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Exploits of Captain Antares - Binski - 11-26-2013
Note: Any questions regarding characters, storyline, events described, fiction style and ideas for future stories are welcome to be posted. Criticism on the writing is welcome but PM only please, I don't want these threads becoming grammar nazi holocausts (meaning I'd like to keep the thread about the stories and deal with opinions separately) All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
These are stories about Captain Antares and his crew, and only Captain Antares is open to post additions to the story. Aside from stipulations above, please do not post reply stories. Although based on similar 'real' in-game events, all ships and character names (with the exception of my ships/characters) have been altered.
Part I: Flying Death Trap
On the edge of a dark system with a single silvery blue star, a small rectangular shaped transport ship makes its way around the perimeter of an asteroid field, being careful not to come too close to the cloud of rock.
"Target on scanner! ...identification reads 'MINER424', no other tag sir"
Jonas stood perched at his computer consol in the starboard pilot seat of the Argo, a young man in a ragged flight suit with a denim studded vest over it and sporting a pair of big army boots, looking a slight goofish in an old battle helmet with a mohawk of spikes, each a different color of the rainbow.
"Range?"
"25 mini AU's and closing"
"Good, engage the cloak and lay in an interecept course"
"Aye sir!"
The Argo spun around and began to cruise deeper into the asteroid field.
"10 seconds to cloak"
After a few moments, a howling sound accompanied by a large, rather flashy display of EM energy engulfed the ship, and as it cleared, the ship faded into a state of sensor and visual invisibility.
The bridge of the Argo was small and cramped, like most parts of the ship. Well, all of them actually. The ship was a small civilian constructed Armored Transport, Pelican class. They are mostly in service by civilian organizations in Liberty, and by the LPI as an interplanetary transport and patrol support vessel.
Antares had other 'plans' for the vessle. A freelancer by day, Antares had some personal and rather private reasons for his recent turn away from the 'law'. He had wandered Sirius for years, taking on several different roles over time. A shipping hand, fighter escort, gunboat captain...but after the money was made he still needed more.
He realized that when it came to piracy, surprise and deception, two of the most important principles of war, were no less valued out here in the void. So he couldn't resist a rare opportunity.
Recently, he came across a trader who offered him a good deal on a gunship cloaking device, he took it. $200 000 000 SC, still a good deal for such a thing, being a small fortune enough to get your own cruiser with.
However he soon realized all the ships he had at his disposal just didnt have the cargo capacity to house the fuel to run the damn thing. So then came along the Pelican. A light transport with a rather large cargo hold for its size, he outfitted the ship with some basic armor and equipped a plethora of high powered transport turrets. All of which drew way too much power from the little ship, let alone trying to run its engines and a cloak.
But it turned out to be a deadly combo. The ship was small, but had good speed and manoeverability, and carried lots of fuel. This made it possible to get a good sneak on a ship, also with a good long range scanner on board, something supposed to be fitted on a battleship.
All of this equipment procurred through some rather shady methods, the little ship 'Argo' quickly became an over stocked mini combat freighter. Its power output juiced to the limit, everything crammed in and barely holding together, every bit of free space reserved for cloak fuel MOX, a synthetic compound used for various forms of energy shield generation. The cloak was no different.
"Closing in sir, 5 mini AU's" warned Jonas.
"IFF?" Queried Antares,
"Freelancer sir", Jonas replied.
"Drop to impulse, bring us in right underneath him,"
The engines wound down and the burning sound of the thrusters kicking in replaced the noise from the rear of the ship permeating the bridge.
The Argo closed in from beneath its prey. The other ship, an IMG constructed 'Annapurna' class light miner, was small mining transport that resembled a plump chicken, its cockpit extended out from the bulk of the hold by a long neck-like spire. The ship was pleasently mining away, mining turrets firing at random, and it was sitting there, ripe for the picking.
"Begin scan" said the Captain.
"Scanning....I'm reading...all mining turrets, basic CM, thruster, scanner...no armor plating."
"Cargo?" replied Antares.
"Checking....aha! Nearly full with several hundred units of Nobium ore!"
"Heh, good, I like em easy! And with something to lose..." said Antares, "Rister, prepare to drop cloak! Jonas, stand by on weapons, I wanna skin his shield down a bit, nothing too major, just enough to jolt him, show him we mean business, understood?"
"Understood sir" Jonas replied, looking a little nervous. Timing was everything in this business. One false move or bad timing could screw up everything.
The ship was in position, guns trained.
"Drop cloak!" The captain ordered.
EM radiation filled the viewer, but not enough to cloud it completely.
"Open fire!" he followed.
The turrets began spewing energy plasma at the little unuspecting ship. Its shields kicking in and visibly resisting the enegy impacting on it. Then, just as suddenly the guns went silent.
Antares had his hand raised in a 'hault' position. "Open a channel".
"Mining vessel, hault and stay where you are, this is a raid" Antares spoke clearly and promtly. "I'm pretty cheap, and I see all that Nobium in your hold and can't help but think, you can afford to 'donate' to our cause a few million credits right?"
There was a pause of silence, a minute went by with no reply.
"C'mon no need to make things offensive here, its just..business miner" Antares followed with. Still, no response.
Suddenly, the miner ship's engines and thursters flared leaving a wake of spent gasses, spinnig away from the Argo, and began winding its way through the rather large asteroids in this part of the field. The Argo immediately began pursuit after it.
"Dammit this is annoying" Antares muttered, then pressed the comm switch again," OK miner, have it your way, but if you hault now and cooperate we'll let you live".
The ship didnt show any signs of slowing down, and so far Jonas was keeping with them.
"OK gentlemen, they seem to like it rough, open up on them," said the Captain as he sat back down in his command chair.
With that the turrets began to flale and the Pelican delivered a massive punch of energy. Problem was this little miner was pretty fast on its heels. A few minutes went by. Its shields seemed easy to keep overloaded, but everytime it came close to having its hull blasted, it would just slip behind an asteroid...
"Are you going to hit it yet Jonas?" Antares heckled at his pilot/gunner.
"I am sir, I mean, ah, I'm...trying, but..." he replied with some visible frustration.
"How could a little guppy like that out manoever us?" the Captain shot back.
"Its sheilds are down at least" chimed in Rister, his other, older deck officer.
"Goddammit, I"m taking over the guns Jonas, just stay with him, switching to manual" Antares said.
He pushed himself fully back in the captain's chair and a display curled around him from the back of the chair and came about his front side with a joystick and keyboard on it. He grabbed the controls and with that, gun control was in the captain's hands.
The two ships wizzed and whirled in and out of the larger asteroids, the Argo's turrets wildly blasting away. The miner was taking damange, and wasn't that it wouldnt take the damage, but that it was very good, so far, at avoiding the hits altogether.
"Thats one heck of a pilot over there" admitted Rister from his station to the left of the captain.
"Well I'm a pretty good shot I think, good enough for this fresh meat" answered Antares. A slight bittereness detected in his voice over taking on what was likely a far less experienced ship's commander.
The chase kept up, and before he realized, the astoids began to thin, and the miner was leading them out of the field. Out of the field, and towards a nearby space station, known throughout the region, the IMG's Java Station.
"We can't let him get to port, he'll report us" said Jonas
"Thanks for the input Captain Obvious. Just stay with him, you better have the peddle to the floor Jonas"
"Peddle, what peddle?"
"Its an old expression Jonas, now shut up and don't think, just do!" Antares blurted back. At this point even with their inertial dampening in full force, the manoevers of the last 5 minutes had them all on the verge of turning up their breakfasts.
The bridge rang with alarms of all sorts, some indicating countless microfractures on the hull. Not from impacts, the shields were doing fine, but from microgravitational stresses caused by weak intertial dampening and assorted random gravity wells all over the field caused by the larger asteroids. Swinging back and forth in the asteroid field required massive amounts of power to compensate.
At this point, the engines, thrusters, turrets and shields were all maxing out at the same time. The ship was starting to wine with a slight creaking of metal on metal whenever they made a sharp turn. If any of these systems over loaded, they could explode or simply crash right into an asteroid.
"Another contact on screen, something big!"
"Great" said Antares "what now? Royal Navy?"
"Not that bad, looks like a large transport, IFF reads as... Samara" Jonas said.
A voice over the come rings in on the bridge speakers,
"Starship Argo, hault your attack, this is the Samara transport Fiji, please respond,"
"Send no reply! Keep at the miner, what kinda guns that transport have anyways?" barked Antares,
"All Dulzian, nothing major, I doubt they'll get a bead on us"
"Me too, keep going he's almost at the station"
However at this point it was obvious it was futile. 10 K from a public station, with civilian witnesses looking on, as this bucket 'o bolts 'flying death trap' trails on some poor lonesome mining ship just trying frantically to make it back in once piece.
"I don't care how it looks, we'll chase him right into the docking port if we have to!" Antares shouted. Jonas and Rister were now looking at each other, giving 'that' look.
Antares knew, it was over, another failed attack.
"Great, alright, fine. Cloak the ship, turn us about and get us out of here, I'm powering down the weapons" Antares conceded. He sat back as his control interface folded itself back around his chair, letting out a heavy sigh.
"Where to sir?"
"Just get us back to Freeport 10, head for the Tau-37 wormhole."
The cruise engines engaged, and the ship turned away from the station. The Sumara transport still sitting there just outside the docking tower, its turrets firing in their direction as they literally disappeared on their way out.
The action was over. They were limping home, no pay, not even glory. Probably now on countless pirate/outlaw databases and would wind up with a bounty of their heads.
The trip home was silent, and the Captain retired to his bunk. He spent the return trip debating if it was worth it. He shook it off. 'You can't win em all Antares' he told himself. They had had some successful endeavours so far. And, the cloak had proven itself priceless at such endeavors. This time, that ship...got lucky.
Next time, he supposed, he'd have to get a little more...aggressive. Letting them keep some sheild power, maybe that was it. Next time, they'll be hanging by a thread begging for their lives instead of boldly slipping out.
He also couldn't ignore the irony. It wasnt more than just a couple years ago Antares himself had been out here, helping to escort mining shipments out of the Taus and through Kusari. He couldnt help but feel he'd gone from the young hero he wanted to be, to the very villianous persona he'd loathed the most out here. But after being punked himself more times than he could remember, it was a sour bitterness that drove him, to give back those hard times to someone else. It was just the way things 'trickle down' he thought.
After docking at the Freeport, and ordering immediate repairs and refueling, the crew took to station's bar for a meal and some relaxation.
"It was my fault, I'm sorry captain, I screwed up the de-claok sequence," Jonas let fly across the table, barely having eaten any of his meal.
"Relax Jonas, THIS time I can't blame anything on you, you did great actually kid" Antares replied. He had to admit he could be hard on them sometimes, even when they're doing very well. Perhaps though, that's the reason why they do.
"No, this time it was pure luck my friends. A good pilot, combined with some hesitation on my part, resulted in a slippery fish..."Antares added. "Actually, I take that back, it wasn't hesitation, it was more like..."
"Mercy." Rister coldly finished his sentence for him.
Rister was a mysterious one himself. He was about 10 years older than Antares, a little more scarred up, in the black too long. But the loners were the best kind. They followed orders, they work if they're paid, and they don't have a lot tying them down. Rister was typically in a set of overalls with some light leg and body armor on. Old dented up stuff he probably pulled off a dead enemy soldier. Trouble was Antares couldn't quite figure out what soldier, or who's enemy. For the most part he didnt care. Rister was quiet enough and didn't question him, and rarely gave him any trouble as an officer. But his quiet, meloncholy air about him couldn't help but go unnoticed.
"You're right Rister. Sadley enough, we gave that ship just a split second too long to pay us. Next time, we'll just have to blast him harder" Antares said. They all sort of half smiled at eachother, and mocked at the disolving tension at the table.
Next time, no more Mr. Nice-Guy, Antares thought to himself. Next time, they won't get away so easily.
...To Be Continued...
RE: Exploits of Captain Antares - Binski - 11-28-2013
Note: Any questions regarding characters, storyline, events described, fiction style and ideas for future stories are welcome to be posted. Criticism on the writing is welcome but PM only please, I don't want these threads becoming grammar nazi holocausts (meaning I'd like to keep the thread about the stories and deal with opinions separately) All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
These are stories about Captain Antares and his crew, and only Captain Antares is open to post additions to the story. Aside from stipulations above, please do not post reply stories. Although based on similar 'real' in-game events, all ships and character names (with the exception of my ships/characters) have been altered.
Part II: No witnesses
~ One month earlier ~
The Argo emerged from the wormhole seamlessly. Just like that, thrust out of subspace and smacked back into normal space.
It sat there for a moment, then almost reluctantly its engines reved up and the vessel began a forward motion.
"Status report?" demanded Antares.
"Nothing on scanner sir, no contacts" replied Jonas.
"Good, lay in a course towards the Tau-39 wormhole. I'm willing to bet we might find something shiney out at Jakarta Orbital Facility", said Antares. He glanced over his display and then peered out the main view port on the bridge. There wasn't much room in there. The bridge of the Argo was a small octogonal chamber with a single seat in the center. Three operations stations lined the walls with jumpseats adjacent to them. On the Argo, only 2 of them were occupied. A few more crewers worked down below in the engine room.
He made his way down below to crew quaters and hit his bunk. The captain's quaters were the largest of course, but still pretty tight. It was a creaky old ship, totally re-fitted by Antares while in drydock at the Barrier Gate Station. He had been staying there the last couple of months and rented a penthouse in one of the central spires. The best thing about Freelancer stations was the 'no questions asked' attitude when cash was presented. And the beautiful architecture you'd never find in the standardized corporate or government stations.
As ugly as the ship was, it packed a punch for its size, and its stealth capability meant all it needed to do was get within weapons range of a target.
The ship cruised silently across the system. As it neared the jumphole, a couple of signatures popped up on the scanner. Jonas looked forward to resting on a station after a long trip up from Bretonia. He almost contemplated ignoring them, but if the captain checked the logs...
"Captain, two ships on the screen! Range: 18 and 23 mini AU's" he jolted over the comm down to the captain's chamber.
"Stop here, I'm on my way up" a buzzy voice retorted over the bridge speaker.
Two minutes later Antares emerged from the hatchway, "What we got?" he asked.
"All I can tell are call-signs at the moment. 'Ragnarok and Splitter' they show as," Jonas said.
Antares looked around the bridge. Rister peered up at him for a moment, then back at his station. He took a breath.
"They've been there a few minutes now Cap'n" he said, "Best chance is, they're mining. They'd be movin if they weren't" he muttered as he keyed in a few commands on his console, re-analyzing the data again.
For a silent moment as Antares thought, they both just looked at him.
"Well, what are we waiting for? Set course for those ships and go to cruise speed!" Antares ordered, "And I suppose its time we use our toys. Engage the cloaking device."
"Aye sir, checking fuel storage...we're good to go. Engaging." said Jonas.
Twenty seconds went by. An erie twenty seconds at that. As they moved further into the asteroid field, the shield dropped and suddenly every pebble and rock out there was 'dinging' off the hull. The echo of the hull impacts rang throughout the ship.
FInally, with a flash of energy, the ship cloaked and dissappeared from existence.
"Don't worry we're not going to run into anything too serious" Antares reassured, "Continue course".
A couple of minutes later the ship came up on a part of the field thick with large rounded asteroids. Ships had to literally weave their way in and out around them to navigate the area.
As they entered the chucky part, the ship zipped past a smaller craft, the first of the two they had detected. It sat motionless, on guard, facing back towards the station, towards the likely direction for other ships to come from. Little did it know one had just slipped past him.
"An escort?" asked Jonas.
"And a scout, see how he sits a bit further out, thats a good escort there. Extending their collective range. Too bad it won't make a difference this time" Antares chuckled. He glanced at the scanner himself as he turned towards his junior bridge officer. "One IMG IFF, and a Freelancer eh?" he remarked on the readings of the scanner, "The escort's a SHF, probably a Spatial...that one" he said as he pointed to the smaller craft "Ragnarok".
The Argo closed in on the next ship, which was much larger. It was an obvious Asteroid Miner. One of the largest ship types around, they formed the core of mining throughout Sirius. Too bad for them they're a little sluggish. A perfect target.
"This one's IMG" Rister added in, almost out of nowhere. He rarely spoke when not spoken to first. His voice seemed...cautious.
"Ah", Antares responed "Afraid of ticking someone off Rister?".
"No sir. Just sayin that's all."
"Well you're right, this likely won't make us any friends in the guild. But out here, pickins are slim sometimes. I say we take what we get. Scans of both of them!" he ordered.
Quickly scans revealed both craft were hardly armored, and that the miner was not armed at all. Its hold was almost full with precious nobium ore. And the escort was sitting about 5 mini AU's out, so Argo could techically have the miner on its knees before it could even breathe.
"OK, this is it gents" Antares said, "Prepare to attack. This has to be timed perfectly, so don't screw up. Close in on that miner!"
They brought the ship up behind the miner. It sat there silently for a moment. The miner just working away. Its escort firm and unwavering. All about to change.
"Drop cloak"
"Dropping cloak"
The energy flashed its usual illumination, and with a slight song, revealed the ship.
"Cruise disrupter, fire all turrets"
"Aye sir!"
With an explosion of activity the turrets of the Argo lit up the miner like a fireworks display. The ship's shields took a beating. Once it was down, the firing stopped.
Antares grabbed a hand held mouthpiece hanging above him, and keyed in,
"Mining ship, hault your activities and cut your engines!"
No response. But the ship did sieze activities.
"Now keep your dog at bay, at a good distance or we open fire" Antares followed, as he saw the other ship, now aroused by the grand entrance, who was closing.
The other ship responded "What do you want Freelancer?"
"Well sir, I want to aquire wealth from my travels and endeavors. Seeing's how you're fillin up on that valuable Nobium, we figured you might be able to spare a few million for us..." Antares replied.
The other ship, which was indeed a Spatial, came over and perched itself a few hundred meters away, with the miner between it and Argo. There was silence for a moment. Antares looked at Jonas and Rister. They both were waiting to see what he'd do next.
"You're not authorized to demand cargo here freelancer" the 'Ragnarok' retorted.
"What do ya say Ragnarok, we ain't gonna give this chub anything are we?" the voice from the Splitter added.
"You have 20 seconds to comply or we open fire" Antares replied. Trying to sound as firm as possible. Honestly he wasn't sure he even would.
With that, the miner began to turn and thrust away, its escort opening fire on them as it did so.
"Evasive action!" yelled the captain
"Shields down 50%" Risker reported
"Auxiliary batteries, get us back to full strengh, and Jonas, CLOSE IN ON HIM" exlaimed Antares. The ship sped off after the far slower miner, and ignored the fighter turning back on them. Now at full speed, they caught up with the turtle of a ship.
"Well, FIRE dammit!" Antares said, as he jumped off the captain's chair and spun around to join Jonas at his station. He grabbed the guns and began laying into the ship.
It contined to try to evade, but it seemed running was a poor choice, and their captain didn't take into account combat movoevers in this thick of an asteroid field.
"Its sheilds are back down" Jonas said.
"I know" Antares replied, as he continued to hammer the ship. Its hull now being eaten away by plasma of the turrets, it began to break apart. Wildly the Spatial kept up its strafing of the Argo as this happened. The miner exploded in a brillian flash of light and spewage of debris.
It went quiet on the bridge for a moment. They were comitted now.
"Turn us about Jonas, get a bead on that ship, follow him" Antares chirped. He continued to fire the turrets at the other ship.
It was far more manoeverable, and it kept trying to engage its cruise engines.
"He's trying to get away!" cried Jonas.
"I got him, full speed!"
He let one more CD rip on him as they closed, the ship's hull took some hits, and suddenly the CD impact stunned the ship. In that moment, the Argo's turrets came to bear on him ....
Another brilliant flash, then nothing.
"Tractor what you can" Antares said. He released the gun contols and came back up to the chair.
"Done sir"
"Engage the cloak, go to cruise" he breathed, as he tried catching his breath, that he'd only realized now he was short on.
The ship dissappeared as fast as it arrived, and made back for their original heading.
* * * *
Hours later on Freeport 10 in Tau-37, just one system away, the crew was taking its leave for the day and getting its business done. R&R was also formost on the agenda. It may be thrilling to do what they do, but was tiresome to say the least.
Antares took to his bunk, leaving the bar earlier than the rest. The crew was surprisingly in good cheer, for having obliterated couple of ships.
Well they managed to make a bit of coin from some of the rocks they tractored in. Enough to pay for the job. But from here on in, they were gonna have to hope merchent ships would be a little less unforgiving.
They had a good system down, now to make it pay.
....To be continued....
RE: Exploits of Captain Antares - Binski - 11-28-2013
Note: Any questions regarding characters, storyline, events described, fiction style and ideas for future stories are welcome to be posted. Criticism on the writing is welcome but PM only please, I don't want these threads becoming grammar nazi holocausts (meaning I'd like to keep the thread about the stories and deal with opinions separately) All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
These are stories about Captain Antares and his crew, and only Captain Antares is open to post additions to the story. Aside from stipulations above, please do not post reply stories. Although based on similar 'real' in-game events, all ships and character names (with the exception of my ships/characters) have been altered.
Part III: Irony
Two Asteroid Miners sat in the midst of a great cloud of rock and boulders in the far west of the Tau-29 system. They mined near the Samara facilities there. However they were far from the station, mining happily undisturbed.
Suddenly, a flash of pink and purple light appeared between the two of them. Both ships startled by such a thing go to full alert, and stop mining.
Amid a puff of plasma and gas that was the flash, sits a small, ugly transport. A ship that looks more like a platform with massive turrets bolted to the top.
A few shots emit from the new ship at the miners, giving them a few swift blows, just enough to damage their shields a bit.
A voice appears over the comm:
"Attention GLS ships" said the voice "We're just popping in to seek some donations....we won't take too much of your time up, so if you'd both pay us 2 million Sirius Credits, each, we'll be on our way".
That usual silence, when you know your opponent is weighing his options; Run or pay. But two completely unarmed Asteroid Miners stuck way out in the middle of nowhere aren't planning on doing much fighting.
Antares remarked on their tag. 'GLS', whatever it stood for, was obviously some kind of civilian or IMG mining sub faction. Regardless of whatever it meant, Antares was only interested in one thing. Money.
"Stand by Argo," a voice responded over the intercom, "We'll comply, just...please, don't shoot"
"Excellent. Then you may transfer the money...now" Antares chimed back.
"One moment. The other ship's communications array is damaged. We'll be paying for them as well. Please accept our payment" said the miner.
With that, the deposit registered on Antares's screen.
"Tanks gents, its been a pleasure doing business" Antares uttered before cutting the signal. "Engage cloak, set a course for the Baffin jumphole and go to cruise"
One final voice chirped through over the short range, "Better watch out Argo, not all miners you'll run into out here will be as easy going..."
Antares countered smugly, "Oh, we're not too worried about that".
The ship then did its usual disappearing act and vanished in the direction of Freeport 6.
* * * *
Hours later, at the Shasta Orbital Skyhook, in the Baffin System, Antares climbed up the access hatchway to the bridge of the Argo. The ship had been checked out for launch, made minor repairs, and refueled with H-Fuel for the cloak. They had recently had a new shield installed, a high grade 'Advanced' Graviton Transport shield. A shield with power output more than double their last one.
Antares checked the charts. Tau-23 was where most of the action was these days. An epicenter of commerce and trade in the region, it was at the middle of vast network of wormholes that converged there. It made the system invaluable, and dangerous.
And its also a land of opportunity. With various types of precious metals flowing out of the system constantly, there was always something to hit.
So back to Tau-23 they went. With the range their scanner had, it made it easy to sit on the edge of an asteroid field and just see whats going on. Without having to commit if things don't look right.
So this time they headed down towards the beryllium fields, where the GMS have rights to mine. And surely they detected a contact, cloaked, and skeeted in up close and personal, undetected.
However this miner was mining in the midst of a few other corporate mining fixtures, and weapons platforms. But it seemed ok for the moment. The Argo crept in on this ship the Cartier, a small gallic mining freighter. At the standard point blank range, positioned between two nearby asteroids, it pounced.
"Drop cloak!" said Antares.
With that, every automated turret in the area began to fire on them. It was a hailstorm of blaster fire.
"We're ok" Jonas said as the ship began to rumble, "shields draining, but slow. I don't think we should hang around long though"
"I agree, open a channel" the captain ordered. "GMS ship Cartier, hault and cut your engines, you have 20 seconds to transfer 3 million credits to this ship" he spat out.
With little pause the Cartier replied, "Captain of the Argo, identify yourself. Bare with us a moment while we deliberate"
"You don't have a moment Cartier, your time is running out" Antares replied.
The 20 seconds passed. "Fire" Antares commanded. But, nothing happened.
"Uh sir, I don't know how to say this, but, the weapons aren't responding" Jonas said nervously.
Rister suddenly jumped up and ran around the back of the bridge near Jonas's station,
"If the weapons are down we must re-route the power flow or command functions, they can't simply have all burnt out at once!" Rister shouted as he tore a panel off the lower wall beneath Jonas, revealing a mess of wiring and circuitry, quickly going to work on rearranging some of them.
Antares began to sweat a little bit. This should be interesting. He just loved hanging there in space, no teeth to bite with. Well, time to try bluffing.
"OK Cartier, this is your last chance, pay us...or die" Antares said over the comm.
"Contact! 18 mini AU's and closing...tag shows as...ah its a GRN ship!" Jonas shouted.
More sweat running down Antares's forhead now, things were starting to look more and more sour by the second. He wiped his forhead with his sleave.
"Where's my weapons?" Antares yelled.
"I can't explain captain, there's just no power flowing to the system, its like its being short cirtuited from the source altogether" Rister retorted.
"Alright, abort. Go to cruise and cloak the ship!" said the captain.
"10 mini AU's and still closing" Jonas said, " and uh sir, the engines, they're not working either, we can't turn over the threshold sir, there's some sort of power drain" Jonas replied as he frantically pounded the controls at his station.
"Dammit, ok we'll do this the hard way, thrusters to full. How about the cloak?" Antares asked.
"We'll see sir, trying to engage" Jonas said.
In just a couple seconds a loud howlish wine was heard by the engine. The standard sound of a cruise disruptor. They'd been hit. And that meant he was close, very close.
"Ok I'm taking the helm Jonas, nothing personal" Antares shouted over the bridge systems alarms going off again.
The Argo began a series of twists and turns, in and out of the rocks. It began to strafe into the mine field now. Just a little bit farther and they could make it back to the Tau-29 wormhole.
The comm was ringing with the voice of the GRN ship, a bomber, who's pilot was cyring bloody murder at them to hault at once. But that was to guarantee him a shot he might take anyways. Or, wind them all arrested and thrown in the brigg of a GRN battleship. Not pleasant options to say the least.
Some sort of Torpedos, probably novas, just whisked past the cockpit viewport, barely missing them. His EMP cannons blasting in their direction viciously.
"Well the cloak is working sir but he just keeps cruise disrupting us. It causes the cloaking sequence to reset, you'll have to hold him off longer than 20 seconds!" Jonas reported.
"Hopefully it won't matter, I'm willing to bet he won't stray far from the miner under the circumstances, stand by to jump..." Antares said back.
With that, he cut their engines and they drifted into the jumphole. A loud exposion burst from the side of the ship, and a series of hull breaches engulfed half the ship.
Just miliseconds before the jump they'd been hit by something big, probably a torpedo.
"Lock everything down, damage report!" Antares screamed over the shuttering of the hull. The ship appeared suddenly in Tau-29, carrying with it a cloud of plasma and debris ejecting from the side of the ship, fires burning in various places.
"We made the jump, but the shield generator exploded" Jonas said.
"Sir, when you had that new shield generator installed, did you check the power regeneration rate?" Rister bitterly asked.
"Huh, ah well, actually, I sort of just assumed it was compatible. 100000 strength, it was too good to pass up" Antares defended shamefully. He'd just wanted the best he could get.
"Too good to be true sir, the power regeneration rate was as high as the ship could handle. The second we dropped cloak, the shield began to regenerate. That left no power for the weapons or the engines. Thats why we were dead in the water..." Rister explained.
Antares felt like a fool, but a lucky one, "Well, good thing I have you fine gentlemen here to accompany me to my grave" he laughed, almost stunned. The shield had almost cost them their lives.
The Argo then thrusted and drifted the rest of the way across Tau-29, unpursued, to dock and make repairs at Freeport 6. The ship was half destroyed, out of fuel and ammo, and no payment was achieved. Another mess, this was seriously gonna dent Antares's savings now.
But everyone gets knocked off their horse eventually. The trick is to get back on and keep going. Argo was not scrap yet.
"Jonas, Rister, order a full repair and provisions. We're going back out there, we're not done yet. This time, we're gonna make our prey come to us..."
...To Be Continued...
RE: Exploits of Captain Antares - Binski - 11-29-2013
Part IV: To the Victor go the spoils
The GMS ship Cartier sat in space, motionless, with the exception of its mining turrets, which were chiming away at their role, blasting ore from the chunks of rock that made up the Beryllium asteroid field in Tau-23.
The Argo, cloaked, had returned to the area. A few days had past since its last, and rather disasterous run in out there, where they almost didn't make it out alive. Antares stared out the viewport at the Gallic ship, a 'Rock Badger'', which was back in almost the same location as a few days prior.
Antares was thinking the obvious. Time to try again, and this time he made sure his weapons and engines were working. He had also made double sure on all scanners, both short and long range, that no one else was anywhere near their location.
"Objective reached sir" Jonas reported, "We've reached the waypoint, distance to target now 900 meters"
"Excellent, prepare to drop cloak and fire" said Antares.
The ship decloaked with the usual flare, and this time it let fly a barrage of weapons fire into the transport for several seconds. Its sheild strength drained from the assault, it turned to face its attacker, but remained in place.
"Hello again Cartier," Antares keyed into the hand held mic, standing in front of us command chair facing out the main viewport, "We're back, and pleased to see you are too. Now, as you can tell, this time, our weapons are working just fine. And, this time, you don't have any friends around here to run us off. So, this time you have 20 seconds to desposit 3 million to this ship, or we open fire"
After about ten seconds a rumbly voice replied "Pesky pirates. S'pose its unavoidable at times. Fine, here you are" and with that, the deposit registered on Antares's account.
"Good, I'd hate to be more trouble than what I'm worth" Antares added. Just then, an ALG ship entered into scanning range, and was inbound. Jonas reported the contact.
"Good, well, we don't want to overstay our welcome, cheers folks" the captain finished. He turned his head towards Jonas, "Engage cloak, lay in a course for the '37 jumphole".
The ALG ship, which was still unable to be identified by the Argo since they were already booting it out of there when it arrived, offered its assistance to the GMS ship. As the Argo sped away, it picked up their chatter about money solving problems and the woes of piracy and etc. Nothing too out of the ordinary.
As the ship cleared the jumphole into Tau-37, Antares ordered the cloak dropped. They made their way back to Freeport 10 no problem. The usual repairs and refueling was made. Antares took to the bar to contemplate their next move. Perhaps his options would be more limited than he thought.
"Jacked sensor data dump just came through" Jonas whispered as he came down to Antares's table and sat down beside him. He had a drink in his hand and a pack of cigarettes, with a lit one hangin out of his mouth.
"Ah yes, what have we got?" Antares inquired.
"Not good. Looks like data downloaded from the GRN gates in Tau-23 revealed three GRN ships entered the system shortly after we left" Jonas revealed.
"Ha! Well I guess we drew a little more attention than we had thought! So I suppose you and Rister think it'd be suicide to go back to Tau-23 for a while right?" Antares shot back.
"Well, sir...yes, that seems..."
"Obvious Jonas. Don't worry, I'm not crazy. I think with all the hell we've raised in '23 lately we're right to lay low for a while. I was thinking the opposite direction, an area we havn't tried yet. Nagano joins with Rishiri, a lot of shipping goes through there since the new jumphole's been discovered. I think we'll try our hand against Samara for a bit" Antares finished for him.
The captain shot back the last sip of his drink and moved around the opposite side of the booth to scooch out and stand up. Jonas looked up at him in surprise.
"You don't mean...right...now?" the young officer asked.
"Aha relax kid, we still have a few hours yet. Get some shut-eye and don't be out all night gambling you money away. I'm going back to the Argo. We leave in 6 hours" Antares said.
With that he placed his drink back on the table and walked away. Jonas looked around the busy bar/restaurant. Gambling machines were built into many of the booths and wall outlets. Maybe just a few an hour or so, he thought.
* * * *
Morning came early, for everyone. Even Antares had a pounding headache from the whiskey he'd been drinking the night before. When he arrived on the bridge, Rister was aleady there, checking systems and running the pre-flight sequence.
"Anything to report?" Antares asked.
"Everything's in the green sir. We'll be good to launch in 10 minutes" Rister replied.
"Where's Jonas?" the captain asked. As he did so, slowly, Jonas came wabbling up the accessway to the bridge, and clamoured through the hatch.
"Sorry sir, did I make it?" he slurred.
"Damn Jonas, you're in bad shape. But, you made it. Soon as we launch I want you go down to the galley and grab some coffee, can you handle yourself until then?" Antares asked.
"I think so sir" Jonas said.
The launch went by as routine as they do. Before long they were through the Nagano jumphole, just a few AU's from Freeport 10. When they arrived, they emerged into a think dark purple cloud of gas and dust.
"Nebula sir, scanners efficiency is reduced here sir" Rister said.
"Cruise us out, according to the charts we should be out in a few minutes" Antares said. It was true, once they got out of the nebula, it revealed a large, open and beautiful system, with several planets. One inhabited. Of course, by Farmers Alliance, which made the place off limits to the likes of them.
Instead they headed for the second planet, an icy planet engulfed in a large ice field. Cold, but also quite splened to the eye. Enjoying the glistening view is the Orbital Spa and Cruise Liner ship MacKinac. Orbiting the planet for the view, the ship acts as an important waypoint in the system in an area that would be otherwise desolate.
The Argo floated around near the Liner for a while, and scouted around. Long range sensors showed 2 untagged ships in the system. Antares ordered a systematic search of the areas near the Liner. The search was almost in vain when they decided to head out the the far side of the system where a lonesome single planet resides.
Once they got close enough, they detected the signatures, and red they were. Which meant they were likely giving off IFF's hostile to unlawful groups and individuals. They could be dangerous or civies. Only one way to find out. Antares ordered the ship cloaked, and to close in.
The standard approach worked again, as it always does. They crept up on a civilian Miner in an Asteroid Miner (these things are EVERYWHERE) and a Samara Large Train.
And of course, the ransome worked, and each ship paid a small sum of 2 million SC. Small pennance from each, dust in the wind. Well, that was how Antares saw it these days.
So, much to their surprise, about an hour later as they were swinging around back t'wards the liner, and had just decided to give up and make speed back for Tau-37, when a lone Sumara transport appeared on the scanner.
Antares thought briefly about attacking the ship, but decided against such a move so close to the Luxery Liner.
Just as it did, and just before the Argo was out of comms range, a voice pierced through the bridge speaker,
"Argo, stop!" the voice ordered.
"Drop us out of cruise" Antares said to Jonas as he waived his hand upwards, "Open a channel - Attention Sumara ship, what is it you want?"
The Samara ship sailed up to the Argo, an 'Akegata' class heavy transport, equipped with 12 turrets. Antares waived at Jonas again, a signal to move the ship off a bit and keep their distance. Two minutes passed by, with no response from the other ship, which was just sitting there, silent.
Finally Antares started getting a little jittery. He didn't like just sitting out in the open like this. For all he knew this ship was trying to keep them here pending the arrival of...help.
"OK transport, I'll just assume you must be trying to save us some time and effort, and must be volunteering to pay us for passage, right?" Antares barked.
Finally a voice replied "Argo, we want the 4 millions credits you just took from those miners back"
"Are you serious?" Antares asked. He looked down at the scanner and checked their location and ranges. They were a good 20 AU's from the Liner ship Mackenzie, just far enough from safe port to make a move, "How about this, how about you pay us 3 million, and we'll let you go" he said back, almost holding back a smile. He was realizing more and more these guys might be biting off more than they can chew. "What do scans show Jonas?"
"A few charon and dulzian durrets sir, I don't think we should get to close, or stay put too long, but its not very armored sir" Jonas replied.
"And its cargo?" asked Antares.
"Oh, about 4400 units of Platium Ore" Jonas said chuckling, "They must be clients of that miner we ran into earlier".
Antares keyed in on the comm, "You have, say, 20 seconds to comply, else we open fire...you would't want to risk losing that cargo of yours, would you?"
Suddenly, the transport began to open fire on them. The Argo took some heavy shield damage, almost losing them completely. However, the ships far smaller size and agility were in their favor.
The Argo began to spin around and strafe the transport, returning fire, delivering broadsides into the length of its hull. However, as it did so, it took some return fire as well, putting a few dents in its own hull.
"Don't take us too close now!" Antares yelled over the usual bridge noise, "There, you see that? At a certain proximity we drop out of his arc of fire, we have to get close enough to him, and stay that close, but keep moving!"
The ship whirled around again, and kept on firing at the far larger, longer counterpart, its own turrets blasting relentlessly in all directions, trying to keep up with its faster enemy.
"Good, now jump over on the guns Jonas, this time I'm on the wheel" Antares said as he lept out of the captain's chair and spun around down to the junior officer's station. He came up to his side and nudged him over to the right, to share the consol. Jonas just glanced at him, pondering is 'wheel' reference. He always wondered where the captain got these 'expressions'. However, he'd been born in space, and spent little time living on planets. He admitted to himself, there was much he still didn't know.
"Now, I'm going to fly cirlces around this thing, you just keep those turrets trained on it and don't let up" the captain spat.
With that, the ship then formed a perpendicular angle of approach to the ship, and began spinning around the larger one, in a tiny and fast orbit. Literally, it orbited the ship, spinning around on its side axis, avoiding its front or rear guns arc's of fire.
Moving so fast, and being so close to the ship, the large transport soon started to realized it was in trouble. Its turrets could no longer come to bear on the ship long enough to land any hits. Wtih its shields now down, the Argo buzzed around it in circles delivering a constant stream of fire. Its hull now beginning to erode away, it started to move off, and fast.
"We've got em where we want em! Cruise disrupters, I'm gonna bring us up right behind them, lay it right into their engines" Antares shouted.
The Argo broke from its spin and with full thrusters sped off after the now fleeing transport. They gained on them quick and got back within weapons range.
Plasma and energy bolts from the Argo's assortment of transport turrets blasted away at the rear end of the Akegata, and they all watched as its hull integrity dropped sharply. The ship must have lost its engine control, in the last minute or so, as it just went dead, drifing in a forwards motion, listing slighlty. Fires and gaseous explosions erupting all over the aft section began to add to its exhuast trail.
Antares reached up and grabbed his hand mic, keying it in for one last quib,
"Fool"
With that, the ship began to break up, and within seconds, exploded into a cloud of black smoke and smuldering wreckage.
"Tractor what we can of that Platium. This will show the locals not to mess with us" Antares muttered in a low, forboding town.
Jonas, who finally released his grip on the gun sticks, did as he was instructed.
"Scanners?" the captain asked.
"All clear sir, no more contacts"
"Excellent, great work gentlemen"
"Could say the same for you sir, that was some flying you pulled back there" Jonas said as he actually reached and and patted the captain on the back. Antares laughed it off, he had surpised even himself.
"I must agree cap, if it hadn't been for those manoevers, they might have got the drop on us" Rister added.
"Well, just did what had to be done. I supposed thats the way this space makes ya in the end" Antares conceded bashfully. He hadnt realized that up to that point, they'd been losing the battle. Suddenly, the transport couldn't even land a hit on them.
They made their way back to Freeport 10, and settled into their usual routine of post flight cool down. Antares gawked out a viewport on his way to the bar from the flight deck. 'Today was a good day' he thought to himself. Maybe not for everyone involved, but they made some good cash, loot, and emerged victorious over a larger foe.
One thing's for sure so far, their current base of operations was perfectly situated in the nexus of mining and shipping activity within the Tuas and bordering Kusari systems. Which meant when piracy was your business, business was booming.
...To Be Continued...
RE: Exploits of Captain Antares - Binski - 12-11-2013
Part V: More than you can chew
Captain Antares was glaring over a data pad, one of many he had in front of him on the table he was sitting at. The bar on Freeport 10 was his usual preferred place to mull over the details of ship operations. Some were performance reports, combat data, damage reports, repair request lists, maintanence costs, and provisioning lists.
The Argo, his personally refitted combat transport, had been prowling the local systems for a few weeks now. He had taken the ship into dozens of attacks now. It had become almost routine.
There were a few things that annoyed him. He preferred not to hit the same trader twice, not for a while anyways. It was always best, he found, to leave a ship alone for a while after hitting them. Lets them cool down. Although Antares has never really feared having bounties placed on them, it was typically something he wouldn't want to invite either. 'You don't fry your fish too long' he thought. It worked when you know the best thing is to keep your profile low.
That had been something less and less likely as the days went on. They were undoubtedly known now in some way to at least 3 factions in the Taus now, and Kusari.
Tau-23 had been the place they'd hit the most. GMS and IMG ships were ripe.
Antares took a sip of his tea. Staying sober tonight, they'd be launching again in the morning. They'd seen their fair share of action now and realized that doing battle with an apocalyptic hangover was not good for anybody. Even pirates have to know their limits sometimes. He even had an instant coffee machine installed on the bridge itself.
The comm peeped in his pocket, and he pulled out the hand held communicator, flipping the actviation switch, he reported,
"Antares here", he said.
"Captain, the ship has checked out. Aside from a few non critical systems, everything's back up and running. We're ready to go when you are sir", Jonas rang though, his voice slightly buzzy from the shoddy wiring of the Argo's comm.
They had taken quite a bit of damage the day before. Something they were used to by now, but something about taking that much damage leaves the ship a little different each time, regardless of how well repairs are made.
Antares had bitten off more than he could chew in the Ore field in Tau-23. They had come across a mining expedition of 4 ships, a miner and several independent transports. It was an opportunity he couldn't pass up, and some of their recent successes had left them with an air of...confidence, a smug confidence at that.
So after dropping the usual stealthy approach and ambush, Antares actually got 2 of them to pay. One transport, a Kusary Luxery Yacht, had refused. A battle ensued and a miner joined him in fighting them off. After a dramatic display and mind bending dogfight they were sent packing back to Tau-37. After that, Antares made a note never to hit that many ships at one time, no matter had good the odds looked. Too many things to keep track of at once, too many witnesses. For a ship like the Argo, even with its increased firepower, it was too much at one time to handle.
"Very good, the crew is off until 0600 tomorrow, pass on the word to everyone. I want us back in space by 0730", Antares replied.
"Copy that capn'! We'll see ya in the morning!" Jonas blasted back at him, happy to have the night free.
"Take it easy Jonas, Antares out".
Now that they were ready to go back out there, he wondered what the point was. It was the same cat and mouse tactic every time. The money was...ok. For now they were making enough to keep the ship running and 'enjoy' themselves when at port. Jonas was pushing him to let them have a few days and go stay on the Luxery Liner MacKenzie over in Nagano. Problem was Argo was likely not exactly welcome there, with the amount of attacks they'd launched there recently. Looks like he'd have to hire a transport for that one.
Still, Antares figured they'd take it easy on this trip, and make it a simple scouting run. He'd been in and out of Nagano many times but still didnt have all of its neighbouring systems mapped. It would definitley come in handy to know every route in and out of those systems, just in case they had to get out unnoticed....or pursue someone off the beaten trail. This time they wouldn't seek combat, just, look around. If something juicy came their way though...
To Be Continued...
RE: Exploits of Captain Antares - Binski - 12-11-2013
Part VI: Unexpected
Matted againt the white background of Tau-37, the Argo puttered its way back from the Nagano wormhole to Freeport 10 at its standard impulse speed. They'd returned from their 2 day journey surveying and slinking around some of the neighbouring systems near by, mapping all of their known jumpholes. Chigoku, Rishiri, Hokkaido, they were all interconnected and formed the frontier of Kusari space. Removed and vulnerable, with the opening of the Gallic jumpgate to Lyonnais in Rishir, traffic in the area had increased 10 fold and the area was ideal for piracy.
They had hit only one miner on the way thorugh, in a Hegemon, and a trader they'd hit before at that. One Antares knew always eagerly paid to have them dissappear as fast as they dropped in. The kind of ship Antares liked to come across.
Other than that, the trip was uneventful. The ship docked and cleared station security like normal, and perched itself in the usual docking bay. Once the servicing crews take over work on the ship, the crew scatters to the many corners of the station, knowing their usual grace period between missions gives them time to relax.
So it was a bit unexpected when Antares went to check his message inbox after reconnecting to the stations comms network, to find a communique from a local businessman with a bit of an offer. An odd offer.
The message was short, just a transmission frequency to contact, and a name "TheBaron".
So Antares keyed in the frequency and location coordinates, and opened the channel. While it hailed he thought for a moment about what he was doing. Who wanted to reach him? How had he found him? He hadn't left any contact information and the ship wasn't actually registered to any bases.
The connection was finally established, and a short, fat, bald man with a thick grey mustache and long grey pony-tail, wearing a cheap suit while smoking a cigarette, answered the hail.
"Ahhh, I see you got my message!" the man said, "Good, that means you must be up for some work, eh?"
"Who is this, and how did you hear about...me?" Antares blurted.
"Ahh my boy, come on, you can't do what you do in a place like the Taus and go unnoticed forever!" He laughed, took a puff of his smoked and slowly exhaled. "I have proposition for ya. Now, my organization has eyes on the Taus, we see what others see. So we know your typical MO, and yanno..." he paused, "we like your style. We need a ship like yours for a job. IF all goes well, maybe it can become a regular thing..." he said.
Antares stood back and squinted a bit, "Ok, well I gotta know who I'm working for mister, and second, whats the job?" he answered, revealing his interest with a slight uncertainty.
"Nothing you can't handle of course. We're aware of your ability to go somewhere...unnoticed. We know you have been hitting GMS ships in the Beryillium Fields in Tau-23. We want you to keep going with that. Hit every one you can. Not only that, but when you can't hit them, get as much scan data on their ships you can. Learn their activities, routines, customers, that sort of thing." the older man explained.
"What do you want with the gallic miners? To us their just another group. Potential income. What's your beef?" Antares queuried.
"Lets just say the people I represent are very interested in mining competition in Tau-23. Oh, and if you ever catch them mining Nobium, proof of that would bring you big bucks" the 'Baron' shot back.
"Oh? And what kind of bucks are we talking about regardless?"
"50 million up front. Howz' that sound? But that means we wanna see results. We want ship names and technical data for as many ships as you can. Proof of Nobium mining...well, we'll talk when you come to me with that" Baron said.
Antares looked him in the eyes for a second. Just to see if he could somehow read his mind about his intentions. Sounded easy enough. The pay was well worth at least a try.
"Alright, I'm in. But just like you said, I'm not going on any suicide missions or seek and destroy runs. We're not a warship mind you, but if its sneaking around you need, you came to the right place. I don't like to leave a dark shadow if you know what I mean" Antarers said back to him.
"Good my boy! I knew you were the right kind to turn to. Besides, you may change your mind about all of that if we start waving enough credits in your face, right?" the Baron said as he laughed hysterically, swigging back a gulp of a pint of beer he had down to his side on a desk. Whiping his mouth, he added "For now just get this done, and we'll handle the rest. Contact me when you have what I need."
With that, the screen went blank to its bland, standard END TRANSMISSION display. Antares walked over from his console and sat on his cot. Rubbing his head scratching behind his ear for a moment, he stood up and walked over to the comm console.
"Jonas, come in" Antares said into the mic.
A moment passed, finally a reply voice came on over the speaker, "I'm here sir, I was just about to head down to the bar for a bit to eat, everyone's left the ship" Jonas reported.
"Thats Ok, I'll probably join you shortly. Tell Rister we'll be going back out tomorrow after all" the captain said. There was a silent moment where he knew Jonas was contemplating jumping out the airlock.
"Right sir, will do, orders?" he replied steadily.
"Don't worry you've got the night, service crews will take care of the rest. You've got until 0700. We'll be gone just after that" Antares informed him.
"Very good sir, we'll see you then" Jonas closed.
To Be Continued...
RE: Exploits of Captain Antares - Binski - 12-30-2013
Part VII: Stand off
~3 weeks later ~
Captain Antares sat half slouched in his command chair. The bridge of the Argo was dark, under bare minimum lighting. Jonas leaned over his glowing station, propping himself up on it as if he'd been standing for a long time. They both watched attentively out the bridge's main viewport. They were looking at two ships, about 5 k beneath them. The ship was arced downwards towards them, in the southern Beryllium fields of Tau-23. It was cloaked of course, and observing in quiet isolation from the mining Rock Badger and its client, a Junker Pilgrim Liner. After a minute of calm, the liner's engines began to rev and it slowly moved off towards the Tau-29 wormhole.
"There goes another one" Antares muttered, as he raised his finger outwards at the window.
"So uh, time to go...right?" Jonas spat back. Antares turned and cocked an eyebrow in his direction.
"Just about, hold your horses will ya" he replied, kicking in in the back of his mind Jonas was raised as Junker and had likely never seen a horse in the flesh, "We'll wait just a couple more minutes, if they're servicing any more ships, we need their names"
"I know sir, but I don't need to remind you we can't hang around here for much longer, fuel is down to 25%" said Jonas.
"I know Jonas, keep an eye on that gauge, we'll give it 10 minutes, that miner is just sitting there, they must be waiting for something" Antares said back, "Their client could be late".
Jonas stirred a bit and turned to his rear to the back wall consoles in order to double check some readings. Antares could tell he was nervous. He was pushing the limit on them as usual. Sitting here in enemy territory, just watching and gathering data.
A few minutes passed. It had become more and more evident that the GMS and IDF ships that frequented this area had become far more cautious of late. Antares didn't mind though, he knew sometimes just their presence in the system was enough to disrupt their mining, which would make his client very happy.
Antares reviewed the scan data on the computer terminal he was peering over.
"They have longer range scanners than I originally thought" Antares admitted in frustration.
"Well that, and we've been quite persistent the last couple of months boss, I think they know when to watch out now" Jonas answered.
"Its true kid, they've barely strayed from the safety of their miner service stations and weapons platforms for protection since we started. They ain't risking it no more, its like they caught on to our tactics" Antares said with a chuckle, "Think we've made a name for ourselves?"
"No doubt by now, even though they can't get us on scanner, they camp where its safest....now where's the fun in that?" Jonas joked. A chirp from a nearby console caught his attention, "That's 20% sir, if we don't leave now we won't have enough to cover the trip back".
"Alright Jonas, lay in a course for Tau-37's jump point and go to cruise. Maintain cloak until we complete the jump" Antares ordered as he gave into his crewman's caution.
It was quiet on the bridge without Rister. He'd taken ill with some kind of flu that's been going around the Freeport. Usually the stations decon systems kept the place safe, but in space, with so much traffic, it was impossible to catch them all, especially new strains developing among populations on the far side of Sirius.
Antares nodded at Jonas and climbed down the access hatchway to the deck below, and the catwalk that lead to his quarters. He sat at his desk and picked up a datapad, and began to review some of the telemetry they collected.
The engine sound began to shift and a slight vibration began to ring across the ship, a voice bellowed from the comm speaker, Jonas's "10 seconds to jump". There was a bump followed by a short rumbling, then calm, as the ship completed its jump to the neighbouring system.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, accompanied to the sound of weapons fire. Antares dropped the pad and scrambled to the comm panel by the door, "Report!"
"Well I dropped the cloak during the jump sir, we came out with 2 ships right on top of us, ones a...a, well, I don't recognize either, some sort of Gallic bomber!" Jonas spewed at him.
"Evasive action, full power to engines, I'm on my way up!" Antares blurted, and darted out back up to the bridge. When he got there, Jonas was deeply concentrated on his manoeuvers, and the comm was buzzing with chatter from these strange ships.
In a thick french accent "Junker ship, prepare to be destroyed!" one shouted, followed by "You are not the only Junkers out here now, allans-yi out of our turf! Le GMS are OURS to pluck from, non? heheh".
Antares grabbed a hold of a railing behind the bridge console near his chair as the ship rocked again, and looked around. It was at this time he'd realized they must have been set up, or ratted out, to the Gallic Junkers. They had undoubtedly been waiting for them at the jumphole.
"Weapons!"
"Just getting charged, opening fire! Jonas replied.
The turrets began to blaze, but with the need to keep agile, and the slower rate of fire, it was evident quite quickly evident they weren't going to do much to those bombers. Some light explosions kept rocking the ship, which sounded strangely familiar, like the sound of Hellfire Rocket pods being spattered in their direction.
"Ok Jonas, keep em off us, I'm taking the stick" Antares exclaimed, and grabbed the joystick on the control interface now taking form around his chair. Freeport 10 was too close for them to die here, and the desire to find out who'd sold them out was too great to give up now.
Antares hit the switch to kill his main engine, and proceeded to pump his thruster, dragging the stick left and right as he did, and it worked. With a little jarring, the ship began to bounce back and forth, shifting quickly from side to side. It was just enough for the momentum of the heavy ass on Argo to keep swing out of the way of the bombers missiles. The station continued to grow in the distance.
It worked, and they closed to within 10 k of the station. With a great stroke of luck, they'd make it. As Antares thought that, one of the bombers flew past them at cruise speed, trying to beat them to the station to cut them off, but he'd need a few seconds to charge his turrets before he could...they weren't making this easy by any means.
Just then, another ship appeared on scanner, undocking from the Freeport. It was a 'Corvo' star cruiser, a Zoner ship. The Sirian Drifter as it was named, moved out from the control tower, and took up position adjacent to the battle, hanging over one of the bio domes.
Antares blurted across the open comm channel "Zoner ship, I'm a freelancer named Antares and my ship is under attack from gallic junkers, please assist!"
The Gallic Junkers kept up their attack, which had now moved well into the 5k no fire zone of the Freeport.
"Acknowledged Argo, attention unidentified ships, you are in violation of Zoner regulations concerning the no fire zone around our Freeport here, as recognized in the Freeport conventions, please hault your attack and respond" the captain of the Zoner vessel ordered.
For a minute or so the bombers kept up their harassment of the Argo, who was continuing to circle the station in an attempt to reach the docking clamps and enjoy the safety of the station's shield.
"Last chance" Sirian Drifter emitted. Suddenly, a transmission did come through in return, but only of some laughter and random chatter, that was in some kind of French dialect not recognizable.
With that, the cruiser fired its turrets at one of the bombers, and caught it with a direct hit. Its shields were knocked offline right away and its hull took considerable damage, the ship was now flaming, leaving a smoke trail behind it.
The two bombers then began to screech off, and away from the station. It seems the display had been enough to send them packing. In a way, perhaps they considered their goal as having been achieved. Antares sat down and breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks Sirian Drifter, we owe you one" he said.
"Understood, I'd like to speak with you captain, on the station, to answer a few routine questions please sir" the commander of the cruiser replied.
"Of course, be happy to, we're docking now..." Antares responded with a certain, professionality, which he was faking, as he glanced at Jonas wondering how he was going to explain his reason for attracting the attention of the Gallic Junkers in the first place.
He released the mic, "Well Jonas, I suppose it might pass as a standard stick up, imagine, us...the victim," Antares spoke lightly to Jonas as the ship engaged in the autodock sequence. "Standard repairs Jonas, I want a full damage report when I get back"
"If you get back you mean?" Jonas snorted back, half jokingly. Antares glanced at him again as he entered the hatchway, and then continued down. He hoped to avoid being arrested. Time to whip out the charm, and time to find Rister, who so happened to be missing on the one trip they get ambushed...
...To Be Continued....
RE: Exploits of Captain Antares - Binski - 12-31-2013
Part VIII: Scatter
The door to Rister's station quarters slid open, with Jonas in the doorway, and 2 more of Argo's crewers behind him, all holding pistols. The room was dark, and their silouettes were all that could be made out.
Jonas raised his pistol with both hands in a ready position and slowely stepped inside, swiveling his aim as he did so. The others filed in behind him, and his left arm stretchout out to the wall to find the light switch. The lights came on, and finally everything was visible. They all stared down at the floor in the middle of the room to see Rister, bound and gagged lying there looking up at them.
"That must have been some flu" Jonas joked. Rister began to sqirm and try to say something through the muffled block, "Hold on, boys, get him up". The others came around them and grabbed Rister by the shoulders, standing him up in front of Jonas. One of them pulled down the gag from his mouth.
"You're alive, good, I wondered if anyone would find me before I died of dehydration, if you all perished out there" Rister said.
"What happened?? We were set up Rister, they were waiting for us when we got back from our patrol, how'd they know??" Jonas Demanded.
"Hey, I went to sleep last night, and woke up on the floor. The place is ransacked, they must have found the schedule on one of the data pads..." Rister bounced back, "Besides, once they know you're gone, all they have to do is wait, it probably wasn't rocket science. Somehow, they found out we use the Freeport as our base"
"Great, well we're lucky we got back, it was nothing but a stroke of luck that did it", Jonas replied, he gestured with his pistol to the others "Ok untie him, you gotta see the captain before we just set you free Rister, it was too wierd you just happened to not be there when we needed you most, right?"
"Hey, I'm no traitor Jonas, I been a space dog for a long time, and I ain't never turned on a captain" he shot back.
"I believe you" a familiar voice rang out from behind them all. Jonas turned back towards he doorway and stood aside to see the dark silouette of Antares standing there watching them, "I just got back from a short briefing with the captain of that cruiser. I filed a fake piracy report with the station's quartermaster to cover our tracks about the attack. They let me get access to the station's security logs. I found out that they used a splicer algorythme to force your door Rister, and access your computer"
"Wha? Where'd they get that kinda software? That's gotta be counterfeit" Rister spat.
"Which means these guys are also hackers, or worse...working for some...government?" Jonas added.
"Right unfortunately. I don't think even the GRN would work through scoundels like the Gallic Junkers to get at us. I'm betting this is them, but they went somewhere for help. Something's telling me to look t'wards the land of the rising sun, get my drift? Antares said.
"Kusari? You think the KNF is helping Gallic Junkers?" Jonas said.
"Well we've made quite a few enemies, could be Samura, they'd have the connections to get them the programs, and slip them on and off the station unnoticed" Antares said, "So, we've been comprimised one way or the other, I'll be telling our 'client' we're out of commission for the moment. Jonas, what's the status of the ship?"
"Fully repaired, reloaded and refueled sir, ready to go," Jonas answered.
"Good, but, we're not going anywhere, not for a while" Antares said, the entire room took a stare at him in surprise.
"Captain, we gotta find these punks, with the intel they got on us, they could be lurkin at any turn now!" Rister shot out, it was obvious he felt a little responsible for this mess.
"Don't worry Rister, we'll find these bastards. It ain't your fault, couldda happened to any of us. Nah, the ships staying here for the moment, Jonas, put her on lock down, make sure she's safe. The rest of you, scatter. We need to drop off the map for a while. I've got some things to take care of..." Antares explained.
"But captain, what do we do? This can't be it?" Jonas cried at him.
"You stay here and guard the ship Jonas, Rister, I do have a job for you, I'll explain on the way," the captain replied.
"Way to where?"
"To the fighter hangar bay, where my Eagle is stowed away" Antares said. Jonas forgot he had the ship kept here with rented space from the station, a ship he'd used before he purchased Argo. But, this meant the captain wouldn't be back for a while, "I'm going to find some information, and get some help. I can't risk having Argo out under the circumstances, I'll send orders when I have them. Until then Jonas, you're in command here, tell the rest of the crew what's going on. No one else leaves in the mean time, this ain't no vacation either. Understood?"
"Aye sir, well, good luck" Jonas replied slowly.
"Don't fret Jonas," Antares assured him, as he put his hand on his shoulder for a quick pat, "we'll be back soon enough, take care".
With that, they all left. Antares threw his arm over Rister's shoulder and began to speak in a low voice to him as they walked away in the opposite direction. Jonas and the others skulked back to the Argo, the whole time he wondered how he'd explain the situation to the rest of the guys in the engine room. They weren't going to be happy, but he mused that the captain never said they wouldn't be paid during this time...right?
Antares parted with Rister at the hangar deck and accessed a consol just inside the main cargo doors. The fighter rolled forward out of its slot and turned into a lunch position.
"All systems fully functional, ship launch status: green" a computer voice reported. Antares moved to a locker near the back of the large bay, and quickly thew on a flight suit and usual gear. It had been a while since he flew a fighter on his own, he never much cared for long journey's in them, or standard food rations, but in order to get out of the Taus safely, he'd need the speed and manoeverability to make it.
As he climbed up the side of the hull and jumped into the cockpit, he looked around, but sat for a moment, just staring off. It seemed like the first moment he'd stopped to breathe in couple of days. Shaking it off with a quick flicker, he cosed the cockpit and began to run the flight sequence.
The ship began to lift off, and Antares hoped he could live up to his word. At this point, he didn't care about profit or clients, the GMS or anyone else. He just needed to get his crew out of this mess, he didn't much like the idea of having them go down like this, or having their lives hanging over his head. The space doors opened, and there it was, once more, the white snowy space of Tau-37.
"Freelancer Alpha 1 - 1, this is Freeport 10, you are clear for launch, safe flying!" a buzzy voice chirped over the speaker.
"Roger Freeport 10" Engaging his cruise engines the tiny bird like ship whirled around and sped off into the nearby cloud of ice and rock, and ultimately, the unknown...
...To Be Continued...
RE: Exploits of Captain Antares - Binski - 01-02-2014
Part IX: Old friends
Antares stepped into his penthouse quarters, overlooking a tower spire city protruding like fork prongs from the main asteroid that made up the Barrier Gate Station. He had just arrived from a rather long flight across 3 systems. He hadn't been back here in a while, and for the last few months had been paying to keep the place mothballed until his next need to return. Well, it seemed like that time was now.
He puttered around, set down his gear, and gave the place a quick EM scan followed by a visual inpsection. Doesn't look like anyone's been here Antares thought, one that allowed him to breath a little easier for the moment.
After bathing and eating some real food, he finally succumbed to checking his messages. Only one waited for him, the sender was a familiar source, from a while back, before his days on his own in space.
"Seagul" he whispered to himself. The nickname of an old childhood friend whom he'd met on an old passenger liner when he was a boy travelling with his family. They had spend 3 years on that ship together. They had been separated since then though, almost 10 years since. He could only wonder what he wanted. He activated the voice message:
"Hey man, I think I finally tracked you down! I've left Bretonia for the wild blue yonder, got myself a fighter and am working as a Freelancer now. I'm fresh though, hasn't been easy, I know you been out here a long time, I could use some help! I took a job escorting a convoy from here to New York for a week, I've left my info in a data pack for you, look me up!"
Antares pondered. He looked at the time stamp on the message, two weeks old. He should be back by now, its not that far to New York. He turned and accessed a nearby computer interface. He accessed the records for all outgoing traffic, and found the name of his convoy.
CALLSIGN: SEAGULLATHOR
CLASS: EAGLE
SHIP IFF: FREELANCER
STATUS: OVERDUE (MIA)
LAST KNOWN NETWORK CONTACT: NEW YORK SYSTEM
"Damn" he muttered. Well, only one way to know for sure he thought. He turned, grabbed his gear, got suited up, and shuttered at the thought of entering Liberty space, let alone flying straight into the belly of the beast. New York was a particularly volitile place, rampant with piracy and pollution. Not the kind of place you wanna get lost in as a newb.
He jumped back in his fighter, and took off towards Cortez, Liberty bound.
* * * *
Antares sat in the cockpit of his Eagle, and as the jump through the space gate was complete, he raised his visor up on his helmet, and rubbed his eyes. The scanners were clear, and all was quiet. A little too quiet for a place like this.
He took the lanes, and made it to Manhattan without incident. The planet's airspace however was bustling with activity. Several navy ships were engaged in routine patrol/search operations, and a large Universal Shipping convoy passed through. A few freelance ships dotted the area as well, some in lower orbits to avoid the higher volume of traffic near the bases.
Antares set down on the planet, and hit up a few bars that pilots usually hit up when roaming through on their way. He asked around and probed for some rumors, whatever tidbits of information he could get. It wasn't much. Finally someone directed him towards a rather sketchy sounding character, named "Ingram". Rumor is that if there's a pirate attack in this system, he knows about it. From there he was directed to Rochester station, a far more elusive place.
A short trip from Manhattan, once on the base, he finally caught up Ingram at the base bar.
"Seagul? Like the bird?" his raspy voice blurted, spitting food from his mouth as he did so. The fat, stout older man sat with a full table of various foods in front of him. Antares didn't care about interrupting him, and approached him regardless, "Uh, I don't know nothing about that, I'm busy eating!" he retorted.
Antares stepped closer to the table. With the man was a, well, cyborg like individual that seemed to at the very least have a massive plate over the top of his skull, likely keeping his brain from being exposed, one of the visible modifications he had. Antares didn't want to know about the others. Also two rather attractive women sat on either side of the fat man, both mulling over their nails or hair, and didn't even seem to acknowledge the encounter.
"Ok Ingram, or whatever yoru name is, I need the info, I know you have it, I know that you know that too, so lets cut to the chase" Antares replied.
"Oh-hohohhaha, well, aren't we assertive, you best watch out boy, you don't want to irritate my friend here, his plate has a tendencey to ache sometimes, leave him a little...anxious" Ingram said, continuing to eat and talk at the same time.
"Just name your price"
"A hundred"
Antares laughed, and gazed at the man, who finally paused his feast to gaze right back up at him, "You know you're not getting any more than 50 for this, and even that's a lot. You're lucky I don't have the time for this", he handed a pad to the girl on the right, she showed it to him, "You're usual bartering is not necessary here mister, press your thumb to that, and the money's yours"
The man stood up, shifting the table back, food spilling on him and flying across the table, "Who do you think you are?? I know everything around here, you get me? Everything, and info ain't cheap!!"
The man with the plate skull stood up as well, and made a step towards Antares, who was already drawing his pistol, and just as quickly fired a single shot at the man, hitting him right in that iron looking dome. The bar froze and all eyes were on them, as the loud PING cut through the entire bar.
The cyborg, dazed, fell back into his seat in the booth, his eyes parted ways with his tongue hanging out, now totally stunned.
"That thumbprint please?" Antares repeated, "Be happy you're getting paid"
"Uh, fine pilot" the man blurted, as he thumbed the pad. Quite bitter for having just made quite a bit of money. "That convoy you're looking for? Got jumped along the lane to the badlands, both transports destroyed, its crew captured by Liberty Rogues and likely wound up slaves on the black market..." he said, "Looks like there was a fighter escort that tried going after them, but it was destroyed, no pilot was found...thats all we got, don't show your face around here again! Or I'll make sure all my cyborgs are around for it, now scram!"
Antares turned and walked out immediately.
"Don't worry, I usually prefer to keep better company" he chimed on his way through the doorway.
* * * *
The Eagle fighter skimmed the outer edge of a thick cloud of purple gas and sharp long shards of rock in the southern part of the New York system. The badlands were well known, as its volotile nature made it the perfect haven for the darkest entities in the core worlds. Electromagnetic storms caused all sorts of interference and posed a considerable danger to any ship that enters. It was also a perfect place for pirates and rogues to stage their attacks on convoys.
Antares began glaring at the scanner as he skeeted along the outer edge for a while, but with no sign of any escape pods, he knew he had to go in. It would severely limit his visibility, but same for any possible enemy patrols, hopefully he may not have drifted far.
His particular type of escape pod was equipped to release a gas upon ejection, knocking out the pilot. It was a special agent designed to slow the metabolizm in case they can't be recovered for a while. It was a temporary hypersleep. With any luck, Seagul would still be out here, sleeping like a baby.
Antares rolled the ship starboard and made a near 90 degree turn into the cloud. Once inside the usual computer warning 'Sensor efficiency reduced' rang out, and he started a search pattern, waving the ship back and forth in large arcs, completing a sort of spaghetti noodle inwards towards the center of the vast mass of debris.
Swirving in and out of the longer oblonged shaped asteroids was tedious, and the flying was not that easy in here. Splitting his attention between the scanner and the viewport was the only way to search, and was difficult to say the least.
Finally, something came up on the cargo scanner:
A few nano botts and shield batters, some oxygen and a couple of guns, he turned and brought himself in closer, and more debris came up. He dropped out of cruise and came to a hault to inspect further.
A ship definitely was destroyed near here, and recently. Nothing major though, and no escape pods. He noticed a bit more debris 10k futher in, and proceeded towards it using only his thrusters. As he approached the rest, a Freelancer Pilot finally appeared on the scanner.
"There he is!" Antares said to himself, and flew the engines up to full impulse, speeding towards it.
If was of course, too good to be true. At around that time, two small ships appeared from the thick gas cover of the nebula to reveal themselves. Two Liberty Rogue fighters, and camped near the escape pod. Antares came to a hault about 3 k from them, and waited.
"So Freelanca, what brings ya out this far? Long way from the bar scene of Manhattan aren't ya?" said one of the pilots. Both could be heard laughing over the comm.
"Aha, well, not all of us Freelancers are in this for the pilot's uniform guys, and not all of us are from around here, I'm from further out than you think, normally..." Antares thought for a moment, "I'm the one in your position" he finished with slight chuckle.
"Sure freelanca, well seems like you came out all this way for something, and we're bankin its this pod here? Now why should we let you have it eh? Pods go as slaves for pretty decent nowadays...maybe we want the creds from him!" another pilot replied.
"Alright, how much you want guys" Antares begrudgingly asked.
"What do we want? Maybe we want you to DIE!!!" Suddenly, both fighters broke off and darted towards Antares. He quickly threw full power into his engines and thruster, darting between them both, as they surpassed him and began to spin around for another pass. He took some weapons fire, but skeeted in close to the pod, locked on and tractored it in without stopping.
Well, first part down, time to bail he thought. He also thought it couldn't possible be that easy, he killed his engine, turned around to face his pursuers, targeted one of the ships, and layed into his thruster at full force, speedng back at them. His thumb pressed the missile release and he fired, hitting the ship, knocking its shields down.
He kept flying out, and did the same, turning back, but they were doing the same. All three ships were also trying their best not to crash into any of the rocks in their way, which wasn't easy.
The salvo's continued, some missiles impacting on the asteroids, and so far he was able to keep his shields up, and his opponent's down. So he turned and started outwards towards the edge, and they went after him. He released as many mines as he could, and the unshielded ship took one to his hull, causing him to catch fire. At that strength an asteroid hit would be surely fatal, and he dropped off to repair. The other ship kept up. Antares kept up his mines, and started to manoever eratically to try to shake the other ship. If he could lose him before the other repaired, he might make it out.
Finally they broke through the edge of the nebula, back to open space. Time to turn it on its head. Antares killed his engine again, and using thrusters only spun the ship around to face the attacker, who was firing wildely at him his own guns and missiles.
Antares took a hit, but dished one himself, again overwhelming the other ships shields. This time, with no rocks in the way, he pulled an immediate u-turn, thrusting after the other ship, getting on his tail. Closing in, he hit the ship with his guns, ticking away at it, and spewed another missile. In the open, on his own, the other ship proved not to be so confindent. As he took heavy damage, he withdrew to keep some distance. Antares didn't bother wait, and he hit his cruise engines, and made for the nearest trade lane. The second fighter emerged from the nebula, repaired, but too late, being just in time to see Antares's drive trail dissappear in the distance.
* * * *
Antares entered the sickbay of the Battleship Missouri, where they'd manage to make it to after their ordeal in the Badlands. Normally he wouldn't seek refuge on a military ship, but in this case, with the possiblity of Liberty Rogues from Buffalo Base on their tails, he wasn't taking any chances.
The nurse turned to him and nodded as he entered the triage area, and he silently crept down past it to the bed with his friend on it. He approached quietly, and pulled the curtain aside and looked down at him.
He hadn't changed much appearance wise. Still had that curley long black hair tied back, a shorter man with old style spectacles on, didn't look like a typical fighter pilot. Antares though, had a better job for him lined up in his mind.
Seagul was laying there, fully awake, watching a news broadcast on one of the nearby consoles, still connected to a few medical sensors. He had made a full recovery, but was lucky, another day or two and if he hadn't wound up a slave, would have expired entirely.
"Whoa! It is you! What happened, I'm not sure I remember much after leaving California" he said has he sat up on the bed, shaking his head and looking around. "I woke up here and they said I was brought in by a Freelancer, I guessed it was you buddy!" Seagul thew him a pat on the shoulder, Antares smiled.
"Well I couldn't let you go to your death all alone out there now could I? You might wanna get some more flight time in before taking a long convoy job though, you barely made it from that one" he replied, "Your memory will be a bit hazy for a while, side effect of the hypersleep".
"Alright, well, I feel....Ok, like, totally ok. So what now?" Seagul said.
"Haha well don't rush now my friend, just rest"
"I have been resting, I slept through it all! Like how'd you find me?"
"Oh, it wasn't that hard, I just, asked around some of the locals. I gotta say, I havn't made any friends around here saving your butt. We'll head down to the hangar and get you some kind of Liberty fighter to get you by, outfit it with the basics, at least until we can get you back to the Tau's to get a real fighter." Antares explained, "I'll take care of that, if you're not tired, you should be hungry, hit the galley for a meal, I'll contact you on your comm link in a bit. I'd like to get out of New York sooner than later, sound good?"
"Sure thing man, at this point, I don't think my old employer's gonna be hiring me again, did that convoy make it?" Seagul asked.
"Nope, notta one. You're the only survivor, and that's only cuz you have a friend in a high enough place" Antares said flat out, almost sarcastically, but still serious.
"Whoa."
"Yeah, don't worry brotha, I'll take you under my wing, we'll get you sharp as a knife in a VHF in no time. Then, I think I'll have a job for you, and don't worry, it pays quite well..." Antares grinned, gave him one more pat on the shoulder, nodded and stepped out.
...To Be Continued...
RE: Exploits of Captain Antares - Binski - 01-15-2014
Part X: War
~ One month later ~
Two ships emerged from the white/grey icy mist known as the Malvinas Cloud in Tau-37. A stout and fat Firefly transport, accompanied by an Eagle fighter, made their way towards Freeport 10.
"There it is Seagul, home" Antares chimed in over the comm from the cockpit of his fighter.
"Nice, I haven't been out this far before, this place is like a big white cloud!" Seagul replied.
"Looks nice, but don't let the scenery fool you, this whole region is deadly once you leave the safety of the Freeport" Antares replied.
"Tryin to scare me? I'm not sure I brought any diapers..." Seagul shot back jokingly.
The last month had been a bit of a trial. However, that didn't mean it hadn't been a fun and rewarding time for both of them. After Antares rescued Seagul in New York, he brought him over to the Barrier Gate Station, got him another Eagle on the way, and began his flight training.
Antares had put him through four weeks of constant exercises, drills, manoevers, races and trials of all sorts. He worked poor Seagul to the bone, but felt that the harder he was on him, the more prepared he'd be to face what's out here. No point in taking it easy on him since he also seemed to be a resiliant pilot anyways. Thankfully it came to him pretty naturally, and they made excellent progress.
Finally, by the end of it, Seagul was a fair bit more comfortable flying and knew his way around the borderwolds a little better. He now had a feel for situations he might survive, and situations that might kill him.
But it was at the end of this trial that Antares revealed he had another plan for Seagul's piloting skills. He bought him a Firefly, and told him his new job was to man the helm of the transport. Antares hired him a small crew and their goal was going to by running backup for the Argo. Not only that, but he hoped to hatch some nice heists soon. Ore of all sorts was easy to jack if you find the right trader. The Argo was practically coming apart at the seems, so no use in trying to jam 1 more unit of anything in the hold. So another transport would be ideal for piracy, and now Seagul was trained in all of Antares's methods.
"Roger, your request to dock is granted, please proceed to dock 1" the station's operator buzzed over the speaker. Now it was time to see what Jonas had been up to while he was gone.
* * * *
Antares stepped into the hangar containing the Argo. He was expecting the ship to look as he'd left it. Instead it was visibly charred with recent battle damage, nothing too bad, but enough carbon scorring to show they'd been fired at, and hit, by weapons fire from...someone. Not totally surprising, but he wondered why the Argo had been out at all.
"Your alive!" a familiar voice shot out. Antares turned to see Jonas standing down by a loader, underneath the ship near the suspension pad.
"Well, if there were rumors of my death, they were greatly exaggerated" Antares said back to him, then waived his hand toward the ship "What happened?" he asked.
"Uh, well..." Jonas began, "We had a little run in. We made it alright but took a couple of good punches"
"Why was the ship out, I thought I ordered her grounded Jonas" Antares said, now in a little more serious tone.
"Well we did ground her, for a few weeks. But after you never came back, we recieved no communiques from you, so we weren't sure what was up. Anyways, the crew was getting restless and just a broke. So I decided to take her out to Nagano for a few runs. Yanno, nothing major, far enough from GMS zones and hopefully any Gallic Junkers." Jonas explained.
"But..." Antares added.
"But, after a few hits on some Samura miners out there, they sort of increased their...security." Jonas revealed.
"What sort of security?" Antares asked.
"They built a base in low orbit around Planet Shirane, smack dab in the middle of the ore field" Jonas said, "And its protected by an array of weapons platforms". Jonas dug inside a few pockets and finally pulled out a data pad, and handed it to Antares.
Antares stared down at it. A slight bit of frustration swelled through him. So much for their big ore heist plans. The pad had a picture of a scan of the base, a storage depot, that had been erected in the last couple of weeks during his absence. Well protected, this would make jacking the miners and transports out there a fair bit more difficult.
Suddenly, he slammed the pad down on the ground, "Dammit!" he yelled. Jonas took a step back.
"I didn't think you'd be too happy about it boss. We had a close call with it when its weapons platforms turned on us. The miners have been using it as cover and flee when we show up. Even with the cloak, its only a good 10 second thrust away from the mining, so sneaking up doesn't do much to scare'em now. Gonna have to switch up our tactics" Jonas added.
Antares had turned away from him and was looking up at the Argo's damaged areas being repaired by nanobots and some of the stations robotic arms. All he could think now is that work getting Seagul up to speed and outfitted with a transport was for nothing.
Now, with the GJ on their backs, GMS hiding in their own refuges in their ore fields, their Nagano hunting ground was being ruined as well.
"Well, if they want to play rough, we'll play rough" Antares spoke in a low voice, still gazing at the ship.
"Huh? Boss, you're not thinking what I think you're thinkin', are ya?"
"Oh I am Jonas, we're going back out there, and we're not letting up. Its one thing to have a base in the area, but this is ridiculous. We're gonna go harass that base and keeps its crew on edge night and day for as long as it takes Jonas. Their alarms will be ringing in the middle of the night, their miners won't stray more than a few Km from there every again!" Antares spat as he spoke.
"Well, beggin' your pardon sir, the Argo's not exacly a warship, I mean, yeah we can hold our own, against transports or freighters. We're no match for a whole starbase!" Jonas appealed.
"Oh we don't have to be that big or scary to get under their skin Jonas. Besides, this is a war of attrition now. All we can do is keep their crews overworked, gun batteries hot, and shield fuel draining" Antares fired back, reaching up to press his hand to the hull of the ship for a moment, "We can't destroy that base, no, but we can make it tiresome and expensive to operate. Maybe they'll crack and give us a nice pay off. If so, we'll leave the place be. But its gotta be worth our wild".
"Nice, well, whatever you say boss. I just hope you plan to do it from outside their weapons range", Jonas added.
"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. This ain't the first base I fired shots at in vain" Antares added, "One day remind me to tell you about the Zoner Alliance wars back in the Omicrons."
Just then, Seagul emerged from the corridor and stood in the doorway, "Nice ship, this is the Argo, is it. Good lord, what the hell happened to it? Is it supposed to look like a garbage scowel?" he asked.
"Ahh Seagul! Good, meet Jonas, he's my 1st officer on the Argo. Jonas, Seagul's and old friend, I went and got him in the core worlds while I was gone. He's a pretty good pilot, I was hoping to have him join us as an escort or auxiliary transport captain" Antares said.
"Nice to meet ya!" Jonas said, he approached Seagul and shook his hand, "But boss you don't sound too sure about that now"
"Well now we have bigger fish to fry, so all that's on hold. Since Rister is still on assignment, Seagul will be taking his position on the bridge of Argo. How long for repairs?" Antares replied.
"About 4 more hours" Jonas answered.
"Good, then we'll launch in 5. Everybody get your stuff together, and inform the crew. Oh, and show Seagul around the Argo, I've got some things to take care of" Antares ordered, nodded at them both, and sped out the doorway, back down the corridor.
"He always like that?" Seagul asked.
"I though you knew him better than me?" Jonas chirped back.
"Haha, well, its been a few years that's for sure. Alright sir, just say the word!" and with another nod, they both darted up the loading ramp of the Argo.
...To Be Continued...