A Ship's Destruction

by Spencer Cook



  A Ship’s Destruction – By Spencer Cook. A short fan story based on the space trading game of Oolite. This was going to be a prologue for the story ‘Collusion’. However the cover designer Liam Rafferty (Mobius), did such an excellent job of two covers, I decided to make this its own short story, and part one to make use of them both.

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  A Ship’s Destruction

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  ‘He’ll be fine,’ Dony reassures his wife again. ‘He’s stayed with them many times before while we’ve done the run. He even likes being planetside on Rafferty’s Paradise.’

  ‘But what if..’

  ‘But nothing love. It’ll do him good to have some time as a young boy should, playing with friends and learning to do boy things. You know he can’t stay in space all the time, knowing nothing but trading.’

  ‘Yes I know,’ sighing light heartedly, ‘I just miss having him around.’

  ‘We’ve got a quick job to do that will pay reasonably well, and then he’ll be back with us in only a few weeks.’

  ‘You’re probably right. It’s me that doesn’t want him out of the way, I really should stop molly-coddling him. However this cargo we’re to collect, the profit was just a little too good in my eyes.’

  ‘It wasn’t that high, the price I managed to haggle was simply because it must depart from Ditiza on 28th October and be in Diso for 18th November, three weeks is not impossible, but there’s no time for downtime.’

  ‘That’s not the issue, the issue is Begeabi. To make it on time in this bucket,’ patting the console of Endurance, ‘we will have to go through a feudal system.’

  ‘We’ve already discussed this, and it’s how I got the price. That money we got up front allowed us to have the witchdrive injectors installed. If we play it right they’ll allow us to outrun most pirates enough to fire up the Torus drive.’

  ‘It’s the most bit that worries me. Those injectors were 2nd hand and if they fail...’

  ‘There’s a warranty with them, we’ll be back in plenty of time for that.’

  ‘Yes but if they fail when we need them, either for delivery on time or to escape pirates, the warranty then means nothing.’

  ‘We’ll just play it cool, save them for when we really do need them.’ and with that Dony started up the main engines and requested launch clearance.

  The run out to Ditiza was problem free, and there was a substantial profit made. Once there the Endurance was treated to a quick systems check for the timed run back.

  After 4 days waiting around their cargo was ready. However an engineering glitch delayed loading. ‘That’s not a promising start!’ Hera fumed, ‘delayed by nearly twenty hours already. Well they can damned well add those hours on at the other end.’ Dony ignored this rant, but he silently agreed.

  Finally they were loaded and launched. Hera, at the controls, started the witchdrive countdown, then squeezing Dony’s hand whispers, ‘We’ll be fine.’ Emerging from witchspace into Begeabi, Hera turned towards the sun and fired up full throttle, then set the witchdrive jump coordinates for a return to Ditiza. Looking at Dony she grins ‘Just in case.’ The one blip on radar soon disappears and she fires up the Torus drive. ‘They must of been heading away. I was worried for a moment thinking it was going to be a long haul.’

  Twenty minutes into the journey the engines become mass locked and Torus drive shuts down. ‘Three bandits, one of them large trader class.’ Hera has to shout as Dony is already making his way to their one turret laser. Hera lines up the Endurance, targeting the smallest of the vessels scouting ahead. If I can take out or damage that scout ship it’s then two on one. Triggering the forward pulse laser the second shot strikes true, the scout ship keeps coming though. Damn must have good shields, but that will mean only a weak laser. Dony, up in the turret, lines up for the scout ship with the same idea, He takes a shot and scores true, but the turret is the weakest one mega watt pulse laser, and second hand, so probably down on power as well. Hera stabs another shot and destroys the scout. ‘Yes!’ she calls down the communication line to Dony, ‘That five meg laser was a good choice on the front’. Not long before this journey came up they had sold their beam laser with extra cooling, and purchased a five megawatt pulse laser, which had more power but could only pulse cycle its shots rather than a continuous high resonance beam. This gave them spare cash to buy their second hand pulse laser for a turret. A gamble which appeared to be paying off.

  Dony targets the bigger pirate ship, if I can keep scoring hits, Hera will have time to deal with the other and I might do enough to weaken the shields. Taking shots at the larger of the attackers, he diverts the attention of the pilot into evasive manoeuvres.

  Hera sees the laser target the on Boa class freighter, and starts to rotate for the remaining ship. A Mamba, favoured by pirates, isn’t overly fast but it does have good lasers, I must keep out of alignment with it. Jabbing the trigger twice, she’s rewarded with a strike on the shields. The mamba turns to run and permits the Boa to use its stronger weapon. The Endurance starts to take hits. With rear shields being depleted Hera concentrates on the Mamba which flips allowing her to score two hits to the front, down the comms line she calls, ‘Switch ships, I’m spinning her round to take the Boa on the front shields.’

  Dony rotates the turret and starts to strike the Mamba head on. After several hits the Mamba starts to weave and spin. ‘Must be getting through to that Mamba love, he’s started to avoid shots, I’ll keep working on him, if I can keep the shields low you can finish him.’

  Hera heard the call but ignored it. The Boa packs a punch, so targeting a missile, she allows the front shields to take hits so she can pepper the Boa in return. Strike after strike, the Boa’s laser overheats and can only pulse its beam. It’s cooling rate slower than a pulse laser, Hera is able to make more hits, and is finally rewarded with sparks and plating starting to come away from the ship ahead. Another strike from the Boa sees the shields fail and immediately a missile is launched. Prepared for this, Hera activates the ECM before the missile clears the hull of the Boa. After one more strike Hera fires up the witchdrive injectors, try this out for size, she strikes again on the rapidly closing Boa. Unaware she has just disoriented her husband in the turret, she fires the missile, rolls the Endurance and turns away. The rear viewer shows the spectacular sight of the missile striking home, closely followed by the Mamba striking the Boa destroying both ships.

  Back in the cockpit Dony kisses his wife. ‘Good call, that Mamba was trying to get in close so I couldn’t hit him, with your sudden turn he’d not realised what he was flying into until it was too late.’

  ‘Yeah, not a bad fight, but we only have one missile left, let’s not use it. The two lasers work much better than one high power, we don’t overheat now and can target multiple ships. I just hope there’s not much more, I’m worrying about our son again.’

  ‘Look, David is in good hands, enjoying sun, sand, surf, and hills, Not surrounded by Duralium and polyplex. I miss him too, but he needs time out to see a bit
of life.’

  ‘I’m just hoping I get to see him again, this run is giving me the wibbles.’

  ‘It’s a tough one, but we’ve been through worse.’ Donny heaves a big sigh. ‘We’ll see him again.’

  ‘And take some time out ourselves. A holiday resort planet sounds good for a few tendays.’

  The rest of the journey to the sun remained uneventful. As did the run through Reorte, where they re-fuelled once more at the sun and jumped into Diso space with Dony at the controls. Five minutes into the Torus drive run towards the planet the engines become mass locked. ‘Crapping ship in amongst that asteroid belt! Hera, you’d best get to the turret just in case, we don’t have much fuel for the injectors to burn from here.’ Readying the Endurance for combat, nerves started to set in, on this the last part of the run. ‘Two pirates, you concentrate on the scout ship with the turret keeping him at bay while I target the larger.’ Hera’s voice calls back in acknowledgement. Then it hits, front shields more than half depleted on one strike. ‘What the hell is that? It’s just