Entry 5 Gulyaev Keep
03 Jan 2018Crzyrazr
For the last few months I had pretty much kept to myself. I had bounced around from one low security system to another. I made my through Pollux, over into LHS 224, and took a month kicking around a few not so friendly areas in between. I had to be careful to keep my nose clean and keep a low profile, what else would I have expected? I did after still a ship, an AI, and let’s not forget the five hundred thousand credits from my employer. I was a thief, and outlaw, let’s face it I was no better than those Cobras I had seen blasting into the mail slots running silent and landing as quickly as possible to avoid getting caught. I was a wanted pilot, and one with quite a bounty on my head if I do say so myself. It was about the time I was finishing browsing the local black market commodities available that I was beginning to think this layover had been a waste of time. Shadow alerted me that there were a couple of unsavory characters hanging around her. Of course she had already activated security protocols, she was fine locked down so tight that I don’t think you could scan her even if you wanted to. So I closed out my session and started my way back to the landing pad when it happened, someone was actually trying to cut into my ship! My blood boiled, I started running through the crowds shoving people out of the way planning my next turn through the corridors. I reached down to grab my little shooter that I toted with me, Shadow rang out in my ear telling me that I had left it on my rack in the ship. Rookie! I rounded the corner and came face to face with the same scalp hunters I had seen back in the bar.
I shouted at them, “What the heck do you think you’re doing?!” I realized suddenly how out of breath I was, and how small in comparison to them I was.
The bigger of the two stood up and spun on one heel with his hand on his side, “None of your business station rat!”
“That is my ship and my cargo you are messing with and unless you want more trouble than you already have leave it be.” At this point I was hoping that I sounded a lot more imposing than I looked. I had stopped at this point grabbing at the back of jump jacket hoping to bluff them. He pulled out his heavily modified rifle that looked like it belonged in one of those VR games you play when you are relaxing or just killing time.
I eased my hand back around from my back showing that I in fact had nothing that would help me or hurt them. At this point I only had one option and it was an extreme longshot but I was either dead, or left bloody and beaten while they scavenged every piece of tech they could from Shadow.
In one of the swiftest, and I must say badass moves I could think of, I bolted towards him dropping to one knee and sliding across the deck hoping to avoid any shot he could get off. Half way through my slide I noticed a glitter of metal laying on the deck, I reached out grabbed it and swung it at his stomach with all the might I could muster. I hit squarely in the chest delivering an impact strong enough to stumble him and cause him to drop his rifle. I had however not noticed that there was another glitter in front me, I quickly found out it was an edge of one of the decking panels that had been pulled up and it was just enough that it gouged a six inch long gash into the front of my right shin. It also snagged on my suit and caused me to face first into the decking banging my head into the landing gear of my ship. Everything went fuzzy for what seemed like an eternity as I rolled over and tried to orientate myself and find the other jerk that had dared to cut into my ship.
All of a sudden I was blinded by a flash, and deafened by a loud pop that left my ears ringing. That was it, that big son of goid had recovered and regain his aim on me and fired. All because I wanted to see if I could score a little trinket from the market that wasn’t even there. It didn’t take long to realize that I wasn’t dead, in fact laying on the ground about six feet away were two bodies writhing in pain as there suits were smoldering. They flopped around desperately trying to put out the flames that had engulfed them. I quickly climbed up into the cargo hold grabbing a piece of cloth from an old tarp and frantically wrapped it around my leg stopping the bleeding. I hollered at Shadow to close the hatch and begin launch procedures.
Shadow jumped out of the mail slot without me in the seat, hell she could probably pilot better than me but there are a lot of things that an AI just can’t do. As I climbed into the seat I began to wonder how I had managed to survive the encounter.
“Shadow, how did I manage to get in if your protocols were in effect? And just what in the heck was that pop and flash?”
“Commander it is simple. I overrode the protocol to close the cargo hatch after observing your location under the belly of the ship. As far as the small explosion you observed, the two gentlemen began in you direction, what they didn’t notice is they walked directly below one the thrusters. I simply fired that thruster.”
“Shadow, we need to discuss your protocols and you overriding them.” I paused for a second shaking my head with a grin, “But for now don’t change a single line of code or procedure.”