Space: Deja Terra part 8

They met as equals.  Ruzzio and Praxton.  Ruzzio was holding orbit around Deja Terra, making much needed repairs to his ship after his last engagement with the pirate renegades.  Praxton was a new arrival to the planet, lured here by the prospect of a job opportunity.  Now he wanted out. Actually, both of them wanted to leave the accursed planet as quickly as possible.  The UN Space Command’s Army was still around which was a sure indicator of more conflict to come, which equated, on a larger scale, to a chance of death.

They met at a bar, Ruzzio nursing an imported beer in a corner, Praxton, recently entering, ordering a glass of water before setting himself down on the table beside Ruzzio’s.  He glanced around quickly before noticing the frazzled space captain sitting opposite him.

“Hey, aren’t you that merchant guy, Ruzzio?” he asked.
“Yea, I’m him.”

Praxton’s eyes lit up, “Wow, I’ve heard so much about you, giving those three pirates out there the runaround.  Way to go!  That ought to drive the stake of fear into those vagabond rascals.
The other responded enthusiastically, “You betcha, it was pretty rough out there though.  Them damned pirates are getting their hands on black-market technology that’s almost as good as the stuff I can get from the Space Command armoury.”

Obviously this guy was proud of his achievements, he had that certain swagger about him.  Praxton had seen it often enough back home on Earth, the swagger of an employee who had just received a promotion, the swagger of an athlete who had just won.  Pride was the source of the swagger and this far away from home, it was no different.
“What brings you out here?” asked Ruzzio.

“Oh, name is Praxton, I’m the new manager of the research programs here on Deja Terra, got in about a week ago.”
“You don’t look so happy,” Ruzzio ventured.
“You want the long story or the short story?” replied Praxton.
“I’ve got time, give me the long story, but make it short,” joked Ruzzio.

“I was against this whole idea of colonization from the start, but I came out here because of my wife and kids.  They needed this relaxed atmosphere, back home on Earth it was just simply too much pressure for them.  But now we’re all sick of it, the stench of death is still in the air and there are rumours that there is resistance from the natives.”
Actually, Praxton was sick of it all.  He had come here on his wife’s urgings but upon arrival had found that life was a lot different.  He had initially abandoned all his ideals and values but he had quickly recovered them.  He wished to return home, back to the confined, but predictable environment of Earth.  Here on Deja Terra, events were unpredictable, a building a few blocks down from his had been demolished in an apparent guerilla attack by the local natives.
“Aye, I’ve heard those rumours too.  The damned military command here tried to commandeer my ship for their own sickening purposes,” said Ruzzio.

There was a moment’s silence in which both men let the natural sounds of the bar filter into their ears, the sound of glasses clinking, people chatting, drinks being poured.  Suddenly they both spoke, one to offer assistance, the other asking for it.

“Say look here, Praxton, how bout you lend me some of your funds to help me repair my ship and I’ll offer you free passage back to Earth?”
“Funny, I was kind of thinking along the same lines.  I suppose that would be beneficial for the both of us, yea?  How much do you need?”
“Fifty thousand credits, just got to get my left engine nacelle reconfigured.”
“You guarantee us safe passage?” a pause, “no more pirate encounters?”
“Yes, yes, I’ll take the safest shipping lanes back home, it’d be nice to have some company on the ship for once.”
“I’ll have the money for you tomorrow then.  Meet you same place, same time?”
“You have yourself a deal partner.”

The two individuals met as equals in a bar, they left as partners in a trade agreement.  One had confidence, a newly refitted ship and a large sum of money in his pockets, the other had managed to sort out the conflicts within, rediscovered his inner character and was headed on his way back home. Deja Terra had brought two separate lives together and entwined them together.  It was the way of things, stories come and go, people meet and drift apart, events happen and fade.

Space: Deja Terra – part 7

The air was definitely sulphuric.  It left a burning in your lungs, made breathing painful, you had no respite from the pain.  Galvin Sylveste had screwed up.  This planet was alien, naturally assuming that the weather patterns would follow the simulated, experimental patterns was a flawed idea.  A lone volcano on the other side of the world had suddenly erupted, spewing forth clouds of noxious gas.  Their world and anything living on it was dying.  The Frontier had been fully converted into an orbital platform and there was no way to convert it back.  It didn’t matter anyways, the toxic air would disable all of the ferry shuttles and there was no way anyone was going to get off the planet unless they discovered the secret of self-flight within the next few days.  He stood at the edge of a cliff, staring out at the grey skies spread before him.  Taking a deep breath, he jumped.

“Please honey, let’s go off to this new planet, I’m bored of Earth,” pleaded his wife.
Praxton couldn’t believe his ears.  His entire philosophy of being anti-colonist was falling apart around him and even worse, he was falling with it too.  His wife, his supervisor, the damn contract were all too persuasive.  He shifted his gaze from his wife’s face to the contract lying on the table.

His wife’s voice interrupted him, “If you don’t sign the contract I will.”  She went on to add, “Come on dear, think about the kids, would you rather they grow up on this urbanized cement-city or out in the open where there are grass and trees?”

“But…”
“You always said you missed open spaces anyways.  Plus, it’ll be more relaxing for all of us.”

He was racked with indecision, would this offer be worth the abandonment of the ideals and values he had carried with him for the past ten years?  Would it be alright to throw it all away for a chance at pure happiness?  He recalled the saying of a famous Ancient, Leo Tolstoy.  “To support the existence of true happiness, there first must be a family happiness.”  Okay, maybe that wasn’t the quote, word-for-word, but the main idea was there.
Turning to his wife, he said with much hesitation, “Alright, I’ll take the job offer.”  His wife threw him a big hug, smiled and went back to cooking the evening’s dinner.

And so with that, Praxton was set on a course towards Deja Terra, new opportunities, a new life.  He now understood the allure of new planets and the reason behind the success of the propaganda commercials.  He had become a colonist.

—

The pirate captain Peter Obstrowski rubbed his temples, then opened his eyes to gaze at the problem that lay before him. The Pinta lay wallowing in its own debris field, fuel and engine coolant leaking structural damage to its engines, air hissing from stress fractures in its hull. It listed and spun slowly, uncontrolled by its useless thrusters. Men from the Santa Maria as well as the Pinta worked in extravehicular-activity suits in a vain attempt to repair the damage.
They had taken refuge in the Corolas system, a pit stop for shipping and military convoys between the deep space planets and inner rim worlds. Being badly damaged, they had been forced to hide in the system’s asteroid belt, which provided visual cover and radar clutter from the star system’s base, a fuel depot, run by the UN Space Command. If they had tried to seek help there, the base commandant would probably have been suspicious, asked too many questions, and the pirates would have been doomed. The asteroid belt was not much safer; micrometeorites and smaller rocks littered this area, and if they weren’t careful, these could easily punch holes in the hulls of the Caravel-class pirate ships.

He turned to his Ops chief, “Repeat the damage reports from the Pinta to me again. Any improvements?”
Hoyani shook his head. “They’ve lost propulsion completely sir, and life support  is on the point of collapse. Ship systems are on the verge of complete cascade failure. To put it lightly, the ship is a wreck.”

“Does Captain Kitchner think he can patch it up enough to limp it to one of the colonies?” asked Obstrowski with faint hope.

Ukama gave him a sullen look. “Says he doesn’t think so. He’s put all his crew into EVA suits in the meantime and everyone capable of repairing the ship has been put to task.”

Obstrowski touched his mustache, looking at the empty seat where Drake usually sat at the conn. The officer was one of the people helping with EVA recovery at the Pinta. He straightened, having made up his mind. “Inform the Pinta we will abandon the ship. Tell him we will take as many men as we can, the rest will have to use the lifepods and wait for us to return,” he said with an air of despair.

“Sir, sensors detect a large vessel coming up on our location,” said Hoyani.
“From where? Identify.”
A momentary pause, punctuated only the bleeps of the computer as Hoyani ran his fingers over his console. “Its an Independence-class Battleship, sir.”

A deathly pall seemed to fall over the crew on the bridge. “Evasive maneuvers!” shouted Obstrowski out of reflex, then realized Drake was not at the navigation controls. He quickly took the helm and pulled the vessel to port, heading deeper into the asteroid belt.

Granger watched as the first shot obliterated the damaged Caravel where it drifted, turning it into molten slag with one shot. Without any sign of remorse, he turned to the officer besides him. “Follow the other vessel into the belt. Destroy it.”

The other man saluted, and scurried off to relay the command to the ship’s navigation control. Granger turned and headed down to the mess hall. It was obvious these had been pirates. This ship and its crew could easily kill the others without his help.

Space: Deja Terra – part 6

The process of colonization was complete.  All five thousand of The Frontier’s crew was now living on the surface of the planet, ensconced within a domed structure called Pasbiona.  The process of colonization was relatively simple.  The Frontier was loaded with the pre-colony capsule in one of its missile launchers.  The crew then oriented the ship and fired the capsule down towards the desired point of colonization.  The capsule crashed into the ground, digging deep before self-deploying into several basic structures, vital to colonization and the support of the colonists.
He was now once again in luxurious quarters, though these quarters were on the planet.  There was no need to establish a firm government yet.  The spirit of brotherhood that existed between the individuals of the colony was doing a good job of holding everything together.  Everybody worked, nobody complained, everybody went home happy.  Communism, that was the word.  It had once been a form of government back on Earth. Galvin never had much faith in it though; he’d seen what it had done to the countries who utilized it.  The door opened behind him.

“Morning Galvin darling,” his wife chirped.

They were wed a week ago.  Obviously in order to have a successful colony the inhabitants must reproduce.  The local marriage registry had been extremely busy of late, there were almost twenty marriages a day for it to handle.  They already had plans for two children, a boy and a girl, though those plans might change as time wore on, but for now, that was what they were going for.

“Hey dear, how are you today?”

“Can’t complain,” she laughed, “I’m getting ready to head out to the hydroponics facility now, though, and you should be heading off to your job too.”

Galvin Sylveste checked his watch, “I do suppose I should be going as well.”

Naturally, as the leader of this expedition he had the responsibility of making sure all went well within the colony.  That meant visiting the various parts of the dome that were important and checking to make sure that all was operating at maximum efficiency.  His wife was already out the door.  Stopping at the door on his way out, he looked back into his well-furnished house, sighed and stepped out.  The mechanical door slid shut behind him, locking with a decisive click.

—

Having just left the hangar of the Peacemaker, Pilot Doug Yuen heard the VLF confirmation in his headset and nodded to his navigator/weapons specialist partner seated behind him, and to his wingman just 20 metres off his starboard wing. He waited until the they reached the desired waypoint, then one by one his squadron of 12 orbital bombers peeled off to port and came in low and hot on the target. This was nothing new to him; ever since joining the UN Space Command at a relatively young age of 17, he had become one of the elite attack pilots in the military, and he enjoyed the bomber he flew.

“Watch yourselves, recon reports that there are some inactive defenses set up by the aliens around the city,” he said for the benefit of the others in his flight.

“Roger that, Black-Five,” responded the squadron leader. “Everyone knows their pre-assigned targets. Be aware of your fellow pilots. Let’s not have any friendly kills here.” The memories of the triple-bomber collision on their last attack run four days ago was still fresh in everyone’s’ mind. Here, they were professionals, but you could never forget the danger of the job; that was why bomber pilots and specialists got additional hazard’s pay.

“Line ‘em up straight for me this time, will ya?” teased his navigation/weapons specialist partner, Jason Fischer of South Carolina. “I don’t need to practice my vector math when I drop the bombs at unusual angles, yeah?”

“Can it, or I’ll eject you from the craft over enemy territory” retorted Doug, who had a hard time suppressing the urge to laugh. He focused on his HUD and throttled back as they neared the city.

The mass of structures separated into distinct individual buildings as the bombers closed the distance at frightening speeds. “Geronimo!” shouted one pilot over the squadron comms, as the first Hellfire-IV missiles leapt off their rails. The anti-defensive weapons targeted any electromagnetic wave emissions and blasted them with a 500-kilo, armor-piercing warhead. Lasers flashed from the cannons mounted on the wingtips and underside of the bombers, ripping swaths through the city beyond.

“Let ‘er rip!” screamed Jason as he released the first bombs. Smoke started to billow skywards, obscuring targets, as flashes appeared from many of the city’s buildings and boulevards. Of these, some were secondary explosions going off, others automatic defensive weapons returning fire at the bombers. More Hellfires launched in response, silencing these and unbalancing the odds in the attackers’ favor.

A few bullets rattled on the underside of the belly of the bomber, and the status board on the top of the cockpit canopy showed loss of the underside laser cannon. Under reflex, Doug jinxed to port, then corkscrewed up to starboard from the fray. A number of bomblets Jason had just released missed their target by a few blocks.

“You son of a…”
“Hey, cool it. We got an unlucky hit. I’ll come around for one more pass in a minute,” Doug tried to smooth his partner’s irritated nerves.

Minutes later he joined his squadron mates in the air, as they flew in V-formation back to the safety of space. It was a mission well-done; only three bombers of the 12 took damage, and none were lost today. The city’s defenses had been obliterated, softening them up for the army to finish the job of subduing the populace.

—

The scanners at his post were going wild. Brossk looked around him at the other faces in the room, and exact replicas of his own fearful face looked back at him.  According to the visual display, there were currently at least fifty blips of all sizes descending upon their city.  Earlier an orbital bombardment from the ships above of the outsiders had leveled the city walls.  In short, all of their defensive systems were now inoperational and he wondered why his radar command post had been spared.  The shock hit him – these invaders planned on capturing the city, leaving the command post intact with its associated radar coverage was a tactical decision on their part.  Little did he know that all the city-states of Mysh were under the same kind of assault.

“Sir, what should we do now?” asked a young Lieutenant. The lad was barely past twenty years of age.
“I don’t know,” Brossk was racked with indecision.  He once again turned to the visual display with its fearsome array of red blips.  “I suppose we should fight, it’s what we’ve always done.”  Who was he kidding, he knew they wouldn’t last long against these invaders, the bombardment had proved that much to him.  A sudden mental image of charred bodies lying amongst the mass of rubble that had once been the walls of Tenoch flashed through his mind.  He shook it off.  “We fight, if you don’t want to, then I suggest you head back to your families and your homes and hope that these invaders wish to capture the city and not raze it.”

“Sir, you’ve led us through two wars, we’re willing to stand by your side, all we need is your order,” shouted a soldier.
They were sure to die, would it be fair to risk the lives of all these other young men in a hopeless cause.  As the defence official it was his duty to die defending the city, but these others, they need not be wasted.  “If you wish to, follow me, I’m heading off for the armoury, otherwise, I implore you, return to your homes and sit tight.”

A few got up and immediately made for the door, disappearing through it in a flash.  Among them was the soldier who had so dedicatedly shown his support for Brossk.  He couldn’t’ blame him, the fear inside him was fast rising and all he wished was to return home and wait this invasion out too.  Fighting down the temptation to flee, he headed off for the armoury, and a few behind him immediately got up to follow.

“I don’t want to die, but if it is duty that calls, then die I must,” whispered the guard by the door, following Brossk out the door.

Tears welled up in Brossk’s eyes as he continued to stride forward, not with the confidence he usually had, but the determination of a man who had an obligation to fulfill.  Reaching the armoury, he found its doors already open and inside, the few who he thought had bolted a while ago.  They were distributing the guns to themselves, equipping themselves with what weaponry there was available on the walls and in the lockers of the armoury.  He himself strapped a belt of ammunition around his chest, took a pack of shrapnel grenades and picked up the standard issue pepper-gun, named so for its ability to fire over eight hundred bullets a minute.  A warning sounded throughout the entire command post, informing those inside of the invader’s landing.  Any moment now, they would be coming through that door, people would die, the invaders would win, but he would have his honour.  The school of Tenoch had never prepared him for what came next.

The door of the entrance of the command post glowed red, then white, before exploding in a shower of shrapnel so dense that anything bigger than a basketball was shredded instantaneously.  Brossk watched as those around him were cut into pieces.  The laser bolt that burned a hole through his head gave him no pain.

—

Granger watched as his dropship and others slowly settled on the raised highway nearer the heart of the city. Immediately the doors opened up, and Crusader Tanks as well as Cheyenne Assault Vehicles rumbled out and set up defensive positions around the ship. Heavy small arms fire rattled at the vehicles but did not do more than scratch the surface of these behemoths. A number of soldiers ran out, keeping cover behind the vehicles, and returned fire at various enemy positions.

A massive, Emperor-class command-vehicle rumbled out; it was the core of the dropship. The general sat inside, surrounded in a heavily fortified tank that could withstand virtually any attack besides unconventional forms. The highway proved too narrow for its bulk, so it crushed the central divider and moved without pause towards the main target the large building at the centre of the city. It was the guess of Military Intelligence that this was the main command centre for the entire city. It rolled to a stop about 50 meters from the entrance to the building.
With limited gunfire now heard, the general and his company of Special Forces exited the vehicle, and set up a perimeter near the entrance.

“Appears locked, sir,” reported a sergeant with a wry smirk.
“You know what to do,” the general replied curtly.

Saluting, the sergeant turned and jogged off to fetch an explosives expert. Soon one arrived with a heavy pack on his back. Unnecessarily ducking to avoid enemy fire, he reached the door, and placed his pack on the ground. From it, using a hand on each handle, he removed a massive device that looked like an enlarged manhole. He stuck it onto the door, squeezing the handles together to engage the suction clamp, then typing into the keypad at its center, programmed it to blast in 30 seconds.

Known as an Ultrafrequency Vibrational Detonator, or UVD, it vibrated whatever it was attached to at extremely high frequencies, to the point that they naturally vibrated, heated, and exploded into thousands of lethal parts; shrapnel. It was designed such that the shrapnel was also directed into a blast zone. Anyone within about fifty meters, in the direction of the blast zone, would be shredded into pieces.

With more hurried steps the explosives expert scurried away, and the men of the Special Forces readied themselves to burst in. The countdown seemed to take an eternity, then a high-pitched whine could be heard and the door exploded into the building, making the sound of a soft-drink can being crushed, only louder. The Special Forces men hurried in, followed by their general.

What they found inside was a massacre. At least a hundred of the humanoid aliens lay dead, many with severed limbs, scattered over the walls, their blood providing a sticky coating for the floor. The general peered through the gloom as automatic fire was silenced by the lasers of his men. Looking towards the center of the room was a dazed alien wearing a uniform different from those around him. Granger realized it must be his alien counterpart. Their eyes met. Without hesitation Granger brought his assault laser to his shoulder and fired, hitting him straight in the forehead. The alien crumpled before his eyes.

The city was the scene of a bloody massacre for the next four hours. A few hundred UN soldiers were killed, while the thousands of the aliens in the city were practically slaughtered like livestock. Eventually order was restored by the commanding officers, who rounded up the soldiers onto the dropships. They camped in the town for the night, continuing to loot and burn what they could. At first dawn the dropships finally left, leaving behind a cratered ruin.

Space: Deja Terra – part 5

Galvin watched as the Instigator, Inebriator and Irradiator, the three other ships of his exploration fleet streaked off into space, heading for Earth.  Turning to his Chief Advisor, he asked, “Are you sure you left them with enough supplies for them to get back to Earth,” a pause, “alive?”

“Yes, I’m sure Mr. Sylveste, both the tacticians and technicians have looked over those ships from front to back and made sure that they have the necessary requirements to see them home safely.”

Galvin Sylveste was already wanted by two groups of people, the gamblers he owed money to and the Explorer’s Guild, the organization which had funded the majority of his expeditions, including this one.  He didn’t want to have the police chasing after him too for the deaths of the crews on the three ships, altogether about thirteen thousand people in all.  He remembered an old saying his dad used to recite to him, “Never get yourself into more shit than your shovel can handle, because it’s going to be real hard to dig yourself out.”  That adage had lasted him till this very day and he hoped it would continue to do so.  He walked back into his own luxurious quarters and lay down to rest.

—

General Joseph Granger stood aboard the walkway and spat tobacco into a sidebin in one of the officer pits, which were sunken into the ground around him.  The Peacemaker was an Independence-class battleship outfitted with the latest in human technology.  Deja Terra loomed in front of the battleship, a massive marble that reminded the general of his faraway home, Earth. He shook his head and walked blast doors back towards the troop section of the spacecraft.
He entered the spine of the ship and followed the lighted paths of the road-like platform to a central, upraised dias which was the command center for the troop dropships. A number of Crusader siege tanks tracked slowly past him to his right; a number of other military vehicles moved about to their respective places. Descending the steps towards the array of consoles that looked like as blooming flower, he struck a few commands into a handheld computer and plugged it into a terminal. The machine hummed, then spit the device back out with updated data. Satisfied, he then turned to his second-in-command. “Are we prepped for the strike?”

“Quite as ready as we’ll ever be. The troops are probably getting antsy,” replied Colonel Felipe Mendes. Tall with jet black hair beyond regulation length, he continued to peck away at his station.

“Reconnaissance come back yet with anything to report?”
“Yes sir. The city appears to be relatively undefended at moment. They were able to slip in and out again without any trouble. Should be a walk in the park.”

Nodding his approval, the general continued on towards his own special drop ship at the back. This one had heavier armor and more defenses. “ETA?” he called out as he left.

“The countdown is at 20 minutes,” Colonel Felipe shouted back. “Good hunting.”

The general smiled to himself, and prepared as he walked. Grip gloves on hands, earpiece from breast-pocket, lowered mic to mouth level, self-tinting sunglasses onto face, beret onto crew cut. As he walked into his dropship, he viewed the rest of his men, who were also preparing for battle, and manning the command stations to oversee the attack. He sat in a crash seat, snapped his armor into place on his legs, arms, and thorax. The helmet was optional; most of his men wore it, but he decided to forgo it for the meantime, preferring better ability to communicate with his aides.

“WARNING. TWO MINUTES TO DISENGAGEMENT,” blared the warning over the intercom system. A klaxon started its wail. Without chaos or anxiety his men began to strap themselves into the crash seats. He did as well, sharing nods and knowing glances with the men he had fought alongside for years. It was not long before the ship shuddered as the magnetic clamps holding it to the Battleship shut down, and the klaxon silenced itself. Seconds later he felt the euphoric feeling of free-fall as the dropship began its descent.

—

“Come on Praxton, it’s a job offer you cant refuse, I mean how often do you get offered the chance to become the manager in charge of your very own research facility, with millions of dollars and skilled technicians at your disposal?” he said.

Praxton looked nonchalant as he tuned out the sound of his supervisor ranting at him.  He had just been offered the post of head research manager at some planet called Deja Terra, scientifically referred to as Alpha Ceti 8845.  He recalled hearing something about an invasion of that planet, but he had stopped paying full attention to the news ever since they stopped broadcasting anything useful.  He tuned back in.

“If you don’t take it, I’ll have to offer it to that incompetent bastard Charlie.”  Charlie was the head of the Civilan Research department and could basically be summed up as an incompetent bastard.  He decided to interrupt this apparently ceaseless tirade.

“Look sir, I’ll have to give it some thought.  Let me at least go home and talk this over with my wife and family.”
“Alright, fair enough Praxton, here I’ll give you the contract for you to take home and read over.  I expect to have it back on my desk tomorrow morning, signed preferably,” the supervisor had a grimace on his face, “or so help me God, it’ll be Charlie Kopfwoman sitting in the very same chair you’re sitting in right now tomorrow.”

“May I leave now?” he asked.
“Yeah, shut the door behind you please.”

Praxton had to admit, he was tempted by this offer. It meant a new salary of at least twice his current amount plus a new start on a new world.  Damn, he was starting to sound like those propaganda commercials such as the one he had been criticizing just this morning.  Shaking his head, he headed for the exit of the building, before getting into his hovercar and heading on home.

Space: Deja Terra – part 4

“Sir, his cargo bay doors are opening,” noted Hoyani with a hint of weariness.

“I hope he knows it’s a useless gesture,” stated Ukama, who was using a rag to rub his tired eyes. “The hold is pretty much open as it is.

Indeed, the Pinta had blown a decent-sized hole through the doors already, which were flimsier than any other portion of the merchant vessel. This was because, since cargo was loaded from the bottom, clamps secured containers to assembled buttresses and girders inside the hold. Opening and closing massively armored doors would be difficult, so these were made lighter than the thicker armor around the rest of the ship.

“Well, it was a great plan, Joachim,” said Obstrowski. “I think the crew will agree you can take a larger share of plunder on the next run, especially the crew of the Nina.” The rest of the men on the bridge laughed.
Then the Ops console started screeching a warning siren. Hoyani shut it down, then shouted, “Sir, the ship’s got weapons! He just activated them!”

Pivoting again in his chair, Obstrowski through the main viewport at the cargo ship. “Evasive maneuvers! Recharge the forward lasers.” The ship pitched violently, and stars cartwheeled onscreen.

Coming about face, they were nearer the rear of the cargo vessel. The Pinta had not moved. They were directly in the line of fire for the cargo vessel’s weapons. “Inform the captain of the Pinta to slide to port.” That would split the vessel’s defence into two spheres on either side, one for the Pinta, and the other for the Santa Maria.

The puny lasers on the vessel opened fire before the Pinta could move. Obstrowski winced, but the shots missed. They went through the thin opening of the cargo doors, into the cargo hold. There they exploded. So did the entire section of the cargo doors, engulfing the Pinta.

Ruzzio breathed heavily from the stress. His whole cargo section was ruined. The lasers had ignited the released fuel, which had destroyed the ship in his hold, and severely damaged the other. He was hurt, but he felt that the pirates were even more badly so. He once again reopened the communications channel with the pirate captain.

“There’s your fuel. Want anymore?” The taunt was so well placed that Obstrowski had to control his mixed emotions of rage and shock. It was utterly humiliating, being beaten by a freighter pilot who had probably never been in a space battle in his life. He wanted to respond with vengeance, and destroy this vessel for all it was worth.

“Pinta has lost propulsion, weapons, and their life support is malfunctioning at the moment. They’re asking for our help,” said Ukama with despair.
Obstrowski closed his eyes, and reopened them stoic. “You’ve had your day, merchant.” He now made no attempt to hide the malice in his voice. “We have the characteristics of your ship scanned down to the detail. When we meet again, be forewarned, I will not show you mercy. Begone.” He collapsed the communications display into the armrest, rubbed his hands over his weary face, then tugged at his mustache as he considered what he had done wrong that day.

Ruzzio considered his options, and it became obvious he did not have the fuel or ship structure to complete the long journey back to Centauri. He would have to return to his last supply stop, on the outer reaches of space, and hope he could make repairs there. He typed in the coordinates with a new sense of pride at his success that day. He hoped the colonists would understand about the coffins; after all, it was a fitting burial in space, the frontier that they had traversed. “Deja Terra it is…” he said aloud, as he punched in the co-ordinates.