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Authors: Anthony Hartig
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Captain Seinz. What’s your status? Over.”
“Blue Zephyr, we were attacked by a bandit vessel. My ship is disabled and I have wounded on board. We’ve been adrift for two days. Can you assist?”
“I’ve marked your position, Captain. I’ll send a call out for an SAR team to come for you when we get close enough to the main shipping lanes.”
“Blue Zephyr, my wounded are critical, I need to get them off board and get them the proper medical attention . Can you dock?”
I turned to Scotty and shook my head. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
We were about to make a pass less than six kilometers away from the Moria Balá. We would still be a fairly safe distance from them and out of visual range.
“I’m going to run a probe on them.”
The flight computer profiled the craft and the image showed up as a 3D model on one of the video display units.
“You don’t trust the captain, Nikki?”
“No way. Even if they’ve been drifting for two days how the hell did they get way out here? We’re too far from the lanes for them to have floated this far off course.”
Suddenly, the cabin filled with a bright flicker of orange light followed by the sound of thunder as a warhead detonated a thousand meters in front of us. The Zephyr shuddered and the cabin lights blinked on and off as we were jostled hard against our seats. We could hear the clatter of debris slamming against the fuselage as we flew through the shrapnel.
“Damn it!” I shouted angrily as I clutched the yoke and stabilized the Zephyr.
“Are we hit?”
“I don’t see any breach in our hull!” I glowered as I looked at the diagnostic panel for red blinking lights. “That was close!”
Another transmission from the Moria piped over the cast, “Blue Zephyr, power down and surrender your ship or we will fire on you again!”
“I knew it!” The probe showed that the Moria had fired-up its engines and began to turn in our direction. “Hang on, it’s time to turn-n-burn. I’m going to try to out run them!”
“Blue Zephyr, you cannot escape. Power down and prepare to be boarded.”
Getting hijacked is one thing, but what the pirates would do to a female if they captured me was another. “Captain Seinz, why don’t you pack five pounds of sodium azide in the crack of your ass and get blistered!” I growled as I punched an overdrive button and launched us into spontaneous hypersonic flight.
“You just signed your own death warrant, pilot!” Seinz snarled. “I’m going to skin you alive and roll you in salt. Before I’m done, you will be begging me to put an end to your pitiful life!”
“That ship’s fast!” I hissed as I looked at the vector scanner to get a fix on their position. “They just went hypersonic.”
“Don’t you have any weapons systems to protect yourself?”
“We’re a civi lian freighter,” I was about to tell Scotty about the Bokka but decided against it for now, “we have to rely on Fleet or ISP officers to defend us from parasites like Seinz.”
“And we’re an illegal flight so...”
“…so we’re as lawless as they are and basically shit out of luck.”
We almost had a hundred and fifty mile lead, but the Moria was closing on us fast. I accelerated and hoped we could put enough distance between us to discourage a pursuit. If I extended the sonic drive shrouds to shield the magnetic trace from the spawnsons, they would smother the magnetic fields the drives needed to maximize our speed. I kept the canopy’s particle heat shield up so I could actually see what was in front of us as we blazed through the chill of deep space.
“We’re still two days out from Tal-Seti, but we can definitely shake them off our ass if we can reach the Ceres Vesta belt.”
“Okay, do what you have to do.” Scotty replied through clenched teeth.
“I was figuring on maxing 2.8 HsD but we’re going to have to push the drives harder. You’d better tighten your harness, Scotty, I’m going to burn
“Blue Zephyr, we were attacked by a bandit vessel. My ship is disabled and I have wounded on board. We’ve been adrift for two days. Can you assist?”
“I’ve marked your position, Captain. I’ll send a call out for an SAR team to come for you when we get close enough to the main shipping lanes.”
“Blue Zephyr, my wounded are critical, I need to get them off board and get them the proper medical attention . Can you dock?”
I turned to Scotty and shook my head. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
We were about to make a pass less than six kilometers away from the Moria Balá. We would still be a fairly safe distance from them and out of visual range.
“I’m going to run a probe on them.”
The flight computer profiled the craft and the image showed up as a 3D model on one of the video display units.
“You don’t trust the captain, Nikki?”
“No way. Even if they’ve been drifting for two days how the hell did they get way out here? We’re too far from the lanes for them to have floated this far off course.”
Suddenly, the cabin filled with a bright flicker of orange light followed by the sound of thunder as a warhead detonated a thousand meters in front of us. The Zephyr shuddered and the cabin lights blinked on and off as we were jostled hard against our seats. We could hear the clatter of debris slamming against the fuselage as we flew through the shrapnel.
“Damn it!” I shouted angrily as I clutched the yoke and stabilized the Zephyr.
“Are we hit?”
“I don’t see any breach in our hull!” I glowered as I looked at the diagnostic panel for red blinking lights. “That was close!”
Another transmission from the Moria piped over the cast, “Blue Zephyr, power down and surrender your ship or we will fire on you again!”
“I knew it!” The probe showed that the Moria had fired-up its engines and began to turn in our direction. “Hang on, it’s time to turn-n-burn. I’m going to try to out run them!”
“Blue Zephyr, you cannot escape. Power down and prepare to be boarded.”
Getting hijacked is one thing, but what the pirates would do to a female if they captured me was another. “Captain Seinz, why don’t you pack five pounds of sodium azide in the crack of your ass and get blistered!” I growled as I punched an overdrive button and launched us into spontaneous hypersonic flight.
“You just signed your own death warrant, pilot!” Seinz snarled. “I’m going to skin you alive and roll you in salt. Before I’m done, you will be begging me to put an end to your pitiful life!”
“That ship’s fast!” I hissed as I looked at the vector scanner to get a fix on their position. “They just went hypersonic.”
“Don’t you have any weapons systems to protect yourself?”
“We’re a civi lian freighter,” I was about to tell Scotty about the Bokka but decided against it for now, “we have to rely on Fleet or ISP officers to defend us from parasites like Seinz.”
“And we’re an illegal flight so...”
“…so we’re as lawless as they are and basically shit out of luck.”
We almost had a hundred and fifty mile lead, but the Moria was closing on us fast. I accelerated and hoped we could put enough distance between us to discourage a pursuit. If I extended the sonic drive shrouds to shield the magnetic trace from the spawnsons, they would smother the magnetic fields the drives needed to maximize our speed. I kept the canopy’s particle heat shield up so I could actually see what was in front of us as we blazed through the chill of deep space.
“We’re still two days out from Tal-Seti, but we can definitely shake them off our ass if we can reach the Ceres Vesta belt.”
“Okay, do what you have to do.” Scotty replied through clenched teeth.
“I was figuring on maxing 2.8 HsD but we’re going to have to push the drives harder. You’d better tighten your harness, Scotty, I’m going to burn
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