Vengeance - Part 1

It's fan fiction Friday! Not your thing? Try reading this great idea from Rixx Javix.

-o0o-

"No, I don't have that sort of ISK. Please not my family! Let them go! I'll get the money somehow!"
"Capsule shields down! Armour plating failing. Structural damage detected......"
"NO! NO! NO!"
Two women, screaming in terror together. Then silence.
"Capsule breached detected, activating neural scanner....."

As the gravaton smartbomb went off blinding his vision, the capsuleer woke in a cold-sweat. Terror was etched across his face as he sat up quickly taking in his surroundings. He was in bed, safely in his quarters on the station, it was that nightmare, again.

The soft-skinned Minmatar woman stirred slightly next to him in her sleep. He eased carefully out of the bunk trying not to wake her and went to the sink.

He activated the tap with a wave of his hand and held his shaking hands under the water. He splashed the cold water on his face and walked over to the table. He sat down on the sofa and picked up his datapad keying in a sequence of codes. The hologram of the Harpy class Assault Frigate that was being projected melted away and was replaced with a floating human head.

"Hello sir. How are you?"

"I had another nightmare."

"About that day?" the AI construct asked.

"Yes."

"It has been eighteen months. One would have expected some reduction in the frequency of occurrences. However, whilst our medical technology is advanced, there are still areas of the human brain we cannot fully explain. Have you reconsidered the procedure?"

"What? Pause my consciousness mid-clone jump and simply remove that day from my memories? No!"

"Sir. Your behaviour since that day is showing classic signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and an unhealthy fascination with the perpetrators. I can detect elevated aggression in your voice each time you have one of the nightmares and my scanners also detect a female in your bed. Her biometric readings indicate she is a different woman from the one from last night?"

"Oh fantastic! I have a holographic AI therapist-construct preaching morality to me? Did the Amarr write you? Will you quote some scripture for me next? Thou shall not pick up exotic dancers on-board space stations? Is that in the book?"

"Sir, it is another sign that you are performing actions out of character following the incident. Some signs are more obvious than others, may I point out the switch from mining barge training to combat vessel and weaponry training. Also having a different woman in your bed every night indicates that....."

"They help me forget.... for a while." he said sadly.

"Sir, I can strongly recommend that......"

The capsuleer deactivated the counselling program with the push of a button. The head melted away and was replaced by the holographic projection of the Harpy. The capsuleer stood up and surveyed his quarters. The woman was still in his bed sleeping. He decided to leave Trinny there, or was it Chantel? He couldn't even remember her name.

He turned to the ship gantry and grabbed his waiting bag and walked out onto the gantry naked. He placed the bag in the small hold of the capsule, keyed in the activation codes and stood with his back to the open capsule. He heard the mechanics start up and sensed their approach. Long snake-like arms reached out, slowly approaching him. Connections were made to the sockets up his spinal column, finally the deep connection at the base of his neck was made and his world went black just as he felt his feet lift from the deck.

Suddenly there was light. He was seeing via his camera drones as the pod moved over to the Assault Frigate and docked deep in its belly. In the blink of an eye the capsuleer became at one with the ship. He sensed every part of her, it was as if the ship was an extension of his own body. Undocking requests were processed and within a minute the small combat vessel was in space.

He aligned the ship to the stargate and activated the warp drive. The station disappeared behind him as the vessel was propelled at the speed of light towards the distant target stargate.

Less than a minute later a different stargate, light years away in a distant solar system suddenly came alive. A brilliant flash of light illuminated the immense metallic construction and the Harpy appeared through an artificial wormhole. The capsuleer checked the local channel. It was empty of other capsuleers. He aligned the ship to one of the asteroid belts and activated the warp drive.

-o0o-

"Anyways, then I flipped her over. She says she doesn't do that so I says..... look babes, I'm a Guristas captain and....."

"Sir, we have an AF on close-range scan."

The captain of the Cormorant class destroyer stopped his story.

"Battle-stations."

The bridge crew, who had been listening to the Captain's story intently, quickly turned back to their consoles. The lighting on the bridge dimmed and turned red as the crew prepared for combat. The Guristas pirate faction was one of the more militaristic pirate factions and they expected their bridge officers to behave as such.

The Harpy dropped out of warp 30km from the destroyer. Warnings went off immediately as threat indicators showed the assault frigate was obtaining a target lock on the destroyer.

"Get us aligned. Call command for back up. That's a fracking egger!" the captain ordered.

The bridge went silent. An assault ship was usually no match for a destroyer whose sole purpose was to eliminate ships with frigate sized hulls like the Harpy. The seven light rail-guns could easily track and destroy a small vessel such as a frigate. But an assault ship piloted by a capsuleer was different. They didn't stand a chance.

"Any backup close?" asked the captain.

"No sir, we're on our own!"

"OK. I don't feel like dying today. Get us out of....."

A shrill alarm went off.

"Sir, he's got a scram on us"

"Shit that was fast! Fire! All guns fire! Try and make some range."

The battle was short. The neutron blasters of the Harpy tore the destroyer to pieces in three volleys. The captain ordered the ship abandoned after the first volley wiped out their shields and severely damaged the armour plating. Thanks to the early evacuation 80% of the crew had made it to the escape pods when the third and final volley struck. Anti-matter charges penetrated deep into the structure of the destroyer, annihilating the reactor and destroying the vessel from the inside out.

The assault frigate slowly manoeuvred into the wreckage field left by the exploding destroyer as one of the doomed destroyer's officers watched from an escape pod.

"What's he doing?" asked a female technician who was sat down with her back against the wall of the escape pod.

"I don't know. He's not looting and he's not salvaging. He's got some sort of strange turret emitting a beam going through the wreckage. It's like nothing I've ever seen. It looks like he's scanning for something. The beam is heading...."

The five people in the small escape pod were knocked of their feet as the escape pod lurked.

"He's pulling us in?" stated another officer. They couldn't believe it. Nobody had ever heard of a capsuleer looking to take survivors from a battle. In fact all capsuleer craft had their sensors set not to show non-capsuleer escape pods. After a battle the eggers just left any normal escape pods for the Sisters of Eve or the factions search and rescue teams to recover at some point. They never involved themselves.

-o0o-

Back on the station the capsuleer had showered and now was taking a hover platform over to the Harpy. He checked his side arm and watched the ship grow larger as he approached. He rarely set foot inside his ship unless it was inside his pod. However, he needed to do this in person, not as some holographic projection.

It took him 10 minutes to reach the cargo hold. When he got there the five survivors were kneeling on the deck with their hands tied behind their backs. Three armed guards stood watching.

The capsuleer eyed them carefully as he approached. Three men, two women of which one of each were officers. As per his instructions they had placed the captives in order of rank. The highest ranking officer was a tall skinny man with sharp features.

"Ah I assume you are the capsuleer who destroyed our vessel" said the senior officer looking up as the capsuleer approached.

"My name is......"

The capsuleer punched him square in the face. There was a sickening crunch as his nose broke and blood sprayed onto the grey deck plates. One of the women screamed, the capsuleer didn't know which one, he was concentrating on the senior officer. The force of the punch had knocked the officer onto his back. The capsuleer pulled him back to his knees and searched him. He pulled out a small datapad from the stunned officers jacket and cut the binders holding the man’s hands.

"OK, log onto your system. Tell me where I can find these people." he held out his own datapad which listed seven names, along with aliases.

"Are you insane?" The officer asked holding his nose as blood dripped from his face.

The capsuleer simply walked down the line and stood in front of the lowest ranked pirate. He drew his side arm and shot him in one fluid motion. His body slumped to the deck as the two women screamed together. He walked back the officer and held out the list of names again.

"OK, four more times left to ask you the same question. Don't think I won't. As far as I'm concerned all you damn pirates can burn in hell. Tell me where I can find these people."

"I don't have access to personnel files. I cannot just look up where they are stationed!" the officer protested.

The capsuleer walked down the line to the man kneeling next to his dead comrade. The women started to beg for him to stop. He drew his pistol for a second time and shot the man at point-blank range. He returned to the officer.

"I know you cannot access personnel files. But you can access the intel and confirmed kills sections of the Guristas servers. You can tell me roughly the area they are in currently."

"No….. I cannot...... I…….." the capsuleer turned and started walking back down the line "No. Stop" he paused "I don't have access to that area. Honest. Look I want to help....." the capsuleer continued down the line and stopped at the next crew member. The female technician who was sobbing uncontrollably. With no emotion he took his gun and shot her. He returned back to the head of the line.

"Two chances left. I hope you are not going to make me do this all over again. This ship doesn’t fire free ammo you know! It costs to kill your kind!" The male officer fumbled with his datapad. The female officer next to him had stopped screaming when he'd shot the other woman next to her. She was now just staring straight ahead in shock muttering "No!" repeatedly.

"Black Rise region! They are all somewhere in the Black Rise region."

The capsuleer took the datapad and confirmed the information. Several of the people he was interested in had been noted on recent kills.

"Thank you." he turned to the guards.

"Revive those three and ship them all out to the facility." the capsuleer said as he turned and left the cargo bay.

The senior Guristas officer took a moment to realise that his crew members were not dead, he'd had the blaster set on stun!