Post by WJChesek ((Evern)) on Nov 1, 2009 22:44:26 GMT -5
The Red Rover
PROLOGUE
15:32, July 24th 2405(Earth Standard)
Somewhere between Sol and Epsilon Eridani
The stars glowed steadily, pinpricks of light of several colors, disappearing behind occasional planetary bodies and spacecraft. Light shining, warped by the gravity of other stars, and the planets. Across this serene, beauteous, chaotic vista drifted a void. The void devoured the light from the stars it crossed, they winked out of existence when it passed in front of them, then back in once it was gone. The UER DV Helios, as denoted by the eggshell white letters painted on both sides of the bow. Steam shot out of the back of the vessel, propelling it forward at a slow rate, the warm red glow of the engines was non-existent. The ship was bulbous near the main engines, vaguely circular, until two thirds to the bow. The last third, the forward third, was a big box, bristling with various sensory equipment, the largest of which was a communications array.
This array was the first target of a mere shadow, the RSC SS Kerenkov, adrift in the opposite direction. The shadow bristled with various weapons, powered purely by the ship’s reactor. And just like that, a new star appeared, lancing forward, melting the communications array before anyone aboard the Helios could react to the initial heat signature of the Kerenkov.
Rendered deaf and mute, gyrating through the soundless vacuum of space, the Helios was forced to wait for what happened next. A second shot from the Kerenkov shot through the Helios’ reactor, chaining off secondary explosions all along the vessel’s hull. All that remained was several large pieces of the ship, a cloud of atomized metal and radiation.
Thirty minutes later…
“Sir… There’s something wrong…” the short balding man at the Sensors stated, his soft brown eyes looking over the readout screen in front of him. The room was well lit, if enclosed, a box of steel, locking all of them inside the atmosphere rich environment, and keeping that environment from spreading out across the emptiness just on the other side of seventy-six millimeter thick titanium. At the “front” of the cube, a few meters away from the true bow of the ship, sat a three meter wide screen, stretching from a half meter above the deck, to a half meter below the three meter high ceiling. The screen showed all manner of tactical data to the ship’s captain, now currently showing faint traces of radiation in a small bubble around debris that seemed to stretch for kilometers if the scale was to be believed. On the other side of the screen were two chairs, one vacant, they were short handed this mission, Fire Control; normally divided between two people on a battleship, simply because there were that many weapons on board the vessel. Along the port and starboard walls sat various technicians maintaining various systems. The golden five, Fire Control, Communications, Sensors, Engineering, and Navigation, all sat near that screen, yet none of them faced each other. On the starboard side was the aforementioned Sensors station, right next to Communications, a younger woman, regulation length black hair tinted with the remains of a blonde dye. Her long fingers rattled against the keyboard, checking for any lingering messages from the wreckage of what, they all knew, was their charge. Across from these two, on the Port side, Engineering sat silently, glancing at his own readouts: Engine temperature was running green, Alcubierre-Kawikami drive recharging, hull integrity at one-hundred percent. There was nothing for this green eyed, short man to do but wait. And next to him sat another woman, Navigation, short and dumpy looking, even shorter than Engineering, she plotted all the data from the wreckage given to her by Sensors, queuing it to show up on the main screen, in addition to giving relative data as to the ships speed and heading.
“Well,” the Captain growled in the direction of Sensors, holding on to one of the ceiling rails with one of his big beefy hands. The rest of him floated, nearly two meters tall, and one who worked out quite a bit if one were to happen to catch him in his private shower, he floated weightlessly just in front of the main screen, his eyes locked on to the still active carrier signal that told them what this cloud of deadly debris once was. “Out with it.”
“Give me a moment…” Sensors practically sung, frantically typing on his own keyboard and looking up at the screen for something that only he knew how to look for, “AHA!” he shouted, jabbing an accusatory finger at a new statement in front of him, “Sir! I’m reading a growing radiation signal, putting the position on your screen now!”
A new blip flashed into existence on the main screen, just off the wreckage. At a given thought from the Captain, the screen zoomed in on the new blip, an amorphous blob denoting that the rudimentary intelligence onboard this vessel had no idea who it belonged to as of yet. Yet the Captain, a seasoned veteran of several conflicts with forces all around the Local Cluster could tell right away. The damned intelligence was conservative of course, waiting until it had all the relevant data, or enough to detect a pattern that was unique to one nation’s ships, such as the JGE ships, utilizing antimatter to power everything instead of a good old fashioned nuclear reactor. The Captain gave the order, “Fire on it now, Bradley.”
Fire Control, “Yessir.” And he keyed in a vector for his shot using all the weapons at his disposal, grinning at the chance to blow something up. He watched as his weapon of choice, the Plasma Cannon, actually several of them all pointed towards the new signal, then firing. It took several heartbeats for the energy weapons to shoot across space and hit the target, but they did, evaporating all the metal that they hit, not to mention any softer targets inside the metal. It was overkill, several of the shots simply dissipating in the cloud of dust that formed after the first few hit, but the ship was dead.
“Andich, give me a visual of that ship on screen two,” the Captain ordered, “Let’s find out who shot our pal.”
Sensors nodded, the ratata-tata of keystrokes confirming the Captain’s order. In the bottom right hand corner of the main screen a small box appeared, showing the stars and the half melted husk in the middle. A few more taps and the camera zoomed in on the wreckage, to the name and insignia of the ship.
“I’ll be damned… Russian Space Corps…” The Captain rubbed his own balding pate, “Comms, prepare a dispatch for Sol informing them of what happened. Nav, take us home.” He sighed, rubbing his eyes, “Then all of you get some rest, I want you bright eyed and bushy tailed twenty minutes before we arrive in system.” And he propelled himself off and away, utilizing the handlebars and the bulkheads in microgravity back to his quarters, where a drink awaited him. Once finished there, he headed to the cryo deck, arriving just as the Al-Kawa drive kicked in, and the vessel started to lock down tight.
23:25, August 4th 2405 (Earth Standard)
Eriann, Indi III, Epsilon Indi
The bar bustled with activity, people going in, out, drinking, throwing parties, every possible scenario imaginable was taking place in this run down building. The planet was the third one to be colonized by the American Democratic Union, a fallacy in naming and practice, and it showed. The people themselves seemed to be from all of the possible ancient Earth cultures, African, Indian, Native American, Caucasian, and none of them seemed to be terribly rich, at least, in this establishment. The pre-fab quikrete walls boasted cracks, the iron tables and chairs were mostly bent out of shape, and the so called “stainless” steel bar was an affront to the material, so discolored with stains from whatever drink they had had that night that the original color was only seen on the gum covered bottom of the object. The bartender, too, had seen better days, relegated to this subpar duty, he often spoke of his Navigator days to whoever would listen, that number was few, fewer still were those who believed him. And yet life here at the edge of a starless void went on. Up in the corners, cracked vid screens showed the propaganda the Union called “news,” fooling no one. Yet it still showed some news, including coverage of a potential international incident between the United Earth Republic, the one planet republic that often negotiated treaties between other nations, and devoted all of its power to the preservation of humanities home planet, Earth, and the Russian Space Corps. Though the opinions fed to the people who were not paying attention to the feeds were heavily colored by the ADU’s political view on the situation, the few facts that they cited were most likely correct.
And all this was ignored by a man sitting in a booth in the back, fidgeting with his hands as he waited. The man was tall, a hooked nose the most prominent of his facial features, narrow green eyes shining with intelligence beneath his dirty blonde hair. He wore nothing more than a simple jacket, a baggy pair of jeans. Every so often he would glance to a lump in the pocket of his jacket.
The man quickly looked up as someone else took a seat across from him in the booth. The newcomer was dressed what had to be an expensive flashy suit, tinted shades hanging on his small nose. When sitting, he appeared to be about the same height as the first man, though he was shorter when standing. He cracked a smile, showing off his crooked teeth. Another man showed up then, muscled so that his own suit almost ripped at the shoulders. He didn’t even make an effort to hide the compact sub-machine gun in his hands.
“Well, hello there Mason, I trust you are doing alright?” the smaller one said, leaning forward and pulling a fat cigar from under the table. He lit it quickly and discretely before blowing the smoke out into Mason’s face.
Mason shrugged, keeping one hand in his lap and leaning forward himself, “Good, actually, Frank. Do you have the cash?” He got straight down to business, almost grinning at his genius.
Frankie’s smile faded at the shortening of his name. Instead of getting indignant, he brought it back, flipping out a blue card, “Ten thousand Republic Credits, Mason m’boy. Now tell me, what do you need that much for?”
The card instantly caught Mason’s eyes, anyone could tell that he just wanted to reach out and pluck it from Frankie’s hand. But to do that would mean death, or at least a beating. No, he needed to get out of this with as much of his body intact as he could, “Nothing really, Frankie, just the going price of the goods.” He shrugged, leaning back in his chair once more, suddenly looking confident.
“Whoah, slow down ya giddy bastard.” Frankie sucked on the cigar another time, pinning the card down with an iron fist, “I gotta see the goods firs’, y’know.”
Mason closed his eyes and groaned, resting his head on the grimy seat, “C’mon, Frankie, we’ve done business hundreds of times before, I’m not going to stiff you.” He cracked a smile, “I value my life too much.”
Frankie shook his head, “Sorry, Mason, but you know the rules. They get broken, people get sloppy, an’ when people get sloppy, people get broken. Either by our hand or the ‘Unity Police’s.’” He spat out the last two words, as though disgusted by the organization they labeled. The Unity Police Department’s level of skill and efficiency varied from world to world. On worlds closer to the Union’s capital, they were more strict, all the way until the citizens and visitors on the capitol had no rights whatsoever, forced to endure random searches during which the police sometimes took whatever valuables they so happened to desire at the time, citing “suspicious thermal activity.” Though, in Indi, they lacked any power, allowing organizations like Frankie’s to roam free, actually making a profit in a nation where such a thing was practically outlawed. Which was why Mason had no qualms about doing what he was doing.
At that moment, a ringing came from Frankie’s coat, quickly snuffed out by the mobster himself as he lifted a circular device to the side of his head. The round disc was yellow, boasting a single stubby black antenna which linked up with the Comm satellites all around the world. “Yeah? Uh-huh… Thanks Jimmy.” The device disappeared and Frankie leaned forward once again, sighing out cigar smoke as he removed his sun glasses, “That was Jimmy, at the docks.” Mason’s face started to pale, “He says that your ship is badly damaged, spoke to the dockhand. Ten thousand R-Credits to repair.” He sucked on the cigar once more, “Now, I like you Mason, I’ll give ya one more chance. Something you’re not telling me?”
Mason drew in a deep breath, inwardly cursing his luck, “Alright, the Rover got damaged in a storm. I need the R-Credits to repair her before we can do anything.” He took another deep breath, hoping against hope that Frankie wouldn’t find out about the last tiny detail.
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
Frankie sighed again, replacing his shades and shaking his head with pity, “Such a shame. Vito, take mister Mason out back. Show him what we do to people who don’t tell the truth.” The big man nodded, crossing his tree trunk arms and nodding towards the back door. When Mason didn’t move, Vito wrapped a beefy hand around his upper arm, wrenching him out of the chair. Frankie held up a hand as he stood up himself, straightening his suit, “Oh, and Mason.” He puffed on the cigar once more, “Make sure you bring us the goods in two weeks. I’d hate to lose such a valuable client.”
And just like that, Vito pulled a scared stiff Mason out the back door, and proceeded to use those massive fists of his.
But I loved the pub piece 
The descriptions were awesome and the meeting had just the right amount of suspense 
