One Roll of the Dice.....Chapter 2

[Witchking]

Chapter One

Chapter Three

Chapter Two



The asteroid was old, and battered, a target for countless rocks and assorted space debris for aeons. Whatever had made this crater had punched into a fracture that seemed to lead right to the core and luckily was large enough for Event Horizon to fly into. He didn’t dare using his landing lights for fear of attracting attention, so he relied on the red and green nav beacons and instruments to fly through the twisting tunnel.

After a few mizura’s the tunnel seemed to widen into a cavern of sorts, and he slowly swung the ship around and shut down his engines. The damage assessment wasn’t as bad as he’d feared, ok so his strafe drive, and ecliptic projector were fried but he could live without them, it was the 14% damage to his hull that concerned him more. At 135.9 m/s the Falcon was never a fast ship, despite what the dealer in Seizewell said. With the hull damage, he’d be lucky to get 105 m/s out of it and with the afterburner maybe 290. On top of that he was low on E-Cells and the repairs to his ship were going to cripple his finances. There was nothing else for it, his plan to buy a jumpdrive in CBSW would have to go on hold. With those bastards looking for him and the increased Khaak activity in the sector recently, it was simply too dangerous to continue. His only option was to make a run for the north gate and once he got to Home of Light, he could hopefully crawl safely back to Argon Prime for repairs.

Then an idea struck him, maybe he should drop in on Chris on the way, he would help out, maybe throw some work his way. Nothing big or risky, just a couple of local runs would go a long way to getting Event Horizon fixed and leave enough to maybe buy some stock. Like Geiger, Christoph Behringer was a vet. They’d served together with the Wolves, aka 15th Strike Squadron serving off of the Argon Carrier Aggamemmnon. They’d been through some times together, with Chris on his wing, they’d fought they’re way through Omicron Lyrae, Black Hole Sun and right into 472, before faceless decision makers who never got they’re hands dirty managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and ordered the retreat which shamed the memory of those who’d sacrificed so much.

While the Xenon, replaced their losses and recalculated their strategy, the Argon Navy, in their wisdom, de-commissioned the Squadron, and left it’s heroes to readjust and somehow fit into a society they had little or no knowledge of. A few drank themselves to death, couple more swallowed their laser pistols, Geiger used his muster pay to buy a beat-up disco and started trading and Chris, well Chris became the proud owner of “Louies”, a run down watering-hole, on the docking level of TerraCorp HQ in Home of Light. Now the DL was not the kind of place the bright lights of headquarters society hung out and even if they did, they certainly wouldn’t hang out in Louie’s. No, Louie’s clientele were of a more transient nature, Ore haulers docked for a few hours r& r, bounty hunters looking for a mark or in to check the BBS for work, assassins, drug dealers, pimps and whores. By and by they all showed up at Louies, where they could get a drink, information and almost anything they wanted without any questions being asked.

Chris worked the bar of his little empire, offering an ear to anyone who needed one and advice to anyone who asked. Geiger smiled, it would be good to hook up with Chris again, it had been too long, there was a lot of catching up to do. He struggled into his suit before opening the hold and went EV to manhandle the weed containers into a corner of the cavern, he wasn’t going to risk bringing then to AP. They’d be safe here and he’d come back for them when the repairs were done. Once he was back onboard, he began the checklist, preparing Event Horizon for departure…………

………………Outside, the Mandelay cruised slowly around the asteroid and spotted the debris field. Alert to the possibility of an ambush, he visually checked all around for anything suspicious before targeting the whiskey containers and opening his cargo-bay doors to bring them aboard, he then commed his partner to report that Geiger was now a smear on the side of a rock. The pilot of the Bayamon responded,
“Hey Uri, you sure it’s him? What about my weed, did any of it survive”
“No, Tselmo, nothing but a crater and some debris, he must have hit pretty hard, probably a jammed thruster”
The Bayamon pilot cursed fluently in 3 different languages, “Ok, lets go, a Merc’s just jumped in through the North gate, maybe this tazura won’t be a complete loss after all”
“ Affirmative, I’m just goi………..”
“Repeat your last message, I didn’t get the last part”

There was no response, just static, “Damn asteroids”, so much ore and minerals, played havoc with comms systems at this range. He swung the Bayamon around and headed into the nebula. He flew with great caution, he would be right on top of Uri’s Mandelay before he saw him. As the darkness swallowed his ship, he shivered involuntarily. The outside seemed to close in around him. As he rounded an asteroid he shut down his thrusters and tried to make sense of his scanner readings but the interference was too strong to be able to make anything out.

Something bumped gently against the outside of his cockpit. He looked up and saw his partner Uri, rotating slowly a few meters in front of him, still strapped into his seat, a cloud of blood droplets orbiting around where his head used to be. Instinctively, he reached for the thruster control but the angry buzzing and purple glow of a dozen Kyon emitters erupted around him and before he could open his mouth to scream his ship imploded.

[Sagan]

Great stuff Witchy

You have a nice style of writing... easy to read

[ched]

great stuff

[FourFingers]

good read!