“No”, you say adamantly. “We fight with them.”
Swearing under his breath, Betty powers up the ship’s shields and cannons.
“Wake up you assholes – we’ve got incoming”, he growls at the escort as he turns the ship in a wide arc to meet the approaching Wasps.
You notice the escort turning and firing up their afterburners to rush to the enemy, who are still outside visual range.
An alarm sounds, accompanied by flashing red lights on the control panel.
“Long range missiles inbound”, the female voice of the computer calmly announces. On the screen you see the three red triangles indicating the Wasps and four yellow lines speeding straight at you.
“See that”, Betty asks with venom in his voice. “Those are Viper missiles, and our countermeasures don’t fool them. The escort is as good as lost.”
With the escorts speeding ahead of you, you see the first missile approach the front ship. It launches a spectrum of electronic countermeasures and decoys. The missile flies straight and the explosion consumes the entire ship.
“Hold on”, Betty says as he pulls the Juggernaut in a tight turn whilst yanking down on a red leaver. She ship shakes violently accompanied by a loud metalling screech. Then he punches the controls and the ship shuts down completely. Finally he turns off the lights. From the side you can see the missile speeding closer.
“What have you done?” you ask feeling cold sweat pearl on your forehead.
“I dumped everything in the cargo hold…all the mining equipment, everything. It might fool the missiles since they were carefully calibrated to distinguish our countermeasures and disregard them. The mining equipment might ...”
Before Betty can finish, you slam back into your seat as the force of the explosion knocks the ship forward. Straining against your seat belt, the ship tumbles bow over stern, rolling away into empty space.
“Shiiiit”, you scream while holding on. Small electronic fires erupt and a hydraulic line breaks spraying oil across the cockpit.
“Hang on”, Betty screams. “With the destroyed mining equipment, the Wasps might mistake the debris for our ship. But we can’t do anything to let them know were still alive. We’re gonna have to ride this out – faking a portion of debris spinning into space.”
In the vacuum of space, Pathfinder Seven Zero spins away uncontrollably, while you extinguish the fires from the strapped-in safety of your chair. Fifteen minutes later, you can swear you’ve developed a hernia. “I think we’re clear”, Betty says powering the ship up. He engages the stabilizers. On the wings you can see them puffing in protest, slowing the uncontrollable spin until eventually the ship stops completely.
Looking at Betty, his eyes are blood red from the blood rushing to his head from the spinning.
“Looks like you’ve been drinking “, he says looking at you.
“Speak for yourself”, you reply. “Now what”, you ask.
“Well, now we need to get mining equipment again and for that we have two options I know about: the first is Hector-Prime...lovely little planet. I have some friends there, but the last time I was there an asshole-bounty hunter called Griffin was looking for me. We had a bit of a falling out and I severed his hand before escaping the planet…he might still be there and he is probably still pissed.
Second is Procol-Kilia. It’s a sub-surface hell-hole. We can only land when the port is on the dark side, cause the day-light side is pretty much a lava-firestorm due to the heat from the closest star. The subsurface facility is controlled by the Guhl, but we should be able to fly under the radar as long as we can maintain the miner façade.
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