ambush
01 Feb 2021Daniel Saint
Daniel Saint gazed at the smoldering heap of metal that had been his frame shift drive. Felicity would be disappointed to see her hard work in such bad shape. He imagined her frowning face as she chastised him for being so careless. “You’re lucky this thing made it here at all.” The station mechanic spat a stream of tobacco. “Just a few hundred more light-seconds and you’d be here to rebuy, not repair.” “If not dead in a cockpit with no canopy.” Saint muttered, eyeing the shattered glass of the cockpit. “But she’s never let me down before.” He patted his beloved Type-9, the Holy Roller, on her hull fondly. “Though I gotta admit, I’ve never let her get damaged this badly before. She’s probably not too pleased with me at the moment.”o7 o7 o7
It had been a devious attack. A pirate wing comprised of four fully engineered Fer De Lance fighters had jumped him as he was preparing to jump to the next system in his route.
It was just the one at first, and Daniel had never had a problem evading pirates before. He set his power distributor with four pips to shields and two to engines before firing his chaff launcher and spinning up a heat sync. Business as usual. Tank the damage with his prismatic shield generator while waiting for the FSD to cool down, then jump to the next system. Keeping his heat signature low and firing chaffs when possible usually allowed plenty of time to high wake out of trouble.
Another ship appeared on the radar, hardpoints deployed. No big surprise there; Daniel had run into pairs before and never had issues. His shields would be low by the time he escaped but they would recharge eventually. A third pirate vessel dropped in, followed quickly by a fourth. “Shields offline” the robotic cockpit voice warned. No worries, Daniel thought, the cooldown’s almost complete. “Shit!” Just as the FSD came back online a slug from a rail gun ripped through the critical module. He furiously punched the jump button to no avail. “Module malfunctioned” came the voice again. He was trapped in the instance with four pirates trailing him menacingly. A transmission came through the local channel “Drop all of your cargo and you’ll be free to go”. Daniel quickly thought through his options. He could just drop the cargo and be on his way. This was however no ordinary cargo. It was a shipment of food and survival equipment for a settlement in desperate need of aid. Besides, CMDR Daniel Saint had never lost a shipment before, and he didn’t intend to start now. There was also the fact that he knew who these pirates were. They belonged to the Lactonacaya Brothers, a powerful crime family. Saint had killed many of them as a bounty hunter for the Artemis Corporation. There was a high probability that they didn’t intend to let him leave here alive.
That led to the second option: pray that the FSD came back online and he could get the hell out of dodge before they destroyed his ship. The Holy Roller wasn’t equipped with any weapons. With the internals being dedicated almost solely to cargo space he wouldn’t stand a chance in combat anyway. But Saint was no stranger to dogfights; he could outmaneuver all but the most experienced of opponents. Pirates did not usually fall into that category since they chose to prey on weak targets. Daniel took a deep breath as he made his decision. “Hold on baby, this is gonna get rough.” He punched the boost and threw the throttle to full forward thrust. As the large vessel lurched forward, he disengaged the flight assist which kept his vector where the nose of the craft was pointed and ripped the control stick backward. The hull groaned in protest at the abrupt maneuver, but it did a quick 180 regardless. Saint could see the pirates now through the large glass canopy characteristic of Lakon-made Ships. He boosted once more, simultaneously turning flight assist back on to stabilize his trajectory. The Holy Roller rocketed towards the surprised criminals, blasting past them before they knew what had happened.
Daniel tried to engage his FSD once more. “Module malfunctioned”. The blackness around him lit up with weapons fire as his pursuers had also turned around and now had him in their sights again. “Hull integrity at fifty percent”. “Come on, come on, just hold together a little longer”. The hulking vessel twisted and banked through space as nimbly as it was able, narrowly avoiding slugs from rail guns and plasma accelerators. If they managed to hit the FSD again Daniel was a goner. Another panicked slap of the button. Still no luck. “Module malfunctioned”. No more chaff to throw off the gimballed weapons’ tracking abilities. All of a sudden there was an ear shattering explosion, followed by a rush of air as the canopy burst into a million pieces. As the emergency life support kicked in Daniel threw a prayer to the universe and attempted once more to engage the damaged FSD. “Frameshift Drive Charging”. Daniel had never heard more beautiful words in his life! “4, 3, 2, 1, engage”.
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“Those scum really did a number on that thing didn’t they?” Daniel turned around to see who had spoken. An older gentleman in a subdued black coat with red trim approached him, followed by an entourage of slaves and colleagues. “They did indeed. I normally don’t run into this much trouble, but I think they were hunting for more than just my cargo,” Daniel said wryly. The man frowned. “That is indeed troubling. I’m so sorry it happened to you, but I am glad that we were able to provide a safe haven for you in your time of need. Welcome to Matthews Dock. I am Count Parsius Clavicus. I represent the Dukes of Kapachaka. This is our station.” “Pleased to meet you Count.” Daniel offered a slight bow of courtesy. Parsius surveyed the damaged ship once more. “It appears you will be staying with us for an extended period of time while you await repairs to your vessel.” “Seems that way,” Daniel grunted. His lack of love for small talk and politicians was causing this exchange to irk him. “Well then as an apology for the sorry state of security in this area as of late I hope you will accept a place to stay in my state house,” Parsius said in a way that made it obvious that he expected a yes. Daniel hesitated. “You will not want for anything while you are here. I’ll even pay for your ship’s repairs. Please, I insist”. The Count spread his arms welcomingly. “I would be honored,” Saint agreed, barely hiding the reluctance in his voice.
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