New Beginnings
29 Apr 2021Benito Stone
As I make my third jump out from the Pilot's Federation systems I still can't believe this is for real. I expect the Imps to decend on me like winged raptors snagging some running rodent in the grass that also thinks it got away. But after each jump completes and no welcome party is found I start to believe maybe it is for real. Maybe I got a second chance here!Six weeks ago I was in a max sec cell on some prison moon in the heart of Imperial space. That bastard Imp judge 6 months ago handed down a 50 year sentence for 'piracy' like it was casual tea-time discussion. Those pretentious jackasses knew it was not piracy. At worst I smuggled some goods in here and there and picked up some hand-me-down goods after a fight. I didn't see them offering to fix my hull after the fight was done for their little pet missions. They just want to stick the whole book up my ass because my former boss pissed them off something fierce exposing something going on with their precious slaves that really rustled some jimmies when it got out. So we became 'pirates' to make sure the story didn't stick.
Anyway, I'm sitting in the cell one day and the bulls roust me up and out. They just arm-bar my stuff into a duffle bag and shove me along saying I'm transferring to a new location. I was about two more jabs in the back from taking the solitary for beating that short little Imp to death with his damn baton when I was at the door to a transport and the two guards shoved me in and chained me to the jump seat. At this point I had the strong suspicion I was about to find myself in slave trade. Nothing about this seemed right but they were passing all the radio checkpoints and were cleared out from the prison.
After three or four jumps the guards got up and pulled out vac-suits. "Oh shit", I thought "Am I going out the airlock"? After they suited up though the little one tossed one to me, unlocked the restraint and said "You are going to want to have that on. Now". I pulled the suit on completely confused by this turn of events. Nobody in my old crew was in any position to mount an escape and there was no way they could get Imp bulls to go for it. As soon as I had the suit on the little fucker pointed to the seat and said "back in". His partner was standing behind him, with hand on his sidearm so I put my desire to beat his face into the floor grate asside and sat down. The restraints snapped back in place. Seconds later the transport lurched HARD. It was coming to a stop. There were sounds of weapons fire but it all came from outside. The transport was not shooting back. Then a tremendous explosion at the rear of ship and the lights blanked out flooding the compartment with red emergency lighting. Suddenly the side of the transport peeled open like canned fish product and the instant decompression rocked my body like a bomb.
A party of three heavily armored boarders entered the ship through the breached wall before the fog even cleared. I was still trying to recover from my bell ringing in the decompression, but as I looked up the pilot and the two guards were being heaved out the breach by one of the armored men. The leader came over to my chair and tapped his helmet to mine. "Get up, hands behind your head, walk to the breach, wait there. Do not turn around, do not lower your arms or you will be shot". At that he stepped back and my restraints popped open again. I decided to do as they instructed here. No way I could do squat about these guys. They were strapped for heavy combat.
As I stopped at the breach another of the breach team pulled my arms back, flex cuffed me and then kicked me out the hole towards a... freaking Clipper. As I tumbled I caught part of the name "Fortune". "Son of a bitch" I thought. Somebody in the empire sure as hell really wants me dead. One of the crew on the clipper snagged me and hauled me up into the ship. Seconds later the breach team was back as well. I was crammed into a storage locker as some little asshole jabbed me to fill a vile with blood. "What the hell"? He tossed the vile to a boarding team member that disappeared as my door was closed. The cargo door followed moments later and the Clipper flipped and poured on the throttle but seemed to be spinning its wheels for a moment. Then the ship snapped forward like a rubber band and I hit the wall so hard I saw stars.
I'm not sure how long I was stuck in that locker but eventually a woman came and opened the door:
"Are you going to be able to work and play well with others do you think", she asked motioning to my flex cuffs.
"Are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on here", I growled back to her.
She just smiled and said "No".
"What I will tell you is that your prison transfer went terribly wrong. The transport was attacked by an unknown hostile ship. After being overwhelmed and the drives disabled the ship was breached. The occupants are presumed to have been killed or kidnapped in the attack. The attack may have been a rival reprisal against your crew as they ion torched the ship and traces of your DNA will be found but no body. Everyone knows you made some enemies among the inkies"
She paused. "Are you starting to understand"?
"So this *was* a breakout", I asked. "Then who the hell sent you because..."
She then continued over the top of me. "Yes, I see you are starting to understand. Good. So shortly we will be dropping you off with a man that will help create your new identity. You will need to follow his instructions very precisely. If at any time he informs us that he does not feel you can successfully do this then you will have a very big problem as you can not be returned any other way."
"Sweetheart", I said, just to get under this mouthy broads' skin, "I'm not the kind that gets too nervous about the boogieman coming to get me if I don't eat all my peas and carrots so spare...."
"If you fail to follow the ID specialist's instructions I can assure you the boogieman will come and place three high velocity rounds into your skull and turn you into an ion trail. Our mutual friend will not have this little bit of goodwill cost him a prison term. It's really very simple. Follow the rules given and no ugliness is required. Clear?"
Damn, she's either got some serious pull behind her or she's hell at poker. "Clear", I said.
"Wonderful", she said as she cut the cuffs and walked out. "We have 20 minutes to target, best get ready to offload", she said looking back over her shoulder. All I could think was that she sure knew how to swing that thing.
The next few weeks I was stuck in some safehouse with a little shriveled up hacker. He went through the process of inserting me into the place of someone that they knew was dead but that the Imps didn't. Never got the story on that. The hacker called himself Sam. He said he was keeping my head down while they waited to gauge the Imps reaction to the kidnapping. So far they were uninterested though some muckity muck Imp was pitching a fit over it but none of the major factions had any interest in pursuing his bitching. After a bit more watching Sam inserted me into the Pilots Federation by requesting a re-issued permit. Benito Stone. Seems that's the name I'll be living under now. Once the red-tape was cleared up I was setup with a new license and standard loan.
So here I am Benito Stone. Flying this Sidewinder shit-can out 70 light years to meet this 'mutual friend' who I apparently don't know jack about. If it means I might get to take a look at *her* walking away again, I think it'll be worth the trip though. I'm sticking to the outer systems and looks like 22 jumps to get there. Hell the cartographic data alone should help extricate me from this thing. God I hope so. Out here this has a "Please kill me, just for fun" sign painted on it.