Lost and alone
21 Dec 2020Teafox
How the hell did I never think to agree some place to meet up if we got separated?I should be pissed off at a hell of a lot of things right now, but right now I just can't believe how stupid I was. "Hey, if some weird crap goes down, lets meet up here!" or "If anything happens to me, call Morgan, he'll know what to do.".
Right now I'm scared I've lost the kid. Hell, he could be dead, actually dead and I'd never find a trace of him.
It seems that a few things were confirmed over the past few... Well, it must have been hours, I guess.
Yes, the federal military is way beyond pissed at me right now and yes, this is all being dealt with by one of their covert branches. Yes, they have at least partial control over where your imprint pattern gets restored, which means that they must be able to pull strings at Remlok, but that's not the only organization they have in their pocket.
We had been doing pretty well for ourselves, I'm used to ice mining, but mining rocky belts isn't so different once you get used to what you're looking for. We had gotten a little lazy though, Holo had some good spots for minerals and isn't too far from places that are willing to pay for them too. We had been prepared for ambushes and attacks. Stronger shields, point defenses, chaff and heat sinks, everything a ship needs to high wake under fire. It seemed we were more fortunate than some others in the area.
Jumped into the system, set our course for another run, and then a message came in from the Pilot's Federation. Another commander had been attacked and was on a remlok ride. Pick up jobs used to be routine back in the day, but now that I think back to it, this is the first one I've been called out on in years. It wasn't out of our way at all, and there are stations in the Holo system. Much nicer to get a ride to safety than to wait for the O2 to run dry, asphyxiate and then have to have therapy to get over the trauma of remembering what it's like to die from lack of air.
The kid's a dab hand with the cargo scoop with rocks too, figured this'd be a bit of fun for him whilst I'd be on hand in the cargo bay to see if our soon to be passenger was okay.
Sure enough, white suit, friendly, relieved face and a hand gladly reached out through the cargo hatch. I grabbed it with both of mine, hauled him in and steadied him on his feet. I felt the tap of something hard under the chin plate of my helmet and a moment like I had an entire week's worth of migrane in a split second....
And the next thing I remember was waking up in an imprint facility. Only, this one wasn't plush and comfortable like the Pilots guild uses. This was a military facility.
Getting interrogated sucks, but it could have sucked worse if it weren't for my past service history with the feds. I'm no tough guy and I'm not stupid enough to try to play dumb. They asked questions, I answered. I told them what I knew, what we had done. They didn't bother asking much more than that. When told to report, the interrogator mentioned that it had been a waste of sedatives and monitoring equipment.
The debriefing was short and to the point. Their agent had commandeered the ship, flushed the FSD fuel tank and had set course to rendezvous with a carrier that was jumping in. He hadn't made the rendezvous and the ship and the boy had gone missing some hours ago. The agent was currently heavily sedated in an imprint centre, apparently having 'gotten careless'. The federal committee overseeing the project had agreed that as I had no real evidence of the project I would be safe to be released. No ships had come from in system to refuel at the star, or docked at any known station or carrier in system. The fuel rats hadn't logged a call either, so they were satisfied that the kid had run out of fuel and died. I asked if they wouldn't just revive his imprint. The officer seemed to consider for a moment and then shrugged before informing me that his imprint had been scrubbed almost as soon as I had requested it, with the kid's death, the project was now considered closed.
They made me wait another hour before I was marched down to the landing bay, shoved into as basic a sidewinder as you ever did see, and practically shoved out of the station.
I made a beeline for the nearest station, traded up for the first ship I could find with a semi decent jump range and ran for Rutherford. It'd be quicker than getting a ship delivered out here.
The Vagrant's tale is still rigged for mining, but that's just fine, I didn't need much fuel to get here.
And so here I am in Holo. The locals say that the feds were combing one of the ice rings but gave up a few hours back.
Some of the local belters have agreed to help me search for anything out of the ordinary that the feds might have missed.
Three ships have already given up looking. Any planetary ring is a massive area to search. I know where I would hide in the ring if I were him and expected me to be looking, I just hope he might have had the same idea and that somehow he's found fuel. We've had a few fuel rats looking too, they're professionals at this kind of thing, but they couldn't stay long before being called away to another emergency.
I push the thoughts of a funeral to the back of my mind. No distractions, just looking. That's what he'd be doing in my place.