Space Pirates Chapter 1

From Grigbertz

Current revision

Somtime in the future, or now if you'd ask any of the characters involved in this story, there is a ship slowly circling a small ice planet in a faraway system. The system is entirely unpopulated, no settlements or mining stations send their friendly signals to approaching ships, no beacons transmit navigational information to unwary travellers. Yet right there, in the shade of that planet, lies a ship waiting. It is the Zenith, yet anyone trying to hail it would get only silence back. It is right now trying very hard not to be noticed, but by whom?

To answer that question we need to know a bit about this system. Although desolate, it is not uninteresting to certain individuals namely traders and pirates. This faraway system lies right on the shortest route between Lece and New Smaland, two large planets in two different federations. The regular traderoute, guarded by the different navies of all the worlds that the route passes, makes for a longer trip between these two planets. Ofcourse not even a fraction of all traders work the route between Lece and New Smaland - but some do, and some of those don't use the regular spacelanes. And of those few left, even fewer will stop in this system to refuel their drives in the hydrogen atmosphere of the big gas giant in this system. But the crew of the Zenith bet that atleast some do, and they wait. Oh, they are patient, and they wait.

Patience is a good quality in a pirate and since the cargo of just a single trader is often enough to set a crew of pirates up for life, waiting is not something they consider all to shameful as long as they can score atleast one solid raid during their lifetime. Sometimes entire planets works together for a long time to build and fund a pirate ship hoping it will bring back riches. Sometimes it does, sometimes it never comes back. The Zenith is owned by it's crew, and because of that it is one of a rare few ships. The crew could have sold her and lived well, but because of either a yerning for even greater riches or other causes, they were now here waiting for a trader to drop out of hyper in the system and head for the gas giant further insystem.

Their plan is to wait until the traders have come to a stop around the gas giant and powered down their drives to refuel, then sweep in from their hidden position. Powering up the drives again will take a lot of time, and with any luck the trader won't be able to flee out of the system and into the safety of hyperspace before the Zenith, with it's advantage in velocity, can overtake them. The plan is simple but should prove effective, as long as the Zenith has an edge in firepower and the traders can't power up their drives all that fast.

Jenner carefully watched the plot as the simulation progressed. With nothing else to do he'd occupied himself with the task of finding an optimal trajectory towards the gas giant that'd give the Zenith as good a chance as she could get overtaking any traders no matter what their response to the oncoming pirates would be. Blue light shone on his face as the rest of the cockpit lay in darkness, just the way he liked it. Jenner was the ships pilot and navigator, a spot he'd been raised for since he was a small boy. The ships previous pilot had adopted him and raised him like a son and when he retired he left his share in the Zenith to Jenner.

Watching the screen he altered a few parameters and restarted the simulation. He was quite certain he couldn't do anything to further improve their chances but what else was there to do? He glanced at his watch; another quarter of an hour until lunch. With a deep sigh, he continued to stare at the blue light in front of him.

"What's for dinner?" Jenner asked as he stepped into the galley. The crew ate all it's meals together if possible. Not much anchored them to any rythm except for the meals and they all enjoyed talking face to face instead of via intercom. Although the Zenith measured 96 meters from bow to stern her crew was quite small, numbering only six persons. There was ofcourse Jenner who was pilot and navigator and dabbled a bit in engineering, then the Heiden twins Karl and Heinrich who both filled different slots in engineering. Also Max (Tactical decisions and backup in pilot and engineering), Naeem (Gunnery and weapons maintenance) and finally Dante: fixer in ports, muscle at meets and the ships self appointed cook. Not that there were any great variety in the diet they recieved.

"The usual." Naeem greeted him before they all erupted in general smalltalk and Jenner got his portion of the boring shipfood. The Zenith was prepared to wait for years in a system if need be, and steaks were not part of the regular ranson. They sat talking after dinner was finished when suddenly a siren started to sound. As one they froze, not really trusting their ears, then suddenly they dropped whatever they were holding an as one ran for the cockpit. That siren meant only one thing out here - another ship was approaching.