Her name was Heather Pt.6
03 Dec 2017Gmanharmon
Part 5It was freezing on the bridge, even through the heating coils in the loaned Remlok suit I now wore. My original flight suit was left behind in Bahcall Settlement’s decompression pod, and was consequently vaporized when the outpost blew, if indeed it did get destroyed in the first place. If GalNet was correct, then I must have hallucinated the station’s destruction and it still hangs above that belt cluster.
How long have I been out here? How long have I been travelling?
I’m not sure, I said to myself, replacing my jacket, trousers, and gun belt. The Outrageous Fortune was still parked where I left it, on planet Meru in the Wakea system. After getting what I needed from the Princess, still sound asleep in the captain’s quarters, I figured I should take her back to Senator Patreus. According to GalNet, he’s taking a retreat in his home system of Eotienses, just eighty light-years away from my current position. This Python has room for 128 tons of cargo, but she is running on an empty stomach at the moment, and can make seventeen light-years on each jump. Wakea was the first stop.
I took my place at the pilot’s seat and brought the engines online, lifted off the ground and retracted the landing gear, then angled the Fortune’s nose skyward and prepared for take-off. We broke mass-lock three kilometers from the surface, then a quick frame-shift activation to enter supercruise, and we were underway.
“I hope Pop doesn’t mind the loss of his Eagle,” I thought aloud as I aimed for the next jump destination, then activated the hyperdrive. While she spooled up, I dug in my jacket pocket and looked over the photographs I had taken earlier. To Patreus, these would be a living nightmare if made public, and to me, they were my ticket to Imperial royalty. I placed them back in my jacket as the Fortune’s drive was ready to jump, waiting on a full-throttle signal from me. A single blip on my scopes stayed my hand, causing me to look around and, sure enough, the telltale bright light and coma of a ship in supercruise flew across my horizon. I cancelled the jump and targeted the ship, waiting for my sensors to resolve the target.
“Looks like we have company.” I slewed around and targeted the light, and indeed found it was an Imperial Courier from Patreus’s fleet. “This could be good.” A smooth push upward on the throttle, and we moved to intercept, falling in behind the Courier as it wound its way lazily around the star.
While I was checking over the Outrageous Fortune’s complement, I noticed a frame-shift interdictor module, and brought it online before shoving off. The Courier was dead ahead, 56 light-seconds away and speeding faster. I pushed the safety off the flight stick and pressed the trigger, establishing a tether to the Courier. The radio crackled as the Courier pilot hailed me.
“What is this?!” he shouted over the headset without preamble.
“Hurry up and submit already,” I replied, feigning boredom. “You’ll make this easier on both of us.”
“Pirate scum!” The Imp submitted after a few more futile maneuvers, dropping us both in realspace. I targeted the Courier and deployed hardpoints, as did he.
“I am a Patreus Sentinel!” the Courier pilot spat over the radio. “You’ve made the last mistake of your life, pirate!”
Oh crap, I thought to myself, how did the monologue go in the videos Pop made us watch? “Sure, whatever, Mister Sentinel. Give me five tons of cargo or, uh...”
“Or what? I carry no cargo, this is a space superiority fighter!” I didn’t expect the Imp to give in either way, I just needed a distraction to get Patreus on my scent.
“You have ten seconds before I start boiling bulkheads off you!” I added a flourish with my hand, wondering if we were close enough for him to see the gesture.
“These monkeyshines have gone far enough! Have at you, pirate!” The Courier engaged its thrusters and started coming about. I slotted extra power to engines and systems, and lurched forward, hoping to outmaneuver the more nimble ship. The Fortune’s gimballed beam lasers had a firing solution, so I held the trigger and watched the green lances shoot out of the large hardpoints and start eating away at the Sentinel’s shield. Extra power was diverted away from the shields to give the beams more punch, and I watched with glee as the small blue rings on the Courier’s holo-display began to disappear in the targeting computer.
Several seconds more of sustained beam fire, and the Courier’s shields broke. I watched as the weapons scorched the ship’s brilliant white paint, leaving ugly black burn streaks across the fuselage.
The Imp growled over the radio, and swore an oath. “Shit! I’ll be damned if I let a Gutamaya fighter be molested by your piece of DeLacy trash!” I fired off the three multi-cannons and saw the tracer rounds connect with the Courier, leaving nice little holes in its flanks, while several tracers careened off the organically-shaped curvy surfaces and flew off into space. The Courier boosted once more, out of my line of sight, then performed a pirouette and brought its guns to bear.
The static tingle of heavy kinetic rounds reverberated through the Python as her shields soaked up the barrage, but a heavy impact rocked me against the side panel, losing my grip on the throttle and corkscrewing the Fortune as my hand jerked the stick. I diverted power to shields and engines and attempted to boost away, but the Python was flying sluggish. Another heavy impact knocked me downwards, and my shield broke. The Sentinel had a railgun, and was bracketing me nicely. A third thump, another violent shake, and my frame-shift drive was toast. I was stuck here, seventy light-years from Eotienses and closer to a murder scene, with a bloodthirsty Imperial coming around for a kill shot. I could see the maniacal grin on his face as he pulled in front of the Fortune.
I set all power to weapons and tightened my finger on the trigger, preparing to either annihilate the Courier or be enveloped with the Princess in a rose-pink oblivion, when the computer chimed an announcement I’d never heard before.
Warning: Capital-class signature detected.“Fortune smiles upon me today, pirate,” the Imp radioed. "All you did was delay my scouting party."
“Yeah, right, Satin-Hull,” I replied, "it could just be the Feds, ready to blast us out of the water.”
He didn't reply.
Seconds passed in silence, then I heard the whoosh of a ship exiting witch-space, but instead of the sleek spear of light, a large black cloud crackled and grew just a few hundred meters away. What followed was the most amazing sight I had ever beheld, as a Majestic-class Interdictor squeezed out of the space between dimensions, with a low, guttural rumble and a thunderous roar that could be heard across time and space. The name INV Imperial Freedom was prominently displayed across her gunwales, and as the donut-shaped habitation ring came into view, four giant Gutamaya Cutters emerged from the black, circling both of our ships, all bristling with cannons and plasma accelerators. Our radios crackled as the Interdictor hailed us.
“Attention Commanders,” an Imperial-accented elder voice jabbed through the headset officiously, “this is His Majesty Charles William Doulton Fitzherbert, King of Fretensis Patronage and her environs, captain of the Imperial Freedom. Cease your hostilities at once, or you will be disintegrated.”
“Parley,” I replied.
“Your Majesty!” the Imp ejaculated, all too happy to see his reinforcements. “Arrest this madman immediately! He interdicted me and attempted to steal cargo! You must bring him to justice!” In his euphoria, he turned the Courier towards the Majestic and flew in its direction, when he was followed by one of the Cutters and quickly annihilated by a volley from its plasma accelerators. I watched as the tiny Gutamaya fighter exploded, scattering waste everywhere, and felt sorry for the pilot being forced into this predicament.
“INRV Outrageous Fortune, do not move from your present position or you will be destroyed. Identify yourself and state your purpose in this system.”
“Gladly,” I said, exhaling. “My name is Earl Henri Gower Tremaine,” reading off the identification badge as best I could, “Inquisitor of the Chapterhouse at Kamadhenu, Imperial Naval Reserve. I have precious cargo for the Senator.”
“Nice try, Commander,” King Fitzherbert replied, “but Tremaine’s body was found near the Bahcall Settlement in Gorramacor, floating in a depressurized escape pod. You’re not an Inquisitor, and you’re a terrible pirate, so who are you and why are you commandeering one of the Emperor’s ships so close to Tremaine’s last known location?”
“Like I said, Your Majesty,” said through gritted teeth at being forced to recognize his rank, “I have something that belongs to Patreus. It was in the process of being stolen from Gorramacor by a group of real Inquisitors.” If I made a mistake here, the Princess and I would be joining Mister Imperial Hotshot shortly.
“Senator Patreus makes do, sir. He couldn’t possibly want anything you have of his—”
“Hello?” a soft voice said from behind me, loud enough to be picked up by the microphone. I turned around in my seat, and the radio crackled in silence. Aisling Duval stood in the doorway, dressed in the Remlok suit she had been wearing when I found her. “Who are you? What am I doing on this ship?”
“Princess?” King Fitzherbert said, disbelief in his voice. “Is that you, my dear?”
“King Charles? Yes, it is I! Where did you come from?”
“Just stay there, Your Highness, we’ll come get you right away!” I heard commands being shouted at the Majestic crew before the line went dead, then one of the Cutters stowed its hardpoints and began maneuvering closer to the Fortune.
“You’re not an Inquisitor?” Duval asked me, looking at my uniform.
“No, ma’am,” I replied, shifting into my accent and taking a small bow. “Serf Grayson Harmann, at your service.” The Python rocked as the Cutter attached itself, then I saw the instrument panel flashing at the cargo hold. A boarding party had crossed the distance and were now in the airlock. I started the entry sequence and waited for them to arrive.
“I have a few questions to ask you,” Aisling said matter-of-factly. I made to reply, but ten Imperials in Remloks came through the door into the bridge, wielding blaster rifles and plasma shotguns.
“Hands on your head!” said the squad leader, and I did so. They disarmed me while two Imps tended to the Princess.
“What the hell is this old thing?” the squad leader laughed, inspecting my revolver in its leather holster. “Have you actually killed anyone with this? Or do they just die from embarrassment?” The two Imps looking the Princess over escorted her through the door while I was spun around, had my hands placed behind my back, and felt manacles clamped on my wrists. I was walked out to the cargo bay and watched as the first group of five, escorting the Princess, activated their helmets, exited the Python, and flew across a slack-line lashed to the Cutter, sailing away slowly in zero-G into the Cutter’s open cargo bay.
“So what happens next, Chief?” I say to the squad leader.
“Well, we’re gonna fly you and the Princess over to the Freedom, you’re gonna get interrogated and possibly worked over by yours truly, she’s gonna get a good dicking from the Senator, and if he and the King like your story, we may or may not shoot you out the airlock at Achenar before your tribunal. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds like you’ve done this before.” The airlock opened, and the six of us stepped over the threshold, activating our helmets as the cramped compartment depressurized.
“Just between us, this isn’t the first time we’ve been called out to save Aisling from something stupid.”
“Or someone,” one of the other Imp brutes said, causing the retinue to laugh. The airlock buzzed, and the outer door opened silently, exposing us to the coldness of space. The slack-line was paid out once more, flying across the gap on a magnetic grapple thrown with great precision. One of the squadmates attached the grapple to the hull, where it mated with a thump, then they attached steel carriages to the line and shoved off the Python, letting the tiny motorized conveyances carry them across the void into the Cutter. I was second to last, with the squad leader making sure I didn’t double back or try any funny business.
As we crossed the line, floating over the void in the inky black of space, I took one last look at the Outrageous Fortune, wondering if I would ever see Heather again.