“Can it see us?” I ask Janelle.
“Can what see us?” demands the girl.
Darn, I forget to close the connection.
“The destroyer,” I tell her before muting
my responses to her.
“No,” replies Janelle, “It will once I
charge the weapons however. Not even our cloaking can hide that.”
“Do it,” I tell her as I grip the
controls.
I can hear the girl curse in a mixture
of alien languages, only a few I can understand. I should update our
translators when we get back to Earth.
I look at the controls. The plasma
cannons are ready, but the fusion lance is still charging. The destroyer has
changed course once it detected us.
I fire the plasma cannons.
They’re better than nothing and much
better than what most people have. Most people doesn’t include Sektain warships
however as the Sektain were the ones to make plasma weaponry widespread in the
first place.
The destroyer fires its emergency thrusters
to avoid my shots. It is only partially successful as two bolts of plasma miss
and streak off harmlessly into space.
The other two slam into the destroyer
and its shield flickers and fails.
The fusion lance finally charges and I
fire it. It zooms at the hapless vessel, the destroyer unable to dodge and is
without its shields.
The fusion lance punches through the
Sektain warship and unleashes a series of explosion throughout the ship. The
forward third of it even breaks away from the ship and the engines flicker and
died.
“That was some impressive firepower,”
says the girl over the comm approvingly before her tone becomes extremely
worried, “You’re not going to turn that on me are you?”
“Why on Earth would I do that?” I demand
as I unmute myself.
“Because I’m a criminal and you’re a
lawman,” replies the girl, “That’s how most folk do things out here.”
“Well you did say you haven’t done
anything majorly wrong and you stayed out of trouble with the Knights and
Sangor, which are people whose opinions I care about out here,” I reply, “So
what were you doing out there in the first place?”
The girl hesitates for a moment before
replying.
“If you mean why I’m a pirate, that is
too long a story,” she finally says.
“Just tell why they were fighting and
why you sent the distress signal,” I say.
“Well,” replies the girl, “Me and my
crew stole a bunch of gear from the Talrak Ravagers, the ones with the assault
ships, and tried to sell them to the Yarnel Interstellar Empire, the guys with
the battleship. Except the Yarnels decided they didn’t want to pay so I sent
the distress signal. Then the Talraks showed up after having followed me here
and wanted their stuff back. So they fought while I try to sneak away. I guess
you showed up at some point between then and now. So now I got several crates
of stolen equipment and no buyers.”
“What kind of equipment?” I inquire.
“Five boxes of Sektain energy shield
generator, a couple of crates containing plasma grenades, five of small arms
and eight boxes of power cells,” answers the girl, “Interested?”
“Only if you’re willing to accept the
pound sterling,” I reply, “Sektain tech isn’t easy to come by back on Earth and
I’m always interested in acquiring more in a moral manner.”
“Does anyone else around here use the
pound sterling?” asks the girl.
“The Knights and probably the Sangor,” I
tell her, “ At the very least they will convert into something they will use. Do
you want to sort out the deal back at Epsilon Eridani?”
“Is that a good idea?” asks the girl,
the worry clear in her voice.
“You haven’t broken their laws and I
think I might be able to get the Knights to licence you as a one of their
privateers,” I reply, “The Knights will probably even let you salvage some the
wreckage out here.”
“I could make a good profit on even a
small amount of what is floating out here,” laughs the girl.
“Doing business now Sentinel,” grins Sam
from behind me, “You don’t even know our new friend’s name.”
I almost jump. I had forgotten that he
had entered the cockpit. But he has a good point.
“Before we got anywhere,” I say to the
girl, “Could I get your name since you have mine?”
“Mia Robinson,” answers the girl, “So
how are we going to New Valletta?”
“I would use my ship’s jump drive,” I
reply, “But I’m guessing you don’t have one.”
“You got a working jump drive!”exclaims
Mia in shock, “Do you have any idea how rare those are?”
“I do,” I say somewhat proudly.
It is true after all and jump drives are
quite rare.
“So how did you become a space pirate?”
Sam asks her, “You seem like one of the people from Earth not space. They’re
either alien or Maltese”
Mia is silent for a moment before reply.
“I was on a education trip to Europa
roughly a year back,” says Mia in a world weary voice, “At the time, I was
helping out carrying cargo crates when the ship I was on left before I could
get off. They were pirates and couldn’t just go back to a civilised spot of the
galaxy to do me off. Fortunately, they were kind to me and took me as one of
their own. The captain’s first mate was the father of my own first mate and
pitied me. So I spent several months as part of the crew as Urck’s protégée.
Then the Antol Raiders attacked us and the ship was finally cornered. Only me,
Darrac and Borin escaped.”
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