Rookie Privateer

by McFarlane, Jamie

  I nudged us in the direction of an opening closest to James' Rental. We pulled up next to the ore sled I had parked there the day before. From the yard, we had a clear view of the security control tower.

  The control center was a small tower that floated a kilometer above the station and was located less than a hundred meters from the edge of the rental yard. The center was tethered with a cable a few meters wide at the base, tapering off slowly to about a meter when it connected to the control room. An open elevator ferried inhabitants up and down the tether. Security staff had a direct view of most of the nearby station assets and most importantly, the P-1 refinery.

  The control center was only large enough to hold three or four people and was often only manned by one person on a four hour shift. The staff’s responsibilities were to watch the monitors, respond to emergencies and control the perimeter defense guns. An AI backed up the security staff and did a better job of watching for problems than the humans did. Firing of the perimeter defense guns, however, was something the AI wasn’t allowed to do without direct commands from authorized personnel. Now, those guns were firing at my dad and others down at the refinery and it meant someone in the control center was deliberately helping the pirates.

  "Tabby, grab my spare AGBs from the sled. Nick, do you have any on the platform?" I had to come up with a plan, but needed more information. "Go dark and don't use your jets. I'm going to get eyes on the tether base."

  I approached the side of Nick's yard, pulled myself up to the top of a three-stack of containers, and peered over in the direction of the control tower’s base.

  My heart sunk as I made out the long shape of a fast attack craft. It was thirty meters long and rectangular in shape and I could make out a slug-throwing turret mounted on top and at least one missile rack. It wasn't much to look at, but I had watched vids showing how devastating one of these medium range ships could be. The only ships I'd ever seen like this were naval escorts. This particular ship showed carbon scoring, dents and hastily repaired tears in the steel hull. The ship screamed pirate to anyone who saw it.

  I sat for a moment and surveyed the area to see if there was any movement on the outside of the ship. I knew a ship of this size could have up to a crew of eight. Only two were required to fly it, but there was easily space for at least six and if you weren't excited about comfort, then you could bring on more. For short distances, a ship this size could hold a couple of dozen people, but I didn't think that was likely since there was no launch point close to Colony 40.

  My patience was rewarded and I saw two figures outside the ship. They appeared alert, albeit bored.

  Colony 40 had a sheriff's department, but they wouldn't be a match for the turret on top of that ship. Even worse, Sheriff Blaen Xid or one of his deputies had probably been in the control tower when the attack occurred.

  A plan formed and I knew what we needed to do next. We couldn't possibly approach the ship with those two guys hanging around. Plus, there had to be at least one more in the ship to man the slug-throwing turret. The turret was top mounted and it was unlikely that it would be able to target anything closer than thirty meters, which was why the guard had been posted. If someone breached that perimeter, the guards needed to deal with them.

  There was little chance of any sort of organized resistance occurring anytime soon. Breaching the main dome had effectively shut off everyone in the main station. The station had gone into lockdown because of the large breach. The failure of the foam sealant was lucky for us, otherwise we would have been locked down in the station, too. I have heard it said that fortune favors the bold and it certainly seemed like the pirates had proven the truth of that.

  As I thought out the process, it seemed they had made one critical error. It remained to be proven whether we could take advantage of that mistake. I met back up with Tabby and Nick, who had both found AGBs and were hunkered down by my sled.

  "Good news and bad news," I started off, sounding like we were on the pod-ball court and not preparing to assault heavily armed pirates who were already responsible for the deaths of many today. "Bad news first. They have an armed ship sitting at the base of the security station tether." I went on to describe the turret and missile launchers. "Also, there are two goons hanging around the entry hatch. I didn't see guns but I think it's a fair assumption they're armed."

  "The good news is, I have a plan." I grinned, feeling excited and a bit terrified. As I explained my plan, Tabby's face took on the same grin I had. Nick was expressing nothing but dread. To his credit, he didn't once suggest we should back down, but I could see he understood how serious this was about to get. They both offered adjustments to the plan and within a few minutes we were settled. We spent the next twenty minutes moving equipment around and then we were ready to execute.

  I crept to the side of the James' rental yard so nothing was between me and the ship. Nothing had changed. The two pirates were sitting next to the entry hatch and no one else was in view. I thought I could make out movement in the cockpit, but I was at the wrong angle to be sure. I had brought several tools, each massing a kilogram, from the rental yard. I braced my back leg against a container and started tossing tools at the pirates as hard as I could. At a hundred meters if they didn't move, I would likely hit at least one of them. I had three heavy tools flying directly at each pirate and was ready for phase two. Much of our plan relied on this next sequence working correctly. Although every step in the plan was pretty brittle, I hoped luck would favor us. Once the lead tool was within ten meters, the pirate's suit must have alerted him to an imminent collision, because he jerked backwards to get out of the way. His partner wasn't nearly so lucky, because he dodged one tool only to jump into the path of another. I had thrown them hard. I'd been hit plenty of times in pod-ball and knew the feeling well. The suit would prevent permanent damage but he was going to have a nice shiny bruise to show to his other pirate friends. It was my only hit and I hoped it would be enough. Point Hoffen.

  I fired up my arc-jets and scooted around the end of the stack of containers behind me. Just before I made it, I felt a burning in my thigh. I'd been shot. Panic coursed through me. I hoped I hadn't doomed us. "What were we thinking?" I refused to give in to doubt. Millie and others were dead, Dad was being shot at.

  It turns out the shot to my thigh was a simple graze. The tear to the vac-suit was minor and it was able to repair itself almost immediately. The wound hurt like a bitch but I would live.

  I ducked my head back around the container and saw the two pirates were halfway to my position. They were on a hard burn with their arc-jets, so I ducked behind the containers, not wanting to provide them another easy target. My training kicked in and then I started jetting between the containers. For a while both of them were completely stymied, trying to follow me through the maze. Then they got smart and jetted up above the surface for a clean look down.

  "Birds are up!" Tabby called from her hidden position.

  It was the signal I was waiting for. I dove between two closely placed containers, and slid down, careful to not touch the sides. I looked up to see the pirates glide over the top, five meters up.

  "Give up, dumb ass," one of the pirates broadcast on a close-range channel. He was pointing his gun directly at me.

  "Just shoot him. Who cares?"

  The first pirate nodded his head and there was neither hate nor joy in his eyes as he took aim. I was looking into the eyes of a cold-blooded killer. Instinct compelled me to raise my hands.

  Without warning, the two containers on either side of me shot straight up at high velocity. The pirates had just enough time to start turning away when the container they were directly over, rammed into them. Even as amazing as suits were, they couldn't absorb anywhere near that much kinetic energy.

  Since there was no gravity on the station, the pirates and containers tumbled away on their new trajectories. I hoped they wouldn't hit anyone or any structure. Growing up in a mining colony constantly reinforced that launch
ing something at a high velocity was dangerous and should be avoided. Today it had proved unavoidable.

  "Man, I didn't think the gas bags would launch those containers so hard." Nick was breathing heavily from the excitement. Tubular gas bags were lined up neatly in two rows where the containers had been sitting just moments ago. When mining, we drill holes three meters deep, spaced a half meter apart. Then we drop gas bags into the holes and simultaneously blow the bags. The rapid expansion has roughly the same force as if we dropped in a couple of sticks of dynamite. We had unclamped the containers from the station, placed flattened bags under the containers and connected them to a gas supply. Nick hid, waiting for the pirates to get above the containers before he triggered the bags. I was the rabbit who drew them in and nearly paid the ultimate price.

  "Take cover." Tabby's voice was as panicked as I had ever heard it. I tracked her movement and dove behind the containers. The attack ship's turret was tearing up the surface around us. The message was loud and clear. The three of us snuck back toward the station to gather equipment for the next phase of my plan.

  Fifteen minutes later, the turret was still pointing at the yard, but no longer firing. I wondered how much damage the James' equipment had taken but didn't have time to dwell on it. People were dying and equipment could be replaced. It was a lesson my dad drilled into me. People were more important than equipment, period. No questions. It was a poor miner who forgot this lesson.

  Tabby and I would be exposed for ten seconds on this next round. There was no defense if that gunner picked up on us, the turret would rip us to shreds. On the plus side, we were nearly invisible with our dark suits and much smaller than anything an attack ship would be configured to track. It occurred to me too late that a pirate ship might be configured differently.

  "Go," I whispered, for no reason other than stress.

  Tabby and I jetted from opposite sides of a new stack of three containers on the edge of the yard. The goal was to manually free the bottom container's locking clamps so that they would be able to float in zero-g.

  "Frak, it's jammed," Tabby swore.

  Mine had detached easily but it wasn't uncommon for them to become stuck and Tabby had never spent much time working with clamps. I joined her and pulled out a pry bar I had strapped to my shin. We worked on the clamp and it finally gave way. We pulled back behind the containers, completely out of breath from excitement and exertion. We repeated the same exercise on two more container stacks without issue. I checked my HUD (Heads Up Display) and realized the attack had been going on for at least forty minutes. Not good. How long could Dad hold out?

  "Remember. Three seconds apart. We have seventy meters to go before we are out of sight of that turret. We will hit open space at full speed, two seconds after the first shot," I reminded Nick. It wasn't necessary but it made me feel good. Nick was all about details. He didn't say anything and simply nodded back.

  Tabby and I cautiously pulled ourselves back to our calculated starting position. We had done the math and knew where to start our attack on the ship. We were both carrying mining lasers and the extra burden made it hard to estimate, but then we had a lot of unknowns. I nodded to Tabby and we jetted along a path toward the ship. We were dodging containers so we had difficulty reaching our intended speed. "Nick, first salvo in three, two, one. Hit it!"

  The three-stack of containers jumped forward, tumbling toward the attack ship on what I was afraid would be a near miss. Two seconds later, Tabby and I emerged from the cover of the rental yard and entered the open space between the yard and the attack ship at the base of the tethered control tower.

  One second later, another smaller stack of containers broke loose and started tumbling toward the ship on a different trajectory. This one would miss by quite a significant margin. The gunner within the ship decided to be safe rather than sorry. He shredded the first containers with an awesome display of the turret's firepower and we were thirty meters from being inside the turret’s minimum range. The third container fired off in yet another direction, but the gunner wasn't fooled. He quickly whipped the turret around, and the station floor was shredded by slugs as they ripped a line toward us. I heard Tabby yowl in pain as we crossed the boundary where the turret could no longer reach us.

  "Tabby, talk to me," I shouted.

  "Shrapnel. I got this. Stay on target!" she commanded.

  I flipped over and burned hard to come to a stop directly under the ship's turret. Tabby was beneath the cockpit and we both had our feet on the skin of the ship. It was one of the advantages of being a spacer. Up and down didn't mean a thing to us unless there was gravity.

  I attached my mining laser against the hull of the ship on the underneath side opposite the turret. I was able to set up much faster than Tabby, since I worked with mining lasers just about every day. I pulled a steel spike and null-hammered it into the plating of the ship. In less than fifteen seconds I had five spikes securing the laser tube. I pulled the power pack off my back and allowed it to float, set the laser to a depth of twenty meters, and flipped the switch. I figured the armor would be hard to penetrate, but we drilled through solid iron in the mines all the time. It might take a couple of minutes, but it would be going through.

  I jetted over to Tabby, who was struggling to hold the mining laser straight while working the spikes in. I steadied the tube while she drove her first spike. With one already planted, she made quick work of the remaining spikes. She pulled off the laser’s power pack and I dialed it to ten meters. She had chosen a spot beneath the ship’s cockpit which wasn’t as thick as the rest of the ship.

  I looked back to the ship and saw with satisfaction that Nick had begun welding long strips along the door frame. He continued to add structure to his welds and I doubted the door would ever be useable again.

  A bright light burst from the top of the gun turret as my laser broke through. Molten metal froze in puddles on the chamber of the now completely useless gun. Satisfied with his work on the door, Nick jumped down and welded the station clamps to the attack ship, turned brick.

  "Nice job!"

  "No celebrating at half-time," Tabby admonished, but her grin said it all. She was loving this as much as I was.

  We looked up the length of the tether. The elevator was docked next to the control tower, but with the station gravity out, we wouldn’t need the elevator to get up there. Disabling the perimeter defense guns was our last and most important objective.

  "Grab the plasma cutter, Nick. Let's do this thing," I said.

  Tabby and I both carried pressurized canisters that were about a meter tall and Nick had his welding rig that doubled as a plasma cutter. We glided up the tether toward the security control office. Down below, I saw the warm reds and oranges of the slagged metal.

  The elevator was docked at the only door to the security control center. We would have to go through the elevator to get to the control room. Nick switched his portable welder to cutting mode and broke through the locked outside door. It didn’t take much time, but it meant we had lost whatever element of surprise we might have otherwise had.

  The door to the control room led to an airlock we could see through. The problem was, those inside could also see us. There were three people inside who were completely suited up. Two of the inhabitants were pointing long guns at the door. From the corner of my eye I caught the tell-tale signs of atmosphere being vented from the control room.

  "They are venting," I informed Tabby and Nick, who both understood the implications. Once the atmosphere was vented, the pirates would be able to simultaneously open both doors of the airlock. There was no place to hide.

  "Nick, get out." This was about to get real sketchy. I placed my pressurized canister directly in front of me, blocking the pirate’s view.

  Nick started to argue, but Tabby simply grabbed him and shoved him out the door.

  "I got it," Nick shot back excitedly. "Get your canisters in the airlock when it opens. Trust me!"

  There wasn't
time to argue and the Loose Nuts pod-ball team thrived on running the play that was called. I had always told myself that I trusted Nick and Tabby with my life. Today I would prove it. The door opened and Tabby and I stuffed the meter tall canisters we carried into the lock. We pulled back just as slugs started hitting the elevator’s walls and floor. My left leg exploded with pain just above my foot. It was like no pain I had ever felt and I had to fight to stay conscious.

  Through the glass of the airlock, I saw a bright beam of light strike the back canister. Almost immediately, Tabby and I were violently thrown back into the windows by the force of an explosion. I felt Tabby's vice-like grip on my arm dragging me through the outside door. I was unable to focus, the pain in my leg was overwhelming, and I welcomed the blackness that invaded my diminishing vision. This must be what dying felt like.

  AFTERMATH

  Well, I clearly hadn't died. I woke up to faint nondescript music. My mind wandered, recalling that I had once heard this referred to as elevator music, which made no sense at all considering elevators were for moving materials, and lifts were for moving people.

  I gagged when I tried to swallow. There was something in my throat and I desperately needed something to drink.

  "Relax son. You are safe and you have a breathing tube. We'll get someone to take it out." It was my dad's voice.

  I felt a squeeze from my right side. I was pretty foggy but I could tell that it wasn't Dad's hand since it was smaller than mine. It must be Mom.

  The next time I woke up, tubes were being pulled out of my throat and through my nose. Unlike before, I was able to force my eyes open. I felt a squeeze from a warm hand on my right side. I rolled my head expecting to see Mom and instead saw Tabby. Her eyes were red and puffy and a tear rolled down her cheek.