Mossfoot's Tales of Woe...

[mossfoot]

So you see the thing about your basic Cobra is it was originally designed for certain deep space military purposes. Trust me, I know these things. *hic* Don’t ask me how I know. It wasn’t until the company tanked after the MKII fiasco and taken over by what-his-nuts that it was repurposed as a multi-role civilian trader. But they didn’t really change anything, see? *hic* Yeah, they added a couple of guns, sure, and make a chassis that could take the strain, but other than that, it’s a MKII through and through.

And I used to have one. THE one. That was my baby. Well, my dad’s baby. But I took it, and possession is nine tenths of the law, am I right? Especially nowadays. *hic* I tell you, I thought the law was weird and lenient in my time? The kind of crap I’ve seen stations turn a blind eye to? Or what I’ve heard about from other pilots? Sheesh. And yet they’ll blow up your ship for loitering, too. Hell, some jerks even let themselves get blown up if it means they can take somebody out with them for crits and giggles. Or just so they can get a fresh paint job.

Well that ain’t my bag. *hic* Someday those morons are going to fit into the “oops” factor and evolution will attend to the rest. I’ll keep myself alive and in one piece and go spread my seed across a thousand worlds like Captain Kirk.

For some reason that last bit wasn’t funny. I wonder why it wasn’t funny? I’m always funny. I’m a funny guy. Funny, that.


*hic*

[spud42]

"Star Treking across the universe.....it's Life Jim but not as we know it...."

[mossfoot]

Ghah… my head. Geeze, your body goes a lousy hundred and fifty years without any booze just because you’ve been deep frozen like some woolly mammoth and suddenly your body forgets how to process alcohol.

I got a sinking feeling it had more to do with the progenitor cells and nanotech that brought me back, though. Sure, you guys can give me the liver of an eight year old, but you can’t make my face not look like it was dragged through a mile long cheese grater.

I’ve taken to wearing a helmet whenever I leave the ship now, which for some weird reason has caused some people to high-five me and call me “Stig”. Not sure what kind of complement that’s supposed to be. You can’t go past the pilots bay with a helmet on, though (security reasons, you might as well be wearing a ski mask in a bank), but I can get to the local bar at least, which is all the human contact I need for now. They look at me strange when I use a straw for my beer (about the most I can handle right now) under my visor. Well, screw ’em.

My god, do I really feel that alone in the universe right now? Maybe I’m not just wearing a helmet to hide my cat vomit face.

Wait, why does that ring a bell? Didn’t I own a cat once?

---

Helmet off, inside the Orbis station’s habitation ring. Wow. These really are like cities in space, with a surprising amount of greenery everywhere. If it wasn’t for the obvious curve in the distance on either direction, you’d think you were planetside.

I felt ridiculous being inside a pet store. Might as well have been a bloody nail salon. But I realized if I didn’t do something about my attitude I was going to end up going space-happy and fly my ship into a sun.

The animals here were perfect. Unbelievably so. Genetically engineered to be exactly what you wanted. There were dogs that had vocabularies of a hundred words, thanks to enhanced intelligence and a translating collar they wore. They had elephants that were one-tenth normal size and fully domesticated, hamsters the size of footballs, and cats…

…actually, cats hadn’t changed much. I suspect something in their DNA stubbornly refuses to have anything to do with bowing to our will, even on a genetic level.

But a cat was what I needed right now. Dogs are too needy. With a hundred words, the only ones I’d ever hear would be “Come back!” every time I left the ship. And one-tenth size or not, an elephant would be a pain to clean up after. No, I needed a companion that could take care of herself…

…um… sorry. Kind of spaced out for a moment there. Anyway, it didn’t seem right to just pick one at random, so I was waiting for inspiration to hit. In the meantime I picked up what I knew I’d need to go with it. Food, litter box, automated micebot to chase (“Now with twelve different activities and four AI levels of difficulty!”)

That was when a guy came in to complain to the manager.

“Yes, I’d like to return this cat, please.” He had the annoyed voice of a father who was also a businessman and who didn’t have time for fathering but did so out of obligation.

“I’m sorry, what seems to be the problem?”

“I bought him for my daughter’s birthday tomorrow.” Bingo. “But the stupid thing managed to get out of its carrying case and into my son’s workshop and burned its face on a laser welder. Look.”

I turned just enough so I could see the cat out of the corner of my eye, being held up at arm’s length like a baby that had just crapped its diaper. It was still a kitten, but not at that defenceless stage. It had long hair of a grey/black/white patter that kind of reminded me of a raccoon (yeah, we have raccoons on Lave, they manage to get everywhere, it seems). It also had one side of its face burned in a straight line, right over its left eye.

“I can’t give my daughter this! It’s wrecked.”

“Have you tried taking it to a vet? Maybe they—”

“Yes, yes, they said the scar will heal and they can replace the eye and fur, but not for another week. My daughter’s birthday is tomorrow! I’d like a replacement, please.”

“It’s not our policy to return an animal just because—”

The man rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’m in a hurry here. Just take it and dump it back in the vat or wherever you grow them. It’s completely useless now anyway.”

It would just so happen that this hairy little kitten turned and looked at me with its good eye at that point. Of course it did.

“If you won’t help me I’ll take my business elsewhere. But first I’m demanding a full refund!”

With one hand I scooped the cat up from the man’s grasp. The man turned to yell at me, saw my face, and then saw my fist.

“Keep the change.”

The store manager didn’t say a word as I laid out the supplies I had collected in the cart. “All this.” I paid and walked out with the kitten draped on my shoulder.

That’s one nice thing about this face. People assume you’re a thousand times tougher than you really are. He gave me a half nod as I left, and I knew I wouldn’t have the cops harassing me on the way back to my ship.

Sometimes inspiration hits. But when it comes in this form, it’s nice to hit back.

[SteveKing]

Aawwwww!

Better than a Long John Silver and a parrot... Stig and Fluffy

[mossfoot]

Having acquired a travelling companion, it was time to check my bank account, and see if all my garbage collecting had paid off. Along the way, I tried to think of a name for my new companion, which I had been told was an offshoot of the old Maine Coon breed, which was why they were being sold at Maine Hub. This would have meant more hair than I cared to deal with, but one of the genetic tweaks that took with this breed had to do with allergies and managing shedding.

I was teetering between Lucky due to her circumstance of coming into my possession or Scratchy based on what she was doing to my back, when I saw my numbers. They were good, but not enough for a Cobra, even if I traded the Adder in and everything with it.

I must have muttered my disappointment aloud because the guy waiting for the terminal said, “Didn’t you hear about the sale?”

“What sale?”

“Ships and gear are ten percent off in LHS 3447, including this station.”

Ten percent? I did the math in my head and it came up thumbs up.

“Looks like we’re both getting a new home, kitty. Ow!”

---

The Cobra MKIII. What can I say about it I haven’t said before? It’s a classic design and all around good general purpose ship. A home away from home for pilots for over two hundred years. There are more expensive, more powerful, and more luxurious ships, but they aren’t without their trade-offs in terms of upkeep, combat, or generally larger combat profile. Some have fancy nacelles to give them more speed and manoeuvrability, but a fully shielded Cobra could cut through those like butter if it ever got rammed.

And it was close enough to my MKII that I could pretend everything hadn’t changed. Hell, maybe it would help me remember some things.

So now I had to determine a name for my ship as well. But first thing was first, take this ship out and shake it down, make sure it works the way I think it should.

After running through the pre-flight check, and making sure the kitten was secured in her box for the time being, I took off and spun the ship around to look at the station.

What a beautiful sight. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing the habitation ring on these things. I decided to go in for a closer look, buzz the parkland.

That was when an unidentified fluffy object floated into my view.

For a moment I thought I had bought a lemon and this ship had a bad case of Trumbles, but it was in fact my cat, who had somehow gotten out of her carrier and was floating in the cabin. I hadn’t fitted her with GeckoPads™ yet, I was so eager to get this ship going I had forgotten, which meant she was bouncing off the walls as I manoeuvred into position and was not spinning around like a whirling dervish. Thank goodness I hadn’t hit the afterburners.

I instinctively reached out to grab her, and once she got my arm everything went to hell.

“Ow-ow-ow-OW-NO KITTY!”

I had to hit the thrusters to keep myself from ramming into the habitation ring’s support pylon as it swung by.

Instead I accidentally hit the afterburners.

“NononoNONONONO!”

If you go to Maine Hub in LHS 3447 and look really close at the habitation ring near the main baseball field, you might see a glint of light reflect from the scratch my Cobra left behind.

My ship did not fair nearly as well.

“Eject. Eject. Eject.” The computer trilled the words as I gripped my cat and hoped to hell the stasis field worked as advertised. This was not the way I wanted to end up part of the “oops” statistic.

I don’t remember much after that. I hit space, my lungs burned, and I was out cold. When I woke up, I was back in the station, my cat in a wire cage with a thick padlock on it—I can only assume I told them what happened in some delirious state of semi-recovery—and I was being shown the terms and conditions of my insurance agreement, and how much I was going to have to pay back in order to cover the loss of the tragically nameless Cobra. It was a lot.

I would get a replacement ship, but I was back to collecting garbage for a while until I built up some capital to trade with.

I looked over to the wire cage, where the kitten was licking its paw like nothing had happened all day long. On the upside, I did get a name for my cat out of it.

“Dumbass.”

[Ranthe]

Just wait until "Dumbass" gets a liking for the pilot's chair and you're constantly having to remove the cat every time you want to sit down...

[spud42]

lol... not lost your touch....

[mossfoot]

It turns out Maine Coon cats are infamous for getting into trouble. I fitted the GeckoPads™ on Dumbass and it took her only a few hours to get used to life in low to no-G situations. Her sleeping tank is a closed off centrifuge to simulate half earth gravity, but just like pilots we need to get some real gravity once in a while. Medical technology can only put off the effects of lack of gravity for so long.

You’d think this would be the start of a series of heart-warming stories or amusing anecdotes about the trouble Dumbass got into. And maybe under other situations that would have been the case.

Unfortunately, just as space and time are curved, so is life, and it threw me another one.

“Commander Mossfoot.” The man waiting for me by my ship was clearly part of the Federation’s Navy. Why he was here was anyone’s guess. Aside from some teaching the occasional pirate the need for good manners, I wasn’t exactly making a name for myself. And sure, I’d done some favors for the Navy now and then, but that was just so I could get access to the Sol system and general networking. Good for business and all.

“That’s my name. Well, sort of.” I saw no need to use my real name at all anymore. That life was over.

“We know. I’ve been briefed about your work in the Alliance systems a hundred and fifty years ago.”

Uh oh...I didn’t like the sound of this. Also, I couldn’t be sure what he meant exactly. My assumed name was, after all, assumed. The person I assumed it from having been a pilot working for a secret wetworks unit under the command of my father’s XO.

Long story.

“That life is long gone,” I said, figuring I’d keep my story applicable to either identity just to be safe. “I’m strictly freelance now.”

“I understand. But we know you are a skilled pilot and have certain skills, and your position puts you in place of deniability for my superiors. It’s clear that you haven’t given up fighting altogether, even if you have cut back. We were wondering if you would be interested in putting your abilities to more productive use than picking up space junk and slapping around teenagers with more money than sense?”

“Not particularly,” I said. “I don’t mind spacing idiots who think property damage is fun. Well, it is, obviously, but people might get hurt. I don’t care for that. They get picked up by the Vultures quickly enough, and they have to deal with insurance for the next month. Works for me.”

“Strange. We saw nothing about those kind of... ethics in you psych records.”

Ah. That answered which identity they thought I was. Oh, wait, maybe it didn’t. Not if they were using my pre-death psych eval. I’m pretty sure I was rubbish at that. Pretty sure the term ‘self-centered narcissist with sociopathic tendencies’ had been written down on it somewhere. But that was a lifetime ago. Well, a few if you’re keeping score.

“You seemed quite eager to participate in various black ops before. We had you down as a man who understood the long view when it came to galactic security.”

Okay, NOW it cleared up who he thought he was talking to. The other guy. Great, even now I couldn’t escape that mistaken identity problem. I considered clearing it up once and for all, but the man spoke first.

“If it’s a question of payment, I assure you the pay is quite generous.”

I opened my mouth. Shut it. Opened it again. “Define generous.”

“One hundred and seventy thousand credits.”

“Holy crap, who do you want me to kill?”

“Exactly.”

---

The man’s name was Tiberius Miller. Head of a terrorist organization operating within the regions nearest to Sol. His real name was Joe, but he changed it to Tiberius to sound more threatening. Nobody would follow Joe Miller.

The officer made the briefing exceedingly simple. Scout out the areas around Sol and track this man down. Terminate with extreme prejudice. Get paid.

A hundred and seventy thousand credits was enough to buy a small squad of Sidewinders or a few Adders to give you an idea of what this was worth. Hell, I could retire if I really wanted to with that kind of money.

And the guy was an honest to goodness a-hole. When it came to galactic politics there are always two sides to every conflict, often a lot of grey thrown around, but anyone who takes on passenger transports to make a point deserves whatever he gets.

Still, was I really up for this? It was one thing to defend myself in combat. Heck, I even went so far as to go “Oh deary me, here I am lost in space with a cargo hold full of silver, whatever will I do” over comm channels to lure suckers out once in a while, but this was different. This was hired murder. No pod was going to be recovered.

For the life of me I don’t know why I signed up, or why I did it so quickly. Something had changed inside me. No, that’s not right. Something was missing. I didn’t know what at the time.

“Excellent. Now, once you relocate to Sol you can begin. But before you take him on, we have a general “seek and destroy” quota to fill in the same region for his followers. I recommend you take them on to learn the kind of tactics Miller is teaching them.”

“What will I get paid for that?”

“A proper promotion within the Federation Navy. We can’t reinstate your rank of Captain, as you aren’t formally enlisted. But promotions within the civilian arm of the Navy will have its own rewards, as you are no doubt aware.”

“Plus the uniform is a chick magnet,” I said. Mr. Buzz Cut was not one for sarcastic humour, it seemed. “Fine. Go to Sol, get set up, search the systems, take on some renegades, and kill their leader. That about it?”

“Yes. Congratulations, Commander Mossfoot. You’ve made the right choice, and are helping make the Federation a safer place.” He shook my hand, but I didn’t care about the Federation. To be honest, galactic politics had been the last thing on my mind.

The two superpowers were the Empire and the Federation. My old home at Lave was part of a group caught in the middle called the Alliance, which primarily tried to take care of themselves when the giants got all sabre rattling. Then there were independent stations and systems not affiliated with anyone in particular. That’s about all I knew. Recent events? Something about the Emperor being sick and some wedding postponed in the Empire, and the VP dying in the Federation… just whatever I hear in passing on Galnet.

So it wasn’t any sense of loyalty that was making me do this. If I had any of that left it would probably go to the Alliance anyway. What can I say? I’m a sucker for the underdog these days. So, again, I couldn’t figure out why I so quickly agreed to risk my life like this, other than the prospect that this could open up business opportunities and of course a huge pay day.

---

It took me a day to reach Sol system, jump after jump, picking up some extra credits scanning planets and systems with outdated cartographical data. When I finally got there with Dumbass sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, I was less than impressed. Sol was the home of humanity, but it wasn’t my home. This was more of a curiosity than anything.

I rented a room on Galileo, the station orbiting Earth’s moon, where Dumbass could be safe while I went and did the most reckless thing in my life to date. I had enough pin money for a good room, and to hire someone to check in and feed the cat every day. I’d also found out that Galileo was weighed down with silver and needed shuttle pilots to ferry it to Earth in a timely manner, so I was able to build up more capital in the meantime while I got ready to hunt.

The pirates were easy. I barely gave them a second thought. Some random interceptions around Wolf 359, pretending to limp around in a ship full of liquor, it wasn’t long before I either found or was interdicted by the local renegades. They didn’t last long.

Then I got word from a Federation contact that Miller was at Barnard’s Star. And with that the game, as they say, was afoot.

[mossfoot]

I drifted through the expanse of space between Barnard’s Star and the nearest station for hours, checking every passing ship and every strange signal.

I’d like to say I had some niggling worries about this, or that I stared in the mirror one day and didn’t like what I saw, but the fact is none of that was on my mind whatsoever. Just finding this guy, spacing him, and cashing a paycheck.

It wasn’t like he didn’t deserve it. I ran across the work of Miller’s followers everywhere. Wrecks of trading ships drifting, their cargo spread about and not even collected. It wasn’t even stuff worth collecting – grain or toxic waste or basic chemicals. They were trying to scare traders off from the area, and probably doing a good job of it.

But like I said, I wasn’t thinking about any of that. No sense of outrage or vengeance or duty or justice. Nothing.

I saw another anomaly show up on my HUD and checked it out expecting more rubbish.

Instead I found Tiberius Miller, already powering up and preparing to fire in a frickin Anaconda. The biggest and most lethal craft available on the civilian market.

“You think I don’t know why you’re here?” He shouted over the comm. My shields took a battering as I tried to thrust myself into a firing position, but it was no use. Beams stroked against my hull like I was getting lashed with a laser cat-o-nine-tails.

“You can suck space like the rest of them, Federation goon!”

A bright purple orb struck, and my ship was thrown off course. Shields were down. I hit the afterburners, hoping to get some distance.

“Incoming missile,” the computer trilled.

I jinked to the left and right, using lateral and vertical thrusters to try and get a bit more manoeuvrability, but my hull kept on taking a beating. Where were my shields? Why weren’t they recharging?

“Taking damage,” the computer said.

“You think I don’t know that?” I yelled. Miller had made a chump out of me, and I’d be lucky if I got out of this alive. The shields still weren’t recharging, but I had made enough distance that I could check the systems panel to find out why.

He’d blown them out. That purple orb that hit me had wreaked all kinds of havoc on my ship and fried the shield generator completely.

I was out of this fight. I managed to clear enough distance to engage the frame shift and get the hell out of there, with less than half my hull integrity remaining.

Now, you would think this would have taught me a lesson. That I’d remember that it was my cowardly sense of self-preservation that had kept me alive (more or less) for so long. That I’d go back to Sol with my heart racing, my tail happily between my legs, ready to pick up Dumbass and just go off trading metals and luxury items again.

Instead I looked at my credit balance, intended to rebuy my ship in case of accidents, and asked myself if I had enough for bigger guns.

---

The outfitter wasn’t the sort to ask questions. Whether people came in to expand their cargo capacity or turn their ship into a death machine didn’t matter to her, so she didn’t bat an eye when I asked what the most powerful weapons a Cobra could hold were.

“Well, you’ve got four weapons mounts, the top are class two, bottom are class one. What are you outfitting for. Defence?”

“Offense.”

She nodded. “Uh-huh. Well, the Cobra can pack some decent power, depending on what you want to trade off on. Fixed mounts are slightly more powerful than gimbled or turreted mounts—fixed mounts don’t have to worry about diverting energy to servos and whatnot. But of course a gimbled mount is going to do half the work for you. You just need to keep the target in general line of sight.”

I was a good enough shot that I didn’t need gimbled mounts when it came to energy weapons, but projectiles had lead time to worry about.

In the end I outfitted her with what I thought was the best I could get. A rail gun on one side, burst laser on the other, with twin multi-canons gimbled underneath.

“I need to test her out. Any combat going on in the area?”

Maybe it was the way I said it, or the fact I clearly didn’t care who was fighting. “Uh… there’s actually a bit of a civil war going on in the system. You’ll find some combat zones marked on your HUD if you’re Navy affiliated… I assume you are?”

I nodded. “That’ll do. Thanks.”

----

I have no idea who was fighting or why. It didn’t matter. I just found the combat zone, near a planet with a mining facility, chose a side for my IFF to register with, and opened fire on the first red dot to pass my radar.

The whole time I wasn’t really thinking about fighting, I was looking at damage inflicted. Sure, I could look at stats about power consumption and damage per second all I wanted, but that wasn’t a substitute to seeing how it played out in the field.

And so Eagles and Cobras went down with relative ease under my new rail gun. Ammo consumption might be a problem, but this was about taking out Miller. I could stand to have that eat into the profits a bit.

An Anaconda entered the fray and I tested my kit out on it. Dang those things had powerful shields. I’d have to remember that.

Along with my team mates who I could have just as easily been fighting instead under the metaphorical coin flip, we took down the shields and battered the hull. The rail gun worked well enough against its reinforced hull, but by the time it was taken out I was out of ammo.

Still, should be good enough for a one-on-one fight. The important thing would be to stay behind it, where its more powerful weapons couldn’t hit me.

Without a word to anyone, I left the combat zone, returned to the station, cashed in my service bond to pay for rearming the rail gun, and headed back to Barnard’s Star.

---

This time I located myself near the only viable outpost, hunting for signals. If Miller was operating out of this area, he had to use this station to re-arm and repair, possibly using forged idents to avoid attracting attention, but then again on outposts like this more blind eyes were turned than anyone liked to admit.

This time Tiberius was good enough to announce himself, and offer me a chance to leave. I took this to mean that he was scared of what I was packing, and figured he should be. I powered up and tried to flank him, but by the time I got around he was already facing me again. We traded volleys of fire like two warriors charging each other with swords for a running swing.

Sparks flew off my console, my shields were gone—again. Hull integrity was down to 32%. Then I heard a distressing crackling noise.

“Warning. Cockpit compromised.”

The cracks along the canopy continued to spread as the Anaconda swung about to try and hit my rear. I hit the thrusters as the cracks webbed across my view.

“Oh hell.”

The good thing about explosive decompression is that it blows everything outward, otherwise I’d have had giant shards of canopy stuck in my chest. The emergency life support kicked in as the air pressure left, but I wasn’t dead. For now. Miller was still behind me firing missiles.

I put all power to engines and what was left over into shields. I had fifteen minutes to get to the station, listening to the muffled warnings of my computer, the sound of my own laboured breathing, and the steady ticking down of my oxygen reserve as the nearby oil-rig in space came mercifully into view.

Again you’d think I’d have taken this moment of terror as a chance for reflection on my life choices. And again, you’d be wrong.

---

“Back again?” Despite the repairs made, the outfitter could tell my ship had been through hell, largely because I’d left the paint job as it was.

“Your weapon suggestions sucked,” I said to her.

“They weren’t my suggestions,” she said. “You wanted the most powerful gun I had. I told you what that was. But power isn’t everything.” She showed me her inventory. “If you actually want a suggestion, I’d go with two of these.” She pointed to hefty-looking fixed beam lasers that were on display. “Two of these can peel off the shields off just about anything.”

“Even an Anaconda?”

She shrugged. “Given enough time. You’re hunting a ‘conda? Geeze, you really are as stupid as you are ugly.”

“And there goes your tip.”

“Look, even if you take the shields down you need to get through its armor. Those multicannons won’t do the trick. I suggest using more dedicated canons instead. Hits harder, but slower. It needs to be used at closer range, or at least if he’s coming at you head on—which presumably you don’t want to do. If you got the shields down and you’re close, you strafe him with this and he’ll feel it. Better yet, get the gimbled type and target his subsystems. You might get lucky and crit out his reactor.”

It sounded like good advice. There was just one problem. I didn’t have enough money for the full set.

“Sell the discovery scanner. And the fuel scoop.”

She did the math and shook her head. “Sorry, you’re still sixty grand short.”

“Sell the cargo bays.”

“Okay…how many?”

“All of them.”

For the first time the outfitter looked concerned. “You sure about that?”

“Cargo bays aren’t going to help me win a fight.”

“Sure, but, it’s the way you’re saying it. You know you seem a bit…obsessed, right?”

“Hadn’t crossed my mind. Do it.”

[spud42]

new name for your ship mossfoot..."The O.C.D." lol

[mossfoot]

Flying alone in my Cobra, waiting for Miller to show his face again. The outfitter had called me obsessed. But I wasn’t. Not the way she meant it, anyway. Keeping at 30km/s, searching for stray signals that might give away Tiberius’s position, I realized what the problem really was.

I just didn’t care anymore.

All I had was this—a ship, and a mission. So I was focused, yes, but not obsessed. I didn’t feel enough of anything right now to be considered obsessed.

This time around I didn’t find Miller. He found me. I was interdicted, and rather than fight it, once I saw it was an Ananconda on my tail, I killed the engines and let him take me.

“You again?” he said, opening gun ports. I did the same. But rather than gunning my engines forward I turned and hit the afterburners.

“That’s right, you better run!” he yelled after me.

But I wasn’t running. Once I was up to a good speed I turned off flight assistance and let momentum carry me away from him while I brought my ship and guns around to bear. Once in position, I put flight assistance on again and slammed the engines in full reverse.

It had the desired effect. I was just barely in range of his lasers, but that was it. And with my more precise sense of aim, I drilled on his shields at the edge of effective range, diverting power to weapons while keeping enough in engines and shields and keep me away from him.

“You’re not getting away from me that easily,” said Miller. “You’re a punk, just like the rest of those Federation goons. And I will boil up your ship and watch the void take you.”

I said nothing. I didn’t care enough about him to banter. I only cared about removing him.

He must not have rearmed his missiles since our last encounter, because I wasn’t hearing any impact warnings. My shields were still in good shape and his were going steadily down.

“Stop running like a coward and fight me!” Miller yelled. It seemed my tactic was pissing him off. His lasers were sputtering as they struggled to get enough power from the generator, which seemed to be dedicated to engines now. But still I kept focused, steadily burning his shields like he was an ant and I was a magnifying glass.

At last the shields were down and I lobbed cannon shells at him from a distance. It took a few seconds for them to reach him, but after the first hit he jinked and avoided the others. I could keep burning him, but his shields were starting to recharge. I decided to engage, get to his rear if possible, and do as much damage as possible before the shields went up.

“That’s more like it,” Miller said as I reversed the engines once again. I used my vertical thrusters in addition to my usual pitch and thrust to arc around him in a wide circle, but one that kept him in my sights more often. I also got strafed for my trouble, but I thought my shields could take it. I was wrong. By the time I was on his six, my hull was down to two thirds integrity. But this time I wasn’t running. Nothing critical had been hit, and my shields were already recharging.

The dogfight that ensued lasted for what felt like a lifetime. Each of us burning at one another’s shields and doing minor hull damage, ticking away at one another’s life with a thousand paper cuts.

It was a testament to my skill, I suppose. This guy was certified Elite and an Anaconda outclasses every other ship in terms of shield strength, firepower, and hull plating. Your only hope against one is to get hit as little as possible. So I figured I had to be delivering a ten-to-one damage exchange ratio this whole time.

And it was starting to get to Tiberius. “Butcher! Murderer! You can’t kill my people with your ships so you starve and strangle them with taxes, sanctions, embargos until they are meek and beaten and willing to be ruled by you. You think you are better than me? That you are upholding what is right? Your cause and your government are a fraud.”

I said nothing, trying to knock out his reactor before the shields went back online, but he was starting to get to me as well.

“I am fighting for something better. I fight for the freedom of my people, and you only fight for credits. What does that make you? They call me a terrorist, but at least a terrorist believes in something. What does a mercenary believe in besides money?”

This guy was just about on my last nerve. He’d hit my shields and both of my cannons were knocked offline. Damn. This was bad. His ship was holding together by a thread, but so was mine. And so was my patience.

“You are a pointless fool fighting for no one but yourself, for no reason but you can.”

Then the jerkwad had the balls to start quoting literature.

“You will die and be still, never shall be memory left of you
after this, nor regret when you are gone…”

That was all he said, but I knew the rest by heart. He was quoting the poet Sappho.

You will die and be still, never shall be memory left of you
after this, nor regret when you are gone. You have not touched the flowers
of the Muses, and thus, shadowy still in the domain of Death,
you must drift with a ghost’s fluttering wings, one of the darkened dead.

Something snapped.

I honestly can’t tell you what it was, but those words meant more than Miller realized. It was as if he’d slapped my soul. As if he’d known how empty my life was in a way I had only been vaguely aware of before. I had nothing to care about other than a kitten back on Galileo station. I had no family, no friends, no life to speak of. I had nothing. I was nothing. I would leave nothing behind.

“Shields online,” the computer calmly said. But I was anything but calm. For the first time since I took this assignment, I was mad. No, furious.

“Burn in hell!” They were the only words I ever said to the man. I held down on the fire button and cut straight into his hull, hitting the afterburners, by accident or on purpose, I have no way of knowing. My ship wedged right in behind his engines, causing a caststrophic meltdown, blowing my ship back, and tearing what was left of his to shreds.

My ship spun out of control. The controls fried and my HUD went on the blink. The canopy cracked and blew out. Number one engine had broken off and exploded a safe distance from me, but number two was intact and going critical. Thrusters offline. Life support offline. Tea maker still functional.

“Eject. Eject. Eject.”

Everything got real quiet, and not just because of the sudden vacuum in the cockpit. The computer’s voice telling me to eject didn’t sound right. It sounded like someone else. I looked over to the empty co-pilot’s seat, only to see it wasn’t empty after all.

A woman sat there. Tall, dark hair, wearing an outdated pilot’s uniform from the Lave systems. She looked at me with a sarcastic half-grin on her face, shaking her head slowly as the ship disintegrated all around me. Despite the fact there was no air and she had no helmet on, I heard her clear as day before everything went black.

“Dumbass.”

[Diziet Sma]

Nice battle!

Was that 'ramming tactic' based on an actual event, perchance?

[mossfoot]

It was an accident (as much as I have my HOTAS setup memorized I do still sometimes confuse my vertical thrust with afterburner). I should probably move it

But I did really have a "white whale" grudge against this guy. Here's how my second encounter with him turned out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McpJKodm-pU

[Diziet Sma]

But I did really have a "white whale" grudge against this guy. Here's how my second encounter with him turned out:

Heh.. I had a feeling there was something more behind this.. boy, he made short work of you in that encounter!

[mossfoot]

But I did really have a "white whale" grudge against this guy. Here's how my second encounter with him turned out:

Heh.. I had a feeling there was something more behind this.. boy, he made short work of you in that encounter!

My own fault for going at him head on like that. I thought about tactics other than "get behind him" and that's how I came up with going in reverse the way I did, and using my vertical thrusters along with pitch when in closer quarters. It seems to work well, but I bet there is much more I could learn.