Bounty Incurred - An Elite: Dangerous Short Story
29 Dec 2018WolfLDrakarn
"Cobra... cobra... keelback... hauler..." the man listed off, "nothing here but fuckin' miners.""Somebody out here's gotta be lookin' to make a few credits, Vane. Keep scannin' 'till some imperial comes along or somethin' yeah?" said a second man, a little older than the first with a dark stubble and bagged eyes.
"I'm telling you! There's no one out here that's gonna be interested in attacking us," the first man, Vane, predicted, "why don't we just destroy some of these miners? Take whatever they've got and sell it off in Federation space?"
"Because I don't want none of Duval's Imperial shields or the bloody IED showing up 'cause we destroyed some fucking hauler with a rock obsession!"
"All I'm saying; is it makes more sense for someone to come after us if we're already wanted," Vane insisted, before resting his boots upon the python's dash, accidently opening the communications channel in the process as he leaned back, "may as well try somewhere else, mate."
"Get your legs off the bloody dashboard, yeah? I paid good money for this damn ship!"
"Yes Captain, whatever you say Captain..." Vane rolled his eyes, sliding his feet off the panel with a careless glaze.
"That's Commander, Vane," the pilot gritted.
"You're still a pirate! We're *both* still bloody pirates!" Vane half barked at the commander.
"Y'know… maybe we should head back to the station... so I can damn well leave you there."
"And then who would be there to listen to all your self-righteous boasting every time we-"
"Every time we what, Vane?" the commander asked impatiently, looking over to his crewman.
Vane's eyes had become fixated upon the small, holographic radar-like plate of orange in front of him. The man straightened his back, opening up his left panel and flicked through the menus, scrolling wildly until...
"I've picked up a heat signal coming directly for us, and fast!"
The python's thrusters roared into a blazing inferno of life, kicking the ship forward as the commander steered away from the oncoming blip.
"Four point six kilometres out of scanning range. Three point seven... two point five... one point five, zero point nine! Scanning in three... two..."
Before they had time to react however, the ship shook violently. The flames of an explosion gassed over their canopy and the brilliant blue dome around them sparked and flared majestically.
"What the hell was that?!" the commander roared, his crewmen rending through his contacts panel wildly for an answer.
A moment later, the commander gasped in shock as he quickly turned the ambushed python from the trajectory of a very large and very armed anaconda at ramming distance, the increasing, beaming lights along its belly aimed towards them. 'The IEDSS Eclipser' labelled across its hull with imperial wings.
"Rail guns! All power to systems, Vane! Now!"
"Bastard's been silent running!" the crewman exclaimed, trying to reallocate the small pips before the two charging beams of energy tore through the void of space.
"Shield's offline, taking hull damage," the ship's calm cockpit voice assistant warned.
"No shit!" the commander snapped, jerking the controls as the python avoided another would-be-catastrophic ramming.
The rotating barrels of the anaconda's multi-cannons belched into action as the python's shield fell, dotting the ship's hull with sparks as the calibres hammered on their side. The python's hardpoints span into life as well, littering their aggressor's superior hull with small fire, waiting for their missiles to lock on while their opponent's shields regenerate from silent running.
"I'm telling you, this is pointless! We need to high wake the hell out of here, Lucian!" Vane bellowed insistently, watching their vessels hull being chipped away.
"Their shield's are down, this is the best chance we'll have, Vane!" Lucian, the commander, barked back.
Another near-fatal collision and several heated moments of heated shouting later, Lucian gave in to his screaming crewmen; retracting the python's hardpoints and arching the ship's nose out of the field, but then...
"Torpedo inbound!" Vane panicked at the top of his lungs, leaping from his seat and grabbing the flight stick from his commander to make immediate manoeuvres, but it was too late... the explosion erupted through the thrusters, beating the ship this way and that.
"Thruster's offline," the assistant announced.
"I told you! I told you, Lucian! I knew we should have just high waked from the start!" Vane burst, reestablishing his balance in the mock-gravity of the cockpit.
"Oh shut up! Maybe if you paid more attention to the scanner and stopped lazin' about so much, we would be in a betta position!" Lucian spat, standing up from his seat to face his crewman, who stood just taller than him.
"Maybe if you took my advice in the first place, we would have been in an even better one!" Vane argued.
"Well maybe if you-!"
"Target shields online," the voice of the ship's cockpit assistant broke the argument between the two men as they turned their heads to the cockpit's canopy where, to a sudden jolt of terror, they watched the rounded nose of their assailing combatant boost towards them, head-on.
"Target destroyed. Bounty Incurred."
"An easy picking for some prates-in-the-making, Commander," the long face of my gunner smiled.
"Ts'always better to stop them before they get a bounty of their own," I justified, scanning the area.
"If you say so, Commander... but then our pockets go a little lighter in the end, "he said, " I think we should get out of here before someone gets the wrong idea, Commander."
"Hmm... hold on... a Clipper's just dropped in... wanted, he's in a wing of two," I announced, looking back to my gunner, "what's that about our pockets going a little lighter?"
"Putting full power to weapons, Commander!"