[El_Phil]

Cheers narf. Good for the tattered remains of my ego and greatly appreciated.

So I've got the ideas, I'm on a roll, I'm drunk! More writing type stuff!

This Side Of Paradise

The bar on ORS Hawk never closed, there was always someone who needed a stiff drink, sometimes delivered in several glasses. This night it was Lieutenant Caine keeping the barman honest.

"What I want to know is, why are we here? I mean nothing ever happens. Ever." Despite her best efforts, Caine's speech was still clear.

"You just answered your own question." Lieutenant Commander Stone answered. "We're a deterrent force, nothing more. Assuming you're not going all meta-physical on us."

Despite Stone's grin, Caine was in no mood to be side tracked. "So if the pirates don't attack the monthly convoy..." She started.

"Two monthly convoys, one in and one out." Jenkins interrupted. After a bad start to this posting he was desperate to prove himself and fit in. It wasn't working.

"Whatever." Caine tried to focus a look of disgust on Jenkins, but only ended up seeing two of him. Giving the stare up as a bad job she carried on. "So if the pirates don't attack the two monthly convoys what do they do?"

"Go after the independent vessels and the stragglers." Stone replied "It's not compulsory to join a convoy you know. If you're a couple of weeks early for a convoy what are you going to do? Sit around waiting losing money or take a chance on sprinting through the system." He asked rhetorically.

Caine looked up in confusion. "What sort of person would risk pirate attack for a few more quid?"


****


Captain di Matteo was asking herself a very similar question. The delivery bonus on the cargo, whatever it was she hadn't asked, was immense and the risk had seemed worth it. Now she was less sure. Suddenly taking a beaten up old freighter, even an armed one, through the Calder system on it's own didn't seem such a good idea.

"The long ranged sensors are still clear?" She asked.

"All clear out to max range, Captain." Vance, her second in command, answered. 'Which isn't far.' He thought to himself.

"How long until we're through the zone?" di Matteo asked next. The zone was a different size for each ship, but was defined identically. The area where, if attacked, the pirates would reach you before help could.

"Twenty minutes." Vance replied.

'Not long now. We can make it through this.' di Matteo re-assured herself. 'Tidespring's a tough, fast ship. That's what scaring away the pirates.'

di Matteo was starting to relax and think that the ship would make it. She wouldn't be thinking that way if she could overhear a conversation going on a pirate ship barely five mega-klicks away.


****


"Cap'n we gotta target!" The first mate, Frain, yelled across the bridge.

Harvey Malbranque, captain of the pirate ship Night Star, looked over at his first mate. "What is she and how tough is she?"

"An old Tidespool, movin' fast. Cap'n either their redlining their ion drives or they got newer engines on that crate. That aside she looks pretty standard."

Malbranque thought to himself. The Tidespool's were old Fleet armed transport, they could put up a fight, particularly against his old Javelin corvette. And the actual window of attack was pretty thin, unless they managed a fairly quick knock out shot the Navy would be all over them. 'But it's been a quite few weeks, if I don't do something the crew will drift apart next time I dock.' He reasoned.

Malbranque made his decision "Mr Frain, set an intercept course, full speed."


****


Micheal Vance had been told that it was worse to live in dread of something than have it actually happen. It seemed logical and so he'd believed it. In one brief moment he realised how completely wrong he had been.

"Incoming vessel on an intercept course!" The sensor officer on the called out.

There could be any number of explanations, but everyone who heard that shout knew what it meant. Pirates. Vance froze up in shock and he wasn't alone. A voice started shouting out, breaking the spell.

"Get Loxford Base on the comms and ask for assistance. And transmit a general distress call while you're at it. Vance, how long, exactly, until they intercept us? Chief Brandt if you have anything in reserve, now's the time to pull rabbits from hats. Everyone else to battle stations." Captain di Matteo was firing out orders to everyone in sight. 'Keep busy and you'll have no time to panic.' She told herself.

Time would tell if panic wasn't, in fact, the correct reaction.