The Privateer/Chapter Z

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Florian's Tavern was nearly empty. Only two people remained among the overturned tables, chairs, and telltale signs of a sudden evacuation - the bartender, cowering behind the bar with a can of New Harvard Lager in hand...and Lucia, staring at a tiny package the size of a roll of film.

I tried asking her what the problem was, and she shushed me by holding up one finger, continuing to stare at the can. As I carefully approached, I saw four characters etched into the side of the can - E400. Then I stepped around it and noticed that the can had some wires protruding from it, and those wires were connected to a PDA which was displaying garbage on the screen...and a timer, with 30 minutes remaining (and counting).

E400 could only mean Element 400. One particle of that stuff is enough to create a worm-cloud. The film-canister looked like it had room for far more than one particle. I knew what the problem was now - if this canister of E400 were to be catalyzed, the resulting reaction would make a worm-cloud the size of a moon, with enough energy left over to fling the SLC Midway in about a hundred different directions at once. And of course, that went just as much for us. I had no intention of winding up on the other end of fringe space with both legs missing.

The bartender had evidently accepted his fate and opted to go down with the ship, but I wasn't about to let anybody die on my watch, so I pulled him up and dragged him out from behind the bar. He could barely stand, likely because he was on his fifth can of NHL. By the time I'd made it back to Lucia, she'd brought out a pair of wirecutters and her own PDA. My desperate plea for her to forget about the bomb was ignored. I called her crazy, and she ignored that too. It was only when I brought out my rather colorful repertoire of swears that she broke her gaze from the bomb and pulled her tranquilizer pistol to my face. I instinctively put my hands up, even though I already knew the thing only fired anesthetics.

At this point I tried to reason with her. I told her I knew she wasn't a bomb technician, that she was obviously just going to guess at the procedure. Her response was that there was a 50/50 chance that she'd detonate the thing in the process, but since the Midway was already evacuated, the only people caught in the blast would be the three of us. The SLC had written the Midway off as a loss the moment that the bomb threat had reached the top brass, she figured, hence the evacuation order, as opposed to SLC sending a bomb squad.

I had an alternative idea, though; one that might have a better possibility of working, with a potentially good side-effect.

I grabbed a nearby bar chair and set it next to Lucia. She carefully picked up the E400 canister and the PDA and moved them slowly to the chair's surface, securing them in place with a roll of UltraTape from her hip pouch, so that the canister and wire wouldn't accidentally come apart in transit. We carried the chair to the launch pad, UltraTaping it to one of her Disabler missiles. The PDA at this point read 15 minutes. Quickly, we boarded her ship (no sense launching two; it would waste too much time) and launched to space, where she turned to the left toward a distant asteroid field and launched the missile with the chair with the E400 bomb taped to it. The missile ran out of fuel after 30 seconds, but it was moving fast enough that it reached the asteroid field before the bomb timer ran out.

Then, right on cue, a dazzling flash of bright blue light filled the viewport windows. A massive burst consumed nearly the entire asteroid field, and eventually collapsed on itself, leaving nothing but a cloud of blue dust.

Well, damn. Forgot to contain the explosion. Oh well, it's not like this galaxy needed another worm-cloud to complicate things.

Lucia's vidcomm button started flashing in a blue light. She bashed the thing with her fist, revealing a helmeted face on the monitor next to it. I wasn't used to seeing actual video on my vidcomm anymore, so this caught me off guard. A tiny LCD screen below the monitor performed a live transcript.

CALLER ID: SLC_HALCYON_SUN_A15 (abbrev: SLC)
<SLC> This is Lieutenant Colonel Marston of the SLCN Halcyon Sun. Identify yourself.
<LUCIA> This's Freelancer Epsilon four-dash-Lucia. Lucia's fine.
<SLC> And your passenger?
<THIRD PARTY> Freelancer Gamma five-dash-one, I'm an authorized passenger.

God damn, it's really unnerving to see this thing type out what you're saying while you're still talking...even moreso when you notice it doesn't even bother to name you.

<SLC> Show me your identification, please.
<LUCIA> 'old on a tic, you're SLC, you should be able to scan for that!
<SLC> If you must know, freelancer, that E400 reaction you caused is playing hell with the Halcyon's scanners. Can't place your identification through normal means.
<LUCIA> Right, right, keep your trousers on.

Lucia begrudgingly flashed her ID card at the screen. I began to reach for mine as well, but the SLC man told me not to bother.

<SLC> We heard there was a bomb threat toward the SLCN Midway and came to investigate. But instead of the Midway exploding, we found your ship firing a missile that caused an E400 catalyst. We need to know exactly what happened.
<LUCIA> We saved your bloody ship, that's what happened!
<SLC> That's not what I was told.
<LUCIA> Who's doing the telling here?
<SLC> Science Officer Morgan, explain.
<FOURTH PARTY> Ten seconds prior to the reaction, sensors detected that you launched a missile in the general direction of the asteroid. We weren't able to clearly detect the type of missile, and the Halcyon's image-recognition database didn't give us any matches. The Science team and I can only reasonably conclude that the missile you launched contained a payload of weaponized E400.
<LUCIA> Okay, here's the thing. My associate and I found the bomb aboard the SLC Midway, taped it to one of my Disabler missiles, and shot it as far away from the Midway as we could. Basically, we saved your bloody ship. Now it sounds to me like you don't want to admit that we just saved the Coalition trillions of credits to rebuild another carrier. That's fine by me. Just don't go assuming that, because we happened to think of the gaffer tape and missile trick before you, that we're secretly making weapons out of E400 particles.
<SLC> I can see this is not going anywhere pleasant.
<LUCIA> Your own fault.
<SLC> Come in for a landing aboard the Midway. We'll meet at Florian's. Maybe dealing in person will change your tune.
<LUCIA> Good luck.

She smashed the button on her vidcomm again, causing the helmeted man to disappear amid a mass of white noise. I really hoped at this point that we weren't going to be branded as terrorists after what we did - and I also hoped that no nearby pirates were listening in. A pirate with the kind of weaponry we just described...well, it wouldn't be pleasant.

Back at Florian's Tavern, the drunk bartender was doing his best to continue serving drinks to the rather well-dressed SLC officers at the bar, despite the fact that the only reason he was continuing to stand was because he was leaning on the bar. He'd evidently mixed a little too much vodka into one White Russian, causing one of the lower-ranking officers to nearly gag. Light-weight.

The commander in charge noticed Lucia approaching, paying me little mind, and stood up. He was a tall sort of guy, probably six-three. He was probably bald under that officer's cap. Before he started talking, he nudged his science officer and instructed him to start logging. The nervous underling pulled a PDA - fancier one than I'd gotten, I had to admit - and tapped the screen a few times.

>> LOGMAN v3.32 MILSPEC
>> LET THE RECORD SHOW THAT THE FOLLOWING CONVERSATION IS CLASSIFIED, UNDER THE AUTHORITY AND DISCRETION OF THE SOLAR LIBERTY COALITION
>> LOG BEGINS
>> Lt. Col. Marston: You do realize the implications of what you've done, right?
>> Fl. Lucia Reinhardt: You mean by saving your bloody ship?
>> Lt. Col. Marston: No, by causing an E400 reaction with a Disabler missile. What you've just done is create a disguised weapon. Now as I'm sure you might be aware, this constitutes one count of falsifying the identification of a shipboard weapon system, one count of unauthorized reverse-engineering of FRM-protected equipment, one count of discharging a Colossus-class explosive in the vicinity of Coalition space--
>> Fl. Virgil Heidegger: What, are you on an arrest quota this week?
>> Lt. Col. Marston: You will speak only when spoken to.
>> Fl. Virgil Heidegger: You didn't have a bomb squad anywhere near the Midway. There was not really any way we could have gotten clear of the blast, short of getting the bomb as far away as we could. How the hell else were we supposed to deal with this?
>> Lt. Col. Marston: With all due respect, you two became expendable the moment you opted not to evacuate the Midway with everybody else.
>> Fl. Virgil Heidegger: What about the Midway itself? Was that expendable too?
>> Lt. Col. Marston: I can't speak for command, but--
>> Fl. Virgil Heidegger: Then why do you speak at all? It's assholes like you that ruin the good name of the Coali--
>> Lt. Col. Marston: What the fuck do you know about the good name of the Coalition? You're just another freelance punk, buddy.
>> Fl. Virgil Heidegger: I have this!

I pulled a small case, the size of my PDA, slapping it on the table in front of him with a wooden "plunk." He glanced at it and almost looked more pissed off than he did before I'd said anything. In utter disbelief, he popped the case open, revealing what I'd kept in it: two medals, and the Colonel's Eagle that had once been pinned to the shoulder of my Coalition uniform.

>> Lt. Col. Marston: The fuck are these? This some kind of sick joke?
>> Fl. Virgil Heidegger: You're saying that nobody ever told you about Colonel Virgil Heidegger of the 77th Capital Assault Squadron?

He carefully pulled the Colonel's Eagle from its indentation in the case and had one of his other underlings run the serial number on its backside. When he was told that it was legitimate, and beyond that, shown the photo identification attached to it, he slammed the table with his hands, hard enough to make all of his entourage jump slightly.

>> Lt. Col. Marston: If you were a colonel, why the fuck are you out freelancing?
>> Fl. Virgil Heidegger: I don't think you really deserve an answer to that question yet, soldier.
>> Lt. Col. Marston: And why not?
>> Fl. Virgil Heidegger: Because I'm still "expendable." Sorry to say, Lieutenant, but--
>> Lt. Col. Marston: That's Lieutenant COLONEL, god damn it!
>> Fl. Virgil Heidegger: --but I have no respect for a Coalition officer who holds such little regard for the citizens he has sworn to protect.
>> Lt. Col. Marston: Er-wh-
>> Fl. Virgil Heidegger: I'll be going now, and I'm taking Ms. Reinhardt with me. Good day to you, Lieutenant.
>> Lt. Col. Marston: Wait, you god damn traitor, or I'll have you court martialed!
>> Fl. Virgil Heidegger: Check yourself, soldier. You're aboard a vessel to which you do not fit in the chain of command, in a section of fringe space that the SLC has no jurisdiction over. And even beyond that...I outrank you.

Before anybody else could say anything, I grabbed the case back from Marston, took Lucia's hand, and dragged her back towards the docking bays. She wasn't thrilled with the idea, but there was little else to do. If either of us stayed there, Marston would find some way to detain one or both of us.

okay here's some random brainstorming (author's notes)

Why is the SLC Midway a write-off? Why is the entire ship evacuated, and why is Marston upset about Lucia "saving" the ship?

Because it's a plot within the SLC. They're looking for an excuse to bring back the war between them and...someone, so they deliberately plant a bomb on the Midway with catalyzed E400. This would promote panic among the people about the true nature of E400 and the wormclouds, driving the colonists into isolation and bringing Earth back to the forefront of "stable living." Is it about the money? Probably. Is Marston in on it? Maybe. Why's Lucia in trouble? She's a scapegoat, because weaponized E400 was Marston's idea in the first place, and all Lucia did was move the blast elsewhere.