Previously: John Andrews, a former Navy pilot turn civilian transport-for-hire, has stumbled across a murder while concluding a routine job on the distant colony world of Min. On his MobiGlas personal device is an encrypted file which holds a terrible secret, one that John must protect from the murderers who now hunt him...
- - - - - - - -
The plasma pistol behind John whined as it charged, the muzzle of the weapon only inches from the back of John's head. "Well, then, who the hell are you?" A gruff voice behind him asked, though the tone said pretty clearly that he didn't give a damn who he was aiming a pistol at.
"My name is Frank Turner," John lied quickly. It'd be best if the thugs didn't match his name to one that owned a starship. "I work here, I was just checking the place out. I stumbled across the body, and I don't know what the hell is going on." John tried to sound as innocent and frightened as a dove. If he could bluff well enough, he might get them to get their guard down.
"Well, Frank, you picked a hell of a day to do your job." The thug said. The gun he held remained fixed on John's head. The lie wasn't convincing anyone, and John was running out of time.
"Jesus, you're not going to kill me, are you?" John shouted, sounding as panicked as he could. There was a pause by the thug, and John quickly turned his head to get a glimpse of his attacker before whipping it back. The man with the gun did not seem to notice, or care, but that was a mistake by him.
First and foremost, John got a picture of the room around him again, where everything was. There was cover not too far away from him, and the large cargo bay door that John had entered through was now wide open. Second, and perhaps most important, John learned that it wasn't just him and the gunman. There was another, maintaining a form of security a few paces behind the one adjacent to John, and he was looking nervous. It was obvious that they were running out of time until something happened, and that meant that they were going to act hasty.
"It's nothing personal." The thug behind John said suddenly, snapping him back to reality. "You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time." The gun whined as it began to charge up to fire, and John tensed his legs as he braced himself to jump.
"I couldn't agree more." John growled. As hard as he could, he pushed off the ground, leaping back into the body of the man with the gun. The two collided, bowling the gunman over with John on top. They fell to the ground with a crash, and the second pirate leveled his weapon, a submachine gun, at the chaos.
John quickly rolled off of the first thug and got to his feet, whipping out his LH-86 as the second one opened fire frantically, the green plasma bolts crackling though the air and lighting the room in an eerie emerald glow.
"Fuck, get him!" The first thug shouted as he started to get back to his feet. John kept running until he got behind some crates that looked solid enough, and flattened his back against it. More plasma streaked in John's general direction, impacting with walls and anything in-between with a hiss. John waited for a break in the frantic shooting, now joined by the first thug's more careful pistol shots marked by blue bolts, before turning around the corner of his cover. Lining up on one of the thugs, John pulled the trigger, and his pistol bucked in his hands as it roared. The flash of light illuminated both pirates, and John instantly knew that he had missed, but the shouts of "holy fuck, he's armed!" meant that he had thrown the hostiles off their game.
John turned back around the corner and back into cover, looking around. He couldn't stay in one position the whole time, he'd get easily flanked and killed. Instead, he would have to keep moving in order to keep the enemy guessing. As soon as he saw a new position to run to, John sprinted away. A few errant shots were fired in his general direction, but none were anywhere near hitting him. Once behind cover, John peeked around his cover to catch a glimpse of his assailants. He wanted this next shot to take one of them down. The light from the opened bay door dimly illuminated the warehouse, and suddenly John made out the form of someone moving carefully in the shadows. Rounding the corner, John lined up and took the shot. The pistol barked twice, and there was a terrible shout as the bullets hit their mark.
"You son of a bitch!" The survivor roared, a voice that John didn't recognize. He had killed one, but the one still alive was the one with the SMG. A heartbeat later, a barrage of green plasma arced toward John's makeshift cover, hissing as it burned a black mark into whatever it hit.
"Shit." John hissed as the endless fusillade continued. The weapon his opponent was using was a heat-based weapon rather than an ammunition-based one, meaning he could fire for a good long while before his gun would overheat and stop firing as it purged itself. The pirate would know that, meaning he'd make a break for cover as the gun began overheating so he would be safe while it cooled down.
Crouching down, John quickly moved away from the cover he was, taking care to make as little noise as possible. As he moved, he could hear the thug talking, radioing in for help. John only had a few moments to either avoid his assailant or incapacitate him, or he'd be flooded by so many attackers he wouldn't be able to survive. Once he reached the next piece of cover, John peeked over the edge. Again, the darkness made it extremely difficult to see anything, and the second attacker wasn't making the same mistake that his friend had. Wherever he was, he was hiding deep in the shadows, somewhere John couldn't see.
John quickly took a glance back at the opened door that led back out onto the back alleys of Min. He was tantalizingly close, maybe a good ten meters away, but the final pirate could be anywhere in the warehouse, likely watching the exit to see John sprint past and into the sights of an SMG.
"Okay, now what?" John asked himself as he forced his breathing to slow. His head felt like it was floating away thanks to a strong dose of adrenaline coursing through his veins, and John had to shake his head to dispel some of it so he could think clearly. Instinct wouldn't help him here, after all.
He looked down at his LH-86 and quickly slid out the magazine with a press of the release, the bulky thing falling into his hand. In the dim light, John could make out several rounds still left in the mag, perhaps only four. It would have to be enough, as he couldn't afford to swap needlessly. Sliding it back into his pistol as quietly as he could, John crouched down as low as he could and peeked out the corner of his cover. The exit was still in front of him, but there was no cover in between him and freedom, making any attempt to "run for daylight" would end with John's burnt corpse being left for the next shift of workers to discover.
John turned around and stared intently into the dark, trying to make out what was there. Against the far wall was the front doors, still locked as John had found them. An idea began to form in the back of John's mind, and he took a deep breath before moving forward.
Slowly moving forward, one foot carefully after the next, John listened for any sound other than his heart thumping in his chest. For a while, all was quiet, and John was beginning to wonder if he wasn't walking into a trap when suddenly he heard movement from outside the warehouse. Footsteps, and plenty of them.
Reinforcements had arrived.
- - - - - - - -
There was a muted bang from outside the building as a weapon was discharged, and the front door of the warehouse rattled as it took a direct hit. "Fuck!" John hissed as he quickly dove behind cover a moment before the door slid open with a groan. Wincing as sunlight poured into the previously dark warehouse like a flood, John could make out the outlines of three more assailants, all of them armed, and all of them blocking John's escape route.
"What the hell's going on here?" One of the newcomers shouted into the warehouse.
"Some asshole, watch it!" The thug deeper in the building, and uncomfortably close behind John, yelled back. "He's armed, and he got Ki!" The two parties went quiet, and John knew that they were combing for him again, trying to make him move. They wanted to have him try to run in the direction opposite of the way that he had heard the voices, but John wasn't going to play their game. Gripping his 86 tight, he turned in the direction the way he had heard the pirate in the back of the warehouse and began to make his way that way.
Moving as quickly, and as quietly, as he could, John began to pace through the warehouse, ducking in-between piles of crates. The smell of the body of poor Trey, decomposing in peace, grew stronger, and John suddenly knew where he was in the building. With that, he knew where everyone else was, or at least where they had been.
John kept moving, when suddenly he heard the sound of a step just a decibel too loud only a few feet to his left. Quickly, he whipped around and raised the pistol. He could barely make out the panicked face of the thug before him before squeezing the trigger. The LH-86 bucked in his hands, and it roared a deafening blast as a heartbeat later the pirate was hit, blown backwards by the impact and collapsing on the ground.
"Fuck!" A pirate somewhere behind John shouted, before opening fire frantically with his weapon, a loud ballistic assault rifle. John didn't move for a second, his eyes transfixed on the man he had killed, before putting a lifetime of memories behind him and pressing on. The time for subtlety had passed, and suddenly the warehouse was alive with weapons fire. Rounds passed dangerously close over John's head, snapping as the supersonic bullets whipped past John's ears.
John raised his crouch as he sprinted forward, heading for the rear entrance. He couldn't stop, or they would find him and kill him. As he sprinted, more and more bullets were aimed his ways, tracers passing eerily around him as he raced for the exit. Pushing his body just a bit more, John finally passed the threshold and stood outside for the first time in what felt like ages. The sun was beginning to set on Min, and it took a second for John to get his bearings again. He couldn't stay here: He needed to get to the Wanderer, and he needed to get off this dustball before the Tiger's Claw's goons got him.
A snap-crack of a bullet passing close to John's head motivated him to start running again, and John took off, leaving the alarmed shouts of his pursuers behind him as he sprinted through the backalleys of the colony world. The sand crunched under his feet as he kept going, scratching every time John would take a hard turn around a corner in order to lose his attackers. John could feel his lungs burning, but he couldn't stop for a second. He pushed his body further, harder and harder, even as his muscles screamed at him to stop and take a breather.
John ran for what felt like a quarter of an hour, and when he finally stopped to double over, coughing as his exhausted lungs frantically regained air from the dead sprint away from the warehouse, John was back in the more urban section of Min. Catching his breath, John looked up to see people staring at him nervously, and for a second John didn't understand why. Then he remembered that he still was holding his 86 in a dead man's grip, and abashedly he holstered the pistol. John glanced back the way he came, but there was nothing there. They were still out there, but they were either still catching up, or they had decided that trying to run John down wasn't the right tactic to use.
John took one last deep breath, then began to walk as quickly as he could down the busy streets of the colony, glancing constantly back as he kept moving toward the spaceport only a few blocks away.
- - - - - - - -
John had hurried through the paperwork that held him back from just gunning his engines and leaving Min behind as quick as he could. As soon as he finished dotting his i's and dotting his t's, he practically sprinted through the spaceport's ragged halls until he reached Hangar 5A. The doors couldn't open fast enough for him as he squeezed through between the metal gate. Before him was the Wanderer, unmolested by no one other than Port Authority, who had unloaded the heavy cargo container that she had arrived with. The port access opened with a hiss as the Aurora detected her owner approaching, the ladder unfurling expectantly. John scrambled up it like a monkey, and as soon as he clambered inside, he shut the opening behind him. Quickly, John stripped out of his sweat-marked clothes and into his space-suit before sliding into the command chair.
John began to start up the Wanderer, the systems spooling up agonizingly slowly. His eyes flicked between the console and the door that led into the hangar from the spaceport halls. The pirates couldn't be far behind. "Come on, come on!" John hissed as his heart pounded in his chest. Finally, the whine of the boot-up process died down to a dull rumble, and the HUD flashed the RSI logo before displaying the interface. Turning on VTOL, John keyed in the traffic control channel. "This is John Andrews of the Aurora Wanderer, requesting permission to head out."
"Copy that, Wanderer." The traffic controller replied, his voice clearly stressed. "There is an incident currently progressing, we just received word: No ships are leaving Min until after the investigation is complete."
"Dammit." John hissed under his breath, hoping that his swear didn't get broadcasted. "Copy that, I will-" Out of the corner of his eye, the door into the hangar slid open, and men with guns rushed in, taking aim at the Aurora. "-shit!" John shouted as he slammed down on the display that activated the shields. The shield generator hummed to life just as blue plasma splashed against energy fields, dissipating harmlessly instead of burning a fatal hole in the Aurora's hull. Quickly, John spooled up the VTOL systems, the broad rotors spinning to life with a high-pitched whine, while at the same time the main engines engaged with a roar.
The sudden sound of kinetic rounds smacking off the hull like a steel rain came only a few seconds later, and that was all the encouragement John needed to kiss goodbye to Min. The Aurora hovering barely a few inches off the deck, John kicked the afterburner. The Wanderer shot forward like a bullet, the plasma trail filling the small hangar with an overpowering blue light and a blistering heat as the Aurora rocketed away, out of the hangar and toward the skies.
"Aurora Wanderer, what the hell are you doing?" The traffic control operator practically screamed at John over the comms.
"I am being shot at, and I am not going to die for some goddamned halt order!" John shouted back before cutting the comms channel. He didn't have time to explain to anyone what the hell was going on, especially since he knew that the pirates had friends somewhere above. It would be only a matter of time before they vectored in on the Wanderer, its nose scraping the outermost atmosphere of the dustball planet beneath her.
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As soon as the Aurora broke through Min's atmosphere and into the first vestiges of space, John cycled through his contact list. When he had arrived, John had tagged three ships that had been loitering suspiciously over the northern hemisphere of the planet as just a precaution in case they were pirates or raiders. Now that he had pissed off one of the most brutal gangs in the galaxy, it made more than a little sense to check if they were now hostile.
While the ship's computers and sensors tried to tea quite the contacts, John turned his attention to the space around him. John had tried his best to explain why he had to break lockdown, but he doubted if anyone believed him. Given that there were at least half-a-dozen ships orbiting Min with bounty hunter tags, John would make a very opportunistic target. Somewhere, past the bounty hunters and the pirates, was the jump-point out of the system and back toward New Pittsburgh and the rest of the UEE. He would need to fly for his life if he stood a chance of slipping the net.
John hit the comms button to transmit to the horde of hunters watching the Wanderer streak for the stars. He needed to convince them of his plight, or at least keep them from getting involved. He was about to speak when the sensors finally finished updating, revealing the positions of the two small Mustang fighters and the larger Freelancer. John scanned through them, before realizing suddenly that the second Mustang contact was two hundred meters behind him.
The Wanderer shook, hard, as plasma bolts impacted into her rear shields. Behind the Aurora, the small, dagger-like Mustang tailed closely, readying another shot. John grit his teeth, and rolled the Aurora into a tight spin, spinning wildly as John opened up the throttle. The Mustang fired again, but its shots passed harmless by, the Mustang pilot's aim shaken by John's simple move. John allowed himself a smile as he realized he was up against an amateur, and braced himself for what he'd do next.
The Mustang driver fired another burst, this one splashing against the Aurora's shields. The pilot of the fighter kept right on John's tail as the two ships began to weave inbetween the massive cargo ships sitting docile. John pulled hard on the stick, willing the Wanderer into a hair-pin turn around the lip of a massive stack of cargo containers magnetically locked to their transports. The edge of Min II's gravitational influence was approaching, but the second Mustang and the Freelancer were approaching rapidly, the sensors giving an alarming tone to warn that they had come within 5 kilometers. John had to even out his attackers, and soon, as the bounty hunters had begun to swivel their ships around and slowly pour on speed in preparation for pursuit.
As John pulled one more turn around a cargo ship, more plasma bolts from the first Mustang arced barely overhead, the rounds impacting into the cargo containers, burning cruel holes into the steel boxes. Enough was enough, and John braced himself for what he did next: Kill the throttle.
The Wanderer slowed to a halt like it had hit a wall, the jarring transition rattling the ship and nearly slamming John's head into the console. The Mustang, tailing too close behind, had no chance to stop itself. The small ship practically disintegrated upon impact with the larger, heavier, and better armored Aurora, the thin metal that comprised the fighter's hull splintering into fragments as the Mustang crumpled upon impact. There was a satisfying shove that shunted the Wanderer as the small power generator aboard the Mustang went critical and exploded. Alarms blared inside the cockpit, but the Aurora was fine, to John's relief. The gamble had paid off, but he wasn't out of the woods just so yet.
The display that listed the tagged ships removed seamlessly the first Mustang, but the other Mustang and the Freelancer were approaching rapidly. To make matters worse, several of the bounty hunters were moving with the Wanderer and her pursuers, looking for an opportunity to make a quick buck. Two assailants was bad enough, but an entire system of guns being pointed at John made him very very nervous indeed. The navigational display showed that the jump point out of the system was only a few kilometers away, but there was no way that John would get there before the pirates and bounty hunters would. He would need to open the gap, clear his tail, and get out before they caught up with him again.
Gritting his teeth, John braced himself for a high-G turn. The Aurora shuddered as the ship strained to keep up as it turned on a dime, going a full 180 as John led her back towards Min and the many cargo ships sitting idly in orbit. John kicked the throttle back to full as the fog at the edge of his vision cleared, and the Wanderer shot ahead like a bullet, the roar of the engines only slightly muffled through the hull. Before him, the bounty hunters scattered out of the way of the Aurora barreling towards them, surprised at the sudden maneuver. While the hunters kept a passive lock on John, none of them had armed their weapons just so yet. That didn't meant that it couldn't change in a heartbeat, but their temporary neutrality was still good news. The pirates, caught off-guard by John's sudden reversal, began to circle around as they tried to circle behind their prey.
John gripped the stick tight as the Wanderer approached the sitting cargo ships: There was no room for a mistake in this kind of fight. A single slip of the controls, and he'd smash full-on into the stacks of containers. If John was to be honest with himself, he almost felt as if this was where he belonged. Any Navy pilot, if they were honest, or drunk, enough would admit that there is a form of addiction to adrenaline. Being in a life-or-death situation, where the only thing keeping you alive is your skill alone, gives a high better than any drug. John had missed it; he had never felt more alive than when he was in a dogfight.
The pirates were closing fast behind John as the Wanderer flew past the first cargo ship. John hit right rudder, and the Aurora began to drift closer to some of the ships waiting in line to be unloaded. On the sensors display, the three-dimensional display showed that the two pirates were closing from behind and above. John pushed the stick forward, and the Wanderer dipped down before John aggressively kicked her to the right, sliding underneath the cargo ships. Bolts of plasma flicked by past the massive ships above the Aurora, and the small vessel shuddered as more than a few rounds smashed into the cargo ships themselves. John pushed the throttle back, decelerating rapidly as debris from a stricken vessel began to stream into his flight path. "Holy shit!" He shouted. He hadn't anticipated that his attackers would be mad enough to start fragging anything in their path to get to him.
John kicked the Wanderer left, back out from under his cover and into the open again. He wasn't about to risk some poor cargo captain's life so he could save his own. Bracing himself, John pulled hard on the stick, and the Aurora's nose shot upwards, climbing rapidly in a tight turn. Halfway through the loop, John stopped pulling and gave the engines full blast, shooting back for the jump-point. The pirates were still turning to reacquire their target when John shot past the ring of bounty hunters. John winced as he blew past them, expecting a hail of plasma rounds... but none came. Instead, they seemed far more interested in the ships chasing John. He watched his sensors display intently as the two tagged pirate ships began to flicker to represent a barrage of plasma rounds. The Mustang practically disintegrated as soon as its shields failed, fragmenting into pieces as a single shot punched through the thin armor and hit something volatile. The Freelancer, however, remained vigilant, and the distance tracker showed it burning as fast as it could away, widening the gap between it and its pursuers as fast as its powerful engines would allow it.
With all eyes off of John, he selected the bounty hunters and tapped the comms button. "Thanks for the assist, guys." He said, taking a deep breath as the adrenaline began to slowly dissipate in his veins. "You really saved my ass."
"Not a problem, Aurora." One of them replied. "Where are you heading off to now?" He sounded vaguely suspicious, which made sense. After all, they had no idea why the hell three ships had suddenly jumped one. As far as they knew, John was just as much of a target as the pirates.
"I'm heading for Earth." John replied. He wasn't lying, and he knew that mentioning the capital of the Empire would at least abate some suspicions. Still, they'd likely shadow him for a while, but that was no big concern for him. They'd back off once he got to Terra, the last real stop before the Sol system. No pirate would be mad enough to fly a marked ship straight for Earth.
"Understood, Aurora." The bounty hunter replied. "Happy trails."
"Same to you, guys. Good hunting." John said with a smile. "Wanderer, out." Closing the comms channel, John slowed down to a cruise. A few moments later, reality stretched itself into oblivion, and the Wanderer returned to the familiar whirling blue tunnel of jump-space.
- - - - - - - -
The next several dozen hours were long and tense. Every time he entered a system, he would pour over the sensors display, agonizing over every contact, and scanning aggressively every dark corner in case of a ship running silent. John knew he was a wanted man; whatever the hell had been on Trey's MobiGlas was extremely precious to the Tiger's Claw gang, and that meant they were more than willing to throw people at John to get it.
Thankfully, the trip to Earth was more or less uneventful; no one had tried to intercept John, and it didn't seem like any ships were trailing him besides the expected bounty hunter. As soon as John passed through the Terra system, however, that tail peeled off and the Wanderer continued on unmolested. As soon as reality reasserted itself at the end of the last jump, the Sol system filled the sky. There, a bright light in the distance, lay Sol, and orbiting millions of miles away from it was Earth.
As John approached the ancestral home of the human race, he found himself wondering when was the last time he had gone to Earth. He never had really been given a reason to head to the Sol system terribly often; he preferred work on the frontier, where trade routes weren't so established and prices were far more lucrative. He couldn't even claim that he had a personal reason to visit, as John had been born aboard his parents' cargo vessel sometime during a jump to Terra. The last time John could remember visiting Earth was during his Navy career, and it had only been a short shore-leave. He remembered Earth being a beautiful place, but there was a shady underside to it that permeated just about everything.
Beijing had one of the largest starports on Earth, but it was also considered to be one of the most dangerous cities on the planet. The "shady underside" that John had sensed in Berlin was practically the name of the game in the ancient city. If John could have avoided it, he wouldn't have visited the city at all, but he didn't really have any options left to him. There was someone he needed to see there.
- - - - - - - -
Despite how infamous John had become in the Min system, none of the port authorities on Earth seemed to be aware of him at all. He went through the same docking procedure that every other pilot in the Empire went through, albeit somewhat accelerated thanks to his citizenship status, and landed safely enough in one of the hundreds of hangars in the Beijing starport. It was night by the time John finally finished all the paperwork and stepped outside, the moon barely visible through all the smoke of the busy city. It was a smoggy town, and neon lights that marked one store or another filtered through the air in a mesmerizing display. Everyone on the street seemed tense, ready for just about anything. John could practically feel the exhaustion of the tired old town, the weight of millions of people living on streets that spanned back for centuries. He couldn't help but feel a little sad to see the sorry state of the ancient capital.
As John walked slowly, and very cautiously, out of the commercial district of Beijing and into the more residential area, the landscape barely changed. The only thing that seemed to be missing was the abundance of neon signs, leaving only the streetlights to illuminate a cloudy city. John checked his MobiGlas, cycling through his contacts, before selecting one Kyle Webber. Webber had been a technician in the Navy, and had served alongside John during their tour. John couldn't claim that they were close friends in any form of the word, but he didn't know a man better at cracking encrypted files than Webber. John could only hope that the man would forgive John's unexpected arrival.
Webber lived in an apartment, an old one that stretched a few stories into the sky. According to the MobiGlas display, he lived in Room 108, right on the first floor. After a few minutes of navigating the aged apartment complex, John found himself finally standing in front of the door to the room, the numbers "108" emblazoned on the steel automatic door in black paint. John rapped his knuckles on the door before pausing for a response. He'd be off to a rather inauspicious start if Webber wasn't in, or worse, had moved.
"Who is it?" Someone shouted from inside. John sighed in relief, recognizing the light German accent of the technician.
"It's John Andrews." He said in reply. "We were in the Navy together." There was a pause as Webber tried to remember the name.
"Ah, yes, Andrews." Webber replied. "Please, come in." There was a beep as the door unlocked, and with a woosh it opened to reveal the room itself. It was spartan, the walls painted a dull white and the floor bare steel. There was barely any furniture in the main area, just a few chairs and a table to make up a form of living room. There was a small hallway that lead likely to the bedroom and bathroom, and John could see cooking equipment up against the wall. There was a window facing the street, but Webber had closed the shutters.
"Hello, Webber." John said, walking in. The two shook hands cordially enough as the steel door closed behind John.
"Hello, Andrews." Webber replied, leading John over to a seat. "It is nice to see you. What are you doing in Beijing?" John took a seat and paused to collect his thoughts before talking.
"I actually came here to speak to you, Webber." He started, drumming his fingers against his MobiGlas. "I need a file cracked."
"Oh?" Webber replied, leaning forward in interest. "What kind of file?" John grimaced.
"I don't know." He admitted, frowning. "It was uploaded onto my Glas automatically." From there, John told Webber the whole story: The body on Min, the pirates, and the message from beyond the grave. When he was finished, Webber leaned back in his seat.
"It sounds like you have gotten in over your head, Andrews." Webber remarked. "A whole pirate gang has painted a bullseye on your chest."
"It's not like I wanted to get involved." John replied. "Look, whatever is on this file is important. We should crack it open, then contact the authorities, let them handle this." Webber nodded before pointing at John's MobiGlas.
"May I?" He asked. John nodded, and unstrapped the device from his wrist. Carefully, he handed the MobiGlas to Webber, who immediately pressed a small button on the side. A panel flipped open, revealing a small interface. "I am going to link my Glas to yours, and I will crack it from mine. That way, we won't run into any fail-safes that might lock us out." Webber remarked as he began to tinker with his own MobiGlas still on his arm.
"How long do you think it'll take to break through?" John asked, crossing his legs. "It's not like I have all the time in the world. They'll figure out where I went eventually."
"It depends on how difficult the encryption is." Webber replied, pointedly. "I doubt that it will be horrifically difficult; it was meant to be entrusted to someone who could break it with a bit of effort and deliver it to the Advocacy or local authorities, assuming that your story is correct." John shrugged, and resigned himself to the wait.
The hours passed slowly, but just as the clock on the wall marked 12:15 in the morning, Webber gave a triumphant smile. "I've got it." John, who had been slipping in and out of consciousness as he sat on the chair, quickly roused himself and hurried to Webber's side.
"What?" John asked, excitedly. "What did you find?" Webber tapped an option on his MobiGlas' display, and suddenly John's hummed to life. It felt like the lights in the room dimmed to let the image being projected shine brighter: The visage of Trey Galet, once again displayed. John examined the image, surprised. "That looks like the same message I saw on Min." He said to Webber, staring intently at the projection.
"The video file seems to have already played some. Perhaps it was meant to be displayed and saved on the viewer's MobiGlas." Webber remarked. "I can get it to play." John nodded, and Webber hit a holographic button on his own device. The projection of Trey suddenly reanimated as the video file played.
"Whatever you do, don't let Mercer get a hold of it!" The image of the pirate shouted, as he had before on the dustball colony of Min. Again, John watched as pain wracked the man's body. It wasn't pleasant before, and it wasn't now. "We found something, some kind of starship graveyard around a small moon at the edge of Imperial space." Trey continued, not cut-off as he had been before in the warehouse. "Every ship in orbit was ancient, hundreds of years old. All had the same markings, same fleet I guess. All of them had a single massive hole in their hulls. Burned through by some massive energy weapon on that moon."
"That'd take a hell of a lot of power to do that kind of damage." Webber noted as Trey took a breath. "And a lot of shielding to keep an energy charge of that level from frying systems." The pirate continued recounting.
"Every time we sent a ship to investigate, it was..." Trey struggled to describe what he had seen. "Disintegrated. Some point defense system across the entire moon just vaporized whatever got too close." John shot a glance over at Webber, but the technician could only shrug.
"I've never heard of anything like this." Webber admitted. "Whatever this place is, it is really advanced. Maybe even alien." John felt a chill run down his spine. If the Tiger's Claw could get their hands on something as powerful as what Trey was describing, they'd be unstoppable.
"Mercer went hunting through some of the wrecks, and found out that the security systems could be shut down with an access code." Trey stared straight forward, his eyes burning. "Mercer is planning to use what is on that moon to raid entire systems. Millions will die, and I just couldn't let that happen. I stole the map that he found, a map that would lead him to where he could find the codes, and hid it in my personal hangar on Terra, Hangar Six-Five." He coughed, painfully, as the plasma burn began to immolate his internal organs. John was no doctor, but he knew that the pirate would be dead within the hour. These were his final moments, shared with a man that he would never meet, and trusting him to save millions from a bloodthirsty brigand. John could feel the weight of the galaxy begin to lie upon his shoulders as the video approached its end.
"Go to Terra. Get the map from the hangar, it's in the fish-tank. Get it to someone who can stop Mercer." Trey ordered, beginning to slump against the containers that he lay against. "Please; it is on you now." With that, the video froze, then closed. The room seemed to brighten softly with the video gone, but John felt no better in the light.
"Jesus." He muttered under his breath. "What have I got myself into?"
"Something bigger than yourself, Andrews." Webber replied, crossing his arms. "You heard the man. You have got to find that map and give it to someone. I have some contacts in the Advocacy, perhaps they can help us." John nodded slowly.
"Okay, you get on getting that file ready for transfer so we can hand it off to them when we contact them." John said, grimacing. "I've gotta step out for a second, get some air." He felt a touch out of sorts, his mind trying to process what he had stumbled into. He was a transport pilot, not some kind of hero of the stars. This was far outside his area of expertise, even when he was a Navy pilot. To be just thrown into the mix of things was a jarring transition from the easy-going pilot-for-hire he had been only a few days ago.
He was beginning to regret ever taking that contract to Min.
- - - - - - - -
John took a deep breath in the murky Beijing air as he stood outside the apartment building. There was a slightly metallic tint to the air, pollution blown from the manufacturing facilities that blanketed the landscape. For the uninitiated, this would be rather jarring, but John had breathed in similar air on New Pittsburgh. It was something you got used to after long enough time. In a way, it was appropriate: He had to steel himself for what would come, and it was if the air itself was feeding him the iron he would need to stand his ground.
John was about to turn around and head for inside again when he heard a muffled blast from inside the building. It took a second for his mind to process it, but when it did, John felt adrenaline flood through his body. "Oh, no." He began to say. "Oh, no, no, no!" He shouted as he sprinted back inside the building, fumbling for his pistol before remembering that he had to leave it back aboard the Wanderer. A heartbeat later he was standing in front of the door, which slid to accommodate him. "Oh, fuck!" John shouted as he rushed inside.
There, on the floor, lay the body of Webber, a plasma wound in his chest still smoldering. The MobiGlas on his arm sparked as it lay spilled open, abandoned wires that connected it to another device lying on the ground where they had been left.
The pirates had the message.
- - - - - - - - -
Next: With the message stolen by the pirates, John must race to Terra to recover the map before they do. But the Tiger's Claw won't be the only force trying to stop the pilot. A desperate chase begins, next on Farflung Wanderer.
