Unknown Heroes - The Pirate (Second part in the trilogy), Chapter 1

[Warenwolf]

The summer is over and rainy, cold spring approaches so for those days when rains simply never seems to stop and there is nothing on the TV, I give you the second part of UH trilogy, “Unknown Heroes – The Pirate”. Enjoy!
And by the way, comments and criticism of any sorts would be appreciated… I am very much interested in how is the story now compared to how it was in the Assassin part. If you are reading this some time after this had been posted, just send me a PM.


PS: PM me if you see any grammar mistakes



----------------------
Links:


* * *
Unknown Heroes - The Assassin

The glossary of Unknown Heroes
--------------------





Unknown Heroes - The Pirate


* * *






The Duel






Miller Munk swore a juicy curse, vulgar enough to make a porn star blush, as he looked at the long queue forming up in front of the gate. The freighter “Lone Traveler” was among the last ship in the queue.
“What did you say daddy?” his daughter asked, briefly looking up from the sensors, a smile dancing on her face.
“Nothing sweetheart,” he replied. Miller was a man that cursed all the time but he tried to control himself in front of Kerry - something he often failed to do. He sighed looking at his daughter. She was concentrating about aft sensor, trying different parameters in order to make sense of the old sensor’s readings. Miller sighed. She should be concerned about some young man, not crewing his freighter. Especially with Khaak roaming the trade lines nowadays. As if pirates weren’t enough…
“Warner,” he called out to the seventeen-year-old boy manning the controls, “Give me line to escort leader”
“Yes, Sir” the boy acknowledged and moments later computer announced that link had been established.
“This is “Lone Traveler” to NSM “SecDiv 17”. What’s the holdup Howard?”
A familiar man’s voice replied, “There was a collision at the Gate, Miller. Cargo is spilled out and floating everywhere. They try to push it out of the way but it seems that it is wasted effort. We will simply have to wait until service ships arrive.”
“Long way from New Stockholm station to here…”
“Yeah, I know. Seems like we will be stuck here a standard hour at least”
Miller signaled to Warner to close the channel and leaned back, trying to calm himself and remove the feeling of frustration. Being frustrated about the situation was pointless and he needed to take it easy – at least that was what the doctor and Kerry kept telling him. There was nothing he could do but wait.

Howard adjusted the position of his ship relative to the rest of the ships in the convoy so that his sensors would be as little as possible obstructed by the signatures of other ships in the convoy. He needed to be careful. Last mazuras many NSM convoys had been attacked by pirate clans, causing NSM’s freighter fleet to be whittled down eighty percent to only three light freighters that were only usable for in-system trips. The company was forced to rely increasingly on contracted freighters such as Miller Munk. Howard liked old Miller. The old space wolf had seen it all and two of them swapped often stories in the bars when they took break on stations along their routes. Miller had been escort fighter just as Howard until he got his daughter.
He looked at the sensor readings. Oh great, here we go again, he thought as he watched a freighter leaving the queue. There was always some young pilot that could not fathom that people in front of him in the queue are not simply standing there for the fun of it. The ship passed several freighters, ignoring the onslaught of angry messages towards him, continuing past several ships in the convoy.
The freighter came alongside Howard’s Mako and stopped. Howard cursed. The freighter was blocking his readings. He irritatingly sent the pilot in the freighter a universal signal for “you are too close”, three rapid pings on the com line. The freighter was not budging. He looked through the cockpit at the freighter. And froze.
He never managed to react, neither to save himself or warn the others before the plasma fire reduced his Mako fighter to pieces of heated metal.

“Switch fire to other fighters, sprint fire mode! Pour it out, boys!” Crow commanded. The crew had been during the last month trained to effective killing machines that were one with their ship. In fact, Crow barely managed to say the word of his command before the crew had started executing their captain’s order.
The two twin Particle Accelerator cannon turret was seemingly firing without stop but Crow knew that gunners was timing the shots so that accelerator rings would not overheat and melt. Their fire was so devastating that there was no need to use the missiles. Already after few sezuras, the escort fighters were reduced to yet another group of floating space junk in the system. Not single of them had managed to obtain lock on their attacker.
It was time for clan’s fighters to move in. So far they posed as Q-ship’s escorts and nobody paid them any attention. Their task was to suppress remaining resistance and keep other ships from interfering.
The four ships moved in quickly, firing few warning shots, giving the convoy’s freighter captains sign that there was no point resisting. The captains got the message. One by one they started dropping their cargo, standard L sized containers.
Crow would find out later what the containers contained. The Q-ship started tractoring in the cargo containers. This part of the mission was critical. The shields had to be down, while the tractor beams brought the containers close enough to the ship, so that the robotic arms could take over and bring the cargo inside the ship’s cargo hold. Crow monitored sensors for any sign of powering up of a weapon system. Once again, the luck had been on his side. Despite the fact that several freighters around them possessed defensive turrets, not one targeted the vulnerable pirate ship. In this part of the space, everyone minded their own business.
“Ok that’s it boys and girls, let us head home,” Crow said to other ships in the group when the process was finished and shields were up.
“Not yet! Black gang leaves no witnesses behind,” a fighter ship responded. Crow swore. It was “Excellence”, the Mamba fighter belonging to Douglas. Rest of the fighters, all of them Douglas’s confidants, cheered and opened fire.
Crow swore again and gave order, “Gunnery crew, support fire! Missile systems – target fighters!”

The captain of the New Stockholm’s service ship NWSK-12 was shocked and angry.
“Savages…Bloody savages,” he kept saying. Rest of the four men’s crew had all gathered on the bridge watching silently the signs of the devastation that had taken the place here only stazura ago.
The wrecks of at least thirty-two ships, mostly of defenseless freighters, were floating around them in space. They knew that Khaak was not responsible. Forty-five mizuras ago they started receiving the emergency messages with pleas for help. One by one, signals ceased and then stopped altogether twenty mizuras ago.
“Captain, do you think anyone survived?” one of the men asked, watching the ships two escorts searching for the survivors.
“I doubt it…”
It was worst massacre in the history of the Federation. Every ship that pirates encountered had been destroyed. The trails of metal pieces were a telling sign that few ships tried to escape, but were eventually destroyed by pirates.
The captain watched silently as piece of the metal floated past the cockpit glass, reading the name of the ship it once belonged to - “Lone Traveler”.





The Strike Leader Korttal read intensely the news report on the massacre that had taken place last tazura. The news about the massacre spread like wildfire, from sector to sector, until it finally reached his flagship, “Bloodshed”. Once he finished reading, he walked to his terminal and asked the computer to bring him the Known Universe map. Then he added the mark for the place where the attack took place and asked the computer to bring up the marks for previous places.
Korttal smiled. He had now enough data to deduce where the pirates’ mothership was hiding. The pirates had somehow managed to obtain gateless jumpdrives for their base and had converted it to a mothership capable of jumping from system to system without being detected, something that made Korttal’s hunt so much more difficult.
After he had started painstakingly cataloging every sighting and attack of the Black Gang, he quickly discovered that the clan was for some reason targeting NSM convoys. There were occasional raids on other shipping too. But those attacks were always tied to the typical logistic needs of the pirate clan, like oxygen, food and energy cells.
So Korttal split his forces in two, with corvettes Bloodfeud and Bloodshed leading each group. They started trailing NSM convoys, waiting for the pirates to attack. But pirates seemed to stay away whenever the Strike Leader was in the sector.
Korttal then took another venue of approach. He knew that cargo space of pirate makeshift cruisers was precious. If too much of it was filled by energy cells needed by jumpdrives, less of the loot could be loaded onboard the ships. By analyzing what exactly and how much pirates took, Korttal was able to deduce how much of the cargo hold the pirates used for energy cells. The list of possible sectors that pirates could be hiding in narrowed and after setting one final mark on the map, Korttal concluded that pirates were currently hiding in Teladi space, more specifically the cluster of four sectors: Ceo’s Doubt, New Income, Ianamus Zura and Eighteen Billion.
The Strike Leaders next move was to dispatch his light fighters, disguised as Split mercenaries to the four sectors. The scouts would observe the traffic in and out of the mentioned sectors. Korttal was sure that the pirates couldn’t possible have enough jumpdrives to equip every ship with one in their raiding groups. So the scouts would look after pirate fighters and when seeing one entering the system they would send a message drone to Korttal.
The Strike Leader was rather sure that soon he would catch his until now elusive prey.





The moment his ship docked, Crow marched to the Office and explained to Erich what happened.
“The Douglas’s stooges started firing and then freighters and their escorts responded. There was nothing we could do but support them. Believe me Master – there would be nothing more satisfying to me than seeing Douglas and his men burn, but right there and then if we hadn’t maintained support fire not only they but we too would have been overwhelmed. We had to bring in the reserve too.”
“I know you Crow for some time now,” Erich said, “I know that you did only what you had to do. I hear we lost two ships?”
“Yes, Master. Orhan and Pauline bought it. One of the freighter was loaded with Oxygen containers and it exploded like giant bomb. They were too close. The “Cutpurse” was pierced by few shrapnel too from same explosions. We got one man wounded.”
“I see…”
“It is not my place to say it, Master – but in my opinion you should waste Douglas the first time you get a chance. And if you need help with it, you know where to find me…”
“Thanks Crow,” Erich said watching the pirate leave the room. He leaned back in his chair thinking.
Douglas had to be dealt with. He had broken the cardinal rule of the pirates – never take life if it is not necessary. The reason for that had nothing to do with pirates being humane. If one took life of people one robed, the victims would be far more inclined to fight with everything they got to the bitter end, in turn making pirate profession much more dangerous. And by destroying the freighter the cargo too was destroyed. Next killing enraged the general public, which always led to more attention from police and Navy. Finally yet importantly, by destroying freighters, the pirate would be destroying ultimately his or her own lifeline. Without freighters there would be no one to rob for pirates.
However one looked at it, the time for Douglas’s dead had arrived. Now Erich had to find out a way to do it.





“The Strike Leader! The message drones have arrived from Ceo’s Doubt and New Income systems. The scouts have spotted and trailed the pirate fighters heading deeper in space in the New Income system,” the Second Banner Carrier Tytkt reported to Korttal.
“Excellent! Are the new systems installed and ready for combat duty?”
The Banner Carrier straightened up and his eyes hardened, as if the question had been a insult, “It was your command and of course this Split had seen it implemented immediately”
“I ask for the sake of the protocol. There is no surprise that one from the family such as yours is effective,” Korttal said in an unusual for him attempt to placate the Second Banner Carrier’s honor.
The new systems were dozen gateless jumpdrives that had somehow fallen in Split hands. It was a priceless catch and since Split scientist couldn’t yet replicate the technology it had been decided that only strategically important units would receive the few gateless jumpdrives. It warmed Korttal’s two hearts to see that his battle group had been honored with testing the jumpdrives in action.
The second system was secret Split technology that had been developed when Split scientist discovered few energy peculiarities when jump event occurred. By firing a small, short ranged laser beam with certain wavelength on a object, the induced resonance would prevent jump event for taking place in area for some time.
“All warriors to their stations! Start the battle drums!” Korttal ordered. The crew raced to their stations and escorting fighters entered their preplanned positions. The screen in front of the Strike Leader signaled whenever a post or fighter reported they were ready. Korttal had every reason to feel proud. The crew of the two corvettes and accompanying fighter component once again broke their own record.
“It is time for the hunt to start!”





Yugomosis Kjeltosta Narastonus VII was supposed to patrol the area around the South Gate in New Income but he choose instead to indulge himself in daydreaming about profit projections. His HUD displayed the status of his wealth, changes from the last mazura and the projected profit in next two mazuras if the trend during the last few mazuras continued.
Opposed to the new leadership in the beginning, Narastonus quickly changed his mind when the credits started rolling in. Some of the other pilots even received free upgrades of their ships, turning their mediocre fighters into formidable war machines. Narastanus scratched his scales. He never figured out whom to bribe to get the free upgrades. It seemed that selection was so random, except the fact that pirate receiving them all seemed to lack business acumen.
Lost in his thoughts, Narastonus ignored his sensor flashing warning signal. Finally when the soundless signal turned into missile lock warning did Narastonus take notice. He swore in three languages as he turned his Buzzard light fighter around and headed to the mothership or Mother as the clan started affectionately to call their mobile base.
The sensors told him that several Split made fighters were almost upon him. He would have been dead if the gasses in this part of the sector have not confused Split targeting lidars. The missile lock warning disappeared too as he flew around an abandoned factory, placing the construction between him and Split pursuers. Still the Split ship would sooner or later catch up with him so he turned his ship into nearby minefield, picking a safe path only he knew about.
The pursuers stopped outside the minefield, taking potshots at his ship. But he was already too far away.
Narastonus cheered. He would continue to make profits for jazuras to come.

“The corvette arrived from the North Gate, while fighters arrived from South Gate. The corvette would be chasing us in right into the laser fire of the fighters,” the Professor summarized the situation.
“Hmmm….I doubt that is as simple as that,” Otto commented. He was looking at the screen showing the input from number of sensors, from the individual fighters and those from the onboard the Fortress as they have named the new structure from the “marriage” between the Crab station mover and ancient Rhino TL.
“What do you mean?” Erich asked.
“Where is the other corvette?”
“Perhaps it was sufficiently damaged when we ambushed the Split first time,” Ni Lan suggested.
“We saw the battle recordings. There were no indications that repairs of the second Dragon would take this long. Look at the fighters that are advancing from the South Gate,” Otto pointed to the screen depicting the readings from one of the sensor drones covering the South Gate. The Split fighters could be easily distinguished from other traffic in area. They flew in pairs and all pairs were within 4-5 km distance from each other. Mostly they were light Jaguars with only two Mamba fighters providing the heavier fire. Otto continued, “The fighters are too few in number to defeat us. We could easily plow straight through them even if we restricted ourselves to use only our fighters to engage Split force. The corvette that entered from North Gate would be out of position to assist them. In fact, if we would be willing to sacrifice some of our fighter strength we could just defeat both Split forces in detail.”
“Perhaps the Split commander make mistake?” Ni Lan suggested.
“Of course it is possible – but still in my opinion whoever is commanding the other side is not stupid either and he probably have fairly accurate reports about our strength. In my opinion, he is trying to goad us to attempt to flee through the South Gate. He is counting on the fact that most people here would be reluctant to engage in further battle where there is no profits to be had, so his chasing force and corvette is safe. And he counts on us trying to flee to independent space rather than deeper in Teladi systems. My credits are on the other corvette sitting above the gate in Ceo’s Doubt waiting for us to send fighters through so we can get safe coordinates so that Mother can jump through.”
Although the gateless jumpdrives allowed ships to jump independently from the gate network, not having to lock on receiving gate but instead locking on set of coordinates in space, in reality such jumps were full of dangers. A piece off debris, rock floating in space or something as harmless as little hydrogen gas could be fatal to ship performing the jump. In such situations, the laws of physics were suspended and new materials created, lasting only moments before disappearing. The effect on the ship would often be fatal. And while indeed much of the space was empty – the people living in space quickly learned that taking risks was sooner or later a fatal affair in space navigation.
“Hmm… I think you are right,” Erich agreed and walked over to the sensor reading screens. He focused on those showing the progress of the Split chasing force, “The Split corvette arrived from North Gate, right?”
“Yeah”
“My knowledge of various systems’ geopolitical importance is limited but isn’t Ianamus Zura strategically important system for Teladi?”
“That’s true – Ianamus Zura is headquarters to both Profit Guild and Teladi Company.”
“So how come they allowed Split corvette to pass through the system?”
“You think they have jumpdrives too?” Ha’nt asked Erich.
“Let us not presume too much – Split may have exerted pressure on Teladi through the Profit Guild,” Otto said.
“Doubtful,” Erich disagreed, “we are too small fish in the pond for Split to spend political points to get us”
“True. Alright we have to assume that they got jump capable corvettes.”
“The first idea that comes to my head is to try to engage the chasing force. Force our way to Ianamus Zura with fighters obtaining the safe coordinates so that Mother can jump through too. However if the Split corvettes got jumpdrives…”
“It may get messy…”
“Right”
“Excuse my interruption,” Professor spoke, “but I may have an alternative plan”
Everybody turned to elderly Boron who had been silent so far in the discussion.
“Few wozuras ago, a Teladi merchant discovered a new system, linking this sector to Montalaar system”
“That is new to me,” Otto said surprised.
“Yes, well, I managed to obtain info on the position of the gate leading to this new system when I contacted Teladi sector government regarding our donations to them,” Professor explained. The elderly Boron had been contact to New Income’s system government that turned a blind eye to their presence in exchange for “donations” paid to key members of local government.
“How far away are we from this gate?”
“Half stazura of flying under maximal acceleration”
“Excellent. But still I think we should send couple of fighters toward Ceo’s Doubt and into Moo-Kye's Revenge. There they can obtain safe coordinates for Mother’s jump and send it back with message drone”
“But they would be slaughtered by the other corvette, just as Master Otto explained” Professor objected.
A smile appeared on Erich’s face, “It is necessary risk we have to take. Make sure that Mr. Douglas and his friends are onboard the recon fighters.”

The moment Douglas flight was outside the sensor range, the Mother and her escorts changed the direction and headed towards the coordinates Professor had provided.
”It would have been cheaper for you to kill him,” Otto said to Erich. The Douglas and his friends flew away in eight fighters, all of them precious to the small pirate clan.
“And then I would have invited revenge from some of his friends. This way I get rid of him AND his supporters. There isn’t much of his friends left onboard – many people got disgusted by him when he slaughtered all those freighters”
Douglas was rather easily fooled into the trap. Professor told him that Douglas, as most experienced fighter pilot, would lead the recon flight with seven other pilots, which he would select. Since they got message to avoid any battle, Douglas, as expected by Erich, assumed this was easy mission without any risks and brought all of his friends along. As they left for docks, they laughed of men staying behind, saying that they would take good care of the belongings of the dead people. Douglas looked confident. No doubt, he planned to take good time before sending back the coordinates, making sure that clan would loose many men in the Split attacks on the mother. He probably calculated that people left onboard were more loyal to Erich than to him, Erich thought. Unfortunately, for the disloyal pirate, his Master was way ahead of him.

As the pirate recon flight proceeded to the gate, the Split fighters that have kept their distance until then, turned towards the pirates and began pursuing them, hoarding them towards the Gate.
The pirates never had a chance. Korttal was sitting in front of a screen that showed statistics of targeting officers, showing their hit ratio. As the pirates exited the gate, they were destroyed by the concentrated fire of the corvette and Split Mambas. The pirates had no time to reorient themselves and offered no resistance.
Korttal was dissatisfied. This was too easy. He vented his anger on targeting officer that had lowest score. He stripped him of his rank and then ordered his force to move into New Income, leaving only to Mambas behind. It was time for the next part of the plan.

The Split Jaguar had been drifting for several stazuras towards the Mother. The Split forces had identified the pirate mothership’s position before their main forces even entered the sector. While the Split forces maintained the illusion of searching for the pirate clan’s mothership, one Jaguar light fighter was inching its way towards the mothership. Is mission was almost suicidal – but the Split pilot did not care. Instead he felt honored to have been selected for this task and his only fear was that he would fail. Therefore he shut down any onboard system he could in order to stay undetected, surviving by using an EVA suit. He continued towards pirate mothership on ballistic course, pretending to be just another rock in space.
Ten kilometers from the mothership, having avoided several pirate patrols, the Split pilot, turned on his systems. Many of them failed to start but those that were essential to mission’s completion did.
He opened the small fighter’s cargo doors, ejecting a small drone like vehicle. Already the pirate escort ships were racing towards him, firing the first missiles. He quickly opened a communication channel to the drone and gave it its assignment. Then he leant back in his seat satisfied. There was nothing else he could do - almost all of the control systems had been destroyed by the extreme cold.

The drone, assault drone as it was dubbed by Split scientist, looked like enlarged version of the ordinary defense drones. However, unlike the ordinary drones it had huge chemical thrust engine installed with only one thing in mind – speed. Assault drone accelerated quickly to over 1500 m/s. It could accelerate to much greater speeds but its cargo would not stand it.
Eight sezuras later, it was almost next to the mothership. Then as it passed the mothership it exploded.

“That’s it!?” Erich said to himself. After being around Otto, he had learned that weapons could be modified into acting in unexpected ways so he was waiting for something bad to happen.
“There is more to this than one simple explosion,” Ha’nt commented.
“Agreed. They wouldn’t send a pilot on suicide mission like that just so that they could fire an oversized missile on us with payload of Wasp”
“Perhaps the Split commander did not like the pilot,” Ni Lan suggested.
“That’s preposterous,” Ha’nt said. Then he thought more of it and realized that it was not, casting a glance on Erich.
Moment later battle alarms sounded.
“They have microjumped!” someone yelled.
They were astounded to see two Dragon corvettes materializing just 6500 meters away from the Mother.
Erich quickly opened a channel to the engine room, “I want you to microjump just like they did right now!”
“No can do, Master!”
“What!?”
“We tried to initiate the jump event but something is wrong! Nothing happens!”
“What about secondary jumpdrive?”
“Same thing, Master! No way it could be cascade failure. It is just…atoms refuse to do what they are supposed to be doing”
“Keep on trying,” Erich said and closed the channel. He turned on the stations PA-system, “This is Master Erich speaking. I want gunnery crews on anti – torpedo and missile defense duty. Everyone is to deploy their fighters outside. I want docking crews to load every missile we got into the fighters. Use them people! Otto get out there and organize the space battle part of operation. You know what to do”
He turned off the PA-system and turned to Ni Lan and Ha’nt, “Run down to engine room and see what you can do. Ha’nt find Crow and get those Q-ships out there”

“Warriors of Patriarch! Make your Families and Split race proud!” Korttal simply said in to the crews of the two Dragons and the two corvettes surged forward to their target.
The one pirate ship that had just destroyed the Split scout that had successfully deployed the jump preventing weapon, was caught in the crossfire between two corvettes and quickly perished.
“Within torpedo range, Strike Leader” targeting officer proclaimed.
“Launch, sprint mode, all of them.”

The two corvettes launched a swarm of torpedoes toward Mother and proceeded ahead, providing covering fire. Otto having just left the docking tunnel, gathered two more fighters and proceeded to stop the incoming torpedoes.
The two dragons had fired 24 torpedoes, all of them targeting Mother. Otto knew that soon torpedo acceleration programming would start and then it would be too late. If they lost Mother, the chances of survival would diminish to nothing.
“Nail them with your missiles,” Otto ordered and fired his own load of missiles. His scanners could track up to sixteen different targets and he assigned two missiles per target as the missiles were leaving the tubes. At same time, he coordinated his list with two other fighters, so that no torpedo would remain untargeted. The process was automatic and such military software was unavailable for public and at this moment Otto realized that it had been worth every credit of what then seemed an exorbitant price.
The Dragons responded with their own missile fire, targeting pirate ships that seemed to threaten the torpedoes and Otto had to fly some wild evasive maneuvers.
The clan’s missiles intercepted the Split torpedoes before they managed to start accelerating. The torpedoes’ shields and own anti-missile systems, both active and passive, defeated many of the incoming missiles. But many got trough. And torpedoes started exploding. But not all of them .Two torpedoes accelerated to 900 m/s and slammed into the Mother. The shield projector in that particular section overloaded and second torpedo penetrated the hull unopposed.

“Secondary Docks are hit!” Ha’nt reported.
“Damage report?” Erich asked.
“No idea. Cameras are off but pressure is not dropping. Blast doors activated in time. Still we got no shield coverage there.”
“Give me channel to Crow”
Ha’nt opened a channel to the docks, “Crow here”
“Erich speaking. Are you guys ready?”
“Yeah, we are just about to depart.”
“Give them hell”
“With pleasure Master”
The two Q-ships departed the docks slowly. Their size prevented the quick ejecting procedures of smaller fighters and Crow guided carefully his ship through the docking tunnel leading outside.
“Tunnel cleared, captain”
“Torpedoes loaded?”
“They are captain”
“OK, I want missile fire first and when missiles are away from us 10 meters launch torpedoes”
“Programming fire sequence…done”
“Initiate”
The missiles, a mixture of Dragonfly and Silkworm type, left the tubes. Just as they were ten meters away, torpedoes launched. It was a poor man jamming system. The smaller ships than Destroyer had no resources to carry with them false torpedoes that were used to lure enemy’s counter torpedo fire to focus on them. Neither were the clan’s torpedoes sophisticated enough to have ECM and active anti-missile systems installed. So Crow had opted for method that would give enemy’s sensors much clutter to decipher. But he did not expect his torpedoes to get through. The corvettes would see the clutter on the sensors for what it was and focus all their fire on it. But the captain from the other Q-ship would launch his own “clutter effect”. To Split it would seem as the pirates tried to swamp their anti-missile defenses.
Only when the missiles and torpedoes were within 500 meters from the one of the corvettes did the torpedoes initiate their acceleration procedures. Only instead of racing towards what appeared to be their target, they changed course and raced towards other dragon. The tactic would bring smile to captains in any Independent navy. It seemed to surprise the captains from major powers each time.

The second Dragon was hit before its targeting computers realized what had happened and started sounding alarms.
It took few moments for Korttal, who had been bracing for impact few sezuras ago, to realize that on the plot showing the disposition of his forces, the symbol representing Bloodfeud was now gone.
Stone faced he gave the order for a new microjump. He rejoined his fighters that pressed their engines to maximum to reach battle. Despite their best attempts to reach the pirate mothership, it and its escorts disappeared in the nebula. Korttal was silent during entire chase, not uttering a word. The rest of the crew was silent too, nobody daring to say a word in front of the Strike Leader.

[The JEVIL One]

Great story cant wait for the next chapter

[KiwiNZ]

Great read. Good to see the second part of the trilogy started. Douglas really has driven them into a pile of @%£€. I presume that was his intention, too. After all, he was not able to fight Erich and Otto but getting the clan destroyed would create room for him to step up. Well, that was the theory. I like the way you chose to dispose of him.

Looking forward to the next chapter!

[Warenwolf]

Great story cant wait for the next chapter

Hi, Jevil! Nice that you liked it

Great read. Good to see the second part of the trilogy started. Douglas really has driven them into a pile of @%£€. I presume that was his intention, too. After all, he was not able to fight Erich and Otto but getting the clan destroyed would create room for him to step up. Well, that was the theory. I like the way you chose to dispose of him.

Looking forward to the next chapter!

It was partially. I tried to picture him as one of those destructive personalities that bring chaos just for the case of chaos. I wanted to describe him as such from Erich's perspective (and since Erich has no idea what Douglas was up to, he has to guess).

More indepth explanation follows:
There was a sci fi series of the books written by Stephen R. Donaldson called "The Gap Cycle". One can debate his merits as writer but what I liked about him is that characters in his stories couldn't divine magicly the motivies of the other people (there are several scenes in the books where you as reader know what is behind actions of the people the main characters meets while the main characters don't and behave like that). For those that have read the books will see parallells between this story and the Gap series (bringing down the supposedly evil "Gods"). Not that my story has so much depth to it but in my defense I will say that one gets what one pays for (story is free and quality reflects this )...

[Captain Chris sTc]

Awsome, the next story. i can't wait for more.

[Fly_by]

It's been a long time since ive commented on this story but my opinion about it hasnt changed a bit. I love it! i decided to reread the whole story from page one... i started at 10 this morining and its now about half 12 to give you an idea of how long it took and i enjoyed every minute. i would love to see the first book in a PDF format as it would make it a lot easier to remember where i was before going to make my lunch. basicly love the story love the writing style please keep it up.

Fly_by

[Warenwolf]

I had plans for posting the first book in PDF format but didn't find any place suitable for hosting it. I could upload it to rapidshare or something like that though. I may do it in near future.


Now to something entirely else.
Some of my friends that read this story have suggested that I post any new chapters in one (this) thread. The arguments have been that it would be easier to find all chapters in one place. I am seeing that this is being done by several people here on the forum. I personally like my method of posting new chapters better (in my oppinion you can find easier older chapters by clicking on the links in the begining of every chapter and on the end of each chapter i have provided the link to the next chapter.) However if people would prefer me to post all my chapters in one thread I would do it.
There had been one suggestion here on the boards that I do it that way but because of certain reasons I did not take that suggestion seriously

So what do you people think about it? You would prefere old method or all chapters in one thread?

[KiwiNZ]

MAte, quality is good. You have a nice flow to the story and I enjoy that. I'd love to have more time at the moment and read the other stories but unfortunately have to limit myself to two. Will hopefully improve at some point again.

[Captain Chris sTc]

i prefer a thread per chapter since it's easier to find specific chapters and to see if a new one has been posted.

[Warenwolf]

Ok, few people (so far only one) bothered to answer my question whether to post new chapters in new threads or in this one, and the time for posting the new chapter is almost here, I have decided to post chapters as I have done before (new chapter - new thread). That said, if anyone has strong objections or other suggestions, you can send me a PM.



I have been asked to gather together entire first book in a PDF file. Soon I will post entire first book on this webpage - http://www.xtended-docklands.thexuniverse.com/
Once there, you have option to save the story in PDF format to your HDD. Already the "War Dog" is posted there and can be downloaded in PDF format for those that (like I do) prefer to read stories in Adobe Reader.

[Gvork]

Sorry Warenwolf I missed the question.
To be honest, some of the others are writing a lot of chapters very quickly and having each new chapter as a new post cluttered the forum. If you are only adding one a week or so then a new post is fine.
Love the story.

[KiwiNZ]

LOL I missed it, too. Definitely best to keep it as you had it in the past, new chapter - new thread. That way one knows where to continue, even if one missed two or three postings. Otherwise it'd be very tiresome to read through one long post to pick up the thread.

[collins50]

Please continue, definitely best to keep it as you had it in the past, new chapter - new thread. That way one knows where to continue, even if one missed two or three postings. I enjoy reading yours and other posts,
Can’t wait for the next chapter, Thank you for sharing them with us

[KiwiNZ]

Oi this is plagiarism.

[Warenwolf]

Oi this is plagiarism.

You lost me there...


Anyways people there will take some time before I post another chapter. Ch 2 is done (in fact I have even written few passages of ch3) but it needs polishing. Right now I am attempting to force Cadance and Matlab (two programs) to bow to my will. Regardless of my attempts they refuse. Grrr...

[KiwiNZ]

Oi this is plagiarism.

You lost me there...


Anyways people there will take some time before I post another chapter. Ch 2 is done (in fact I have even written few passages of ch3) but it needs polishing. Right now I am attempting to force Cadance and Matlab (two programs) to bow to my will. Regardless of my attempts they refuse. Grrr...

Didn't mean you. Collins copied most of my post.