Into the Black

While I rode the tram over to the docks, I took a look at the information nets, now that I was out from under the watchful eye of the military. I needed information in a bad way.

First, I checked the status of my ship. The Harlot’s Ruse was apparently a MT-234 series light freighter. Normal crew of 2 to 6, though it could be run by just a pilot if necessary. The MT-234 was known for being fast, and had a few places that could be converted for smuggling purposes. While the armor wasn’t bad, it wasn’t a military ship, to be sure. If something got through the shields, damage could rack up fast. But other than starfighters, there wasn’t much that could catch a MT-234 if it was in peak form.

Second, I saw that the existence of players had been leaked to the NPCs. We were being called Nomads in the Empire, and the fact that we came back after death, and would sometimes disappear for hours or days when we ‘logged out’ was already known. That would make some things easier. Telling people I was a Nomad would eliminate questions on why I didn’t know certain things, for instance.

Third, I saw a job board, where ship’s captains could arrange for cargo and passengers that were headed along their planned routes. You could also look for crew there, if you wanted. From the patchy records I had, the only current crew of the Ruse was the ship’s AI. I’d need to get a couple more if I wanted to be really effective.

On the other hand, the ship was, apparently, ready to fly and had all the maintenance done, which is why Kickass was in the bar. He’d come to celebrate putting the finishing touches on a ship he’d won in what sounded like an interesting story about him shooting the former owner repeatedly. Since the other person had shot first, it was ruled self-defense. Well, in that case he could hardly complain if I robbed him blind a bit later, right?

Hmm. Better change the ship’s name while I had the chance. After paying a 100 credit fee, the Harlot’s Ruse became the Starlight Raven. Much better name for a ship.

While trolling the job boards, I came across something interesting.

Cargo Haul to the Choson Ring

Trader Mavis requires a package delivered to the White Hand Company on the Choson Ring in Jupiter orbit. Package is a set of five stasis tubes containing live cargo.

Difficulty

D

Task

Deliver all 5 stasis pods, still sealed, to the White Hand Company.

Payment

300000 Credits (100000 Credit bonus if delivered within 24 hours)

A bit of checking said that the White Hand Company was rumored to be a front for the local syndicate. And the Choson Ring had a thriving slave market. So probably shipping slaves to the market? But slavery was legal in the Empire. So this probably meant taking some high value slaves someplace they could be moved quietly. Not exactly the kind of thing I wanted to cut my teeth on, but what the hell? 400K would go a long way towards getting me some crew, and upgrading my ship and gear.

I was still considering my options when we got to the docks. Thankfully, Lord Kickass had chosen the shady part of the port to park his ship in, meaning that there weren’t any ID scans to get inside, so long as you had business there. Me owning one of the ships (and having a spare hundred credits lying around) was enough for the guard. Still, I needed some actual ID, at least until my forging skills got up to scratch.

Fortunately, spacers often ‘lose’ their ID, and have to get new ones issued. Especially in seedy ports like this one. This is my shocked face. Really. At any rate, I was able to get IDs for five different personas, at 1000 credits each. A new ID was supposed to cost 200 credits, but a little grease gets the wheels moving, y’know.

Finally, I was able to get to my new ship. She was… not as impressive as I thought she’d be. But then, I built her up in my head. The ship was painted completely black, and I saw turrets on the top and bottom of the hull, sporting some nasty-looking quad-barreled blasters. The black paint scheme told me that whoever the original owner was, they clearly intended this baby to be used for quasi-legal or straight illegal cargo runs. If they kept power emissions low enough, and kept from using gravitic engines, then the detection range for this baby was officially ‘damn short range’.

When I came to the berth for the Raven, a female voice came to me through my bracer. “Halt! Entry is not permitted at this time without permission of the Captain.”

Looking at my bracer, I smiled. “Are you the ship’s AI? I’m afraid the ship has had a change of owners. If you’ll connect to the public datanet, you’ll be able to confirm this.”

There was a pause, and then the voice returned, somewhat sullen sounding, “Yes, it seems that idiot sold me, when I had just gotten fixed up and ready to travel again! So, you’re this ‘Captain Mollen’, then? At least you’ve got a better name for me than ‘Harlot’s Ruse’. Ugh, that was the worst! The other ships’ AIs were always laughing at me for that one!”

I smiled, and said, “Well, I’m glad you like your new name. If you don’t mind, I’ll be calling you Raven from now on. Can you open the cargo ramp so I can get a look around?”

“Oh, certainly, Captain!” The cargo ramp lowered, and I walked up into the ship, looking around. “All right, Raven, can you give me a status report on the ship’s stores? How are we on food supplies, spare parts, and the like?”

“We have ration packs to last for two Terran Months at full crew, so if you intend to crew the ship by yourself for the time being, you will not need to worry about starving, though I am told that the taste leaves something to be desired.” I chuckled at that. No matter where you go, ration packs are going to taste like crap. It is one of those universal constants.

“As far as spare parts, we have duplicates of a couple key components, and a Class III fabricator unit on board, but I am running low on feed stock, having used 87% of the previous supply for repairs and upgrades to the ‘Captain’s Pad’.”

“All right, first off, ‘Captain’s Pad’ will be reclassified as Captain’s quarters, same as everything. Second, give me the information for a reputable supplier so we can get some decent food, and a supply of feedstock. I don’t care for the idea of something breaking in the black and not being able to fix it.”

I heard what could almost be considered a sigh of relief at that. “Yes sir! The information has been sent to your bracer.”

I nodded as I began poking about the ship. It was a simple design, really, as one might expect from a freighter, but at least the ship had style to it. From above, it looked almost like a spear, with a point at the bow, widening out as it approached the stern. Now that I was looking at the specifics of this ship, I saw she was fast, faster even than the ‘unofficial’ factory specs. Seems one of the previous owners put military grade engines in this baby, along with military grade sensors and shields. Sure, they were two to three generations out of date by this point, but still better than anything civilians would be allowed to have.

The Raven had the top and bottom turrets, like I saw, but that wasn’t all. She also had forward-facing particle cannons, and both fore- and aft-facing missile launchers. Combined with the shields, sensors, and stealth ability, the Raven could fly fast, hit hard when she needed to, and get out of dodge in a hurry. Plus, she had good cargo capacity for something this size, mainly by cutting down on non-essentials.

That was the big problem with her. She was real short on entertainment. There was a practice range set up in the cargo bay, but that could get blocked if we had enough cargo loaded, and there was a ship’s canteen and rec area, which had a few viewscreens and a game console, but other than that, you were limited to whatever entertainment you could do in your quarters. There were eight cabins, including mine. Captain’s bunk and five crew quarters, and two passenger quarters. Could fit more on the ship, but it’d be tight.

All this time, I’d been chatting with Raven, getting a feel for her, and letting her get to know me, as we went about ordering supplies (cost me another 10K credits), paying the docking fees (another thousand), and getting jobs lined up, including that one I noticed earlier. They were mostly cargo hauls, but would net me a good amount of credits (nothing like the five stasis pods, but still worth the cost of fuel for an in-system flight).

As we were about to lock up the ship to depart, a woman came running into the docking bay, looking like the hells themselves were chasing her. When she noticed the ramp of my ship was still down, she started tearing off in my direction. She got about halfway before troopers in Imperial military uniforms burst through the door, and started leveling weapons at the woman’s back. “Raven, can you remote target the keel turret?”

“It is within possibility; however, it is illegal for an AI to operate starship weapons while in the gravity well of any inhabited planet or moon while in Imperial space.”

“Noted, and I don’t care. If you see those troopers setting up anything heavier than those rifles, take them out. We’re not going to be sticking around to answer questions.”

“Understood, sir!” She sounded quite happy to shoot things. I was going to have to ask on the general treatment of AIs in the Empire, it seemed.

While I was talking with my AI, I pulled the SMG out of my storage space, and sprayed a few shots over the woman’s head. Didn’t hit a damn thing, since my skill was low, but I wasn’t trying to kill them. Training is training, and pretty much any military is going to teach troopers to evaluate the situation when gunfire starts coming their way. As I hoped, the troopers (looked to be six or eight of them) ducked behind cover. It only lasted until they saw it was spray and pray, but that was all the woman needed to dive onto my ship, and inside its shields.

I sent a final burst from the SMG down the ramp, yelling, “Button us up and get us out of here, Raven!” I helped the woman up from where she’d dived to the deck, and began rushing towards the cockpit. “We’ll do introductions later. Right now, I need to make sure we get out of here in one piece.” As we passed through the rec area, I said, “Strap in, and don’t touch anything.”

Yes, I was rude. But by the time I’d gotten to the cockpit, we’d only just passed the airshield, despite traffic control’s rather lame protests (we WERE at the sleazy docks, after all), but there were warnings coming up, telling me that we had inbound fighters. And I hadn’t actually flown a ship before, not since a brief spell during the Beta.

I was cursing as I strapped in, and hit the throttle to full. The Raven shot off like a bat out of hell, which was very nice. Especially since it spoiled the locks the fighters had on us. But we had enough of a lead that I could do something really stupid. I pointed us in the general direction of Jupiter, powered up the hyperdrive, and shot us off. It was a quick, five second trip, but hellaciously dangerous since I hadn’t done any calculations beyond getting a simple distance reading to destination. Not to mention that microjumps like this could kill your hyperdrive (gravitic waveform drive if you wanted to be sciency about it).

Still, it worked, and we hadn’t gone crashing headlong into Jupiter, or its moons, or any of the other crap out there! I immediately had Raven take us into stealth mode, and begin sending us towards Choson Ring. It wasn’t until I’d taken a couple breaths that I looked at the messages I’d gotten.

Automatics increased to 3/100.

+2 DEX

Small Ship Pilot increased to 5/100.

+2 DEX, +2 WIS

Due to character actions, you gain:

+2 INT

+2 CHA

+4 Luck

You have killed an Imperial Soldier.

+250 XP

Your actions in blasting out of Luna Red Spaceport and completing a suicidal unplanned hyperjump have gained you fame!

+200 Fame

I chuckled at the fame bonus. And it seems I got a lucky shot in on one of the soldiers in that last burst. Leaning back in the pilot’s chair for a moment, I sighed, and then got up. Time to go find out what fresh new pile of shit I’d thrown myself into. Because if we were going to be taking on moon-sized battle stations, I wanted to know about it ahead of time.