The Technician's Fight, Draft 1, CH27

“The ship is entering long range scanner,” the hunter at the sensors said.

“Any indication of their pursuers?” Gralgiran asked, standing in the center of the bridge.

“Not yet.”

The message had come two weeks before, through the Quartermaster. A location, time, and identifier tag.

“This is your captain! All civilians are to return home. Any who can’t do so in a timely manner, go to the closest Room of Banners. I repeat, we are preparing to engage. Civilians are to seek shelter immediately.”

“Identifier coming in,” the comm hunter said. “Registering at Saourtania’s Glory. Running it through the registry.”

“Bring up visuals,” he instructed, and the front of the bridge turned into the expanse of stars.

“Saourtania’s Glory is a private Kelsirian trader. They’re in arrear with Koskiptor Station for docking fees. History has them transporting insect protein from Kelser to that station, payment is from Trotodimor Feed Group. Deliveries are every nine months, which is about how long it would take them to travel from the station to Kelser and back.”

Gralgiran had expected the Quartermaster’s Uncle’s ship, or another of the Halans convinced to take part, and this could still be one of them. The Bane wasn’t the only ship passing itself as a merchant at certain stations.

“Getting something entering long range,” sensor said. “To far for details.”

“Not tag from then yet.”

“Maintain course. What is the Saourtania doing?”

“Running like Tutecanomgartin’s nipping at its tail,” the pilot said.

“Pilot,” Gralgiran warned.

“He’s not wrong,” sensor said, and Toom’s ear tilt showed the grin Gralgiran couldn’t see from when he stood. “They’re going fast enough that I expect they’re pushing their reactor for all it’s worth.”

“The Saourtania’s Glory,” the Engineer’s disembodied voice said, “is an older Glatidas class ship. The reactor that comes with it can’t do the speed scan is sending me. Which means they either upgraded it or installed a different one.”

“I don’t see any registered installation on record,” Comm said.

“Yeah, well, I’m sure people more interested in getting something powerful instead of legal have ways of getting that done. But what it means for you, Captain, is that you don’t know if they’re running like death is at their heels, or simply walking at a leisurely pace.”

“Thank you, Engineer.”

It increased the odds the ship was Halan. Honest traders had no reasons to hide upgrades. Actually benefited from making them known.

“Anything on their pursuers?”

“Still no tags. At this point, I’m calling it. They disconnected the ‘supposedly’ uninterruptible system.”

Tags could be deactivated, even changed. The Bane needed to, to switch from hunter to merchant ship. But if they were investigated, he had the Leadership backing it. A civilian captain would lose their ship for such an offense.

“The little I’m getting gives me the sense of a Reoseph ship,” Scan said.

“Send me what you have,” the pilot said, and looked over his shoulder. “If the captain is okay with it?”

“Proceed.”

“Okay, there’s really not a lot here, and I’m with Wiurams. With this, I’m calling it Reoseph too.”

“I thought we were after Earthers,” Comm said.

“Who are operating within Federation territory without sanction,” Toom replied.

“Within Kelsirian territory,” Gralgiran corrected.

“Sure, but where did they get a Reoseph ship?”

“They tend to go wherever they want to,” sensor said.

“So you think the Earther found one of them in their territory and took over their ship?” Comm asked. “What about the crew?”

“Probably killed,” Toom said.

“You can talk a Reoseph into doing just about anything,” sensor said. “So long as you can make it a logical argument.”

“They’s also need people to explain how the ship works,” Gralgiran added. “Easier to do with a willing crew than one under duress, even Reosephs.”

“So, do we consider them accomplices or hostages?” Comm asked.

“We’ll address that once we have them in custody.”

“The Saourtania is changing course,” sensor said. “Heading toward us.”

“Heading toward the hunter ship for protection,” Toom said.

“We’re the Traveler at the moment,” Gralgiran corrected. “The Earthers know to be on watch for the Bane.”

“Didn’t we show up at their station as merchants?” Toom asked.

“No such thing as a perfect encounter,” Gralgiran said.

“Speak for yourself,” the pilot replied. “I had your Heart in my shuttle. That was perfect.”

“Met him at the reservoir,” sensor said. “Shared a shower. I have to agree.”

“Nose to the wind, people,” Gralgiran warned. “This is a hunt, not bed side talk.”

“Their pursuers are staying on them. Getting more details consistent with Reoseph design. Pilot?”

“I agree.”

“Enough for you to recognize the model, Toom?”

“No, but if this was an exploration vessel, it might be armed, and it would have one of their better reactor.”

Which didn’t help him. “Any idea what their sensor range is?”

“No, too many possibilities.”

“Do we think they’ll turn tail once they notice the big bad Kelsirians waiting to help?”

“We aren’t waiting,” Toom said.

“And they’re already chasing a Kelsirian ship,” Comm add. “If that doesn’t worry them, I doubt a second one will.”

“The Saourtania’s Glory is entering medium scanner range. Registering a crew of… two dozen, not accounting for anyone sharing a spot.”

“Can you confirm species?” The trap could be the ship being pursued.

“Not until they reach short range.”

“Which is going to be shortly at their speed,” Toom said.

“Weapons,” Gralgiran called. “Be at the ready. The goal is to disable them for boarding.” He terminated the connection to the gunneries. “Pilot, maneuver us to give Weapons their target.”

“Maneuvering.”

“Civilians sectors are clear,” sensor said.

“Someone tell the Saourtania to get out of the way,” Toom said.

“Can we do it securely?” Gralgiran asked.

“Not without knowing if they have light comms,” Comm replied. “They haven’t signaled us. Correction. Incoming call, no visual.”

“Unknown ship, this is the Saourtania’s Glory, run. We have pirates on our tail.”

“Saourtania’s Glory, this is the Brave Traveler. How can we assist?”

“Aren’t you listening? Get out of here before they decide to pick on you.”

“Getting scan of their reactor,” sensor said. “Sent to the Engineer.”

“Give me what you have of their engine,” Toom said.

“I hear you, Saourtania, but I’m not abandoning another trader to pirates. I’m reading them as Reoseph. I’m sure we can reason with them. They’re only interested in Trade.”

The curses made Gralgiran fold his ears back. “Look. My Uncle said this would be a good route. He said nothing about pirate on it.”

He had to hope it was the uncle he knew. “Then, stay on the course your Uncle gave you. We’ll do our best to distract them.”

“Well, you are way larger than us. Maybe that’ll keep them from swallowing you whole, but I don’t expect them to talk. We tried reasoning with them and they never responded.”

“Reoseph ship entering midrange.”

“I hope you’ve sucked off Xeniila Haran recently, because you’re going to need him to Meddle if you don’t want to bring your entire crew and whatever civs you have to the Forest. Saourtania’s Glory out.”

“They’re getting out of our line,” Toom said.

“Alpha, the Reoseph ship only has a dozen people on board.”

“Not enough,” Toom said. “Reosephs need twenty for minimal crew. It’s in their regulation.”

“But is that the minimum needed to operate their ship?” Gralgiran asked.

Toom hesitated. “I don’t know. Their regulation files are all about how things need to be done, not how much fat you can trim before you cut into muscle.”

“I don’t think it’s just Reoseph on board,” sensor said.

“I thought they were too far for details,” Gralgiran said.

“If you want confirmation of species, yes, but I get enough for overall shapes and only three are Reoseph shaped. The rest are more like us than them.”

“Which means like Earthers.” This was the best confirmation he’d get. “Weapons, bet at the ready. The prey might return fire.”

“Entering firing range,” the beta in charge of Weapons replied. “Targeting engines.”

Plasma charges lit the screen and their prey returned fire.

“Releasing counters,” Weapons said.

He tuned the beta out. If she raised her voice, he’d pay attention. “Are they transmitting?”

“No, Alpha. They are silent.”

He’d hoped for a signal. Even an encoded one would be something to work with, and unless they purposely broadcasted wide, he’d have a sense of where their command base was. He doubted they took order directly from the Earther’s territories.

Light blossomed on the screen.

“That was some of their engines,” sensor said. “There’s no chance for them to outpace us now.”

“Boarding, be ready to launch. Scans establish the crew at a dozen, three of which may be hostages Reoseph, but treat as potentially hostile until their status has been confirmed. This is a capture mission. Deaths are to be avoided, but your lives come first. Good Hun—”

The screen turned so bright it dimmed itself. When the light faded, distant shimmering was all that was left where the ship had been.

“Did…?” Toom trailed off.

“How did the explosion happen?” Gralgiran demanded. “Weapons, confirm what you targeted. Pilot, maneuver us out of the expanding debris field.”

“Going over Scan, Alpha,” sensor said.

Confirming engines were the sole targets, Alpha.”

“They blew themselves up,” the Engineer said, and the screen changed to schematics. “The explosion occurred there,” a spot toward the center turned red. “Unless they moved the reactor, that’s where this ship’s design has it. No shot came close to it. That leaves two possibilities. Power surge from the destruction of the engines traveled back to the reactor, which would make them horrible at maintaining their ship, or they purposely detonated it. Unless there was no one there, that’s what I’m saying it was.”

“Scan show someone, not Reoseph, in that area,” sensor confirmed.

“Why would they do that?” Toom asked.

“I mean,” Comms said, “We are the big bad Kelsirians.”

“We’re not that terrifying,” Toom countered. “Especially to Earthers.”

“They were ordered not to be captured,” Gralgiran said.

Toom stared at him over his shoulder. “That ship had escape pods. We wouldn’t have been able to go after all of them. And our shuttles can’t match them for speed or range. They’d have given the abandon ship order.”

“Not if they were ordered not to.”

“No one’s that suicidal, Gral, not even Earthers.”

Except Earthers put their soldiers through mind altering processes. Bob the Soldier had confirmed that. He’d talked about how he’d been trained to lock his emotions away during battle in his correspondences with Jer. If they could make his Heart hate him, how easy was it for them to make their soldiers obedient to the point of accepting death over capture?

*

“Ideas?” he asked the Betas assembled in the room.

“Call on the gods to Meddle and make all their systems fail?” Trojar Dernigarin offered.

“I don’t know if the gods like us that much,” Zorfiel Frasgormilan countered. “No offence meant, Alpha.”

Gralgiran snorted.

“I know my namesake loves me,” the one male in the room, not a Beta, said. “But I keep his love by not asking too much of him.”

“Why is the Quartermaster here?” Rokdroranderim asked.

“Because your Alpha loves me that much,” The male replied, smirking.

“Don’t force your namesake to Meddle here, Quartermaster,” Gralgiran warned. “He’s here because he provides the Halan angle to this hunt. They are part of it, so he needs to be included. Anything to offer to justify your presence?”

“You mean how to keep mind-crazy Earthers from blowing themselves up the next time my Uncle tricks one of them to step in our path? Nope. I don’t think even Gezbilian could make someone do that.”

“We could use a stealth shuttle to board them while they are distracted,” Zorfiel Frasgormilan said. “There were only a dozen of them, nine an actual threat. Two packs to a shuttle, three if they’re on short name basis and we can take over the ship.”

“This ship had a dozen,” Batrix sel Gezbil said. “We can’t know what the next one will have. And it was nine Earthers willing to kill themselves. They’d have no problem taking any pack there with them.”

“So we go for the reactor and take control of that,” Mongartis Orbatilezan said.

“That means the Alpha’s Heart,” Asrani Durok Miatioraln.

“Only if the reactor is Earther,” Gralgiran said. “As best as the Engineer could tell from the scans, it was a Reoseph reactor in that ship. Jer wouldn’t have been much help with that.”

“Short of taking them without their notice, I’m not sure how we’ll manage it,” Krosonarok Frecimar Grotil said. “Nothing we’ve hunted before would rather die than be caught.”

“You’re forgetting Taournians,” Rokdronranderim Asakaer said. “Do you know anyone who’s taken one of those pirates alive?”

“But they fight until we have no choice to kill them,” the male countered. “None of them has ever blown themselves up.”

“Alright,” Gralgiran said, before the argument escalated. “This hunt is over. We have until another prey is pointed to us to come up with a way to beat this Earther death mindset. Quartermaster. Will your Uncle give me trouble over having to find us another Earther ship?”

“He’ll bitch and scream about how I’m taking advantage of him. How I’m betraying everything we Halan stand for. But he’ll help. He might hate anything legal, but he’s loyal to Kelser. We all are.”

“Good. Then all of you go live. Rest, Enjoy your family, for the Next hunt will soon be here.”

He stood and left with them to go do the same with his Heart.

Outline section 

Gral is on the bridge when the ship moves in to intercept the pirates as they close in on their target. Their target is a smuggler’s vessel of Xenial’s uncle, much more defended and maneuverable than scans would suggest. Though rather than running this time, it’s lured the pirate ship into the Viper’s Bane net. Things almost go well as the Viper’s Bane gets clean shots to disable main gun batteries and engines.

...then, just as the shuttles are about to launch to capture the ship, the thing blows up. Not shots from the crew, they just blew themselves up without launching a single escape pod. Gral is slightly dumbfounded that anyone would do this... but then you have to remember the human military is thoroughly brainwashed to be loyal. This is going to take a lot more work.

###

Gral is in deep brainstorming with all his Alphas and Xenial. There has to be a way to get on one of those ships and get proof the humans are behind this. But this is ultimately the same problem as trying to prove similar operations with the taournian. And there have been people trying to get solid proof on that front for decades.

The only good news is that the humans aren’t completely suicidal; while people died on that ship, scans showed less biomass than they should have expected to be running a ship that size. Even with a skeletal crew, they are pirates so they must have had boarding parties. If they were this willing to blow up their ship if things went wrong, they likely launched their boarding shuttles early, possibly with nonessential personnel.

Of course, that means by now they’re out of long sensor range and can safely transmit to the human governments about their increased aggression. Their tactics will change accordingly.

For now, Gral thinks they should return to their normal patrol route. He’s not giving up, but catching the humans in the act certainly going to be more difficult than a normal hunt.

Addition 

anything to show the passage of time?

the conflict was all on the fly, knowing what the end would be, and just about how the crew acted on the way there. definitely will need work in draft 2