Natrella Violated - Chapter I; Interlopers Coming, Snake Unguarded.
06 May 2018Undomyr
Chapter I - Interlopers Coming, Snake UnguardedThis place is heading to hell in a handbasket, no doubt about it. The decks are either buckled and ruptured, on fire or in the most wonderful of cases; both. Why I’m still here? Simple; profit. Pure and simple cold hard cash. Or some nice goods to deck out my other ships with, I’m not picky.
I don’t care about the lives of those on the station, I don’t really mind if they all go suck vacuum if they don’t find a way off of the husk that was once their lovely home. I just want their stuff or their money, preferably both.
It’s been a downright stellar gig thus far. A few short hops to the rescue ship hovering just a few seconds in super-cruise away, clear the horde of people from the hold, accept their worldly possessions as payment and blast off to get more. The bankroll is swelling nicely and my material storage is filling up with all the stuff one could want.
So why am I bothering to write stuff, while I could be hauling more bodies in the time it takes to type this down? Well, good question! Short answer; because I don’t have a choice. Long answer; because some gaggle of misbegotten security forces decided that they didn’t want to protect me and mine from the horde and rather be on my ship themselves.
They’re supposed to keep the unruly masses less unruly so I can work out deals with those who have the stuff to barter with. I need their guns to be able to do proper business.
But they got smart this time around; the lieutenant in charge of the sector-squad responsible for the series of docking pads Natrella (my pride and joy Python) is resting on actually used those same guns to force their way onto my ship. Just walked up to me, pressed the barrel of a pistol against my chest and said, “That ship, we’re going on it. Try to stop us and you’ll be finding out how much a gunshot really breaks inside.” So there it was, plain and simple, really.
Now, I’m not one to argue with guns. I rather dislike them but I am no fool. I realise that they are indeed very much able to break stuff inside of me, stuff I rather need to stay alive.
“Fine, fine, put the iron away. I won’t put up a fight, go where you want.” And they went. Of course a whole clot of other humans decided to go with them. I assume family of the security officers and some who just saw an opportunity present itself and were fast and brave enough to seize it. It’s a miracle it wasn’t a stampede, but the security officers kept most of them back even as they backed up the boarding ramp into the ship.
Now here I made a choice, motivated largely by superficial feelings that one gets flying the same ship for more than a decade; I pushed through the crowd into my property.
Again the gun to the chest, same guy, too. “You can get on, relax. But one rule stands that I live by and will die for; no one flies my ship but me.”
So I got into the cockpit while the ship buckled under the amount of people crowding into it. The hold was filled, the corridors were filled, every single space large enough to fit a body into was used. I estimated the ship was at least 3 times heavier than it was empty and I prayed to the stars that the thrusters could handle that much upon take-off.
Strapping into my seat, gripping the controls and running through the take-off checklist went fast and smooth, engrained into my system by years of repetition.
“Warning, ship mass exceeding safety limits. Cargo hold at maximum capacity. Bulkhead seals not locked. Take-off unadvised.” Verity bleated at me as the ship computer booted up.
No fucking shit.
I’m typing this just before I hit the launch command, because if I do explode in space and have to eject I want someone to find this and remember that they should not be as stupid as to leave the ship, just lower the ramp for those paying and keep it bolted down tight otherwise.
But here we are, ready for take-off. Here we go….Do or die…
I hit the button.