by C. F. Harris
I wasn’t surprised to hear that sort of thing from Vlox. I sighed and rolled my eyes. I was tired of having this conversation.
“You know we’re not going to do that Vlox,” I said. “We’re not slavers.”
“But we could take them and bring them to the markets on Kul Voras! The humans would never know, and they wouldn’t be able to pin it on us even if they did discover their people in a slave market!”
I gestured at the three dimensional projection in the middle of the command center.
“They won’t know? We’re right next to one of their comm arrays. They’re going to know we’re here even if that ship doesn’t get off a distress call.”
I glanced to the other side of the room and Korval gave me a nod. Good. I expected him to jam their communications, but that held dangers of its own.
The moment the humans lost track of one of their comm arrays would be the moment they sent something that had much bigger guns out here to see what the hell was going on.
One of the reasons I’d had such a long and illustrious career in the privateering profession was I’d made a habit of not being where military types and their weapons were going to be when at all possible.
This looked like it was going to be a squeaker, but I also felt the familiar rush of excitement that came with an engagement.
“We’re going to take their ship,” I said.
Vlox lit up at the prospect. No doubt he was already tallying up how much he would stand to earn for his share of a human frigate and crew sold at Kul Voras, even accounting for losing some in the taking.
“Prisoners, Vlox. We’re not going to kill them. Prisoners will be useful if we don’t make it out of Terran space before their fleet catches up with us, and if they don’t then we release them at a neutral border world.”
Vlox made a sound in the back of his throat that made it clear he couldn’t believe I was talking about running from the humans, or maybe it was disgust at not selling the humans we were about to capture, but I didn’t care.
Our ship might be formidable, especially compared to a repair frigate, but it was designed for a smash and grab. Not a prolonged engagement with a Terran battlefleet.
Korval nodded in agreement. Of course he would see the rationality of my plan. The last thing we needed was to get involved in a fair fight with the Terrans and their damnable Aegis Fleet.
That was the problem with fighting humans. If you tried to meet them in a fair fight it usually meant getting your ass handed to you because they never fought fair.
“You would run from the Terrans?” Vlox spat. “I can’t believe this. Where’s the man that I…”
I held up a finger and silenced him. Good. He hadn’t lost all sense. Not yet at least.
It sounded like he was getting there though.
“Don’t say something you might regret later Vlox,” I said. “And don’t mistake me making the smart choice with being a coward. That’s the reason why this ship and crew has lasted this long. We fight when we have to, but part of making it in this line of work is knowing when not to fight.”
Vlox glared, but kept whatever thoughts might be brewing behind his eyes to himself. Good. I wouldn’t have to vaporize two people today.
Vaporizing Doran was going to be work enough after we got done taking this human ship.
I couldn’t help but feel some small amount of excitement though. Taking the ship would mean an actual engagement. Getting out there and duking it out with a species that had some of the finest fighters in the galaxy.
Sure this was a repair crew and not their military which made a difference, but it was still going to be something new.
The dreadful thing about a career in privateering, the thing no one ever discussed while talking about exploits while at a port, was the boredom. Not at all like the entertainments made it out to be.
No, this job was a lot of traveling from location to location for a few moments of terror followed by bickering about how to split whatever haul we made.
So in a way not all that different from my past life in our own military, or my time spent bickering with my family, but this time I was working for myself instead of taking someone else’s orders.
“Come on boys,” I said, opening a line to the rest of the ship. “It’s time to take some humans!”
I was in the ship’s center where I was protected from the rest of the crew by insulating armor and space, but I could’ve sworn I heard a small cheer run through the ship.
Oh yes. This was going to be fun and good for morale.
3
Rachel
I turned to follow Kotomi’s gaze. There was the Lucky Linda floating suspended in space not all that far from us, but even more concerning was the massive Vosk cruiser floating behind the Linda.
At least it looked massive compared to our ship, for all that both were miniscule compared to even some of the smaller cruisers in the Aegis Fleet.
“What the fuck are you doing Rachel?” Kotomi said.
I’d taken the plasma lance and dialed it up to eleven and then some without realizing what I was doing. The thing would’ve been blinding if it weren’t for the compensators on my visor activating to make sure I didn’t go blind.
At least the captain hadn’t skimped on some of the safety equipment we needed out here to do the job. Even if the good captain was squawking into my earpiece asking me the same thing Kotomi was shouting.
“I swear that’s coming out of your paycheck if you continue to damage even a piece of this thing!” he shouted. “This is a high dollar facility, and I will not have you cutting it up in a panic!”
It took me a moment to realize what he was going on about. That Vosk ship hanging suspended there with the faint sparkles of coming out of warp space all around it had put me on autopilot, and I’d cut a nice chunk out of the lattice holding me in here.
Because of course I was looking for the fastest way out of here with a Vosk cruiser hanging there!
“Look around!” I shouted, not giving a fuck if I was observing the niceties of our rank difference. It’s not like this was a military ship. “We’re under attack here, and this high dollar facility is about to be sitting in the hold of some Vosk pirate who’s going to transfer those high dollars to his account!”
That was good for getting Arnold to shut up. A chunk of the antenna array broke free from the main body in a rectangle that was just large enough to let me through. It helped that I kicked that chunk after bracing myself against the comm relay.
Fuck them if they worried about me breaking a “high dollar” facility. They could bill me, or the Vosk who were about to steal the motherfucker could worry about it!
I hit a button on the tether running from me to Kotomi. She yelped through the commlink as that tether drew her to me. I braced myself against the rapidly cooling rectangle I’d just cut open to make sure she was the one coming to me and not the other way around.
She hit me, but not so hard that it caused any trouble. I grunted, but held myself in place.
“Nice of you to join me,” I said with a grin.
“You’re crazy!” she yelled. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Look around!” I said. “We’re under attack and we’re not likely to make it through the next five minutes if we don’t get back to the ship fast!”
I had a crazed look in my eyes. I could see it in the faint heads up display that ran across my visor showing me my face. That heads up display also included views of the Linda’s small bridge where it looked like they were preparing to get the hell out of here.
“Oh no you don’t Arnold!” I shouted. “You’re not leaving us out here in the middle of a fucking Vosk raid!”
“I wouldn’t dream of it!” he said. “I’m not leaving the engines cold either. Get your asses back here!”
“Oh, so you’re fine with leaving the high dollar facility now?” I groused.
“I’ve looked at the tactical situation and determined your assessment
is the accurate one. The Terran Defense League can worry about the cost of replacing this thing. It’s not coming out of my bond!”
I grinned. Of course the old man would be thinking about money even in a time like this. Not that I blamed him. Margins were razor thin for salvage and repair operations like ours, and his attention to that detail meant I continued to have a job.
Though as I looked at the Vosk ship floating in the distance I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d have that job. I’d heard stories of human ships disappearing without even so much as a hint of wreckage. I’d heard the whispers of humans discovered on alien worlds deep in Vosk space or on the rims of Terran influence. Unfortunates who’d been sold into slavery by Vosk raiders looking to make some coin off the backs of their enemies.
I shivered. That shiver turned to a pit of ice in my stomach as something charged on the Vosk raider and fired out to hit our ship right in the engines.
“Fuck!” Arnold said.
“Open the goddamn doors!” Dirk said, his heads up view showing that he was quickly devolving into panic. At least he was by the ship. The asshole got there nice and fast thanks to being on the outside.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
Though the way the comm feed to the ship winked out of existence in time with that shot and Captain Arnold’s curse told me the story. Someone on that raider knew what the fuck they were doing, and they’d just knocked out power on the Linda. A moment later Arnold reappeared in the dull red of emergency lighting. The frown on his face said it all.
“This isn’t good,” he said.
“Why aren’t the fucking doors opening up?” Dirk yelled, his breath coming in ragged gasps that weren’t good when there was nothing but a dodgy rebreather scrubbing the carbon dioxide out of his suit.
I looked to the raider. Saw circles irising open all along the side of the thing. Circles that expelled Vosk raiders in sleek power armor that was the stuff of nightmares for non-military ships. And for some military ships, if some of the stories I’d heard from fleet veterans on layovers at some of the stations I’d been passing the time on were anything to go on.
Some were heading for the ship, but there were others who were heading right for us here on the comm array.
I grunted and looked down at my plasma lance. It wasn’t much, but it was what I had. Especially with our ship out of commission.
Not that there’d been much on the Linda that could’ve held off a Vosk raider under the best of circumstances.
“You ready Kotomi?” I asked.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, her breath coming as rapidly as Dirk’s as panic touched her voice.
“I’m talking about us doing something about this,” I said. “We won’t get another chance to catch them by surprise.”
“Catch them by what?” she screeched, the controls in my earpieces automatically adjusting her voice down so it didn’t cause any damage.
I paused. Pointed to the massive plasma lance in her hand. The thing looked sort of like a plasma rifle, but of course it wasn’t. Still. A nail gun might not be a gun, but it could still cause damage. I hoped the same would hold true with these cutters when they went up against that Vosk armor.
“We’re going to attack those alien fuckers with everything we have, and that includes cutting into some of their armor with these things. They’re rated to cut through some of the thickest densest stuff in the galaxy, so I’m sure it can do a number on their armor!”
“You’re crazy!” Kotomi breathed, her eyes wide with the fear of what I was suggesting.
I shook my head. I might be crazy, but I also knew I was right.
“Look. You’ve heard the stories about what happens to humans who get captured by the Vosk, right?” I said.
Kotomi’s eyes went even wider. Oh yeah. She’d heard the stories. She’d heard them and they were clearly running through her head as she thought about how much she didn’t want to wind up in the middle of a slave market that fell well outside the Terran Defense League’s sphere of influence.
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “I figure in a situation like this we’re either going to get captured and deal with a fate worse than death, or we’re going to take the fight to those bastards and maybe die before we reach that fate worse than death.”
Her eyes welled up as she realized we were pulling something that was, for all intents and purposes, a suicide run. I arced my plasma lance and braced against the comm array before kicking off. Kotomi shouted something as I activated the jets on my suit, but I didn’t hear the specifics since what came out was more incoherent babbling than anything.
No, I was more concerned with the Vosk coming for us. They were coming in hot, and it was time for those bastards to learn what it meant to attack a Terran ship.
Even if we were woefully unprepared for an attack and there was a good chance this was all going to end in tears. Or with one or both of us getting a tear in our suit that ended up with us mummified in that suit forever orbiting this distant star system.
Join a crew, they said. See the galaxy, they said. Don’t worry about going near the front lines like those idiots signing up for the military, they said.
If I could go back and smack that recruiter over the head a few times with this plasma lance I’d totally do it right about now, damn it.
4
Vrath
The thrill of combat coursed through me as I exited the irised circle and angled towards the Terran ship in the distance.
Certainly that ship and the communications array laid out before us wouldn’t be worth all that much, but it was still better than nothing. At the very least we could recoup our costs.
At last the combat would be fast. There was no glory in combat. Only getting it over fast and staying alive longer than the other guy, though in this case I didn’t think we’d have much trouble.
“Everyone ready?” I asked, looking at the raiding group I’d put together. They were my most trusted men who I always brought with me when there was combat to be done.
Better to have the men I trusted at my side, and leave behind others where I didn’t have to worry about getting an “accidental” blast to the back that would put me out of this business for good.
Gorel nodded. Good man. Then again he was always good in combat. There was no hint of the combat lust coming to him. Rikar and Korval would be leading their own groups.
I activated the targeting computer and a readout appeared in my heads up display. I grinned as distance to the communications array and the ship appeared.
I wasn’t sure why they were so close in to the array, maybe they had to be to make their repairs, but I knew it would make this easier having two structures to aim for.
I activated my jet and flew out of the airlock. The thrill of battle hit me, for all that I always tried to have it over with as quickly as possible, and I allowed a smile to cross my face as I moved to the target.
Something appeared on that targeting screen. A point that the computer said was moving closer, though that was impossible.
Another thing that’d kept me alive in this business was a willingness to admit when the impossible had become possible enough to threaten me.
“Point coming towards us,” Gorel grunted over the comms. “Unsure whether or not it’s hostile.”
“So I’m not seeing things,” I muttered.
I moved my eyes and the heads up display responded with the precision of an exosuit I’d been working with for years. This thing was as much an extension of my mind as the neurons that were flashing electrical impulses to show me the universe around me.
The magnification jumped and I let out a sharp breath. Two humans had broken free from the communications array, there was a rectangle just large enough for one of them to move through at a time, and they were heading straight towards us.
At least one of them was. Another seemed to be holding onto the communications array for dear life.
“What sort of weapons are those
?” I growled, trying to get a read and having some difficulty at this distance.
“Looks like nothing I’ve ever seen in combat with the humans before,” Gorel grunted.
I zoomed in closer. There was something about it that looked familiar, and then it hit me. It was a plasma lance used for cutting and welding. I’d seen repair crews using them while the ship was in for repairs on layovers.
“Amazing,” I breathed when I realized exactly what I was looking at. “That human is attacking us with a plasma lance!”
“A plasma lance?” Gorel asked. “Are you sure? Who would go against a fully armed crew with a cutting tool?”
I shook my head. Gorel might be saying something like that for the benefit of the men, but I knew that wasn’t how he truly felt. No, we’d had more than a few conversations over the years about the humans and their pesky ability to push us back in fights both fair and unfair.
The fact that the war wasn’t going all that well was part of the reason why I was out here rather than at my proper place on the homeworld with my family. If my brothers wanted to sit and play at war while I was out here doing something truly useful that was their business.
The fact that this human was improvising with a cutting tool and coming to attack us despite having no proper weapons or defenses was yet another proof of why they were winning this damned war.
“I’ll take care of the human,” I said.
It looked like it was just the one human coming at us. Sure there was another one clearly attached to the first one by a tether of some sort, but from the way that second human was clinging to the communications array it seemed that one didn’t want anything to do with combat.
Still. The sheer audacity of that human who was daring to take us on… It was amazing, and I had to meet the human in combat and give it the glorious end it so clearly desired. I’d even make it fast out of respect for the sheer bravery on display.
“Be careful,” Gorel said. “If that human is willing to sacrifice itself fighting with a cutting implement then it might be willing to do something that will endanger you.”
