Chapter 1: Defenstrating the Defenstrator: A Rescue

There’s a certain feel to a ship under way. I can’t really describe it. Docked in a cargo hold or at a spaceport ... it feels ... well, under control. Leashed. Harnessed. But there’s always that feeling that you’re a caged animal. That you’re not being allowed to do what you’re made to do. And that’s to travel amongst the stars, taking cargo and passengers from world to world, station to station, place to place. Like everything else in the world is tied down to their mudballs, and only a select few are allowed to travel freely.

I don’t really know if I’m talking about my ship ... or myself.

I’m what’s known as a free trader. Unlike most commercial ships, I’m not tied down to a set schedule of where and when to go. I’m free to take any cargo or any passengers anywhere I want ... within limits of course. The people who paid for MARY’S DREAM sometimes have things they want me to do, and I do it willingly and without any lip or whining ... they are the ones that got me where I am today.

Maybe sometime I’ll get into how I got MARY’S DREAM ... if you can talk me into it. Lets just say it’s named in honor of a girl I know ... whose folks now have almost as deep a hatred for pirates and slavers as I do. They gave me this ship, and told me that while they couldn’t officially encourage me to lower the pirate population single handedly that I now was the proud owner of a fully authorized Letter of Marquee from the Terran Federation, which stated I had the right to attack anyone suspected of slave trading and/or interstellar piracy, and to reward me for keeping the star lanes clear, I would earn the right to keep any salvage or prisoners that I came into as a result of such attacks.

With that letter came MARY’S DREAM, a supposedly stock freighter, fully upgraded with a top of the line SabinTech engine (I’m told that some of the newer Scouts can beat it at a full out sprint ... but it’d be a race they’d remember for a while) ... and a quasi-legal meson drive for weaponry. The military listed it in their records as non-salvageable, so, unless some one was really looking to nail my hide to the wall, they wouldn’t say anything about it. And in that case, they’d probably already have a bunch of different ways to shut (or shoot) me down.

MARY’S DREAM can take on warships four or five times it’s size and at least let them know they’ve been in a fight ... but that’s not my style. You see, if everybody knows WHAT cards you have in your hand, then they know exactly what it takes to beat you. Instead, unless I activate the charging coils for the meson driver, I look like another merchie, fat, dumb and happy.

Pirates and Slavers just LOVE Fat, Dumb and Happy. It’s how they make what they call a living. It’s too bad when they run into MARY’S DREAM, they usually get isn’t nothing of the sort. Like the ship that’s been following me for the last couple light-seconds. He thinks he’s being super stealthy, hiding in my ion trail, at a range where most commercial sensors can’t pick up a ship under EMCON (Emissions Control) condition. When we get far enough away from civilization, he’ll drop his mask, point his gun at me, and tell me to heave to or be blasted into space dust. What he won’t expect is the second he starts his little song and dance about being friggin Blackbeard of the Space Lanes ... I’ll turn around and show ol’ Blackbeard the true rules of the game. You see ... No matter how smart you are, no matter how tough you are, no matter how sneaky you are, there’s someone who’s smarter ... or tougher ... or in my case ... sneakier.

Pirates do well against Fat, Dumb and Happy. What they get with me is Thin, Smart, and Angry. Not a good mix.

Crystal, my ship’s AI, broke into my thoughts by chiming in. “Alex ... we’re getting a hail from the ship behind us. Nearly right at the point you thought it would happen. They say that we are to cut our engines and prepare to be boarded, that we have been claimed as a prize by the rogue ship DEFENSTRATOR.”

Well, I may be a miserable bastard most of the time, but even I couldn’t resist a short bark of laughter at the latest “Captain Blackbeard”’s self-importance and incompetence. Not only was the arrogant bastard not really in the best position to make an intercept, he was barely within gun range, and if I happened to be FASTER then his ship, he’d lose me for sure ... but he had obviously gone into the Empire dictionary looking for impressive looking words that would “strike fear” into the hearts of those who he plundered.

“No answer, Crystal ... let’s do this by the book. Let’s get the little details out of the way. Lock on to our “good friend” DEFENSTRATOR with a passive scan and make sure all we’re dealing with is pirates on this one.” Our sensors are almost as modern as the other parts of the ship ... it only took about half a minute for my sensors to sneak past the ships shielding and get an idea of what the DEFENSTRATOR had behind their armor plating.

As Crystal projected DEFENSTRATOR’s outline in hologram format, I nodded my head happily, almost eagerly. DEFENSTRATOR was a Thompson-class freighter, probably captured in a similar style raid and pressed into service as a pirate ship. It had three Hennessey class lasers jury rigged on its prow. Decent for a pirate raider going up against unarmed merchies ... but against the ship that I had? It was totally outclassed. Armor was minimal as well ... it was caught betwixt and between, two much armor and they’d be too slow to catch a fleeing vessel, too little armor and even the popguns that some merchants carried would be dangerous.

However, any hint of a smile on my face quickly disappeared. The DEFENSTRATOR had 12 red dots on it, mostly scattered around the bridge, two lonely red dots tending to the engine area ... there were four green dots in the center of the ship ... surrounded by a glowing red cage. DEFENSTRATOR had obviously struck another ship previously on this run ... the green dots were live cargo. Slaves taken from another attack. The red cage that surrounded them was a pretty standard thing in slave ships underway ... a cargo bay that contained slaves always had a “mutiny switch” installed.

If a pirate captain ever feared a revolt from his slaves ... or just felt like taking the slave’s lives (on say, a whim, or to clear the hold for more lucrative cargo) ... he just had to push a single red button on the bridge, and the cargo bay would flood with lethal gas. Horribly messy, and fatal to anyone caught in that bay at the time, but if the captain didn’t want to detail some of his crew to do scut work, all he’d have to do is open the cargo bay to space, and all those messy bodies and lethal gas would be harmlessly vented into space.

I’ve seen that happen three times. Once since I’ve taken command of MARY’S DREAM ... the other two ... well ... I don’t want to get into it right now. Let’s just say I’ve seen it during my work from the perspective of being in the next cargo bay over, and no matter how air tight the seals are ... you still think you can hear the people trapped on the other side of that seal scream and beg and plead ... and wonder if your bay is next on the slaver’s list.

But that’s enough time in the past for now. Right now, I had to figure a way to keep those four green dots in DEFENSTRATOR’s hold from a similar fate. Most pirate captains were petty enough that if they figured they were going to die anyway, that they’d gladly push the button and take their cargo with them into death. So this changed the name of the game from destruction to one where I had to defeat the pirates, while keeping that little red button from being pressed.

While I quickly came up with and discarded two plans, Crystal announced. “They are hailing us a second time, Captain. This time they warn us to heave to or they will destroy us.” That gave me an idea. It’s a crazy idea ... but as the ancient Terran philosopher once said... “A Plan is never crazy if it works!” Or at least that’s what I was told by Sarge, the gal who taught me everything I know about tactics. As she put it at the time... “If the fuckers are going to fuck you over, then you have to fuck the fuckers first!”

My voice was calm and collected, as I vocalized my plan “Crystal ... broadcast our surrender on their frequency and cut engines to idle ... but turn us to face them. Set the Meson driver to standby status. I want that thing as close to ready as we can get, because we may only get one shot at this before the pirates decide that they want to take those five with them.”

My fists clenched slightly, as I finished...”Then ... on my mark ... I want two shots into their bridge, followed by another two shots at their engine. If any of the pirates survive those four shots, then we’ll give them one chance to surrender.” Crystal quickly put my plan into motion, sending out a very convincing simulation of a female captain, sending a panicky communication surrendering and asking just not to be shot, that she’d be willing to do ANYTHING ... just don’t shoot ... I figured it would make the pirate crew happy that they’d soon be acquiring a new “playtoy” for their collection. They deserved a little happiness before being sent to Hell, anyway...

Finally, DEFENSTRATOR was within 100 klicks of “Mary’s Dream” and closing quickly. I had to play it very fine. A meson driver, can be completely inert when deactivated. But at the near-ready state that I had it, if I was not careful, they could detect the gun as it charged to ready status, and that would completely ruin the surprise.

It always took my breath away, for a second, really, seeing a pirate ship this close, even if it was just through a view screen. Brought up a lot of memories, mostly bad ones. But that’s the reason why I volunteered for this job. So someday, I could look upon these sons of bitches and just be angry instead of afraid.

I took a deep breath, and settled my Ki. Sarge also was my Sensei, and while she could be terribly vulgar in her normal tone of speaking ... when she taught Do, or “The Way”, she spoke with the measured tones of a Zen Master. “There will come a time when you are anxious to strike, but do not let your emotion fool you into striking before you are ready. Steady yourself, lose yourself in calm contemplation, and then you will know the exact time, in between instants to unleash your attack.

I waited ... waited ... and as the digital range counter dropped to a mere 15 kilomenters ... barked. “Mark! Open Meson Driver Bay ... Fire!! Fire!!! ... Aim for engines ... FIRE FIRE!”

Within five seconds, four blasts from the Meson Driver screamed out ... and it seemed that I did time them perfectly, because the pirate ship had frantically cut its engines in an attempt to cut all available power to the ship’s shields in response to MARY’S DREAM uncaging her Meson Driver. There wasn’t nearly enough time, however, and the first Meson Driver shot blew the shielding and caused terrible damage on the bridge ... the second one was pure icing on a grisly cake, devestating the bridge. The second two shots left a smoking hole where the engines used to be.