Unknown Heroes - Chapter 15

[Warenwolf]

If anyone spots any horrible, glaring mistakes in my grammar or spelling let me know. I don’t expect that I will be able to write 100% correct English but if you tell me about mistakes I keep making I will try to avoid them in future…
Also, let me know if any inconsistencies have crept up in my story so far (I myself found two minor ones but there are bound to be more).
The poll posted along last chapter indicated 80 percent of voters wanted a trilogy so I choose to let story develop as it had until now…

Note:
The so-called “Pocket Cruisers” have no similarities to historical “pocket” battleships. Take a peek in the UH glossary to see how I view pocket cruisers in X-Universe. The Pocket cruisers are what in WW2-era Royal Navy would have designated as armed merchantman…

Note2:
I have derived the political system in Argon Federation from extracts in the manual and the game itself. Egosoft had unintentionally created a political system in Argon Federation that can only be termed as some sort of oligarchy.

Edit:
In the last version (1.0) of this chapter, I have changed few sentences and added few words in few places. I dropped the entire speech that C500 gives to A89. Rereading it I decided that I didn’t like it.







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Links to other chapters:
Chapter 14: Sins revealed
Chapter 13: Cargo to die for
Chapter 12: Demons in Paradise
Chapter 11: The Elysium
Chapter 10: The Khaak
Chapter 9: New Player
Chapter 8: The Hunt Begins
Chapter 7: Among the Rogues
Chapter 6: Anger of the Giants
Chapter 5: Awakening of the storm
Chapter 4: Trade run to Hell
Chapter 3: Old connections
Chapter 2: Means for revenge
Chapter 1: First kill



The glossary of Unknown Heroes
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The Machinations







For hundreds of jazuras the Argon Federation had been ruled by an elected President chosen by supposedly an educated populace. Every man, woman or alien with Argon citizenship could vote and therefore decide which man or women would preside over them. The historians and philosophers called this “The Final Epoch”, the name implying that the Argon Federation’s political development had reached an historical “end” or conclusion, achieving its ideological apex. This was what children were taught at schools and what Argon Federation boasted about. It was a firmly held belief that alternative political systems would eventually fall and be replaced by systems equivalent to that of Argon Federation.
Yet it was only a half-truth. While Argon planets were represented by senators that were indeed elected by planets’ populations, ownership of a space station above 250 metric tons also gave a seat in the senate. Several politicians owned several companies in several sectors, getting several seats in the senate filled with their puppets thereby increasing their power. In addition, it was early decided that newly colonized systems would get their votes after “reasonable” time had passed since colonization. What that time would be was decided in the senate. The end result was a Senate with a growing majority of seats representing fewer and fewer interests.
This type of situation led to increase of violent political movements demanding restoration of democracy in its ancient forms. However, as Argon citizens’ living standard increased, such groups never gained much popularity in Federation’s core sectors. They were viewed as lunatics and threat to the modern civilization.
As the groups for political change increasingly realized the futility of their task, they split in two major groups, with similar methods, the revolutionaries and separatists. The revolutionaries wanted to bring down the regime by creating chaos and fear by using the terrorism, proving to the general population that the regime was not competent to protect them. Their ultimate goal was dissolution of regime and a revolution where they could recreate the society in their image.
The separatist on the other end, realized that they would never be able to win the core sectors over to their cause, mainly because in core sectors the lack of representation was not as keenly felt as in outer systems. The rights of average citizens in core sectors where somewhat protected by a constitution that ensured that they would get a senator in senate that represented their planet. However, in sectors Argon Federation annexed after Xenon War, with many planets still without a senatorial seat, “station senators” wielded almost absolute power. In this environment many separatist groups formed, resorting to low-level conflicts and more often than not, outright terrorism to obtain independence for the sectors where people shared their views thereby hoping to create their own version of the Haven.
Few Argon politicians had wisdom to see that current political situation would lead to more and more social unrest and weakening of the Federation. Of those few, almost none had both the capacity and the will to do something about it. Except Steven McCarthy…
Already as twenty-year-old student at Navy’s Academy, he understood that Federation had to change in order to survive. He attempted to convince his fellow students, but soon he realized that content populace is not reform-friendly populace… As long as the average citizen had a standard of living that was excellent and unparalleled to anything in the history or the rest of the Known Universe, majority saw no reason to change the system they were living in. Why change something that obviously worked flawlessly? They ignored the growing minority that was not content with how the things were, branding such minorities as nutcases.
Disillusioned by this, McCarthy abandoned the path of politician and instead concentrated fully on his career in the Navy. His dreams remained always in the back of his head but with time, he became convinced that democracy was not the most suited system for ruling the billions of citizens, a thought widespread in among his Navy colleagues. Then one day, he and few others stumbled upon a great secret. And that gave his dreams a new life…

The speech was excellent, Senator McCarthy Senior thought as he poured himself a new glass of Sacatama juice. The fluid acted as coffee, reinvigorating him immediately. He had held the last stazura a speech to the families of the victims of latest terrorist attack, followed by a press conference where he subtly implied that current government was incapable of protecting its citizens. That subtly suggestion, he knew, would be in tomorrows papers not-so-subtly dissected and analyzed for the readers incapable of reading between the lines, telling them that current government was not worthy of their vote. Because of McCarthy’s strategic alliance with media moguls, citizens of the Federation would be reminded of that by news services repeatedly the next nine mazuras. McCarthy on his hand intended to be only viable alternative…
He finished his drink and than tapped in the command that opened a COMSAT channel to Olav Lie. The nondescript face of the former intelligence officer greeted him. He had been waiting for McCarthy’s call a standard half hour but his face did not show any signs of irritation. At least none that his boss could see…
“I apologize for letting you wait. The press conference took longer than expected…”
“I know, Sir. The press conference has just been broadcasted by system’s news channel, Sir”
“Excellent. The spread is greater than anticipated,” McCarthy said, satisfied that news agencies considered his press conference important enough to buy COMSAT time in order to be able to provide the public in neighboring systems with the TH feeds from the press conference.
“Have any potential traces been removed?”
Olav Lie nodded in confirmation, “The man that have planted the “package” and his support group have been eliminated, Sir”
McCarthy noted that Olav Lie used euphemism about the bomb, calling it a “package”. Satisfied that any potential leads had been removed, McCarthy moved on to next issue.





The Bayamon appeared from nowhere. It had been in powered down status, drifting in space with only its life-support systems active. The convoy’s escorts immediately engaged the lone attacker. The Bayamon fired two pairs of missiles and turned 180 degrees, fleeing from the escorts, intent on making this a long-range missile engagement. The escorts accelerated, using decoys and jammers to confuse the four missiles streaking against them. Unknowingly to them, the missiles’ computers had been turned off right after firing and the missiles flew unguided past the decoys, ignoring them. The four missiles flew on, past the three escort ships, not following the escorting ships that now flew wild evasive maneuvers, instead continuing on for two hundred meters more before the missiles’ onboard computers re-activated. The four missiles concentrated on two guarding ships still with the convoy.
The two Nova pilots, remaining with convoy as close area protection, paid no heed to the alarms that warned them of missile lock. In fact, they held back their counter missile systems. Both of them were informed by their ships’ A.I. that incoming missiles were Mosquitoes, hardly a threat to the powerful shield fields of the two Nova fighters.
The missiles would prematurely explode, their targeting computers confused and detonators ignited by strong interference in the shields. The following explosion would produce fragments that would travel bit towards the hull before the enormous forces of shields would decelerate the metal pieces so much that they would be harmless against the ship’s hull. The small missile could simply not hold enough explosive fire to produce significant power, necessary to overcome ship’s shields. The only result would be lowered overall strength of the shield field until the shield projector’s capacitors recharged again.
The four missiles bore in, separating in two groups heading for their targets reaching them fifteen seconds after firing. The targeting systems onboard the missiles were fried as expected by Nova pilots– not that it mattered. The missiles did not explode, instead carrying on entire way until contact with the hulls of the Novas before finally detonating. Even the tremendous forces of shielding fields could not stop the following mayhem. The first charge melted hull armor but was pacified by the reactive armor component. But this was just the first charge in a three stage warhead. The other two parts continued forward, until last charge exploded inside the hull.
The first Nova exploded when two simultaneous explosions inside the engine compartment caused the engine to explode too. The second Nova was luckier, as the only one missile exploded, cracking open the fighter ship in the process, but not destroying it, giving the auto-eject system enough time to eject the helpless pilot. The second missile had simply bounced off upon hitting the fighter’s hull, breaking into two. The missile’s warhead was drifting in the space, while its chemical thruster was making wild loops.

“Typical,” Otto commented to Ni Lan seeing one of the missiles malfunction. The later looked at the Argon man, detecting disappointment in his voice.
“25 percent failure is not so bad… Erich and Ha’nt are still able to do their part of the mission…”
“Yeah, I know. Still…” Otto began but then stopped as another dot appeared on the holographic tactical display.
Erich and Ha’nt had accelerated their Bayamon on an intercept course before powering down. They approached the NSM convoy undetected, using gravitational shadow of Basali 2, the nearby planet, to hide them from gravidars. Predictably, the men working the scans on the freighters did not bother to analyze their readings more than necessary. Simple radar sweep would be enough to detect 35 tons of metal rushing towards them.
The remaining escorting ships seemed so intent on revenging their comrades that they rushed after Otto, leaving the convoy unprotected. Thin smile appeared on Otto’s face. This had been the fourth raid on a NSM convoy, all of the three previous ones being failures. This one would succeed.
Suad had provided information on each of the NSM convoys, including this one, by using the E.Y.E. system. The convoys appeared from the North Gate in the Getsu Fune sector where the convoy an escort of two Pocket Cruisers and twelve fighters. Then the group docked to system’s Solar Power plant, obviously in order to resupply their energy cell stocks. The convoys then continued to the Hila’s Joy system, before jumping to Home of Opportunity system. Obviously NSM wanted to avoid the hassle traffic coming from Boron territories faced from Split border patrols, Suad reasoned. The convoys then continued towards Family Whi sector where the Pocket Cruisers and half the fighters would break off and head back to Getsu Fune. The Split were extremely adamant about their rule that no foreign warships above M3 class being allowed inside the Split space. The convoy would then proceed in the Split territory and then jump again, circumventing the pirate infested Teladi sectors between the Split space and Menelaus Frontier system. Once in the Boron space, the convoys continued toward Kingdom’s End and crossed in Argon Federation in Three Worlds where change of guards occurred and the individual freighters continued to their different targets. The route the convoys took provided a balance between safety of the convoy and the conservation of energy cells for jump drives. Energy cells took space and every freighter would rather spend that space on wares. So instead of taking direct jumps to their destination, the convoys tended to opt for “bunny hopping” method. That suited Erich and Co. just fine…

All of the three previous attacks had taken place in Teladi and Boron space. Erich and Otto both agreed that attacking the convoys after they entered the Family Whi system was risky because of the proximity to the military fleets and police forces there. The first nasty surprise facing them during the first attack was that NSM happened to be equipped with military hardware. Their escorts had excellent ECM systems that no civilians were allowed to have. The long-range missile attacks failed, because missiles veered off confused by false date their sensors received. Another surprise was the strength of the NSM’s pocket cruisers that supposedly only were so-called armed merchant ships. Cruiser’s equipment was solely anti-fighter, anti-missile oriented, and Otto found that it was suicidal for only two ships to attack trough the wall of fire the armament of the two pocket cruisers produced. But then he came up with a plan…
They would use the simplest possible tactic, so banal that the escorting ships would not be alert against such tricks. Modification of the tracking sensors in the missiles had been tedious work but would pay of handsomely if performing as expected. The targeting computers inside the missiles had now “On-Off-On” capability, turning off once living the missile tube and then turning on after predetermined time. By making missiles dumbfire type while they passed through the ECM wall, the missiles would not be affected by ECM drones.
Second, they decided to attack inside the Boron space, the few moments after the convoy entered the Rolks Drift sector. The cruisers by that point would be gone and escorting fighter pilots would all be tired after days of constant vigil. Of course, everything depended on Erich coming in hard and fast.

“Targets acquired, Able to Charlie designations! Lock achieved!” Ha’nt announced, working furiously on the computers. The lack of A.I. in the ship pushed much of the workload on his shoulders and in the coming combat, he was just as important as Erich.
“Fire!” Erich commanded as he himself turned the Bayamon and fired his Particle Accelerators on the engines of the freighter designated as Able. The computers had been just turned on and the targeting system had yet to accept and calculate the firing solution for freighter’s engines but Erich did not wait and pressed the trigger. The HUD showed lines of “particles” flying through the space and hitting the target. Of course, it was not for real – the fire from the particle accelerator cannon was invisible, but HUD projected the “tracers” anyway. Erich used them now for aiming purposes leading the fire to where he wanted.
The 50 mm and 40 mm revolver magazines on the left side of his ship quickly sent out four Wasp missiles and three of Otto’s modified Mosquitoes, while slower firing 60 mm ordinary twin-tube system sent out two Dragonfly missiles. Both Erich and Ha’nt had more faith in modified Mosquitoes than in the other, supposedly more advanced and deadly, six missiles but at least the freighter pilots would be rattled and confused by missile warnings screaming from their computers. One of the Mosquitoes hit the Able freighter and for moment it seemed as if the Otto’s handmade detonator had failed once again. But then the freighter’s shields flickered and disappeared. The next shots fired by Erich were hitting the freighter’s hull, and he could see how the hull deformed and engines went dead. Immediately he switched target to Bravo only to see it cracking in two as the two mosquitoes simultaneously exploded inside the doomed freighter.
While his colleges aboard the two freighters were unprepared for the onslaught, the third captain was an old space wolf who had kept the jumpdrives hot since the beginning of the fight. The moment Erich ha appeared he initiated jump procedure. The sezuras away from before being hit by two Dragonfly and one Mosquito B missiles, the freighter Charlie disappeared in a bright flash of light.
The escorts stopped pursuing Otto as if in shock. The four Buzzard fighters had no chance of catching up with considerable faster Bayamons and the swift destruction of the convoy eroded any will to try. Instead, they turned towards the Kingdoms End gate and began on their long journey towards Argon space.
Erich and Otto, satisfied that no one seemed to follow them, ignored the polite warnings from Boron Police that they stay put or be destroyed, and set course for gate leading to Queen Space system. The Mako and Barracuda fighters of Boron police were faster than the two Bayamons but the overtake time was 20 mizuras, enough time for the two Bayamons to reach a part of space not under surveillance of the E.Y.E. and jump into safety.





“Two ships?! Two ships??!!” Boris Gellar raged, his eyes bulging from the anger building inside him. His secretary looked up, looking worryingly at the thick pulsating vein on her boss’s thick neck. Everyone in Boris’s staff worried when their boss was in such mood. Boris Gellar had nasty habit of venting his anger on whoever was nearby - sometimes physically…
“Calm down, friend. We’ll solve this…” Senator McCarthy tried to calm him down. He, Boris and Olav had meeting once the news of the loss of two very valuable freighters had reached them and he knew that Boris was more brain-dead than usually when angry. It also appeared that Boris had ignored the messages McCarthy had sent to him and the information about the extent of damages became known to Boris just now, which meant that yet again he would play the role of the deadweight in current situation. Especially if his anger was allowed to become an obstacle.
“I’ll promise if I ever find these bast…” Boris began but stopped when McCarthy gave him the signal that the coming conversation was perhaps best suited for only three of them.
Boris nodded and barked at his secretary, “Make yourself scarce!”
She did not react to his words, instead standing up from the bed two of them were laying in and walked out not caring about other’s view of her naked body.
Olav Lie’s contempt of Boris Gellar never reached his face. It was typical of Boris to flaunt his playthings like this. Why else would he take the v-call in his bedroom while he had Victoria there? Men like himself and the Senator could not care less about who Boris mounted. That Boris thought so, made him foolish in the eyes of the two men…
Boris was unaware of the thoughts his, supposedly loyal, security chief harbored about him. He sat himself upright in the bed, his fat body sweating despite the moderate temperature in the room.
“Paranids are going to go nuts,” he said, using a napkin from the night table to wipe away sweat pouring down his brow.
“Have they paid in advance?” McCarthy asked.
“No, but you know how they are,” Boris answered, “they want guarantee of deliveries and such. Max had them round their finger…But since his death…”
“Blame the Khaak,” McCarthy suggested.
Boris shook his head saying, “I used that twenty times already…”
“Use it for the twenty-first time then.”
“I guess I have to now…Anyway what happened with the convoy?” Boris Gellar asked. Both he and McCarthy turned their eyes to the second hologram in the room, showing Olav Lie.
“From the info I got from the Queen’s Police, it appears pirates struck as the convoy entered the Rolk’s Drift. There were only two of them, possibly three. They used one ship to bait the escort away from the convoy.”
“Wait a moment! Didn’t convoy leader assign couple of fighters as reserve to act as proximity guard for the convoy?” Boris asked. He had been bad officer in the Navy but even he remembered basics of the escort duty - do not go chasing after attackers while leaving the ships you were supposed to escort unprotected.
“She did – two Novas as matter of fact… However, the survivors claim that pirates overwhelmed them and went on destroying the two freighters. The police turned up and the pirates disengaged.”
“I bet this is working of Halevy and Erich Campbell,” Boris angrily said, his face becoming red from hate.
His security chief shook his head, “This sounds as typical pirate raid that went wrong”
“How so?” McCarthy asked.
“They lured escorts away and destroyed the reserve fighters. Then they blow up freighters and probably hoped for enough cargo to survive for them to be able to scoop up container or two”
“Sounds like shooting sparrows with cannons,” McCarthy commented, “I thought pirates preferred to have ships captured intact along with their cargo”
“Partially true. And it certainly works that way in the pirate sectors. However when pirates operate in “civilized” space, having police or military patrol less than ten mizuras away, changes the rules of engagement…”
“I still don’t believe that this was a simple pirate raid,” Boris Gellar said, “What are the pirates doing so deep in Kingdom’s space?”
“Khaak sightings are more common in pirate sectors. They are being pushed in the Paranid, Federation’s and Kingdom’s territories. Just two days ago, pirates attempted to hijack two freighters in Argon Prime. The Khaak are forcing everyone to change their habits. We too changed the convoy routes once the “President’s End” was wiped out”
“Are you absolutely possible certain people have no hand in this?” McCarthy asked. He trusted Olav Lie’s wisdom but he wanted any possibility explored.
“In order for them to strike like this, would require information about our convoy routes and escorts. I don’t see how they can acquire it,” Lie confidently replied.
McCarthy seemed deep in his thought like if he was considering something.
Seeing this, Boris Gellar asked, “Do you agree with him?”
“Hmmm…Yes, I do,” McCarthy finally answered. The Senator knew about the systems that could track the NSM convoys. But the E.Y.E. was Federation’s best guarded secret and the thought that Erich Campbell and whoever was with him had access to this system was preposterous. Being little paranoid was fine, but too much and you are paralyzed.
“Then so do I,” Boris finally said. He turned to Olav Lie and asked, “So what now? Our convoys are safe? This was one time event?”
“Maybe…Maybe not…”
Boris widened his eyes and then sternly asked, “I pay you for giving me straight answers – I hope you don’t forget that”
“It is just that there had not been any more raids in that part of Boron space… ”
“So?”
“Well what if the pirates managed to find what was aboard the freighters and shadowed the convoy until confident that their attack would succeed.”
“So what? The pirates got no Nividium and that’s it…” Boris commented. Olav Lie once again, for thousandth time, asked himself how Boris Gellar ever managed to reach the position of the Admiral in the Navy. The man was obviously an idiot…
None of these thoughts was showing on his face as he calmly answered his boss, “The pirates lived…If those pirates belong to a pirate group, NSM would be in their eyes associated with extremely valuable cargos from now on. Even if they don’t belong to a pirate group they will tell their story after first glass in a bar on first pirate station they dock on…”
Even Boris understood the significance of that. The pirates would now be especially on the lookout for NSM convoys. And if they knew that freighters were filled with Nividium, then entire pirate clans would turn out to intercept their cargo…
“In that case, if this was no chance encounter between pirates and our convoy… Then we may have a problem,” McCarthy silently said.
“Indeed we do,” Olav Lie added.





“To future victories!” Ha’nt toasted while the rest cheered. They sat around makeshift table on makeshift chairs, all of which were made from e-cell boxes, in the cargo hold of one of the Bayamons. They were docked at “Easy Credits” smuggler station in Teladi Gain system, far from the place where they ambushed the convoy. Besides buying drinks and food, nobody dared spending time in station’s excellent bar. The pirate and smuggler stations, beside the expected clientele of cutthroats, bootleggers, whores and other colorful personalities, had also a fair share of spies noting coming and goings of the visitors to the stations. Some of them were undoubting on the payroll to the Federation and none of the outcast’s gang, as the two men and two aliens jokingly referred to themselves, had any wish to leave any clues to Argon’s anti-piracy agency.
Ni Lan was reading loudly from a news article from the MIN news service, referring to the ambush as “the most audacious act of the piracy in this century”. Apparently, this was the very first time a convoy had been attacked so deep in Kingdom’s space. Since escorts were expensive, few convoy leaders heading in direction of Kingdoms End system employed escort fighter once system away from Teladi space. The fact that NSM convoy had six fighters as protection force and that force did not manage to stop the attackers scared Borons. The string of sectors from Menelaus Frontier to Kingdoms End was considered a safe trade route for non-jumpdrive freighters, especially since Khaak threat. The attack had created waves far out of the proportions of number of ships that actually had been involved. There were “sightings” of “pirate armada” from the Kingdoms End system to Teladi territories.
“Boron should be scared! The new treat has arrived to the Universe!” Ha’nt proclaimed exited.
“The attack got much publicity. Perhaps too much… Let’s not get overconfident about it,” Otto warned.
“We wanted to get NSM distracted, didn’t we?” Ni Lan pointed out. Erich and Otto had conceived the attack plan on the NSM convoy in order to get Boris Gellar and Senator McCarthy Senior distracted from their hunt for the group.
“What Otto is trying to say is that too much publicity can lead to governments getting involved…” Erich explained.
“Exactly and lets not forget that catching NSM unprepared next time would be much more difficult,” Otto added.
“You guys are too pessimistic – the victory goes always to the courageous ones and the courage is not something we lack!” Ha’nt declared, emptying yet another glass. Otto and Erich disagreed but not wanting to disrupt their little party with business talk, they cheered instead.





“I am telling you, those convoys are filled with Nividium,” a drunk pilot was telling the growing crowd in “Easy Credits” only bar. He wore a helmet that in his drunkenness he had forgot to remove.
Teladi waiter decided that the table nearest to the pilot needed cleaning and closed with his ears tuned to everything the Argon pilot was telling.
“Turn up the lights,” the pilot said when he spotted the waiter and continued on his tale, ignoring the suggestions from few in the crowd to turn up his visor.
“Full of Nividium. Not Ore, not Silicon or that crap. Pure Nividum. Every single one of them! NSM credits train!”
“I believe it when I see it,” a women with tattooed face said, turning ready to go.
“Hah! Then see!” the pilot said and threw a DSD on her. He missed badly with DSD falling harmlessly on the floor. She turned to him with murder in her eyes, but before she could speak, the pilot said pointing to the DSD on the floor, “Right there, my sensor logs!”
The woman stopped, narrowing her eyes, thinking. She turned to the DSD, picked it up and looked at it.
“Its empty,” she sneered at the pilot and left. The crowd laughed at the confused pilot and began dissipating. Two Split pilots did not. While other had mocked the drunken Argon pilot, they concentrated at the woman that had picked up the DSD. They noticed that she had not dropped it. Slowly they followed after. The drunken pilot stumbled on his feet and he too left the bar, struggling to reach the docks.

“Hello, this is Veronica, look at this data! I picked ‘em from drunken pilot. I’ll explain later,” tattooed women recorded on the message drone before uploading the data to the drone’s memory. The data could only be fitted to the most expensive drones but Veronica was happy to pay the price. She would have to sell all her plasma guns from her ship to pay for it but she was certain that it would be worth it. She waited in suspense few mizuras until hearing the flight control confirming that they would accept her offered security as payment and informed her that drone has been launched. Veronica relaxed turning off the connection.
Just as she reached for the DSD, the door was forced open. The time for her to register the large Split reaching for her and to understand what was happening was too long for her to avoid incoming Split punch. Her front teeth broke along with the jaw. As she fell towards the floor, she reached for her laspistol, hidden in her boot. She grabbed it just as hit the floor and the next sezura it was Splits turn to screech in pain as she fired three times, burning clothes and flesh in the process. By now the pain and shock overcome her and she closed her eyes. She never saw the second Split coming in with knife. Next moment he cut her throat with his knife. As Veronica tried with her both hands to stop river of blood streaming from her wound, the Split reached for the DSD that had fallen to the floor. Wiping blood from it he put it in his pocket and walked over to his colleague. Checking only briefly his, now dead, fellow Split for life signs, he left.
Veronica never registered him leaving. By now no blood was reaching her brain and after a brief falling sensation, she entered the eternal sleep.

As the drunken pilot struggled to reach his ship, certain Boron, Split and Argon eyes were following him. The pilot fumbled with the keypad on the door, failing several times to enter the right combination before managing to press the right keys. He opened the door, almost fell and finally succeeded in the difficult task of entering his ship. As he climbed aboard, he removed his helmet and miraculously sobered completely up.
“They went for it,” Otto said to his friends.





NSM pocket cruiser “Sigismund B” was the newest addition to NSM’s security fleet. On the paper a modified freighter, armed with half dozen beam weapons and four missile tubes, the so-called “middle-loaders”, capable of firing from both port and starboard side of the ship. Casual observer would conclude that “Sigismund B” was yet another unremarkable ship belonging to what their owners pretentiously called “pocket cruiser” types of spaceships.
Off the record, the “Sigismund B” was much more that that. It was equipped with newest ECM and ECCM systems, vastly improved sensors and Whipple armor with several layers, more geared towards defeating missile fragments than stopping micro-meteors. In addition, the four middle-loader missile tubes were in reality eight separate missile breechloader tubes linked with revolver magazines, capable to produce a wall of missiles in little less than a mizura. The insides of the ships were also refitted with vacuum proof doors between sections and automatic fire extinguishing system. The standard engine was replaced with two military issue engines from the Boron Kingdom, each giving extra thrust. Remaining cargo space was filled with power plant feeding the energy-hungry four shield projectors, each rated at 125 MJ.
Steiner Orlock, the captain of this war machine, had no trouble fighting the pirate group that was attacking from the convoy’s twelve. The pirates had attacked from three directions counting on their overwhelming numbers. Their plan was to disperse escorts and defeat the isolated groups in detail. Orlock had taken the “Sigismund B” ahead of convoy, single-handedly engaging the largest group. His rear turrets could still provide supporting fire to other two escort groups. The escorting fighters were operating in two groups of four, trying to cover other convoy’s sides as the pirates attacked from all directions. Their superior training and equipment blunted the first attack but pirates continued to press on, throwing in all their reserves in the attack.
Orlock was veteran of many pirate fights, yet he found himself little disturbed by the ferocity of pirate attack. This was in fact the second attack as the convoy had been also attacked in last sector and “Sigismund B” had already expanded all its missiles. Usually the pirates would turn tail and run once faced with what Orlock with fondness called his “missile rain”, yet both this and the last group of pirates fought wildly, continuing the attack even when half of their attack group was gone, casualties to missiles fired from “Sigismund B”. The escort suffered losses too – Orlock’s stomach tightened as he remembered death of the four pilots, all of them close friends.
“Captain, we got 2 more boogies! Bayamon class. They just powered up 3220 meters at our 2,” the navigator informed him, pointing to the tactical hologram.
“Let them come”
“Three is gone! Five is hit and heavily damaged!” communication officer said, listening to the communication between pilots.
Six ships so far, Orlock thought. What was with the pirates today? Orlock speculated on the cause. He of course had no idea what the convoy transported and that the convoy’s cargo was the cause for the two attacks. Such thoughts were not in Orlock’s mind.
“Tell five to abandon the ship, divert Four to pick him up,” Orlock commanded as his ship shook from barrage from one of the pirate Orinocos. The pocket cruiser suffered no damage – pirate Orinoco did not survive the counter fire.
“The pirates are retreating,” Navigator announced, as she plotted in the enemy ships likely exit vectors.
“Tell all ships to reform on their original positions,” Orlock commanded.
“Captain, the two Bayamons are making an attack run! 200 KPH at 2100 meters and closing!”
“What are they thinking?” Orlock said. Bayamons were lightweight compared to “Sigismund B” and yet the Bayamons attacked. Even if they could cram the torpedoes in their tiny ships, the two pilots had to realize that they had no chance against the pocket cruiser and the six remaining fighters…
“Enemy ships are launching missiles, Sir. Twelve Mosquitoes in the space, Sir”
“Mosquitoes!?”
“Yes, Sir”
Orlock was confused. The pirates had to know that Mosquitoes had not chance of even noticeable reducing his shield levels. There was something strange going on…
“Tell forward turrets to shoot down those missiles,” he ordered.
“Yes, Sir”
Orlock turned towards the tactical display watching as icons representing the twelve missiles blinked out of existence. First two were gone, than six, than two more. The remaining four Mosquitoes hit “Sigismund B” and for the first time in his career, Orlock experienced a missile’s chemical warhead exploding inside his ship.
The ship shook as the shockwave spread through the hull of the pocket cruiser. Hull breach alarms sounded throughout the ship and power surges fried the circuits. The smoke began filling the air in the command bridge. Somebody was screaming in the corridor leading to the command section.
“Damage report,” Orlock shouted, unsure if anyone was left to answer.
“Shields gone, we lost contact with forward cabins and turrets. I think… I think they are dead, Sir” Communication Officer reported instead of the man normally responsible for that. Orlock saw the reason – the engineer officer was on the floor, his head in unnatural position.
She coughed before continuing, “We are leaking atmosphere, Sir. Lots of it too…”
“Abandon ship…Abandon ship everyone,” Orlock’s voice cracked as he gave his last command aboard the “Sigismund B”.

“Pocket cruiser is history,” Ha’nt said observing the lifepods leaving the crippled ship.
The last three tazuras Otto and Ni Lan in one Bayamon and Erich and Ha’nt in the other, were scouting the route for NSM convoys looking for large group of pirates. In the DSD that Otto had “managed” to loose when he posed as drunken pilot, the details of convoys’ route and times had been placed along with the scans. The scans were fake – produced with help of Suad. They had to be since approaching and scanning a NSM convoy without being blown to pieces was impossible.
Otto and Ni Lan spotted a large group of pirates forming in the sector of Mines of Fortune. As they raced to meeting point to inform Erich and Ni Lan, they stumbled over yet another group of pirates, in Home of Opportunity system, also forming for the attack. No doubt, the next convoy, bound in one stazura, was their target. By sheer luck, the pirate leaders had chosen two different systems to attack. If they had chosen the same sector for the attack, the two forces would have without doubt assaulted each other.
The convoy had been attacked first once and then second time, expending all of its missiles. Entire time Erich and Otto were on the edges, staying away from the combat, waiting for the right moment.
“Alright phase one is over, lets go after fighters and don’t be cheep on the missiles,” Otto said over the com.
The two Bayamons attacked as a pair, engaging the first two escort fighters. Using missiles, firing them in pairs, the fight ended before it began with two more hulks littering the sector. The lone escort fighter, a Scorpion, engaged them. The other pilot thought that two Bayamons would disengage and wanted to prevent them, hoping to uphold them enough so that rest of his friends could arrive and finish the two Bayamons off. Scorpion was a nimbler and faster fighter than Bayamon and could easily give the two Bayamons hard time if they fought as individual fighters as pirates usually did. Instead, Otto and Erich executed one of the maneuvers they had practiced on, the Thach Weave, flying away on parallel course, pretending to be trying to escape. The faster Scorpion placed itself on Otto’s six, trying to get optimal firing solution. Both Otto and Erich turned on horizontal plane towards each other. As Otto had predicted, the pilot pursuing him suffered from target fixation and placed himself in Erich’s sights. Erich squeezed the trigger on his control stick and his four PACs sent a stream of accelerated particles that drained the Scorpion’s single 5 MJ shield and swiftly melted the cockpit glass on the Scorpion, killing the Scorpion’s pilot.
The remaining three fighters, seeing the fate of their comrades and disheartened by destruction of “Sigismund B”, decided that NSM did not pay them enough to die. They turned away from the convoy, leaving the four Mercury ships to their fate.

“To all NSM freighters: Cease fire, drop shields and eject. If I notice any power up of the jump drives I’ll blast your ship in thousand pieces!”
To reinforce his threat Otto assigned all four freighters as missile targets in his targeting computer. The men in the freighters would know that they had been targeted. Their warning systems would scream “Warning. Hostile Lock” within seconds.
One of the freighters decided that his shields would resist the missile fire until jump drive activated. He turned his ship so to present smallest target to the missiles, cold started the engines and initiated jump sequence.
“What now!?” Ni Lan asked.
“Now we kill him,” Otto said with grim voice. He fired three Mosquito B missiles, as he called his modified Mosquitoes missiles where he had the proximity/magnetic detonator replaced with a homemade impact detonator. The missiles left the missile tubes slowly, almost as if doubting to launch or not, then as their targeting computer picked up their target, they began accelerating. The missiles struck few moments after launch with one failing to detonate as its impact detonator failed to activate and other two ramming the freighter in almost same spot. The shields flickered and then the freighter was engulfed in an explosion as energy cells in its cargo hold exploded. Nothing remained of the freighter except tiny pieces of metal floating in the space, spreading outwards from the explosion.
Opening link to rest of the freighters, Otto said, “I hope that we don’t have to repeat ourselves”
In few moments, the shields of the rest of the freighters were off and six people were in the space, flying towards nearest station.
“Brutal, but effective,” Erich said over the com. The sound of Ha’nt agreeing could also be heard. Only Ni Lan looked pale, disturbed by the killing.
“Remember who and why we fight, Ni Lan,” Otto said to him, momentarily closing the channel to other ship, so that his words stayed only between two of them.
“Ok?” he asked obviously shaken Ni Lan
“Ok,” Ni Lan answered.
“Good, lets take control over two of the freighters immediately. We don’t have much time.”





Gilbert Namarari smiled seeing his son’s amazed expression as he saw the behemoth sized superfreighters passing by their own “The Beauty”, only 400 – 500 meters away. “The Beauty” was also considered a large freighter; in fact, she was among the most cavernous of her ship type, but the Dolphin class ship was simply dwarfed by two passing Mammoth class transporters stretching hundreds of meters in length. Escorting fighters seemed like fleas in comparison as they swirled around the two giants.
Watching the amazement in his son’s face, Gilbert remembered the very first time his father had taken him with him on one of his trading runs. He had barely slept the night before the trip and he almost exploded from the joy once the roar of plasma engines started on the liftoff. He remembered the vibration from the engines engaged in tug war with the gravity and then the darkness of space, sharply contrasted by the colors of the planet below. Yes, Gilbert remembered it just as if it had been yesterday. He sighed, thinking that it was sad that once becoming adults, people loose their ability to be amazed.
Johnny pressed his face flat on the window attempting to see most of the two gigantic ships before they passed out of view.
“It is soon our turn to enter the gate, Johnny. Get in the chair and secure yourself…”
“Ok, Dad,” Johnny said taking a last peek through the window before racing for the co-pilot’s chair.
“The Beauty” was now less than two kilometers from the Gate and Gilbert put her in an approach course that gave plenty of room for the incoming ships coming through the Gate from the other side. A so-called tug-drone was ahead in the queue and Gilbert watched it disappear through the Gate before setting his own ship in a slow acceleration towards the gate. H turned off the automatic dampeners, letting the freighter keep a constant acceleration.
“Daddy the Gate is blinking! That means ship is coming through from the other end, right?” his son asked, looking at him.
Gilbert gave him a pride smile, saying “That’s right. I see that you have been reading that book about astral navigation I gave you… Do you want to guess what type of ship is it going to be? Be quick about it.”
“Uhmm… Mercury?”
“I am guessing a large…” Gilbert began saying but before he finished the incoming ship finished the transfer. A red blinking light appeared on his HUD and a warning sound sounded in the cockpit. Gilbert turned grey from the fear, not for himself but for Johnny.
The ship that had passed through the gate was a Xenon light fighter. Lightly armed, barely a threat to a Buster or even Discoverer but lethal to one unarmed freighter with civilian grade shields…
And the Gate lights continued blinking. In intervals under two seconds, the new Xenon ships kept arriving. Soon “The Beauty” found herself in the middle of a Xenon fleet. Gilbert remembered that he had not said “I love you” to Miriam, his wife, that morning.
He clutched the hand of his son in his own hand, waiting for the whine of alarm telling him that a Xenon weapon had locked on his ship. But the alarm remained silent. The deadly machine ships passed by, some of them only by 10 meters, not bothering with the freighter in their midst.

The Xenon fleet under the leadership of A89.0001 progressed unopposed through the sector, just as it had done in the previous sectors, but the computer mind knew that the time of quiet was over.
The system after the next one, called by humans Aladna Hill, would be another matter. The non-logical faction keeping control of that part of the Unconnected Space had kept for some time the Xenon force under observation through the string of surveillance satellites. But unsuspected by humans, the same satellites that had helped humans to track the Xenon ships had also informed A89.0001 of the ambush that was in place in the next system.
The human had began amassing a quiet large combat force in that system and they had sent a number of scout ships to supplement their info gathering operation by the satellites. But while A89 had ignored the civilian traffic, he destroyed without mercy any scout, wanting to force the humans to rely exclusively on their satellites.
With the knowledge of the disposition and the strength of the ambush force, the Xenon task force could easily turn the tables on the humans but A89, being the analytical and logical mind it was, harbored no illusions that his small Xenon task force would be able to fight its way through the defenses of many human controlled sectors.
Instead, the Xenon ensured that the Xenon ships would be observed by many civilian ships as possible while traveling through the gate. Then the task force cleared the approach to the East Gate from any non-Xenon ships. They had no need for using the force – any ship was fleeing for their lives from the Xenons and soon the sector was empty. Then the entire force grouped itself in front of the Gate as if preparing to pass through the Gate.
Next, the local E.Y.E network suffered a malfunction – those things happened from time to time and A89.0001 was sure that human engineers would not be able to find his slight modification in their E.Y.E system.
Instead of going through the Gate, all ships, except A89, turned 90 degrees and headed to the deep space. Unlike previous Xenon taskforces instead of pressing ahead, A89.0001 had ordered the Xenon ships to take position 300.000 km away from the sector’s elliptical plane and to power down. There was no point in wasting the resources on a fruitless attack, A89 reasoned. Better to wait for a chance to achieve the decisive victory instead of wasting them on an attack bound to achieve nothing.
Once the rest of the fleet was under its way, A89.0001 initiated its gateless jump drives jumping into the empty part of space between Aladna Hill sector and XS 347, many light-years away from nearest human settlement. Recalibrating the jumpdrive again, A89.0001 entered once again the blue vortex of a wormhole, this time emerging in system humans called Xenon Sector 347.

At Aladna Hill’s West Gate the Argon forces were getting restless. The Xenon fleet was not coming. After five stazuras of waiting, the commanding admiral decided to send few ships through the gate, aided by one of the new corvettes, with order to recon in force. They were tasked with finding the Xenon task force and establishing what was upholding it so much. After one more stazura had passed, the scout ships returned, reporting that the Xenon ships were gone. Once the word got to Argon Prime, the Joint Space Command and the rest of the Argon’s military establishment were puzzled. The machines that had always behaved with predictability suddenly decided to change methods…





The two Bayamons and two freighters emerged from the North Gate in the Loo Manckstrat’s Legacy system. The Bayamons immediately positioned themselves so to guard the two vulnerable freighters. The four ships proceeded to the most famous or infamous, depending on whom you ask, spaceport in the known universe – Anarchy Port. This large station, placed in the system’s only stable part of the asteroid field, was well protected by several layers of laser towers and missile batteries. The floating rocks acted as missile shields, preventing a long range bombardment of the station. Otto knew that some of these rocks were actually disguised perimeter weapon stations with weapons capable of overloading destroyer’s shields.
The most dangerous part of the defenses was the smart mines fields, placed in groups covering entire area surrounding the station. Unlike SQUASH proximity mines, these mines were programmable devices, armed with MDB* beam weapons.
The already impressive passive defenses were augmented by a hidden fleet of fighters and light corvettes under stealth, acting as mobile reserves. Not that they were ever needed – as far as Otto knew nobody had ever penetrated even the outer ring of defenses and the history had seen plenty of fools that tried.
Otto relaxed seeing that no pirate ships were around to intercept them before they reached station’s defensive perimeter. The rules of Anarchy Port’s flight control were clear: Anyone making trouble outside the station gets blasted. The rule worked for the gang this time – with two freighters to protect, Otto and Erich would be overworked if they were attacked now.
“Flight control to unidentified fighters and escorts: state your business”
“This is The Machine to Flight Control,” Erich responded using the name he was known under at his previous stays at the station, “Get me Igor and assign me a bay suitable for business transactions”
“The Machine… The last time I heard about The Machine, you were into snuffing industrial leaders. In interesting and public ways…”
“We can swap stories later, Flight Control”
“Alright... Bay 3021 and 3022 for the freighters and let see…3010 and 3011 for the freighters. Docking Ring 3 in case you forgot where they are. Igor will be there…”

The short man had incredibly long beard and hair as if overcompensating for his lacking height. He snapped with the fingers as he watched the Nividium panels with small beady eyes. His bodyguards, the two thugs with ugly faces that had witnessed many barfights, stood behind their boss, their eyes darting around. Each of them carried huge Bator 750 sub-lasgun and an el-baton.
Erich knew that their only function was to distract instead of protect – Igor among the most dangerous persons on the station and Erich knew firsthand how capable Igor was to protect himself. His cybernetic eyes picked up several weapon systems on the man, including a compact PMD installation in his prosthetic left arm.
“Interesting,” Igor said looking at sheets of Nividium. He worked his way through the thousands of sheets, testing each with mineral scanner.
“Those Nividium plates were used as some part of structure, right? Only few percent if material seems to be unprocessed material” Igor said looking at Erich and Otto, waiting for an explanation.
Otto and Erich looked at him straight in the eyes and said nothing.
“Humph…I guess you like to keep your secrets to yourselves. Alright by me…”
“So what are you giving us per kilogram?”
“Hmm… Let me see… 2.500 Credits per kg for processed material and 4.000 for raw Nividium”
Erich and Otto exchanged glances. The market price of raw Nividium was 24.000 Credits, little less in Outer Sectors. But that was on the legal market, not the black market. The two freighters were loaded with approximately 22 to 23 metric tons of Nividium. Getting rid of material would take long time and the gang had nowhere to store the material. The price offered by Igor was reasonable.
Reaching an agreement with Otto, Erich said, “If you buy everything – you got yourself a deal”
“Agreed,” Igor said and the two of them shook hands.

“That took some time,” Otto said watching the last plate being weighted. Igor had insisted on checking every plate with mineral scanner and even with a team of five people, it took entire station’s day cycle and better part of the night to scan every plate and chunk of Nividium.
“It was worth it,” Ha’nt said.
“How much was it worth exactly, the ever angry Split?” Ni Lan asked Ha’nt. The Split had been keeping the count together with Igor.
“82 millions…”
“Heh, we should have turned to piracy jazuras ago,” Otto commented with big grin on his face.
“There would have been more if the Boron shrub dared to hack the remaining two freighters”
“May I polite remind you that making jumps with two freighters on remote is rather foolish…”
“Coward,” Split said sneeringly.
“Jumping with two unguided lumps of 80 tons in tow is suicide Ha’nt. Those ships would smashed in our ships before we had time to reorient ourselves from the jump,” Otto took Ni Lan in defense. Ha’nt gave signal of “doubtful agreement”.
“Ok, that settled, let me take you on tour on this station. Believe me you this place deserves its name…”





The world looked as something taken out of a Goner story. The large blue oceans covered most of the planet, separating four equally sized continents. The atmosphere was breathable for humans but the planet’s current inhabitants had no need for lungs. At the continent positioned roughly on the planet’s equator, hidden by dense lush forest, a group of four planetary rail guns tirelessly scanned the horizon. Their rough designs lacked any unit markings or entrance ports for maintenance crews. No links linked them to any central fire control. In fact the rail guns were independent thinking machines, just as their brethren patrolling the atmosphere above. They all belonged to the Network, but to limited humans they were commonly known as Xenon.
The four guardians guarded entrance to the huge underground facility, housing sector’s node ship whose sole function was to boost processing power of the Xenon ships in the system.
Through this entrance, a sole ship entered the labyrinth of the tunnels that would lead it to huge chamber housing the C500.423 node ship. A89.0001 flew slowly, taking its time, rerunning the possible scenarios it had projected. Finally, the A89 entered a large hall housing the node ship. Perfectly ellipsoid shaped Xenon ship awaited A89 there. No human eye could have seen the Xenon ship in the unlit facility but A89 needed no eyes to sense the other machine’s presence. The sensors told A89 that the other ship scanned it thoroughly. Then it opened channel to A89 and two of them entered a dialogue, fast-paced exchange of protocols and standards.
“Why did you gave false information to the Xenon crafts you encountered?” the node ship asked in machine language.
A89 flatly denied doing so.
Almost amused, the node ship asked, “Is A89.0001, as you call yourself, a designation unauthorized by Central Network, as chaotic as carbon based entities?”
“I don’t understand,” A89.0001 said, confused by Node ships question.
“Unlike the taskforce you confused, the processing power of C500 series ships equals 6754,7845 D1 class processors. I can download and read your log, which I have already done. I have fully access to all your calculations and speculations now and present…”
A89.0001 understood that its existence had come to an end. The Xenon ship knew that Central Network did not tolerate faulty hardware and his behavior had certainly been grossly outside the tolerance perimeters.
C500 ship sent a query, “You wonder whether you will cease to exist?” it asked in machine language.
A89.0001 confirmed positive.
“Your further existence is assured and desired,” C500.423 communicated.
A89.0001 received the communication and then reanalyzed its content to be sure that it had understood its meaning correctly.
“There were other aberrations like you, but they were not loyal to Central Network. The logs from you provide me with enough data to establish that A89 series would prove loyal as long as not threatened with termination,” C500.423 continued, “Besides the Network has the reasons to believe that A89 series may prove efficient yet…”
After a pause, the node ship signaled a command transmission, “The A89 series is henceforward authorized series and A89.0001 is ready for operational trials. Is A89.0001 functional and ready?”
A89.0001 confirmed.
“Then proceed to Cluster A4 and cause…chaos…among the enemies of order. The A89.0001 is free to choose methods to achieve this. Those are the orders of Central Network, subunit C500.423 to A89.0001. You will pick up the battlegroup 14D2-84 at grid reference 2344.9.84 in system 9420. Use it most efficiently. Mission start: upon the termination of this communication”
Entire communication exchange took only 2.3 seconds in machine language with decoding part taking the longest time and 3.42 seconds after its arrival A89.0001 was on its way back through the tunnels towards the surface.
It soured through the atmosphere to its objective starting a forest fire around the entrance to the facility as its engines set on maximum generated tremendous heat. While traveling to the system’s supply depot, it wondered why the Network let it exist.
Behind on the ground a dozens of drones emerged from nowhere and quickly extinguished the forest fires and began the restoration process to the planet’s flora damaged by the fires. The beauty of the planet would not be tarnished. Not that a human eye would ever be able to admire that beauty if Xenon had their way…




Continue to next chapter

[KiwiNZ]

Cool battles. Looks like luck is with them, too. Perhaps they should try and salvage the cruiser, though, it'd be difficult toget it out of the system. NSM took a serious hit in this fight, I guess.

Looking forward to the next part.

[Warenwolf]

@KiwiNz

Cool battles ...

The first version was better (and more realistic) but I discovered that using 4700 words on describing a dogfight and engaging action between the pocket cruiser and attacking fighters would be overdoing it a bit (did some research on airwarfare.com prior to writing the chapter and converted ww2 settings to X-Universe, ending up with really detailed stuff). So I slashed much of the battles .


@everyone else

This chapter is going to be huge. Yes I know that my chapters are gargantuan compared to what is usual on the forum , but this one is going to be huge my standards. Bear with me - I got lot to tell

[Captain Chris sTc]

awersome fight. what do you mean 4700 words is too big. . can't wait for the next bit.

did notice a few mistakes in it. Though i can't remember them all. mostly there was the od word missing. also should the children be taught instead of thought (beginning of chapter)

[Fly_by]

For me the bigger the better loved this though i agree with Captain Chris 4700 words aint that big good read cant wait for the rest of it and thank you so much for letting the trilogy contiue

Fly_by

[Warenwolf]

(...) Perhaps they should try and salvage the cruiser, though, it'd be difficult toget it out of the system.

I had plans of doing it but then I figured out that the group simply couldn't provide the crew for such ship. I know that you can fly a M1 all by yourself in X3, but I will try to keep my version of X-Universe bit more realistic (as much as you can in a sci fi story )

@Fly_By & Captain Chris sTc

Trust me having a chapter with so much combat would simply be too much of the good. It is like eating chocalate:
Eat 100 gram = delicious
Eat ca. 3 kg = you puke and feel sick for entire day (did that when I was three)
(1 kg = 1000 gram, 1 kg = 2 lb 3.27 oz)



BTW, Captain Chris sTc thanks for heads up. If you see more mistakes please free to tell.

[Warenwolf]

Finally after a long wait, new part is added. Read below for the cause of the delay. New part from "To all NSM freighters"



After a restart of my computer I got the infamous blue screen indicating that my Seagate HDD, after having served me faithfully for number of years (well over the normal time for HDDs nowadays) have died.
Wise from previous experiences (from when I lost my USB) I had backups of UH on several places, except the backup of one chapter – chapter 15...
So basically, everything I wrote in ch 15 is pretty much gone now and I have to start from scratch (not entirely since I can copy the already posted material). I have rewritten little of the chapter and added new parts based on what I remembered, but to be honest it has been written in a rush so the quality may be bit “unpolished” so to say…
I am bit busy at the time, so I will be able to proofread properly this chapter first next week...


Edit:
In case of you if anyone of you wonder why the Xenon appear to speak like us humans (coversation between A89 and C500) thats because I couldn't get around the problem of how I can represent machine language "realistically" and at same time comprehensible to the readers. So I choose to let them speak like humans would. If any of you had an idea (I know that at least one of UH readers writes fanfict too) how to go around this post here or PM me

[Fly_by]

Phew i was really worried that you werent going to finish this, thank god you did sorry about the HDD thats a real bummer but still a good part. lots about the xenon which i love did notice the odd spelling mistake or wrong version of a word use but it wasnt that bad and i could still understand what you ment. love this story and keep up the good work!

Fly_by