The Best Is Yet To Come - 7: Eye of the Storm
28 Aug 2023CrazyGolm
Eye of the Storm – August 3309In the ready room on board Golm’s Kitchen, a fleet carrier named after a joke that few people would laugh at, Commander CrazyGolm was doing his necessary but boring administrative work.
He had a lot on his mind.
As he sifted through finances, weekly carrier bills, and definitely a thank you letter from the Bank of Zaonce for definitely completing that inventory, his mind wasn’t in it.
His thoughts wondered to the future. In short, Golm didn’t know what he wanted to do in the long run.
Should he keep on being a Pilots’ Federation Commander?
Should he keep on being a combat pilot, pottering around the Bubble, trying to do what's right?
Should he throw his lot back into the Thargoid War, helping entire star systems again?
And what about the Agency? He’d retired once and come back from that, he could do that again if he wanted.
Should he take up exploration instead, and visit the wonders of creation that awaited him?
Should he settle down, maybe find his future wife, and start a family?
In his time as a Commander so far, he had amassed a personal fortune that could sustain an entire hab-block. He could donate the majority of it to charity and still live very comfortably.
He would call it a midlife crisis, except for the fact that he was under thirty Earth years of age.
Additionally, he was wanting to teach his dad to fly. His father was good with hardware, but had never flown a spaceship in his life. His right and left weren’t the most distinct, and in fact, he was scared of flying even as a passenger, let alone a pilot. Golm hoped that one day his dad could pass the Pilots’ Federation test without his help!
What was at the heart of what Golm wanted?
The answer was a simple but profound one. He wanted to live for God. He looked around in these dark times and saw so many people in need, but most of all, they were all broken people in need of a Saviour. Golm was a Christian and he believed Jesus was that true Saviour and Lord who died to save him. He didn't want to shove it in people's faces, but his faith shaped everything he was. Knowing that God was with him and that He was bigger than any threat or difficulty he could possibly face - human, Thargoid, or otherwise - made all the difference in his life.
So, in a manner of speaking, he knew who he wanted to be, but not where he wanted to be.
“I should go bounty hunting today,” thought Golm.
The admin could wait. Leaving it behind, he went to prepare the [IDA] Rubber-Dubber for launch.
Golm was trying to be a gentle, “live and let live” sort of man, but he was not averse to some good old-fashioned bounty hunting. He may have been peaceful, but he was also deadly. Someone had to stand up to the wicked, and with the widespread use of escape pods, almost all of them would survive anyway. And pirates lived for a good fight, so he would give them one.
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Hadrik Dunblast loved killing.
He had clawed his way up the ladder of the Chelini Jet Raiders with a consistent streak of assassination, piracy, and murder. In the cockpit of his Krait Phantom, the Black Spectre, he had plundered convoys, blasted open canopies, and left many a shipwreck in his wake. He liked to think he was a thorn in the side of the system’s security forces, and his gang frequently checked the bounty boards to see how high each of them ranked.
So when an anonymous contract appeared in his inbox, offering a sizeable sum of credits for the assassination of a Commander CrazyGolm, he jumped at the chance. He hadn’t killed a Commander before, but it was on his bucket list.
The contract included target details. The Commander in question was a goody-two-shoes lawful from the Pilots’ Federation, in a squadron called the Independent Defence Agency, the same Agency who governed Chelini. Something something “ex-law-enforcer”. Hadrik couldn’t read so well, but he hated law enforcers. It didn’t matter whether CrazyGolm still had anything to do with them or not, he wanted him dead and he wanted to do it personally.
He was going to love this job.
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“What on Earth...”
This Golm was not like other lawfuls.
His Fer-de-Lance was lighter and faster. From his knowledge of Commanders, Hadrik had expected Golm to use a heavy prismatic shield, but this was the opposite. This was some sort of bi-weave boat. It was clearly masterfully engineered, and designed specially for its role – likely some sort of wetwork.
Golm's guns were multicannons – fixed multicannons at that - and they hit hard. Incendiary rounds blasted away at Hadrik’s shields.
And there was something else about the pilot, CrazyGolm himself. He moved with skill and grace, yet there was a humility to his motion, like he was unaware of his own skill.
It was making Hadrik think maybe he’d lived his life wrong.
This was not the hunt he wanted. Not at all.
Hadrik’s shields dropped, and the ship shuddered under the storm of cannon fire.
He grimaced. He wasn’t going down without a fight.
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Several kilometres away, a wing of four Diamondback Scouts silently observed the fight.
Their henchman was putting up a brave defence, but he was losing against Golm. That was of no concern to them; their organization considered him expendable. He would soon pay the price for his arrogance.
The wing saw the hallmarks of the fabled Pivot Project in front of them. The ambition of genetically engineered super-pilots had long been toiled towards, and here it had come to fruition before their very eyes. Whether he knew it or not, this Commander could easily, elegantly, outmanoeuvre a baseline human any day of the week.
But once he won, they would mop him up.
The whole wing was rigged for silent running. Flying without shields and closing the heat vents produced a minimal signature. This was not unusual, as traders at nav beacons would often go silent to stealthily evade pirates. What was not so normal was the full complement of torpedoes each Diamondback wielded.
They were not Black Flight, but they knew of that formation, and were on the same side as it.
Hadrik’s ship exploded with a blast of plasma. They would not miss him.
Golm’s ship slowed to a stop for a moment. He was taking a breather after the fight.
Now was their chance.
At that moment, the Diamondbacks unleashed their arsenal of torpedoes.
As expected, the sudden volley caught Golm off guard. He would be aware of them now, but by now it was too late.
The reverberating cascade torpedoes hit home first, nullifying what was left of Golm’s shield.
Then the superpenetrators slammed into his hull, crippling his power plant and incapacitating his thrusters.
Golm’s ship was drifting in the black, systems failing, hull barely holding together.
The wing leader gave the signal to move in.