The small two-man ship floated silently in the system, its passive sensors watg for any ge. The boredom wasn’t even the worst part, it was the smell. Their little vessel stank after having to sit out here and scout for two weeks. It probably didn’t help that the individuals inside weren’t the most hygienic at the best of times. Their circumstances probably wouldn’t improve anytime sooher as they had another week of monit before another ship came to relieve them.
They couldn’t eve drunk anymore because their booze had run out after two days in this pointless system. The two pirates slept most of the time, pyed cards, or fought until one was knocked unscious, which would have beeter oute if the loser hadn’t been forced to take the winner’s shift watg the sensors.
Merkel gently touched his eye where Zarrick, that bastard crewmate of his, had given him a shihe night before by sucker-pung him. While Zarrick got to sleep, he was stu double duty. The only thing worse than sleeping in this tin was being awake in it. Merkel hated watch duty and even though he was supposed to stay alert, he nodded off a few times. Those naps didn’t st loe the fact he could barely keep his eyes open. The pain in his face kept jerking him awake. Whe back, he would find out who he pissed off to get this shitty assig and stick a knife in them. Nobody deserved this bullshit.
As he was nodding off again, the sole began fshing, jerking him back awake. It took him a moment to focus on the dispy. That didn’t help. He was forced to use his shirt to rub the grime off the s to even see what the alert was for. If it was one of those damn patrol ships again, he was going to scream.
What he saw was three distinct jump signatures. Hard not to see them, they were bsting the entire system with their sers as they flew through. No pirate would do that.
Their ship was drifting dark with only emergency power on, and they were pear an asteroid in the inner belt. The ces of the three ships spotting them were virtually ent uhose ships got way closer. And he khey wouldn’t. They had picked this spot specifically because it was outside the travel ne of the scout ships. Well, teically their boss, Arkonis had chosen this spot.
Merkel doubted he would have thought about positioning himself so far away. When he ran down ships, he wao be as close as possible to a shipping ne so he could get the jump on his quarry.
He didn’t bother waking Zarrick. Ohese ships transitiohrough the system, he would get them moving. If Zarrick questio, he would just say they got relieved early so he could cim the bonus their boss was handing out for being the crew to spot the mercs leaving. Assuming he could hide the ships from his crewmate, which probably wouldn’t be hard. Zarrick was a moron. The st time Merkel had relieved him to take watch, the man had turhe sole off because he said the buzzing sound was annoying him. How the idiot expected to deteything with the sole and passive sensors offline was beyond him. But his crewmate didn’t seem ed.
Merkel watched as all three ships were burning hard toward STO space. That was good. He figured roughly a day and a half, they would be out of the system, and he could report to the boss. Then maybe he could finally get in on some real a.
***
“Boss!” the unian yelled. “Scout ships back.”
Arkonis shoved the woman off his p and sat up in the bridge chair. “They best be rep good news. If they left their post early, shoot them.”
Nobody batted a that.
“They say the meraries pulled out three days ago.”
“Bout damn time!” Arkonis cpped his hands and ughed. “Call in everyo’s time for a big score!”
He got up from his seat and grabbed the affronted woman he had shoved aside.
The woman took a swipe at him, and he chuckled as he dodged the fist. She was certainly no delicate flower like his brother preferred. No, she was a real woman, a pirate, just like him. “Call me when we are underway!” he yelled bato the bridge as he led the angry woman back to his .
***
“If our informant screwed up these orbital paths, I’ll string the bastard up myself when we nd. Make sure you double-check the math.” The tact had sold them information on hoeople were down there, the types of defenses in pce, and even a general location of where they were. It was a bounty of information he would kill for on any raid. Not that Arkonis was about to trust someone illing to sell out their own people for a measly huhousand credits.
“I will boss! Although our friend here knows what’ll happen to him if he tries to fudge the numbers, don’t ya?” The pirate enforcer smiled a gap-toothed smile at the man ed to the pilot’s station. The man nodded frantically and the rest of the crew ughed.
Their pilot had been an acquisition st year along with another ship. Arkonis had trained pilots, but it was hard to beat a former STO Navy pilot. He had been on some vacation in an outer territory when the Headhunter desded upon the hapless vessel. The man took a bit to break before he fell in line, but those days of defiance were over. It was also much quieter now that the man didn’t have his too fp around.
“Jump in ten,” his enforcer called out. “Alert the rest of the fleet to wait ten minutes and to stagger their jumps. I don’t want any hot-headed bastards giving our positions away. We o deal with their ons before they bee a problem.”
“Orders sent.”
Arkonis smiled as the stars twisted around them and they vanished from the system. When they reappeared two hours ter, they were fag a rge gas giant, far enough away that their field hadn’t beeabilized too much.
“Report!” he ordered.
“We are exactly where we expected to be, boss, right behind the rgest p in the system. If the orbital chart was correct, our target p should be on the opposite side of the system. There’s no way they could pick up our inbound jump with the gas giant masking it.”
“Good, set a trajectory and go dark. We will coast in nid slow. Once we see nothing has ged, we’ll unch our present.”
The ship moved and was soon on an intercept course for Eden’s End. Soon other ships joihem as they jumped into the same area. As they closed the distaheir passive sensors began to get a better visual of what awaited them.
“Looks mostly the same. But the station is much rger than our informant cimed. I don’t see any armaments on it, but we are still too far out to tell for sure.”
Arkonis frow this, he didn’t like surprises. “Show me the station.”
A grainy image appeared on the holo dispy. Arkonis almost ughed when he saw the thing. “It’s a refueling and dumping station. I doubt it’ll have ons. But that does help us out. Anything else to note?”
“Nothing we see. The same asteroids where they hid their cameras are floating in orbit. No ships around the p. Our man did say an ore hauler had ehe system, but I’m not pig it up on our passives. Maybe it left with the meraries? ’t imagine why it would stick around.”
“Once we eurn on active sers. I want to know everything in this system.” He really o i ier passive sensors, a more updated system could pick up active transponders in passive mode. But the cost irked him.
The slow passage across the system was nearly unbearable, but they o get closer to deliver their gift.
After a day, he finally heard what he had been waiting for. “We’re in rao fire.”
“Well, let’s not keep them waiting,” Arkonis smiled widely.
The ship shuddered multiple times as missile tubes opened up and the rails uheir payload at the slowest possible speed. A total of twelve missiles left the ship, two for each orbital railgun instaltion. Thirty seds ter, o missile left the ship. The ship was on an intercept course for the p, and the missiles would coast ahead of them, slowly gaining distao arrive ahead of them. When it was time, they would light their engines and streak toward their targets.
The people of Eden’s End would see the ons at that point, but by then it would be too te. Assuming their inside man had done his job correctly, there wouldn’t be a single orbital railgu standing. Arkonis hedged his bets though. That was what the st missile was for. If it wasn’t needed, it could be retrieved a into safe mode again.
It was a shame he had to destroy the powerful surface ons, he could have easily repurposed them for his fgship. Then maybe he could carve out a k in his brother’s new empire. et rid of him and take it all for himself. Arkonis smiled. It was good to have goals.
***
Alexander was w on his engine desighe facility shook slightly. Then it shook again and again. He quickly realized it was the railguns firing. An even louder boom shook the facility a moment ter, followed by two more before the facility arms finally went off. Then he heard the smaller railguns burst to life, their muted booms shaking dust off the walls as they sent hypersonic darts at something.
The overhead speaker crackled to life but fell silent almost immediately as all of the power cut out.
As soon as the power died, a red warning fshed across Alexander’s internal dispy.
[WARNING EMP DETECTED!]
All of this happened in the span of twenty seds. His mind quickly parsed what was going on and he decided he o make sure his daughter was safe. He rushed out of the room to find Yulia. The entire facility was eerily quiet until emergency lights and power started to flicker back to life. He tried the small radio he carried, but it was dead. He wondered how he was still alive. An EMP should have shut him down. Especially one powerful enough to disable power in the facility. And the fact that the guns had fallen silent was not a good sign.
“Pirate attack! Get to the shelters!” someone screamed over the system as it crackled back to life.
Red fshing lights and arms began to bre across the plex as people rushed to safety.
“Alexander, report to security,” Damien said over the , obviously repg the hysterical man from before.
Dammit! He didn’t have time to rush to security, he o find Yulia. But he quickly realized she could be anywhere. Without knowing where to start, trying to find her could be a waste of very precious time. Quickly debating the pros and s to track down his daughter, he turned down the path and raced for the security station. Yulia was smart, she would go to her shelter area and Damien would not have called on him if it wasn’t important.
He arrived at the security room a few mier. “What’s going on?”
“Pirates hit three of the orbital railguns. We took out the rest of the missiles but the bastards set off a nuke in orbit,” the man stated grimly. “The resultant EMP forced a system reset.”
“The external defenses!” Alexander said in realization. With the facility’s a puter core in the process of being rebuilt by Lucas, Alexander hadn’t seen the point of eg the new guns to the facility's prid. That and the cost of running that much high-voltage cable to the gun pits had made it a low priority. It had been much easier and more effit to just hook up his batteries to an array of sor panels. The batteries for the guns stored enough power to empty the magazines, so recharging them quickly really wasn’t all that important for him. He was regretting that decision now.
“All down. Your fanew internal defenses as well.”
“What do we have for ons?” Alexander asked instead of freaking out. If he could get out there, he could reset one of the guns.
“The pulse rifles should still work. However, they won’t do much against pirates with nukes.”
“If they were willing to he facility, they wouldn’t have deto in orbit. They want something, and my guess is that something has to do with me.”
Damien grunted in agreement. “If I thought the pirates would simply leave us be if they got to you, I might be ined to step aside ahem.”
“How very shrewd,” Alexander responded coldly.
The man shrugged. “If they wanted me and it would save the rest of the people here, wouldn’t you do the same?”
“…”
“I thought so,” Damien smirked slightly. “At least that makes you human.”
“You need more ons.”
“Preferably. But I doubt you have time to print more, even if the printers came baline.”
“They didn’t,” he replied. Or at least he hadn’t bothered to che them before he left to search for Yulia before being called here. “But we have CQB rifles at all the entraurrets. Get your people down to the entrances and have them pry the turrets open. The rifles should be easy enough to remove, but they arely set up for standard use. Still, it’ll be better than trying to stun the pirates.”
The man nodded a out another unicatiohe station . “We only hope people are in those areas. It’s not like they unicate back with us uhey get to a nearby terminal.”
Alexander nodded, but the man just looked at him. He realized his holo-projector was burned out iaot this again, he groaned internally. “Do the best you . Do you know where Yulia might be or how long we have?”
“She would have headed to her designated bunker. I don’t have enough people to send them on a wild goose chase looking for her if you think she didn’t… I’m sorry. As for when the pirates arrive, no clue. We doly have an uplink to our satellites anymore. My guess is they would have waited well back of that detonation though. So ten to fifteen minutes before ships start desding from orbit would be my guess.”
The man’s rebuke over his daughter stung, but he was right. It didn’t make Alexander want to punch him in the fay less though. Before he could do something rash, he stomped out of the security room. This was no time to start a fight.
“Where are you going?” Damien asked.
“To try a one of the railguns. Unless you think the pirates will simply sit bad let us kill them while they have a ship in orbit overhead?”
The man had no respoo that and Alexander picked up speed as he raced down the hallway as fast as his servos would carry him. He had never gone full out with this body, it was time to put it to the test.
As the walls blurred past him, he focused on the problem at hand. There was no tunnel leading to the railguns, which meant he o head outside. He had separated the gun pits from the rest of the plex to protect it in case the ons failed catastrophically. He never figured the failure would have been caused by pirates. If they survived this attack, he would o address that ht as soon as possible. Having to go onto the surface to fix a on ptform while utack seemed like a moally stupid idea. One he was about to embark on very shortly. Alexander hoped he could reset the e to the turret or this little stunt would be a plete waste of time.
The exit door came up fast and Alexander was forced to slow as he entered his first obstacle. The door trol was burned out. He ripped a panel off the wall with a screech of tearial and reached for the manual release. The rachet-style meism was slow as hell, but he was gd it was there. After thirty seds, he finally got the doors open wide enough so he could pass through.
The sun was beginning to set and Alexander could see the remnants of the eleagic disturbance over the facility from the detonation. The shockwaves resembled an aurora, it would almost be pretty if he didn’t know what caused it. He didn’t stand around to admire them though as he raced across the nding pad and toward one of the railguns.
As he quickly covered the distance, he could see two bck clouds on the far side of the facility. And one on this side. He zoomed in on the closest cloud. There were broken sor panels and the twisted wreckage of the gun stig out of the destroyed on instaltion. They had indeed maet the guns. But not all of them thankfully. The thin lines of smoke rising in the distance must have been the remaining missiles.
He quickly added them up, including the three impacts he heard. There was a total of twelve. Someone had used enough ons to ewun. If the smaller guns hadn’t e online, all of the ons would have been turned into twisted scrap. There was no way the bigger guns could fire and reload fast enough to stop two missiles simultaneously. That meant someone knew about the defenses. Had someorayed them?
With that chilling thought, he pushed his body even harder, getting angry e lights popping up in his vision. He ighem. Alexahought about trying to get the nding pad guns baline, but he only had time to reactivate one gun. While the nding pad guns would deter any nding for a short time, the turrets wouldn’t be able to do anything about the ships in orbit. Sooner or ter the pirates would destroy the smaller gun and e down.
As he he pit, he thanked whoever was on duty in the security room for being diligent. Any dey and the guns may not have even activated and he would either be sprinting toward a burning pit or a sealed on hatch.
Alexander jumped down the service dder at the side of the gun, falling forty feet and nding with a loud boom as he hit the grating at the bottom of the pit. The metal caved in below his weight but he simply yanked his legs out of the hole and ran to the main breaker.
He flicked the breaker ba, but all he heard was a loud buzzing sound ing from the power supply. There was no sign of movement from the on overhead. He quickly thought over the problem. The buzzi the po. The capacitors would ime to recharge from the batteries, they were desigo dump their energy into a grounded e if the breaker tripped so they didn’t damage the wiring. But there should still be enough power to move the gun. The fact it wasn’t moving, meant the fuses in the gun itself had popped. Since all of the power for the gun and the rotary meism went through those fuses, he o repce them to get it w again. Alexander desighem to be sensitive to power spikes to prevent any damage to the ons. It seemed he would o redesigo take into at EMPs now.
He flipped the breaker back off before he rao a nearby et and tore it open since he didn’t have time to ehe code. He grabbed two of the massive rept fuses and hurried over to the gun. Normally the on would be in standby mode for ging these out. The fact it wasn’t in that mode would have been a real issue for anyone who wasn’t a-foot-tall robot. That was another design fw he would have to corre the iteration.
Alexander yahe service panel off the on and pulled the blown fuses out, repg them with the two new ohen he ran back over and flipped the breaker ba.
The gun jerked into motion and he nearly sighed in relief before it settled bato ste mode. “What! No, move dammit!”
When he looked at the mainteerminal, he saw the gun was resetting due to numerous faults beied.
He cursed himself for having built these failsafes into the gun as he climbed the dder back out of the pit. The gun would take time to ensure all the systems were w properly before it would activate again. But they didn’t have time.
As he exited the pit, he could already see the telltale streaks of shuttles desding from orbit. Without enhang his vision, he could even see a ship slowing as it fired its nding and takeoff thrusters to maintain a stationary orbit over the facility. The ship had to be quite low for him to see it without zooming in. There was no more time to get any uns w. Alexander rushed back to the facility door and shut it behind him just as he heard the fre of engines.