It had been six months now that I've called this tin can my home. I've been trading from system to system ever since I worked up enough credits to buy myself a small shuddle, it's been hard, but worth every second I spent in that opals mine. I still have no knowledge of the space I frequently blast myself into, I don't know any of the names of the systems I've been to due to the terrible shape the monitors on my shuddle are. I wondered into a small bar on some shadowy station yesterday to be confronted by a groop of scientists wanting me to bring them to a planet in some system called Gefjon or something like that, I didn't really care what the name of the system was, or was that the name of the planet? Anyway I've got them aboard now, they want to terraform the planet, they say it's especially benificial because the ionosphere is filled with usefull gases that can be traded in order to fund the project, and simply mining these gases would help the terraforming. They all had that look on their faces that they were the smartest men and women in the galaxy to have thought of this plan. It was seven hundred hours and we were just getting out of the system I picked them up from. My computer signalled I was far enough from the gravitation fields of planets(or the system itself for that matter to jump. As I told them all to buckle up we set off, I engaged the engines and for that split second between real space and sub-space my whole body tingled with tachyon Ionisation. It would only be a few days to reach our destination and I got to know the crew pretty well. There were five of them, two women and three men. One of the men was really old, probably in his eighty's, while the other two seemed to be brothers, mainly of the same age. The two women weren't exactly models but they had their good points, I wasn't one to be all over them though, I still belonged to someone else, someone I will never see or kiss again. Enough with the sappy stuff. We had just jumped into the system which held their money making planet when I noticed the system was neutral. I hated neutral space, and still do, it's not a place you want to walts around in. As we aproached the planet a blip of light flashed into the corner of my eye and a Manticore jumped in to the system. I quickly fired up my aft-portside thrusters to face the ship in order to defend myself if it happened to be a pirate vessel, even if my computer did not warn me so, I was always precautious, the damned thing doesn't always work. A screeching accented voice flew over the comm as I opened his request.
"Ay chap, you woudln't hap'n to have a bit o' fuel left for ol' Danny now would ya? I got bumped in my drop off system n'had to jump out"
I hesitently replied to his request.
"Yeah, sure thing, I'm in my drop off section so I won't need what I've got, I'll fuel up on the surface. Oh, but for a fair trade you'll have to let my passengers take a breather on your ship while the transaction is made, I'm pretty sure they're tired of this claustraphobic sardin can."
I waited for his response but only got static for the first few minutes, wondering if my offer was unacceptable I spoke again.
"Uh, you know, they can just sit tight if that's a pro-"
He cut into my message with his somewhat fake jovial character.
"'At'll be fine lad, don't worry 'bout it."
With that I acknowlagded and docked with his vessel.
His ship had a dampness to it and smelt musty and acient, like the spare room in your home after your grandperents have stayed in it for three months. The passengers enjoyed a little breather before getting to the planet, even if it was only a half hour or so away. Once the transaction had been completed we undocked and set course for the planet, which I was still unable to identify clearly due to the bluryness of my monitors. He hailed me one last time to thank me again and then we all watched as he jumped out of the system. Just as he was jumping out my sensors detected a small convoy jumping in, and the alarm sounded, their ID's matched pirate vessels. I quickly but as accuretly as possible navigated to one of the small moons around the planet and shut down my engines afterward, to drift their, hoping my signature wouldn't be caught. Soon after arriving most of the vessels, being Vipers, Valkyri's and two Starbridge's, began to jump out, so I turned my systems back on. A little too soon when I notice one starbridge abort his jump and swiftly turn about.
"Damnit we're screwed!"
Came a voice from behind my head as one of the young men leaned over my shoulder to see through the cockpit.
"We're not screwed yet, we've got time, not much but we've got some"
I knew we didn't have much, it was gonna be close, but if I was anything but stupid I could think of something. The Starbridge was gonna catch up quickly , and it did, we made a run for the planet but I knew we wouln't make it before he could get in range. That wasn't my concern though, I had ran into a few pirates before and if he was anything like his bretherin he'd hunt me right down on to the planet surface, even if he knew I had no valuables, just for the kill. I flared up my engines and pushed them to full as we shot across from the moon toward the planet. The starbridge had already made it quite close and would be in range very soon, at this point I knew I wasn't going to make it into the atmosphere before he could open fire, it was just a matter of time. Out of the corner of my eye a red light flashed and a small alarm sounded weapons fire and soon after the shuddle rumbled as a beam smashed into my aft shields. One after another they came in, quickly bringing down my shields and I wondered.
Why the hell isn't he using his rockets, he could have blown us all the kingdom come by now!
Finally, and inevitably my shields feel, and with a blew hew of an electronic light show a bubble of energy flew outward from my ship and the next shot took a chunk of plating off the back of my vessel.
"NOW you can say we're screwed kid, NOW"
I piloted with all the courage I had in me to get us into the atmosphere in time, but I would have to dodge his fire or I would burn up from the friction of re-entry, so I did. With every cell of my body I willed myself to survive this and plunged my ship into evasive action as red beams shot by me five times faster and rammed into the planets atmosphere showing small red bursts of flame as the ions of the beam were ripped apart from the friction and vanished. Another red light hit my eyes like a brick in the face as my plating was reaching high stress and friction became a variable in my survival. Flames began to crawl up over my cockpit as we entered the atmosphere with out shielding. I nervously looked over at my shields regenerating progress as the red light blinked faster and faster and even began to emit a beep as my outer hull slowly melted away in the rumble of re-entry. In an instant of devine intervention my shields came online as we hit the bulk of the Ionosphere's gases. I could hear a sigh of relief as the rumbling somewhat subsided. Nothing could be seen before me, nothing but clouds of gas moving at tremendous speeds across my cockpit.
"It isn't over yet ladies"
The men didn't have the sense of humor to even react to my comment as they all peered through the cockpit from behind.
"It's my turn B*$ch!"
I quickly fired off my aft-starboard thrusters and 180'ed to face the concealed starbridge. Finally a seemingly useless device would come to bare a priceless fruit to me as I switched my viewfinder to heat sensitive marking and the fireball around the Starbridge became visible through the gases. It was still firing blindly at me, I shifted the vessel to the right as all of my leftbound thrusters lit up. Withought any kind of conscious act I let out a warcry as I pulled the trigger and my two measly pulse lasers flung bright yellow beams out into the gases, with a satisfying thump as they hit home onto the starbridges shielding. I constantly flung from right to left and held my aim true as it was the only hope for our survival, I could imagine the pilot laughing at my small beams as they somewhat dammaged his shielding but would never do any type of real harm to his armor. As I dodged his now maniacle fire I received a few hits now and then but was able to keep my shields above their levels. Luckily both I and the Starbridge had to lower our velocities in order to survive re-entry and he would no longer be able to gain on us, although he was still close enough to pinch my ass and call me Charley. Red hot Ionised beams plunged by me as I frantically held my steady hand on throttle, thruster controls, and trigger. We only had one hope, and it was very close, I could hear it in the sound of his shielding as my beams slowly deteriorated them. My sensors showed that we were almost through the Ionosphere, it was only moments now that would judge our life or death. If we came out of the Ionosphere and through the gas he would be able to target me with no big trouble and we would be dead meat. Only hope could win this battle, only my own will to survive. It was too late, with all my will I could not do it, the gases began to lift, but then, out of a miracle of life I heard it. Such a wonderful sound,
Shhhhhhhvrrrrroooom!
We came out of the gases to see a pile of flaming debris befor us, I had managed to destroy his shields, and the atmosphere did what I couldn't do, it ripped through his armor plating and severed his ship into small peices which would soon become nothing but smoldering piles of ash on the planets surface, comming in that steep nothing could have survived, specially on a planet with so much gases in it's upper atmoshphere. A cheer from behind me was barely heard as I let out a sigh of relief, I was still holding on the trigger, but my banks had run dry of energy and I was no longer able to fire my weapons. The last shot must have done the trick, what luck!
I stayed on the planet for some time before leaving, they helped me repair the dammages and gave me some new monitors for my cockpit, all free of charge, and I also gave them the ride for free, due to the fact I almost got them killed, but they told me they would give me a peice of information that would pay for anything. So here I am, I just took off from the planets surface and apparently there's a moon around here that happens to have lots of Opals! Great, I'm already good at that part.