Ties that Bind 3: Castaway
10 Oct 2017Tarm Wallunga
9th October, 3303I’m back.
Kind of, anyway. It’s been a damn long time since I updated anything here. Trying to survive on a desolate rock in literally the middle of nowhere tends to complicate matters. Makes one go dark for a while. And baby – I’m dark as shit.
I’ve had time now to put things together – literally, even. Pieced a few things together over the last few months that are starting to make more and more sense. Not to mention putting Wayfarer back together.
Yeah. They got me. Got me real good.
They caught me about four or five jumps out on the far side of the Core. I hadn’t even really hidden the fact that I would be passing through Sag A* on my way back home from Beagle Point. So, it’s no real surprise now that put just a wee bit of thought into it. At first, it was just one ship that barely pinged my sensors when I scanned the whole system on first arrival. Almost didn’t notice, truth be told, sitting there some two thousand light-seconds from the local star. I was just getting ready to turn towards that lone ship when it blinked out, and without a wake scan kit, I had no way to figure out where he – or she – was headed. So, I just continued on my way.
Two jumps later, three of them were waiting for me. My only saving grace was that they were spread out around the local sun; simple geometry prevented them from converging on me right away. Not knowing exactly where I would be coming from when I arrived – if I even hit that system, I suppose – they were scattered. Only one was close enough to see me when I popped in, and he was close enough for me to see him right away.
Wayfarer ain’t a combat ship – couple multi-cannons and just enough shields to cushion a hard landing on a moderately high-gravity world, really – so when the frameshift interdictor entangled me, I only had one option: submit. Common smuggler trick, that one, though. Submit and you can regain control of your ship much faster than losing to the quantum tug-o’-war. Part two of that submit trick? Boost, boost and go! Turn nose to nose and go as
fast as you can while the FSD cycles out of safe mode.
My guns might have chipped his paint, at best, as I screamed by him – flipping the obligatory and age-old bird, of course. Thought I was clear – FSD was already spooling back up. It almost worked, but for that damn missile…
One of the other two must have cleared the local sun’s radius far enough to join the party and take the long shot. Incredible accuracy or just plain blind luck, that missile hit. Hard. I limped as witchspace engulfed me, and then spat me back out at the next star, warnings and sirens blaring at me the whole while. I didn’t even bother scanning that system, just keyed up the next jump. It took three more jumps before the FSD shit the bed, but I had options for a hidey hole, at least. Half a dozen gas giants and all their attendant moons; somehow, I managed to put Wayfarer down without snapping her spine. How I did it, I don’t know, but it sure wasn’t pretty, whatever it was.
What followed was weeks and weeks of roaming around in the SRV to gather enough materials to fabricate enough parts with the synthesizer’s 3D printer, then fold those parts into a larger collection, just to strap that collection in with another collection and, essentially, rebuild the FSD housing and control runs. Painstaking work doesn’t even begin to accurately describe the process, and all the while breathing the same shit-stink recycled air and drinking piss stale recycled water. All the while keeping my little peashooter pistol within reach and one eyeball on the horizon.
All the while slowly losing my shit.
Who attacked me? Why? To what end would someone fly all the fucking way out here just to off me? So many questions and only a few answers that, really, were little more than half-ass guesses.
Boredom makes you do stupid shit. One night near the end I had taken on the habit of watching the scratchy video of what the gun cameras had caught when I got jumped. At first, I was just enticed by the steady bead of sparks my bullets stitched across that ship’s hull. After a while of watching the same fifteen or twenty second clip over and over, it became just another way to pass the time while the synthesizer spat out another part. But then I saw it, clear as shit day, and all I could wonder was why I hadn’t seen it before? How did I miss it??
It was the triple triangle and diamond logo of none other than the Wallunga Corporation, black and gold, stitched onto the pilot’s chest, illuminated only because of how close to the sun we were.
Days ticked by and my head was spinning. Just what in the hell was dear old’ dad’s endgame? I started to look at what facts I did know, or at least the ones where I felt reasonably sure I could believe to be true.
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1.) Minimal response to my reports en-route to, and after departing, Colonia.
2.) Mom dies, supposed because of “natural causes”, which is bullshit. Natural causes just mean the doctors can’t point out the specific real reason, and so they use that catchall term instead to give the survivors peace of mind.
3.) Hermes contacts me out of the blue with some cryptic notes suggesting mom’s death wasn’t what the reports were saying it was.
4.) Unable to get a hold of anyone other than sporadic bursts with Hermes, and after a day or two, even that is lost. My name is a bad taste in their mouth suddenly.
5.) People jump me, presumably employed by WallCorp. Could be a false flag thing, though, but I don’t know. And they fucked up. First by attack me, secondly because they failed. And they were just sloppy. Reason enough for them to die, if you ask me.
I got more questions than I do answers, and that is never good. So now I got a new flight plan and I don’t care who figures it out. First, I’m flying straight into Deciat, get the payout from all my galactic wanderings.
Then I’m going home: Sol, Earth. Wallunga Tower. And I’m gonna put a boot in dad’s face and get some goddamn answers.
Then I’m burning that fucking tower down.