Anomalous Cargo - Chapter 4

[Fhg#1893]

Even though the two parties opposed each other, as far as most couriers were concerned, both pirates, and the various law enforcement agencies were really rather similar; they both could be serious threats to a courier. Both would definitely try to kill a courier if that courier didn't do exactly what they wanted. The only difference was that law enforcement usually called for a courier to drop their cargo before they started shooting, while pirates would normally shoot first, and pick up the pieces later. Pirates were also known to look for excitement which normally involved an unpleasant fate in a Split forced-labour camp, where as border patrol agents confined their excitement to seeing a ship explode into a billion pieces.

Even the relative authority of the two was strikingly similar, as both were provided with fast, well-armed, powerful ships. It was really just a question of what sector a courier happened to be flying in at the time which would determine who would be trying to kill them.

Most of Tred's trips through pirate space were relatively quite. The one good thing about pirates was that if a person were willing to spare the credits, they were very easy to bribe. Of course, nobody had quite enough credits to bribe them all, and while most could be bribed, some
were just so crazy that they'd take the bribe and try to kill the person anyway. These didn't usually survive much longer, as word would quickly spread that someone was killing ships offering bribes. Since Tred strongly believed in the power of the bribe, he could normally travel through pirate sectors without angering the locals too much.

But on this particular trip, Tred hadn't had the chance to bribe anybody. This wasn't too much of a problem either though, since pirates would also avoid attacking pilots who were known to bribe them regularly; a traveler who bribed once, would probably bribe again. And besides that, if any pirates did happen to get greedy, Tred had developed a reputation for making certain that few survived long enough to try again.

So on this relatively long trek through pirate space, more than a few pirates approached Pride of Decker to about 8k, seemed to consider the possibilities, and then decided that killing Tred wasn't such a good idea, and they quickly went back to looking for traders to terrorize.

As Tred was flying through Olmancketslat's Treaty, he could only sit and watch what unfolded between a small group of pirate raiders, and a highly unfortunate Vulture Tanker. From the scattered comm-traffic, that he was able to hear, Tred guessed that the poor Teladi wretch was flying through the sector looking to sell a large load of Spaceweed, when a group of pirates decided that it would be far more interesting and lucrative for them, to shoot at the large freighter until the pilot either dropped her cargo, or the ship exploded. By the time Tred got close enough see the streaks of plasma impacting the freighter's shields, things were looking very bad. Two pirate Buzzards and a pirate Nova swarmed around the
floating box like angry hornets, steadily depleting the freighter's shields with a seemingly endless supply of plasma fire.

It was a very effective tactic that Tred had seen far too many times before; one vessel at a time would fly towards the target, shooting until its gun-capacitors had been fully drained, then it would peel off and another would take its place.

The superior agility and speed of the smaller ships meant that there was nothing the pilot could do but try to run, and that wasn't going to work.

As the shields began to plummet, the freighter pilot began to plead with the pirates, and call for help. When the freighter's shields reached about thirty percent, the pilot spaced her entire load of spaceweed, and began the laborious process of trying to turn her ship back towards the gate, but this didn't stop the attacks.

It seemed rather wasteful to Tred, since the load of spaceweed was easily well over twenty five hundred units, more than all of the attackers could carry combined, and more than enough spaceweed to supply two pirate bases for several tazuras.

But the pirates ignored the spaceweed and the barrage began to cut deep gouges in the freighter's hull. In a short time, the freighters engines were hit, then her cargo bay suffered sever damage, and finally her aft shield was destroyed, when finally the terrified pilot bailed out.

But even this didn't stop the onslaught; the pirates continued to pound the ship until at long last, they hit the reactor, and ship exploded in brilliant white-red fireball. To make things even worse, the Nova then closed in on where the cargo containers hung, rotating slowly in space, and opened fire. The container seemed to swallow the greenish bolt of plasma, and then seemed to come apart at the seems as super-heated gas expanded outward. Roughly one million credits worth of premium spaceweed expanded into an enormous cloud of dust and twisted, scorched bits of metal. The pirates didn't even bother to pick up the unfortunate trader, they just left her there, floating in space, her jets driving her towards a large complex.

Tred spent several moments feeling very disgusted by the scene he had just witnessed. It wasn't that combat bothered him, or even death bother him. He rather enjoyed the thrill of flirting with both. And he didn't mind Teladi, pirates, spaceweed or even slavery. What bothered him, was that the Teladi didn't even have a fighting chance. Her ship was completely overwhelmed and at the mercy of her enemies, and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. Tred lived for a good fight. Tred believed that in a good fight, your opponent should at least be more dangerous than the Teladi had been. Sure, everybody took what advantages they could get, but there wasn't anything enjoyable about just blowing up a helpless ship. Any thug could blow up a ship. The mark of a true pilot was the one who was willing to go up against anything, and still manage to come back in one piece.

And that was why, many Jazuras ago Tred had decided that he'd never become a trader. While ferrying some commodities was certainly more lucrative than being a courier, in most circumstances, at least a courier had a fighting chance. Pride of Decker's one weakness was that its shields
were the weakest of the M4 class of ships. Otherwise, she was fast, agile, and well-armed, and Tred had spent more than a few credits on improving her speed, handling, and upgrading her basic features. And Tred was a very capable pilot.

No matter how many credits a pilot would sink into a freighter, they had relatively weak shields, were slow, took a very long time to turn, and very poorly armed. For Tred, this meant that a freighter was less of a ship, and more of an overpriced flying coffin. Or perhaps, a highly inefficient slave delivery system.

While it was true that in Tred's profession many more people were likely to shoot at him, they weren't very likely to kill him. If there were only a few, he could fight. If things got difficult, he could flee. Tred could do neither of these things in a frieghter, no matter how much money it could make him. Tred considered himself a pragmatist, and a survivor, and so far, this had kept him alive, and free for many more jazuras than he would have if he'd invested in a freighter like that unfortunate Teladi.

He shuddered to think that she was either going to die of asphyxiation when her oxygen ran out, or one of the more mercantile minded pirates would realize that she was actually worth quite a few credits as a slave, and she'd be picked up and introduced to a fate which would in all likelihood be worse than death. Tred thought he might pick up the helpless Teladi, drop her off in Teladi space for whatever credits she had left, but he had a schedule to keep.

Tred could only turn a blind eye to suffering of many people, but had no regrets about the business he was in. The alternative was just too depressing to contemplate.

[Syndrome]

Umm, different I feel quite a bit sorry for that poor Teladi and if it was me I would immediately pick her up and swiftly frag the pirates. But, then again, Tred is Tred

[SOTS]

See what I mean about the character development?

Excellent chapter, Fhg. Looking forward to more