The Privateer/Chapter 2
Take-off procedures went slower than usual this time. I started to take a mental inventory of what all had to be sold to make my repair payments. Afterburners were gone, as was what little fuel I had left for them. The cargo bay expansion I had previously tacked on was removed, so I couldn't carry much in back. The laser cannon, surprisingly, was reinstalled, though it was more surprising that I hadn't had to attach it myself than it was that Bob had bucked out for it. This particular model (a mining laser commissioned by the Sol Interstellar Mining Conglomerate) was the cheapest there was.
Further checks revealed that, while I did have shielding systems (such as they were), the only real armor on the ship was a 3-foot-by-3-foot square of sheet iron on the back door. So if I were to take any hits (and I prayed I wouldn't), it'd be preferable to take them in the back, rather than in the beer-can armor that covered the rest of the ship (and, it just dawned on me, covered up the rear-view camera attached to the roof - looked like I'd be sticking to manual landing from then on).
Most crucially, though, I noticed that the LS drive was still attached. Traveling at light speed was something ordinarily impossible with most ships and engine configurations. I'd heard rumors that the SLC flagship, the Callisto Dawn, could achieve faster-than-light travel under its own power, but I'd been in SLC service long enough to know that was an exaggeration. The thing was, even achieving speeds past Mach 5 required considerable concentrations of energy, the equivalent of 100 tons of ultra-radioactive isotopes. Most ships wouldn't be able to carry that safely. My ship wouldn't even be able to carry that without killing me (the lead shielding required to prevent radiation leaks would add an extra 10 tons to the load, which my cargo bay couldn't take).
Science was eager to find an alternative to consuming that much plutonium in one shot, and interestingly enough, they found it in higher quantities than expected. What humanity didn't know about the universe a hundred years ago was that, throughout most galaxies, there were small concentrations of trace amounts of an undiscovered element - we'll call it E400, even though there aren't nearly that many elements on the periodic table. It's much shorter than the term they're using on New Harvard.
E400 is extremely volatile, yet extremely stable, in the right circumstances. Most concentrations of E400 are about as large as a single particle of dust. With the right catalyst, and the proper containment procedures to "shape" the resulting "worm-cloud," scientists figured out how to use E400 to suddenly (and uncomfortably) propel a given astral body a ridiculously long distance in a matter of seconds. Of course, when they first figured out how to induce a charge in the worm-cloud (see, sci-fi novelists had it wrong this whole time - they're not worm HOLES, they're more like little glowy blue clouds), the experiment team at New Harvard accidentally sent a baseball crashing into Mars, leaving a sizable dent in Olympus Mons, which is now officially the largest crater-lake in the Sol system.
So scientists eventually narrowed down how to take a single particle of E400, induce a reaction in it to turn it into a worm-cloud, contain it in such a way that it doesn't expand too quickly and implode, and then induce a further reaction to it with a simple renewable energy source, which is basically a combination of air, moisture, and light - this reaction is what sends things flying ridiculously long distances in short chunks of time. And in order to cause that last reaction on an ordinary ship, we need what they call a "light-speed drive" or LS Drive for short. (I've known a couple pilots who just called it an "LSD" - I never did explain to them why I laughed every time I heard that.)
Speaking of worm-clouds and LSD, it had dawned on me that I'd spent so much time rambling about light-speed travel that I was nearly at the worm-cloud I needed: the jump to the HG-101 system. Just my luck, there was a line formed of some 8 or 9 vessels. Two were militiamen (or women - hard to tell with them), one was a Coalition fighter, there were probably four merchant ships, and the last one was a marauder that stuck out like a sore thumb. I would honestly have told the militia ships about him, but he was looking so beat-up that his ship was actually on fire. Now before you start going on about how ridiculous that is in space (after all, fire needs oxygen), this would imply not only that his ship was overheating, but also that there was an oxygen leak that was obviously enough to sustain a fire out his port side. Oh wait, he must have put it out. That might have explained the giant cloud of halon.
Several minutes passed as each ship in line got a turn at the worm-cloud. The militia and Coalition vessels went through a lengthy authorization process before they were allowed through, while the four merchants nearly went through simultaneously (except for the guy in the U-Haul freighter; he had to go last because his ship was so huge). The last guy tried starting his LS drive, and while he disappeared like the other ships, he left behind a big pile of what we called "jump junk."
Jump junk is what happens if you try to take a worm-cloud while your ship is being held together with gum and duct tape. You generally want to make sure that your shields still work, but sometimes that's not entirely necessary as long as your ship's not coming apart at the seams. Something about the sudden transition from full-stop to light speed tends to result in ships suddenly flying apart.
I caught a look at the jump junk, managing to pick out at least one intact tail fin, one landing strut, and a broken blinker bulb. That was before I noticed a rather large black box mixed in, so intact as to wonder if it had been jarred loose by the jump, or if it had been jettisonned - whether intentionally or otherwise. Just looking at it wasn't telling me anything. Time to debug it, I muttered, clicking the targeting system monitor on (I didn't tend to leave it on all the time; those old amber-scale monitors tended to have screen burn-in issues) and aiming the radar dish in the general direction of the box.
>stdout|/dev/targins ==> "CLEAR EYE" TARGET INSPECTION SYSTEM >(C)2144 CANONICAL, All Rights Reserved >Usage of this program is licensed under the GNU GPL v9. By executing this program, >you agree to the Terms and Conditions outlined in LICENSE.TXT. > >SCANNING... >TARGET EST. SIZE: 47 meters x 20 meters x 20 meters >TARGET EST. MASS: 204.1 metric tonnes >IDENTIFICATION IN PROGRESS... >... >... >...FAILED TO IDENTIFY TARGET. RETRYING... >... >... >...FAILED TO IDENTIFY TARGET. RETRYING... >... >...MATCH FOUND! >=============== >ELEMENTS FOUND: >-- COPPER (27.22 TONS) >-- STEEL (113.4 TONS) >-- UNKNOWN ELEMENT (UNABLE TO CALCULATE MASS) >-- LITHIUM-ION (10 POUNDS) > >POSSIBLE ESTIMATION OF PACKAGE CONTENTS: >-- ARTWORK
...Artwork? There's no way that could have been right. That much copper and steel couldn't have been artwork. No sane artist would sculpt something that huge. Furthermore, there wasn't any way a pirate vessel could have been carrying something that weighed over 200 tons - Talons didn't carry much cargo at all, barely 10 tons of it, and even my ship could only hold 50 tons after the ship dealer pulled my cargo expansion. The only conclusion I could pull from this was that it had just been here the whole time, and I hadn't seen it because of all the ships in the way. Unless it made the worm-cloud jump all by itself? ...No, it would have needed a pilot present to start the catalyst, and Clear Eye didn't pick up any pilot signatures...bah, I was wasting time thinking about it. I had another pilot I was meeting at the other end of this jump, and the dealer told me it was a woman, so I was eager to not make her wait.
I carefully positioned my ship inside the worm-cloud, paying particular attention to swerve around the huge casket, and started the jump sequence. On the newer military-issued ships, the jump sequence was fully automated. Just dial in the coordinates from the navigation computer and it instantly plots the shortest route for you, directing you towards the correct jump points automatically. Since I had no equipment like that on the USS Leave-Me-Alone, though, my travel often required me to get out a sector atlas (made of PAPER - wow, above and beyond, guys) to figure out the best route to where I was going, and which cloud was which. Getting one's bearings was a problem.
Okay, maybe I slightly lied about not having a navigation system, which I'm sure at least one of you would call me out on after having read my conversation with the ship dealer. This model of ship does have rudimentary navigation, but it has its limits. It only shows astral bodies up to 200 kilometers away, can only plot courses in a straight line, and can only calculate my distance to a waypoint in 10 kilometer intervals. So the sector atlas still comes out on more occasions than I'd really care to admit.
Right. Time to actually start this jump sequence instead of rambling about it. I switched the amber-scale monitor back off (it doesn't like light-speed travel; I tend to need to degauss it with a large magnet after such jumps), pulled the throttle lever to the zero setting, centered the flight yoke, moved power from weapons to shields, ensured that my seatbelt was buckled, reset the odometer, and finally lifted the safety cover on the LS drive button. I winced in my chair as I reached for the button. No matter how many times I did this, I could never properly brace myself for it.
Light speed travel is far from the most pleasant thing a human being can do. It falls somewhere in between "skydiving" and "russian roulette with an auto-charge pistol" in terms of sheer discomfort. If you think crashing your car into a wall at 50 MPH would give you a nasty case of whiplash, try going from 0 to 186,000 miles per second in one second flat...and then back to zero in only slightly more time. To give you an example of what that feels like, imagine someone coated you with grease, stuck you in a tumble-dryer, set it to High, then threw the dryer out a window and set it on fire. Sure, you don't end up with (much) bruising if you're strapped in properly, but it's still going to hurt a bit. One of my old Coalition wingmen once told me it felt a lot like someone helping him out of his skin with a pair of lock-grips and a Vibrohacksaw.
Once I regained consciousness on the other end of the worm-cloud, the nav computer told me I'd been deposited 10 kilometers from my waypoint. It took me a few seconds to realize what had woken me up - the vidcomm was beeping. I flicked the amber-scale on and hit the Answer switch.
>stdout|open sound device /dev/vidcomm1 >stdout|open video capture device /dev/vidcomm1 >/dev/vidcomm1 ==> COMMTAG ID: F_E4_LUCIA; execute function A_InitComm(); >/dev/vidcomm1|/dev/tscript ==> INITIATE COMMUNIQUE TRANSCRIPT >F_G5_1 "What do you want..." >F_E4_LUCIA "You're the bloke Honest Bob sent, right?" >F_G5_1 "Freelancer gamma five-dash-one, at your service." >F_E4_LUCIA "You got a name, 'freelancer,' or am I gonna have to make one up?" >F_G5_1 "Promise not to laugh? It's Virgil." >F_E4_LUCIA "Well, call me Lucia. I mean, it's right there in my designation." >F_G5_1 "Alright. So what's the plan, Lucia? How are we going to get a live enemy pilot through a Coalition contraband screening?" >F_E4_LUCIA "He ain't alive anymore. Bastard woke up in the cargo hold and tried to pull all the wiring." >F_G5_1 "...And you killed him?" >F_E4_LUCIA "Christ, no, I'm a lot of things, but murderer ain't one of 'em. Nah, he pulled the wrong wire. Accidentally cut off the heat and air supply to the cargo hold." >F_G5_1 "...Heh." >F_E4_LUCIA "Thought you'd appreciate that, heh. But anyway, since he's not alive, he won't show up on contraband screening. Plus, well, since you can't sell a dead man as a slave..." >F_G5_1 "You'd actually consider selling a man into slavery?" >F_E4_LUCIA "Well not any more, I wouldn't! I already took enough of a loss on his bounty just because he was enough of a gumby to freeze and suffocate himself back there." >F_G5_1 "Not exactly my point, but..." [loud sighing] >F_E4_LUCIA "We've wasted enough time here, mate. Follow me to the SLC Midway - you're still on retainer with me, as per Bob's contract, so I gotta figure out something else for you to do for me...I mean with me." >F_G5_1 "Whatever." >stdout|close device /dev/vidcomm1 >stdout|close device /dev/tscript >stdout ==> Communication successfully shut down. >stdout|EOF
It was about then when Lucia's ship finally made itself visible. It was somewhat more up to date than mine was, at least sporting more than one engine, and armor that wasn't made of empty New Harvard Lagers. Strange to note, though, that I hadn't seen a single lethal weapon on the whole thing - her entire armament consisted of a bank of four EMP cannons and a rack of Jump Disruptor missiles. If there was anybody opposed to the idea of killing pirates for money, she was probably the best example. I caught her ship's designation number (same as her commtag ID, epsilon-four-dash-Lucia) and her ship's name, the Fun Snap. That sounded slightly more dangerous than my own USS Leave-Me-Alone.
Lucia pinged me via the commander interface. I pinged her back with a few taps at my keyboard. A little bit of debug output poured forth on the screen and our ships were now "networked" - I hadn't had to do this since my days with the Solar Liberty Coalition (which I'll just call SLC from now on; the full name's a waste of breath). Networking a squadron of fighters together was part of our pre-flight checklist.
The commander interface is something that's included by default in every ship's computer. On some models it's hidden, and on others, it won't let you take off until you specifically tell it who you're connecting to, or otherwise dismiss it. Basically, what this interface does is have the ship broadcast its vitals and damage report data to where any other ship that's networked can see it at a glance. It kind of reminds me of those online games, where you see everybody's health bars. This has a sort of side effect, though - the vitals data isn't encrypted at all, and is broadcast to every ship within a 500 meter radius along with the ship's squadron ID. It's wise to not network ships together if you're attempting any semblance of stealth, since often times the vitals data is the first thing the other side sees when you're mounting an attack. And if they have your vitals, they know exactly where you are, even if you're hiding behind an asteroid.
There are certain advantages to staying "offline" from the commander network. For one, it's a lot harder for foes to get a bead on you, since the only things they can otherwise target you by are the engine heat signatures, which can be hidden, to an extent, by remaining completely motionless; and image-recognition systems, which basically confirm a contact's presence by telling the targeting computer, "Yup, that's a ship, alright." So in a nutshell, just because you aren't broadcasting your ship's vitals data to your squad, that doesn't mean you're invisible. Hell, local militia and Coalition goons might see you without a network signature and immediately scan you for contraband - so in effect, if you're traveling with a load of military-grade plutonium in your trunk, it's LESS suspicious if you're being as "loud" as possible. Unfortunately, that's one area I consider myself knowledgeable in.
Seeing your vitals data isn't the only advantage you get from networking ships together, though. One reason why the Coalition does this is so that new orders can be sent to other ships in the same squadron without going through the lengthy process of calling them on the vidcomm. Orders can be encrypted (so it confuses me as to why vitals data isn't), and are often sent in "macros" to other ships. Some other data can be sent encrypted as well, particularly if you're sending an order such as "Attack my target" - of course that doesn't do a lot of good if the squaddie you're ordering doesn't know who you're targeting, so if said squaddie acknowledges the order, the targeting computer kicks in and selects the target in question automatically and locks it in, so missiles will begin the tracking process, weapon lead indicators will sight in, and all the other things that come with a good targeting computer.
Then there's those weird guys that use the commander network for idle chit-chat.
Civilian-model targeting computers don't include all the macros the military models do, but in their place include some phrases for idle banter back and forth. These don't really affect much, and savvy users such as myself often learn how to change what is transmitted when these are sent. Out of the box, they tend to be things like "How are you?" and "I'm good, thanks!" You know, generic polite nonsense. Lucia altered hers to be a bit more Cockney, apparently, while mine includes important phrases such as "Go back to Iowa, space-luddite!" (This is a very handy thing to have when dueling with the hypocritical Church of Man, who detest technology, yet fly space ships in order to destroy other space ships...god, I don't get them at all.)
Lucia's ship got up to speed at this point, so I threw my throttle to the highest setting and stuck to formation. The SLC Midway was quite a ways away, despite being in this system. Time to break out the PDA again and do some more sudoku puzzles.
