Gods' Deliverance by Nidia Masters
Felix Renard liked to drive space ships. He did not much care for
exactly what he was doing in regards to it. Whether it be a simple transport
assignment, an escort, or, as he liked to call it, making someone hurt, he
loved every aspect of starship operation. This was a good thing, as for the
last day, he had immersed himself into some of the more loathsome areas of
starship operation.
Luckily for him, and his small crew, the life support and
environmental systems were back online and they did not have to spend whatever
remained of their short lives inside space suits waiting for the end. Instead,
Felix now had lubricant covering his skin up to his elbow as he desperately
tried to repair the critical systems of the ship.
Felix Renard captained a second,
possibly third hand Ibis-class frigate, the Senshi. A fierce name
for a small ship, it meant warrior in an old dialect of Caldari. Felix found
the ship in a dilapidated state, previously owned by a capsuleer and
inexpensive, by their reckoning. For Felix, it was a small fortune, but it
meant something more: freedom
To Felix, freedom's price was well known to be more than purely
monetary. For Senshi, the risks of nullsec were suddenly taught to her
when what was planned to be a routine transport assignment turned into a rather
unpleasant encounter with a hostile cruiser's lasers; Senshi herself
barely escaping in mostly one piece.
Senshi's first mate, a heavily tattooed
Nefantar with a dark complexion by the name of Fahim Najem opened the door to
the small equipment room where his captain had been working for the better part
of an hour. "Warp drive is restored, Captain," He spoke with a
gravelled voice that comes from being a life long smoker. "How are the
shields coming along?" Felix responded by waving his hand back and forth
quickly, the universal symbol for not so good. Fahim started lighting a new
cigarette before continuing. "Without the shields, taking us into warp
will be rather painful."
"Yeah, I know how my frigate works, Fahim, thank you. How is
everything else coming along?" The young captain spoke without taking his
eyes off of the delicate, though dirty repairs he was continuing.
"It's just you left."
"Figures... Put someone on watch and get everyone to get some
rest, this is a one man job anyway." Felix's commands were firm, though
not disrespecting. This was his ship and he made sure his small crew knew it,
but he did not treat them badly. He was not of any higher stature than any of
them. Likely less so, in fact. As he continued to work, Felix's thoughts turned
back to the earlier skirmish, and how he and Senshi came into the
position they currently found themselves in.
Wear and tear on Senshi had
been mounting in recent weeks, and so were the debts owed to an assortment of
unsavoury individuals. The little Ibis-class frigate was already old and
had clearly been through a few battles of its own before Felix spent more money
than he had on her. Now, desperate for a quick infusion of money into his
vacant accounts, Felix took a courier job for some capsuleer in nullsec. He
scoffed at the memory, remembering how he thought of how these capsuleers were
either so posh and refined that to move a few expensive modules some twenty or
so jumps was beneath them, or that they were of a form of lethargy so extreme
that language has yet to name it. Felix finally settled for a combination of
the two, and accepted the job, aware of both the risk, and the payout; for what
was to a capsuleer, equivalent to pennies, the reward for completion of task
would pay all of Felix's bills and still have money left over for a very nice
refit of the frigate.
The dangers and near lawlessness of nullsec were not unknown to the
general populace, especially ship captains. Getting to nullsec was not a
particularly difficult thing to accomplish; coming back from it was. This was
where Felix, Senshi and the crew found themselves in their current
predicament.
Senshi jumped into nullsec and travelled
the first few jumps unmolested. Providence was a far more pleasant region than
most others in explored space, but they would soon come to see that paradise,
it was not. With just a few more systems to pass through, it seemed like they
would make it to port just fine and ignored, a milk run essentially. This all
changed when they jumped into an uncreatively named system: DP-JD4.
True Slaves, zombified soldiers of Sansha's Nation surrounded the
stargate as Senshi jumped into
the system. A pair of cruisers flanked by a pair of escorting frigates, Sansha
Kuvakei's minions were ready for targets of opportunity jumping through the
gate, and Senshi was a soft one at that. Felix ordered his navigator to
immediately align to warp and escape the Phantasms and Succubi,
but the Nation seemed to have other plans for them.
Warp disruptors were the bane of most ships across New Eden, and Senshi
was no exception. Her small size, weak weapons and pathetic shield
generators meant that her best defense was escape. Now with one of the frigates
warp disrupting Senshi, this was no longer an option. Felix called for
evasive maneuvers and brought up commands for the lone ECM module on his little
ship. The one ace in the hole that remained, though Felix knew at best it would
buy him a few seconds unless something else was done.
That is when Senshi's missile turrets turned to face the
first Succubus. Certainly not enough to harm the cruisers, the light
missile launchers were enough to pose a serious threat to the frigates. The
first scourge missiles heaved from their launchers with a frenzied sprint towards
their marks as fiery beams of light crossed from the opposite direction,
striking and nearly obliterating Senshi's shields in a single impact.
What little speed Felix's frigate could muster kept them from taking the full
brunt of the Sanshas' assault, for the moment he had only the frigates to worry
about, though the cruisers fired their microwarpdrives to close the distance; a
module Senshi did not have.
Luckily for Felix, the one piece of equipment that did work properly
on the first try, was the ECM module, which immediately scrambled one of the
cruiser's targeting systems before she could fire on the frigate. This bought
enough time for Senshi the one frigate that was disrupting her warp
drive, but not before the unjammed cruiser and second frigate fired their
lasers again with hate, melting and burning away nearly all of Senshi's
starboard armour, exposing much of the underlying superstructure and
overloading numerous systems.
Senshi made the warp during the brief
moment before the True Slaves could recognize their error, and she only stopped
when she entered high orbit of a desolate, uninhabited world. So began their
long day of desperate field repairs.
Felix smirked. He was not entirely sure whether the True Slave
zombies had any emotions to speak of, but he knew if they had, they would be
furious at losing such a simple prey. That day, fortune was on their side. He
did not know if it would be the next.
The captain closed up the panel he previously had his grease-covered
arms elbow deep into, as the circuits and power came back online, and he heard
the tell-tale sound of the re-powering of the shield generator. He took his
tool box and marched down the short length of the ship, stopping in the
lavatory for only a few moments to wash the worst of the grease off his arms
before heading down to the flight deck. Felix found his navigator standing
watch in the cramped space, in one of the few seats available.
Irina Saika excelled at mathematics. Along with quick reflexes, a
calm demeanour and numerous other talents, it made her a very good navigator.
She was also Felix's oldest and possibly only close friend. She sat at the
console, watching the scanner carefully as she sipped her tea, a red blend from
Iyen-Oursta, one of the few luxuries on board the tiny frigate. Felix looked at
the scanner as he spoke to her, answering his own question. "How are
things looking out there?"
She offered a small scowl, it annoyed her when he checked her work.
He trusted her, but it was still a terrible habit of his. "Some movement
around, but nothing seems to be interested in us. Or is particularly close
by."
"Good." He paused for a moment as he set his tool box back
to its nook, under the console. "Are you coming to bed?"
"In about an hour," She sipped at her warm tea, coddled
between her hands. "I'll wait for the next watch. When are we getting out
of this shit hole?"
"0600, I hope it will be at an hour when there isn't a lot of
traffic around, so lets hope whatever asshole deity watches over us is in a
good mood in the morning. Tell the crew.” He turned and headed through the door
as she returned an understanding nod, worried more about the condition of the
ship, rather than the crew.
The sun does not rise in space. Not like anyone standing on the soil
would be used to. Morning came to Felix, his crew and Senshi regardless.
The prospect of a new day offered opportunities to Senshi and her
desires. Felix and his crew rose early and manned their stations, weary from a
lack of sleep and an abundance of maintenance that Senshi so desperately
thirsted for.
The little frigate's engines rumbled unhappily to full power as she
aligned to resume her previous day's course. “Bring the warp drive online,
let's make for the next stargate, and hope against anymore surprises.” Her
ordered, as he manned his own station in the small flight deck.
“Warp drive active.” Irina the navigator returned the call to her
captain.
The frigate did not particularly enjoy the transition as she entered
warp, screaming towards the stargate at superluminal velocities. Senshi
shuttered and rumbled in annoyance as her already damaged systems and hull
plating took the forces of the transition past light speed.
There was a collective cessation of breathing on the frigate as she
made the jump to the next system... and nothing happened. Sighs of relief
filled the ship as their sensors reconfigured post-jump and discovered they
were alone. There was no blockade at the stargate waiting to assault them
again.
“One more jump to go.” Felix explained, as he gestured to make the
next transition to warp, and the final
stargate.
Senshi again lurched in annoyance as she
made the final to her destination. A backwater system in a dead-end
constellation in a region beyond the control of the empires: Providence. The
system they jumped to was the unceremoniously named 3KB-J0.
The crew's earlier sighs returned to still breath due to the scene
before them. Giants fought in the space before them. Capsuleers, this
generation's current deities warred between each other. Two dozen battlecruisers
and their escorts traded shells, beams of light and missile back and forth as
drones of all sizes followed along, moving from target to target leaving an
exploding ball of light in their wake. Any one of those battlecruisers could
obliterate Senshi in the briefest of moments, especially if they were
piloted by capsuleers, and Felix recognized the danger. “Get us out of here,
now!”
Irina went to make course corrections as the engines fired to move
them out of danger. Fahim manned the weapons console should their escape prove
unhelpful as Senshi's engineer called from the lower decks, frustrated
and flustered that the engines were being pushed too hard, for the second time
in as many days. Senshi bounced and weaved between the blows the
capsuleers threw between themselves in whatever manner of argument that caused
their belligerence to one another. It did not matter to any of them on board
the little frigate, for the moment their only concern was survival.
Senshi's luck would run out as she
aligned for a final warp. The frigate's shields cracked suddenly as did her
hull as she took the full brunt of a stray slug from one of the capsuleer's
blasters. Senshi entered warp, although her rumble turned to a much more
violent shudder as her hull had micro-breaches, and her shields crippled. The Ibis-class
frigate came out of warp close to the outpost in the system, adrift, damaged to
a point where she would probably be considered an economic loss, and perhaps
trapped in less than the friendliest space.
"That's it. We're dead in the water." Felix said with a
melancholic voice.
Irina frowned as she looked down at her sensor console. "It
gets worse, a dozen battlecruisers are showing up on scan, probably heading
this way."
"Wonderful, any way we can get any power to the engines? What
about the missiles?"
The raspy Minmatar broke his silence. "The launchers are fried,
not that they would help at all." Irina just shook her head, and Felix
returned the frown in understanding.
The battlecruisers dropped from warp, one by one in quick
succession. Most were in good shape, others were burning, venting their
atmosphere from holes torn into their sides from the battle. Those were the
first to enter a docking pattern to the outpost before them. It took Felix a
moment to realize that instead of removing him and his crew from existence,
they were heading home. All but one of the battlecruisers, who moved to
approach them. The Naga-class battlecruiser dwarfed the frigate, but her
guns did not point towards them. Instead the communications array came to life,
one of the few systems remaining in operation, with a hail from a young woman's
voice.
"You're a long way from home, aren't you little one? Seems like
you got here right at the wrong time, and in the way of us and a few
pirates." The capsuleer spoke with an air of arrogant superiority as she
circled around them.
Felix picked up the microphone and returned the greeting. "Yes
ma’am, Captain Renard of the Senshi here to deliver a courier... and
regretfully... requesting a tow." The last words came out only with some
persuasion from Felix, he was sure that the cost of repairs would greatly
exceed their bounty.
The woman capsuleer's voice returned to the comm. "I believe
that is actually my courier, thank you, I've been without decent tea for days
now. Station control has been advised of your situation and is deploying a tug
now for you."
Tea, thought Felix, all this because
some asshole capsuleer was too posh to get her own god damned-
"Still," The capsuleer woman went on. "You managed to
get here all on your own. Well done I'm impressed, even I was never able to do
that in a little Ibis the first time. Tell me... do you boys need a
job?"
Felix smirked, maybe not a complete asshole.
