A life in the shadow of a thousand suns

[Lucky Dice]

CHAPTER ONE - BACK FROM THE BLACK
I felt relieved. Relieved to feel something that slightly resembles gravity pulling on my body, relieved to see some other human beings, relieved to from the cramped up feeling a cockpit will start give you if you spend their long enough, despite the views of endless unchartered space around you. As my feet touched the ground of landing pad 6 of Sovica station in Tangaroa I took off my flight mask and and took a deep breath. It was good to be able to breath something else than my own recycled farts. Somebody else’s recycled farts, the air on a station is still provided by a closed loop life support system after all, but still.


As my eyes followed the light show given by the counter thrusters of a massive Type-9 transport ship that was about to touch down I slowly started to realize something was off. Somehow it was remarkably silent. Sure, without hearing protection you would go quickly the sounds of this orchestra of counter thrusters kicking in, squeezing landing gears of space cows touching down and canisters rumbling against each other as they were loaded and unloaded would make you go deaf rather quickly, but it was like there was missing an instrument, the sound of dock workers yelling to each other. Perhaps it's just a cultural thing I pondered, I've always assumed that noisy dock workers would be something universal, but what did I know. Before this pilgrimage into the black I'd never left Federal space. The only imperial station I’ve been before was Herbert Dock in Wolf 906, but although it was run by an Imperial Chartered company, it was still located in Federal territory so slaves were considered illegal there. These dock workers were probably slaves though, perhaps they weren’t allowed to yell. The real reason why these dock workers were so silent was revealed to me a few moment later by the Galnet News terminal in the waiting of room of Universal Cartographics: Emperor Hengist Duval Dead.

 

[Lucky Dice]

CHAPTER TWO – LIFE IS CHEAP
“Life is cheap, commander, ships are not” the insurance agent said in response to the grunt I uttered as I authorized the claim. He sure was right, life was cheap in this strange world we lived in.


It had been the reason I went on my little pilgrimage into the black in the first place, I still could hear the little greenhorn’s voice in my head sometimes. “But all I tried to do was some mining!” he had said, just before his ship exploded. The poor fellow had accrued a 400 credits bounty because he’d accidently hit another miner with his mining laser. Because of that the security forces blew his ship out of the black sky. Shoot first, ask questions later, that’s how the police operates nowadays. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had paid the other miner to fly through his mining beam on purpose, the poor chap had been flying an Imperial Clipper in Federal space after all.


Yet, here I was just a few days after my return signing off on insurance documents because I’d screwed up an assassination contract and almost payed for it with my own life. I could only blame myself really. The plan had been simple, sell some exploration data Tangarao to gain some favour in the Empire, sell the rest in 78 Ursae Majoris to gain favour with Allioth Independents and qualify for an Allioth permit so I could buy myself a nice Alliance subsidized Asp at Irkurtsk station and become rare good trader. It all had gone according to plan, they even had organized a little ceremony in Irkutsk in my honour to celebrate my achievements in advancing scientific exploration for the Alliance. All went according to plan until it came to the point I would need to sell my loyal Diamond Explorer ‘Restless’ to pay for the modifications I had ordered for the new Asp. I became sentimental, we’ve had been through so much together, couldn’t do it, I had to think it over.


That night I was approached by a mysterious man who claimed to speak on the behalf of the Allioth Council. He tossed me some intelligence reports about a local pirate lord had been following the example of Archon Delaine and had successfully united several small time crews under his command. “The Alliance has enough to worry about as it is mister Dice. The last thing we need is a Kumo Crew look-a-like within our borders.”
“I’m sure you don’t, I don’t see how that’s is a concern of mine however.” I replied, I didn’t want this job, I’ve made a small fortune selling death and destruction either directly as soldier of fortune or indirectly as weapons dealer. For what? Just so I could buy a bigger ship with bigger guns to sell death and destruction even more efficiently. It wasn’t who I wanted to be. I wanted to see the universe, the explored and the unexplored, as a rare good trader and an independent explorer. I wanted to pilot an Asp.
“It is not Commander, but the three hundred thousand credits I’m authorized to pay are” the mysterious man said. “So are the two hundred fifty thousand you could additional collect by claiming all the bounties on his head” he added.
An Asp I could afford to outfit properly without selling my old ship by doing this one more job.


So I did. I told the outfitter to keep the Asp in storage for now and install three plasma accelerators on the Restless instead. The intelligence the mysterious mad had provided me with turned out to be sound and I soon had tracked down the pirate king in his Anaconda that was armed to the teeth. As I deployed my hard points the emergency oxygen count down kicked in, no worries, twenty five minutes should be plenty. The fight went according to plan, the three plasma accelerators got rid of his shields swiftly and most of his armour swiftly. He tried to run away, I diverted power from my shields to my thruster to catch up. I moved in for the kill shot. I put finger on the trigger, ready to make the final kill. Another kill, another life I would take just because some guy in suit promised me some credit. It distracted me for a fraction of second. A fraction of second that caused me to miss. A miss that I only realized once I saw the plasma bolts sail past the Anaconda. By then it was too late, a full broadside of the Anaconda rained down upon me. I checked my ship status, hull integrity was still forty two percent, I could still win this fight. “Power plant failure”. Bad news. As I prepared myself to eject I saw three green objects entering my sensor.