A safe environment did wonders to relax people, and it seemed each near-death experience made him more charming to Moon. But Brock was still uneasy. He didn't feel safe. The enemy had captured them. Their prison might have been in an ivory tower, but they were prisoners nonetheless.
Brock had wandered the ship to stave off boredom and get away from Rick’s puerile attempts at seduction and Gary’s constant celebrations as he excitedly reviewed footage.
The spacecraft was well built, practical and clean, still had that new smell. The main corridor traversed the entire ship from flight deck to engine room at the back. Brock identified six main sections, bridge, and IT underneath, at the front. Then the medbay, mess below and quarters on the lower deck. Training rooms and armoury came after that, then cargo hold, hangar and engineering at the end.
This was a great spaceship, especially compared to the filthy rust buckets they’d been on so far. Not a single rusty pipe, no steam shooting out randomly. Still, Brock couldn't help but worry, every vessel they’d been on had been destroyed, it’d be a shame if it happened to this one too.
The Admiral
The armada’s arrival did not go down well with the locals on Ceres. Guild official calls had been pouring in steadily. They seemed split. A few welcomed the order the fleet would bring. Others liked the things just the way they were. The truth was, a microsystem so close to Terra could not be allowed to continue its chaotic existence unchecked.
Ceres was orbited by dozens of stations and asteroids that had been dragged closer to the dwarf planet. Many were home to mining guilds and some concealed pirate lairs. Thousands of ships of all shapes and sizes buzzed around the area at any given time. This could get messy.
Admiral Axgom had never commanded such a fleet. No one had. Never had there been such a collection of advanced warships. In the physical world anyway.
The Terran armada had surrounded the Ceresian system, and they waited, Axgom wanted to let them stew. The smaller ships intercepted any who tried to leave the area. Many were Council officials fleeing their posts.
The fleet’s launch from Venus had been well publicised, good press was needed to justify such an expenditure, but a news embargo had been set by the Council. If Admiral Axgom’s calculations were correct, and they always were, news outlets across Solus would have only just broken the news.
The same clip played on every newsfeed. It showed the armada in all its glory, outlined the various spacecraft and preached about how this fleet would travel Solus bringing peace and prosperity to all.
News outlets on Terra, Luna and Mars were sure to put a good spin on the fleet. Ceresian’s might be less enthralled. They were always a rowdy bunch. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to them, Axgom was a good person. He had not come to Ceres to massacre thousands of people. He was rather hoping that a show of force with the armada would do the trick.
Axgom had been chosen because he was not a fighter. The Council needed the fleet under someone’s command, but they didn’t want it in the hands of a kamikaze who’d wreck it or someone who might turn the greatest fighting force ever assembled against them. So they picked Axgom because he’d never attack first, because he’d never bite the hand that feeds him and because he’d always try to do the right thing.
Axgom was a general born and bred in an age of peace. He was only twenty-eight, but had spent thousands of years studying in the virtual world, took the “wise beyond his years saying” to a new level. The flipside of this quest for knowledge is it had cost him his body; atrophied beyond salvation because of neglect and had to be discarded.
This was less of a problem now with neural converter muscle memory kits. But it was already too late for Axgom's body by the time the technology arrived. He didn’t mind his artificial body. It did the job. He'd chosen an imposing robot body, something that would inspire confidence and dissuade disobedience. His crew said he looked like a cross between Cap'n Crunch and Frankenstein. Axgom thought that was actually quite close to the mark.
The admiral peered out to Ceres and wondered what they might be thinking at the sight of his glorious armada. The fleet hadn’t been built in secret. Nobody really went to Venus. But if they did, they would have seen the great shipbuilding yards. Axgom could understand their panic. Without any media attention, the armada felt like a surprise. Suddenly a decade old rumour had become true to billions of people all at once. He was hoping that such a display of power would in itself be enough to secure peace and prosperity across the system.
His current plan was to parade his fleet to all the colonies organising elections capturing pirates and generally impressing people into submission. Unfortunately, for all the knowledge Axgom had acquired he lacked any practical experience on how this knowledge applied in real life. And there is something about chaos, insanity and desperation that is never really quite captured by studying it. Some things have to be experienced.
“Admiral, sir?”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Two of our ships are breaking rank.”
“What? Where? Which ships?”
“A patrol ship is heading straight for Ceres. Another is flying from ship to ship in the fleet. Both ships aren’t answering our hails. What are your orders, sir?
“Can you override the ship’s controls or contact the onboard AI?”
“No, sir. We’ve tried that but the AI was disabled on one of the ships, and the other ship is jamming all signals.”
“Send ships to intercept the rogue ship within our ranks. What’s the range on the other?” The crewman started shouting down his microphone while Axgom headed towards another station.
“Half a million kilometres from Ceres sir. It is outside of our weapons’ range.” The admiral muttered a curse as he leaned over another comm technician.
“Where are we with the first ship?” Axgom began to pace.
“It opened fire on another patrol ship before fleeing towards Ceres.”
“Pursue it, and move the entire fleet closer to Ceres.”
“How close sir?”
“Just outside of firing range.” Giving the order sent the equivalent of a shiver down Axgom’s artificial nervous system. Chaos had come. This situation would now attempt to spin out of control.
The first rogue patrol spacecraft had disappeared among Ceres’ satellites, the second ship and its Council pursuit were heading towards a hastily assembled mining vessels blockade. Unceremoniously the rogue ship opened fire on the civilian crafts who immediately returned fire on the ship and its pursuers.
This simple exchange had the same effect has kicking a hornet's’ nest. Thousands of ships began to pour out of their hideouts, every asteroid and station emptied itself of crafts, all buzzing angrily around Ceres and speeding after the patrol crafts that had ventured too close. The rogue ship continued to evade its dwindling Council pursuers while taking pot shots at everything in front of it. The result was an infuriated swarm of civilian vessels trying to stop them by any means necessary.
They shot their turrets and magnetic harpoons and attempted to take the Council crafts down. Easier said than done, the newer ships were faster, their weapons better and their shields more effective. Some of them began to return fire, and many of the mining ships did not fare so well against the improved firepower.
Axgom was watching the dogfights on his screens and shouting orders. He'd let the fighting continue longer than he should have, but he was curious, actual battle data was hard to pass over.
“Tell them to cease fire! Do not fire on civilian ships! Tell our ships to return to our blockade. Do not engage any more civilians.”
“Sir, what about the rogue ship.”
“If we carry on pursuing this ship we will end up in a war we do not want.”
“Yes sir, sending the order out.” The admiral looked outside at the developing mess hoping he’d see his ships turn back and the Ceresian cease their pursuit. “Sir, one of the ships is not responding.”
“One ship? Is it behaving er
ratically?”
“No, sir. It seems to be continuing with the pursuit.”
Sabotage
Rick had left the comfort of Moon’s side to go investigate the commotion with Brock. The ship was not cruising anymore. The first explosions rocked the craft and woke them up, the next batch had thrown them from their seats, and that had been more than enough to warrant an investigation. On the bridge, the captain was giving orders, gesturing, and generally looking on edge.
“Take down that rogue ship!”
“Sir orders to retreat have just come in!”
“Bullshit! Axgom is a coward! Shoot that rogue down and return fire on anyone who shoots at us.”
“But sir! These are civilian ships!”
“Do you want to die, soldier? Do any of you want to die?” Salamak went up to his first mate and repeated the questions. He pointed at the other crew members and asked them too.
Rick turned to Brock in a little bit of a panic. Brock politely returned the panicked look.
“We need to get off this ship.”
“Quickly.”
Rick neural-linked with Amy while Brock did the same with Mr T. Everyone would be ready to go.
“Brock?”
“What?”
“These guys are shooting civilians.”
“I know.”
“We need to stop them.”
“Rick…”
“If we just disable their weapons they’ll surrender.”
“Rick…”
“Brock, come on man… You know we have to do this.”
“Fine, follow me we need to get to engineering. Get everyone to meet us by the escape pods.”
Nobody paid any attention to them as they made their way through the ship. The spacecraft occasionally shook, but its integrity didn’t seem at risk. Rick could tell from the lack of flashing red lights and alarms.
Brock expertly led Rick through the ship. Rick wondered how he always knew how to navigate literally any environment.
Engineering, as expected, contained many large machines with flashing and glowing lights controlled by a multitude of buttons, levers and holopads. Rick stood in awe before these marvels of technology, his eyes tried to follow the tubes, wires and coils, trying to understand how they connected to cylinders, tanks, drives and more things Rick lacked the words to describe. Brock pulled on his arm and told him not to touch anything.
They hurried in between the machines that Brock identified for Rick, but it all sounded like technobabble to him. Brock shouted their names faster than he could process, Rick was certain he was doing it on purpose.
They turned the corner, and Rick stopped agape before what turned out to be parts of the fusion drive. The reactor namely. For some reason Rick thought the drive would be small. It wasn’t. The thing was massive and Rick called out to Brock for some explanations but he’d gone back to look for the weapons control. Apparently they’d missed it. Rick followed the stream of obscenities telling him to hurry until he found him at the weapons systems battery. It looked like a blooming onion made of green glowing tubes. Brock went to a nearby terminal and started tapping on the holoscreen.
“Start pulling out batteries.”
“Is this safe?”
“You’re wearing the suit! Just pull out the fucking batteries.”
Rick obeyed and pulled the glowing rods from their enclosures. The batteries were deceptively heavy. Without his armour, Rick wouldn’t have been able to lift them out. The more they took out, the more the sizeable green orb in the centre of the machine dimmed. Until it turned red and alarms started sounding.
“Weapons system malfunction! Weapons system malfunction! Core overload imminent!”
“Fuck! Did I do that?”
“Shit, let’s get the fuck out of here!” Brock didn’t have to tell Rick twice, they were out of engineering and racing down the corridor within seconds.
They joined up with the others and boarded their escape pod. They were greeted by questions and shouting and “what did you dos”. Brock waved the questions away and told everyone to buckle up. Moon looked haggard, she’d been asleep, happy and relaxed when the explosions threw them. Rudest awakening. Her face had that “when will this nightmare end” thing going. Gary was smiling. Lunatic.
The pod had six seats in a circle and was programmed to land on the nearest stable body or Council ship. Its emergency beacon would also activate on launch. Brock gave everyone the nod, they returned it, he punched the big red escape button, and they were off in what was effectively a giant soda can, floating in the middle of a space battle.
Mad Mexican
Diego Sanchez was not easy to kill, and he did not need a spaceship to get around. Well not for short distances anyway. Though his ship and crew had been scattered to the solar winds Diego’s body’s superior craftsmanship ensured his survival. He'd followed his aggressors back to the ranks of their comrades where he’d boarded a patrol ship. Like a ghost in tattered clothes, he’d haunted it. A crewmember out of the airlock here, a mysterious suicide there, malfunctioning devices... In under a day Diego had taken over the ship, just before the fleet reached Ceres, tiempo perfecto. He’d formulated a plan and contacted his pirate frenemies. It was the courteous thing to do.
The pirates of the belt did not initially believe Diego, but news of the fleet was spreading fast. They all called back. His plan only had one purpose really. Help him escape with a brand new ship. He could find a new crew later.
Diego had wasted no time breaking from the fleet. There was no reason for them to suspect his craft of anything and the ship’s AI had gone out the airlock like the rest of the crew. He raced towards one of space stations in orbit around Ceres. The pirate hideout there belonged to an old friend. He could get a new paint job for his ship and stir up some trouble. Maybe have a bit of liquid courage.
Rocky Station as its name indicated was a combination of an asteroid and artificial structure. The station was guild operated, but they turned a blind eye to the secret pirate lair dug underneath, in exchange for protection and unsavoury favours.
Diego took his craft beneath the station and into the concealed spaceport. He fiddled at the back of his neck, pulled out a memory stick, and shoved it into the captain’s console. No one was taking his ship.
The first thing he did when he disembarked was order a paint job from the wrench-monkeys. Then he headed to The Drinking Hole. There were at least two dozen ships in the port. He meandered his way to the saloon-inspired bar while inspecting the parked spacecraft. Some decent firepower among them.
He kicked through the swivelling doors and found the place full of moping pirates. Turned out the fleet had everyone down. Diego was the only one with a semblance of a plan. Time to rattle the cage.
“Como estas coños?” Diego always liked to make an entrance. He settled at the bar facing the assembly. “Why the long faces?”
“Have you not seen the fleet asshole?” Diego didn’t know this one. Probably just hiding out.
“Ssup Diego! You look like shit!”
“Gracias señor pene pequeño!” He recognised the voice. Lil’ Trouble, Captain of the Shitshow.
“What happened to you?”
“I’ve been fighting the Council. Got me a new ship.” Gasps of wonderment filled the room.
“You lie!” The accusations were echoed by a few others.
“Nunca! Listen here cabrones! Follow me to glory and a new ship if you’re good enough, or stay here and get cornered like rats. These are your choices.” That got them riled up.
“You’re insane!”
“We have no chance against that fleet!”
“Who is this guy?”
“We’re outnumbered!”
“We’re outgunned!”
They all made valid points. Diego let them go on for a bit longer. During his time as a captain, he’d learned the importance of allowing simpler souls to express themselves. It avoided dejection, resentment and eventually mutiny. Diego had time fo
r a drink while the pirates continued to list the reasons why they’d lose the fight if they followed him. They finally ran out steam and started repeating themselves.
“Escúchame bien! I’ve spoken to our friends in the asteroid belt. They are coming to break the siege. We’ll use the distraction to get through the blockade and steal some of those fancy new ships!” Cheers filled the room. They liked the plan. Idiotas. It was a stupid plan.
Diego was pleased with the paintwork. What was the point in flying a pirate ship unless it was black with Jolly Rogers on the sides? A crowd had gathered to watch him board his spacecraft.
“You want one of these?” They all cheered. “Then fly with me! Flight fast! Fly true! And fight! Like never before! FIGHT!” The crowd roared and scattered to their ships as Diego disappeared in his.
Word had gotten out. Diego’s fleet had grown to a hundred by the time they reached the edge of the Ceresian system. Diego led his group of pirates from the inside of the blockade.
He’d somehow mustered what pirates and dodgy miners skulked around the Ceresian system and convinced them to charge at the fleet. He’d promised them the guilds would follow and the pirates would come.
Diego hoped that their heroic charge would spur the guilds onwards. They outnumbered the fleet ten to one, but Diego had experienced their spaceships’ combat capabilities, chances of anything but annihilation were slim. Maybe they could wrestle a stalemate from the situation with some bold actions. Tal vez.
Diego’s ragtag flotilla flew by the guilds’ positions, towards the blockading fleet. The chatter was positive. The infuriated guilds had set their differences aside and were getting ready to fight. The Council had attacked civilians. Que afortunado.
The fleet seemed at ease, probably because they didn’t think anyone in their right mind would go up against them.
Battle of Ceres
A plan a decade in the making foiled by a rogue element. Anybody else in his position would have been furious. Axgom observed as the ships around Ceres attempted to form up with some semblance of order. This is not who he had come to fight. This was a peace mission. A parade that also caught a few pirates here and there. He needed to get things back on track. It was time to open communication channels with Ceres. No one answered the calls, and the task of locating the leaders among the multitudes of spacecraft currently mobilised would be no easy feat.
Space Shenanigans Page 7
