Thursday, November 8, 2012

Vengeance - Part 11

Oh hai everyone! I'm back! Two weeks holidaying with Thresher Sharks, Grey Reef Sharks plus a lot of other life at 30 metres below the sea and then a week on the beach! Looks like the queued posts have been working whilst I've been away.

Anyhoo, back to normal and its Fan Fiction Friday. Alternate post for you who don't like this sort of thing is here at Freebooted. Still undecided if this needs an epilogue or if this is it!

Vengeance - Part 11

Jian lay flat on top of the Badger class industrial and poked his head inside the ship through the open hatch. The corridor was brightly lit and the ship interior looked new. He jumped inside and headed for the bridge.


They entered the bridge together, as they did the systems came to life. Consoles booted up and lights brightened in their presence.

"Greetings!"

They both span around. A hologram was facing them.

"Who are you?" asked Helena

"I'm sorry, I am a limited AI construct. I am unable to answer questions"

"It's the egger" Jian whispered to her.

"I'm sorry to have kept you in captivity for so long. I hope when you hear about who I am and what I have done you will understand. This hidden ship has been revealed to you due to two possible scenarios coming to fruition. Either I have completed my task or I have failed. I have been engaging in some risky behaviour in this endeavour, sometimes without the protection of my capsule. Either way, the facility has detected the signal and revealed this hidden hanger to you. A self-destruct sequence has also been activated. Whatever the outcome, I have no use for this facility any more  Do not panic, the 10 minute timer will not start until you undock this ship. Therefore I would recommend you get everyone on board and depart. The stations defences have also deactivated and you are free to leave. I am sorry for your incarceration.".

The hologram faded as the capsuleer finished his speech. This was followed by a low rumble as the ship powered up its reactor and engines. It was ready to fly.

Within the hour Jian had assembled all the residents of Hotel Egg onto the Badger and formed a limited bridge crew. A mere ninety minutes after discovering the ship, it undocked from the hanger array.

They were in low-sec and there was a station close. Jian wasted no time in ordering the bridge crew to warp to the station and dock up.

-o0o-

Gantor’s Crow class interceptor touched down on the landing pad at the outpost. A hastily constructed pod gantry had been erected. This outpost was not expected to have capsuleers present. After being extracted from his capsule he showered and dressed. The commander of the outpost was waiting outside his door.


"Sir. This is indeed an honour. If there is anything I can do to make...."

"Take me to your comms officer. Now!"

The commander simply nodded and led the way. It didn't take long as the outpost was small. The comms station was at the end of a dimly lit and filthy corridor. Gantor went inside alone. He found the comms officer sat at his station. As per his personnel record, he was an old man by Guristas standards. He didn't turn.

"Sir! Please forgive me if I do not stand. My legs are weak these days."

"No need Chief." Gantor looked around the cramped room. Various bits of old communications equipment were strewn around. It looked almost Minmatar the way old parts had been obviously jury rigged together. The Comms Officer was obviously making the best use of the outposts limited supplies.

"Do you know why I'm here?"

"The second in command to the Guristas pirate faction and The Rabbit’s right-hand-man comes to see me. A nobody, exiled to a back-water outpost in the middle of nowhere. I can only assume you are here about the capsuleer who was after a number of our officers. Hunting them, stalking them, killing them. You want to know why this is happening, why these particular officers. What is going on? And that question has led you to me. You already know the answers. But you want confirmation of your suspicions."

Gantor perched himself on the top of an old comms cabinet "My father was a starship captain. He always said to me, befriend the comms officer on any ship you serve upon. They are the ones who know what is really going on."

The old man laughed. He turned around in his chair to face Gantor for the first time.

"A wise man, your father. So you want to know what happened 18 months ago and why this capsuleer has such a hard-on for some of our officers."

"Yes." was Gantor simple answer.

"Well, it all started as a routine patrol. We were bouncing belts in low-sec and we came across some newb capsuleer mining away. Captain couldn't believe his luck. We attacked. Stupid egger didn't even have defensive drones. We got him to structure and stopped firing and just kept the point on him. Captain demanded one hundred million ISK. The rest of us knew the egger wouldn't be able to pay that. Hell, he was mining! He must have been poor. But the Capt'n wanted his hundred mill. The pod jockey was panicking. Said he had his wife and child aboard. How about that, hur. An egger with a wife and kid, surprised us all did that. He started offering himself as hostage and that he'd hand over the ship. Again Capt wasn't having any of it. He suggested he might want to kiss his wife and kid goodbye as he was going to destroy the ship. The egger was practically crying. Anyways, we see's the eggers ship launch lifeboats before we even fired. I think that was the Capt'ns plan."

"Where were you at this point?"

"Me? I was in me comms room. Capt didn't like me on the bridge. That was reserved from him and his 'Sick Six'. Together, that was the meanest, nastiest and ruthless seven officers you'll ever meet."

"Go on."

"Anyways, Captain orders the lifeboats scanned. Scanning officer lists up what he can see and one of thems got two women. Bio-scans says one in her 40's, one late teens. Obviously that's the eggers girls. So Captain orders it brought on board. He tells the egger if he warps off he'll kill em, and then fires on his ship and destroys it. The eggers capsule just sits there as he was told and the capt gets a point on it. Egger is beggin' the Capt not to hurt them and he'll raise the hundred mill if he lets ‘em go. Anyway, Capt and his ‘sick six’ leave the bridge and go down to the cargo bay. They got some snot-nosed junior officer manning the bridge whilst the Capt'n and his officers are in the cargo bay. Capt'n orders me to relay the audio from the cargo bay to the egger. The things that went on in that cargo bay sir. Haunt me forever it will."

"What happened?"

"I think you have a pretty good idea already?"

"I'd rather hear it from you."

The old man sighed.

"Not good, draggin up these memories sir. Well, Nutz and Sinner went first from what I could hear. Given the others, they were the two least crazy bastards. They used that poor woman everyway a man can. Every sound was beamed to that egger in high-definition along with a commentary from the Capt'n. He heard everything as clearly as if he'd been there with em. Fingers was looking after the daughter. She always did like the girls. Anyway, after them two are finished, the Capt'n sets Horse on the mother. They say that man's corpse will be worth a fortune as bio-mass. Every male capsuleer would pay handsomely to be wielding that sort of machinery! Anyways after him, Slasher goes next. That boy ain't normal. Always carries this huge hunting knife and likes to use it on the ladies when he's a with 'em. Once he was done the Bull goes. They called him Bull as he was always looking for a fight, and he did his lovin' in the same manner. He did nothing but complain that Slasher has to go last in future given what he had done to her. Anyway, once Bull is finished with her, Capt throws mum who's beaten black and blue and bleeding badly and daughter back in the life boat and flushes em back into space. Daughter should have been fine, no lastin' damage from that one known as Fingers. Mommy on the other hand, well she was in a bad way. The first three, well they did enough to her but Slasher and Bull did the real damage. Capt goes back to the bridge and taunts the egger some more before firing off a smart-bomb a few times. Fries all the life boats, the eggers pod and the wreckage. Day later I request a transfer to another boat, that kinda shit is not what I signed up for. Capt'n goes in a rage. Beats the crap out of me and I wake up here. Transferred all right. Arse-end of nowhere."

"And what about the capsuleer?"

"Capt'n got out of there pretty quick. He knew the egger would be in a new clone and looking for a ship. May be he had friends. Who knew. All the Capt'n said was we didn't want to be around when he got back on account of what we'd done to his family. Nobody disagreed."

"You didn't report all this to command?"

"Sir, I got two daughters and three grand-daughters on one of our stations. Would you have..... given what got the Capt'n and his sick-six got off on? No way I was going to have my girls treated the same as them poor women just 'cus I got a consonance."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me sir. Thank that capsuleer. He might have caused the Faction a lot of problems. But he erased seven problems that we should have erased ourselves."

"Six. Captain Jorn is still out there somewhere in patrol." said Gantor as he turned to leave.


"Well sir, far be it from me to correct you sir, but you might want to check your NeoCom when you get back to your ship. May be there is some interesting mail waiting for you. Sounds like we lost a certain ship an hour ago. Just vanished without a trace. No explosion, no mayday, no beacon, nothing. Simply there one minute and not the next. I be a guessin’ some capsuleer caught up with Capt'n Jorn. I'll let you read the rest in the report waiting for you."

Gantor smiled. His father was right, the Comms Officers were the ones always in the know.

-o0o-

3 comments:

  1. Thank you Drackarn, that was very nice fiction series, well done. Moar, please :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, thank you. :)

      Got two projects running around in my head currently. One was a result of a reader convo'ing me in-game and putting an interesting spin on another idea I had and the other is "If I suddenly became a billionaire this is the Eve movie I would produce".

      Coming soon (TM) after I finish the first and see if it can be done in one post.

      Delete
  2. Cheers for the story. I think you need a final chapter though.

    ReplyDelete