Overconfidence
21 May 2022Shiar
The prisoner groaned and slowly sat up, his head pounding as he moved. Pausing for a moment on the sleeping pallet while he let his brain protest at being returned to consciousness. As his vision returned to its normal focus, he could make out the dim walls and corners of a grey metal holding cell. What little light that filled the area was a blessing as he was sure that anything brighter would have made his senses protest even more. And the side of his head ached terribly.There was a closed door across the cell from him and through the viewing window he could see a figure in the corridor standing against the wall with their weapon at the hang position.
“Ah yes, I’m in jail again”, the prisoner thought to himself.
“But why?” another thought came unbidden to him.
Not waiting for his sluggish memories to respond to these questions, he stood unsteadily and walked over to the holding cell’s intercom and press the button indicating he wanted to speak. He winced at the unbearably loud beep and saw the guard turn their head to him.
“Where am I?” he croaked, noting that his throat was dry and parched from a long period of unconsciousness.
“Odin’s Crag,” was the flat expressionless response from the guard. Obviously, they weren’t the conversational type.
The prisoner did not recall the name. The station or vessel was probably stationed in a little-known star system off the beaten track which gave people little incentive to visit.
With his vision improving some more, he looked around the holding cell and took in the contents. There was a sleeping pallet which he was laying on, a computer console through which he could presumably contact a lawyer or interstellar factor and a small food and medical dispenser station.
“Ah well, I’d better let my mind catch up before I call anyone.”
He moved to the supply station to dispense some water and as he drank from the bottle, he gazed at the reflection of his face in the mirror set in the wall above the dispenser unit. His left cheek and eye were deep blue and purple from bruising.
“Okay, that’s the reason for the headache.”
The prisoner was not concerned about the injury. He knew that the nanites injected into space farers like himself would speed up the body’s healing processes. But how did he get the bruises and the splitting headache?
Out of instinct, he touched the bruise on his cheek, and all the memories came flooding back.
Commander Shiar settled his Diamondback Explorer into an approach to the Shewayish’s Claim settlement after dropping out of the Supercruise glide over the bright planet. It had been an uneventful journey from Bolden’s Enterprise to the planet orbiting the binary star.
His mission today was to reactivate the settlement’s power system using the provided power regulator. Some lazy supervisors in Colonial Council had decided that the settlement needed to be making some sort of income again despite the continued attacks by pirates and scavengers and sent out a call to Shiar to complete the work. For 120,000 credits, it should be an easy job.
The planet he flew over was a small, high metal content world with a good concentration of rare mineral ores for extraction. It was enough of a concentration to make Shewayish’s Claim a viable enterprise. The planet also had an atmosphere too, but not a breathable one with two parts carbon dioxide and one part sulphur dioxide. Shiar would be wearing a helmet today on the surface today.
As he flew his ship over the desert like surface, he saw the small settlement appear in his viewing port. Just four brown/red buildings, a few shelters, and a landing pad. Shiar pulled the throttle back to a safe speed and lowered his landing gear preparing to land flying low over the buildings.
Without warning, weapons fire from the ground impacted his starship’s defense shields, eliciting a warning from his ship’s AI.
“Really? I would never have guessed,” Shiar growled as he engaged the throttles of his ship to put it out of range of the unwelcome party below.
Shiar skillfully steered his ship behind a hill that the settlement was build near and set it to hover thirty meters above the surface of the planet. Looking at the state of his regenerating shields, he figured the unfriendlies were using plasma weapons.
So… there are scavengers here. Strange that the representative from Colonia Council hadn’t mentioned them. Maybe they didn’t want to pay a bonus of eliminating these pirates from the area.
After a moment of deliberation, Shiar landed the ship, loaded up with the requisite combat gear and power regulator and started the long hike to the settlement.
“Nice day for a walk? Maybe…”
As he walked, he signalled his ship’s AI to take the ship back into orbit where it was safer. He heard the whine of the engines and the ground trembled as the Diamondback powered up and threw itself towards the sky, its engines trailing a plume of light blue.
“Maybe the scavengers will think that I have gone…”
As the settlement buildings came into view, Shiar carefully used the cover of rocky outcrops and boulders to hide behind to lessen the chance of him being discovered. He couldn’t be too slow though. His suit only had a limited oxygen and power supply, so time was of the essence to get inside the power generation building. After that, it would be a simple task to turn on the power, take out the scavengers and recall his ship and enjoy an alcoholic beverage back at Bolden’s Enterprise.
He paused every now and then, looking through his pistol’s targeting scope to see if he could make out any of the scavenger party.
“Where are they?” he said under his breath to no one in particular.
Fifty meters from the structure he had identified as the power generation building Shiar decided to make a quick run to the walls. He still couldn’t see anyone and that bothered him. Are they hiding and ready to stage an ambush? His helmet’s heads up display radar had not sensed any body movement in the area.
Shiar safely made it to the brown walls of the building and looked up. If he could get on the roof, he would have a better view of the settlement area. The gravity of the planet would make boosting to the roof a risky step, but he could see no alternative. Every moment he spent out in the open, would increase the chance of detection.
With a hiss of gas, he boosted as quickly as he could to the top of the building and hid amongst the various lockers and ventilation shafts on the top, straining to hear for sounds of discovery and pursuit.
Nothing.
Shiar peered down to the dusty vehicle trail between the power building and the mining operations building and finally spied a figure standing on guard in the centre. Their weapon was drawn, but they did not look like they were on high alert. Moving around the top of the building, he then spied another two scavengers near the settlement landing pad and while they looked more alert than the other, they weren’t actively looking for invaders.
Time was running out. His suit power was now down to fifty percent. If he stayed up on the roof, he would not have enough power to use the cutting tool to get inside the generator building. Oh, he had a spare power cell, but they were expensive to replace, and he didn’t want to cut in to too much of his profits for this job. He had to move quickly.
Shiar examined the layout of the roof of the building and determined that there were two entrances. One was too close and visible to the scavenger on guard in the middle of the road so he would have to gamble on the other one.
Slowly he made his way to the edge of the roof where he knew the sealed entrance was below. His heads-up display radar painted the targets of the scavengers as grey instead of red which was a promising sign that they had no idea he was here.
“Yep… I can do this”
Holstering his weapon, Shiar pulled out his cutting tool and nimbly jumped down to the platform. As he turned a scavenger stepped out of the shadows next to the entrance and raised the butt of her weapon, swiftly advancing on him to deliver a knockout blow.
“Awww sh…”
All things considered, it could have been worse.