappeared it was replaced by another, seemingly Hurk's as his gravelly voice issued from her assistant. "I have my engineers on station suiting up now to start on the modifications, they will be collaborating with your chief engineer on this project. There was an issue that was raised however, we can fabricate hatches for the torpedo tubes and laser arrays, and we will be covering the vulcan turrets. The point defense lasers are already contained but not that important as they are actually standard on this class of ship, but the missile racks are another issue, they cannot be completely covered without making their placement obvious. With your permission I would suggest moving them to another location on the ship, perhaps aft of the central sensor package?" Hurk finished with a questioning noise.
Neirdith thought for a moment, then responded confidently "No, just remove them entirely, we will leave them here for the time being, they will be of little use in a close range engagement anyways." Hurk's response was to sputter in surprise.
"But captain! No one in their right mind would go into combat without their missile racks if they had them in the first place." He managed to get out.
Neirdith smiled even though the link was purely auditory "Exactly, when they see us, virtually unarmed and with no external missile pods they are going to rush us and attempt a boarding action. But they wont know that we are ready for them, they will be crushed, and then your people will be safe from their predations. If we save the ship you might even be able to keep it to defend your claim yourselves. Imagine that." She could tell that her words had the desired effect as Hurk remained silent for a long while.
Finally he said "Everything will be done as you say. I must say that your composure and bearing has me most intrigued. May I accompany you on your mission? I have a weapon and may just prove useful in your anti-boarding actions."
Neirdith shrugged internally "If you do, know that I cannot guarantee your safety, but that isn't to say that we will be lax, just that my crew is few in number." She checked the data on the ship's armory idly and was met with a pleasant surprise. Saying to Hurk "You may come aboard before we depart, until then I would ask that you remain on the station."
"That sounds fair enough, till then captain." Was all he said before severing the link.
Leaning back into her chair, Neirdith thought of all the things she would rather be doing than waiting right now, with a small smile she pulled up the diagnostics program for the ship and watched as spacesuited figures began to walk over the hull.
**********
"Yes that seems to fit okay, but next time make sure you got the measurements right before you try to jam it into place. Imagine if you accidently got it stuck and we had to cut it out, that would waste our time and resources." Samantha said testily over the comms to one of the suited engineers from Hurk's station. The suited figure just made an affirmative noise and moved off to the next job.
Samantha sighed to herself, she was out on the hull in a spacesuit with her feet maglocked to the metal as the ship's artificial gravity didn't extend to its outer hull. The spacesuit was uncomfortable and was chafing her in places she would rather not admit, that and her tail was coiled into a small ball giving her a little vertigo without its balancing effect.
She was inspecting the rush job done on the fourth beam cannon hatch, the remote sensors were in place and the electronic hinges were tied into the ships power supply, as she tested the opening and closing signals a few times she was pleased to see the hatch react without any problems. It sealed up pretty tight too, unless one was looking for it, they were practically invisible against the hull. The hinges were molded to look like small bumps instead of actual hinges, in order to further the disguise.
Smantha couldn't help but be impressed with the speed at which the station's engineers had fabricated the hatches, and if what her feed was telling her was true, then almost all of the vulcan turret's blister hatches were done as well. She wandered over to the fifth and final heavy beamer location and watched as the three engineers began to assemble the final hatch. It was a rather simple process, one of them moved the prefabricated and measured parts into position using a tool called a tugpod. The tugpod used a tiny gravitational generator to help the engineers nudge heavy objects along in zero gravity without risk to the user.
The round cover of the hatch was carefully shifted into position and the hinge on its side was quickly and efficiently welded to the ships hull with high powered electron beam welders, the engineers got the job done quickly and as they moved away Samantha again tested the new hatch for responsiveness and strength. As before the hatch held up admirably and she closed it again as she slowly made her way to the closest airlock.
Moving in magnetized boots was uncomfortable and slow, but certainly beat spinning off into the void of space to die a horribly slow and drawn out death. Entering the airlock she waited for it to cycle to green before moving to the inner airlock, as it closed behind her she began to extricate herself from her clinging spacesuit.
After finally wriggling free from her prison she stood and moved into the ship itself, Creesh messaged her almost immediately on her assistant.
Answering it she heard Creesh's voice emanate from the wrist computer "I see that you are back in the ship. Does that mean that all the hatches have been completed and are functioning correctly?"
Samantha smiled even though Creesh wouldn't see it and said "Yes indeed, these guys really know their stuff, it was awesome to watch. They reminded me of those guys you see in the welding instructional videos, they were so fast and efficient it was like watching a robot, if robots were hot buff guys." She heard Creesh give her version of a snort and began to giggle.
Creesh said "Well if their welds were as good as their looks then we should be fine to fly through a wingterror storm then." She continued before Samantha could ask her about that reference "Come on over to the bridge, Neirdith wanted to hear your opinion of the plan in person.
Samanta replied "Alrighty, on my way. Did you want to see some of my camera footage of those guys?" Creesh gave a low warble of amusement and said.
"Maybe tonight, I guess I need to see these guys in action for myself."
Samantha just smiled and cut the link, making her way to the bridge she saw Skorr standing vigil outside it. She waved to them as she approached and the monstrous cyborg gave her a cheery looking wave in response. She thought to herself once more just how remarkable they were, seemingly impervious to damage and from what she had heard, very very old.
She walked into the bridge to see Seth and Creesh already there with Neirdith. Gloom was probably in the comms center as usual and Skorr was by the door in their usual spot.
Seeing her enter, Neirdith stood and began the briefing "Alright, now that we are all here the plan is as follows. We will warp to about five light seconds of the primary mining zone and move in on conventionals. When we get to the dig site we are going to be loaded up with a full cargo of the stuff the pirates want. This serves two purposes, it makes our disguise even more believable, and it makes our overpowered thrusters less noticeable. If Hungaro shows up then all previous encounters show that they will attempt to board, when they do Samantha and Seth will meet them as they have the heaviest armour. When the pirates decide to move in then Skorr will charge in from the cargo area to take them from behind, Creesh and I will be supporting Skorr's push, with any luck we will catch most of them out of their element and they will get wiped off the face of the galaxy. If there are any remaining on their ship then we can send Seth and Gloom in to root them out, are there any questions?"
Seth raised an arm and Neirdith gestured to him "I was wondering what's keeping the pirates from opening up on us as soon as they see us wearing armour?" He asked.
Neirdith nodded her head and said "Good question, but I will have Skorr place a few crates of ore out near the airlock that you will be standing next to, your guns will be stashed behind it so as to not alarm the pirates, you can use it as cover too if they open up immediately."
Seth nodded and said "Yeah, I guess that would be okay. Alright I'm out of questions."
Creesh motioned to be heard and Neirdith acquiesced. Creesh said "This is less of a question than an observation, but if we kill the boarding party, what's to stop the pirates from just undocking and then blasting us as they move away?"
Neirdith said "Good question, the weapon hatches will be opened and the guns powered up as soon as the shooting starts, by the time they would have gotten far enough away to safely target us Gloom will have drilled at least three beam salvoes into them."
Smiling, Creesh said "Well I must admit, this plan sounds less like suicide than I was originally thinking." Seth laughed at her grisly attitude and Creesh’s feathers fluttered in amusement.
Neirdith flicked her tail dismissively and continued "We will be leaving first thing tomorrow, I recommend that you get some rest in tonight. It's going to be a long day tomorrow."
Samantha looked at Creesh and smiled widely, getting a feather ruffle in return, oh yeah, it was going to be an interesting day indeed.