Red alarms sounded in the hangar. Men and women rushed in helmetless P-suits, carrying tools, lugging fuel, making final checks on their one defense craft: a Harriman-class strike vessel, one seater with four “large lasers,” as the rocket jockeys called them—brilliant blue-green beams delivering megawatt-level thermal output, perfect for ship-to-ship combat.
Volunteer Astroneer K. Salazar watched his crew prep his chariot. “Green,” someone called. Another answered it. It continued down the line—systems, structure, fuel; eventually arriving at a tall man with a short cropped mustache. “Salazar, she’s juiced and cool. You’re good for go, Control will tell you more details about the mission when you get in. Good luck.” He gave the mock salute that most volunteers gave to each other.
“No clue how many?” The mustache on the man’s lip bristled. Turning to face the Control room, he threw his hands up in the air. The Control room held up a single finger, barely lifting his eyes from the stereotank that served as the only light in the room. “Guess only one, lucky day for you.” Salazar grabbed his G-helmet as he passed. “I wouldn’t be so quick to judge it, Bob. We’ve been runnin’ these pirates ‘round this place for a while now. They’re tricky.” Bob nodded his head in agreement.
Salazar entered the ship via a small porthole hatch on the side towards the rear. It was a tight fit that required one to crawl for most of the length to the cockpit. The conn-room itself was somewhat more luxurious than the rest of the ship. One large pilot's G-seat in the center, and relatively simple controls—made for amateur or less skilled pilots—but the most important part of the console was the weapons array.
Four low-yield missiles, and four ‘large lasers.’
“Dak-1, this is Control, reading?” The relatively archaic speaker sputtered to life to his left. “Roger, Control. You got a picture of what I’m engaging?” The cockpit was filled with the buzz from the control room. “One craft, make/model unknown, you’ll have to scout that out. Report when you’re ready for burn.” Salazar strapped himself into his seat and donned his helmet. The ocular interface clicked down into place, giving him immediate technical feedback. “Let’s do a stealth launch, Control. Radio the Helm—have them change bearing to port as I boost off, and return to original course after I’ve cut my drive.”
“Roger Wilco.”
He grasped the control sticks of the craft, checking for sensitivity before powering up—it never hurts to check the work of the prep crews. “Helmsman gave the green light to your plan, ready to light?”
“Ready, and waiting.” Salazar flicked the ignition switch and set power to fifteen percent to begin the spinup of his engines. Outside his cockpit windows, the remaining members of the flight crew that had not evacuated were securing their P-suit helmets and anchoring themselves. Control gave a quick countdown from five—at three, the retro rockets began to gently lift and push the ship out of the hangar; although in practice the ship stayed stationary as the larger craft drifted away.
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As the ship was clear of the larger vessel, he cut power. He had roughly half an hour of oxygen mix to get him breathing while his life support was off. He pulled out a pocket-sized variant of the same radar that came with his ship.
He scanned the empty space around him, visual confirmation would be impossible at this distance. Not much was triggering a response, mostly moderately sized hunks of space junk. He adjusted the radar, making it ultra sensitive—looking for the piece of debris that moved far faster than the rest.
Approximately thirty degrees horizontal, and negative fifteen degrees vertical from his position. If he stayed where he was, he would be in strike position. He waited. The pirate craft drifted into view. It was heavily armored, just barely within his ability to severely damage.
The ship was moving below, through the debris field, stalking the ship that discharged Salazar. It was maneuvering to strike the engines to disable and board it. He counted the time that it took for the pirate vessel to move between two chosen points, he calculated the rough time it would take for the ship to pass him.
One minute, two minutes, three—he waited for seven. But it passed him, did not notice him, and continued its hunt. After waiting another two minutes, he cut the engines back on, slowly.
His small ship began to move, and he oriented it upwards in a corkscrew motion that curved to the right. Now able to read the radar, Salazar waited for him to reach a distance of almost five hundred meters from the pirates—then he turned.
After leveling out, he pushed to full boost and melted into his G-seat. It took the small craft only a short time to position itself above the pirate vessel. Salazar turned upside down and took into a sharply angled dive towards the pirate vessel, all targeting systems coalescing on the cockpit. Three hundred—two hundred—one hundred—fifty meters.
He flicked the safety lid off of his joystick and pressed the singular button. There was only a small hum in his vessel, but no sound from the lasers themselves. Four prismatic blue-green beams shot out and struck the base of the cockpit. The ship was cut in two. Silent geysers vented out into space and carried small detritus into the inky blackness. Salazar jerked his sticks to fling his craft out of the way of the debris field, missing by four meters.
The retros burned to stop it in space, red alarms blaring all around him. Heat capacity was almost critical, reaching ninety-five percent and growing as the retros slowed him down. It settled just shy of ninety-eight when his craft became motionless. He took a moment to breathe, but was interrupted by the hissing communication panel.
“Set your beacon. Tow craft inbound.”
