Into the Black

The first sign that something was wrong was when we saw the missile launches from less than a lightsecond away. We were in the ‘no man’s land’ between the Fleet Base and Primo, so I guess it wasn’t that surprising that pirates decided they wanted to come out and play. I was surprised by the level of stealth ability on their ship. We really should have picked them up before then.

The missiles were coming too fast for a human to react to it, but Raven wasn’t human, and I’d already given standing orders for her to raise shields when she detected a threat to the ship. Better to look jumpy than to be dead. The missiles took four seconds to reach us. Raven had the shields up in under a second.

Running into the cockpit, I yelled out, “Raven, report!”

Raven materialized next to me as I took the controls. “Captain, two missiles were launched by a stealth ship. Given their aim and the explosive yield, it appears that the goal was to disable, not destroy. If they had hit, our engines and weapons would have been compromised, but crew quarters and the cargo hold may have been left intact.”

I sighed, and hit the ship comm. “Cali, Jaynie, man the guns! Shearah, keep us flying. Sheila and Carissa to the bridge. Shipsuits on, folks!” I didn’t bother listening to their replies, instead just concentrating on the controls and the plot, which Raven was updating. Everything seemed just a bit further away than it had last time, but that was because ‘Riku’ was shorter than ‘Mirikon’, and I hadn’t seen any reason to change while we were still in Alpha Centauri.

As the girls got to their positions, Raven said, “Captain, we’re being hailed. Two ships uncloaking, to port and stern.”

“Either of them the one that took a potshot at us?”

“The one to port, Captain.”

I grinned, and started readying the weapons as I typed out a set of instructions for Raven. “Well, let’s see what this asshole has to say.”

The vid screen came alive with the face of what was clearly a pirate. Long, scraggly beard, a lack of hygiene I could practically smell through the vidscreen, and a generally scruffy appearance. Oh, and he had several weapons clearly on his person. He laughed when he saw nothing but women on the bridge. “Look boys! We caught a bit more than the usual merchant! Now, stand down, girl, and we’ll let you keep your lives. Make you right comfortable, won’t we boys?”

Yeah, that was SO not happening. I hit the command sequence Raven had prepped for me, thrusters firing while engine thrust died momentarily to quickly swing us around. Now facing the ship that had shot at us, I unleashed the particle cannons. The blast ripped their shields apart (didn’t do anything nice to their hull, either), and our gunners quite nicely took out their bridge.

“YOU BITCH! I’LL HAVE YOU STRUNG UP IN THE GALLEY FOR ALL THE BOYS TO USE! YOU’RE DEAD! KILL ‘EM BOYS! BLACK DON WON’T BE DISRESPECTED LIKE THIS!”

Oh, looks like the pirate was on the other ship. And he was this ‘Black Don’ that I needed to kill. Wonderful! I’m always glad when dinner comes to me. Hitting the engines back to full in order to get some maneuvering room, I could hear blaster fire on the shields. “Aww, what’s the matter, White Donna? You get your panties in a bunch because I’m not a helpless merchant like you thought? Don’t like it when people fight back?” Then I cut the transmission, because he was boring.

What I said was true. The Raven was far more heavily armed than any normal freighter. Someone clearly made her to be a smuggler’s ship, a blockade runner. Oh sure, that destroyer probably would have wiped the floor with us if it had been a fair fight, but system patrol craft would have no chance. Same with pirates. If there had been more of them, then maybe it would be different. But with just the two, and one of them out of the fight, the pirates were out of their league.

Basically, this was like a couple of junkyard dogs taking on a wolf. The mangy mutts just didn’t know what they were dealing with. Now, I had a couple decisions to make. Both ships were moving too quickly, and maneuvering too much for me to get another shot with the cannon, so the second kill was going to be missiles or by the guns.

“Raven, how many on board that ship?”

“I am detecting twelve lifesigns on the enemy ship, Captain. There are six others on the first ship, but it remains disabled so far.”

I looked at my readings. Shields were at 75%, and it looked like Black Don’s shields were only slightly better. He had more guns, but our guns were just a bit better, and between our slightly better shields and the fact that their pilot clearly wasn’t used to dogfighting, things were about even. But I noticed a nasty magnetic grappler that was charging up. If they got that on us, then it would be a boarding action, for sure. I wasn’t selling myself short, but shootouts in close quarters could be very unpredictable things.

Best load the dice a bit.

“Raven, can this ship perform a flapjack maneuver?”

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“You mean flipping the ship bow to stern? It is possible, but the Raven was not designed for high-stress maneuvering, regardless of the modifications that have been made to her. We may lose inertial dampening.”

“Which would make any acceleration over 4g pretty rough. Gotcha. I see that there’s a nice repair and refit yard in orbit of Primo. I’ll schedule us for some repairs, and some of those upgrades everyone’s wanting.”

I broke contact with Black Don’s ship, and made like I was heading to Primo. Black Don might have friends in the local patrols allowing him to prey on merchants, but a tactical genius he was not. Dumbass followed me on a direct line, clearly trying to line up his grappler. When I flipped the ship, he was in practically spitting distance. He tried to evade, but I’d already fired my cannons again.

Black Don’s shields couldn’t take the strain of the point-blank shot, and crumbled. The bridge and half the upper hull were blown away. We managed to avoid a collision, and it was nice to see that Don, at least, was smart enough to keep maintenance current on his reactors. There was no big explosion, the ship simply lost power, as it was supposed to.

There weren’t any life signs on the ship now, though.