Date point: 4y 11m 2w 2d AV
“Guys, talk to me! How long until they reach point blank range?” Frank yelled, trying to be heard over the alarms blaring across the ship.
Annoyed at the unnecessary warnings, he took a precious second to turn off the distracting sounds. He had enough stress as it was without blown eardrums.
Tricko was first to answer Frank’s question, shouting, “The console says two minutes at our current speed! But, they are already shooting! They’re wildly inaccurate at this range, but they could still get a lucky shot, and our chances are only going to get worse!”
Frank’s hands were slippery with perspiration as he coaxed every bit of power he could from his ship. The air had grown hot and damp after Robert had turned off everything except the most basic life support, gravity and the electronic warfare systems. They were working only by the light of their own workstations.
It still wasn’t enough.
The slowest of their ships were still faster than the Reclamation, and the fastest of their ships would be on top of them in under two minutes.
Coil-gun fire was screaming past the ship, lighting up the flight deck with streaks of crimson whenever the super-heated metal came into view as they went beyond their intended target.
They were still within the area affected by the wall of gravity spikes.
This was insanity.
A single gravity spike had a rather large area of effect, but their attackers had gone overboard in making sure that the humans would be stuck within the web.
When they had been forced out of FTL, more gravity spikes had activated behind them, trapping them in a sphere that encircled the entire system.
The word “overkill” seemed appropriate.
Thinking desperately about how to survive, Frank yelled, “Ted! We’re tiny and don’t show up on scans! Why can they see us!?”
Ted was busy, working his hardest to keep changing how much power was being thrown at the pursuing ships, trying to force them to keep adjusting their sensors and account for the garbage energy obscuring their accuracy. But it was a double edged sword.
“Frank, we’re broadcasting our location! If they know what to look for, and they know that we’re here, all they have to do is look for the brightest object on their sensors! I’m doing the best I can, but I can’t hide us! I can only make it hard for them to keep a lock on us!” Ted said hurriedly.
“Fuck! So we can only delay the inevitable?!” Frank hissed.
In a half defeated, half terrified voice, Ted replied, “Basically. I don’t see how-”
“The console says that the closest ship has just reached missile range and fired four heat seekers!” Ryst cried.
More alarms went off as the missiles began to gain on them quickly, covering half the distance in the first six seconds.
“Ryst, pop the first bank of flares!” Frank shrieked.
As Ryst slammed the button for flares, a hatch opened on the underside of the ship, ejecting fifty baseball sized objects.
Filled with Thermite, these hollow Tungsten orbs burnt at 2500 degrees Celsius, transforming them into miniature suns in the void of space.
Three missiles slammed into a flare each and exploded, while the fourth one missed the burning metal that had fooled it.
Attempting to turn around and hit its mark, it instead locked back onto the ship it was originally intended for.
Screaming towards the Reclamation again, the ship’s heat suddenly vanished from in front of the missile, replaced by a shimmering wall of both hot and cold. Not programmed for what was happening, the missile initiated a safety self detonation.
“Good job on the metallic chaff, Tricko!” Ted roared, refraining from thumping the Gaoian on the back, so as to avoid breaking his spine. Tricko gave his affectation of a human smile at the praise as Ryst shouted a similar compliment.
“Alright, alright! We survived one, but we’re pressing our luck! Ryst, how many more flares do we have?” Frank said, bringing everyone back to the situation.
Checking the readouts that had been translated into Gaoian, Ryst said, “One hundred and fifty left! We’ve also got three more rounds of chaff! Frank, they’re going to be on top of us in less than thirty seconds!”
Taking in another shaky breath, Frank said, “Alright, this is where things get messy. Tricko, activate every one of the Swarm Drones.”
The humans stopping the missiles had been unexpected, and only a few of the fastest ships had been outfitted with them. Of the fastest ships, the one that had fired had been the closest to them when they had appeared. It would be another minute or so until another volley could be sent.
This development did not please him.
Sixty-four watched the sensors that were going haywire every other second. The infernal ship was doing a very good job of making itself into a difficult target.
Still, Sixty-Four felt extremely confident in his plan.
The humans could evade him for only so long. Eventually a coil-gun shot would find its mark and put an end to his problem.
His gravity bubble encased the entire system, making escape impossible unless they used kinetics to travel outside of it and go beyond the affected area.
Sixty-Four’s scavenged fleet would easily catch them before that happened.
It had been hell to put this together.
No less than twenty criminal organizations had been liquidated in order to create the fleet, and nearly half of their members were now drones following his instructions.
Scavengers, salvage crews and third rate pirates from all over the Far Reaches, all small and unimportant, had disappeared from space stations and ports overnight.
Each organization had several ships, some of them even rather advanced.
The gravity spikes possessed by the pirates had inspired a stroke of genius in Sixty-Four, one that was sure to get him noticed by the single digits.
After setting everything up as quickly as possible, he’d outfitted the fastest pursuit vessels with half his stock of missiles. He’d kept the rest for himself, in the event the humans became a threat.
His own ship could have dealt with them easily, but the advanced ship was nearly on the other side of the system, traveling as fast as it could towards the human vessel. Sixty-Four was currently inhabiting a terrified Chehnasho salvage captain, six or seven ships behind the lead pursuit craft.
In total, seventy three ships were closing in on the doomed humans.
Incoming data told him that they were now within point blank range, and coil-gun fire would now be effective.
That was when all hell broke loose on the already beleaguered sensors.
“Swarm Drones are active and circling us!” Tricko said, hearing the sound of the largest hatch on the underside of the ship opening and ejecting its payload.
Forty drones, the size of basketballs and equipped with sensors and kinetic engines, began to synchronize with each other and circle the fleeing ship, moving in odd and unpredictable ways.
Each one of the drones, if told to, could give off energy signatures, to confuse targeting computers as to which was the real target.
But, should this be bypassed, a drone would throw itself in front of a shot that was on course to destroy the Reclamation, in order to save the vessel.
The problem was, three had already sacrificed themselves in the first few seconds.
“Shit, shit, SHIT! This isn’t going to work for long!” Frank groaned.
They were running out of options, and the drones would only last maybe another minute before they hit the metaphorical brick wall.
Over the intercom, Robert spoke to the flight deck, “Frank! I have an idea! It’s really fucking stupid!”
Back in the engineering section of the ship, standing next to a bank of supercapacitors that were cooking the room, a profusely sweating and heavily breathing Robert had been watching everything from his console.
“Frank, listen carefully. We’re almost as fast as their lead ship. The ones behind it are just barely faster than us. I’ve turned off everything I can without killing us. But, I have an idea. We have to disappear on their sensors for at least three seconds!”
The frantic voice of the old man responded, “But, we can’t disappear! We’d have to turn off the EW Suite, and that’s the only reason they haven’t hit us yet!”
Closing his eyes, he internally begged Frank to listen when he said, “Old timer, you have to trust me. If you don’t, we’re going to die within the next thirty seconds.”
“…alright, kid. Tell me what to do.”
Sensor jamming, superheated balls of metal, metallic clouds of dust and now drones to top it all off. He had to hand it to them. Humans were persistent.
But, the game was up.
After the first few moments of insanity that accompanied the mass of drones expanding to surround the ship like a swarm of insects, successive shots had nearly destroyed the target, only being prevented by the sacrifice of their drones.
Nearly a quarter of the circling devices had been destroyed, and in less than a [minute] he would taste his victory.
Volley after volley of coil-gun fire streaked across the void, some missing the target entirely, others coming tantalizingly close to their mark.
Then, the ship vanished from the screen.
“…what?” Sixty-Four said, dumbly.
Turning to his own drones, he demanded, “TELL ME WHAT JUST HAPPENED! WE DIDN’T HIT THEM! I WOULD HAVE SEEN IT!”
Speaking in a halting and almost mechanical voice, the closest one said, “They have turned off their jamming array. We are recalibrating our sensors to a more sensitive setting.”
“HOW LONG?!” Sixty-Four screamed.
“It is done. They are to our left and right, above and below, in front and behind us.” the Vzk’tk drone said in flat, uninterested tone.
Eyes widening in disbelief, Sixty-Four shrieked and pulled a pulse pistol from his belt and shot the offending Vzk’tk.
“You!” he shouted, pointing at another crew member, “Explain!”
“There are seven energy signatures on our sensors. Six of them are close to us, but moving away in different directions fairly slowly. The seventh is beneath us, moving away very rapidly. Much quicker than should be possible.” the Chehnasho crew member said.
Howling with frustration and feeling a stabbing fear, the agent screamed, “THAT ONE! GO AFTER THAT ONE!”
In the same flat, uninterested tone as the Vzk’tk, the Chehnasho said, “That is impossible. Their speed is greater than ours and they have traveled a significant distance. We have also continued on our previous pursuit trajectory at top speed for nearly thirty seconds now, further increasing our distance from them.”
Icy terror filled Sixty-Four, replaced almost immediately by a boiling rage.
Losing himself to anger, he roared and began shooting every living thing in the room.
Everyone on the ship was hot, tired and shouting joyously at the top of their lungs.
Robert’s idea was brilliant.
First, around a quarter of the drones were set to trail behind the ship and continue running interference for them. After that, Frank extended the magnetic feet of the ship and had Ryst direct the remaining drones to magnetize to them, using their kinetics for a significant boost in speed. Next, in one simultaneous act, Robert rerouted all power from the EW Suite to the kinetics, as Ryst set the drones not attached to the ship to begin to circle the pursuing ships and mimic the exact signature that the Reclamation gave off.
Then, Frank steered the ship down and accelerated faster than he’d thought possible.
The enemy ships were confounded by their sudden disappearance, and had continued to follow a target that was no longer there.
With the extra power taken from the jamming array and the extra thrust from the eighteen drones that were still operational, they were now marginally faster than the ships coming after them. It would still take them a few minutes to get out of the field of gravity spikes, but they would make it.
“Uhhhh…Frank? One of the ships is still gaining on us.” Ted said in a suddenly grave tone.
All jubilation died in an instant.
Looking at his screen and reading the information, Ted continued, “It’s fucking massive, Frank. Cruiser class.”
Turning his gaze to the old man’s eyes, Ted said quietly, “It doesn’t match any known vessel in our computer.”
Frank gazed at the readout that, sure enough, told him a massive ship was speeding towards them, having crossed the entire system in the time it had taken them to travel less than a quarter of it.
Taking a deep sigh, he said, “They’re persistent bastards, I’ll give them that.”
An especially displeased and frantic Sixty-Four, inhabiting the Corti that was his usual host, was diverting all power to the kinetics in a desperate bid to catch his prey.
And it was working.
The computer told him that the tiny dot on his radar would need [one minute and thirty seconds] to escape the gravity trap.
He would be in weapons range in [one minute] or less.
One hundred missiles were primed and ready to destroy them. A bit overkill for such a small vessel, but very necessary considering he was dealing with humans. He had no countermeasures for the burning spheres or metallic cloud that had confused the other missiles, but surely sheer numbers would overwhelm them.
Watching the humans as they neared the edge of the trap, he felt an odd mixture of nervousness of failure and a surety that he would succeed.
All one hundred missiles fired at the same time.
“Here they come!” Tricko shouted, weakly.
“How many?!” Frank yelled.
The flight deck was hotter than ever, completely stifling the humans. Tricko and Ryst, however, looked as though they might fall over at any second.
“All of them.” Ryst said, in a voice that told Frank everything he needed to know.
“Alright, release one hundred of the flares when I tell you.” Frank said, watching the mass of missiles closing in on them.
They’d already crossed half the distance between them and the enemy ship.
Everyone waited in tense silence for him to give the word.
When they were three quarters of the way, Frank shouted, “NOW!”
One hundred spheres ejected from underneath ship, igniting their thermite cores and glowing into brilliant flashes of white and yellow.
Seventy one of the missiles were fooled, detonating upon impacting the spheres.
The remaining twenty nine got through the cloud of burning orbs, intent upon the ship. But their path was blocked as an expanding cloud of metallic chaff obscured their view.
Twenty one of the missiles activated their safety detonation.
The last eight made it through the cloud in the thinnest sections along the edges, only slightly obscuring their view of the ship.
“The last fifty flares, Ryst!” Frank roared.
With only seconds to spare, the flares heated up and diverted all eight missiles into the mass of tungsten balls that hadn’t entirely dispersed after being released. All eight detonated at the same time, only a few hundred feet behind the ship.
The resulting shock wave rattled the entire ship.
Robert’s voice came over the intercom, shouting, “We’re clear! Hit the FTL, Frank!”
The light which designated the FTL Drive turned on as Robert spoke, and Frank slammed his whole fist onto it.
And the Reclamation sped away from the system.
“NO! NO NO NO! This is impossible! I planned for everything! It was perfect!” Sixty-Four shrieked, throwing a violent tantrum in his chair.
Out of desperation, he followed their FTL heading, trying to see if he could catch up to them.
Nothing whatsoever came of this idea.
The humans had vanished.
“…it was perfect. I planned it all so perfectly. So much work to prepare it all so quickly.” he said, a hollow and broken tone in his voice.
“Yes, it was perfect. I saw everything.” a voice said behind him.
Sixty-Four nearly jumped out of his seat as he turned around to investigate who had spoken.
A Gaoian stood behind him. A female Gaoian.
Female Gaoians very rarely traveled on their own without a good reason, so the odds were good that this was, “Nineteen?”
The Gaoian smiled and nodded with approval, replying, “Oh, yes. It’s me. You’ve made quite a mess of things, Sixty-Four. I must admit, the single digits likely would have looked the other way if you had succeeded in killing the humans. But, you did not.”
Sixty-Four began to shuffle his feet and feel a hard lump forming in his midsection.
“I-I tried! You said it yourself! My plan was perfect!” he pleaded.
“I certainly did. And it was. It just didn’t work.” Nineteen said, smiling at him as she rested a hand on a holstered Lightning Gun at her hip.
“But-”
“Silence.” Nineteen said simply, eliciting total capitulation from Sixty-Four.
With her hand still on her weapon, she said in a calm tone, “Taking nearly half of the Far Reaches criminal underworld out of play in a single rotation. Making hundreds of drones. Taking dozens of ships with no explanation where they or their crew went. Even the stupidest of the population has noticed. Did you not imagine that some of them may have had families that might have noticed that their loved ones disappeared?!”
Sixty-Four’s already large eyes had become bulbous and terrified, widened to their limits.
“I…I…was only following…instructions.” he said in a weak tone, knowing it would have been better to remain silent.
For the first time, anger flashed across the Gaoian’s face, betraying the depth of her displeasure.
“You were told to take care of this in a way that would not garner attention! Instead you kidnap hundreds of people with families! Dozens with ties to other organizations that will notice their collective and unexplained disappearance! YOU HAVE DONE THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF YOUR INSTRUCTIONS!” she raged.
And with that, she drew her weapon and stunned him, knocking him unconscious.
Speaking to his limp body, she said, “Like I said, it was a perfect plan, and might have gone unpunished. It just didn’t work.”
Taking his now vacated chair, she sat at the controls of the ship and opened a chat room with the single digits.
Before entering it herself, she directed the Corti’s implant to link to the chat room as well.
Just before joining the chat session, her eyes flashed as she smiled and said, “You’ve made my life more difficult, so I’m going to make your decompilation unpleasant and much more drawn out than necessary.”
Her face turned into a mask that lacked all emotion as she said, “And then, I am going to clean up your mess.”