FTL: Faster Then Light
Amongst the Stars
A FanFict based off of the Indy game: FTL
By Indogma.
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fan based story. The contents of the story are owned by Subset Games. In no way do the views shown reflect the views of Subset Games. Please support the official release.
After rescuing a giant from a group of slavers after just recruiting a stranded Engi from a deserted planet, the Good Tidings is now fully manned. But as they continue deeper into the pirate sector they find that enemies are plenty in this part of space.
-The Pirate Sector-
Captain Harris Breg sighed loudly had he leaned back into his pilot's chair aboard the ship. For the past two hours he and the rest of his crew had been busy with repairs on the little kestrel ship after another brief fight with a pirate ship. It had been the pattern ever since they added to there crew a few days ago. The rock man, Groc had been a much-needed hand in these recent days.
Stronger then any human, he was able to help move the missile and other weapons around as if they were toys; making him the perfect choice for gunner. Groc had set up his quarters in the cargo bay, due to the other quarter being too cramped for his massive body. Overall it seemed he had settled into the ship nicely.
And then there was Gage, the Engi. While completely detached from emotion, he was a genius when it came to anything electronics related, making the job of repairing the ship that much more easier. And instead of taking any quarters, the Engi had requested to be given a certain corner of the engine room right next to an outlet when he powered down. Harris agreed at those had been the Engi's quarters ever since.
The power doors behind him opened and Evera walked in a gave a lazy salute, "Just finished the last of the repairs, Harris." She then rubbed the top of her shoulder and said, "I'll be glad if I never have to go into one of those crammed air ducts again."
Harris smiled, "It needed to be done, if not we would always be losing air and over working the Oxygen restorers."
"I guess," she sighed. "I just wish these damn pirates would stop attacking us."
Harris nodded. Every new point on the sector had provided them with a different fight, making there trip through the sector all the more tiresome. The repairs that the ship had received in Tiny's station had now disappeared it seemed and the ship was now back down to about a third hull integrity.
Now the ship was in the pirate home world sector, due to the fact it was the only option availed to jump to. Opening the star map, he looked at the possible jumps that he could steer the ship towards. There was the longer route they could take, it was about five jumps away, assuming all of the jumps would work, and it would have them avoid the pirate base/home world of Catluss. And then there was the other route, only three jumps, the final jump was directly to the planet of Catluss.
Harris sighed and rubbed his chin, now covered in small stubbles black and white hairs. He had not shaved since he had gotten the Good Tidings, which was a habit of some space captains who called it a "service beard". Breaking away from his thoughts, he looked and saw Evera staring intently at he star map as well. "Have you thought of our destination?" She asked.
Harris shrugged, "I have…" he rose from his chair and begun to pace, "But I cannot make up my mind." He looked at her, "Could I ask for your opinion." She nodded firmly, and Harris begun: "Currently there are two paths we could go." He then pointed to the star map, his finger tracing the different paths, "First we could head along these few planets, avoiding the pirates at there home. It would mean we would have more chances to run into fights." He then glanced at the Lieutenant who was nodding her head. "Or we could take the quicker way, through the planet of Catluss, the pirates home world." He looked and asked, "Well, Lieutenant? What do you think?"
Evera stepped forward and looked at the map in closer detail. "I think sir, we should take the long route around the pirate's homebase…" she said tracing the path with her finger too. "It would be safer. Maybe…"
"Are you sure about that?"
She nodded, "It seems like the obvious thing to do… and it is standard Federation tactics."
Harris sighed, and looked out into space. For a moment he said nothing to the other officer as he dwelled on her suggestion. "I am afraid the pirates might think the same thing, Evera…"
"What do you mean sir," she asked stepping forward.
"You said it yourself, "It seems like the obvious thing to do"… well if it so obvious I am certain the pirates will think the same." He then turned swiftly and said, "You see my worry?"
"I-I guess so sir, but thinking the pirates will try to think like us is a far shot…"
"Perhaps, but remember they are hunting us, not the other way around. If you were hunting a pirate wouldn't you at least try to think like them?" Evera nodded. "That means they would most likely place themselves in the most likely routes to block our escape."
"So where dose that leave us?"
"With one option it seems," he tapped on Catluss's symbol on the map. "To go were they least suspect it, into Catluss itself."
He turned to look at his Lieutenant and saw the worry on her face. "Heading straight into the heart of the beast sir, it will be dangerous."
He nodded, "Yes, that is why I wanted to share my thoughts with you before we decided. Just so you know what is at stake here. But, if I am right, we will not have much of a fight along the way, we could get a few jumps ahead of the REBELS and we might be able to kill a pirate lord and hopefully bring some stablitly to the local systems, REBELS or no REBELS. If I am wrong, we are probably dead, but it seems that is bound to be our fate even if we stay here."
"I know that," she sighed. "And it is your decision in the end, captain."
Harris sighed, "Still think it is a bad idea?"
She shrugged, "it is a better idea then sitting around here and waiting for the answer to come to us, sir."
Harris grinned and looked at the Lieutenant, she had changed. She was less quick with her questions, and less reluctant to use the Federation hand book of space conduct to find an answer. She now realized different situations needed different answers, often not found in a book. A lesson she had learned in a matter of weeks, while for other officers it took years. "You're absolutely right."
Briskly he walked to the pilot's seat and grabbed the ship's yoke, "You better get to your station," Harris said calmly, "We jump as soon as the ship is ready." Evera gave a quick salute and left Harris alone to position the ship towards the first planet that lead them to the pirate home world.
As the Good Tidings made its way deeper into the hostile pirate sector, Harris was cautious with every jump, knowing that every star brought them closer to the pirate base. But with every jump it seemed that Harris prediction was correct for there was not a ship to be seen on any of the jumps before Catluss. But instead of detracting from the tension, it only seemed to add to it.
Now the ship was ready to make the final jump, the jump to Catluss. Once past that, they were free of the fear from pirate attacks and this sector, but they had to get past it first. Before jumping, Harris checked with the ship's crew over the intercom, making sure all were ready. Groc gave a gruff, "Yep," and Gage gave his robotic, "Affirmative." And that was followed by Evera saying a, eager, "Aye, aye captain." The crew where ready, that is all Harris could ask for. Sealing their fates, he pushed forward and jumped the ship towards Catluss.
The planet was a small backwater planet that seemed to be the worst place for anyone to live in. It had almost little to no resources or water supplies, and the planet blanketed its lower elevations with a sort of brown smog that was poisonous to whom ever breathed it long enough. The only parts of the planet that were spared from the gas, where the high mountain tops that clustered the planet, barely making it a inhabitable place for anyone but the brave or stupid; these pirates where both of these and desperate. Since the Federation stared colonizing the fringe planets, they had claimed and protected them with some outdated ships making them all the hard to raid and take over for the pirates. Which left them this planet.
When Harris set his eyes on the planet, he thought he had made a mistake at first, seeing the brown smog paint the planet an ugly brown, but after rechecking the star map, he knew he was at the right planet. Then the scanners lit up as the long ranged scanners detected a ship orbiting the planet. A single ship.
"Just one?" said Harris aloud. He smiled, "I guess I was right: the pirates are out searching for us." He then looked at the ship more intently, "Well all but this one…"
"ALERT: UNIDENTIFIED SHIP MAKING COURSE FOR INTERCEPT"
"All hands," commanded Harris to the ship's crew, "Prepare to an attack!"
As soon as he said that, the ship's weapon turned online and began to charge and the shield was now up. Harris then took a peek at the ship's status, after picking up Groc and the Engi, Gage. Harris had added some improvements to the ship. One of the improvements was the addition of blast doors to the ship. In one of the fights with a pirate, they had been boarded once by a pair of pirates. While onboard they did some damage to the ship before they could be dealt with. Harris swore after that he would not let that happen again, and the blast doors where a way of showing he meant it. Another improvement from all the scrap they acquired with the pirate fights was improving the ship's power and shield. With the more power they could afford to keep the Med bay running while power the engines fully, and with the added protection from additional layering of the shield they could block most lasers that were aimed at them.
As the two ships closed in to fight each other, Harris turned on the ship scanners and scanned the inside of the ship. His heart sank when he noticed that the ship had a short ranged teleporter in it. Again, Harris turned on the intercom and spoke to the crew, "Be ready for a boarding action. Groc, Evera be ready to leave your station and head off these boarders." Since they had been boarded once before, Harris was able to discern who was the preferred "defender" of the ship. Presently Groc was the best suited for such a task, with one flinch of his fingers, he could crush a man's head in his hand and he could throw any item that was not directly attached to the ship in like it weighed nothing at all. In contrast, Gage was the poorest fighter of the ship. Being made of metal seemed to place him more at a disadvantage then one would have thought, and his movements in a fight were slow and not very committing.
With that in mind, Harris assigned Evera, and Groc to deal with incoming boarders when they appeared, which looked really probable now. As the distance between the two ships closed, they arrived in hailing distance and teleportation distance.
"INCOMING HAIL."
"Hold it, right there!" Came a gruff mean voice from the ship. "Turn off ya weapons and prepare to be boarded. Yer in our neck of the woods now…"
"This is Captain Harris Breg of the Federation ship, Good Tidings. And I demand—"
"Ya demand? Ha, listen 'ere. We run this planet, and we are in charge around 'ere. So ya better stut yer demands. Now turn off yer engines or we'll blast ya!"
"I'd like to see your one ship do that." Taunted Harris angrily.
"Heh, ya asked for it!" And with that, the pirate closed the hail.
Harris swun his head quickly as he looked at the ship's chart as the ship AI said: "ALERT, UNIDENIFIED PERSONAL ABOARD THE SHIP." The pirates where already onboard.
"Groc, Evera! A pair of pirates have teleported in the cargo room between the armory and the shield room! Deal with them!"
"Aye aye sir!" Evera replied over the intercom. Harris then turned to focus on the pirate ship. He trusted those two to do there job, now he needed to do his.
Lt. Evera, moved towards the door which lead to the room where the pirates were supposed to be. Holding a laser gun in her hands, he felt the cold metal turn hot in her grip. It was an unnerving feeling, dealing with boarders. Sighing deeply, she leaned against the frame of the door, and pressed the button to open the door. Letting it open, she slowly leaned in to peer into the room, only to be greeted by a pair laser beams aimed around her head.
Ducking behind the frame, she panted heavily. "At least they are human," she thought. The other time they had been boarded, the party had a mantis with them. It was the first time she had ever seen one of those creatures, and it was one she would not likely forget. They had bright red eyes that did not seem to focus on anything, making them all the more scary. The mantis in the boarding, had cornered Evera and was a few steps away from finishing her off, but then Groc had stepped in; literally. With one giant step, he brought his foot down on the bug, killing it like it was a regular bug. Although she survived, she had become terrified at the prospect of fighting another mantis on day. But at least it was not today.
Leaning her gun out, she fired several rounds into the room, not aiming anything but just fire back to keep the other pirates under fire. Glancing out again, she saw on of the pirates had taken cover behind a create right by the door, and was presently attempting to hack his way through the door.
Evera swore aloud, and fired two more lasers into the room before ducking back behind the door. "Groc, those pirates are trying to hacking into the Armory!"
"I know!" Came the Rockman's reply. "I am ready for them. Just keep them busy!"
The ship shook from a hit, and Evera stumbled slightly to keep her footing, "A-Alright." And she continued to fire into the room blindly.
After a few seconds, the two pirates were able to hack the control panel allowing them to open the door. Smiling at each other, they opened the door; only to find the imposing Groc on the other side of it. Before they could act, the rock man swung his fist at the one who had hacked the door open. The blow landed direcly on the man's chest and caused him to go flying into the air and to the rooms ceiling, before falling into the middle of the room.
With the other man still in shock, Evera saw her chance, turning away from the doorway, she aimed her pistol at the man and fired. The laser hit the pirate in the should and he dropped his laser pistol in pain before being finished off by Groc's fist making contact on his face.
The man in the middle was in pain, but still conscious. Gasping in pain, he reached for his retreater, (a device used to signal the other ship to teleport him back,) and pressed the button. Within seconds the two of them had vanished with a quick flash, and just like that the ship was clear of pirates.
"Groc, Evera report!" Came Harris voice from the intercom.
"All boarders, repelled Captian…" panted Evera.
"Good, now get back to your stations! We are not done yet!"
Harris gripped the yoke of the ship and made it list towards the right, as he tried to dodge an incoming missile form the other ship. The ship they had been fighting was better equipped then most of the other pirate ships. The pirate ship was a old slug bomber called, Lady Luck, who had a pair of Burst Lasers and a Hemes missile launcher. Making it slightly more powerful then the Good Tidings. But what it made up for in weapons it lacked in shields. The ship only had one layer of shields total.
As the ship veered right the missile flew past the ship, barely passing the left engine. After the threat of the missile passed, Harris corrected the ship's course, and made the ship level again with the other ship.
As the ship became level, Harris returned fire with a volley of lasers and a missile. The missile hit the shield room of the ship, but only one of the laser hit close to the ship, and the lone energy laser fizzled as it touched the shield. Not the counter attack Harris was hoping for.
Shaking his head, the ship suddenly lurched again as another round of lasers hit the hull.
"ALERT: HULL INTEGRITY LESS THEN 15%."
"Dammit," Harris swore. The ship could not take much more of this. Glancing over at the ship chart he saw one of the lasers at hit the oxygen room and had damaged the O2 restorer. Harris quickly got on the communicator, "Gage!"
"Inquisitive. Yes captain?"
"Get off the engines and head to the O2 room and repair whatever needs to be fix!"
"Acknowledged." Replied Gage as he left his post to fix the oxygen restorer.
For the next few minutes, the ships continued to fire on each other; neither one landing a great hit on the other. While the pirate ship was better equipped then the Good Tidings, it lacked hull strength. In the same about of time it took the ship to lower the Good Tidings' hull down to 10%, the other ship was now down to about 5% of its starting health. But Harris knew anyone could win this fight.
Then Harris noticed something, as he waited for the next folly to come, the missile launcher showed green as if it was ready to launch, it had been that way for a while know. But nothing happened. Harris smiled, they were out of missiles.
Taking the chance, Harris gunned the ship forward towards Lady Luck just ass the ship was firing its pair of lasers at the ship, but completely missing as the Good Tidings changed her tack and headed straight for the pirate vessel.
As the ships grew closer together, both the missile and the lasers of the Good Tidings were ready to fire, but Harris was holding his fire. He knew he needed to wait for the right moment and one of his hands hovered over the fire button while the other clenched the yoke tightly.
"Not yet, not yet." He whispered impatiently. He needed the other ship to move if his plan was to work. A second later, his charge worked and the pirate ship darted down to move under the Federation ship. Harris then carried out his plan: he fired the missile at the pirate's shield room and followed it by a barrage of lasers at the pirate's engines. If the plan worked, the pirates would not have time to put on there reverse thrusters and could not slow down as they floated in space with no control over there direction.
Watching the entire projectiles hit their targets Harris clenched his fist and cheered under his breath, "Yes!" He knew at this range it was almost impossible to miss, but it still was a happy moment for him. Quickly he grabbed the yoke with two hands and pulled it up and slowly turned the ship around as he lined the ship up for the kill.
"ALERT: INCOMING HAIL FORM LADY LUCK."
But Harris ignored the hail, he knew from experience pirates sometimes would hail the other ship when they were losing to try and recover their systems before they turned and attacked again. Harris was taking no such risk.
"Groc, no need to power up the missile launcher." Said Harris over the intercom. "We can finish him off with just one blast from our lasers. And I doubt he will have powered up his engines by then to dodge."
"Got it," Groc replied.
Slowly the ship waited for its lasers to charge, as the pirate ship continued its free-floating tract. Again the pirates tried to hail Harris, but the alert was soon drowned out by another; "LASERS FULLY CHARGED."
Without hesitation, Harris pushed the button. All three lasers hit the ship, but it seemed the last one was the last one the ship could take. All at once the ship begun to break apart, slowly at first with long small cracks that slowly grew into longer wider gaps that seemed to shred the ship apart into large and small fragments.
Harris just watched coldly, showing no remorse for the crew of that ship. He believed that they would have had no objections doing the same to them; which made it easier for him to have little feeling for the pirates.
Soon the entire ship was in pieces and unrecognizable from its original shape, sealing the Good Tidings victory. Harris sighed relieved, another close fight for them. Lazily he looked over at the chart. The door control room as well as the sensor room had been damaged in the fight and there was a hull breach in one of the unused rooms but other then that no major damage.
"Evera," he said calmly, "I'm giving you the helm. Take us out of this place and head for the exit beacon. I'll work with Grog and Gage to repair what damage we took."
"Yes, sir." She replied flatly.
After the exchange of orders, Harris leaned into the chair again, and relaxed. They had survived another fight. Hopefully there luck would hold out for the rest of the trip. For a moment he just sat there, lost in thought but not focusing on anything, a dazed look in his eyes. The spell broke when Evera opened the door to the pilot cabin, and reality returned to the captain as he got up to go to work.
Soon the Good Tidings was fully repaired and prepared for the next sector, not knowing what it would bring for any of them.
-End Notes-
Sorry for the wait. This would be where I would say a excuse as to why the story was delayed, but honestly I have nothing to blame but my own procrastination… oh well. Well that and a novel I am working on…
Cheers!
Indogma