Online Evi
11 Sep 2017Evgeniya Asimova
Evgeniya acted as patrouilleur, flying high above the misty grey ring and scanning all the ships in the area. Her ship was the fastest in the wing. She could quickly scan all the ships, and retreat if she had to. The mining site was several thousand kilometres around, and leaked pirates from all directions. She was busy that day.Duke Varamazov was in his Cutter, a much larger ship and much more heavily armed than Evgeniya's. Other fighters flew in formation around him, and others still – by his order – hid themselves amongst the asteroids, and only appeared when a larger group of pirates came.
The gas giant floated there in the background, stately, gargantuan, beautiful - oblivious.
Evi would attack smaller ships herself, destroy them herself, which irritated Varamazov. He would have minded less if she had a better combat ship. She risked too much. Why she did not buy herself a Vulture, or even something bigger, he did not really understand, beyond the truism that everyone has their own tastes. Why she insisted on flying around in that little Imp was beyond him. He did not rate the Imp. It irritated him, and sometimes he would bark at her to invest in a better ship, but he knew she would never listen.
Evgeniya loved her ship. It had style. It was fast, manoeuvrable, and almost impossible to hit. If she took damage, she could always race away until her shields had re-charged; few ships could catch up with her. And she could take out the smaller ships herself, duel them mano y mano. It was no great risk. It was tough to be a woman and a Commander. Especially when it came to combat. She felt she had to constantly prove herself. People always doubted if she had the brain and the personality to be a combat pilot. They wondered if she would have the spatial awareness, the determination, the ruthlessness. Perhaps that is why she liked the Imp so much, no-one expected her to succeed in it, and yet she did.
Usually, they attacked the pirates in a gang, like pack animals, surrounding them and destroying their ships with the junctions of their white-hot beams. They would see flashing beams across the star-spangled sky, rush in to discharge their cannons one by one, and strike the enemy back into the hazard, the smoke of their jets curving behind them. Sometimes the Duke would even ram the target with his Clipper.
The pirates should have come another day.
Dark Dropships, huge Pythons, weakly Adders, swift Eagles, tiddly Sidewinders, came and were pulverised into dust, allowing the mining vehicles, the chunky Keelbacks, heavy Type 9s, and stubbed-winged Diamondbacks to do their peaceful work blasting the asteroids.
Evgeniya made over 3 million credits in bounties in an hour.
The biggest kill was an Imperial Clipper. Over 260,000 credits for that one. She thrustered after it, determined as a dragonfly. It was a big ship, elongated and luxurious, but it moved well. But it struggled against her little ship, which span like a pulsar, swirling with diabolic energies in its relentless pursuit. She kept behind it, kept turning, kept shooting it in thrusters. It was like a swan being bitten on the tail by a vicious and impudent gull. Each volley diminished its shields. Then the Duke raked his plasma accelerator across the ships belly. Its shields went down. Still Evgeniya turned, still volleyed her lasers. She roasted its thrusters and its hull disintegrated. It hung there, motionless for a split second, for what must have seemed like an age to its petrified pilot. It cracked. Then it exploded in a brief blast, and its burnt metal panels flew revolving into space. It was gone. She turned passed it, glancing up through her canopy.
On to the next ship.
Varamazov watched his wingmen with satisfaction and pride. Here was a man who had dedicated his whole life to combat. Here was a man who, when he heard rumours of a thaw in the cold war between the Empire and the Federation, was seething with hot anger. There was only one thing he preferred to destroying the outlaws and rebels of the Empire, and that was destroying Federation ships. He spat on the Federation. He was a wily commander, an Odysseus, who inspired loyalty in his wingmen, and would use any means to win the day.
The wing found themselves drawn into the maze of the swirling asteroids, deeper into the ring, and Varamazov split them up, encircling the prey like so many killer whales, boxing them them in and slaughtering them. Evgeniya always wanted to please the Duke, she was always eager to do her best for him. She pulled off impetuous moves, bouncing off the rocks. Everything was going perfectly. Soon they would be back in the William Sergeant Hub and able to cash in their bounties.
But then the tide began to turn. Out of the blue, it began to turn. A strange dark moon seemed to overshadow them. No-one expected it. From behind each asteroid, scores of pirate ships began to appear, darkening the skies all around like a swarm of mosquitoes. Endless lasers criss-crossed in the blackness, pure geometric patterns of destruction. All hell let loose as the ring boiled over.
The wing was routed and tried to retreat. Voices crackled over the airwaves, voices wavered, voices died. Evgeniya lost her shields and had to flee to above the ring, pumping her afterburner, weaving between the rocks toward freedom, like a choking diver bursting out of the water. She waited a painful moment as her shield came back online, as her ship cooled down.
As she prepared to return to help the Duke, two immense black pools of ink shimmered into existence on the horizon, blotting out the gas giant from her view, surprising her, and a Farragut class Federation capital ship slid out of each one like eels from their muddy lairs, each one a hundred times larger than her ship. A Fed invasion? Fighters streamed out of the capital ships. Surely this was not possible.
Should she retreat back to the space station to warn the others and get help? But she wanted to help Varamazov. She was stunned.
Before she could decide what to do, another ship jumped in, larger still, a huge silver lily unfolding in front of her and carpeting over space, dwarfing all the man-made battleships around. It flew straight for her, as if it remembered her. It was all she could see through her narrow canopy. It flexed its poisonous petals - she was helpless - and in seconds it charged an immense green energy, and blasted her puny ship into the nether world.
Evgeniya woke up at that moment, or so it seemed to her, looking back at the dream. There was a deep line of sweat beneath her neck and her tracksuit clung to her breasts, close as a barnacle. Her heart raced. She was still in a half-way house of shock and was not sure if she was still dreaming or had really woken. She was lying in the Gen-Sim, which had powered off. Unsure of herself, she slowly stood. She was hot but began to shiver in her sweat.
It seemed like she was awake, but every shadow threatened her.
She used her bracelet to turn the lights on to their fullest illumination and went to sit on the couch. There were still glasses there, sticky with orange brandy residue, and stubbed out fags in the ashtrays.
Her breath was short. She put her palm on her forehead for a moment, and then reached for the pack of cigarettes.
A movement caught her eye in the shadows, she looked up. “How did you get in here?” she said.
“I... needed to speak to you... Are you okay?” came the reply.