Chapter 01 - Stealth

Faster you stupid thing.  Straining against g-forces and the harness I leaned to the left to move the throttle forward another millimeter, then a tight turn around a large section of the asteroid that the mining bots had been attached to. The ship board bitching Betty announced the obvious collision warning, "Oh shit!" I gulped; pushing the stick forward the black ship dips its nose barely clearing the slowly rotating wreckage.  With clinched teeth and my eyes scrunched closed I hear the metal on metal scrape of the left dorsal rubbing along an enormous tank. Having survived that moment of insanity I open my eyes and look for a possible avenue of escape.  

Wiggling the stick to get a look left then right I'm suddenly thrown forward against the restraints.  The black ship is engulfed in flames and is tumbling tail over nose away from the concussion of the blast.  On the last rotation before regaining control I witnessed the dented metal of the large fuel tank ripping open and a secondary explosion of the internal systems blowing shards of its innards in every direction, bits of composite and metal ping against the bottom of the ship. OK, think you dumbass, how are you going get away with this.  If they didn’t know where you were a minute ago the definitely know now. 

Most of the instruments seemed to be fine initially.  Jigging to the left and down toward the densest collection of rocks and debris getting away from the explodable crap in the vicinity.  OK check weapons, three missiles showing.  A quick tap to examine munitions is useless. Thumping the blinking display with my finger makes it go dark.  With a final look of disgust at the screen I mutter under my breath “this is going well”.  The time constraint I was working under was intense, so maybe it didn’t like the emergency up the startup sequence so much. 

Into the cloud of twisted metal and rotating rocks I plummeted.  “Missile Lock” biting my lip I pull back the throttle and toe the pedals to abruptly slow the black ship for a very tight turn over and down behind a large habitation module.

The ship is made for this type of close quarters combat but me on the other hand, I hold my breath against the compression of my flight suit.   As my vision clears from the red out the detonation and an eruption of materials from the disintegrating habitat nearly catches me.  Back on the throttle before being impacted by miscellaneous space hab materials, I stabilize the ships trajectory perpendicular to the habitat for a couple seconds, then left and down again.  Just a few moments and I’ll be in the debris field.  They know that is where I’m headed so why did I just use the same maneuver.  I shake my head and think, “You will be the deadest of all dumbasses if you keep this up.”

A heart stopping “Thud” sound and the damage display glowing brightly showed a malfunctioning thruster. “Thud” noise again but lighter, the thruster must be hanging on by cabling or a hose or something.  I touch the screen to disable the damaged thruster as I jig right and left dodging smallish chunks of rubble in my flight path.  After a quick assessment of the controls I make a mental note that the nose end of the ship seems a bit heavy but controllable.  If I could just avoid becoming part of the debris field myself I just might make the plan ‘B’ way point. Plasma blasts from two directions now, luckily the field of fire was full of debris that absorbs much of the energy before it hit the black ship.  Shields holding steady.

In the cluttered field of the once prosperous mining operation I had to slow to a near crawl.  Picking my way delicately through the carnage I saw one of the UEE Hornets making a long arc around the perimeter of the battle zone.  I guess he thinks he will get in front of me going round that way.  I truly hope Mitch is here somewhere close.  I mentally promise to never ever again try to intentionally piss him off, provided he takes out one of these guys that are trying to kill me. Snaking my way through the twisted mess at this speed makes me feel like a duck on a pond or maybe a rather large slow moving black fish.  Trying to look in all directions at once, I’m certain the guy following me has had to slow down as well.  I don’t dare turn on the active radar but the passive set isn’t very enlightening at the moment.  Just keep flying Lisbeth remember the training.  Dodging up down then down again left up down quick turn again with a plasma blast shattering rocks off to my left, close left.  Maybe a little more speed.  Yikes, maybe not, too much stuff to deal with.  My hands and feet are in constant motion dodging and thrusting then braking then rolling twisting dodging and occasionally banging into small objects. 

As I made yet another braking turn I caught a glimpse of the other Hornet off my right side.  He had to be sweating as much as I was in that rock soup.  “Th-whackkk” a small helmet sized chunk of something bounced off the canopy.  Slower maybe?  Nope, as another plasma bolt seared the right wing of the black ship. 

OK enough of this.  Thinking out loud I mutter, “If I can just find an open spot for 3 seconds I might be able to reinitialize the munitions screen .. Ahh” a glimpse of the refueling platform as I slid by a house sized boulder.  Lots of bigger denser looking junk down that way obscuring the platform, if I don’t get entangled in the guy wires that were used to secure the refiner to the larger asteroids I might make the platform.  A quick look over my shoulder at my six doesn’t tell me where the guy on my butt has gotten to.  No plasma blasts in the a few moments maybe he had to pay attention to where he was going and had to take his eyes off me.

After a quick burst of speed and an erratic slalom run through the large rocks I pulled the throttle back stopping the ship mid turn and used tiny pulses from the thrusters to snug the Stealth ship tightly in the darkness between the split halves of a medium sized asteroid.  As I slap at the mains powering all systems down I found that I was holding my breath. 

The Hornet pilot evidently made an over aggressive course correction in the boulder field we just passed through, he was trailing a stream of what I would imagine sounded like hissing sparks from the point where a missing bit of his port wing had been attached.  As a testament of the Stealth ships prowess he flies right by me toward the refueling platform. 

He is close enough that I can clearly see the UEE insignia on his helmet.  Then he is a ball of fire. Mitch’s Aurora slid out from its hiding place and moved toward the dead Hornet, I could just imagine the smirk on his face after pulling off that sneak attack. I shouted out loud, “I love you Mitch!”

The smile on my face doesn’t last long though.  Just as I was about to reboot the mains I saw a very fast missile streaking in on Mitch’s location.  The cylinder of death was screaming in at a horrifying rate.  The shot was taken from a short distance off.  Obviously they had him on visual as well as active radar.  I shriek “You BASTARDS” as Mitch’s ship was ripped into undefinable shreds of rubbish.

Then last Hornet swooped in on an approach obviously looking for me and his lost wingman.  As he passed out of view I jerked the lever that controls the mains and smack the top of the munitions screen with my fist.  It bursts into activity telling me almost all munitions are spent except for the three high speed low density missiles.  I rotated the thrusters to point me out the other side of the asteroid, arm the missiles and set the shields to use maximum power available.  I knew the UEE Hornet would get a ping from this but this guy needed to die.  And there he was about 100 meters away heading towards the offloading area of the mining platform. 

Lock-on / Launch .. count to 4 .. Lock-on / Launch, two of my spears are away trailing bursts of plasma as they sought the target.

He was very good; dodging with a move I have never seen before that allowed him to avoid the first missile but didn’t recover quickly enough and the second went right up his tail pipe.

Heading back toward the landing platform I see Mitch’s ship is in fragments no larger than a SataBall.  Not good to cry in ones helmet but he was a dear friend.  Other than being an occasional irritating idiot I loved him.

Reattaching the crypto set that alters the ships ID, I changed heading towards the Briarpatch.  With a sad heart I think about the refueling platform one last time.  I sniff back the tears thinking how much crap Mitch would have given me for all the damage on this new trophy F7C-S. 

As I adjust the power systems to get maximum engine output I apply my focus to the task at hand.

_-o-_

Disclaimer:

I do not work for nor represent Star Citizen, Roberts Space Industries, Cloud Imperium Games or any other Star Citizen related entity in any form or fashion with the possible exception that I am a Backer and have a huge passion for this game already.