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POV: Mark
The next morning came, and the main viewport of the Shepherd displayed the endless bustle of the station as dozens of ships came and went. I sat in the command chair, the smooth, cool plasteel of the armrests a stark contrast to the rougher metal of my old life.
Marcos's translucent figure was dressed in a pristine Navy Admiral's uniform that resembled Admiral Ren Varis's uniform. I was sure that he had done it just to irk me, leaning over the tactical display with a shit-eatin' grin plastered across his face as he stared at me walking into the bridge.
"Well, good news for us is that they already sent half of the pay for just the escrow upfront. Fifty thousand credits, exactly as negotiated. Seems like that Captain Alvarez chick is, grudgingly, a woman of her word," Marcos chirped.
"Grudgingly being the operative word," I muttered, pulling up the contract details on my personal console. "Ensure all system logs reflect this payment and the terms. I don't want her to pull the rug from under my feet when we try to claim the rest."
"Ha, you don't have to tell me twice, I did it while you were still showing. They are forming up right now, by the way. The three ships are the Dolores, the Triton, and the Gemini." Marcos pointed his holographic finger at the 3 blips maneuvering near our docking bay. "A lovely little convoy of 3 heavy haulers, all laden with enough hydroponics equipment and processed organic material to keep a small colony running for years. Their manifests are... well, they're clean. Maybe a little too clean, just maybe."
I rubbed my beard. "Too clean how?"
"No high-value commodities, no rare earth minerals, nothing a major pirate syndicate would target for a massive score. Just agricultural supplies. That probably means that they're being hit by a small group of opportunistic, local pirates, not a major operation," he paused briefly. "It also tells us why they hired us most of all. The vast majority of the ships around are all heavy corvettes, excluding the Navy's destroyers. They need a deterrent, not a battle cruiser."
"And we are the deterrent," I finished, standing up. "Alright, just join up with them and prepare the pre-jump sequence. Then set the course for the first jump point toward Handor, then prepare the detour path for Florera. Let's get this show on the road."
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The first seventeen days were a masterclass in boredom, punctuated only by the stomach-dropping thrill of a jump. Our little convoy was moving like clockwork, jumping into a system, moving to the next jump point, verifying the jump coordinates for the next point, waiting for the 3 freighters to trundle into position, and then initiating the next jump. It was tedious, but shit, I was going to get a good payday out of this.
I spent the days in a pattern of doing maintenance, physical training, and a little bit of self-reflection.
The Shepherd was a beast, no doubt about that, but even beasts needed grooming from time to time. I used the time to run diagnostics on the railgun accelerators and personally check the alignment of the sensor arrays. Marcos obviously did most of the heavy lifting, but I needed the tactile feedback that gave me assurance over every screw and bolt of my ship.
The massive reactor was one of the Shepherd's biggest advantages, as its energy generation capacity could power a heavy cruiser's worth of offensive and defensive systems on just a heavy frigate's frame. That was the real secret, more so than the custom-built railguns. The ship could dump power into its weapons with blinding speed, a luxury no standard ship, Navy, or civilian, enjoyed.
I also spent every waking morning, or what was technically morning according to whenever Marcos woke me up, working out in the ship's small but well-equipped gym. I didn't even know this had been here, just another surprise Ani had left me to discover. I also spent hours in my room, which had its own simulator, running through engagement scenarios against various pirate and corporate ship profiles.
I focused on maximizing the range advantage of the railguns of my ship. The standard-issue magnetic accelerators on most frigates only have an effective range of about 50,000 kilometers before accuracy and impact energy drop off a cliff. Mine, thanks to the changes Ani had made to them, which I discovered to be simple proprietary accelerator coils, maintained lethal accuracy out to 150,000 kilometers, triple the range than almost anything I'd face outhere, save for the astronomically low chances that I just ran into a Cruiser or something better who had kill zones of up to 160,000 kilometers on their main rail cannon. Apart from that, the range was a tactical disparity I intended to exploit just as I had done before.
But above all the things I did, I'd say self-reflection was the hardest part. The solitude of space was perfect for it. I thought about Anahrin, how now his entire race was truly and fully extinct. The weight of having to carry his legacy, the Strathari legacy, once I finally got situated on Nova Celeste, was eating at me.
From what I had read on the forums, Nova Celeste was a planet of pure innovation, where many businesses were started only to crash and burn. The lucky ones end up getting bought out by the megacorps, and those with some crazy levels of bullshit luck would rise. Everything depended on luck, according to most on the forums, but one thing was true: it is the key place to start a business.
The monotony of the jumps was occasionally broken by a comm-chatter with Captain Alvarez. She would maintain a curt and professional tone, though I could tell that she was still clearly resentful.
"Shepherd, maintain an 80-kilometer distance off our port bow," she'd transmit.
"Understood, Alvarez. If you want, I could just cover you at 150 kilometers," I'd reply, just to annoy her.
"While you're under contract with us, learn to just follow the protocol and my orders, Shepherd."
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"Captain, we are approaching the Handor jump point," Marcos announced on the eighteenth day. His avatar had changed into one that I can only describe as having a 'slightly-too-casual' look. He wore a trench coat and sunglasses, leaning against the main console, which I guess was a habit the AI had taken up, though I never knew they could do that. "We are diverting now onto the tertiary trade route that leads to Florera."
His words prompted me to give a quick once-over to the map. The tertiary route was less traveled than most, doing jumps that would wind you through systems with poor navigational data, something that my memories warned me as being prime territory for pirate activity.
"And how are the freighters holding up?" I asked.
"I hacked into their feeds without their knowledge a while ago. Their crews had been pretty happy and stress-free for the past few days, but as soon as we started getting close to the Handor system, they seemed to have been put on edge," he stated, pulling a cigar from his trech coat and lighting it with his fingertip in what I can only call an attempt to aura farm... and God damn was he good at it. "However, that Alvarez chick is maintaining a rigid formation. It's obvious that they know this is the dangerous part. The last two days, they've been transmitting security updates every four hours, double the contractual obligation."
The next four days were a slow crawl, maybe even worse than the past eighteen. The jumps were much shorter than before, the star systems becoming more sparsely populated, and the jump-points often obscured by dense nebulae or asteroid fields.
We jumped through the systems of Vespera, Kryll, and Gideon's End. Each system was dead silent, with not even a single trading ship, a single liner, a single mining barge, or a single freighter other than us. I had Marcos working overtime, running deep-spectrum scans and passive sensor sweeps constantly. However, there was nothing to be found around us or the jump points. Not even jump residue could be found as we approached the jump points. It was as if these systems hadn't had a ship fly through them in weeks or months.
And on the twenty-second day, Marcos's avatar suddenly straightened, with his holographic cigar dissolving. "Captain, I just detected a localized, extremely dense gravity anomaly at the exit point of the next jump. It's about fifty seconds out. I highly doubt that it's a natural formation. Most likely it's a device."
I felt my blood instantly go cold. The only gravity disruption device I had ever heard of was the 'Jump Net.' They were illegal, highly regulated, and immensely powerful, generating a localized, hyper-dense gravity field that pulled ships out of the jump stream prematurely, often with catastrophic results to the FTL drive if forced out. It was a terrifying weapon, meaning that I was wrong, and this was no opportunistic gang.
"Alert the freighters and prepare us for an emergency drop from the jump. Redirect power to the weapons and get the Railguns charged and ready to fire." I ordered Marcos. "Control two of the railguns to target the source of the anomaly and then help me shoot at anything that looks like a warship."
The jump drop sequence initiated, the stars stretching into impossible streaks of blue and purple light. Then, without warning, the Shepherd shrieked in protest, and it felt like we had just slammed into a wall. The jump stream shattered, and we were violently ejected into normal space.
The force of the interdiction rattled the convoy. Warning sirens blared across the bridge. I fought against the inertial dampeners, my knuckles white on the command chair's armrests.
Marcos immediately projected the tactical view. "We are out! The gravity shear was immense, but we're still in one piece. The freighters are scattered and panicking, Captain. The comm channel is a torrent of static and distress calls."
I ignored the comms for now as my focus was directed to the tactical display. Waiting for us was a fleet of 10 ships, with most of them being approximately 180 meters in length, clearly converted from small freighters and mining barges. Their hulls were bristling with shitty mounted missile launchers, broadside auto-cannons, and two low-power but fast-cycling railguns.
They were accompanied by a single light frigate, roughly 220 or 230 meters long, clearly the command ship. It was faster, better armored, and packed with railguns.
"The configuration of the ships and the use of a Jump Net indicate that these guys are either a part of the Iron Talon Syndicate, or a major splinter group," Marcos stated, his voice now losing its joking edge and turning calm and analytical. "The converted freighters are slow, and my scans indicate that their effective weapon range is 30,000 kilometers, max. The frigate is equipped with standard-issue railguns, so its range should be 50,000 kilometers."
I felt a predatory smile tug at the edge of my lips. "They think they've got us trapped in a kill box, but they fucked up choosing our group out of all of them. This just bumped our pay up to 200,000 credits, so it's time to earn our money and show them just what the Shepherd is capable of."
The Shepherd was already pouring immense power into its ten railgun systems, causing the ship's temperature around the reactor to spike as the powerful magnetic accelerators prepared to launch the slugs.
"I'm targeting the light frigate. Locking onto its engine section... Radar has a lock," I said as my hand hovered over the fire control.
The pirate frigate, which had been locked onto the 3 freighters, became aware that the 4th ship amongst them wasn't a freighter, as the Shepherd's energy readings began to spike. It started to turn, its railguns beginning to charge. They knew that I was the only real threat in my group, but they had underestimated one thing: distance.
The frigate was still over 120,000 kilometers away. When I opened fire. I felt the Shepherd buck slightly as six of its ten railguns unleashed their payload on the unfortunate bastards. There was no visible muzzle flash, just six faint streaks of light tearing across the void at a fraction of the speed of light.
The muzzle velocity was so fast that it only took 10 seconds for the rounds to reach the frigate. Its rear armor, designed to withstand stray micrometeorites, was obliterated. The sheer kinetic energy of the slugs punched clean through the plating before being peppered by the following shots, which tore into the primary engine coils. The massive exhaust nozzles on the frigate instantly went dark, replaced by a gout of white-hot plasma and shrapnel.
The enemy frigate instantly tumbled out of the fight, its momentum gone as its engines were disabled. It was a massive, inert target, and a kill-shot at extreme range would put it out of its misery. But I couldn't spare the time to finish it. Quickly switching targets and finalizing the rotation of the Shepherd to point in their direction, I now had all ten of my railguns ready for target practice.
The freighters were 100,000 kilometers out and closing, undeterred by the fact that their frigate had been taken out of the fight almost immediately.
"Retargeting the railguns to lock onto the lead pirate freighters," I said before calling out to Marcos. "Marcos, help me prioritize the biggest energy signature: their main reactor bulge on the ventral spine."
Marcos fired the 4 railguns that still hadn't been used while the other six finished recharging with unnatural speed for their size, firing just seconds after Marcos' shots. The Shepherd's unique power distribution allowed for firing bursts that would cripple any standard naval vessel.
The first four slugs closed the gap on the lead Freighter, slamming through its nose and making its way to the reactor. A catastrophic bloom of yellow-white energy erupted from its center as the ship vaporized.
The following freighter tried to turn, presenting its flank, but it didn't help them at all, only painting a broader target as six more slugs punched through its side armor and into the core, sending yet another silent, yet violent detonation.
A third ship managed to move out of the way of the next volley, but the ship following behind it, a converted mining barge, was not so lucky as it received all ten slugs, causing it to lose power and slow down tremendously.
The pirates were finally reacting to the threat they were facing, scattering their formation, but it was too late for one of them, as another volley of slugs slammed into it, breaking it in half, and sending a debris field tumbling into the void.
It had taken less than forty-five seconds for the enemy fleet to lose half of their ships and have their command frigate be put out of the fight. The remaining six converted pirate freighters finally understood the message that they were facing a ghost, a ship with capabilities far beyond any known patrol vessel. But they were pirates, they were greedy and desperate. They continued to close the distance, firing off a salvo of heavy, slow-moving torpedoes designed to saturate a target area.
"Incoming torpedoes! Divert 30% of the power to the autocannons and take them out now!" I yelled while controlling the Shepherd to take some evasive maneuvers. She rolled hard, and I could hear the inertial dampeners screaming. The torpedoes, designed for mass saturation, easily missed the maneuverable Shepher, but that move bought them time and forced me to be at an awkward position.
"THEY'RE IN RANGE!" I heard Marcos's voice, which sounded strained.
The pirate ships unleashed a hail of their own railgun slugs. Their aim was poor, but their volume of fire was not. I watched as the rounds intended for me somehow found their way to the Dolores, A round slamming into its main bridge section.
"The Dolores is taking heavy damage! I detect a structural breach in their command deck!" Marcos shouted.
The Triton took a glancing blow to its port engines, and sparks flew from its hull. "The Triton is losing thrust! Though it's stabilizing!"
Two of the ships I had been in charge of protecting had now been hit, and I didn't know just how bad yet. But I couldn't stop to analyze how they were doing. "Dammit! Weapons free! Target their weapons ports and core. Don't let up!"
I maneuvered the Shepherd to turn, unleashing a torrent of fire from its railguns and the smaller, rapid-fire autocannons that were tucked in all around the ship's hull. I was in an all-out war at this very moment.
One of the pirate ships tried to outflank us, making the grave mistake of getting into effective autocannon range. It was instantly pulverized, its bridge getting torn to swiss cheese while the rest of its hull was peppered.
At the same time, my railguns opened fire on two separate ships, hitting the makeshift magazine on one of them and sending explosions throughout its hull that blew it to bits. The other one was hit in the bridge, pulverizing its crew. However, they had managed to get some shots off at me.
I felt the Shepherd shudder as the slugs slammed towards the bow, where there was thankfully nothing of importance. One of the remaining 3 pirate ships attempted to use its fallen comrades as cover, slipping through my eyes.
"Mark, evasive maneuvers NOW!" I heard Marcos call out, his voice sounding panicked.
I didn't even process what he had said as I forced the Shepherd to rotate violently. A few seconds later, the Shepherd shook violently as a railgun round slammed onto the top of the bridge, ricocheting due to the angle of attack.
"We lost our long-range comms, and our navigation systems have been damaged," Marcos reported.
I finished the rotation I was doing and lined the freighter up, my camera zooming into the viewport of the pirate ship. I managed to stare into the face of a man who was mid-gulp and had gone white as a ghost as he witnessed the Shepherd complete an impossible turn and aim all 10 of its raiguns at it.
"Got to hell motherfucker," I said as I let the railguns loose, shredding the ship to pieces before it exploded.
Marcos continued to fire the autocannons at the remaining two ships, which continued flying past us at full burn. They had seen nine of their fleet utterly destroyed in minutes by a single, terrifyingly effective ship. Their greed had evaporated, replaced by self-preservation.
"They're running, Captain! Two ships are vectoring toward the nearest jump point!" Marcos informed me.
"No! Finish the job!" I commanded while rotating the ship to get a shot at them. I opened fire on one of the ships, managing to hit one of their engines, but it appeared to be a glancing blow as it only flickered before continuing with the full burn. I tried to fire again, but the raiguns were recharging, and by the time they were ready to fire again, they were already too far. But that didn't stop me.
"They are accelerating to maximum thrust! They're at 200,000 kilometers and closing to the jump point! They're too far!" Marcos yelled.
But I didn't care what he had said. I simply squeezed the trigger, firing another 10-round salvo at the fleeing bastards. I watched as one of the ships took a couple of hits to its upper hull, sparking but maintaining its momentum. The other ship was also hit, but the damage was superficial as well, the distance being too far for a clean reactor strike.
They had escaped. Two pirate ships, damaged but still functioning, were now running for their lives.
I slammed my fist on the armrest. "Damn it! We have to chase them!"
"Captain-" Marcos began, but I interrupted him
"We have to go after them," I said.
"Captain-" Marcos tried to reach me again, but I wasn't listening.
"I can't just let those fuckers escape," I said, ignoring the AI.
"MARK!" Marcos screamed, the sound of his voice coming out of every possible speaker in the bridge. That worked to snap me out of my obsessive state. "You just destroyed nine ships and disabled a frigate in under four minutes. We are still a one-man crew, and they are out of our extreme range. We have damage to repair aboard the Shepherd, and two out of the three freighters we were escorting have been damaged as well. We did what we could," Marcos advised, the tension slowly draining from his voice.
I took a deep, shaky breath, the acrid smell of ozone and burnt metal filling the air from the weapon discharge and whatever else was damaged aboard the Shepherd.
"Alright, Marcos. Cut power to all the weapons and control the drones to start working on our hull repair. We need to stabilize the convoy, but we have to get ourselves sorted out first. Open a channel to Captain Alvarez. No, wait. Just open the channel."
The comm channel was open, but silent, only the faint static of a shaken convoy. I was the one to break the silence over the comms. "This is the Shepherd. Pirate threat is neutralized, I repeat, pirate threat is neutralized. Nine enemy ships destroyed. Eight converted freighters and barges were completely destroyed, and 1 frigate was disabled. The remaining two have fled the system. Dolores and Triton report your damage and status."
A long pause hung in the air. I was about to speak again when a familiar, shaken voice came through.
"Shepherd… this is… this is Captain Alvarez of the Dolores," she stammered. "We… we have multiple hull breaches in the secondary crew quarters and bridge. Casualties are… four dead, three injured. The Triton has damage to its engine manifold, while the Gemini is unscathed. W-what… what the hell are you?"