An ongoing story serially posted at the forum for Trese Brother's Games
Set in the world of Star Traders RPG
Written by Travail
Trese Brothers Forum
6.
Took a while, but I got back to Javat Prime, finally. And in a Tiberia Dark, too. Got back to the green, gave the crew leave, and put her in dry dock. I had more credits than some Princes by now. Hell, I had it all: credits, crew, officers, ships, respect. But I kept seeing all those pinched faces I'd left in pillaged ships in the dark of my cabin, and when I closed my eyes. I'd gotten so far from home, and even farther from that kid who'd inherited Da's Vark and couldn't wait to space in it... Felt like I'd lost him somewhere across the countless time between stars, leaving only me.
Just docking and entering the Star Port brought back the memories of my first trip there as Captain of the Vark. The Prince was older now, but my mind wandered back to the first time I'd been introduced to him and his court...
I remembered how I'd been announced; no rank, no warrant, no edict. He was not a very inspiring figure, being overly thin and with a sharp, long nose which looked more useful for busting up cometary ice than for ornamenting his face. He'd looked at me as if from orbit down his schnoz, and welcomed me to the court in a phlegmy voice which had somehow managed to be simultaneously haughty, whiny, and dismissive.
Now, though, now I was a player. I could have bought enough rank to buy the Honor ships of the line, but I didn't need one. When I came in, people at court whispered, talked. I didn't even have to play by the normal rules of protocol, so I didn't. Amygdala had gotten older, paunchier, and gravity had had its way with him- and not kindly, either. His cheeks had sagged, and he was even uglier than I remembered. I waved, didn't wait for whatever he'd been about to say, and sauntered off with a brand of insolence that kid I'd been wouldnt've dreamed of.
I'd gone back to the house, now mine with Da long dead. It was early autumn on Prime, and while the leaves were starting to turn colors, there was still plenty of green showing. I hired some people to clean and update the place, stock it. I was looking forward to at least a month, maybe 2, away from the ship. Hell, I was even happy to be trapped in a grav well. One night, with memories triggered by the house wrapped tight around, I felt really close to Da for the first time in nearly forever, and missed him all over again.
And just then my comm went off. My Spyder was calling, and she had a lead, she said. A solid one, on the Cadar cretin who'd holed me and taken my Vark back when I hadn't known better. Not really.
Damn. Payback was coming, maybe. And maybe she'd earned her 50 k bonus, too, at long, long last.
7.
Turns out my Spyder had picked up a tickle on one of her many strands, which she'd sussed out by going passive and listening. She laid out her reasoning and the tenuous chain of supposition and fact in the Spice Hall in Prime's 'Port, where I met her.
Her eyes were dark and hooded as she sat in the shadowy part of one of the dives there, and there was a third-full glass of some kind of smoky, viscous fluid which she held in both hands like it was warm. She also had a hookah-contraption on the table in front of her, which had some kind of liquid spice thing in its glass bowl, bubbling over a small heating element in the table.
She blew out a breath of fragrant steam she'd been holding. I waited. We watched each other without saying nothing, 'cause the moment seemed timeless- a dark corner in a place where you could escape kill or be killed for whatever time you could seize in one fist, before it trickled away between your fingers. It was a moment like a singularity, close, confined, everything we were or would ever be squashed into this impossibly small space in the galaxy. She was languid with her spice and vudka of choice, and I thought about getting a hit of something. I decided I'd rather chew on revenge, so I waited for the perfect timeless bubble to collapse back into the quantum ocean, the transient construct which can pop out of nothing and back again.
The moment collapsed into that potential, finally, and she leaned forward, and took another hit on her hookah. She spoke through the steam.
"Found something Cap'n", she said overly precise in her speech. "Bounty offered on a kill mission, originating on Cadar Prime. Contract was to find a Captain Schadenfreude, on theLazy Eclipse, and introduce him to vacuum."
"And?"
"And, Schadewhatever is a complete scofflaw, hated by everyone. That guy is like a hero to the Independents, but the factions have wanted him dead for nearly a century, but he's too good, too smart to get nailed. Anyway, the bastard's tough, and has retired a bunch of would-be bounties over the years. It was the Cadar thing what got me looking... seems a few months ago he dusted a Cadar military ship which ran into him. Among the crew was a young MO named Havelocke, got himself slaughtered with the rest."
I made a rolling gesture with my index finger. Was this some spice story, or was she going to get anywhere near a freaking point?
She continued. "So, Havelocke is also the name of the Cadar guy offering the contract- not a surprise, right? But I started digging: he's big now in Cadar Prime military, an Admiral, and the MO what got dusted was a son. Only son, in fact. And the bounty is enormous, even with the risk- it's definitely personal. Anyway, I got hacking and found out that Havelocke senior used to captain a Terror-class ship called Anticipation. Now, the reason it's got that name is it's based on an old Terran writer, who said that there is no terror in the bang, just in the anticipation of it..."
I interrupted her rambling. "Deal, the. What is, for shite's sake?"
She grinned, with too many damn teeth, pleased with herself and for getting to me. "Havelocke the senior was the kid's only heir, and I hacked Havelocke the junior's file up, down, and sideways. Father inherited a small house, creds in the amount of 22 k, spice debts of four and half k..."
I wanted to slap the hell out of her, and was about to when she looked at me and said "... and a ship named Vark Mordi."
My slap froze, and me along with it. And then the ice shattered, and the volcanic magma of my rage shot through my body, and I felt my brain boil and the steam build up in my chest. And I breathed out the steam in a low, steady exhale, enjoying the warmth of my anger, newly kindled.
She wasn't pretty, hell, had a face only a neutron star could love, but I wanted her right then, right in our dark corner of the spice hall. She'd given me back a reason to leave the green, leave the sensation of Da's peace in the house, and to get back out into the big empty, and I loved her for it.
But I didn't do it. Some lines you just don't cross because you'll regret it more than the satisfaction that scratching the itch will give you. Instead, I gave her her 50 thou creds and a fierce grin, and left her to enjoy her spice and vudka while I went to round up the crew and see the Tiberia Dark out of drydock.
8.
We were set to lift the next day. Crew was aboard- Casey, my First, was in such heavy discipline mode, I expected to see a leather strap in his hand to beat anyone not moving to his orders. Kinda like Da with me, I reckon. But he earned his pay, that's for sure- rounding up 220 crew scattered across a Star Port with a sizable Spice Hall, and getting 'em ready to fly, is roughly the same difficulty of wrestling a comet off course- with your bare hands. Says something about Casey, that we were ready to lift on time.
Meanwhile, my smuggler, Dexter Yee, had gotten us loaded up on water-fuel enough to practically float the Dark. My MO, a serious hard case who might have had a conscience once, but as long as he was loyal to my creds it worked for me, had topped up the torps and had the extra weaps stored in their special cabinet we put in last year for 'em. Lastly, my Spyder came on board, eyes even deeper hooded than I'd seen her in the Spice Hall, and I knew she'd probably sat there all night long with her vudka and spice. She met my eyes, but seemed empty, used up.
"Get some rack, you look hell-awful," I said.
She grinned at me, and said "Yeah, but I feel fiiiine, cap'n."
Considering we were heading into war, I thought the morale afforded by spice and Goodtimers well worth the cost. I slapped her on the shoulder and she stumbled against the wall with a "oof". I chuckled, and headed for the bridge.
Once there, I got on the ship-wide. I'd had this speech written for a long time, memorized, about vengeance, and meaning, and rage, quoting inspiring speeches going back to old, lost Terra. As I was about to address the crew, I chucked the whole thing and just spoke.
"We're gonna go get what's mine. Some son of a nebula took the Vark, and when he did, he opened us to vacuum and killed my old crew, those I couldn't save. He gave the ship to his thrice damned spoiled brat, who's already been exed out. The son was lucky. Now, we're for the father, to teach him what it is to screw with us.
No lie. He's an admiral in the Cadar navy, so he ain't the easiest target. But when you signed on, you did it for work, for the right of the spoils, and for the security of working for one of the biggest and baddest ships out there. I'm telling you there ain't no one so big he can't be pushed over. And if it takes leveling Cadar Prime to ash, we're going to teach him about what it means dealing with us.
You are the meanest and baddest crew I've ever had, that any captain could ask for. I'm so damned proud of each and every one of you, and we have a ship second to none at this point. Faction navies wish they were us, for hell's sake!
Now, we're lifting off, into fortune and legend. Stand tall. Hold fast. And kick effing ass. That is all."
9.
With the big engines and sails in the Tiberia Dark, there were not many ships faster or more maneuverable out there. We ran into a few on the way to Cadar Prime, because ships in the core are thicker than flies on a dead terrox, but no one wanted to bother with us. 'Course, there was a Cadar military patrol ship that we wanted to bother with- it couldn't do nothing when we leapt to close the distance and boarded. I think they got off a torp at us, but it missed wide with the speed we had to get in their face.
When we'd subdued the few crewmen we didn't ace right out, I dealt with the captain. He resisted, of course, and went down with a frag round in the leg which absolutely shredded his thigh, making quite the mess. I had 2 of his crewmen clean off the decking with small brushes as Von Diehmann, my MO, growled like a rabid badger at them. I had to work really hard not to laugh at him when he winked at me over their industrious hands-and-knees posture.
With the hostilities done, I brought my Spyder on through so she could hack their military files for intel. She'd slept off the coupla weeks from Javat Prime, and couldn't feed her habit much on board, so she looked positively energetic as she danced through their system like a ballerina with a sledgehammer, eyes glimmering with the excitement she got off trashing a system and showing off her skills.
"Cap'n", she said, calling my attention back from ordering the disposition of the cargo of the ship.
"Take it all, and if we have room, take as many torpedos as you can", I said to Von Diehmann.
"Aye."
I turned back to my Spyder.
"Had to chop through some serious ICE to get anywhere; you know how paranoid Cadar Mil is, right Cap'n? Didn't have time to be graceful about it, so I rang alarms from here to Prime. Anyway, Admiral Colin Havelocke's bio, holdings, house, you name it is ours- I crossloaded it to your 'puter in your cabin. While I was at it, I grabbed about a dozen other Admirals' jackets also, to fuzz their search back", she explained.
I nodded. "So, probably some enhanced security on top of their normal paranoia for everyone you nailed, but nothing psychotic. Nice work, now, trash their system and let's flit. They'll be able to reload the system in a coupla hours, get back in comms, and we're only a couple-three days at most from orbit."
Her fingers stopped flying over the board in front of her as she jerked her head at me in surprise. "You're not gonna just space the cap and crew, and turn this thing into vapor??"
I grinned at her. "These poor mopes? What'd they do other than a wrong-place-wrong-time maneuver?" My smile turned mean. "Nah, we've got bigger fish to fry... after they've been gutted. Now, dust their system and let's get going."
She did, and we did.
We left the mopes floating there and moved on... and you know? I was just fine with that, this time.
10.
The last leg to Cadar Prime went slicker than water off Jyeeta slime.
Casey and Dex wanted to reprovision at De Valtos Prime, but there was no way in hell I wanted the Dark to show up on any records anywhere near Cadar space. It was typical- my First wanted to make sure we didn't run low on water-fuel given the huge crew we were dragging with us these days, and my Smuggler wanted a chance to hit the De Valtos Exchange for deals. I nixed it.
I wanted us to fall on Cadar shipping with all the subtlety and warning of your average, friendly avalanche. The Tiberia Dark is a superbitch of a ship, and with the upgrades we piled in, she's overpowered, overcrewed, and overweaponed to boot. But I'm not an idiot- even in my wet dreams, I'msonot taking on the entire Cadarian Navy. And, since the main goals were finding and recovering the Vark, and putting the nails in the coffin of one Admiral Colin Havelocke, engaging said navy was not high on the list of things to do.
'Course, we were going to engage them, just not in a full frontal assault.
I planned things out with Von Diehmann, my big and bad MO, and Casey, who needed to know everything. We spent a lot of time closeted in my cabin while on approach, except when they traded off training drills with the crew so they, and I, could get some sleep. We pulled Spyder and Dex into enough of the meetings so they'd know their jobs when things heated up, but otherwise left them to basically run the ship and collect intel on our targets.
Our final approach kept us in red-space, swinging wide of Baza Prime and keeping us in the most dangerous corridors, where there'd be the fewest ships. We broke towards Laanbrekar Solar, a creepy crimson giant star which put, so appropriately, Syndicate Core (and her politicians) right into its own 'red light district'. Spyder used her skills, and a few thou creds spread around here and there, to switch the names of our ship with one in dry dock at the Core's Starport.
Presto! Without so much as even entering orbit, the Tiberia Dark was now officially off line and docked at Syndicate Core, while we took on the ident of a Thulun trader called the Radiant Queen, bound for Cadar Prime to deliver passengers to agents waiting at the Palace. We slung around Laanbrekar Solar to head for Prime.
About a day out, we broke approach to swing around P9 X245, the star which Cadar orbited, and got set to execute the plan. The planet and the Admiral wasn't going to know what hit them, we did this right…
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