Buster Alpha down the line

[greenmuzz]

I had a few moments to myself (waiting for some freighters...) so here goes:

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Buster Alpha Down the Line

Shadows grew over 'weed papers and 'fuel tanks as Felzick drew the Mamba into a long, lazy spiraling loop-roll. He killed the main generator, drifted to within inches of the 'roid, then killed everything else. With the ship bathed in an asteroidal dawn, he hauled the quilts around himself and let the consoles go blank, peering out-system over a ridge of rock to the faint blue glow of the North gate. Save for those moments between breaths, the silence was total, penetrating, but he couldn't spare the power for music. Couldn't spare the power for air. A slow trickle from the batteries kept the hepts and pacs from leaking, kept the snake's brain from shutdown and the engines, shields and generators ready for rapid-powerup, and even that could be too much if he was early, or they were late. A matter of minutes either way would see him scanvenging weapon power for a full deadman poweron and no guarantees the snake would ever lift its head.

He reached down beside the acceleration couch, checking the harness was still tight, and grasped for a packet firmly velcroed and strapped to the floor. The dark blue velvet pouch was black in the shadowed cockpit, but infinitely soft on his space-withered hands. Inside, something that could sparkle was dark. He withdrew it, an ancient gold watch, spring wound with ruby mechanism it ticked in the darkness. Somebody dead's family heirloom. Someone he killed. A boy, he thinks. He lets it float near his face, sticking the empty pouch back down and lifting up another bag, this one much larger and accomodating a telescope. Also an antique. Not valuable anymore, except to people he doesn't deal with. Just useful and rare. Power saving. He extended it, and looked.

The North Gate was busy, and like his contact had said, completely blockaded. Two Nova's and a clutch of Buster's buzzed around the queue of freighters like flies around faeces, scanning everything and verifying everyone. With graceful ease and no gravity induced shivers, Felzick could pan the telescope across the vista, picking out ships and patrols. At fifteen klicks, the atmosphere-free details were impressive, and with starlight behind him, the ships shone. But the ships in the queue were not his interest. Instead he watched the patrolling Buster's, ignored the static Nova's, and every so often, noted the hands on the ticking clock, catching it if it drifted too far from him in the weightless dark.

He had located the 'roid weeks before the blockade set up shop and began regimenting the in-system traffic. He had dragged a lump of it and gone out-of-system, where the gravidar response to the Mamba was well below detection threshold - just an unidentifiable speck of turbulence against the well of the planetary system. Out there he had waited days watching the weather like a god, sleeping, smoking and otherwise killing time. Then with a clear head he had looked out, up-orbit to the gate, and used the ship's elemag sensors to watch the buildup of ships and the heavy-handed subjugation of the 'twixt gate system, the firefight a silent display of death in the distance. Firmly anchored behind the lump of just bigger than the Mamba rock, he'd started the long drift back, before the deft swoop from rock to 'roid and the powerdown. Ten seconds of expertise for days of nothing. And now nothing again.

Then the gate flared, the buzzing patrol ships repositioned, and the cruiser stepped out. He checked the watch, pulled a pad of paper from his person, somewhere beneath the quilts, scribbled something down, and then watched as the Novas and Busters landed, and after some time, launched again with fresh pilots. The cruiser slipped back through the gate. He checked the watch, scribbled, and pocketed the notepad. And he watched.

The more he watched, the more he pulled the quilts around him, the more he shivered beneath them, the more his breath was crystalising in the air, the less his scribbles became legible. But he waited and he watched the changing of the guard, and he waited, and he noted.

The changeovers were regular but not precise. There was no method by which he could simply state that the cruiser was due at this precise moment by just timing. But his patience was revealing patterns, and as he vented another canister of breathable air into the cockpit he ticked off another sequence in his head. Buster Alpha down the line, Nova Beta creeps up wide. Watching the hands of the clock, his lips recounted a mnemonic and parted with a pop an instant before the gate flared and the cruiser showed its face. He grinned, checked the time, counted canisters with his feet.

And waited.

And watched.

Through the telescope he watched the patterns, reading them like the textbook from which they would have come. He touched his hand to a dial on the controls, turned it once. The trickle of the battery gently, ever so gently, increased, and the generators came on line with smooth perfection. Behind the 'roid, their power signatures hidden, he still kept the power low and minimised his radiation, doing his best to vent everything away from the gate. His consoles came to life but active sensors stayed asleep. He fed energy to the engines and ticked off the state of the gate sentinels in his head, eventually tucking the watch and the telescope back into their bags and relying again on the ship's own systems.

Buster Alpha down the line...

He prepped the engines, prepared a flash-charge of the shields.

Nova Beta creeps up wide...

The gate flared, the guarding fighters began to queue, and now he ramped the engines. The cruiser would have to drop the shield to land the ships. He had fifteen klicks to cover and they could not recharge fully in that time. Two ships landed, two others broke formation. He didn't expect to stay hidden longer than that. He let the capacitors flash charge the shields, and the resulting sound of alarms let him know he'd killed two of the generators. One was good. One would do.

The Busters were upon him quickly, ravaging his front shielding but he was at top speed opposite their direction, and as they converged upon him and flew past, the mine he left detonated. It was lucky, a good pilot wouldn't have attacked him like that. A good pilot wouldn't have attacked him at all.

The cruiser was backing off. Shielding down it knew better than to stick around. The remaining undocked Nova was approaching wary and wide, but it would be slower than the Mamba so had already made its mistake. Grazed only briefly by its cannons Felzick was unswayed from his course, but now had to dodge fire from the cruiser its self. He bagan to spiral, down towards it, flicking violently on the strafe to keep away from the stream of fire, harder as he got closer. But now he could open fire too.

Green plumes of death streamed out ahead of him followed by missile after missile, lighting up the sides of the cruiser and quickly penetrating the hull, concentrated fire ripping deep into the underbelly of the machine. Then he was out of time. He fired the torpedos, flicked the Mamba round and began to spiral away from the giant ship, overburning the engines enroute to the South gate. He didn't watch the torps hit, didn't care to see the cruiser splitting down the middle. He just kept the South gate in his view, and the engines burning.

Now there was time for music.

[parameter]

Okay! I know! Way late but, as they say,'better late than never!'
Nice story greenmuzz! It held my concentration right up to the end, I was wishing there were more chapters to come. Very good considering you wrote it whilst waiting for your freighters, do you plan writing another chapter whilst waiting for your unmodded, Teladi Falcon escorts?

[greenmuzz]

Glad you liked it. Don't really think there would be follow up chapters really, but if the X bug bites hard enough again there could be other tales set in the universe, really depends on whether I get my creative hat back once this PhD is handed in or not.... Still, the ego-boost of positive feedback helps

[parameter]

All the best with your PhD! What is the topic?

If you do get back in with another X based story I shall keep an eye out for it.
I recently had my contract terminated for health reasons, so not quite sure how long I have before I am relegated to using internet cafes to read these forum posts. Cannot afford internet link for home. Oh well!
Anyway 'Que sera, sera' or some such

[MacDuck]

very nice

you certainly have talent

I would read more of your stuff is there is any.

Cheers

[The Zig]

Good lil' story.
I like how you imply the main character, without ever needing to do much overt description of him. Good style. You get a good sense of mystery.

You wrote that while waiting for some freighters?! Ha! I just started X2 again on the "X-Treme" difficulty level - you start the game with nothing but a Discoverer hull (NO upgrades at all) and 100cr. Not even a SETA. Not even enough to buy a SETA! Sooo slow!

Try it! You'll have a quadrilogy by the end of the week!