Tales from the Void: Log of CMDR Matecca Davograd

[theox]

Note: Locations and names may either be redacted or altered when viewing public log entries to ensure immunity from system authority prosecution or operational security.

My father always said that everyone has a destiny. He would say that destiny is what brought me to the <redacted> system, but I have a feeling it was danger. Danger and money. Having spent the last few years as a two bit miner for the Federation, a man can get a hankering for the thrill of a bounty chase or the simple, dark satisfaction of a back alley stick up. Of course, the untouched metallic rings of <redacted> and the gobs of gold, painite, and platinum spilling out of the system doesn't hurt either.

It started innocently enough, hauling minerals and metals from one dot to another, returning with food stuffs and medical supplies. But I was eating only twice a day and sleeping in the ship to save money for fuel. My big break came at <redacted> while I was treating myself to a few stiff one's in Hogan's Alley, a little dive bar in <redacted> station. It was kinda comical really. The door whisked open and I swear the music stopped and everyone stared at the newcomer, just like one of those old vids my father used to watch. Westerns, I think he called them. I never understood that. Western where, Arcturus? Anyhow, he was dressed a little too duded out for the likes of Hogan's and as soon as he walked in about a hundred sets of eyes locked on to his timepiece like a Imperial missile battery. I chuckled to myself and made a small joke to Jack, the bartender, about the odds of him getting out of here with all his clothes. Jack didn't smile. He simply nodded his head and said "No one in their right mind will mess what that feller, that's Gareth Tisdale, hoss." Jack must have seen my blank stare, 'cause he followed up quickly with "Kinith Utrecht's errand boy." Well, that name I knew and stood my hair on end like a jackrabbit. Kinith Utrecht was "boss" of the <redacted>. If one wants to keep all their limbs attached and their ship in one piece, you pay Kinith his tax every time you do a job in <redacted>, legal or not. The "tax" ain't exactly legal either, but one keeps that under their hat. I tossed a few creds on the bar and started to get up to mosey on back to my bedroll on the ship, but a meathook of a hand landed on my shoulder and placed me firmly back on the stool. I turned on the unknown aggressor and found myself staring into a pair of eyes that clearly seen more than one space wrangler blasted into atoms. I gulped mightily and told the man "Pardon me Mister Tisdale, but I just assume take my leave 'for this place gets the better of me." He didn't blink.

"Sit down Mr. Davograd, we have business."

Well, this was news to me. I had paid my tax religiously start to finish each haul I had brought into <redacted>. I was sure to let him know this immediately. He wasn't impressed.

"You have a ship, I have cargo that needs to get to <redacted>."

I wasn't real sure what to make of this. I had a steady run at the time, hauling polymers and grain to <redacted>, and bringing back refined ore. I told him this as well.

"My employer is aware of your activities. He is also aware that you are a regular sight in <redacted>. So well known, in fact, that the authorities neglect to scan you. I must now make you aware that your regular route has been cancelled and your cargo replaced with Mr. Utrecht's delivery."

I stared at him for a moment, then looked down at my wrist pad and pulled up my manifest. "Now look here Mr. Tisdale, my ship is telling me I have grain and cobalt bound for <redacted>"

"I'm sure it does Mr. Davograd. The fact remains that you will transport Mr. Utrecht's cargo to <redacted> and deliver it to a Mr. Lyon. For this we will pay you 150,000 creds."

Suddenly my throat felt like the desert sands of Galway 3 and I took a deep drink from my glass, nodding at Jack, who was keeping an interested distance, for another. The calculation was simple enough, 150k creds was about what I would make in a month doing my regular haul. Now I was going to get it for a day's worth of work. This cargo must be hotter than Ursula Vandross in a fur coat standing on a white dwarf star. So I said so.

"Mr. Davograd, my employer has no doubt you will make the delivery on time and without being scanned. Naturally you can refuse, but I must warn you that my employer does not ask twice."

Jack showed up at just that moment, sliding my refill towards my sweaty hand before retreating out of earshot. I took a deep drink and turned to ask a final question, but the barstool was empty. That sonofa just up and vanished like a cred coin in Miss 's bra. I looked back to my drink and found a smiling Jack staring back at me. "On the house Mat, you look like you could use a free one." I opened my mouth to retort something physically impossible about his anatomy, but he was already turning and burning to another drunk at the bar. "'Course, your money's no good now anyhow, Utrecht's boys don't pay here."

"And just why is that, eh Jack?"

"He owns the place. See you soon Mat."

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[theox]

(Authors Note: Reposting this from another site to which I contribute, will update both once this thread is caught up)

Note: Locations and names may either be redacted or altered when viewing public log entries to ensure immunity from system authority prosecution or operational security.

Early the next day I found myself on the loading dock, looking over a forged ship's manifest with our local loadmaster. Sure, the little green lines said grain and polymers, but we both knew better. The thin trail of coolant leading up to my cargo hatch told a different story. The cryo cylinders they haul slaves in usually leak a bit. Grain tends to not leak coolant at all. At least no grain I would eat. With a wink and a nod, the loadmaster folded up his vidpad and sauntered off to generate more worthless paper with the rest of the departing cargo haulers. As he walked off, I figured I'd better have a look at what ol' Kinith had put in my hold. A lot of things take coolant, not just slave cryo cylinders, but a whole mess of nasty contraptions that might leave yours truly as a temporary star in the night sky. I punched the access code and the door slid open. To be quite honest, I think a cryo bomb might have been a better sight than the rows of frozen nobodies I saw instead. But at the time, the money was good and I had a reckoning that this wasn't my problem. It was, but the big wheel in the sky didn't see fit to show me that just yet. I punched up the container data on one of the cylinders and instantly wished I hadn't. In fact, I never did again until the last time I hauled human cattle. The blue-green display made that cylinder a person rather than a frozen tin can:

Howard Friesnan
Age:42
Primary Skill: Zero-G Mining
Certified Free of Disease
Remaining Work Expectancy: 46 standard years
Estimated Cost: 23,000 cr

I turned it off. I didn't want to know any more than I had to. I took a deep breath, sealed up the hatch, went hand over hand up the ladder to the the cockpit, read my undocking clearance back to the terminal monkey and headed into the black.

About 9 months and 50 trips later I was sitting pretty with a bank account bursting at the seams and a spotless conscience. Or so I told myself. You pays your money and you takes your chances, that was my motto. T'wernt my fault these people got themselves in this fix. I just did the haulin'. 'Course, the universe has a funny habit of settin' your world upside down just when you were gettin' comfortable. Naturally, the universe wasn't gonna make me an exception.

'Fore we get to that funny story, I suppose I should say something about the hunk of scrap I was tooling these folks around in. I called her the "Tumbleweed", but most folks would have called her a Cobra 'aught three. I got her for a song about 3-4 years back after she'd been wrecked in an asteroid field while on patrol and was declared surplus by the <redacted> authorities. I still remember the day I found her original inspection plate wedged up under the fuel line to the forward port thruster. It read:

Cobra Mark 3
ManDate: 02/02/3101
Cowell & McGrath Shipyards, Lave
Serial #: 00000373

I don't care if you believe me or not, but I'll be damned if I didn't have one of the first to roll off the old Cowell & McGrath line some 200 years earlier. As an old patrol ship, she had a few tricks up her sleeve. Good thrusters, solid electrics, and of course, the standard pairs of Federation issue Tesla Mod 63 Beam Lasers and Winchester "Dueler" 40mm Multicannons. They'd come in handy a time or two when the odd wannabe had a hankering for a brawl over some grain and plastics. A few bursts of those puppies would send 'em scrambling home for Mama. 'Course, its hard to find a hauler these days who isn't a veteran of some sort, and I'm no exception. But that's a story for another time.

Anyhow, where was I? Ah, right, the last haul for old Kinith. To this day I don't know if I got sloppy or just had a run of bad luck, but I found myself waylaid by one of those damn Purple Gang honchos about 1500 Ls out of <redacted>. Damn interdiction slammed me into the console, disturbing a very nice daydream I was havin' about Miss back in <redacted> and spilling my coffee all over the console. I strapped in, took the controls off auto, and let loose a stream of curse words over the local hailing frequency that must have took this character a little by surprise, because he didn't say anything for about two minutes. Again, the universe has a way of giving you what you need, and although I didn't know it, those two minutes were vital. It got my systems charged up, my shields up to full, and my hardpoints deployed just as he started in with those silly demands.

"Cargo or your life, hauler, this is the Purple Gang."

"Sorry sonny, but my boss says this cargo gets to where its goin'. No offense, but he scares me more than some jumped up kid with his Daddy's ship."

Maybe I should have left that second part out, 'cause about 2 seconds later Tumbleweed rocked hard to starboard as he put a well placed beam on my shields. I punched up the throttle, diverted power to the thrusters and started splittin' atoms right out of Dodge. I dialed in the nearest station and punched the button. Nothing. Not even friendly Elvira the Computer telling me what in the nine Hells was going wrong. I punched the button a few more times all while Sonny boy back there was burning through my shields like a hot knife though butter. Well Mat, I told myself, you've truly gone and #%&*$# yourself quite well this time.

 

[theox]

Note: Locations and names may either be redacted or altered when viewing public log entries to ensure immunity from system authority prosecution or operational security.

So right about now my problem became one of thinking. I knew what my options were, I just didn’t like ‘em. Eject the cargo and boost the Hell out….and probably sentence a bunch of space miners to an eternity of being a popsicle orbiting a forgotten star. Not to mention suffer the wrath of my employer, which I had heard could be a mite too much wrath for a guy like to handle. ‘Sides, I like my head up top my shoulders. Give over the cargo. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. You give these punks a light second and they’ll take a whole damn galaxy. Which left me with one option: kick this punk’s up over his shoulders and send him crying home to mama. One problem: He’s smaller, faster, and isn’t carrying a ‘undred tons of frozen space miners.

So I decided to do a little test. These pirate types are usually a bunch of jumped up lowlifes with about 10 hours behind the wheel before they decide they can take on some haulers who won’t fight back. Let’s find out. I reefed the Tumbleweed over into a left-hand descending spin, or what I like to call a Thanatos Tornado. The kid in that Eagle might have thought twice if he could have seen my grin when his lasers flashed and hit nothing but vacuum. Welp, no gimbals and a pilot who probably had less hours in that Eagle than I had sitting on the can in the past month. Check. Time for the second test.

I popped some chaff to give him a little razzle dazzle in his scopes and watched him try to follow me down. See, an experienced pilot, a veteran, would sniff this out in a few seconds and just keep his nose on me using thrusters then make up the distance with his superior speed once I stopped my whirlybird impersonation. He burned hard down the chute and quickly closed the distance, all the while I’m watching my range indicators. 3000 meters….2000 meters…1000 meters. As soon as he got under a klick, I popped the Flight Assist and burned right at him full throttle and a boost for good measure. Kid never stood a chance. Not at that range. There was a warbling sound as both our shields went down together, an immense impact that threw me forward against the restraints, and then the screech of metal as the Tumbleweed struck him dead on the cockpit and dragged my carcass over her amidships. Physics can be a #%&*$#, but she’s a quite a dame for those who respect her. There was a slight tug aft but then I was free, warning sirens and red lights making my cockpit into one of those dance parties down at Friedman’s on Saturday night. I quickly rerouted power to life support and shields and kicked the rudder over to see how my impromptu Texas Two-Step turned out. And it turned out like a picnic apple pie. That pirate hung in the vacuum like a side of beef with atmosphere leaking out of every seam. Where the cockpit had been was just a shattered hulk of twisted metal and an empty hole. Another man might have felt something, but I’ve seen enough empty cockpits in my time to move on and sleep well.

I had won, but it was gonna cost me. I could see atmo leaking out of my own cockpit and Elvira the Talking Computer was giving me a countdown in that monotone that reminded me of dear old Mom before I left town. But this countdown was a little more serious. I didn’t need to clean out the stables, I had to get this wreck into a station in the next few minutes before I found myself in a capsule sucking canned air and waiting for the cavalry to show up.

 

[theox]

Note: Locations and names may either be redacted or altered when viewing public log entries to ensure immunity from system authority prosecution or operational security.

So right about now my problem became one of thinking. I knew what my options were, I just didn’t like ‘em. Eject the cargo and boost the Hell out….and probably sentence a bunch of space miners to an eternity of being a popsicle orbiting a forgotten star. Not to mention suffer the wrath of my employer, which I had heard could be a mite too much wrath for a guy like to handle. ‘Sides, I like my head up top my shoulders. Give over the cargo. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. You give these punks a light second and they’ll take a whole damn galaxy. Which left me with one option: kick this punk’s up over his shoulders and send him crying home to mama. One problem: He’s smaller, faster, and isn’t carrying a ‘undred tons of frozen space miners.

So I decided to do a little test. These pirate types are usually a bunch of jumped up lowlifes with about 10 hours behind the wheel before they decide they can take on some haulers who won’t fight back. Let’s find out. I reefed the Tumbleweed over into a left-hand descending spin, or what I like to call a Thanatos Tornado. The kid in that Eagle might have thought twice if he could have seen my grin when his lasers flashed and hit nothing but vacuum. Welp, no gimbals and a pilot who probably had less hours in that Eagle than I had sitting on the can in the past month. Check. Time for the second test.

I popped some chaff to give him a little razzle dazzle in his scopes and watched him try to follow me down. See, an experienced pilot, a veteran, would sniff this out in a few seconds and just keep his nose on me using thrusters then make up the distance with his superior speed once I stopped my whirlybird impersonation. He burned hard down the chute and quickly closed the distance, all the while I’m watching my range indicators. 3000 meters….2000 meters…1000 meters. As soon as he got under a klick, I popped the Flight Assist and burned right at him full throttle and a boost for good measure. Kid never stood a chance. Not at that range. There was a warbling sound as both our shields went down together, an immense impact that threw me forward against the restraints, and then the screech of metal as the Tumbleweed struck him dead on the cockpit and dragged my carcass over her amidships. Physics can be a #%&*$#, but she’s a quite a dame for those who respect her. There was a slight tug aft but then I was free, warning sirens and red lights making my cockpit into one of those dance parties down at Friedman’s on Saturday night. I quickly rerouted power to life support and shields and kicked the rudder over to see how my impromptu Texas Two-Step turned out. And it turned out like a picnic apple pie. That pirate hung in the vacuum like a side of beef with atmosphere leaking out of every seam. Where the cockpit had been was just a shattered hulk of twisted metal and an empty hole. Another man might have felt something, but I’ve seen enough empty cockpits in my time to move on and sleep well.

I had won, but it was gonna cost me. I could see atmo leaking out of my own cockpit and Elvira the Talking Computer was giving me a countdown in that monotone that reminded me of dear old Mom before I left town. But this countdown was a little more serious. I didn’t need to clean out the stables, I had to get this wreck into a station in the next few minutes before I found myself in a capsule sucking canned air and waiting for the cavalry to show up.

Top
#4331735 - 01/26/17 05:52 PM Re: Log 07SEP3301 CMDR Matecca Davograd [Re: theox]
theox Offline
Member

Registered: 10/31/10
Posts: 104
A man’s life is defined by the decisions he makes, especially when no one is over his shoulder to tell him what to do. Believed it then, still believe it to this day. Making the right call is even harder when you’re watching atmo leak out of your cockpit, your body is bruised up like a week old bana-apple, and you’re watchin’ some blood red numbers on your data display count down the seconds until your untimely demise.

But I’ll give myself some credit on this one. I never even considered chucking those meat popsicles in the cargo hold out into the void. Like I said before: You pays your money and you takes your chances. And it was time to pay the piper. I only had about 90 seconds of atmo left when I plunged through the environmental shield of <redacted> station and sat the old Tumbleweed down on Pad 34. Damn cockpit door was twisted shut, so I pulled myself out through the shattered glass of the cockpit, dropped down to the deck and took a look back at the horse I had rode for some three years. It was clear she was for the scrap heap. Her once beautiful lines were now nothing but scorched and twisted metal and cooling fluid was leaking out of her like a sieve. I had a brief meeting with the station officer that went predictably.

“Commander Davograd, you are aware of what we found in your hold?”

“I reckon so.”

“And you are aware that your cargo manifest has been falsified and that you are in violation of roughly eight ordinances and laws concerning cargo transfer and slave trading, of which the penalty is 30 to 50 years of imprisonment?”

“I reckon so.”

“You could have jettisoned those people into space, your cargo hatch was undamaged.”

“I reckon so.”

He gave me a queer look right about then. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“You do what you have to do officer, I’ll do what I have to do.”

I spent the next week shuffling between the medbay and brig and stuck a couple of Federation goons on me to make sure I didn’t make any trouble. They impounded the Tumbleweed, or what was left of her, and froze my cred account, or at least the ones they knew about. There was a funny touch to it. They actually gave me the bounty on the pirate I killed and then took that too. Haha. They set my tribunal date for a few months hence and slapped me in the stir to contemplate my sins. To be quite honest, the future looked a mite dire. But fate, God, or whatever has a funny way of flipping everything upside down.

 

[theox]

Two weeks later found me officially charged with smuggling, falsifying official documents, jaywalking, horse theft, and whatever else they could think up and slap on the docket. They brought me up to the loading dock with the rest of the motley crew they were holding down in the brig and we all watched as the thruster smoke rolled in from our new home. I’d heard about the Federation using old ships as prisoner hulks, but this was the first time I’d seen one. Once upon a time it was a Lakon Niner, but now it looked more or less like someone chewed up a bunch of metal and when they spit it back out it kinda looked like the old tradeship.

The goons nudged us in the back and we trod up the loading plank into some makeshift cells complete with bed bugs and synth’d food. I got comfortable, tilted my hat down and dozed off to sleep. Whatever was gonna happen was gonna happen.

Well, something happened. No judge, no jury, and for damn sure no cute court reporter giving me a wink. I’d like to say I woke up, but I was more or less thrown out of my cot into the bulkhead which should have knocked me out, but the blaring siren and flashing red lights kept me from nodding back off. My years as a professional pilot told me that that these lights and sirens were definitely not normal, not to mention the sensation of a couple thousand tons of starship doing a shimmy in mid-space.

I guess the crew woke up about this time, ‘cause the pilot came on the PA to let us know the drink cart would be coming by shortly. Just kiddin’. He fairly yelled in the PA what most of us had figured out already. We were under attack.

It’s been said that watching a ship go down is one of the most terrifying things you could ever lay eyes on, but I’m here to tell you being in that ship is worse. Especially when the ‘Cap leaves his mic hot and you can hear him yelling for reinforcements and more power to the shields. I strapped into the depowered escape pod thoughtfully placed in each cell (it doubles as a john) and closed the hatch. I closed my eyes a moment in prayer and waited for the green light to shine on the console indicating I was free to pop out of this death trap.