“Alright, here.. we.. go…” Seth said as he watched the warp transition timer reach zero. As soon as it finished he was hit with that all too familiar twisting lurch of a warp exit, a kaleidoscope of colors filling his vision for a split second. Checking their location he turned to Neirdith and reported "Right on target, we are approximately five light seconds from the loading site."
He saw Neirdith give a nod and look over her own data, she was once again in her armour and had her weapon at her side just in case. If they were to be attacked they would likely have a few minutes of warning before they were boarded, but it was smart to be prepared regardless.
Casting his gaze farther he saw the overseer Hurk sitting in one of the seats on the side of the bridge, He was in a set of light slaaveth combat armour that Neirdith had given him, it was apparently the very same set that she had pulled from the wreck they had found Skorr on and had been forwarded to them before Filch left New Dundas.
Seth smiled to himself at the thought of the old captain, sure Filch had always been a bit grumpy and bad tempered, but he was a good guy and had always looked out for his crew. Seth hoped he was enjoying his retirement, probably sipping hot drinks on the top of some god forsaken glacier somewhere just loving it.
Hearing a proximity alert in his headset he snapped his attention back to his sensor suite but saw that it was just an asteroid drifting through the space lane, they were technically already in the belt after all. They continued on their approach without incident until another sensor return had Seth state "We are in range of the loading site captain. Should we hail 'em?" He asked Neirdith.
Without an answer Neirdith raised the site on comms and said "IS Trombuly to loading dock three, we are in route to pick up a load of ore."
The loading dock heard them and responded "Copy that, we have you on scope IS Trombuly, hilarious name by the way, I love it. Anyways we had The Tugbug scheduled for pickup today, what happened to Mark?" Neirdith looked a bit confused but motioned to Hurk to approach.
As he reached her she asked "You didn't tell us this would happen, what do you recommend?"
Hurk answered quickly "Tell him that Mark slagged his radiator fins again and will be docked for refit for another few days. That will do it."
Neirdith waved him off and opened the link back up saying "It seems that Mark slagged his radiator fins again, they are going to be docked for retrofitting for at least another few days. Fortunately I was in the area and was hired to pick up the slack so you won't have to slow down production."
The bluff seemed to do the trick as the person on the line chuckled saying "Mark always did push that junker too hard, when you get back tell him Freidman said to stop pushing the old girl so hard. Anyways, go ahead and bring it in, we're sending you the exact coordinates now." The voice said.
"I will, and thank you. We will be there shortly." Neirdith said before cutting the link. Seth sighed in relief and he saw Samantha's long furred tail uncurl from her chair as she relaxed as well. The easy part was over, now they just had to somehow get Hungaro's attention and take him out, without getting taken out themselves.
Samantha swiveled her chair and said "Well, now we just need to hope Hungaro is hungry today and chomps on the bait. They seem to like ambushing ships just before they enter warp. I wonder how he knows where they are, do you think he has access to some kind of cloaking technology. I wonder if we could put a cloaking generator on this ship…" she trailed off into muted speculation as she was known to do. She had a point though Seth realised, how did Hungaro know when the ships were loaded and about to jump. Either he had some kind of cloaking field like Samantha had speculated, or….
Seth swiveled his head to Neirdith and said loudly "Neirdith, we might have an issue." She looked over at him in alarm and he winced "Sorry, it's not immediate I shouldn't have shouted."
Neirdith let out a whoof of air and sat back a little before fixing him with a glare "Lords, you nearly gave me a heart attack. Please tell me about this problem before you make us all die of nerves."
Seth smiled a little in spite of himself before answering more seriously "I believe that there is a mole among the loading staff." He said while giving a suspicious look at Hurk.
Neirdith's eyes widened and she turned to look at Hurk as he started to speak "I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, but to be honest I wasn't sure of it myself. But it does seem more likely now that I have been pooling all the data in my head. It makes my blood warm just to think who would have betrayed not only me but also their brothers and friends. Trust me, I will get to the bottom of this, but for the plan to work we must act normal, if the little slurrge gets current of this they will compromise the whole operation." Hurk finished in a determined voice, his black eyes fixed unwaveringly on Neirdith.
Neirdith nodded once and Seth heard her say "While I don't like that you withheld information, trivial as it may have seemed to be, I am understanding of your caution. I will make sure that nothing tips them off, we will be getting Hungaro today, have no doubt about that." She finished grimly.
Seth smiled at her determination and saw the others nodding as well. He was pretty sure he knew what Skorr would say if asked and Gloom would be of the same mind as he was.
They closed on the given coordinates and finally saw the loading site. It was a leveled off section on a rocky asteroid of decent size, it had to be as big as a conventional airfield, and chunky. The surface was pitted by millions or perhaps billions of years of casual impacts and it gave the distinct impression of something deeply primordial, unformed. The staging area was built into a large crater to give it some measure of protection from micro meteors but it also has a few surface to space laser sites to ward off the more dangerous rocks.
As the disguised Shining Knight settled on the pad and opened its cargo bay the link opened up and Neirdith accepted saying "Just like I promised, here we are. Go ahead and fill it up as much as you can, we are going to be unloading it in about three hours anyways."
The other side of the line was silent for a moment before a different voice from before said "Yes I'm sure, this is an interesting ship to be running cargo, if I didn't know any better I would say it's a vinarfelien cruiseliner."
Neirdith gave Hurk a look before answering "You are indeed correct. As I mentioned, I'm not part of your normal crew, but was in the area for refueling. The station manager approached me and asked if I would be willing to help out, they said they would give me a full discount on the refueling if I covered for a shipment. Who can say no to a deal like that, do you know how much it costs to fully fuel this bad boy up?"
The voice said tentatively "No, a couple hundred credits?"
Neirdith laughed and said "Not even buddy. This ain't your little tug boats or a cargo crawler, this is a top of the line vinarfelien designed passenger liner. It cost me well in excess of three thousand credits to fully fuel this ship, but oh man is it worth it. The speed and power, if only she had a bit more oomph than a few point defense lasers. Eh, you can't have everything right. Anyways let me know when the loading is done."
The voice replied in a distracted voice "Earhh, yeah, I will contact you when your ship is fully loaded." And the link was severed.
Creesh looked conflicted and asked "What was that?"
Neirdith answered quickly "I was simply putting more osmir on the table. There is definitely a shrij amongst the loading crew, and they are about to tell Hungaro about his biggest score yet." She said confidently.
Seth laughed and said "Lady Luck! You just told them about the ship to entice Hungaro to attack us to steal the ship. Neirdith that's brilliant. Now they will be guaranteed to board us." Neirdith smiled and sat back into her seat.
Samantha seemed to be catching up to the conversation as she was broken out of her inner thoughts, looking at Seth she asked "We wanted them to board us right?" Seth just nodded and waved an arm in her direction.
She turned back to her screen, seeming to be looking at a diagnostic map of the ship's water recycling system. Seth just rolled his eyes, she was always finding something in need of fixing on the ship. Pretty soon the ship would be in better condition than when it had been factory new, and there was nothing wrong with that. In fact her fervor to the ship was rather entertaining to watch.
Neirdith spoke up, interrupting his train of thought "It looks like we are just about to be loaded up. Make sure that you have everything on you that you are going to need, I have a sneaking suspicion that Hungaro is going to be paying us a visit sooner rather than later." She finished assuredly.
Seth quickly checked his armour integrity, then his magazines. They were all loaded with compacted copper starburst rounds, they were designed to cause maximum cavitation within fluids, and flesh. The bullets that he was firing were fully capable of putting down a lightly armoured target like a skorp with a single well placed shot.
He checked his rifle next, a standard MR-12, a similar model of multipurpose rifle that had been in humanity’s service for almost one thousand years. Of course the mechanics and materials had changed over the years. But if you were to give the rifle to a soldier at the dawn of the space age they would be immediately familiar with its purpose and function.
When Seth saw that everything seemed to be in order he looked toward the others and saw that, unsurprisingly, Creesh was already done with her checks. Samantha seemed to still be checking her massive gauss rifle, its many intricate parts requiring a much closer inspection, luckily Samantha seemed to be almost supernaturally good with machines. Her powerful predator senses probably played a large role in the fact as well.
Neirdith looked to be done and was sending a message, probably to Gloom, as she prepared to close up the ship. As the line signaling their progress alerted her to the jobs completion she sent an alert to the loading crew to clear the landing pad.
The ship shuddered slightly as Seth lifted it out of the small artificial gravity field generated by the site and lifted into open space. Seth piloted the ship further into space as he set up their course in the computer. When he had it plotted he leaned back and said "Well, this is it, no going back now eh?"
Samantha nodded and Creesh looked slightly ill, but Hurk and Neirdith wore determined looks and gazed stoically at the display screens. That hadn't even made it halfway to the warp zone when Seth's computer gave him an alarm.
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"Proximity alarm." He stated with a raised voice "It's not an asteroid, it's approaching under it's own power."
A second later Seth saw Neirdith's console receive a communication, he watched as she put it up on the main display but didn't send a reply.
An older looking skorp drone appeared on the screen, they were speaking with a heavy clicking accent that was difficult to understand. They seemed to say that the ship and its cargo now belonged to them and that if they cooperated they would be allowed to jettison in a lifepod and no harm would come to them.
The skorp had a slightly dulled black carapace in the vague shape of a scorpion without the tail, hence the name that they had been assigned before they had managed to communicate their own, the name had stuck however and the skorp had not seemed to mind overmuch. Their bodies were segmented with three pairs of insectoid legs and two pairs of arms at their front. Their upper arms were dexterous and possessed six fingers with a surprising range of motion, the next pair of arms were evolved for heavier labor and were less dexterous.
The skorp possessed complex compound eyes set to the sides of their heads like a praying mantis and were capable of seeing well into the ultraviolet spectrum. They were generally found living in large groups similar in structure to the hives that they were evolved from, while many skorp still lived in these massive communities, more and more were making their way out into the galaxy to seek their own fortunes and adventures, it just so happened that this one chose to be a criminal.
Seth laughed at the thought, millions of years of evolution to become the fittest on their homeworld of Scorch, a horribly irradiated desert world that lacked an ozone layer to protect the surface from cosmic radiation, and these idiots had decided to end their stories by being pirates. It was ironic really, they thought they were doing their best to survive when all they were doing was assuring that they would be hunted down and exterminated like pests.
As the transmission ended, Neirdith stood and ordered "Alright everyone to your positions, Hurk, you stay with me, I'm not going to be the one telling your loyal crew members that you got shot cause you rushed in like an idiot." Hurk nodded sagely and followed her.
Seth fell in beside Samantha as they walked down to the midship airlocks, Seth could see the ore crates that Skorr had moved into the hall as impromptu barricades. They were bulky and full of rubble, they would actually make fantastic cover. Turning to Samantha he said "Just watch your crossfire, you don't want to accidentally ricochet one of those slugs down the hall into the others."
Samantha looked at him askance as she set her gun behind the crate next to his and stepped over to join him saying "I know exactly what my gun is capable of, I turned its settings down to thirty percent to minimize over penetrations, this will lower its effectiveness but massively increase its safety in confined spaces." Seth nodded, unsurprised that she would have figured out the gun's settings so quickly.
The two of them watched as Neirdith led the others down towards the cargo bay about twenty five meters from their position. As they entered the room they hid around the corners out of sight of the airlocks. Seth and Samantha hid behind the improvised barricade of ore and waited.
They did not have to wait long as very soon after the sounds of docking clamps sealing to the outer hull announced the arrival of their guests. With a clamor the pirates burst through the airlock and massed in the small alcove adjacent to the main hall. Seth watched it unfold through the holoscreen on the inside of his helmet visor and held up a fist to show Samantha that they were not yet in position. As he watched the pirates gather he felt none of the righteous hatred that filled him that fateful day his parents died, all he could feel was dread.
**********
Samantha was nervous, sure she was wearing armour and had an epic gun, but she had never been in a real fight before, she was only 19 standard years old after all. Still technically a youth in her own culture, she was nevertheless prepared to fight for her home and family. Not for her born family, but the crew of the Shining Knight were as her new family. They looked out for her, teased her, and made her feel like she truly belonged. She would kill those that dared to harm her family.
Samantha bared her fangs as she saw Seth raise his hand in a fist signaling to her that the pirates were not yet in the trap. She wished she could see around the crates of ore like Seth could, she briefly thought about how simple it would be to rig one of the small displays in an assistant to form a type of wearable screen that she could place over one eye like an augmented reality lens.
With difficulty she tore her mind from her inner tinkering and back to the moment, she had always had a hard time focusing and this was definitely not the time to lose her focus. She decided to concentrate on her breathing, in and out, long slow measured breaths. It seemed to work as her mind slowed a little and she found it easier to fixate on the problem at hand, mainly the pirates invading her home.
Looking at Seth she waited calmly as he nodded his head as if counting to himself before snapping his closed fist down and rising over the barricade with his gun in hand. She immediately followed suit and as her head popped over the barricade she saw the raiders in their full glory.
She took a split second to take in their number and attire, there were a good two dozen of them on the ship all milling about in the middle of the hall as if awaiting some instruction, they were mostly bare with little in the way of clothing. Most did, however, have leather straps covering their bodies to which were affixed weapons and other such items of violence. As she took in the sight she heard Seth open fire on the pirates and quickly followed his example.
Seth’s MR-12 tore craters into the pirates, the starburst rounds creating huge wound cavities that leaked a dark yellow ichor onto the deck plating. Her gauss rifle struck hard enough to tear her targets completely apart however, severed limbs and ruptured bodies spilling to the floor with every pull of the trigger. Even at the vastly lowered power setting the round punched the skorp behind her original target hard enough to crack its carapace. She grimaced at the heavy recoil but was otherwise unaffected, switching fire to the next available target she obliterated another skorp before they had even seemed to understand what was happening to them. Seth peppered another before the return fire began to spatter in their direction.
The pirates seemed to be using a wide variety of weapons, with most using cruel plasma guns, there were a few firing conventional firearms and even a few lasers. The sonic crack of a railgun gave her pause, there was at least one of them with a weapon fully capable of penetrating her and Seth's armour there, they would need to be very careful.
As they sheltered behind their cover avoiding the rain of hostile projectiles flaying its other surface with murderous fire, she heard another sound. One that gave her flagging morale a boost of hopeful energy. Skorr let loose a bellow of anger as their massive form swept around the side of the cargo bay as well as the telltale sound of weapons fire from that direction. Their reinforcements had arrived it seemed.
Seth nodded to her with his visor down still but she didn't need words to understand what the signal meant. With another savage smile she leapt out from cover and went down on one knee, as she sighted another of the pirates she saw it struck by a blast of sonic energy from Creesh's pulse rifle, the skorp seemed to shake violently for a second before dropping dead on the floor, its yellowish blood seeping from every joint in its carapace.
Sighting a different pirate she fired and saw the satisfying way its body was torn asunder under the force of the impact. Looking for a new target she realised that all the pirates were dead or dying. Standing and smiling at Seth she saw him raise his visor and extend a fist towards her. Reciprocating the gesture she gave him a fist bump and then moved towards the carnage.
They met Neirdith and Creesh at the site of the massacre, the smell of strange alien fluids making her nose sting slightly. Skorr looked at the mess and remarked "That went much better than I had expected. It seems as though the danger these pirates presented has been overstated."
Neirdith agreed saying "As long as the ones on the ship are of a similar quality then this won't take much longer. That being said, I want everyone to be extremely careful anyways."
Samantha grimaced once again "Why do we need to board the ship anyways, why can't we just blast it to scrap and be done with it?"
This time it was Creesh who spoke up looking at Hurk behind her "No, I see her point Samantha, if we destroy this ship then Hurk is left just where he was before, albeit bereft of his current pirate issue. But he will still be vulnerable to the next roving marauder that decides to take an interest in his operation. If we instead clear the ship we could then give it to him and with this new ship defending his domain his likelihood of getting preyed on by simple pirates or raiders decreases dramatically."
Smantha thought about it, quickly realising the inherent genius of the act. It was like that saying that she had heard one of her human acquaintances say 'Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, but give the man a gun and point him at some fishermen and you feed him for much longer.'
Seth agreed saying "I don't like the idea of taking the fight to them, but this is the best way to ensure the safety of the miners and keep our promise to take out Hungaro at the same time." Samantha saw him frown but trusted that he knew what he was talking about.
Neirdith moved to the adjoined airlock and said "Luckily they docked to the cargo lock as they were planning to rob us of everything we had, that means that Skorr can come with us this time at least." At her comment Skorr gave a deep rumble of appreciation and stepped forwards to go through first, but they were unable to operate the controls with their gargantuan metal fingers.
Samantha stepped up beside them and pressed the controls for them. Seth stepped up beside her as they entered the secondary airlock. As they made their way into the pirate vessel she noticed its difference in design. While the Shining Knight was of vinarfelien design and featured the sharp angles and clean lines that they and Humans seemed to prefer, this ship was much more organic in appearance
The airlock was round and textured like the inside of a tunnel or lavatube, as they exited into the ship proper she noticed the same rounded and textured design, it wasn't to the extremes of the slaaveth and their rock like coverings, a bit more of an almost living look, as if the whole ship had been grown and not built. To be honest the skorp were a largely secretive race and there was much that was still unknown even after their seven hundred years in the SCU, they seemed to relish their mysterious though.
Samantha and Seth peeked around the corners but saw nothing, Seth leaned back into cover and seemed to be talking inside his helmet for a moment before popping his visor and giving her a grim look "Neirdith just told me that the skorp with the railgun wasn't accounted for in the dead, so they must have slipped back into the ship during the firefight. That means we can expect them to be waiting to ambush us somewhere."
Samantha nodded in understanding before replying "At least there are only a couple places for them to go on a small ship like this. I recommend we take the bridge before trying to clear the cargo bay, we can have Skorr lead the way for us at least." Seth nodded and flipped his visor back down.
As the airlock cycled, Creesh and Neirdith came through and she asked "Hey, where is Hurk?" Neirdith motioned for Creesh to respond.
"While his enthusiasm was commendable, I couldn't help but notice his fire discipline was severely lacking, in fact he almost shot Seth at one point during the fight and likely never noticed. So we told him it would be too dangerous and had him join Gloom in the communications center for safe keeping." The small raptor said sweetly.
Samantha nodded her head understandingly and asked "So what's the plan, we just follow Skorr till the baddies show their hand?"
Neirdith replied "Pretty much, they have nothing that could even scratch them, and Skorr won't mind the chance to put a few of them down themselves that's for sure."
Samantha moved back over to the opening to the main hall and nodded at Skorr saying "Alright Skorr, I guess we are all here now, want to show us the way?"
Skorr rumbled "It would be my pleasure to rid the universe of their intolerable existence." To which Seth seemed to laugh inside his helmet.
As Skorr plodded down the hall she couldn't help but feel exposed and in the open behind him, sure she was wearing armour but there was an awful lot of open space in the passageway. Her fears seemed to be unfounded as they moved down the dim passageway. Every adjoining room was empty of pirates from what they could tell.
Finally nearing the bridge Samantha saw the doors were sealed tightly closed. She stood behind Skorr and slightly to his side with her gun ready as Skorr jammed their claw into the gap and slowly forced the doors open.
Suddenly the whip crack of a railgun shot echoed through the ship and she saw a burning trail ricochet off of Skorr's armoured front and into the ceiling. Before she could identify its source she heard another report followed instantly by something smashing into her armoured stomach.
The force of the impact knocked her onto her back and she let out a howl of pain as she crashed into the floor, a white hot sensation was spreading through her middle and she immediately knew something was terribly wrong, but the pain was fogging her mind as she writhed in agony.
Through her blurry vision she watched in detached horror as Seth took a step towards her before his head whipped to the side. Pieces of his helmet spiraled through the air as he took a shot to the side of his head and was slammed to the ground. The last thing she heard before the darkness took her was Skorr roaring in rage.