Chapter 1: Making a name

All my life I have fought for everything I had, food, clothing, education and finally my position as a space pilot. I shifted the power setting again as the huge barge glided above the third asteroid belt towards the next ore dump, “The second reactor just died Lorenz.”

“What else is new? This bucket of scrap is lucky it can stay in space.”

I glanced at her holograph in my display, “Having both and the other half of the gravity generators would be nice when we reach the ore.”

She continued to work, “You are asking the impossible again.”

I smiled, “I can always ask.”

She snorted and sat back, “Okay the feed is back online.”

I changed the power settings again, “Only half the dead gravity generators are back.”

She moved away, “That will take longer.”

I began slowing and rotating the barge until the waiting ore was above us. We came to a stop and I opened the comm, “Bingo three on site and preparing to load.”

“Copy Bingo three.”

I turned after setting the gravity anchors and opened the ore bays. I switched on the gravity tractor beams to begin pulling the raw ore and crushed rock into the bays. One at a time they filled slowly and I finally closed the outer hatches, “How do the reactors look Lorenz?”

I turned and brought up the long range scans to plot our course back to the station and froze, “Lorenz?”

“I am busy Alex.”

I turned to look at the holograph, “There is a Saint fleet attacking Rodney IV.”

Lorenz stuck her head in the holograph, “What?”

I glanced at the long distance scan, “It looks like a battleship with a couple of cruisers, a half dozen destroyers with a few corvettes.”

She frowned, “What is the Imperial fleet warships doing?”

I snorted, “Staying away from the battleship and trying to kill the smaller ships.”

I frowned at a few visible explosions on the planet’s surface, “The battleship is firing kinetic strikes at the planet.”

I turned, “Go to your life globe.”

“What are you going to do?”

I brought the reactors online, “I am going to jump the barge into the battleship.”

I looked at her, “Once you punch out use the override and go to the station.”

She hissed, “You will only get one jump before the jump engine goes.”

I smiled, “One is all I need. Good luck getting back to the station.”

She nodded and left and I watched until the life globe separated. I started turning the barge before slowly accelerating. It took almost an hour before the barge began to shake with strain. I kept glancing at the scan and saw a couple of destroyers turning towards the barge and smiled, “You are going to be to late.”

I started plotting the jump and armed the pilot ejection pod. I took a deep breath before opening the reactors up all the way and starting the jump engine. The barge screamed as the engine came alive, jumping this deep in a system was not normally done. I looked at all the red flashing lights before locking the plot into the jump computer.

There was several long minutes before the wormhole opened and everything turned inside out. Suddenly the barge was back and impacting into the huge battleship. I slammed my hand down as I was thrown forward against the restraints and the pilot’s seat exploded straight up. The life globe snapped around the seat as it erupted out the escape tube.

I was pinned back but kept my eyes on the globe scan. I slapped the override as the corvette was suddenly in the globe’s path. I dialed up the thrusters as I rotated the globe and then scrambled out of the seat. I closed the evac suit I wore before dumping the air in the globe. I grabbed the gravity tractor gun from the back of the seat and opened the globe and leaped into space.

I fired the gravity anchor at the passing corvette and the gun screamed as it tried to compensate and pull me after the ship. The battleship exploded with hundreds of life globes spreading out. Imperial fleet warships started closing in as they began to engage the other ships. The tractor gun was finally pulling me in and I held on until I reached the corvette.

It had turned to accelerate towards the outer system as I used the inset hull guide holds to pull myself to a airlock. I cycled the airlock to vacuum and waited for the green light before opening the hatch, I closed it after slipping in. I moved to one side where the maintenance controls were and opened the panel. I input a maintenance check cycle and closed the panel as the airlock began pressurizing with oxygen.

I started stripping out of the evac suit as soon as the oxygen levels were high enough. The maintenance cycle would prevent a alarm from going off on the bridge. I pulled the small energy knife I carried and waited before opening the inner hatch. I knew generalities about ships like a corvette, they carried a crew of fifteen to twenty. I turned to head towards engineering as I heard the bridge chatter on the ship speakers.

The ship should have two or three crew in engineering and up to five on the bridge, the rest would be in either a missile position or working damage control. I moved as quietly as possible and peeked into the engineering section. I moved quickly and sliced across an older man’s throat before stabbing into the temple of a younger man. I shut the knife off as I looked around before kneeling to search both men.

I slipped into damage control to see two men watching monitors. I had found a second energy knife and switched both on as I stabbed through the back of each man’s neck and up into their brain. I pulled them away before searching them and leaving. I kill two men each in the three kinetic missile bays and two in the weapons fire control section.

When I stopped outside the bridge the captain was cursing and yelling for his crew to answer. I moved when the crewman walked out and shoved a knife up under his ear as I started walking onto the bridge. The captain spun and opened his mouth but I was already to close and jabbed with a knife. It struck through an eye and into his brain as I continued to move.