My Vacation On the Exotic Shores of a Black Hole - Part 17

_{This is a continuation of my story series "My Vacation On the Exotic Shores of a Black Hole".}

_{To read the previous installments of this series, you can click below.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10,
Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16}

"Captain, they're hailing us."

"How many minutes until we get into weapons range?"

"We could fire at any moment, captain, but we won't reach maximum effectiveness for at least 17 minutes. Their weapons will be fully effective at least 3 minutes before that though."

"Alright, open the hail."

"Captain John Harington. I see you've made some slight modifications. We'll be taking those. Along with the guns in your cargo hold."

"Guns? I'm not carrying any guns. I would never illegally ship guns through alliance territory. Knowingly anyway."

"Whether you knew about them or not is immaterial. Clearly, you know about them now, or you wouldn't have installed those cannons on your hull."

"These pea shooters? Ahh, they're just for taking out asteroids that get a little too close. You know, big hunks of rock, throwing their weight around, thinking they own the universe. They're liable to get blown apart if they get to close."

"I'm not messing around, Harington. Give up your cargo, and let up take those cannons, and we won't have to destroy your ship."

"Just how did you know my name? And what gave you the idea that I was shipping cargo that I didn't even know I was? Was it the shipper? Trying to get out of paying the fees? Maybe he got a little antsy for his cargo. Cargo he clearly did not even declare the true value of. See, I don't even carry cargo that expensive. Because loud mouth piece of shit pirates end up targetting my vessel when I carry tempting cargo. Lucky for me I got these here pea shooters now."

"You're getting a little too big for your britches Harington. Those cannons might be a bit bigger than you're used to, but we'll take you out long before you're even in effective range."

"Might be. Might be. But I ain't handing over my cargo for no one. I take my private shipping oath seriously, and I ain't handing over my cargo just because some pirate thinks he's got a big dick and can push small cargo pilots around. I also got a class 5 AI that'll make me a little bit of a harder target to hit." I could hear crew members in the background whispering about Julia being a class 5. "She might be a little bit crazy, due to a few aftermarket upgrades I installed, but that just makes her all the more lovable...and unpredictable." My smile faded, and my voice became stern. I could hear them still whispering about Julia, wondering what aftermarket upgrades I had installed. "Now you listen here. You're gonna go on your merry little way, and you're going to leave me alone, or I'm gonna use these here new cannons I got to rip every tooth out of that ugly upgraded garbage scowl of yours."

The whispering behind the captain of the other ship continued. His expression had turned quite ornery when I had called his ship a garbage scowl. Though it was true that that model was pretty well liked by waste traffickers of all types, on account of its large cargo hold and many weapons mounts. Waste was a valuable commodity in space, albeit one that wasn't very highly praised.

"Shutup!" He yelled to his crew out of view of the visual sensor. "I'm going to give you one more chance to give up. You no doubt have already noticed my backup heading your way. Make it a little bit easier on yourself. Give up and turn over your cargo."

"Julia, what's your best estimate of whether we're going to win in this fight?"

"99.5% chance, captain."

"Jesus. That's even better than I could have thought. You're going to be dead and gone long before your backup arrives. And I think it will give your little friends a moment of pause to reflect on whether or not they should try to take me on." The pirate captain muttered some incomprehensible curse word and ended the transmission.

"Of course, we will be heavily damaged, and are likely to be destroyed afterwards by his cohorts."

"Thank you Julia, for leaving that part out when the transmission was still broadcasting."

"You're welcome, captain. Do you suppose you should have been quite so aggressive? You seemed to have angered him."

"Hopefully I angered him just enough. He's going to be gunning for us. People don't think too clearly when they're angry. Now do you suppose you can keep us alive just long enough to get in weapons range, and take out his cannons?"

"I'll do my best, captain."

"They should be on us any moment. Get ready to fire the aft cannons!"

"Why didn't they fire the aft cannons before? Okay, Julia. This is enough. Turn it off. You might have tried a bit too hard to make it like an old bad sci-fi. Parts of it were funny, but it just has plot holes and problems all over the place."

"Shall I put on something else, Captain?"

"For now? Metal with a symphonic orchestra." The music began to play, and I could feel my heart beating. "Lets do this shit." I could feel my arms aching to grab the controls. But this old boat wasn't like that. I couldn't fly her like a fighter.

Soon enough I could see the firing of the lasers from the enemy ship. Despite the loud noise of the music, the silence as the lasers flashed was deafening. It's not like in the movies. Space in real life is a silent affair. The only noise you have is the sound of your ship's systems. They often aren't exactly silent, but lasers and explosions in the distance often are. That silence is often foreboding. And now I remembered why I had Julia put on the movie.

"Julia. Gimme some sound effects for those lasers." Instantly I could hear the pew pew as the lasers shot at us. I couldn't help but laugh. "Less 8-bit video game, and more full scale sci-fi production, but still old school." The sound of the laser effects somehow was relieving. And then one hit us. The hull of the ship creaked and the ship shook. "Well that one made some noise. We in range to fire on them yet?" In less than a second I got my answer, as the fore cannon on the garbage scowl exploded.

"Yes, captain."

"I didn't think you'd actually say yes. I thought you said it would be a few minutes after we were in range."

"I said we wouldn't reach maximum effectiveness range until 3 minutes after they do. That was not maximum effectiveness. The weapon unfortunately was only damaged, rather than disentigrated."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Well, that's good enough. Anything else we can take out?"

"I can take out their communications array."

"Nah, then we couldn't hear them if they decide to surrender."

"I will be able to take out their primary sensor cluster in 5...4...3...2..."

"Do it."

I could see a latticework pattern of light projected onto one side of the enemy ship before a few pieces blew off, and what looked like smoke billowed out. "Begin transmitting. I just took out your main sensor cluster. You're shooting blind. You have no chance. Surrender now, and pull away. You don't have to die today." A laser hit directly off the starboard bow, shaking the ship a bit, and causing the hull to creak. "I'll take that as your refusal. End transmission." I didn't really want to destroy them, even if they preyed on ships to make their living, I wasn't sure that they deserved to die. "Julia, what's the fastest way to disable their weapons?"

I was answered with a flashing light from the cannons, then two main cannons on the bow of the ship exploding violently. Julia played a sound effect over the speakers at the same time that shook my seat. The awesome power of these new cannons was not lost on me. "I can continue to destroy their cannons, but I have identified the main electrical conduits for their weapons systems. However, it's destruction is likely to also take out their life support, and I am unsure if they will be able to fix it before they would reach internal heat levels greater than they can survive."

"Would they be able to reach a colony in time to land?"

"Yes, captain."

"Do it." Patterns of blue light projected across the pirate ship's hull, and I saw pieces blow off at various points, as sound effects played over my speakers. "Begin transmit. If I'm not mistaken, my ship just took out all of your weapons systems, and perhaps your life support as well. If I were you, I would make my way to the nearest colony, and the awaiting arms of the local law enforcement. You're beaten. Withdraw. End transmit." The pirate ship began firing it's maneuvering thrusters to turn back towards to moon as we began to pass them. "Julia, what's our damage look like?"

"Far less than I projected, captain. We have some minor damage to the hull plating. However, the patch to our main sensor array seems to have failed. I have sent Scrappy out to repair the hull plating, as well as check to see if the sensor array can be patched again. It's unlikely that he will be able to repair it. As a result, our accuracy and detection of systems will be hampered. Our chances of even surviving an attack from the other ships has lowered to 74%."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Not likely captain. We simply do not have the parts necessary to repair the main sensor module, and any patch Scrappy will do will likely only restore a portion of our sensor capabilities. The backup sensor module is providing us enough data to do basic targeting and navigation, but we should avoid a full frontal assault if at all possible."

"What about help?"

"I've relayed a distress call through the colony network, but it's unlikely that anyone will be sent out in time, if at all."

"Alright, stay the course. Slingshot us around the moon, and towards that planet. With any luck, maybe they won't do too much damage before we get into range of the space station's defensive cannons."

_{Image by TheDigitalArtist CC0 (source)}

_{I'm gonna leave it there. We got a minor firefight, so I think that's enough action for today. Stay tuned for what's gonna happen next chapter/episode.}

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