TSJ 1 - Lost in the Expanse

"Starting final breaking burn, 5g in 10 seconds"
"First dropship landing in 12 seconds, 11, 10, 9, 8 7, 6, 5, 4, 3..."
White, blinding white, all displays.
"First dropship destroyed! Shit! Second taking heavy fire."
"Position theta, provide cover for the second one."
"Detecting massive heat spike behind the station curve - destroyer-sized"
"Alice, fall back, full burn! Helldiver, Wildcat, curtain."
Vibrations, torpedoes launching. A wave of heat. Pain. Glimpse Right. Jim's dead. My arm.
"Jim and Exo dead, Sigi wounded."
"Sigi, can you get us out?"
Manage a grunt. Blackness creeping in. Cold. Pain. Must get us out of this.
Beeping.

Sigi awakened with a shock. He must have dozed off while reading as the book was still open on his display and the captain was still peacefully sleeping in his chair. What was different and also what shook him awake was a red blinking icon in the corner of Sigi's screen - a distress call.
"Hey, cap!" Sigi turned around to face the sleeping man, "a distress call"
"What call? From who?" asked still half sleeping captain, shaking his head, trying to pretend he wasn't sleeping, fooling nobody.
"Hatshepsut, Glacius inc., heavy freighter. Looks like pirates" answered the pilot.
"Are we the closest?" asked the captain and when he got affirmative nod he sighed, "well, miss Strauss, log the distress call so we get the bonus, then wake mister Shvec and the rest of the crew, everyone here at stations in 2 minutes. Mister Ragtarson, calculate the optimal course and make preparations for a hard burn."
"Aye, captain" was the answer from both.

Five minutes later, second pilot, X.O. and others were seated and Sigi sounded hard burn alarm. "Hard burn in 30 seconds, everyone please return to your couch or strap yourselves at the place you are right now. According to the charter of Beyond inc., we are responding to a possibly pirate-related distress call." said the pre-recorded voice of a probably long-dead woman and Sigi watched the countdown intently. When it reached 3, his seat adjusted to an almost prone position and at zero, he pushed the button that started the maneuver. A slightly dizzying flip of the ship, followed by a familiar feeling of a person standing on his chest. The 7g burn pushed the air out of his lungs as he was silently hoping that everyone was strapped in."

After 2 hours, the hard burn turned Marry towards the source of distress call and Sigi lowered it to more liveable, but still hasty 1.5g. Another announcement sounded from the ship's intercom and Sigi flipped through cameras to look for damage. This was not his job, but he was curious. Mostly everyone was in their beds, some people out in the galley. In one room a tall woman was laying on the ground, along with 2 men. Thugs. Looks like they tried to "collect extra insurance" from the passengers, operating on the presumption that a family, a businessman and a young woman would not be a problem. This was rather common practice on low-cost transport this far out in the dark. They didn't count on anyone resisting them, since generally no one did, much less resisting them quite successfully. Either way, the fight was interrupted by the flip and burn. Hopefully, the woman was fine. If the thugs were injured, that was on them. Sigi looked at the woman more closely. While relatively short for one, she was obviously an Outerling. Dark hair and the shape of her eyes hinted at Asian lineage, she was pretty.

Three more hours passed and Marry has lost most of its velocity, relative to the hulking ice-hauler. Teela, the comms officer, was repeatedly trying to hail the ship to no avail. This smelled too much of a trap, but Sigi didn't see any reason to attack a low-cost charter full of poor people so he didn't say anything. Sadly, he was right. Just as Marry passed the imaginary line at 5000 clicks from the hulk, multiple small ships emerged from its radar shadow and made a short, hard burn to intercept his space bus. Next to him, Zaine, the second pilot/gunner was preparing up Marry's point defense network to intercept any torpedoes. Luckily the pirates fired none. "CQB then, more fun for me", thought Sigi as a tingle of excitement ran down his spine - he was born for this. Marry vibrated as the point defense cannons opened up with the first salvo towards the closest ship. He saw immediately, that all ships opened fire. Also PDCs, no railguns - at least that was good. He twisted Marry to dodge most of the slugs and burn the rest in the drive plume, also allowing Zaine to fire all PDCs at the same time. He scored couple hits, but by that time a second salvo from the pirate ships was on its way and this time, he was much less lucky and Marry suffered some hits. Then his luck took a turn to even worse.

From the shadow of the large freighter emerged another ship. This one not from serial production. It was slightly U-shaped, with the drive at the bottom of the letter. The bad news we the two railguns attached to its sides. And lo and behold. Just as Zaine scored more hits at one of the closer ships, the U-shaped one fired both of its railguns in short succession. Sigi was able to dodge both the railgun slugs and most of the PDC rounds from other ships. Most, not enough. "Shit, PDC 4 is gone" came from Zaine. The thrusters around lost PDC were in not much better shape and Sigi was not able to dodge the next railgun slug from the weird ship. He felt it before his eyes registered the indicator. A slight push as the reactor dumped core and then dead stillness. Sigi muttered few curses and made the ship rotate around its long axis, at least making it a little less easy for the pirates to board her. Otherwise, they were dead in the water - as the old saying goes - and there was no point trying to fight anymore.

A message lit up his display "go, get your stuff, get the girl in 5A and get her out." It was from Karl Schvec, the Ex.o. Sigi glanced at the old man and was met with an intense stare. "I'll go check the reactor," he said in general direction of the captain and went without waiting for an answer. Crew quarters were just 2 decks below his pilot seat and the 5A at the deck just below that. The real trouble came after that - four decks to airlocks or 6 to the shuttles. Decisions would have to be made but first things first. Sigi shoved the tablet to his bag, strapped on the gun and knife holsters and took off again. Quickly, he descended another deck and barged into the 5A. There was a charismatic, yet shady looking guy, a family of Asians and a young woman, who to his pleasant surprise, turned out to be the pretty Outerling who beat up the thugs earlier.

***

Shiro glared up at the bunk above her. The man occupying it was breathing steadily, probably sleeping. She looked to her right - the other two bunk-mates were talking quietly to each other with the woman cradling a small child. The girl looked weak and thin. Looks like they couldn't afford a new health monitor so they got "used one" from black market. At least she got one, she will recover. Shiro looked at the little girl - Aki, that was her name - for like a hundredth time during the journey and as every time, she felt a stab of pain just below her heart. At least some progress was made in the last century and the little girl can survive with a second-hand health monitor.

Hiss of the opening door pulled Shiro from her thoughts. Three men walked in and fanned out. One in the from started "My friends, we have come to collect the trip insurance from you." with a wide and friendly smile. Aki's father, who obviously was counting on such a thing happening shuffled for his phone. Shiro had enough money but didn't like the idea of giving it to some thugs. She stood up, but before she or Aki's father could say anything, the man on the bunk above hers jumped down and pulled down a small case - almost a suitcase, made from what looked like a pretty good imitation of real leather - and opened it with a broad, friendly ... no ... salesman ... smile, the man had sure seemed to have a lot of practice.
"My friends, surely you wouldn't want to take any more money from these unfortunate fellows when they can use every credit for their child. How about we settle this with some spices from my collection. Here take a look at the samples - I'm sure you will find something to your liking," he started with clear, self-confident and obviously practiced voice.
"We don't want any of your spices man, we came to collect the extra insurance," countered the man in the front, but the eyes of his companions said that they would very much like to settle this with some spices.
"My friends, I'm certain that you can make an exception for these young parents. Tell you what, how about I give you all my samples right now - you can even keep the case - and some more spices after we arrive." the salesman cheerfulness never leaving the man's voice.
"Looks like you are smuggling some illegal substances. We will have to confiscate them and give you over to the port authorities on arrival. AND we will collect the insurance." once again deflected the thug in the front.

That was enough for Shiro. She may not like the fact that the man was a drug dealer, but he was trying to protect the family with the little girl and resonated deeply with a part of her soul she didn't think existed anymore. She did an overstep around the dealer and twisted her hips to punch the thug with her whole weight. She hit him square in the base of the nose and he went limp. His companions didn't miss a beat and the one closer to Shiro threw a winded punch at her. She dodged past the man and gave him a jab in the lower ribs followed by another to the back of the neck and the second man went limp as well, slowly collapsing on the speaker of the trio. Unfortunately for Shiro, this move put the third thug out of her reach and she was about to discover that the dealer was not much help. She felt an impact and then jolt of electricity sent her tumbling to the ground next to the two unconscious thugs.

An alarm blared and the woman's voice said something about hard burn. She caught a glimpse of the dealer as he jumped over her to his bunk, kicking her lightly and the family scurrying to secure themselves in theirs. "So much for gratitude," Shiro thought, but she couldn't blame them. What happened to the last thug, she didn't know, probably ran off to his bunk. The ship shifted under her and in addition to spasming muscles, came the feeling of a person standing on her chest. Those were some pretty serious gs - she was lucky that the dealer kicked her, as it made her lay flat on her back. Shiro wondered whether he did it on purpose as there was not much else to do.

After what could have been a couple of hours, the acceleration lowered and Shiro was able to lift herself up and collapse in her bunk.
"You ok down there?", asked the dealer above her.
"I'll live, thanks for kicking me flat." she replied.
"Thanks for kicking their asses.", interjected Aki's father from the opposite bunk.
More hours passed in silence before Shiro felt the ship start to move erratically with occasional vibration coming through the hull. They were in battle. That was weird. Who would attack this kind of low-cost charter for the poor? Sure, there were even cheaper types, but even this one should not be worth the trouble. Not with Beyond's policy of arming all their ships. Could they be coming for her? For the hard drive in her bag? She had to get out, but how? She felt the ship jump for the last time and then end up in dead stillness - dumped core. Shiro got up as the ship started rotating around its long axis. Now the pilot is just being a jackass. She clicked her heel to turn on her boots and put feet on the deck. Shiro turned to the locker and as she opened it to retrieve her things, the door hissed and a broad, bearded man appeared in the frame. They locked their gaze for a moment and then he just said "You, come with me, quick.", nodding towards her. Shiro didn't hesitate, the man was obviously an employee of beyond and something in his posture screamed "soldier".
"Hey, I'm not staying!" came from the dealer and she heard another pair of mag-boots click and attach to the deck.
"I don't care, just keep up.", answered the bearded man - a Terran, if Shiro should guess.
The soldier spun on his heel and made for the ladder. She followed and heard the dealer following behind her. The soldier pushed himself down the ladder shaft head-first and they followed. At the airlock deck, he stopped, turned and landed on his feet. Shiro and the dealer joined him. Shiro noticed the ship docking with one of the airlocks, so she darted for the other one. Two men followed suit. Trio ducked as soon as the airlock closed behind them and pressed against its inner door. Soon enough, a man in armor suit looked inside and satisfied that there is no one inside, he turned around.

***

"Do either of you have a gun?" Sigi asked his airlock companions in whispering voice. When they both nodded, he couldn't help but chuckle. "Of course they do, remember where you are." he thought, but all he said was "Good, get them out, but don't shoot just yet." and reached for the knife on his belt. Glancing through the small window in the airlock inner door, he confirmed that one man stayed behind, while the others went up to the passenger compartment and down to the cargo compartment. He looked at the woman, then glanced at the airlock controls. She understood and put her hand on the manual opening lever for the inner door. They noded at each other and Sigi counted down from 3 on his fingers. When he closed his fist. the woman yanked the lever down and he sprang forward, grabbing the pirate by his shoulder, jabbing the long knife to man's neck all the way to the handle. Sigi gestured at the others to follow, silently offering the woman a fist bump, which she accepted.
"Hey, behind us!", hissed the man and both Sigi and the woman looked back to see another ship, closing in on the airlock.
"Take him with us!", Sigi ordered the man and to his surprise, he complied and shoved the dead pirate inside the opposite airlock with them.
The door closed behind them and they once again pressed against airlock's inner door. The trio waited for the pirates to go up and down the ladder and turned around to invade the first docked ship. Sigi glanced at the two Outerlings and nodded towards the ship. The woman nodded back, so he turned and started to go for the door. "Wait!" hissed the man, "let's first look." The man holstered his gun, pulled out his phone, opened a wall panel and was poking around the wiring for a bit. When he was finished, he showed Sigi a phone, which now showed the image from a camera on what he guessed was the ship's ops deck with a single man in the pilot's chair. "There is only this one." Sigi opened the door, turned off his boots and launched himself towards the ladder and then upwards. He heard two sounds of heels clicking and knew that his two companions did the same thing.

While flying, the Terran pilot once again checked his pistol and kicked his legs to rotate around his axis. As he flew through the last hatch to ops deck, he lifted the gun and shot the man there in the head twice, then lifted one arm to shed his momentum. His two companions joined him at the ops deck and clicked their heels to attach boots to the deck, looking at the dead pirate, then Sigi, each other and launching simultaneously towards the corpse. The woman unstrapped the man, while the dealer pulled him off the seat and together they showed him through the ladder hatch, shutting it behind him. While they did that, Sigi took place at the pilot seat and started the undock sequence. Outerlings finished their unspoken task and took the two remaining seats. The woman - to Sigi's mild surprise went straight to the after-market gunner seat beside him and the dealer strapped into the captain's seat. "So she knows her way around armed Falcons - piracy or SpaceX security? Interesting." thought the Terran to himself.
"Hey guys, thanks for help, my name is Sigmur - Sigi", he introduced himself.
"I'm Shiro", came woman's laconic response.
"You can call me merchant." the dealer added mysteriously.
"Cut the crap" replied the woman sharply.
"Fine! My name is Lonk Seldon, it is a true pleasure meeting you two." the dealer decided not to provoke her.
"Nice to meet you both, prepare to push-off".
The ship shuddered, as it undocked from Marry. Sigi didn't wait for anything and as soon as he could, flipped her aggressively to point her nose towards the freighters hulk and engaged the main drive. Sure enough, the remaining pirate ships noticed the unusual behavior of their tiny warship and demanded the explanation. Sigi listened to the line of bullshit Lonk was feeding them and was very surprised to hear that it actually worked - for a bit. Soon enough, the man in the comm was shouting and demanding to speak with someone - Sigi assumed the dead pilot.

"Two enemy ships firing PDCs", came Shiro's voice in his ear.
"Copy, evading," he replied and the ship responded to touch of his fingers on the control. She was very light and nimble, amazing change.
"I have firing solutions on the closer one," Shiro spoke after a couple of seconds as he saw it on his display.
"Engage," Sigi replied and flipped the ship to bring both PDCs to bear and felt the shudder as the little ship fired both its PDCs.
"Shit, only minor damage." hissed Shiro angrily "Hold on, one PDC down."
"Small victories, keep it up," Lonk inserted himself in the conversation, "railgun fire from the Bluebird."
"The what?" asked both Sigi and Shiro simultaneously, while the pilot turned the ship to evade.
"My ship, long story. More PDC fire from small ones." snapped Lonk in response.
"Evading"
"Firing on the closest one," Shiro said as the ship once again vibrated with a PDC fire.
"Approaching the freighter, prepare for hard burn," Sigi warned his companions, but was drowned out by Shiro's "SCORE!" and watched the closest ship disappear in the tiny sun.
"Firing solution on the Bluebird," she said in calmer voice and the ship shuddered again.
"Railgun disabled, nice" commented Lonk.
During the 5 seconds it took them to reach a calculated point of burn start, Shiro managed to cripple the last Falcon and massively damage Bluebird's other railgun.
"Hard burn now," Sigi said calmly before 10gs pushed all air from his lungs.
Their little warship plunged behind the hulking freighter and when they disappeared from scopes of their enemies, Sigi altered the course slightly to come out on the other side on an unpredictable vector. It was no use. Probably by sheer luck, the Bluebird's crew managed to score a direct hit with ships remaining railgun. Sigi felt the on his chest pressure release and he knew, even before checking the monitor, that they got hit in the drive cones. The display confirmed his suspicions, but it also showed something else - a tiny sun where the Bluebird used to be. He heard Lonk groan loudly and mutter multiple curse words. fortunately for them, that means there was only one ship able to pursue them and they managed to gain not negligible velocity, so they had a nice head start. Unfortunately, their drive was busted and the transponder was obediently pinging their location.

***

After scouring the crew's quarters along with Shiro, Lonk went up to the ops deck to monitor everything and look through the stuff he found, while Shiro decided to go help Sigi fix the drive. There was A LOT of Bibles. Sure it was normal that on a larger ship, there was always at least one believer, but to find eight Bibles on a ship for eight people, that was extremely weird. A series of loud beeps from the console pulled Lonk out of his thoughts. The transmission could not be targeted at them - Sigi made sure of that - or at least he assured them he did. He was right, it was broadcast, multiple broadcasts, emergency ones, all cut off and corrupted.
"Guys, there are multiple, five to be precise, emergency signals coming," he informed his little crew.
"Where from?" asked Sigi.
"That's the weird thing, they are all corrupted, incomplete, but sent at the same time," he clarified.
"What the fuck?" interjected the woman's voice - Shiro.
"I'll have the ship try to decode it," he informed them. And asked How are the repairs coming?"
"We're making good progress, I'd say hour tops," answered Sigi.

An hour later, Lonk watched Shiro glide through the hatch to ops deck, her shirt soaked with sweat, her flight suit zipped down and opened with sleeves in a knot on her stomach. Sigi followed close behind her, no less drenched. Lonk invited them over and since the ship managed to piece together some at least the coordinates of the broadcast source, he showed it to them and explained. "I did some preliminary calculations, we have food for 3 weeks, water for 8 if we don't shower -12 if we are willing to drink machine water- and air for two months if we sleep a lot. We should be able to get to the source of the transmission in about four weeks. Closest inhabited station is almost two weeks. Full two weeks to Clades, the original destinations. Assuming you fixed this bucket well enough to pull at least one g."
To which Sigi answered, "Yeah she should, let's hope, do we have any idea about the ships that sent the emergency call?"
"Some of it is Terran encryption, some Martian, rest can't really be identified," the dealer clarified.
"Military?" Shiro asked.
"Looks like it"
After some more discussion, the trio decided to check out the distress call, since with dead transponder they couldn't land on a station anyway, and there they could possibly find a ride to Clades.

For the next four days, each of them kept to themselves, taking turns keeping 8 hours shifts at the ops. On the fifth day, Lonk came to the galley for his dinner to find Shiro eating her breakfast cereals. He also found the cupboard that was supposed to hold the dinner packets were empty. "Hey, Shiro, can you help me bring the rest from the cargo?" he asked the sleepy woman. She didn't answer, only put up her index finger and then slowly pointed at her cereals. Lonk understood. Even after their short time together he also understood that she could, and would, kill him with the spoon, so he decided not to push his luck. He decided to sit across the table from Shiro and check the news. There was a bunch of clutter, as always. This and that corporation bought this and that corporation. This and that station was bombed by this and that faction of the OPA. The usual crap.

When Shiro finished her breakfast, the two went down to cargo to fetch more food. They each went three times and on his fourth arrival to the cargo bay, Lonk discovered something interesting he missed before. Six crates of rum, a reasonable quality rum. "Very nice," came a woman's voice from behind him, "we should bring one of these upstair as well." Lonk nodded and they did so. That day and every day since the three sat in the galley between shifts or at the ops deck during them and drank together and the rest of the journey passed more quickly.

***

She once again looked at the creepy image on display. They all stood around it in silence. 5 ships, each of a different kind, made by a different company - 2 yachts and 3 gunships. All drifting together in dead stillness, light from the distant Sol illuminating some of their surfaces, plunging the rest into even deeper shadow. Shiro knew, that the image was processed by the ship's computer and her naked eye would probably have difficulty even seeing the dead ships from 50 kilometers at which their little boat circled the cluster. They stood and gazed at the unlikely image for a long time. Something was horribly wrong here. The stillness was finally broken by Sigi. "Well, we do need to take a look, otherwise, we are dead."

Airlock connected and started cycling, but stopped abruptly returned to the standby mode. Shiro pressed the button again and the airlock started to oblige, but once again it stopped and returned to standby. "It has no power, let's open it manually." came Sigi's voice from the right. He didn't wait for an answer - just opened the cover, that concealed the manual override lever and pulled it. The airlock whined and shuddered, but in the end, it decided to comply with the wishes of the large Terran and opened to dead stillness on the other side. The darkness and silence of the ship mirrored eeriness of the whole cluster and as Shiro pulled out her pistol and took the lead, she felt a beginning of a chill at the back of her neck, right at the base of her skull.

Step by step, she progressed through the silent armory towards the ladder. When she reached it, she pointed her gun upwards and with a click of her heels pushed off the deck to pass through the hatch upstairs. As she slid silently up, the crew quarters came to view. She twisted her hips to make herself rotate to inspect all 4 cabins. One of the doors was open and through it, Shiro caught a glimpse of something floating just behind the door. Her gun flew up and pointed at the door. No movement. She glanced down at Sigi and signaled him to come up. He left Lonk down at the armory and joined her. Together, they closed in on the open door, him from the left, her from the right. Each one of them standing by one side of the door, the bearded man sprung into motion like a pouncing cat, slid around the doorframe and pointed his gun at the cabin's interior, Shiro following suit. What she saw, made her pause.

A flight suit, no, a navy uniform. Floated there. Below it, a pair of boots. Uniform's sleeves in a wide outreaching position, as if the person in it was just donning the suit when ... when ... what? She caught Sigi's look of bewilderment that matched her own. She pointed finger inside and rose an eyebrow. The large man turned and started to slowly, carefully, go in. There it was. Floating above a pair of boots in the middle of a cabin with a bunk bed built-in to the bulkhead.

The rest of the cabins looked more or less the same - an empty suit somewhere in the empty space, or at one case in the bunk. "What the fuck." came from the helmet speaker, as she was preparing to follow Sigi to the next deck. She jumped and slid upwards to the galley deck. A single suit with insignia of a captain "sat" at the table. Before it a bulb of water. Four more empty suits at the ops deck, each at their proper seat - deck officer, pilot, gunner, radar tech. All completely still. All completely empty.

"We should give them a proper burial at sea - the fact that the ships are here saved our asses," Lonk hushedly voiced what she was thinking herself.
"It's probably the same everywhere," she added as they both looked at the former Terran soldier.
"Let's give them a Viking funeral. There is no way we couldn't make at least two of these working. Let's take the repairable one and rig the other one to fly all the flight suits to the Sol," he replied after a moment of solemn silence.
And she was right - it was all the same in every one of the other ships. With a bit of work, they managed to make the Terran ship - Hellhound - to reboot and Sigi was visibly happy with that because this - as she learned during their work on the ship - was the type of ship he was flying in the navy and was the most comfortable with. Another surprise came after they returned from Diana, the martian gunship they decided to use for the funeral. They were all expecting the ship to reboot to the previous state, with transponder happily pinging the name TRN Hellhound to the whole system - this was not the case. The ship has undergone a total cleanup, so they were forced to make a full factory reset from a system backup and the ship's main panel was prompting for a new name. it didn't take them long to settle on naming her after a very old tv show - Firefly.

With Diana on her month-long funeral course to the Sol, Firefly's engine also came to life and she departed the cluster of silent ships to take her new crew to their original destination - Nibiru.