Episode 131, Bug Hunt
09 Dec 2024Ryuko Ntsikana
Schade Horizons
Procyon System
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The downside of trying to raid anything in the middle of a Thargoid war zone is that abandoned planetary settlements and outposts are stripped bare. No data. No goods. The best you can hope for is to swoop in fast, scan a few data points, and get out before an alien interceptor arrives.
Wreckage was everywhere—scattered across the surface and floating in the space above—but none of it was usable. The bugs’ caustic weaponry made sure of that.
At least the Coteries were enriching themselves. I hadn’t realized until now that Raven and the others had prior experience dealing with these genocidal aliens. Their approach, their almost playful attitudes during combat, made the whole thing seem like a dangerous game.
Nyx, with his cold-running Diamondback Scout, circled the periphery of the battles. He targeted smaller Thargoid scouts—ships that would normally harass and distract attackers going after the larger interceptors. Meanwhile, the rest of the Coteries focused on the interceptors themselves.
Their tactics were relentless: boosting and diving at the alien ships, never staying still, always moving, attacking from multiple directions at once. They chipped away at the interceptor until it was forced to use one of its so-called “Thargoid hearts” to repair itself—an alien equivalent to our auto-field maintenance units.
This was the critical moment. As the interceptor expelled heat from the repair process, it left itself vulnerable. In those brief seconds, the heart could be destroyed, weakening the ship. They repeated this process heart by heart, until the alien craft was stripped of its resilience and could finally be taken down.
And then there was Raven.
While all this chaos unfolded, he swooped right through the middle of it in my heavily modified Orca. He landed at the planetary port—now the focal point of the battle—to rescue survivors.
I had no experience dealing with Thargoids. None. But Tara had downloaded everything available about them and had been drilling me on the specifics. Her methodical coaching prepared me as much as it could.
While she piloted my Python Mark II to a rescue ship selling human-designed anti-Thargoid weaponry, I watched and learned. Our first mission together wasn’t just about survival—it was a live-fire lesson.
Our task seemed simple on paper: engage and destroy any alien scouts threatening the port or Raven’s escape. In practice, I had no idea what to expect. Tara, of course, would fly first. My job was to observe, absorb, and hope to hell I could keep up when it was my turn.
I’d heard of hyperdictions before, but experiencing one firsthand was chilling. Pulling a ship out of hyperspace was beyond anything our technology could achieve. If they could do this, what else were they capable of? Were the other stories about them equally horrifying?
Tara handled it with practiced ease, a faint smile playing on her face as she boosted the Python clear of the attacker before they had a chance to engage. The ship sped away effortlessly, staying out of range while her thumb rested lightly on the triggers for the electronic countermeasures and shutdown field neutralizer.
If only I had their technology—the ability to disable a ship for half a minute. Pirating would be so much safer for cargo carriers. No more damaging them to get what I was after.
As we descended to the port below, Tara warned me about the sounds—inhuman and dissonant, almost as if their ships were alive. In some artificial sense, I suspected they were.
The Coteries were already at work, engaging the Thargoid scouts and interceptors to clear a path for Raven. He was holding in low planetary orbit, his Orca’s signature masked by the chaos below.
Tara began boosting and maneuvering violently, engaging what appeared to be an endless swarm of scouts. In quick succession, she dispatched one after another, their ships letting out eerie howls before exploding into greenish caustic clouds.
Their movements reminded me of a research facility I’d raided in my younger years. The researchers had been working on gravity-based propulsion systems. They didn’t have a working prototype for us to steal, but the data we lifted from their central computer fetched millions of credits on the black market.
Gripping the secondary controls, I leaned forward. “Let me try a few.”
I couldn’t see Tara’s smile behind her reflective faceplate, but I knew it was there. “All yours.”
Knowledge downloaded from treatises and databases was one thing. Experience was another. She knew that as well as I did.
A scout approached fast from the frontal arc. Centering it in my sights, I squeezed off a quick burst from the four large anti-xeno multicannons. It flashed past, and I immediately boosted—but with a twist.
Engaging fifty-percent reverse thrust, I thumbed the reactive control systems into full upward thrust, diverting most of the boosted energy between those systems. The Python Mark II flipped sharply, more like a flight-assist-off boost turn, except this maneuver brought the nose directly onto the target while the ship backed away.
I held down the trigger, shredding the alien scout as its haunting howl faded into a satisfying silence.
“Always full of surprises,” Tara chided as I turned my attention to a trio of scouts, rising in attempt to protect the interceptor, high above, that the Coteries were dissecting.
All in all, the aliens weren’t living up to their nightmarish reputation. Sure, they were more technologically advanced, but it seemed they’d either forgotten or never learned the first rule of history: never corner an animal. And when that animal was sentient, the stakes doubled.
We took down over 103 of their numbers while Raven managed to rescue more than 300 human survivors. It was a profitable day. Too bad the Goids didn’t carry any cargo or data worth boosting.