Two Weeks Out the Crew Remembers the Lost.
31 May 2018Sku-77-s
The light was pouring through the cabin. It was bright and incredibly hot, a gently haze had formed over the controls. Music echoed down the halls as Parov Stellar spun softly in some back room of the vessel. The strings, piano and light percussion fit the mood, the ship was dead speck bleaching itself against the sun. It wasn't like they needed the fuel, it was just easier to hide the Damonia Somnia in the star's gravity well just outside the corona. She was a special ship and needed to be hidden well. Stripped of nearly all components save some military hardware and self-sustaining equipment, she was designed to leave. Leave and never return to a known port, at least that's how it felt when they found her, Ziro and William.
The heat was trying, from the main controls especially. But that's where he wanted to be, they say going to a sauna can help cleanse your body. Maybe sitting this close would fix whatever felt so off William thought, He kicked his feet up on the controls, which were currently off as the ship was in low power mode.
Ziro perked up again Sir I feel like I should remind you, it is very dangerous to be in normal space without your Rem-Lock suit.
Ziro, at our current orbit we are going to pass through a flare. We will be surrounded by coronal ejection from the star and nothing will happen. Its going to get hot thats it so I've prepared for that.
They usually got along well, they had too being the same person essentially. Still while William was comfortable silently orbiting the sun biding his time for the unknown something they were waiting here for. Ziro was a still a computer, no matter how advanced or how much personality developed computers were always processing, always.
Why don't you try and monitor the Bubble's Galnet activities from here and see if there's anything interesting.
The Ship may have looked dormant, but inside there had never been more activity, she was serving as a home away from home of sorts. Just outside the 'Angellica'Et Malorum' and 'From the Kain Project' drifted peacefully. William had Zoey and Donovan bring the Python, Fallon being the ranking officer took the Racing Eagle alone. Silent except for the guide lights breathing light into the darkness ever so gently.
After the civil war in HIP 20826 they needed out. The fighting had gotten intense and once they returned Fallon mentioned they almost seemed militarized. She might have been the youngest but as a First Officer for the group she was wise beyond her years, most of the crew had left lives like that behind. And losing Opal and Estrella just at the both at once had reminded that all of that fact painfully well.
The Thargoid's had been getting closer to Murphy's Dock. The Outlaws weren't involved with the combat at the time, just using the combat debris to hide smuggled goods the resistance in Brust's Folly needed. The 'Angelica'et Malorium' was just the kind of vessel suited for this, so William and Ziro volunteered.
William and Ziro kept blaming themselves, maybe if he hadn't called the 'Einsaimer Geist' into the fight to begin with, Ziro knew now the calculations were off, a simple error had lost two lives.
Donovan blamed himself, he had been watching the scanner's sure Thargoids and Capitol Ships used nearly the same tech, but looking back the size, readings everything had been off. But there was so much going on, Donovan had never served in combat, and maybe he was taking this harder than the some of the others.
Zoey had served, but she had never seen someone she knew so closely go. She had been with William in the Anaconda, that ship could have taken the hit. If they had gotten there in time, as it was they could only watch helplessly as the smaller ship was reduced to salvage as Farragut Class Rail-Cannons and Multi-Cannon's ripped the ship apart.
Fallon took it the hardest. She knew in her heart that the Asp had never been the target. If she had been stronger maybe she would have let go of the controls of the fighter, but she didn't. She danced around them taunting them. Her own mother Aedraleen had been the Commanding Officer onboard, and when she couldn't kill her own daughter she targeted the next best thing her daughters friends.
It had all been going so smoothly, Fallon kept tabs on the Federation's actions for the Outlaws, they could move and make drops with near impudence. On that day it felt like any other, the last drop of medical supplies we're being tucked inside the remains of an Imperial Clipper, when they appeared.
Normally a Capitol Ship will jump by itself, it leaves a smaller rift through Witch Space, which means less attention by whatever's in there. Mallory wanted the attention though so she jumped a small combat fleet with the Farragut. William and Ziro had been EVA and could feel the rift tearing open even from 6 clicks away, they had barely made it inside the clipper and mag-locked to the floor when it started. It was like a bar fight in space, Marauders were dropping in, trailing the combat fleet. If they hadn't trailed them the fight would have been over before the crew on the Angelica'et Malorium could even bring her weapons to full.
Immediately Ziro broadcast for any available, the Daemonica Somnia dropped first. Zoey was hoping to gunner while Fallon opened the Fighter Bay, that way William and Ziro could EVA into the ship and she could depart to assist the Angelica'et Malorium. Though a very heavily armed and engineered combat vessel, was simply far to outmatched to last for more than a few minutes alone.
Once they had regrouped from the ambush, the fight seemed to be turning to their favor. William, Ziro, Zoey, and Fallon were a well trained and fielded crew, and the Outlaws aboard the Python were no joke. The Daemonica Somnia, and the Angelica'et Malorium were sister ships, designed to work together under any situation and survive. Outfitted as they were the Marauders and Human Vessels fell quickly, and they could easily keep distance from the Farragut.
William saw a chance and Ziro agreed, salvage the goods and escape instead of leaving them for the attackers. They called in Estrella from Super Cruise.
Meanwhile Aedraleen Mallory Zamora called in her ace, a Second Farragut. The Outlaws and even her own daughter had severely underestimated the might and reach the Officer Zamora possed.
Then they each laid their cards on the table, William and crew may have had a full house, but Aedraleen had stacked the deck.
The second Farragut opened a right behind them once Estrella had appeared in the Einsamer Gheist. The rift opening put William's Anaconda off course from protecting the smaller Asp.
Everyone's blood froze when they Farragut targeted Fallon in her tiny figher, but it was like she knew where each shot would be placed. Every shell went around her as she carved the fight above and below the rounds ducking the foils and thrusters between shots to adjust vector. She taunted them, hoping to buy time for the renegades to escape cleanly.
She just laughed and told her mother to try harder.
Then the massive turrets adjusted, and opened fire. The beams lit the space between the fighter and the Anaconda, far below the Python and just past the prow of the wrecked Clipper. Like an old flash camera it lit space just enough that the after-image was left with you for a few moments.
Donovan could still hear the distinct *click" it made when the Asp was cut from the comms channel
The first shot from the rails literally cleared the area of the asp that contained the escape pods. Like a cookie cutter had just removed that specific portion of the ship. From their they just continued and they didn't stop either. They targeted the debris of the ship, anything that may have ever had any connection.
Zoey remembered the way they looked through the cockpit you couldn't see their faces, but you could see enough. After the first round, she could see the pilot turn away and look out across the stars. She hoped that was Estrella. The older explorer had seen a few lightyears and always loved to tell stories that would leave her with the far off gaze like she was looking out across the stars while she spoke to you... hopefully that was the look she had when the reactor collapsed.
William knew how Opal would have looked, fire in her eyes refusing to accept that the controls had gone, never relinquishing the fight for a second and refusing to accept defeat even at the moment of. "No regrets, always go with a bang" seemed fitting now she always laughed when she said it. William laughed out loud on accident as he mumbled it under his breath, that really funny laugh that humans do when their so hurt they can't react.
It might have been a tear he felt but it was so hot on board, he could always say it was sweat.
Fallon was right... they needed to be here for a bit.
William turned Parov up some more and let the music soak through the ship. ((MUSIC PLAYING DURING SCENE)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07d-HMm1kUA