Author: K. B. Knight
Category: Thriller
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Chapter 2 - Accident
My mother was a forewoman in one of the industrial plants. As they came under greater pressure to produce more for the repairs to the station, as well as the ships, the managers started taking shortcuts. Money was getting ever tighter as the fighting went on and the station had to make savings. The cost cutting finally had a disastrous effect in the production area, where my mother worked, with shoddy parts for the machines. One of the power transfer modules, which manages the flow of power to the different machines in the sector, was made under-spec. It wasn’t able to handle the amount of stress being placed on it and eventually gave out.
It’s amazing how much concussive force there is in something that is meant to be able to deal with two gigawatts. As the unit exploded it sent shrapnel hurtling down across the work area, like someone had shot off the galaxies largest shotgun. Most of the pieces were small, acting like pellets and managed to kill twelve people outright with mostly head wounds. My mother got hit with a larger section of the outer casing. The twisted metal fragment slammed into her severing her left arm and leg. By the time the rescue teams found her she had bled out.
My father was never the same after that. Gone was a grumpy but funny man, replaced with someone who I hardly recognised. He withdrew into himself, barely saying a word to anyone, least of all me. He got fired from his job for not turning up and my wages couldn’t cover our living costs. Station security started to ask, then require, anyone able to hold a flight stick to fly a ship. I volunteered with the condition that my father could stay in our accommodation while I flew for them. Given my scores in the sims they were more than happy to agree.
I was given an Eagle and put into a wing of four. The wing consisted of our wing leader Sebastian Ericson, Sara Grusson, myself and Sam Ancher. While Ericson moaned about having a bunch of kids assigned to him, he made sure we were able to fly. As an ex-bounty hunter he shared many of his tricks with us to help keep us alive. Despite his constant whinging about our ages he took on the role of a father figure. I think he saw us as a surrogate family, we certainly felt like one. Our fourth mission out we were to escort a massive Lakon Type-9 to the station.
The mission started as all the others had. We met the Type-9 at the navigation point. Linking our ships to the Ericson's navigation computer we jumped into frame shift. Luiken City is only about five hundred and fifty light seconds from the star, a journey of about ten to fifteen minutes. About five minutes into the flight the alarm sounded indicating the Type-9 was being interdicted. The standing order was for the Type-9 to submit, to reduce the time for its frame shift drive to cool down and reset, and the escort would drop out with them giving them cover.
Being a subordinate part of the mission I didn’t have a cargo scanner so couldn’t scan the massive freighter and had no idea what they were carrying. It must have been expensive; there were two Pythons and a couple of Eagles waiting for us when we all dropped out of frame shift. Ericson ordered Ancher, who piloted an Eagle, to stay with the Type-9 until it was able to spool up its drives and get out to the station. Ericson and Grusson turned their Cobras towards one of the Pythons. I was ordered to take on the Eagles, which I was pretty evenly matched to in my own.
I turned up my power to the weapons, leaving only a pip of power for systems and engines, boosting towards the nearest Eagle. It was only equipped with a couple of multi-cannons and started peppering my shields. The small calibre weapons aren’t that powerful on their own, however firing at eight shots per second they soon mount up. I opened fire with my beam lasers watching my counterpart’s shields drop rapidly. They collapsed just as my weapon capacitor depleted and my lasers shut down, so I switched over to my own multi-cannon. The chatter of my weapon firing filled my ears as the enemy Eagle tried to manoeuvre away causing it to fly straight over me. I switched off flight assistance, spun around then hit my own afterburner to chase it. By the time I caught up my weapons capacitor had recharged and I opened fire with my beams. His shields had only just come back online and quickly went out again. The twin beam lasers started slicing through his hull. I watched my HUD showing his hull drop down to thirty four percent; then he exploded! I must have caught his power plant or ammo store. Still, one for me and a 4,000 credit, or CR, combat bond bonus to boot. I turned and headed for the other Eagle, who was in pursuit of the Type-9 and Ancher. Laser beams were volleying between both Eagles when one exploded. Quickly I checked my scanner, no emergency beacon. Damn it, Ancher was gone, only an angry red blip of the enemy Eagle remained next to the Type-9.
Every drop of energy was directed into my engines as I boosted towards the enemy Eagle; its lasers peppering the shields of the freighter. Over the comms-channel I heard Ericson say one of the Pythons was down, not destroyed but dead in space. I engaged the Eagle bringing its shields down. Just then the Type-9, following orders, jumped out and Ericson ordered me to follow. I punched my console which Ericson must have heard.
“We’ll take care of him for you.” He said, meaning they would deal with the Eagle that had killed Ancher.
My navigation computer locked onto the freighters wake and I spooled up to frame shift. I caught up quickly, ordering the Type-9 to go to full speed and arrived at the station only a few minutes later. Once within the no-fire zone of the station, I left the Type-9 to dock. Now that they were under the protection of the station’s massive guns, they offered their thanks and condolences for the loss of our pilot. I checked my sensors, there was no indication of a wing beacon, meaning I didn’t know where the remainder of my wing was. I headed back out planning to jump into frame shift and scan for their signal when my comms crackled and then Grusson’s voice filled my cockpit.
“It’s over.” She said.
“Where is Ericson?” I demanded, not caring about the tone of my voice. I could hear her smile with the reply.
“On his way, with a present for you, two actually. Go ahead and dock, we are to go to debrief.” She ordered.
I grumbled but spun my ship around, asked for docking clearance then headed for my allotted landing pad.