Earthdog and the Kattz in Space - A Story of Megaship Mayhem
04 Mar 2018Monolith Preacher
“So what's the plan?”Soltus, the leader of The Forgotten, was getting antsy. It had been a week since Preacher had sent out an encrypted message to the Pegasi Sector Commonwealth and their associates about his plan to engage in what he had entitled “Megaship Mayhem”. Whilst billed as something of a social event with some friendly sparring to take place afterwards, in reality it was going to be a massive crime spree. Stating in Imuitli, multiple wings were going to engage the Riker Class Prison Ship there to hack and smuggle what they could and try to get away before the cops showed up. Whilst pyrating from a megaship would incur a bounty and an automatic call to the system authorities as soon as the first hatch breaker hit, the amount was a paltry sum compared to the possibility of finding platinum, slaves, diamonds...anything could be in those holds. And hacking didn't even incur a fine if you managed to avoid detection.
The timing had been somewhat off from the beginning. Planetary denizens think that co-ordinating a worldwide event is hard due to time zones. Imagine what it's like when there's a whole galaxy's worth of time dilation to factor in. And that's before the encryption keys get lost, typos creep into transmissions making people think the system doesn't exist, and people's own schedules get in the way. There were a few well-wishing folks who wished they could turn up but had to keep up appearances, and there were a few people who merely didn't get the memo. A few replies turned up with rather cryptic speech alluding to “our arrangements being of greater importance” being tattooed upon slaves sent directly to Preacher's base of operations in Smith port who themselves could do nothing but babble the eldritch signature of the group like a mantra: “May secrets guide you, may shadows hide you”.
Regardless of all the layers of secrecy necessary to such an endeavour, some of the reasons were far more prosaic. Victor Laius was nursing a hangover. Many of the PSC were busy fighting unknown factors in a war for the control of one of their newer member's home system, and some folks were nearer the core than the bubble. Still, two wings were better than none, and one of The Forgotten's veterans had already engaged in Megaship shenanigans so she was able to give her wing the skinny on how to approach it. Preacher had already hit a few Megaships and installations, as after hearing the stories of a “Pirate Lord Luca” in the bubble who had no connection to the Kumo Crew he couldn't help but visit and demand tribute. When said tribute was not forthcoming, he did what needed to be done before scanning the data points to find out the story of their rather small unit's predicament on the way out.
So after a week's worth of preparation, two wings of the PSC were waiting on their members to all show up. Whilst it's nice to think of a formation neatly jumping from system to system the whole way to a sortie, the reality of the situation is that jump ranges can vary even when people are flying the same ships, and this is rarely the case. Preacher had bought the new Chieftain and outfitted it specifically for hit-and-run stealth missions such as this. Equipped with recon, hatch breaker, and collector limpets whilst still having room for cargo had eliminated the space for a shield generator, but he decided that he'd be silent running for the whole endeavour anyway so the merely fitted a few hull reinforcements to her and filled the utility slots with engineered heat sinks. He'd lovingly named it “Apache”, after an ancestor of his who served on a ship called “Stalker” before the Zone even existed which had an Apache on its crest.
“ Twelve shots...this time I've got twelve shots” he muttered to himself as he span his butterfly knives in increasingly complex ways.
“What's that, boss?” a voice came through between sniffs on his ship's wing chat channel.
“Nothing, Kattz. Just reminiscing on the days you didn't have to go to an engineer to have three shots on your heat sinks. Stealth railgun gank squads put pay to that about a year or so ago, and the Pilot's Federation used their databse to round up anyone who tried to scurry them away.”
Kattz was a new recruit. One of a few people who were gradually replacing the old guard of Black Omega, all of whom had now moved on to other pastures whilst some kept up a vestige of their old allegiances by chipping in an hour or two to the cause when they could. Jaquel and Victor jokingly called them “part timers”, but in reality it had been a hard few months changing over personnel, and they still needed to reinstate their Capo system to really get control of their systems again. Kattz was, however, proving quite promising. His name was something of a misnomer. As opposed to the amount of humans pretending to be those humanoid alien races which long since left the bubble for other galaxies, his name was an allusion to his time served in the Alliance military. Whilst not as well-known or well-respected as the Imperial or Federal militaries, they actually outnumber each of them by a fair amount, and Mahon is quick to mention that the presence of force is often a better deterrent than it's use. Within the military, the role of caterers and ration suppliers are so closely linked that they often are referred to as “cats and rats”. Whilst the civilian population may well assume these are non-combat roles, the fact is that they have to do the food after they do the killing, and Alliance law even forbids them from using the blood of their enemies to make broth. Suffice to say that he and Preacher both knew how to handle a knife, although Kattz had a more utilitarian view of the process than Jaquel's old friend Ouberos did. His sniffles were apparently from an ongoing cold, but considering he'd had them since he joined, Preacher wondered if he might want to talk to him about where to source things in Deggie's to make his life easier.
As The Forgotten's wing filtered through the letterbox of Harris Station, Jake began briefing his wing on the plan which had been agreed upon. Each wing would make their own way to the prison ship, and whomever got there first would wait a distance not closer than 15km away for the other wing to appear. Then both wings would go in, scan the ship for access points, and engage silent running. One member of each wing would be on hacking duty. For Black Omega, that was the Preacher himself. Having a single thing to do would help him co-ordinate the rest of his wing as they got involved with the cargo bays. He also still had a rather firm tradition of not being scanned. He had been testing out the new “take your pick” method his clients were offering during his “space cowboy tours” and had been scanned docking at a planetary landing by an overly fastidious sidewinder. It had been over a year since he had last been scanned, and he wanted to make sure it was at least another year before he got scanned again. He had a reputation to uphold as the greatest smuggler in the galaxy, and any slip in his abilities would serve to shake up his clientele and more importantly to him, make them question his merit. Suffice to say death was too simple a reward for the sidey pilot, and he would live to regret what he did for a long time.
Once the ship was cut open, they would have about four minutes before the cops arrived. More than enough time to let their limpets fill their holds and get away. Preacher jokingly said that he'd give bonus points to anyone who smuggled the goods back into Harris Station, and he wondered if anyone had checked their black market contacts to find out that there wasn't anywhere to sell them if they did re-dock. Perhaps this was something of a sadistic trick, but he liked to keep people on their toes. All things being well, their next stop would be a bigger haul: a Dionysus Class Agricultural Vessel in Nyx. Once this was done, a bit of friendly dogfighting in a nearby asteroid belt in the middle of nowhere would be a great way to celebrate, and Preach was sure that they'd've made enough to cover their rebuy costs after two hauls.
Earthdog flew his way into the station with his AspX. Whilst he had recently bought an Apache of his own, he didn't want to fly it all the way there and neither did he want to spend the money to transfer it. Preach had ordered his in a few days ago to be sure it made it, but he understood that Earthdog preferred to fly his own ships wherever he went. Being from Sol was something of a novelty in modern society, and they were often given the slang term of “homelies” or “earthers”. The latter was certainly a fitting term for Earthdog. He'd been exiled from Sol entirely by the Federation for what they termed as “aggressive ecology”. What that meant was that he'd been using his position as a respected grav-bike gang leader to engage in terrorist activities against any and all attempts by the Federal “big wigs” as he called them to drain Earth's natural resources. He was still technically on his probation period, and was finding ways to gain federal reputation with false credentials in the hopes he could one day revisit his home under an assumed name. The fervour at which he made his tirade against “deep earth frakking”, a process wherein the Federation was drilling to the core of the planet to harness the core's lava currents in ways Preacher didn't fully understand showed him that to this grizzled greying fellow with the vigour of someone half his age, ecology was something he would gladly send wave after wave of his own men to certain death to protect. And that sounded just like the kind of person Jake wanted aboard. He was vaguely worried that he might end up at the head of his biker gang when they charged into their final battle like The Wild Hunt of legend awaiting entrance to Valhalla, but he wasn't one to get in the way of a man's destiny unless it contravened his own.
He was stirred from his musings as Soltus chirped in over the comms. “OK, everyone's here, we're going in”. The game was afoot. Earthdog still had to refuel before he left, and he had just realised that he meant to bring a shield generator along as he felt naked without one, but Preach reassured him they would be fine and Black Omega followed The Forgotten out of supercruise and into range of the Riker Class ship. They say the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and this was no exception. One of The forgotten had an itchy trigger finger, and had already engaged the ship with a hatch breaker. The cops were en route, and our previous time window had been cut by thirty seconds. That might not sound like the end of the world, but in a heist, every nanosecond counts as much as every parsec. As Preacher struggled to assess the situation, he realised that none of the local security forces were taking offensive action.
“Why aren't they firing?” he wondered “Are the Riker's sec protocols that bad that they assume it's a glitch if they don't see anyone on the way in? Is their alarm system the kind of paranoid AI that calls for a full lockdown every time a flea hops into an airlock?”
“Preacher, what's the plan?” Kattz and 'dog chimed in perfect unison. Well, at least they were awake.
“They're already working cargo bay 1, we should get into bay 0 and then each wing can fly around to the others. I'll hack the data points and meet you there with my collectors. We should've been there forty seconds ago people, move and talk!”
Jake was lucky he'd gotten used to his Chieftain, as he was having to fly it like a wasp in a jar to get where he needed to be and avoid the local security. Whilst The Forgotten and the rest of his wing had the cover of the station for now, the only data point on the whole station was at the opposite end, and despite silent running making his ship dark on the radar, they still had eyes to see it fly in front of them in a crazed FA-Off U-turn before it slipped in to scan it. Part of him felt annoyed that he didn't need his recon limpets after all, but the other part of him was just happy to get it done quicker.
Soltus chimed in over the comms.
“We may have a problem here.”
Preacher was irked
“State what's wrong, words waste time.”
Preach used his boost to push his ship laterally around the Riker to dodge an enemy scan.
“The cargo bays won't stop spewing crap.” came the reply
He turned Flight Assist back on to steady his trajectory, then back off again as he boosted toward the far end of the Megaship.
“This feeds a convict colony, take what's good.”
“It's tabac, jumpsuits, and personal effects.”
Jake would've laughed if he wasn't so worried about the time. They only had two minutes left until the cops arrived.
“There's got to be SOMETHING. Grab the 'baccy and we'll wait 30 for better cargo, then straight out.”
Preach engaged his V/STOL overlay, predicting the likely trajectory of his ship. Usually he could do this in his own head, but he wasn't ware of how much the Riker's mass was going to affect his flight with its slight gravity well. He engaged in evasive manoeuvrers and headed back towards the data point to give the wings time. The last thing he had expected was to be running distractions, but he had to trust in his wing. This was a good training exercise, he thought, to see how they coped when SHTF.
“You'll have to keep your own time from here, lads. I'm going to give these mugs the runaround to keep them off your tail. We're out in 1 minute.”
Preacher's thumb switched his Flight Assist like a strobe light as he weaved through the local security forces to break their scan locks.
“Sometimes being closest to danger is to be furthest from harm” he thought. His mind raced, and his hands felt shaky. It had been a while since he'd been under pressure, and the adrenaline was starting to affect him. A thin layer of sweat was starting to make his body shiver, and he wished he could take one hand off a joystick to wipe his good eye under his shades, but there was no time for that now. He chimed over local comms.
“30 seconds girls and guys, let's get!”
The Forgotten and Black Omega flew out like a hornet's nest, and the sec forces didn't know who to chase. We were gone just as the first sec forces dropped out.
“Everyone accounted for your end, Soltus?”
A calm voice came over the PSC comms frequency.
“Affirmative”
It seems they were staying calmer than we were.
“Anything good come out, guys?”
“Not a thing” said Soltus.
“Nix, nought, nada” said Earthdog.
“There was something, though...” Kattz mentioned furtively.
“It's a bit late for that now.” Preach snapped.
“No boss, bear with me here. I'm pretty sure I saw some weapons flying out of the cargo bay just as I left. If we turn around right now and drop back in, chances are their Operational Procedure will be to get the SysAuth to follow us and their Sec to start cleaning up. I've already got a bounty, so I can go in and give them a little tickle, be a loud distraction for a while as you guys nab the guns. Better to double dip and leave with something than to admit defeat and move on.”
Preacher thought for a moment, then realised he wasn't the only person who could make a decision.
“We go back” Soltus said firmly, and his wing began to turn around.
“Well, sounds like that just about covers it.” Earthdog said cherrily “And besides, as a great man once said: Who wants to live forever? DIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!”
He dropped in there faster than Kattz or Preach could even turn around. He must've been chomping at the bit that we'd left in the first place. As soon as the ship was visible, we saw we had an issue.
“How can they have sealed the hatch already? It's been under a minute. They can't catch us but they can fix a door faster than a nanobot swarm? What kind of sub-contractors Are these guys?” Preacher was legitimately angry, and it was going to affect his judgement if he didn't calm down. He wished he had some Fesh aboard, but he was assuming that things would've gone a bit smoother than this.
“Don't worry Boss, I'll distract them.”
Kattz flew in and started shooting. The sec forces scattered left and right, and seemed busier evading his shots than firing back. Maybe they were sheep in wolves clothing after all. The Forgotten were working as one unit, much as they had the whole way through. When one was struggling with something, someone else took over. Jaquel couldn't help but admire their discipline. Soltus must keep a strict training regimen going. Preach preferred his pilots to be a bit more reckless so they could work off their won initiative, but both styles had their benefits.
The next three minutes passed like a bear stealing honey. Kattz blew up three ships, and damaged another eight. The Forgotten picked up the lion's share of the weapons, but Earthdog and Preacher took some tobacco when they noticed it was a variety they didn't have back at Deggie's. It might not be worth as much monetarily, but influence and reputation could be worth more than cash, even in the Pegasi sector. Time seemed to drift by with a sense of inertia, and everyone lost track. A fatal flaw.
The System Authorities dropped in right behind us, and we scattered like a murder of crows. Varied vapour trails of blue, green, red, and purple criss-crossed and made non-euclidian patterns as we darted this way and that to avoid scans and shots on our way out of the mass lock of the Riker. The Forgotten managed to get out a few seconds before Black Omega, another bonus of their almost hivemind mentality. When Prech checked his wing were safe, Kattz sounded like he was putting out fires in his vessel.
“Yeah, got...few modules were....wanted to give these guys a slap. I'll...out and meet you....systems away.”
Jake got the jist of it between the sounds of the CO2 extinguisher.
“OK guys, I think it's time to drop off what we're smugglin' and hit our next target.” Preach's voice was shaky, he was more worried than he wanted to let on. Kattz was learning well, but he wasn't used to operating without a platoon behind him and Jaquel thought it might be making him a bit gung-ho.
Soltus responded as calmly as a tortoise. “Most of us have to be getting back, but we'll send you our CT guy to help with your next op.”
Preacher decided that it was best to keep his mouth shut instead of admit ignorance, and declined to ask what the “CT” in his designation meant. Considering he only spoke double Dutch and not normal Dutch, he thought it best to leave it a mystery. An extra ship to round out the wing was welcome.
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Unfortunately no-one took him up on his joke of smuggling back to Harris Station. He was used to people operating above board when he dealt with other commanders, but anyone who made a living in Pegasi had to know how the underworld worked if they even wanted to set up shop, let alone make a living out of it. So everyone started making their own way to Nyx, with the understanding that they might swing by a low security or anarchy system to pay off their bounties and fines.
Kattz, however, had an issue on this point.
“Why can't I pay this off? The chump at the interstellar factors division doesn't even admit my bounty exists, even when I dragged him by the ear to stare at the display in my ship!”
Preacher couldn't help but chuckle, but he kept it under his breath. In reality, this was his fault for not briefing his wingmates on the recent changes to the law enforced by The Pilot's Federation this week.
“That's because you blew up some birds whilst you were out there. Give it a few hours and people might give you the time of day, but no-one's gonna go near a hot ship right after they've engaged in some ornithology.”
Kattz started cursing in some rather inventive ways. Army training tended to breed certain types of oratory skills, even in the Alliance.
“Don't worry mate,” Preacher confided in his fuming friend “there's a loophole in their programming. Where they used to peg crimes on Commanders, a recent case argued that if someone's ship was hijacked then it would be unfair to tarnish the reputation of an upstanding Imperial magnate with the dealings of a “piece of Pegasi scum” and so they just write it into the ship's history instead.”
“That seems kind of discriminatory” Kattz mentioned, calming slightly through the need to listen instead of swear.
“It would” chuckled Preach “if it wasn't for the fact the Imperial was a man with Kumo sympathies and a slick hairdo known as Orpheus. That guy could talk his way into and out of any situation in the galaxy, and his partner Clancy could give Stryker a run for his money in the beefcake department.”
A slight pang of nostalgia hit Jaquel as he remembered his brief foray into Imperial society. It seemed like a lifetime ago, and in some ways it was. Whilst he might have finally renewed his liasons with Scarlet due to them both forthing at the mouth over these new hacking opportunities, he realised he hand lost contact with a lot of his old friends. He resolved to take the time to do the rounds, and decided to talk to Sheng soon to find out what he thought of this new “remote engineering”. He was sure it was likely to be a long conversation about profits and “those damned blue-collar tweekers”.
The route to Nyx was uneventful, but unfortunately so was the system.
“Where's the ship?” The Forgotten's CT guy chipped in as they all dropped in near the central star.
“No idea, mate.” Preach admitted “I was just told that it was here. I guess we should just fly towards the station and...”
His mind wandered briefly.
“You OK there, Preacher man?” Earthdog ventured “You're not hitting the Onion to calm down, are you?”
“Shut yer noise, I need to think” Jake barked.
“Alright, man, take your time.” Earthdog was used to people being angsty from his biking days. Nothing ever phased him unless it was something he did wrong.
Preach looked over his data from the Riker and came to a grim realisation.
“These Megaships, they must have some Black Ops tech. Some of them are over a century old, but they can still jump their huge masses around the bubble. I thought it was only Jaques that could jump around. Whilst these guys don't make it to Beagle, I'm looking at a schedule here. Seems they jump once a week.”
The CT guy came back instantly.
“I've got the Dionysus' flight plan right here. It seems it started in Nyx, with the rest of the route being Sigma Pegasi, Gilgamesh, LP 347-5, Inti, and Ursitoare. I'll go check Sigma presently.”
Before Preach could give him the go ahead, he was already twenty light years away.
“I don't like the taste of this. I'm going to check for the nearest installation. Those things don't move, so we might be able to get there before people start crashing out.”
Preacher started looking through his databanks, searching for the nearest installation that might have something worth stealing. Despite rumours that the space bar was going to have a cargo bay installed, a recent recon trip had shown that this was going to be a long time coming.
“Nothing here at Sigma Pegasi, going to check Gilgamesh.” CT was getting about pretty fast, and Jake realised he hadn't even checked what ship he'd been flying.
“You did check the system properly, right? These things aren't kept in the Nav beacon archives 'cause it'd be too much upkeep to get someone to change them every week. Plus there's security considerations...”
“Ah, well...that being the case this is likely to be a wild goose chase.” CT admitted with a hints of resignation in his voice.
“Well there's a Comm's installation in Belu if you want to try and get the information...” Preach offered.
“Nah, I think we're done here. I'm heading back.” CT guy didn't sound annoyed, just formal. Preacher knew it must have been a bit of a kick in the teeth to be going back alone after offering assistance.
“Well I'll talk to the boys back home about sending you some of our Fesh Spiked Harma Rum if you want...”
“I'd prefer something form Kamorin if you're offering...” CT guy said slightly brazenly.
“I'll see if I can get Wray to give you something interesting.” Jake responded. He wasn't going to talk in another man's stead, but it was worth giving an olive branch to The Forgotten as all in all the night could've been far more of a clusterfuck than it had turned out to be.
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Back at Deggie's, Preach toasted the occasion with his wingmates, and even let Smeg Ed make himself a cocktail with “added flavour” as long as he promised to wait 'til his shift at the bar was over and stay out of sight of his dad.
“To new crews and greener pastures!” Preacher offered a toast as he opened up a box of cigars. “And to our limited run of “Convicted Cigars”, made by our Dr. Glaboski with our recent acquisition and a careful blend of additives he assures us won't be too addictive, but enough to make you feel a bit cagey if you don't have two!”
Everyone chuckled, and the patrons of the bar knew better than to question where any good flowing through it came from. Quality was the name of the game in Deggie's, and the necessity of asking no questions was met with an assurance that such quality couldn't be beat by even the Smurf Queen's own royal larder.
He was sure that Kattz would be persona non grata to both the Feds and the Utopians for a while, but he wasn't technically on the books as a Black Omega member yet due to some administration issues and so the chances of him being traced back to Tjakiri were slim. The chance of anyone docking in Clair Dock without due business was verging on anorexic, and the chances of anyone getting into Deggie's without a pass was legitimately nil. Deggie's had been built to withstand an attack from a Mass Driver firing thermonuclear warheads if needs be. The guy might be paranoid, but he was aware that people were after him so his defenses were as good as they needed to be to make him feel safe.
And besides, the whole event served the real purpose nicely; it cemented bonds between the new wingmen, and it finally got two wings from the PSC together to do something besides helping each other control their systems. Whilst that was a necessary and worthy pursuit in itself, the need for something a bit more “fun” had been chomping at Preacher for a while, and whilst the idea of canyon racing or space rugby wasn't entirely out of the equation, he wasn't sure his new recruits would've been able to source type 9s for the scrum and nothing says “Pegasi fun time” like a good ol' bit of pyracy.
He sank back into his chair and surveyed the dance floor as the place began to wind down towards the end of the night and DJ Nanite started up his Dungeon Synth mix with an old classic for those clients left in the club to chill out to if they were leaving, retiring to one of the en-suite rooms, or the workers merely taking an hour to clean the place without listening to off-time syncopated breakbeats. They'd gotten back rather late, but they'd gotten back in one piece. He remembered what Pahn used to say: “If you're still alive at the end of the fight, that's a victory”. He decided to drink himself to sleep to forget how much he wished he could talk to the girl who taught him how to fly in a combat zone.
Just as he began to nod off, he was rudely awakened by a familiar smell and a slap across the face.
“Mon', we got trouble. It time ta wake, get bake, an' listen' ta mans speak truth!”
“What the HELL, SHENG!” Preach shouted, still stupefied “You never leave your damned station, what the FUCK are you doing in my club at dawn! You KNOW how much I hate dawn!”
“Dawn nah gon' matta when 'ya station on fiyah, bluhdklaat!” Sheng responded with his usual disdain for being talked down to in any vague manner.
“What're you talkin' about, Sheng? I've had a really long day and I don't have time for riddles.” Jaquel retorted.
“THARGOIDS! DEY BE BLAZIN' FIYAH TA DE BUBBLE!”
Jake shot straight up, shot himself with an ampule of Fesh, and was instantly wired.
“Thargoids? I've never shot at Thargoids! Sure, there was that one time I aciddentally ran into an artefact and took the pieces to Palin to try and fix it and the bastard kept it for research and they scanned me, but they left me alone when they saw my 'conda shouldn't even technically be able to fly and there's no reason for them to come here when none of your people have been trading in alien commodities 'cause it's the only thing I've been DEAD CERTAIN to make sure doesn't get smuggled in Black Omega space so...”
Preacher fainted because he'd forgotten to take a breath and Smeg Ed came by to carry him to his room.
“You might wanna give him a day to wake up from that. Thargoids give him conniptions.” the kid said in a matter-of-fact manner to his new patron.
“And you might wanna throw me some Onion when I come back to pay the tab you've been running up since you got here. Whiskey and Sake are both rather cheap normally, but getting me to mix them in a way that doesn't destroy your palette is pretty pricey...”