A dying man relives his last big mistake
The silence of space pressed down on the outer skin of my suit, as palpable and real as the press of acceleration. I forced my breath to slow. I had to keep breathing as long as possible. I couldn't move. The insulation that puffed up when my cockpit was breached made my suite visible, and kept me warm without using power that was being shunted to the air recyclers. Suddenly a severed arm, crystallized blood trailing behind its joint like plasma exhaust, slammed into my face plate from below. I yelped, breathing heavily as my heart beat faster and faster.
A soft bleeping sounded in my ears. This was it. My air recyclers had just given up the ghost, their power pack failing, and the rest of my suit failing with it. Well i said to my self, tonging the implant planted in the roof of my mouth to turn off the power warning, I guess thats it. I looked out at the debris fields that surrounded the damn planet. It didn't even have a name. UH-9181. Hell of place to die at.
As the air in my suit ran out, i thought back to how i had gotten into this mess....
Earth control reads you the voice said, crystal clear. Starting Landing Procedures i said, turning the receiver on by flicking the delightfully old fashioned toggle forward. ...Come again Viper was the reply. I leaned forward into the microphone and practically shouted I read you, starting Landing Procedures at it. Gotcah was the reply to that. I switched off my comm and looked out the cockpit at the Kane Band.
The Kane Belt. Massive, huge and gargantuan come to mind when you look at it. It encircled the entire Earth, held in place by huge struts that doubled as strip mines fillers and Space Elevators, ferrying people up and out of the Home world and towards the outer reaches of the Federation. I never got tired of watching the ships, big and small, leaving and entering the massive dry dock. I keyed in my usual approach pattern into my antiquated navi-comp.
I leaned back and contemplated the Band. Then, silently (no matter what the fic chips try to tell you THERE IS NO SOUND IN SPACE), a massive rail bolt flew past my cockpit. I jumped back, causing my chair to spin slightly (its bolted to the floor). A second rail bolt zipped past and was quickly followed by an Abomination. What the hell! i shouted to no one in particular. I snapped on my outer camera and began to watch the orbital ballet the had been sprung.
Ten Abominations had flown in out of the blue and where wreaking all kinds of havoc. One was on the tail of a Leviathan, blasting its engine apart with its twin fusion turrets. The focused plasma fire had already blown out one of the massive cargo holds of the huge ship, the sudden drop in pressure blowing a deluge of crates and other assorted cargo out. I swiveled my camera around and saw two Feds in vipers zip out of the Kane Belt, followed by a hail of missile fire from a defense turret. Two of the twenty missiles locked onto an Abomination, following its IR signature.
They impacted with a satisfyingly large explosion, ripping the fuselage of the tough Aouran fighter to shreds. No escape pod flew from the burning ship, and from the heavy chunks of lead floating in a expanding debris fields behind the Abomination, its fusion reactor was unshielded now. Its pilot wasn't ejecting, though. He had to be unconscious...or dead. I gasped when its surviving maneuvering thrusters turned it slowly to the Kane band. Its afterburners fired and it shot towards the turret that had killed it.
The turret was firing cheap IR missiles at another one of the Abominations. I began to chew my fingernails. The turret turned and fired five missiles into the last of the Abomination. The fighter was ripped to shreds, its debris bouncing harmlessly off the thick armor of the Abomination. I turned the camera back to the Vipers. They had gotten in front of a Abomination, not a particularly GOOD location to fight a heavily armored and armed fighter, but there light blasters where pounding the thing resolutely.
The Aouran fighter seemed uninterested by the two vipers, its thick armor shrugging off the blaster fire easily enough. Then it fired a rail bolt and hit one of the Vipers in the cockpit. No way the pilot could of survived, as the gutted Viper flew off and away from the impact. It would burn up in the atmo of Earth. The second broke off, firing its upper thrusters and turning up and around to continue to fire at the Abomination. Fortunately the Feds had finally gotten off there bloated asses. That is a massive war fleet of the Vell-os arrived.
I hate Vell-os. They where creepy, and always haggled well. Damn telepaths. But there ships where breathtakingly beautiful. They where smooth and glowed a soft blue. And, don't ask me how, they sang. It was a tingling sound at the back of my skull that grew as they accelerated, fly straight at me. Then all four of the Darts banked off in four directions, each firing its beam weapon. I could barely see the Vell-os inside each that controlled and shaped the psionic energy that made up their ships.
The beams hummed, just like the ships but...more like a violin...if that made sense. One of the Abominations was speared by the beam. It didn't explode, as its cockpit was completely cored out of the hull with a mirror smooth surface glinting in the hole created by the beam. The other Abominations began to explode with gratifying frequency, there hulls exploding and there engine bisected by glowing Vell-os weapons.
I grinned. Damn Aourans always barging into Federation space. Then i saw the last one. The one with gouges all over its hull from the Vipers. The one that had almost smacked into me. It was flying right for me. Oh s###! i shouted, slamming a random engine control. The ship suddenly began to spin. I had hit the maneuvering jets. CRAP! i shouted louder, getting thrown from the chair by the corolis forces.
Every few seconts the Abomination would show up in the rapidly rotating star field. I was really feeling sick at this moment, but i still clawed my way to console, to at least die WITHOUT vomiting all over the floor. And vomiting in Zee Gee is not fun. The Abomination was getting larger and larger in the window when i reached the console and i managed to fire the opposite maneuvering thruster. The ship stopped spinning, orienting on the Abomination that was flying straight for me.
I was slammed down the button i NEVER pushed. The red button. The hidden thing that my makeshift ship was built around. I had found it in the depths of space, strapped to a ancient Manticore that had take one too many nukes. A massive anti capitol ship warhead, with a primitive hydrogen fuel reaction. The missile fired, pushing my ship (which is shaped like a donut, if you wondered as dutch. I built it my self when i was too cheep to buy a used shuttle)
The Abomination exploded. The derbies bounced off my hull, making a reverberating ring that hung around for quite a while. Because there is no air in space to transmit shock waves, i was relatively unharmed by the blast. Unfortunately my ship was severely damaged, as i had built a lot of it AROUND the missile, mainly to hide it from nosier feds. But now i was just glad to still be alive.
Then my cockpit was filled with the massively metallic bulk of a Federation cruiser. Finally' i muttered, wiping sweat off my face off handedly. I flicked on my comm and said into it Thanks for showing up in the nick of time i said with barely contained sarcasm. Custom Made ship please stand by for boarding was the curt reply. What? i said, confused. We will need to take you to earth for trail.
wait... i i started to say, but was cut off. You where in possessions of a illegal high energy weapon, and used it in Federation space without a permit the operator said It is out procedure to...apprehend people who do not comply with our boarding using every means necessary. I gulped as the crusher got closer and the docking claps extended.