Challenge #01550-D089: Inspired Desperation
This is dumb, like dosing Tasmanian Devils with meth and then stuffing them down your pants dumb. -- RecklessPrudence
"So let me get this straight," said B'tiz. Who clearly thought that ze was in error. "You are building a catapult to literally throw yourself at the enemy ship, where you will somehow infiltrate and then suborn one of their vessels, rescue me, and leave them stranded on this micro-planet."
"Trebuchet, but yes. That's the gist of it. Trebuchet's are easier to make. Well. Slightly easier to make. I had to fudge on the weights with springs because the gravity here is almost negligible. Almost has a lot of problems." Starting with the fact that this little planetoid's weak gravity made it physically possible to shoot oneself in the back of the head[1]. "Deathworlder, remember? I can survive the G-forces involved. You can't."
"But... this is madness..."
"Yup!" Patterson cheerfully agreed. "This is beyond dumb. Like... giving Tasmanian Devils methamphetamine and stuffing them down your pants dumb. This is 'what were you expecting' dumb..." She stopped talking so she could check everything on her contraption twice more. "But it's the best option we have."
"What if you miss?"
"This suit does have thrusters, babe. I can course correct, but only once I'm out of this gravity well. Which is just strong enough to be homicidally annoying." Patterson set her gaze on the orbiting enemy. "Just like these other folks."
Another horrifying thought came to B'tiz. "What if you hit?"
Patterson grinned. "I'll try to grab on before I bounce. I'm good. I've been surfing the year. I'm pretty good."
Surfing the year, B'tiz remembered, was a slang term for the nearly suicidal practice of flying the gravity wells in the Impossible Nebula for a full orbit around the Nebula's star. Along with, "fly the year," and, "the self-immolation special." It was horrifying to think of hir human being involved in that literally breakneck 'sport'... but then Patterson was human.
If they couldn't find excitement, they made their own.
"Okay, so here's the plan. I curl up in the basket, and you pull the lever when I tell you. I'll do all the rest."
"It's facing the wrong way," objected B'tiz. "You will miss."
"One, missing is better than a direct hit. Two, trebuchets always look like they're facing the wrong way. It's how they are. And three, I'm livecording this so I can earn a few Years off of the Infonets. One way or another."
The look in Patterson's eyes made B'tiz enable hir livecording also. "As you will. I regret that this is our only option."
"I don't," said Patterson. "Win or lose, I'm making history." She actually cackled as she tucked herself into the basket. "Fire in the hole, babe!"
B'tiz pulled the lever. The larger fulcrum of the trebuchet spun about with a faint 'whuk' and the balled-up Patterson sailed off into the darkness of the sky. The enemy ships dipped and swerved. And one of them bucked like the mechanical bull in Patterson's favourite bar. Then, a few minutes later, it shot at the other three, crippling all of them with deadly accuracy.
The ship descended, and Patterson literally threw the two crew onto the surface of the micro-planet. "There's a shelter half a klik that way, fellas," she pointed the way. "There's clean air and roughly three days' food if you like starvation rations. We'll make sure someone comes along a bit before then, though."
B'tiz took hir cue and clambered in. "You will not leave them to die like they left us to die?"
"Call it public relations," said Patterson, closing the canopy. "Mercy means that there's less people to hold a grudge, later on."
It was not very far to the nearest station. Help would arrive sooner than three standard days. And then the law would be very interested to hear what these cogniscents had to say about their efforts at piracy.
[1]: Just one among the very many reasons why projectile weapons are banned in space.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / helenfield]
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