Galactic Far Outer Rim, Alpha Sector, Spinward, Sarian incursion zone
This far out stars were scarce, reasons to travel between there cold distances fewer still, here a viable system could be weeks apart instead of hours and those systems had to be very viable indeed to be of any notice at all to powers from deeper within the bulk of the galaxy. Out here races rarely fell from invasion of anything but their own kind or old age. None the less dancing across the vacuum a line of degenerate matter shells streaks, shaded blue with velocity, white hot and glowing against the background, a roar of life and conflict, of geometry and implied intent in an utter void. Or at least they were until they splashed through a wavering mass of fields and metal to mar a vast logo. “INCORPORATED STATE MERCHANT STELLAR” was now missing its final R.
Nimble, multi turreted, vicious, predatory. This were things that could be associated with the dancing flower of corvettes that now preyed on the freighter. Sarian raider clans rarely acted on their own but once they did they never gave up a piece of prey once claimed. They would swarm ship after ship until the whole clan was pulled in.
From the cramped view point of the coolant pump hum filled of Mk’Nils trinket covered turret it sped past fast. Almost faster than the eye could see, the clan inertics whining as the corvette nimbly danced between lines of infinite repeater charged particle fire. He was a mass of muscles and albino skin atop a frame trained for battle, heavily incised with tattoos and entirely bald, both eyes surgically removed and replaced with glittering facets. Topless, a much patched black skin suits arms tied off at his waste, its g pants pushing hard, every last extra tenth of a gravity counting in the dance against the freighters fire control system that had already left one corvette a burning ruin.
Mk’Nil roars over the intercom as the tracing slashes of infinite repeater fire dance away to concentrate on another target, then hisses as he spots a telltale flare in the distance “Another time mate, again I say! Mk’Xin will make his run now!”, he then turns behind him staring at two similar figures across the mass of the corvette, their own turrets less decorated and less in the line of fire but none the less equally growling with operation. “Time to burn them good, now watch Mk’Xins pyre boys!”
One corvette bared into the bulk of the freighters command center, the corvettes bow obscured and covered in countless extra armored plates, its hull a patchwork of systems and metallurgies from a dozen different species. Ten dozen single use boosters roared in a great cone behind It, even as infinite repeater fire danced outward from the freighter to meet it the crew aboard must know.
Sarians never stop. But then again maybe that’s why the freighter fought. If anything this made Mk’Nils manic smile grow wider at the thought.
It was over in an instant. A great rending crumpling flashing mass of light and shards of material, the freighters system packed bow now a burning mushroomed mass, her habitation decks and twin shuttle bays shattered ruins surrounded by deadly shrapnel, its container filled keel wracked by distortions and its lights plunged out as its reactors fail safed, the glimmering wavering remains of its screens melting away to the insubstantial nothing they were made from. Without drive it now drifted simply a tumbling ballistic wreck, for all the violence of Mk’Xins final sacrifice still almost on the same vector.
“Always knew the old one legged git had it in him for one more! Time to suit up and crack some containers boys! and this time mate mind the thrusters!, send the flare! “
From the rear of Mk’Nil’s corvette a tiny bobbing sphere vanished in a wash of technology that matched little else of it before returning. The voice that answered Mk’Nil was harsh, female and low. “He approaches for his share!”
Mk’Nil already half within the thick padded layers of a byzantine combat soft suit shouted his response “Bah we will let him have it but not before me and the boys have the warriors cut!” before rushing to finish his change, one hand grabbing a thick wickedly edged pneumatic assisted bar.
The freighter had begun outgassing its last, a mixture of coolant, atmosphere, its vast container covered mass stretching up as a horizon blocking mass or a vast multi colored game board of terrain, the containers colorful logos boldly stating what was inside. Faceted mechanical eyes fed all of this to a mind that had known no rest, no gentle pleasures and certainly no remorse. His maneuvering pack clicked every few minutes as its valves and vanes moved before he touched down on a vast light blue container. With only the sound of his own breathing to join him he touched down, the thuds of his boys joining him felt through his boots. Grinning he loped one boot to another to the containers vast bulk to its releases. All around in the distance other corvettes could be seen, there own crews beginning to brake in with a variety of cutters, lasers and actinicaly flashing torches. But Mk’Nil and his brood were successful and strong for a reason, speed. Grinning even wider as he set the handles just so he roared across the coms bands, the great bladed maw of his instrument cracking into the space faded cyan blue of the containers hull metal with nothing but raw force. His boys grabbed each of the now extended bars and pushed, he pulled and centimeter by centimeter a creaking line appeared in the containers bulk, a hiss of atmosphere and ice crystals promising the bounty within.
He hissed, frowned, and un-helmeted would have spat as when he looked up as the final line was crossed in his impromptu hatch he saw something; he was early, the bulk of crenelated trophy covered [i[Fang class[/i] cruiser hanging untouched, huge shuttles already unlimbering from its mid section to grab whole container loads. He motioned angrily, pushing his boys in one by one as they forced the cut open. Tonight they would eat better than the whole clan!..suit lights flickered on as they detected darkness and then he realized he had drifted too far forward, a wall of boxes or bound containers should have..
The container was empty. How could the container be empty? This wasn’t what should be here! The freighters drive trail had clearly read full load! The crew had been wily! It had taken them hours to force them out of transit jump!
He slammed the tool into the crate wall in rage, before motioning the others out again, before a blinding flash slammed him into the back of the container wall with force enough to empty even his engineered lungs. Eyes swimming and filled with dots he blinked repeatedly before making his way back to the star filled hole. Then he saw it. Eyes glimmering with hate he saw the orange and grey, the flashing lines of white that did not miss and the gaping glowing mass where the Fang had been and much worse the smashed tumbling glowing remains of his corvette. His boys were nothing but pocked scorch marks on the crates exterior, outlines and the glimmering white hot remains of the few metallic shreds in there suits drifting. His mouth twisted into a rictus, a hand extends to his backpack. In the distance he can see dozens of others doing the same.
Grabbing his tool he went out to meet his end swinging a weapon that had earned him a place In his world, a family of sorts, a mate and a home, earned him of all the low born a family name and a ship of his own, his grandsons could have aspired to true captaincy if he bred true!. Rage filling him for a stolen future, already feeling the sleeting radiation from his backpack as its power unit rose to suicidal levels, the gs pushing against his limbs as he slowly brought up in his suits HUD the line to intersect with the blocky turreted orange and grey mass. Still blinking away spots his course danced again and again as he fought to move it into line with the thing that had robbed him. The moment however his suits maneuvering pip moved to intersect the mass, all vanished in a white flash.
The Long Patrol infinite repeater that splashed him across deep space was not even individually operated by anything remotely sentient. His whole personal world, his clans fate, would not even make a headline in the sector postings much less a real news service. A thousand years of bloody violence and glory and genocide filled history, uncountable burning ships and stations and worlds, every kill and birth by him and his ancestors erased by the grinding wheel of progress, law, order and most of all money.
Drifting away from his now vaporized remains however, closer to the freighter (that even now was once again illuminated) kept clean by time, its meanings lost was a number in a dead language on one of his smashed corvettes tail fins, kept clean only as a good luck charm. It was an exceedingly long one.
But then while the Clans could afford to spend one clapped out corvette to raid a freighter, the Incorporated State could spend a freighter to kill a Clan.