Pirates
"Captain, someone's trying to hail us on the comms. Its an interplanetary transmission!"
There was a hint of confusion in the Governor's voice. He, a pirate like the rest of the inhabitants of Kit-Kunis, was not often contacted by other empires. Especially not directly through a video call. This was odd. But so far the whole day had been odd... Ships had been taking weird routes and the Captain was still angry.
"Put it through Gov." came the Captain's gravelly voice.
The Governor – second in command of the entire planetoid – did as he was told. As pirates the colony's leadership structure was loose and disorganised, but where rules were clear only a suicidal person would cross them.
A familiar face appeared on the screen; Antares. He was a powerful emperor in his own right, and his empire had been making news recently all across the system. In only a year he had conquered a vast swath of the solar system and blockaded the star, effectively defending against external attack. And external aid for the few remaining empires still trapped in the system. He was in fact a human, which was strange considering he ruled over a faction of Vasari Loyalists. The aliens typically disliked humans, but last time anyone had checked the planets under his rule were perfectly happy and content to be ruled by a human. The Captain – the Pirate's main tactician and central ruler – knew all of this, and that immediately put a scowl on his face as he greeted the dangerous emperor.
"Antares, what can we do for you?"
Antares grinned his infamously manic grin and replied;
"I have a proposition for you, I thought you might be interested?"
Thus far he was being polite, which was good the governor thought to himself... normally the Captain and the Emperor would end up arguing about terms and conditions or payment or something. It really didn't seem to matter what, they just really didn't get along. Unfortunately, that was where the politeness ended;
"I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR PROPOSITIONS YOU MADMAN!" Yelled the Captain. Yep, he was definitely still angry, his cousin had led a raid recently into TEC territory on Antares' orders. Well paid orders, but no amount of pay could bring back the dead. The raid had been ambushed by four capital ships and there had been no survivors bar three – who had then been publicly executed by the TEC. One of those had been his cousin. The madman on the end of the outburst was a personal insult to Antares. The man was technically a 'successful psychopath', which made him almost completely emotionless and therefore actually by definition saner than anyone else around. It also made him remorseless and brutal – which was part of how he had been so successful. That and the fact that he thought entirely in logic, due to being incapable of emotional or irrational thought. The battlefield was but a trivial game to him and he had won every combat engagement he had ever entered. Or so the legends claimed. Certainly nobody could find an example of where he had lost a battle. Excluding the one where his forces sacrificed a few frigates in a skirmish in order to act as a diversion so that the main force could flank around and destroy the Prophets of Zei's Capital Planet... which didn't really count as a loss.
"That's fine, do as you wish." came the calm reply from the Emperor. That was even odder, normally the Captain started the verbal spats only to be confronted by a wall of well-worded insults designed to hurt him on topics he was sensitive about. The shocked silence lasted for all of 3 seconds before the Captain all but blurted out;
"What?" He took a deep breath, then reconsidered and continued "What kind of contract is this then? Because I refuse to believe that you're letting me off out of compassion..."
Both the Governor and the Captain smelled a rat; the Emperor was usually nothing if not insistent.
Silence.
Finally the Captain bit the proffered hook;
"Ok, go on then. What's this proposition of yours then?"
"Oh, nothing much. I was just going to ask if you'd be interested in surrendering. That's all." Came the calm and perfectly collected reply from Antares. It took a moment for the words to sink in...
That was when the Captain burst out laughing. It was common knowledge that the Captain had fortified the gravity well around Kit-Kunis so well that it had once destroyed an enemy titan with only minor losses to the pirates. It was also common knowledge that Antares specialised in defensive tactics and preferred to only make an aggressive move when he could be confident in a victory for his empire. For two defensive forces to go to war would mean a stand off that would eventually dissolve into negotiations. If anything the pirates were actually slightly better equipped for aggression than the fledgling empire...
The Captain was about to reply – probably with some form of insult – when he was interrupted by an ear-splittingly loud crash. The entire station shook – it reminded the governor of earthquakes he had experienced when visiting larger planets with tectonic processes. Sirens immediately began to wail in the distance and the portholes were filled with an orange glow for a second. Then there was silence, except for the distant wails of sirens nothing moved. Kit-Kunis was a planetoid which had had an entire pirate colony grafted onto it. It housed several billion pirates in total and most of it was not particularly stable. The control room that both the Governor and the Captain currently occupied was situated near the top of the colony that was mounted around the Northern Polar regions of the planetoid. Kit-Kunis had often been jokingly referred to as the 'Space Tortuga' after the notorious pirate citadel in the Golden Age of piracy on the human homeworld. It looked fairly similar in shape, except that Kit-Kunis towered several kilometers higher than any homeworld citadel ever had. The colony was one of four that were positioned on the planetoid's surface. Twelve seconds ago it had been one of five.
After the initial shock the Captain was the first to get his wits about him.
"DAMAGE REPORT!?" he screamed into the nearest comm device. "Get me a damage report this bloody Instant!"
That must have been an interplanetary projectile the Governor realised; and while it was technically possible that any number of vengeful empires could have sent it... He suspected that the culprit was the man staring impassively at the chaotic proceedings from the screen. Except he wasn't impassive. A slight grin, or perhaps more of a smirk, was visible on his face. That was when the Captain reached the same conclusion.
"YOU?!" he growled at the screen, "You are responsible for this?!"
"Of course."
"Why? We're supposed to be allies you maniac!"
The Governor knew how this would end; A kostura cannon had been fired somewhere – probably within the system – at the pirate base. It would take a full month before it was ready to fire again. But its first shot had just obliterated one fifth of Kit-Kunis. Somewhere near a billion people had just died, centuries of infrastructure and work had just been destroyed. In a way it made him sad, but he realised he was still in shock. It would sink in soon and then he would be sad and depressive for a long time. Perhaps even until the next warhead hit and killed another billion people... the Captain was still yelling at the screen, like that was going to achieve anything, when Antares finally replied;
"You do realise that was the warning shot, don't you?"
Silence again.
"You mean you will hit us again next month?" Queried the Governor, almost pleading for his darkest fears not to be true. If the madman had two cannons at his disposal they were in real trouble. Two fifths of the colony would be dead before they could even attempt to evacuate...
"No." replied Antares, still perfectly calm and composed, "Check your PSIDAR, I'll have the other warheads de-cloaked now."
Well, that explains how nobody detected the approach of a warhead the size of a small capital ship through space... thought the Governor as he rushed over to the room's PSIDAR panel. He turned it on. It was blank. Then a dot appeared on it. The panel pinged softly to announce the detection.
Scanning...
Identifying...
The sigil denoting a kostura warhead appeared on the screen. Shit...
He had turned and was about to tell the captain when he stopped dead in his tracks. He tried to tell himslef that he hadn't just heard what he thought he had just heard... Then it came a second time;
Ping.
The world seemed to fall away as understanding hit him with a force not dissimilar to the one that had just been used to kill a billion people...
He turned back tot he PSIDAR panel, dreading what he would see...
Sure enough; two new sigils denoting additional Kostura warheads were present on the screen. Four warheads... the mind boggled. That was-
Ping.
Five warheads?!
Ping.
Six warh-
Ping.
Ping.
Ping.
The Governor felt the world dropping out from under his feet. Metaphorically at this point. But when those warheads arrived that feeling would become literal...
He didn't even need to speak as he turned to the Captain. He saw the colour drain from the Captain's face, just as it had from his seconds earlier. The realisation had sunk in; they were doomed.
"What are your terms?" Demanded the Captain, turning back to the screen on the wall.
Antares merely smirked at him, "I thought you said you had had enough of my propositions?"
"I've changed my mind!" yelled the Captain, desperation becoming tangible in his voice.
"Prep the evacuation teams, we need to get out of this cursed system." He said quietly over his shoulder to the Governor. It was completely unnecessary since the Governor was already typing the commands into another console at the back of the room. Technically the entire pirate base could be split off into segments, attached to thrusters and sub-light engines and could be towed by the larger pirate ships in the event of an emergency... but with one fifth of the colony dust and debris and shock wave damage to all surviving infrastructure and ships that might be harder to organise than the Captain had intended when he had designed it.
"Five minutes to catastrophic impact!" rang out the computer's voice, the same voice being broadcast throughout the entire base... probably causing panic already.
"You may have changed your mind, but I'm afraid my offer no longer stands." Came the by-now infuriatingly calm voice of the Vasari Emperor.
"But I-" Started the Captain, only to be cut off by Antares' words.
"Goodbye Aaron, it was nice doing business with you. It's rather a shame you are no longer beneficial to my cause."
With that the screen went black. Both the Governor and the Captain stared at in shock for a second before the Governor typed the last few lines and sent the orders to the computer system that ran the base. The evacuation was beginning, but they would never all make it in time.
He turned to the Captain – no, he turned to Aaron he reminded himself. He had never known his real name before and it would be good to remember it – and approached him slowly. The poor man was just standing there. Still frozen by the abruptness of it all. They were going to die unless they got to one of the ships though, so he had to move.
"Captain?" He tried... "CAPTAIN?!" The second one seemed to have no more effect than the first... Finally, "Aaron!"
At that the Captain turned, the grim realisation slowly making its way into his features...
Both men turned and headed for the door.
Ping.
The Governor turned, curious, and ran back to the PSIDAR panel. It showed several capital ships moving into the gravity wells of the two adjacent planets.
He stared at the panel in confusion. A kostura warhead created a phase stabiliser node on impact and it was common knowledge that Antares used phase stabilises at every opportunity because of the advantage that they gave him. Surely if he planned to send ships he would have sent them directly to the node created by the first warhead? But why would he even want to send his forces to this doomed planetoid? The shock waves would destroy everything in the gravity well with the debris they carried with them and the infrared energy wave they emitted would be enough to reduce any surviving ships to molten slag...
The Captain appeared at his shoulder, also looking at the panel.
"This doesn't make any sense..." the Governor managed.
Then the Captain's face got even paler.
"You fool..." he said. "Those two planets are the only places with phase lanes to here, don't you see?"
"I know that," the Governor said indignantly "but-..."
Then the realisation hit: Antares had no intention of ordering his forces into the gravity well of Kit-Kunis... he intended to set up a blockade to kill those who tried to escape. After all... Antares specialised in defensive tactics... and they had less than three minutes to get out... and then another half-hour in phase space. It wouldn't take Antares that long to construct some basic defences... which would be all he would need to destroy a crippled evacuation fleet and the few combat ships that hadn't been crippled by the first impact... and they had only two routes to take.
"He has played his cards well." the Captain conceded. "We're screwed."
"Surely we should at least try to run the blockade?" The Governor queried. He had little hope for their success... he had seen what had happened to a fully armed military raid that had attempted to run a blockade Antares had set up many months prior before they had forged an alliance with the psychopathic Emperor. There had only been debris. No survivors, the ships hadn't even lasted long enough to launch the escape pods...
The heavy door to the room opened and the Captain's security detail – 6 of the toughest gunslingers he had ever known – entered the room.
"We have to get you out of here sir. We have a ship prepared but we don't have much time."
With that the leader took hold of the still-stunned Captain's arm and all but dragged him out the door, the Governor joined the others as they ran behind to keep up.
Moments later they all squeezed into the fast elevator and the Governor prepared himself for the sudden drop as it fired itself towards the surface of the planetoid. The inertia shields activated and then the world became a blur.
Seconds later the doors opened and they all piled out into the docking bay feeling slightly nauseous. The rest of the Captain's security detail had somehow got their hands on a small corvette class ship... fast but not even remotely durable. It would have to do...
The ship itself was probably only six or seven hundred meters wide and so it was built with much more cramped infrastructure. They didn't wait to climb up the ladders in turn, so no sooner had the entire party gotten in through the airlock than the engine powered up and the ship shot out of the docks.
They made it to the edge of the gravity well in less than a minute. The Governor had just been able to get to a seat near a porthole and strap himself in when there was a flash. He imagined the sound of the second impact would be much the same as the first, but this time the vacuum of space prevented him from hearing it. The Corvette's shields were down from the heat wave, that had been the flash he'd seen, and the ship appeared mostly intact. Now just to hope they could escape the gravity well before the debris hit...
Then there was a feeling like he was being stretched in one direction impossibly fast and then nothing but the hum of the phase drive. They were away. It would be a lie to say that they were safe though, far from it in fact. Antares would almost certainly have set up a secure blockade and even if he hadn't the fighter compliment of the capital ships he'd seen would be perfectly adequate to destroy this little ship long before it got halfway across the gravity well...
That's when he had an idea.