The Pegasai Saga Part V
06 Aug 2016Jellicoe
"Incoming call." The computer woke me. We were on Sladek station in Nuen having twenty four hours downtime and there was no reason for anyone to contact me. Unless something was wrong. "Do you wish to take the call?""Put it through." I answered between yawns as my semi conscious mind frantically ran through possibilities of things that could have gone wrong.
"What the fuck has that little prick Darrin cut my shipment with?" It as Rattigan, the man to whom we had just delivered seventeen tons of coffee. "Or is it you you wanker trying to skim some off the top? I've got punters dropping already and it's only been on the streets a couple of hours. What the fuck are you twats trying to pull?"
"What are you talking about?" I answered groggily, still coming round.
"The delivery you made you docile bastard, what the fuck is it cut with?"
"Hold up it was coffee, has something got into it?"
"Fucking coffee? You didn't believe that shit did you? That shipment was thirteen tons of Leestian pure and it's killing my fucking customers. Tell that little shit Darrin I don't care who his fucking uncle is if he fucks me about like this again I'll cut his fuckin cock off and make him fuckin eat it, and if it's you you prick I'll make you fucking scream." The link was abruptly severed and I slumped back onto my bed as the realisation of what this meant sunk in, I had been duped into smuggling drugs into the station and because of that people were dying. My anger began to rise, if I got out of this I would put a laser blast through Darrin's eyes.
"Computer sent a priority one message to all crew, message reads 'all crew report back to the ship within ten standard minutes, we leave in thirty..'" Fortunately the crew were either still on board or very close by because twenty minutes later Rattigan and twenty seven of his tattooed, gun toting men walked onto our pad apparently 'ignored' by the local police.
"Jellicoe you bastard those pods ere tampered with in transit. You tried to fucking rob me and I'm going to take it out of your fucking arse." five of Rattigan's men ran towards our entry ramp while the others gave covering fire. The two marines on guard returned fire rather more accurately dropping two of the pirates.
"Get that ramp up now!" I yelled climbing into the pilots chair. "and everyone get strapped in, we're leaving now." I flicked on the external camera and saw a fierce gun battle raging on the pad as the entry ramp agonisingly slowly rose, the marines had been joined by three crewmen and between them they had put enough fire down to stop us being overwhelmed and take a heavy toll on the attackers who had no cover and had been expecting no trouble. That failure to board us meant they were all dead men, as soon as the ramp closed I fired the engines cascading super heated plasma into the space the gun battle had been taking place. As soon as we were off the pad I boosted hard for the mail slot.
"De Lacey Juliet Echo Lima you do not have launch permission, return to your pad immediately." Traffic control demanded.
"Hold tight everyone." I yelled unnecessarily and boosted again.
"De Lacey Juliet Echo Lima stand down immediately, deadly force is authorized." I had all available power going to the engines, our only hope was to clear the stations mass lock and jump before its guns could scatter us across the cosmos. We were through the slot now and I boosted again.
"De Lacey Juliet Echo Lima this is your last warning." We were nearly clear and I hit the boost yet again. Our shields began to flicker as a wing of police Vipers dived to attack, it would only be seconds now before the station opened fire. We cleared the mass lock and I punched the jump drive.
"Frame shift drive charging." The computer trilled and the bars began to slowly rise. The station fired; we wouldn't last long now but we might survive just long enough to make the jumps. Our shields collapsed and Vik frantically blew a cell bank then another but they barely seemed to slow the rate the shields fell and once our shields were gone our hull would only last seconds. I watched the progress bar and prayed.
"Four... three... two... one... engage." the computer counted down before we were hurled into witch space. I exhaled with relief as the realisation dawned that we were still alive.
"Shields at 3%." Vik announced from my right unable to keep the relief from his voice.
"A miss by an inch is as good as a mile." I replied hoping I sounded calmer than I felt. "Vik, Claude and Mr Soames to the briefing room please."