Phantom Star: Chapter 40

The pounding of my heart in my ears was blocking out all the ways I could handle this.

Sure, I could call the Securitate myself, explain the situation, but, if what I suspected was true, that would just leave the scrappers time to steal whatever they wanted and get away. They weren’t here for the long haul. Likely the Iris Drives were already gone from the wreck.

And more importantly than that, My Crabbit would be gone, no way they would just release the drone, that would reveal they were actually committing a crime.

I could comm the captain of the scrappers again, and explain myself clearer, more forcefully. 

Or… My fist clenched.

I took my chair, the bridge quiet as the Crabbits seemed to be looking at me for guidance.

I flipped the comm on my Tab to send another call.

“Sin, you there?” I called out, she was still on the Flying Prak looking through the Pirates logs, and would have no idea what was happening.

“Yeah, I’m here. What?” She responded a few moments later.

“We got scrappers on the second ship. I’m telling the Crabbits to back off the Prak a bit, but we’re about to get into a fight.” I explained, as I started shifting the ship to battle readiness.

“Wait what?”

“Out.” I said, without any further explanation, as I flipped the controls on my Tab.

Shields: Online, although some of the emitters from the ramming maneuver were down. A bit of a risky spot, but the armor would hold against these little scrapper ships.

Weapons: Online, I was down missiles, but everything else was operational.

EW: Technically down, as Sin wasn’t on board. “Can one of you take over the Electronic Warfare station?” I called out, and a moment later I heard a cry of happiness as some of the Crabbits on board floated up to the bridge to take over. 

They weren’t as good, but they could at least do some of the job.

Okay.

I ignited the Thermal Lance. A quick targeting request inputted. Tactical quickly taking it from there, the Turret turned. A light adjustment to my position put my unshielded side away from the Scrappers. They noticed.

Of course they did. They thought I was willing to give them a chance to escape with my Crabbit.

I could see my Comm blowing up. Sin and the Scrappers both reached out to contact me.

Without any further hesitation I pulled the trigger.

The laser guidance of the Thermal Lance lit up my viewport, and a moment later, the plasma rumbled through the ship.

There was a pair of searing hot lines through space, they didn’t hit anything, at least at first, eventually splashing against an asteroid, but the attack was close enough for the scrappers to feel it.

Probably a lot closer than the Scrappers had ever expected, or wanted.

Then I purposefully altered my targeting parameters, making sure all three of the Scrapper ships were lit up by my sensors. 

I was doing the equivalent of pointing a gun at someone's head. Was it illegal?

Yes, technically, sort of. Only they had done something illegal first. Claim jumping was illegal, and they might think they were hot shit going through the Securitate to get some wiggle room, but I was not playing. 

They. Had. My. Crabbit.

I waited a few moments, just to let the truth of the situation sink in, I could see their ships maneuvering, no doubt leaving behind people on the other pirate ship just to try and get mobile.

Only when I was satisfied, did I flip the comm. 

“This is Captain Katherine Ferrous, of the Phantom Star. You will turn off all engines, return my kidnapped crewmate unharmed, or I will fire, and search for her myself.”

I felt jittery, my heart was beating, that feeling of knowing you are doing something ‘wrong’ but still doing it anyways. 

“Are you crazy! This is a secure system!”

“You will turn down all engines, and return my crewmate.” I repeated, ignoring the shouted cries coming through the comm.

They didn’t. Shouts and yelling came through so I simply opened targeting to Tactical, and the four Lasers on the starboard side opened up, flashing light lit up, and one of the scrapper ships instantly jolted, its shields flaring bright and nearly popping with just the four broadsides tapping them.

“Final warning.” I declared, as I pointed the Thermal Lance directly at the ship that had contacted me in the first place.

They were scared, but the question was, what were they more scared about, me? Or getting caught?

The moment went long, longer than I wanted, and I was fingering the trigger ready to fire when finally the sensors clicked, as the ships started going silent.

Engines turning off, leaving them basically stationary.

They… Listened?

What now? C’mon Kat, think. What now?

“Give me the crewmate that you kidnapped, and I’ll allow you to leave without any further issue.” I decided, there. I would lose some of the shit from the ship, but the Crabbit was the priority.

“I already told you! We didn’t kidnap anyone!” The yell came over the comm. The captains were getting desperate,

“The drone that I left to signal the claim I laid on this pirate vessel is an AI. She is fully sapient, and a member of my crew. You will return her.”

“A fucking drone?” One of the captains whispered over the line, and I could hear the silence as all three of them took in what I said.

“Return her, and leave.” I said repeating myself, but needing to emphasize, they had an option here.

Just give her back.

“Fuckin’ Hole, all this because of a drone, are you insane?”

The comm came from the left most ship, I shifted the turret without hesitation until it was pointed right at him. The Thermal Lance was fired up and ready.

“You have your options.” I decided and then waited. Time was ticking, and I felt my heart fluttering, my forehead was getting sweaty more from anxiety than anything. 

Before I really started losing it, I heard Hammond come crawling up to the bridge. “What is going on?” He asked, as he regained his feet from the ladder and hurried over. “Felt the ship fire.”

“Scrappers trying to jump my claim… They took the Crabbit I left behind. So now they are going to hand her over, or I’ll get her myself.” I said firmly. Hands still gripping the controls finger on the trigger.

Hammond looked from me, then took a few steps forward to look out, seeing the scrapper ships magnified on the viewscreen. 

“Alright, alright I get it.” He said, and I relaxed a bit as he didn’t seem angry, or upset. Just accepting what I was doing.

“Alright! Alright, we’ll dump your drone, just let us leave.”

Before I could speak, Hammond walked over and waved at himself. I was a bit confused but I nodded and he stepped in and hit the comm button.

“Drop the drone, and lose yourself in a black hole, you think we have any more time to waste on you fucking Prak munchers? Get on with it!” He roared the last bit jolting even me before he tapped the comm. 

“What? That was… Good job?” I offered as I felt they suddenly were jumping to do just that.

“It’s just how you need to act with men like this.” He grunted and I swallowed.

“They, they said they called the Securitate. That they registered the claim. What should I do?”

“Did they?” He asked, and I suddenly realized that… I had no proof of that, just because they said they did…What does that matter?

I felt more of myself unclench as I realized I might have been played hard if I wasn’t so worried about the Crabbit. 

I reached up and rubbed at my eyes a bit. I think I was getting a bit teary eyed at the idea of these jerks taking my Crabbit. 

“Even if they did. You can prove they are lying.” He offered almost gently, reaching out and patting my shoulder as I sniffled a bit into my sleeve. This… This wasn’t what I had wanted to deal with! I just wanted to search the pirate ships with my Crabbits and relax after such a crazy day!

“Ah!” The Crabbits around the bridge called out as they jolted a bit. “Found her! Found her!” They cheered, and I relaxed as the sensors quickly registered the Crabbit connection.

They hadn’t destroyed her like I had feared. They basically threw her out the side of the ship, and I watched as she started flying back towards the Phantom Star.

Everything was quiet for a bit before the comm chirped.

“There. We just want to leave.”

“Go.” I demanded, despite half crying my voice was harsh. Assholes!

And no doubt they had gotten what they wanted, the scrapper ships turned tail and ran. I just slumped in my chair trying to catch my breath, and stop sniffling into my jacket.

—---

“Jesus, you should have just picked up! I was trying to tell you there is no way a bunch of losers would contact the Securitate for a claim jump!” Sin grumbled at me as she pointed her dinner at me making sure I saw it before she stuck the pseudo meat into her mouth and chewed it angrily.

“The Captain handled it.” Hammond offered trying to calm things, but Sin just shot him a look in turn.

“I know, okay? Even… Even I realize how stupid it sounds, we had plenty of data on the battle, no way they could have contacted the Securitate and let it stick… I was just freaking out.”

“Well don’t.” She muttered, and I deflated. 

Hammond didn’t defend me this time, because frankly it was my fault. It was one thing to make a mistake. As a Captain I had very little room for that, but I didn’t just make a mistake I totally freaked out.

I glanced at my shoulder. The Kidnapped Crabbit was currently my shoulder Crabbit. She had thankfully not taken it badly, it had just been partially fun, and partially boring for her. They had hit her with a stunner, and managed to turn her off. So she spent a majority of the situation offline.

I reached up and patted her chassis, my food practically untouched. As I stared at it more than ate it. I wasn’t perfect, I knew that. I was a bit sheltered in this life, knowledge that Sin and Hammond both had gone right over my head. 

I could learn that as I go, I would have to learn that, but… There were also things only I could do, things that Sin and Hammond couldn’t do. For now, I needed to focus on those, so that if I did make a mistake like today, I would be able to get myself out of it.

“I’m going to head to the other ships after dinner.” I finally said, still patting my shoulder Crabbit. “Sin if you could keep an eye on the scanners just in case, and Hammond I could probably use an extra pair of hands.”

“Sure.” Sin agreed, digging into her meal, and Hammond just nodded. 

Okay step one. Make my ship stronger. Step two… Probably still make my ship stronger. 

I’m fairly certain if I tried to actually write out the list it would just be a thousand steps of upgrade ship. So let’s ignore that for now. 

The pirate ships had some interesting tech, it wasn’t high tech, it wasn’t complicated, but it was the sort of thinking Pirates were notorious for. 

Things I would have to learn from.

I reached out and speared my food and chomped down.

Huh, kinda tasted like Salisbury Steak today. 

—--

“What the hell is this?” I whispered as I was looking through the Flying Praks internals. With both ships pushed together to easily jump from one to the other, and the Phantom Star looking over them both, I had gotten to work. 

But where the Itello, the other pirate ship, had been a mess because of the Scrappers taking advantage and ripping out everything they could, the Flying Prak was just… Weird.

At first I had thought it was the EES, all the one use thrusters would still need power from somewhere so I had thought that was what caused all the weirdness in the power systems, but that wasn’t it.

It was almost like…

I got up from the power manifold I’d been digging into and heading back to the engine room. Looking at the strangely empty room. I’d had something twig at me when I was in before, but I hadn’t had time to properly look it over.

Walking the walls, I pushed my hands against the metal plates, and instantly I knew.

There were scratches in the walls, not little ones, but they circled the entire room, something had rubbed against the entire internal hull. 

It couldn’t be up… So, I walked to the floor grating and tried to move it, only to get nowhere… The entire floor grating was connected, this entire room was. Fake. 

“The fuck?” I whispered to myself staring at an engine room that was only meant to look like an engine room. It was a facade, and from what I was seeing, it was meant to carry an escape shuttle, well… An escape engine room. “Hammond!” I called out, knowing the man would hear me. I walked around the room until I found it. The place the flooring ‘ended’ after all, if this was meant to come down after an escape shuttle ejected, it would have to have a start and end point to work. 

Hammond walked in a moment later seeing me and my Shoulder Crabbits moving the floor grates one block of grates at a time. 

“What?”

“Have you ever heard of a ship that turned its entire engine room into an escape shuttle?” I asked, staring down into the darkness, at the locked plates under the engine room. The locked plates that very obviously were meant to pop open to eject a part of the ship.

“What?”

“Yeah I didn’t think so. I’ve certainly never heard of it before.” I muttered. The Flying Prak… What a weird ship.

But I realized with a sudden hiss, that meant the captain of this ship was probably still alive.

“Hammond, I think the captain of this ship is still alive.” I told him seriously, and then he just shrugged!

His stupid massive shoulders arched up once in the most declarative method of showing how little it mattered.

I gaped at him for a moment. 

“What?”

“You- I just said the Captain of the pirates escaped!”

“Yeah?” He rumbled looking a bit confused, and I just slapped a hand into my face. 

“What if he comes for revenge?”

He scoffed at me! 

“I’m serious!”

“Captain… He’s a pirate. Do you think he’ll make any creds coming after you? Do you think he’ll convince a crew to come after a ship as heavily armed as your monster?”

“Well… What about revenge?”

“Oh he might want some, but he’ll need a chance, and that isn’t going to come. This isn’t a holodrama.” He told me, and I looked away a little embarrassed at that. 

“Fine… Fine. I’ll just… Ignore the fact I have an enemy now.”

“Pirates were always your enemy.” He reminded me, and I sent him a look. 

“Sin.”

This time he had the grace to look away, and I nodded. Okay fine. This… This was such a weird ship design. 

I clicked on my comm a moment later. 

Sin. The Prak’s engine room used to hold an escape pod. I think the Captain of the ship escaped.

I waited a moment, before the comm connected back and I snorted at the sound of her music playing over the comm for a second before she pause dit. 

“Say that again?”

“The Prak’s engine room is a fake. It used to hold an escape pod. I think the Captain survived.”

“Well… Huh. The whole thing?”

“Yeah. Do some scans, see if we can’t find out where he went.”

“Sure I’ll start looking around, wait, you mind if I call the Mining station?”

“Oh, do that!”

“Got it.” I nodded, but put it out of my head for now. For now the ships engine room was no longer of any value, the mystery of it was explained. “Okay I’m going to look at the ESS, and then probably head over to the Itello, find anything?”

“Just personal items. You want me to grab anything from the mess?”

“Oh, right food and stuff, they have anything good?”

“No.” He said with complete conviction and I nodded slowly. 

“The Manipulated Protein?”

“Grade F.”

I looked at him in confusion for a second.

But…

“Don’t they only go to Grade D?”

I watched as Hammond's face shifted like he was remembering a taste of something before he finally spoke. “Sometimes, the Grade D goes bad, you can still eat it… If you have to..”

“Oh.” I shuddered at the idea. “No, that's fine, we aren’t hurting enough for finances to need to grab spoiled food.”

“Hmm. I’ll keep looking through the personal items to see if I can find something worth taking. Found some blasters already.”

“Oh good. I’ll keep working too.”

—--

“What do you think?’

“Hmmm… Goop!”

I just laughed at the Crabbit that was scanning what I was looking at. The canisters were the replacement for the Laser Disruptor system. Most countermeasures were just electronic. ECM was incredibly effective after all, but that didn’t mean that a few other options weren’t good to have. 

I knew anti-missile or torpedo countermeasures were fairly common. Missiles were one of the few weapons you could fire outside of ECM range, since the missile, if it was advanced enough, could lock on once it got close enough.

But this was something else. 

Laser Disruptor. It was sort of powdery, sort of goopy, and completely mechanical. No electronics at all.

You just shot out compressed gunk into space, and lasers hitting the cloud of space glitter would be heavily reduced in effectiveness.

It wasn’t something that was common in the Kennish Duchy of course, we were Laser fanatics. Anything that countered that was culturally bad. 

And this stuff? Dominion. The pirates had either taken the idea, or were from the Idric Dominion in the first place. Either way…

I wanted it.

“What do you think, can we produce more?”

“Hmmm. Sample?” The Crabbit asked, and I nodded, but didn’t decompress some from the canister, instead I headed to the system where the disruptor was re-armed, and just pointed at the connection point which was goopy.

“Hmm? Ask the little ones?” The Crabbit responded and I sighed. 

“Okay take it and see if they can make more… But only to see! We still need to fix the ship’s armor first! Don’t use up all the Nanopaste!”

“Yes yes!” The Crabbit called backwards as they zipped off. 

I on the other hand just grabbed my tools and looked over the room. Even if I couldn’t produce it directly. I still wanted this system for the Phantom Star. 

It was an advantage, a small one, but those built up.

Between the Disruptor, the EES, and the Missile Flares they’d tried that hadn’t worked, I had a bunch of different tricks to integrate into my ship.

Not even mentioning the weapons. I still needed to check the lasers as well, might be able to upgrade the Laser Barrage.

I hummed a happy tune, as I started disassembling the Disruptor compressor. The tubing and spray nozzles were easy, and I already had something like it with the Nanopaste sprayers, so adding another line wouldn’t be hard. But the compressor was already there and working. 

As I took it apart, I couldn’t help but notice on the inside of the Compressor, the company name.

ID Solutions.

Idric Dominion Solutions.

Whether they sold it directly, or not. This was just another sign that the war covering the Duchy wasn’t as far away as I wanted.