Pirates, Scrapyards, and New Horizons 

Six months after leaving Carteyna, I’ve seen more of the ‘verse than I expected. Some of it good. Some of it bad. All of it reminds me that no matter where you go, there’s always someone waiting to take what you have. This trip was taking longer than expected.  Our captain was clearly not in a hurry

After the Industrious Hope incident, we jumped into the Davien.  Cestulus hung in the black like a jewel under its domes, busy and loud — traders, smugglers, politicians, and UEE loyalists all bumping shoulders. Even Aegis has its headquarters there. We didn’t stay long. Our captain doesn’t like dealing in systems where politics outnumber credits. Still, the stop felt alive in a way Carteyna never did. This was a short port of call. We were in and out within a few days. Our next jump was to Magnus. 

Magnus was another story. The system is rough, scarred by its past. Borea’s orbit is still cluttered with derelicts and rusting skeletons of ships built for wars most people have forgotten. That’s where they found us. Pirates! It happened in the blink of an eye, just as we had let our guard down for the night to rest.   A ragged pack flying stripped-down Cutlasses, bold enough to try latching onto our ironclad mid-transit. They didn't try communicating at all and one of them tried ramming us.  What good would that do if you destroy the very thing you're trying to capture? They clipped their rear engine on our hull and it ripped right off and sent them spinning into the black.  That's what woke everyone up.    I've been drilling this team on security incursions for months now, just in case. Boy, did it pay off.  We went into lockdown security mode, bracing for a boarding and close-quarters fight. They managed to dock— or tried. It was more like modified maglocks on their landing gear.  We heard the clang of their clamps, the hiss of their attempt at cycling. Then silence. Followed by alarms and screams, scraping metal and then nothing.  

Turns out they must have been a bit overzealous and hadn’t pressurized their hold before cracking their doors. The moment they tried, vacuum tore through their airlock. By the time we swung turrets around, half their boarding team had been sucked into the black. The rest scrambled to detach, which left one of their landing gear attatched to our hull as they bosted away and ripped it off. We didn’t even get a chance to fire. We didn’t have to. 

We made orbit over Borea afterward, stopping at one of the scrapyards near Odyssa since we needed more RMC/ CM to do some repairs. I’ve seen a lot of graveyards in my time, but none quite like this — fields of dead ships, orbitals hanging on by rust and welds, people clinging to work like rats clinging to a sinking hull.

That’s where a hustler tried his luck with us. Said he wanted to buy our remaining RMC  1/2 SCU of onboard stock but he was also selling RMC. If you're hauling RMC, it's worth good credits if you can move it. He played it smooth, offered double market rate, promised “no questions asked.” But his eyes didn’t match his words. I've been reading people for years.  War can give you a good perspective on people,  and there was no way his crew was getting onboard.  The captain was entertaining the conversation, and I started watching his crew while our captain talked. One of them was circling too close to our loading ramp, hand on a concealed coda. Another kept looking at our ship like he was measuring bulkhead thickness. He drew his coda and I fired one round right into his chest.  The captain drew his gold special edition LH86, pointed it point blank at the shiester. They planned to slit us open as soon as we gave them access.

We walked. They cursed. One of them laying dead on a pile of scrap.   I kept my finger at the ready of my modified FS9 as we got back on the ship. I’ve fought wars, but sometimes a back-alley deal gone wrong is just as dangerous as a battlefield.

As we were leaving, out of spite, our captain had one of the crewmen in the tractor beam turret and he snag a random 8SCU crate of RMC right off the ground and we flew off with it, dragging it through space and reeling it in like fishing for a space whale.  We headed off to deep space and after we were sure nobody was following us we stopped EVA'd to inspect the ship and use our SRT's to make all the necessary repairs.   Just more scars for this old ironclad.  

Sometimes it feels like space is trying to kill you.