The Untold Want
24 Sep 2017Andrew Linton
Space is small.At least that how it seems to me right now. I've just been smithereened and all I can see in the entire galaxy is the twisted wreckage of my Python and its canisters of cargo spinning randomly away in all directions.
The scene is illuminated by a class A ball of fire about fifty light-seconds away out of which looms the silhouette of the Fer-de-Lance that destroyed me. Nelson Bonaparte said he was going to boil me up and boil me up he did. I'm adrift among the debris with only emergency oxygen available from my Remlok helmet.
As Bonaparte's ship flies closer I begin to see some of its detail. The paintwork is distinctive; against a black background, the hull is covered with yellow and white explosion icons; beneath each icon is a commander's name. The ship's name, in red, reads Loose Cannon 11259. I guess that's the number of kills he's reported and the next livery update will read 11260.
The FDL deploys its cargo scoop and I see three collector limpets emerge. I have to think quickly; if I don't do something soon this is where my story ends; I have to get on board that ship — or die.
There's a huge lump of Python superstructure almost within reach. I hook my foot underneath it and pull myself closer. I grab it and straightaway plant my feet squarely on its flat surface. I bend my legs, ready to launch.
Looking around I see my target, a canister of palladium; no self-respecting pirate would leave one of those behind. I push away with all my strength and hope that my aim is true. I'm flying without a tether and run the risk that any random chunk of debris could deflect me off course.
I frantically grab hold of the canister having almost missed it completely. I wait.
My crazy plan is to to be scooped up by a collector limpet. Is this even possible? I don't know, but I will soon find out. It seems better to die taking this risk than to slowly asphyxiate.
The snatch of the limpet when it comes is vicious — the designers didn't allow for collecting fragile humans, but my limbs are intact. Next comes the sickening acceleration of the limpet towards the FDL, and finally I'm briefly stunned by the violence of the delivery system. I'm tossed into the cargo hold and it takes me a minute to recover.
I'm safe — relatively. I'm on a ship with a psychopathic serial killer, but apart from that everything is bonny.
The collection completes and the cargo scoop closes. After the pressure equalises, I remove my Remlok helmet and breathe the same air as Nelson Bonaparte.
I look around the cargo hold and the material store. Like any other pirate, Bonaparte seems to have collected indiscriminately whatever he comes across; there's a little bit of everything. There's food and water, so I partake. I find performance enhancers and swallow three with another sip of water.
I'm looking for a way to overpower Bonaparte; I don't want to kill him, but I do need his ship. My advantage at the moment is that he doesn't know I'm along for the ride; I'll try to keep it that way until I'm ready to make my move.
I look at the chemicals available and wish I knew enough chemistry to synthesise chloroform or ether; or even something as simple as nitrous oxide.
Then I come across a canister of non-lethal personal weapons. With one of these I could stun Bonaparte, if I could get close enough. Planning in my mind how it might go, I realise that the instant I open the hatch to enter the cockpit he'll know someone is on board. If his reactions are fast enough, and I suspect they will be, this scenario rapidly descends into a firefight between his very lethal sidearm and my stun gun.
I need a distraction. I look again at what's available and remember a recipe for flash powder my father used to make fireworks. I open a canister of magnesium and gather some of the accumulated dust that's generated by the jostling of transportation. I find a suitable canister of fertiliser and I soon have ready an improvised stun grenade.
I move stealthily towards the bridge and find that the hatch is already open; the advantage is still mine. I'm not familiar with the layout of the Fer-de-Lance cockpit — I've never flown in one before, so I peep around the doorway until I can see the pilot's position.
He senses that I'm here and starts to turn, but too late for him as I hurl the grenade with all my strength. I shield my eyes from the flash and there's a louder report than I expected. When I look again, Bonaparte is confused and disoriented. Nevertheless he has his sidearm ready. Before he gets back his sight I sneak behind him and fire the stun gun into his neck, angled downwards into his torso. He convulses briefly and goes limp.
I waste no time dragging his unconscious body to an escape pod. I drop him in and take a few moments to study the face of a killer. There's cruelty in his thin lips and a sneer in his cheeks even with the muscles at rest. The cold grey eyes seem to stare at me and it unnerves me enough to make me close and activate the pod without hesitation.
The ship is mine.
And what a ship. I return to the cockpit and strap in to the commander's seat. I find we're supercruising in a system about three jumps from the site of my Python's destruction. It's a low security system and there are a few ships about. I drop to normal space while I assess what I have.
I look at the modules and see an awesome array of equipment: an efficient 4A beam laser supported by four highly modified multicannons make up the armoury. The core modules are A-rated and there are three shield boosters — two are level 5 modded for heavy duty and the other is level 5 modded for resistance augmentation.
I've never been in such a powerful ship and I'm not even sure what I can do with it. I made the journey to the bubble from Colonia in an unmodified Type-6 in order to work for a long range detailed surface scanner to fit to my Asp Explorer — the reports of scanning gas giants from 3,000ls were just too tempting. Maybe the best I can do is sell this ship, buy another Python, and carry on what I was doing before I was so rudely interrupted.
The Python, I'd found, was about the best ship to use to meet the requirements of the various engineers. It's tough enough to complete the Empire missions when ranking up to Outsider; it has a handy cargo capacity for hauling brandy and cigars; and it makes a very decent mining ship when I have to retrieve forty units of bromellite from a pristine ice ring.
I'll be glad when this is all done and I can head back out to Colonia. I'd already engineered the previous Python to level 5 long range FSD — a task I'll have to repeat with the next one — and my plan is to fly the new Python there, maybe storing the heavier modules and transferring them later.
Hold on a nanosecond.
Isn't this Fer-de-Lance exactly the ship I wished I'd had back in my days as a Sidewinder commander? Grinding away for the smallest gains, I was often interdicted by pirates and only barely managed to escape on several occasions. They would never have dared to attack a ship like this one.
So, why not keep it, or at least see what it can do? I can always revert to my original plan whenever I like. My hands fall naturally on to the controls. I ease the throttle forwards and the acceleration pushes into my back, forcing my mass to keep pace with the ship. I love the growl of the power plant. When I simultaneously apply full thrusters and boost, hairs rise on my neck.
I find a row of switches beneath my fingers on the throttle. I try the first one. It distributes power to the engines, sets the throttle to fifty percent, and turns off flight assist. I pull back on the stick and the ship pitches rapidly upwards.
I press the switch again. Flight assist turns off and the distributor sends power to weapons. I see how this works in combat. In a jousting tournament where the opponents fly towards each other, guns blazing, there is a big advantage in being able to turn quickly and point your weapons at your enemy while they are still turning. It's one press for the turn and a second press to power the weapons.
I press the second switch and power goes to the shields. The final switch pops a heat sink and activates a shield cell. Even though I'm only a novice at combat I can see how useful these modes would be.
What would be the harm, I ask myself, of trying out this ship in combat? It would only be against pirates of course, and others with a bounty on their heads. I open the galaxy map and apply a filter that shows me only systems with extraction economies. I'm thinking these are the most likely to have resource extraction sites.
I make a few jumps and find a low hazard site, recognising I should start small. I tackle the pirates who come along and it's almost ridiculously easy to despatch them. I forget I'm killing people, albeit bad people, and I revel in the agility, firepower, and seeming impregnability of my new ship.
I talk aloud, first to myself, but then directly in response to the pirates.
"Got anything tasty in your cargo hold?" one pirate says.
"Only this," I reply as I spray their ship with heat from my efficient 4A beam.
Later, another pirate's hull is down to ten percent under my merciless multicannon fire and they say:
"All this can stop if you give me two tonnes of cargo."
"No deal," I say and take away that ten percent in another few seconds, returning them to stardust.
I find bounty hunting unexpectedly both exciting and satisfying. Until now I've only wanted to preserve life in all its forms. Now I'm getting a taste for preserving law and order. Maybe it was only the lack of a ship like this one that prevented me from seeing what the bounty hunter's life could be like. I would miss exploration, of course, but I wouldn't miss the laborious jump after jump when simply trying to reach a destination.
I move to an extraction site with higher hazard. I start to bring down wings of two Vultures and three Eagles. The occasional gunships and assault ships are more of a challenge but I win through without damage. An elite Anaconda is still beyond me, but when the security services join in I make the kill.
I claim my bounties and move to the next system. Flying in the shipping lanes, there's a signal source with threat level 4. Feeling confident — perhaps overconfident because my shields haven't let me down — I drop in thinking if I don't like it I can run.
It's three deadly Anacondas.
At first they engage me singly, almost toying with me. It's tougher than I thought and I'm glad I turned on 'Report crimes against me', which is something Bonaparte probably never wanted. Authority ships arrive and I'm more hopeful of surviving.
All three Anacondas are firing now, both at me and at the security services. My shields suddenly seem more vulnerable. When I'm down to one ring and thinking it's time to go, I make a rookie mistake. I'm spraying my laser beam with flight assist off and I accidentally hit a police Viper which flies between me and one of the Anacondas.
Immediately my status is WANTED and everyone starts shooting at me. I go to the navigation panel and select the closest system, not caring where it is; I retract weapons and start charging the frame shift drive. Of course, with all these Anacondas around me I'm horribly mass-locked. I have to alternate power between shields and engines, on the one hand to keep the shields online, on the other to be able to boost away. Only by putting distance between me and my assailants can I hope to escape.
The last ring of shields fails. My hull is down to thirty-two percent before the countdown ends and I jump.
I arrive in a high tech, high security system where I scoop some fuel — in case I need to jump again. I decide to fly some distance from the star so I can cool down before dropping into normal space. I want the shields to recharge before carrying on.
Bad decision. Very bad decision.
Seemingly out of nowhere I'm interdicted. I do what I can but the interdictor is clearly much more experienced. It's over quickly and I'm spinning into normal space sooner than I'd planned.
The situation is dire. I'm up against another Anaconda and this time the pilot is elite. I have no shields and my hull is close to gone. The ship is vibrant red.
The hail from the commander takes me by surprise.
[Lyra Capra] "You're on my Kill On Sight list, Commander Bonaparte. Prepare to die."
I'm flustered and confused; it's Lyra, the woman I've been wanting to meet for a couple of years. I don't know what to say. Then the Anaconda deploys hardpoints and I get the message that I'm being scanned.
[Kit Ausland] "Lyra, no, it's me, Kit Ausland."
"I know all about commander name spoofing; you don't fool me. Your ship gives you away, Bonaparte, and the Kill Warrant Scanner doesn't lie — I can see that you're wanted. Your ship's in a sorry state, so this won't take long."
Multicannons start to fire at my hull — I don't have shields so there's no need for heat.
"Wait! That was a mistake; an accidental hit on a security ship; we've all done that."
The firing pauses.
"I've heard that one, too; more times than I can remember. If you have a god — which I doubt — start praying."
The attack resumes. Thirty-two percent hull becomes twenty-five percent, then fifteen. I'm about to explode — again.
"Wait! I knew your father, Virgil."
The firing stops.
"Say again."
"Lyra, I knew your father; we escaped slavery together and I took him to Jaques Station to join you," I say, desperately hoping it's enough. These are things Nelson Bonaparte wouldn't have known. It should be enough to convince her.
There's a pause in which I divert all power to shield regeneration. Trouble is, with so many modified shield boosters, I won't have enough time to get the shields up, if things turn unpleasant.
"Kit Ausland...I remember...Jeeves, in Jaques Bar told me you were with Virgil in Robigo."
"That's right, we were shipped out in the same slave trader's hold."
"I went to Robigo and found out about your escape. They said the Slave Restitution Service had given you both a Sidey in Asellus Primus. I went there, too, but the trail went cold after that. How is Virgil? Where did you leave him?
This isn't happening how I'd expected or planned. I thought I'd be face to face and be able to support her through the bad news.
"Lyra, we need to talk," I say, not knowing how to start; not wanting to say the words.
"We are talking."
"It's difficult to say," I falter.
"Just say it! Dragging it out makes it worse. Is he ill? Is he dying," and even she hesitates over the words. "Is he...dead?"
It's out there; I can talk about it.
"I'm so sorry, Lyra, we almost reached Jaques Station. He died in an escape pod not long after we reached Colonia — that's what it's called, now, the system that hosts Jaques Station."
I realise I'm wittering; I've never done this before and I'm nervous. I hear nothing from Lyra; her ship falls silent and cold, all systems powered down.
What to do? Let her grieve? Try to offer comfort? I'm lost for words anyway. I imagine multiplying hundredfold the sadness I felt when I found Virgil in the cargo hold of my Sidewinder. Combined with the memories of witnessing the death of my own parents, I too fall into a depression.
We both need the clichéd, but somehow uplifting, ceremonial comms that you hear from time to time. Our ships huddle in silence, undisturbed by the teeming galaxy around us.
It's Lyra who speaks first.
"Kit, I want to know everything about my father from the first day you met him. Anything you can remember: what he said, what were his moods, everything you did together."
"There's so much to tell you, but not here. Can we go to a station and find a bar. I don't normally drink but this may be the day I start."
"I know just the place, a few jumps away. No need to wait for your shields; you'll be safe in a wing with me."
*
I tell Lyra every detail of the time I spent with her father; his courage in the daring escape from the slave trader; his resilience and equanimity after he was blinded; the care he took over my basic training; and, last but not least, his determination to be reunited with his only child.
"Without him I'd be a slave; without his mentoring I would have fallen prey to numerous pirates; without him and the journey to Jaques Station I would never have become an explorer; I don't know what I'd be doing now without his influence and guidance."
Lyra has been nodding and smiling even while I speak.
"I'm glad you saw those sides of him. I suppose I was squandering his care of me, but no teenager listens to their parents. I searched for him for so long when I realised what I'd lost."
I try, cautiously, to steer the subject elsewhere; not because I'm unhappy reminiscing about Virgil, rather I'm becoming genuinely interested in Lyra herself.
"How did you happen to become an elite bounty hunter?"
Lyra pauses, and I see I've hit another nerve.
"I searched for Virgil with the help of a bounty hunter named Mayzee Lazer. I suppose she was a proxy parent. She taught me everything she knew about combat so I'd be ready when we caught up with my father's kidnappers. She died too."
"Loss is hard. My parents died when we crashed into a planet, and I've felt lost ever since; it's why I don't like coming to the bubble."
Lyra reaches across the table and rests her hand on my arm in empathy.
"It was how Mayzee would have wanted to go," Lyra continues. "The wing that killed her was assembled specifically for that purpose. She was the scourge of the pirates and was on all their KOS lists. They finally decided to put their factional fighting on one side and the wing members were the best in their fields."
"If it took a whole wing to stop her, she must have been good."
"Better than I'll ever be."
"I guess she'd taken on wings before. What was so different about this one?"
"You see," Lyra said, "outfitting a ship is always a compromise; you have to find a suitable balance of power requirements, heat generation, mass — and therefore agility and jump range; then there's shield strength, integrity, and so many other things."
I know a lot of this already, but not in the combat context, so I get what she's saying.
"So, in a wing," I say, "some of those compromises can be circumvented. It's like you're building a ship four times as big with all of the features you want."
"Exactly. You can include an agile Vulture with its 3C beams and not worry about its recharge rate because there's a sturdy tank that will keep firing. You can have a wider range of weapons, each with special effects; put them all together and you're pretty much unstoppable."
"Do you want to talk about it? I mean, it must be hard."
"It's okay; it was a terrible thing when it happened, but in the end I avenged Mayzee's death; after the wing was dissolved — when its work was done, I learned who the members were because they couldn't help bragging. One by one I hunted them down and stardusted them."
"And you've been bounty hunting ever since? It's a life so different from mine."
"Pretty much. I'm so well known to the security services that they turn a blind eye to me interdicting suspects before using the Kill Warrant Scanner on them. I'm usually going after known bad guys — which reminds me, how do you come to be flying Bonaparte's FDL? How does a novice combatant best someone like him?"
I tell Lyra my adventure with the collector limpet and how I stunned Bonaparte with an improvised flash bomb. Her jaw drops.
"You're incredibly lucky — and brave."
"I won't be trying anything like that again, for sure."
"So, if Bonaparte is on ice, let's leave him there for the moment.
*
An hour later, we are lying together sharing each other's warmth; huddling for safety and comfort like the pair of lost orphans we are. The brandy we've been drinking and two glasses are on a nearby table. I see Lyra more closely now; she reminds me of Virgil — the same eyes, the same hair; she's much more youthful than him, of course, but already looking older than the images Virgil had shown me. She's developing the time-worn, work-hardened features of a space traveller. Her skin is drier, more tanned, and starting to wrinkle.
"What will you do now, Kit?" Lyra says, a little nervously.
I hesitate for the very good reason that I don't know. Lyra sees my uncertainty.
"What is it you want? You're more than welcome to wing up with me for a spell if you want to get better at bounty hunting. That Fer-de-Lance is a fine ship; you could put it to good use."
As much as I would like to spend more time with both Lyra and the FDL, it might not be enough.
"Lyra, I keep feeling there's something missing in my life, something more that would give it meaning."
"The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted, now, voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find."
Poetry. Mostly I don't get it when I read it to myself, but when someone else intones it just right it hits the rivet on the head.
"I guess that means I'm going back to Colonia to continue my explorations."
"That sounds right for you. As for me, I might take a break from bounty hunting anyway."
"Why so?"
"There are rumours — well-substantiated rumours — that the Thargoids are making a comeback. I have a feeling that we might need all the human combat pilots we can find. Even the psychopathic serial killers like Nelson Bonaparte will have a place in the coming war."
"I want to be well gone before that kicks off."
I rise to take my leave; Lyra stands and tops up our drinks.
"Say 'Hi' to Jeeves for me when you get back to Jaques Station," she says, handing me a glass.
"Will do," I say, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
"Here's looking at you, Kit," Lyra says, clinking my glass.
This logbook entry is the latest episode in the adventures of Kit the Outlander. Other stories can be found here: https://kittheoutlander.wordpress.com/