Space Pirates Chapter 2

From Grigbertz

Jenner was the first to arrive in tactical and the others arrived as he was bringing up the 3D display of the system.
"It's the buoy closest to New Smaland." he commented and threw a look over at Max, whilst in his head he was already bringing up the different scenarios he'd practiced for an approach from that direction. There was some small chattering among the other while Max was quiet, and then he'd made his decision.

"Ok folks, If it's indeed a trader we've been lucky. Only six months and already we have a chance. We're on the right side of the planet for this approach so we'll just lie still and hidden, let them come out of hyper and monitor them from afar. If it's a trader, we'll do what we've rehersed. If it's a naval vessel or another pirate, we'll lie low."

"There she is." Dante said, and the rest of them took their eyes from Max and glanced at the display where they now could se the signs of a ship entering the system at sublight speed. Three minutes fifteen seconds between the point where the buoy made contact and she was detected in system, Jenner noted silently. If that was a trader it was not a slow bulky one, and it would be a close call depending on how long it would take for that ship to get her drives up and running when things got hot. And if it was a naval craft? He had to ask...

"Do we know if it's really a trader?"
"Looks like it boy", Naeem said. "If she was a naval vessel she'd drop into realspace further out and drift into the system in stealth mode, or she'd come in with all systems hot. No, this looks like a trader alright."
"Agreed", said Max. "Ok, you all know what to do. I'll stay here, noone turns of their intercoms from now on ok? Dante and Heinrich, I know you were on watch but you can't go to sleep now - get some stimpatches, ok?"

Jenner doubted they'd really need any, if they were as geared up as he was right now. He headed up to the cockpit taking the time to chat a bit with Naeem on the way. He was a large man, raised on a world with african cultural roots although he and his kin were of the white skinned phenotype.
"Hey Naeem... think this is it?"
"Looks good boy, but we wont know for sure for a while. And then it's down to you and me, right?"
"Heh! Yes true. Out of New Smaland, but that means she's probably carrying metal or machinery? Maybe weapons?"
"Or electronics if we're lucky. I hate carrying those crates of minerals, and they're even worse to sell. Weapons would be good though. Easy to sell."

And then Jenner was in his dark cockpit and watched the display. The data they were fed was a few minutes old due to the distance but it would not matter here. All they neede to do was confirm the drives of the trader were down and then dive down upon them. So they all settled in for a wait and watchd the unassuming ship slow down, head for the gas giant and settle in orbit.

Four hours later Max signalled Jenner that there was a confirmed shutdown of the traders drives and Jenner started to fire up their own.
"We'll bring our up covered by the planet" he said to Max via intercom, "then make an extra round to get our velocity up and slingshot down towards them. They'll know we're here onour first pass, but I'm certain they wont escape and we can still track them during the second pass via our sattelites."
"I trust your plan, now get to it." said Max.

The trader noticed the Zenith when she came out from behind the ice planet, drives on maximum and course set for another pass. In the Zenith, Jenner soon recieved a message from them and relayed it over the intercom to everyone on the Zenith:
"Unidentified ship, this is captain Koganov of the starship Eagle. State your identity and intention! We are members of the trade alliance and have paid our fees to the guild. I repeat, state your intention!"
"That sounded like a woman!" Heinrich exclaimed. "Oh, and what a sweet voice too."
There was some general laughter and rowdy comments before Max cut in:
"Jenner, you can reply any way you like or just stay silent, it wont matter any way. Are we still green?"
"Yep, all systems look fine. Heinrich, can you keep the drives at this level?"
"Null sweat." Heinrich told them all. Jenner looked down at the display and noticed a red light next to Dantes intercom.
"Hey Max" he said, "looks like Dante has gone offline?"
"He probably just went to sleep, since he has no duties right now. I know he doesn't trust the patches all that much and we can wake him up an hour before contact. It's not a problem."
Jenner nodded to himself and let his gaze sweep over the controls once more. The trader, identified as the Eagle, still broadcasted the message they recieved earlier. He checked his watch and just before they dissappeared behind the ice planet again he sent a short answer:
"Eagle, this is the Zenith. And we're coming to get you!"

The pass was uneventful and the dull thunder from the drives working at maximum was all that was heard apart from different beeps from Jenners instruments. Their spy sattelites reported that the Eagle were powering up their drives, and it was with a slight dismay that he noted the time. By then they had made their pass and left the planet behind them, their ship swiftly travelling through space towards the Eagle who desperately tried to leave orbit.
"Two hours fifteen minutes Max. It looks like this could be close."
"Dammit! Will we be able to overtake them if they do a sling too?"
"Yes, without a question. Oh.. it looks like their captain is heading out to meet us."
"What?"
"Just look at tactical. Their plotted course passes our with a few klicks right here. Are they going to fight us?"
Max was silent for a moment, no doubt thinking about the possibility that the trader was armed and came at them to destroy them. It might be a disguised warship for all they knew and that would spell doom for them all. Jenner had been in a combat with a merchant once but never with a warship. The tales he'd heard we're not happy tales. Karl butted in with a question:
"Zere is no emissions of energy yet. If zey power up weapons ten minutes before ze meet, can we avoid?"
"No" Jenner replied, "not if they have normal range on any lasers. Should we abort?"
Max answered this one: "No, we stick to the plan. We have no reasons except this odd course to belive they are armed. So we do what we meant to do. Jenner, on this course they'll pass us. Can we catch them?"
"Not if they can continue to accelerate, and if we slow down now to turn 180 they can just change heading and we've lost our advantage in volocity."
"Ok, so we have to take their drives out on the pass. You hear that Naeem? We need to take out their drives."
"I hear you, I hear you." came Naeems reply. "I'll do it, don't you worry."

The transit between the planets would have taken them four hours, but now that the Eagle came out to meet them things would happen a lot sooner, and it was a grumpy Dante that strapped himself into a chair next to Max with a medkit in his lap, ready to run anywhere he might be needed. They were now all in their spacesuits incase of hostile fire and loss of atmosphere in the ship. Naeem had just brought their weapons online and with great satisfaction they'd noticed that no energy signatures emitted from the trader. Then Jenner recieved another message from the Eagle and quickly punched the intercom.
"Max! They just told us not to fire, they have civilian passengers in the hold!"
"That's nonsense! The captain's just trying to get away when we didn't turn away. Gutsy, but we fire if they don't disable their drives - repeat our order for them to eject their fusionbottle or we fire!"

Jenner repeated their demands to the Eagle whos only reponse was to defiantly roll over on her side to make Naeems shot as difficult as possible. Jenner briefly though of what would happen if the captain of the Eagle decided to ram them head on but he hoped that she wasn't suicidal or hated pirates that much. The range closed awfully fast and the Eagle came at them head on, there would not be much distance between them. The captain of the other ship tried to have as much angular velocity as possible to make tracking that much more difficult. Ten klicks, five clicks, Jenner brought a videofeed up and was greeted by a huge picture of thousands of tons of steel hurtling at him only passing them by a hundred meaters, and just as the fiery hell of the Eagles drives made his entire screen go white he could hear Naeem fire and the Zeniths lasers blasted away at the other ship over the ridiculously short distance! Alarms went off as debris and scrap metal struck the hull of their ship but no serious damage was reported and suddenly it was all over. Jenner noticed he'd been holding his breath and exhaled.

Silence as everyone onboard was monitoring the datafeeds.
"Naeem you dolt, she's leaking atmosphere!" Heinrich exclaimed.
"Easy there" said Max, "he got the engines too. Look, no acceleration and the drives are dead. Jenner?"
"We just go round the gas giant and go after them. They'll be in constant motion but we will overtake them in... eight and a half hours."
"Finally some sleep!" Dante said and Jenner could just imagine his grin and also remembered that he wouldn't get any himself. "Oh, and did you all notice the insignia below the Eagles name?"
There was silence as everyone onboard except for Dante checked the feeds from the databanks and started up various pieces of imageenhancement software to see what Dante had seen. Jenner knew that Dante was heavily modified but he didn't know that his eyesight was this good. Jenner seemed to be the first one to see what Dante had seen anyway.
"Takanagi corp?"
"Very good! This fits perfectly with the russian female captain, as this ship probably was built in Vladivostok for this japaneese corporation."
"And the fact that it was a she didn't play in at all?" Jenner asked.
"On the contrary - Takanagi corp only uses female crewmembers, as they are better at handling gravity when the ships go planetside. So we all better break out our riotgear and whatever restraints we have, this is going to be fun!"

"What, we're not just going for their cargo?"
"No lad" Naeem answered, "I got their drive really good. There's no way that ship is going to be in any shape to travel, and we can't just leave the crew there to rot now can we?"
If the Eagle had just deactivated their drives and ejected her fusion bottle, they could have regained mobility with a lot of labour and a little luck. Normal proceedure if you didn't bring your own prize crew was to let the traders go with their ship, and this behaviour alone made some merchants disable drives when pirates showed up. But captain Koganov had raised the stakes, lost, and now the Zenith was going to see it through to the very end.