Cannonball Run (Chapter four)
04 Jun 2019Sen Zaurak
The Dreadnaught sits on the landing pad 11. Sen waits for the clearance to launch. Looking out to his left he can see the ill faded ship sitting on the landing pad. A mixture of yellow, red and blue lights from emergency services flash through the smoke lifting from the wrecked ship. Sen looks over his shoulder, looking back at the now deceased pilot. Head covered by a spare helmet Sen can not help but feel remorse for the man that just took a job to deliver data . A simple corrour job and did so with such dedication he last let go of the final fiber of life to complete his mission. The man did his mission with honor. Escaping death by hunting squads of the hired pirates sent to kill him and retrieve the data he swore to protect and deliver. Looking over to his ship, the beam laser and frag cannon damage along what remains of the hull of the pilots ship tells the story of what the man survived. "He knew he was dying." Sen says to himself as he turns his gaze forward to the mailslot. Thinking of the mans courage to jump from his ship, to avoid security services and medical help to deliver this cursed data. But arriving just in time to save Kat from the large muscled thug that would have surely killed Kat to intercept the data.
But who are these pirates. What is it about this data that makes things so valuable. Sen has delivered data before and has had his fair share of retrieval agents sent to stop the data from being delivered but this! This was over the top. Why? To send active agents inside a station. To risk ships firing on another ship as it enters the dock knowing its suicide for any aggressor violating the no fire zone. Something serious is going down and now, for some reason Sen and Kat are stuck right in the center of it. Best to get out of there as soon as possible. Seconds seem like hours as Sen waits for clearance to launch his ship. Looking up at the line of ships waiting to exit the station Sen looks over his shoulder at Kat.
"You okay Kat?" Sen asks .
"What? yes, um, yes I am good." Kat responds a bit off balance from her normal confident self. Sen catches her nervous looks over at the dead pilot. Sen worries she is thinking that it could have been her. If not for him. The one that saved her. Sen knows it is playing on her mind, his irritation starts to rise to station traffic control just as he is about to open com to station services and demand clearance, the voice comes over the com system.
"Dreadnaught, CNV-301 you are clear for departure. I have placed you in priority exit. Safe travels commander, this is Station services controller Brendon standing by to see your exit clear." The radio ends with a hard static chink. The sudden expression on Sen's face as he snaps his head to look over at the window of flight control. Sens eyepiece zooming into the face at the traffic control for pad 11. The face coming into view as a digital cross reference shows a mini file of Jeff Brendon's personal file that was branded with Federation data stamps. Sen knew Jeff. They flew together during the war and he knew not only by the min file being displayed on his eye piece hud that Brendon had moved to special operations division inside the Federation that it was Sen him self that trained him in covert infiltration. The moment he saw Jeff he knew this is more serious then any normal data run.
Not saying anything to Kat, Sen hits the lat thrusters and gets the Dreadnaught up off the pad. Lifting as much as station services can allow Sen eyes up the mail slot to get to the destination of the Ferry transport as fast as possible. Kat monitoring the ships systems suddenly yells out as the ships computer system detects incoming ordnance. "We are under attack Sir!" Kats voice echoed by the ships AI. "Under attack."
Kat calling out the data reading to Sen;
"Small calabar, well not small ,, large, but not from a ship, from a ,, unknown, personal weapon maybe. Only one shot,, Went right through shields, No other rounds detected and no detectable threat!" Kat calls out.
"What are you seeing Dex?" Sen calls out to the ships AI.
"No damage detected Sir, although a foreign object has been detected by localized system radar feedback. Appears something may be logged in my landing gear." Dex, the AI voice exclaims.
Kats eyes go wide as she looks up from her console. "Oh my God. The meat head is stuck in the landing gear. Or , or,, parts of him?" Kat says clearly distraught. Sen focused on his first jump that has been plotted into the ships navigation is slightly distracted by Kats tone and words as he glances over his shoulder for only a moment. He can not help but smirk to Kats sudden mental images as he pushes the throttle forward as far as it will go. Thrusting though the mail slot , past the incoming and outgoing ships and breaking free from mass lock faster then station services can radio in the clear. Dex starts to countdown the first jump.
"Five"
"four"
"three"
"two"
"one"
The dreadnaught jumps leaving nothing but a green plasma haze in the deep cold of space as it sets off to the mega ship to go to Guardian space. Friends and possible foes not far behind.