A Life Once Lived Pt.2: Ashitaka Tenchi
04 May 2018Gmanharmon
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04 February 3303
Shipping Lane
ICZ FB-X c1-19 System
en route to Amphisatsu
17:49
“I’ve come a long way for what’s in your hold, don’t try to run!”
I saw the pip on my scopes as soon as I got in system. A pirate named “Hirameki” who seemed to have been following a bit too closely when I last left port, piggybacking off my wake when I made the jump to witch-space. The pip on the sensors dipped and flew around as the logarithmic display estimated his position, then a great thump echoed throughout my Lakon Type-6.
“I have you now!” He was interdicting me. As I strained against the FSD tether trying to break free from his Sidewinder’s grasp, my threat indicator told me he was Mostly Harmless and unshielded. With reluctance, I killed my throttle and submitted. Our ships throbbed and shook as the superluminal bubbles dissipated and dropped us into realspace. Within seconds, a COVAS notification displayed “Ship Scan Detected” in my canopy.
“Drop me 2 tons of cargo, or I’ll start boiling bulkheads off you,” Hirameki typed over the comms. I came about and met the Sidewinder face-to-face, seeing two small pulse lasers staring back. “You have ten seconds to decide, Commander.”
I turned on my local comms channel, and spoke to the pirate plainly. “Stand by.” I stalled and fidgeted with the controls, lowering landing gear and opening the cargo scoop, while I selected the next system in my route and attempted to spool up the frame-shift drive.
“C’mon, flyboy, let’s go with the cargo!” Hirameki was getting antsy, and fired a salvo of laser blasts in my direction. Using the distraction to my advantage, and against my better judgment, I pushed the Type-6’s throttle to its stops and activated the boost. The Sidewinder grew in my field of view rapidly, before an enormous jolt slammed me against my seat and threw the Lakon vessel into space. My Remlok deployed and warning lights strobed around me.
Shields offline.
Hull integrity compromised.
Warning: canopy critical.
Warning: temperature critical. Taking damage.
I opened my eyes and quickly took assessment of what was happening. My temperature was at 150 degrees and climbing. Hull strength was at 34 percent. The huge trademark Lakon canopy was a spider’s web, fractured and starred at all points. Fire and smoke belched out of the vents, and I realized the ship was in silent-running mode, slowly cooking me alive as the frame-shift drive was fully spooled and ready to jump. I hit a series of switches and buttons, and the stricken Type-6 began to normalize. I slap the override on my neck and the Remlok retracted, thankful the life support was still active, if not for the acrid smell of rubber and ozone from the fried avionics that hung within the cockpit.
With the Type-6 finally stabilized, I took a look and made sure all my cargo was still where it needed to be. Sure enough, 100 tons still sat in the hold, and no modules were severely crippled from the ramming attack. A twinkle out of the corner of my eye drew my attention to the canopy, and I saw the pirate’s Sidewinder off to the starboard side, with a lateral thruster stuck on and spinning end-over-end. A pulse laser had sheared its gimballed bracket and tumbled off into the void. Hirameki’s canopy was completely blown, the wedge-shaped likeness of the deLacy vessel imprinted with an ugly bruise of the Lakon’s front end, like a boxer’s cheek which had met a set of brass knuckles. The pirate had slipped out of his chair and now floated alone in space, soon making his way to my ship and latching himself to my cockpit. He drew a blaster pistol from a crude holster strapped to his leg and rapped the butt on the glass before a shake of my thrusters disarmed him.
“You really are persistent, aren’t you?” I said, seeing the comms channel was still open. “I would love to see you carry a single cargo canister several dozen light-years to the nearest station just like that. Shouldn’t take more than… a few… years...”
My voice trailed off. I disengaged the controls and stood from the captain’s chair, getting a closer look at Hirameki’s features. The star was to our backs, and the pirate’s Remlok had cycled out of its opaque sunshade enough that I could see his face. It was a man with Oriental features, his almond-shaped eyes scanning my cockpit with disdain. His breath began fogging up his helmet, and he was under stress. We locked eyes, and his expression turned from mildly annoyed to incredulous. Hirameki spoke his first words since the interdiction.
“Gray… Grayson?” The Osaka accent was unmistakable.
I blinked. “Tenchi?”
“Grayson?” He pulled himself closer to the canopy and I got as close as I could. It was indeed Ashitaka Tenchi from Gamma Flight, in Cubeo. In the light of my ship’s avionics I could see the remnants of Aisling Duval’s blue standard on his shoulders, which he had tried frantically to scrub off after my father had offered him a position in the cause. “I thought you were dead!”
“I am...” My voice trailed off again. As much as I would like to forget about my past, it just keeps coming back to me. “Hang on, get down to the cargo scoop!”
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“Holliday’s dead?”
Tenchi sat in the spartan galley of the Type-6 nursing a coffee, as I attempted to tell him what transpired after he had left our base Out There to his forward operating post in Cubeo. All the sleeper cells had gone dark until news broke that the Los Angeles had been located in Maia and destroyed.
“Yes, and everyone else on that ship. I saw it happen.”
“And your girl? Heather’s okay, too, right?” I closed my eyes and shook my head. Tenchi sunk his head into the palms of his hands and exhaled in shuddering breaths.
“Tenchi… I saw Sarah Barker. The Feds have her and Upsilon Flight locked up.”
“Yeah, well, that’s great,” he replied, his eyes moist. “The Imperium snatched us all up, too. Chapterhouse broke up Mu, out in Kamadh’; didn’t even give those poor bastards a tribunal or a slavery offer. Just lined ‘em up outside the high court and blew their brains out!
“Do you know what it’s like to be a slave, Grayson? Eh?” He rose out of the bench that was bolted to the bulkhead and slammed his fists into my chest. “Do you know what I had to do for that damn family? What they made me do? There are good Imperial families and bad Imperial families, but that...”
I pushed Tenchi against the bulkhead and struck him across the face with the back of my hand. “Snap out of it, damn it!” I shouted, startling myself at how loud I was. “We can’t bring back the dead. But my dad is still alive, and so is Sarah!”
What am I doing? What am I saying?
“We can bust her out and get whoever’s left out there back together. Nobody deserves to die on Ross 128.”
“And then what? Go back to Armin and tell him the jig’s up? That we failed? He’ll kill all of us, Grayson, especially you!” Tenchi regained his pirate’s persona, puffing his chest and filling his voice with practiced bravado. “He’s still a Fed deep down, and I wouldn’t put it past him to chain you to a desk in Industry until you die! I’m living my best life out here in the black, running by my own rules, making my way how I want to!”
“In what? The Sidewinder I just punched in half?” Tenchi balled up a fist and bared his teeth, prepared to strike, but the fight left his body and he sank back onto the bench. “You’re no pirate, Tenchi, there’s too much Empire in you for that. After I drop you off at this station I’m jumpin’ to, you can think about what you want to be. But I’m gonna need your help bustin’ Sarah out of prison. I can’t do it myself.”
After a long pause, Tenchi sighed heavily. “Let me make some calls.” He stood up and walked to the end of the galley, reading through his dataslate. “It’ll take a while, but I might still know a few people.”
I stuck out my fist, and Tenchi bumped it with his. “Much obliged.”