THE ADVENTUROUS LIFE OF A LOUSY COWBOY, ISSUE #2
30 May 2016Mike Syron
[ Back to ISSUE #1 ]Present, somewhere in space
“I can’t breath, I can’t breath, I can’t …“ Mike gasped.
Tumbling stars, circling uncontrolled around his head, endless darkness between them. Fast moving debris all around. Way to fast, it all happened way to fast. Burning heat, biting coldness, switching like being two sides of the same. The distant, whispering voice of a computer, saying: „Oxygen at eighty-nine percent. Energy at ninety-five percent.“
„I can’t … breath. Please … help …“
„Detecting abnormal pulse and breathing speeds, caused by high stress level. Suggestion: enrich breathing air with tranquilizers.“
„I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die! - HELP! PLEASE! SOMEBODY! - ANYBODY! … I don’t wanna die. Not yet! NOT YET!“
„Pilot is not responding properly. Initiating emergency protocol, injecting tranquilizers into air.“
„My ship … my fucking ship …“ Mike tried to grab some of the debris, moving his four limbs erratically. „I just put a new reactor into it! God damn! This can’t be true! … Oh, fuck … I … I’m lost … I’m gonna die! Fuuu-uuck!“
The uncanny face of an entire gas giant swooshed through his view field; nightmarish, alien, hostile, making him feel like some tiny amoeba between unimaginable big, arbitrary forces of death. Then the drugs began to have an effect, causing an ice cold feeling in Mike’s breast as a temporary side effect. It hit him like a punch, he stopped breathing.
„So … this is it. This was … was my life. - Pa, you were right. You were right all along. - I feel sorry. I … I just tried - you know - I ever just tried to be … somebody else. Don’t get me wrong, old man. Please. I just wanted to be not you. I love you. But … I thought this couldn’t be all … - all I wanted to be in my entire fucking life … for only a single lousy time … is to be some hero for someone else. To do the right thing just when it’s needed. - Only a fucking single time … damn you, Mike … you stupid piece of shit …“
The gas giant appeared again, relentlessly pulling him nearer. The distant stars were watching him dying, indifferently, but somehow fascinated like cats playing with a hapless insect. Mike suddenly heart the voice of an old boyhood friend of him, Jared, when they both found themselves at the fork which disjoined their lives:
„Space was never meant to be conquered by humans, Mike. It’s vast, it’s deadly and it’s mainly completely empty. Ninety-nine percent of the whole universe is just empty space. What are you seeking out there you can’t find here just in front of you?“
A different life, Mike thought before he fell asleep. The suit computer put him into a deep, energy saving coma and activated the distress signal sender. It could calculate the chance of being found now but it didn’t, it was not programmed to do so, it will just do its job until the batteries went dead. It was the last best friend Mike got left at this very moment.
A few days earlier, BD-13 2439, Abbot Survey
Mike was walking through a pressurized gang way with Lambert, a new friend he just found recently. His destination was his Viper which was sitting on dock 3. The air supply made a lot of noise, barely handling the pressure around 0.8 bar, its oxygen-nitrogen mixture smelled of ozone, clogged filters and oiled steel. Obviously it had trouble compensating dozens of micro leaks, both men tried to ignore the piercing pain in their ears.
„Who’s this fellow?“ Mike asked Lambert, looking at the PDA he gave him. The smudgy holo-display showed the somewhat dented face of a man who clearly was not interested in the finesses of diplomacy, his staring eyes seem to punch holes into the invisible guy who took the picture. It must be obtained from some list of registered criminals, he assumed, the name “Duncan ‘Pyro’ Caldwell” was written on the lower left corner with a long number and a date.
“None of your business, I’ll take care of that turd myself – someday. He’s got some buddies around him and would eat your balls for breakfast. – Wait a sec.” Lambert tipped onto the display, changing its content. “This. Feed your PDA with that data, you’ll have to visit three locations: Santal, LTT forty-one thirty-one, and a system with this funny name Thraskias, which is filled with tourists, pissed off service employees and bored-to-death round trip skippers. It should be quite safe there.”
“Uhm … and what I’ll be doing there? Get some rest and recreation?”
“Let’s proceed in sequential order. In Santal there’s only one little outpost, Choral Legacy. Dock there, find a guy named Dudley and kick his ass until he feels assured it’s okay to hand out the cargo of mine to you, accepting the data key I gave you. - I’d like to do it myself but look, as I told you, my wife … - Yes, it is my cargo, but you’ll find out that this dirty rat demands a little fee. The ass-kicking part starts when he tries to make a fool out of you. Everything above a thousand creds will indicate that.”
Mike sighed. “So I’m your delivery boy – alright. At LTT forty-something I’ll give that cargo to whom? To another fellow with bad habits?”
“No. There’s somebody waiting for you and two other wings at Fox Orbital. Her name is Myung-Dae, she will be flying a Keelback named Rociante, that needs protection. You’ll jump with her to Thraskias. She asked me to find someone reliable … - not that she’s awaiting much of trouble but she needs a few guns at her side who can convince any disturbance to better let go. She’s got guns herself, shields and heavy armor. Make sure you use it to your own advantage - if necessary.“
Lambert bite his lips for a moment. „I’ll be honest - Chances are high that nobody cares about you all and that you’ll make it in no time. Myung-Dae is clean as it gets, no records, just like you. And it’s nothing that you can get arrested for. But …“
„But?“ Mike exhaled the air. „What cargo is it? Three wings? Heavily armed? Who’s interested in it? Gimme some info at least. I don’t want to die being clueless about who killed me.“
Lambert gave him a uncertain glance. „Fanatics. Guys whose actions are hard to predict. But they aren’t well prepared, they got no experience and are using outdated small fighters. They won’t be much of a problem for a decent pilot.“
„Fair enough, sounds like fun.“ Mike replied without irony and instructed the PDA to sync with his own in his pocket. Then he gave it back to Lambert.
This one grabbed his shoulder. „Mike, I don’t really know you. I was just hoping to find someone who could help me out. Are you that man?“
„Name’s Mike, I like Indian food and I got kilos because of it. Echo out.“ Mike rubbed his eyes, taking a deep breath. „I did take worse jobs before. As long as you aren’t mocking me up, I’ll do my best. But if you do I’ll come back …“
Lambert showed a crooked grin. „And kick my ass. I’m expecting nothing less. - Hey, if this is done, we’ll get another drink, okay? That cargo from Santal, I need it here where I’ll pay you well too after you came back.“
They reached the bulkhead that was leading to Mike’s Viper.
„Take care, fly save.“ Mike took the handshake, Lambert was offering him. But in this moment he saw some serious concern in the eyes of his client, something that doesn’t seem to fit in. Like a well hidden weakness. He groaned inwardly, knowing this kind of glance himself all to well. His father had had it, he himself had it. It was the glance of someone whose life depended on the trustworthiness of someone else. Here, in systems that consisted only of dead rocks and gas giants, where a lot of people never touched the ground of an earth-like planet and were working in mines or for big industrial companies, you’ve got nothing much left than people you have to trust.
Lambert was about to go but Mike said: „We’ll have another drink, buddy. It will go well for us. - If I learned something than to handle morons, heh.“
„Yeah, this you showed me already.“ Lambert answered waving his hand.
Later, arriving at LTT-4131 A
Some just liked the view, some became even religious, while for others it was an unholy no man’s land. For most the hyperspace was an unexplainable mystery, with its own alien rules, an abyss that could lead to nowhere and everywhere. Many felt that something bizarr was going in there, utterly foreign by its nature and potentially threatening. But for Mike it was just some strange tunnel that connected A with B, the only thing he could never get used to was the re-entrance into Einstein’s space. - Bam! Giant, hostile fireball, like gods own sledgehammer! A colossal on-going thermo nuclear blast beyond any imagination, with two elementary forces fighting a battle of such terrible magnitude that its massive energy expulsion could vaporize everything near it in seconds, including whole planets - or which could also let grow a tiny little blossom on a small wet rock million miles away.
It took a while till the adrenalin shock faded, Mike used the first minute to calm himself down by checking all systems. Everything was working and still in its place, the scanner showed a few stellar objects in range and a few ships. LTT-4131 was one of those bizarrely huge systems with three full sized stars and a lot of planets and gas giants, but fortunately Fox Orbital were only about 700 light-seconds away from the re-entry point, orbiting the fourth planet of 4131-B, a close red star. Mike set course and the frame shift drive mumbled distinctly as it crunched space-time to push the ship beyond the virtual light speed barrier. The giant fireball, destroyer and creator of all life, lost its impressive size pretty fast, becoming a mere light bulb far away in the process.
Time for a beer, Mike thought and grabbed a can from the cool box on his right side. It were just moments like this where he felt close to his own nirvana, between the place he came from and the place he will be shortly. But then the scanner noticed a tight congeries of ships near the fourth planet’s orbit, around two hundred thousand miles away from his destination.
Not good. Mike instructed the computer to analyze the particular area and in a matter of seconds it responded with „Approximate thirty vessels detected, energy signatures indicate high chances of heavy weapon fire.“
„Check nav beacon for more info.“ He ordered. The ship’s computer sent a request for further info, the beacon answered immediately. With its inimitable indifferent voice, including that razor sharp accent, the computer told him:
„Five conflict zones are reported in total, a civil war between the People’s Resistance of LTT, the LTT Allied Industry and Natural LTT Defence Party is taking place right now. Avoiding these zones is explicitly advised. If you are not forced to visit the local stations soon, leave the system immediately.“
That sounded to Mike pretty much like "Grab your shit and bugger off asap, you dumb moron!"
„Fuck!" He cursed. "Lambert, you son of a … - God damn! I should have known it, there’s always a catch, every fucking time! Computer: gimme that asshole Lambert! - I mean, establish a comm channel to BD thirteen, Abbot Survey. - NOW!“
„No interstellar comm relays found, they are either non-existent, not in range or not online. Establishing comm channels outside the current system is not possible at this time.“
„Now, that's awesome!“ Mike roared, beating the console with his fist. „For how long is the war going on already, computer? Are they to busy and to tired enough already to care about some asshole who tries to reach the outpost?“
„I cannot answer this questions, Commander. No further information is available.“
At times like this Mike was thinking intensely about switching the board computer, at least its voice module. Some genius at deLacy must have thought it would be a great idea to take the voice of some elitist imperial female officer and make it the standard voice.
To be continued …