11 - The Trane Imperium

"And we're a go for FTL disengagement in 3... 2... 1..."

On River's cue, the Scorpion fighter dropped out of faster than light drive as the view of the Trane system's primary star, a bright white A class, rapidly overtook Mike's entire vision as he grabbed hold of the stick to steer away from the star the FTL drive had been aiming after and towards the nearest station with a pilot's guild.

"... Now all of China knows we're here."

"I'm sorry, what did you just say Mike?"

"Nothing, destination set for crown colony station in orbit of Trane 3, ETA 15 minutes."

"Great, I look forward to standing up straight again."

Being crammed into the tiny fighter for about 24 hours of straight FTL travel, plus the time spent refuelling, River couldn't wait to get out and move her legs for a bit and Mike very much felt the same. The short trip to crown station felt like nothing compared to what had come before so it hardly felt like any time had passed before Mike throttled down and prepared to exit supercruise.

[Crown control centre to unidentified contact: you have entered restricted space, please transmit clearance and access code within 2 minutes or you will be destroyed.]

Instead of River having to contact the tower control, Crown station's flight control spared River that effort, but it didn't seem like it was courtesy.

"Crown control this is the operator of the privately-owned combat vessel GCV-43 associated with the pilot's guild, requesting permission for landing."

[GCV-43, this station is currently not available for unauthorised personnel or craft. Please reroute to Phillip station in orbit of Trane 5.]

"Understood, GCV-43 rerouting to Phillip's station in orbit of Trane 5, now preparing to re-enter supercruise."

Ending communications with Crown flight control as Mike started revectoring to their new destination, River breathed a deep sigh of frustration.

"Well, things are definitely slipping around here."

"Agreed, if they're restricting travel to the capital that can only mean they've started losing control... Things might be too unstable around here to make any credits, but let's go to the other station, make contact with the pilot's guild and take things from there."

As mercenaries, River and Mike couldn't find any jobs in a well-secured star system, but it was the same for one in a state of anarchy as they needed a minimum level of governance to issue bounties and provide the most basic of security to rearm and refuel.

"And back to supercruise we go, ETA to Phillip station is half an hour... Fucking great."

Having had the idea of stretching properly dangled in front of his face only to be ripped away last second made Mike somewhat miffed, but those emotions quickly evaporated as he glanced down at the main sensor readout just after entering supercruise.

"Oh fuck!"

Immediately changing course and speeding up, River was just about to ask what was wrong when she realised what was going on.

"How many?"

"Donno, at least 5 bogies following us after we jumped out from the station."

In a system with rapidly deteriorating security, it would be reasonable to assume not all outsiders had heard of Crown station restricting its docking access and therefore there would be a lot of outsiders (potential traders with their hulls full of loot) making their way directly to Phillip's station from Crown station. All you would need to do as a pirate was to camp a few light seconds outside of Crown station, wait for travellers to arrive then get declined access before jumping and robbing them blind.

There was hardly any easier way for a pirate to catch prey.

"They're pirates alright! Drive signatures indicate all 5 contacts have bounties registered with both local security forces and the pilot's guild... Can't you take them?"

Looking over the bounty files sending the relevant data attached to it to Mike's monitor, River quickly assessed that it wouldn't be that hard for Mike to deal with them.

"If it is just these 5 then yeah, but I'm sure they'll call in reinforcements the second they've dragged us out of supercruise. These guys clearly think they have some sort of advantage over us, otherwise, they wouldn't have started to chase us in the first place."

"Right, 'fair fights are for losers' and all that... Then let's jump out of this system and come back later, I highly doubt they'll pursue us that far."

Remembering her dad's words along with Mike's reasoning it quickly became apparent to River that the 5 pirates chasing her and Mike weren't acting alone.

"I would love to do that, but as we hurried here and didn't refuel before that final 15-hour jump we're low on gas and risk running out in interstellar space... I think I would rather die getting tortured by pirates than starving to death out there in the dark."

Running out of fuel between two stars was a certain death sentence, even if a potential rescue effort knew what two-star systems a ship was lost between the vast distances made recovery like finding a single, specific hydrogen atom in a gas giant.

"Find out what ships are likely to have interdictor drives then mark them for me please, I'm going to try and lose them going around the star so prepare emergency cooling measures too."

"Right, I'm on it!"

To pull another ship out of supercruise required not only specialised equipment but also getting very close to and directly behind the intended target, something Mike did his very best to make sure the pirates following him couldn't do as he gradually made his way towards the ever-larger A-class star.

Compared to the sun, the A-class star that made up the bulk of all mass in the Trane system wasn't that large, at around 1.5 solar masses it was actually small on a cosmic scale.

"We're already starting to heat up! Why did Trane A have to be a fucking A-class!?"

"Look on the bright side, at least there's no solar wind to deal with as well!"

The problem with A-class main sequence stars was their stellar luminosity, like Vega and Sirius visible in the night sky, Trane A was about 20 times brighter than the sun, meaning approaching it would make ships rapidly overheat.

"Power down everything other than the FTL drive and main thrusters, if any of those overheat we'll cook alive before we can get them back online!"

Getting in close to the star, Mike already felt like the cockpit had turned into a sauna as he put on his helmet in preparation for River to vent the cabin atmosphere.

(Come on, let's see what you guys are made of.)

Immediately one of the chasing pirates broke off his pursuit when he noticed what Mike was doing, figuring that no loot was worth getting boiled alive for.

The pirate's four friends, however, weren't that smart.

"Use a heat sink the second we go over the 90% threshold for waste heat capacity, I'll maintain this orbit for as long as I can!"

Getting this close to the star instantly burned out a lot of the external cameras feeding Mike and River's internal cockpit view, but even if they continued working they wouldn't show anything useful as the sensors were overexposed and showed nothing other than a bright white light.

"Come on, come on! No loot is worth this much, pull off already!"

Continuing to tightly regulate his orbit of the star, Mike thrusted River to report on the pirates as he had his hands full. If Mike eased up and went too far away from the star, he opened himself up to interdiction from the pirates, but if he went too low and got too close to the star the FTL drive would overheat and both he and River would burn alive.

"One more pulled off, only two more on our tail now!"

Keeping a close eye on the scanner, River released the first of the Scorpion's only 3 heatsinks, by purging it from the ship they got rid of some of the rapidly building waste heat onboard the ship at the cost of total waste heat capacity. In short, it was like pissing your pants to stay warm in the winter, only really a good solution in the extreme short turn. Granted Mike and River only needed to outlast the pirates chasing them, if the pirates pulled out they would have no chance of reacquiring a lock on their fighter when it was backdropped by the star at such close range.

"One more dropped off the scanner, he got too close to the star!"

Having just purged a heatsink, River was simply delighted to see one of the pirates dropping off her sensors as it plunged down towards the star without warning as the pilot had fainted from heatstroke.

"Ha! Fuck you, Ikarus! What about the last one!?"

"He's in a higher orbit, we're slowly losing him but he's staying cold!.. No wait, he's lost us! He's pulling away!"

Having finally outlasted the last pirate, Mike immediately pulled a bit away from the star, but not too far out of fear that the final pirate would reacquire them.

"Fucking hell... I need a cold shower."

"Yeah..."

-

"Station tower, this is the operator of GCV-43 requesting permission for landing. We had a bit of a close brush with your star so we'll need some new heatsinks and possible repairs, over."

[Operator of GCV-43, this is flight control. Landing permission granted, make your way to pad 40 via taxiway 1, please indicate if you require a tow or other assistance.]

Finally reaching Phillip station Mike immediately throttled down the reactor and deployed the Scorpion's radiator fins to get rid of the waste heat they had sucked up from the star as he entered the assigned taxiway.

"GCV-43 to tower, no need for a tugboat, proceeding to landing pad 40 via taxiway 1."

Ending communications with the tower, River learned back in her chair and massaged her eyelids, although work had just begun she was already tired.

Ordering a station repair crew to look for any potential structural damage they might have suffered, Mike and River gave the crew some space and headed for the local branch of the pilot's guild.

"Looks like the security here has seen better days..."

Reaching the high gravity residential and commercial zone of the station, River quickly noticed the larger than normal amount of filth littering the streets along with unsavoury characters hanging out in nearby alleyways.

"Agreed, stick close."

Deciding that spending too much time on this station would be unwise, Mike checked the route to the local branch of the security station only to find a 5-minute shortcut he decided to take. It was only after entering an alleyway Mike realised that might not have been such a good idea.

"Hey shitface, this doesn't concern you."

Looking up from his wrist-mounted display, Mike realised he had walked straight into what was undoubtedly a kidnapping in mid-process. While a group of 5 men were busy restraining a gagged woman and a few corpses laid by the side of the alley one of the lookouts had called out to Mike while clutching something hidden underneath his cloak. Glancing back at River only to find her busy massaging her eyebrows in disappointment of him, Mike breathed a quick sigh before turning back to the thug.

"We're just moving through, I have no interest in being some kind of hero."

Not at all interested in stopping the kidnapping Mike insisted on just going on with his day, but as he took a step closer to the thug he pulled out a pistol.

"I said this doesn't concern you shitface!"

"Look I don't give a fuck about what you're currently doing, but I just spent well over 24 hours in a tiny fighter before being forced to do a close orbit of a star and you're currently standing between me and a shower so unless you want my partner here behind me to shove that shitstain of a weapon up your ass and break it inside you I suggest you move aside."

While Mike hardly cared about the fact someone was getting kidnapped right in front of him he did mind that his shortcut to the nearest shower was getting blocked off. A few relatively quiet and tense seconds passed before one of the other criminals busy restraining the woman punched her in the guts before turning his attention to Mike.

"It's fine Casper let them through. That dude is clearly willing to kill for a shower, I know the type."

"Thanks, good luck with this venture of yours."

Finally allowed to pass, Mike gave the first thug a clap on the shoulder as he passed, that action along with his comment got a sneer out of the leader of the kidnapping group.

"You sure are a cold lad I'll give you that."

"Well, having a sense of justice doesn't pay anything, and I don't work for charity, neither does my partner."

Looking back to River, Mike found she had no issue with his stance on things, although she seemed a bit annoyed at how chummy Mike was suddenly acting. Having also noticed the two strangers approaching, the woman in the process of getting kidnapped had hoped she would be rescued, but when she heard Mike's cold words her heart sank and she finally stopped struggling. But desperate as she was, the woman started struggling after Mike and River had passed, catching her captors off guard she managed to remove her gag before she started shouting.

"If you want credits I'll give you credits! As much as you want!"

"Sure lady, but I don't think you can afford my rates."

Not really taking the woman seriously, Mike didn't even turn his head as he lazily raised a hand to wave goodbye.

"Shut ya mouth cunt! You're coming with us in one or multiple pieces, your attitude determines how many!"

Realising they had fucked up, the kidnappers attempted to restrain and gag the woman again, but the woman's strength was deceiving and she had no issue making the 4 men dogpiling her work hard to restrain her.

"My name is Lissandra Vi Trane the 5th, 4th in line to the throne! If you save me you can have enough credits to buy a station!"

Stopping in his tracks, Mike glanced at River who rolled her eyes as to say he should deal with the situation before turning around to find Lissandra gagged again while her captors had all drawn their weapons.

"Well, that's quite an attractive offer..."

"Back up lad, this one is our mark and we worked hard f!-"

Not even giving the thug his final words, Mike instantly drew his pistol with its suppressor equipped and popped a cap right in between his eyes.

"Kill him!"

Instantly returning fire as their leader dropped, one of the thugs drew his own pistol and shot at Mike, but the shot went wide and ended up hitting the wall beside him as he ducked for cover.

Popping out from cover Mike shot the guy that had almost hit him before blocking a shot to his head with his arm, although his vacuum suit was bulletproof it still hurt a shitton to get hit as he shouted at River.

"Leave one alive!"

"Not possible!"

As Mike had opened fire the thugs had made the mistake of focusing on him, leaving themselves open to River who had instantly closed the distance to her first target.

"Wha!-"

Surprised at River's straight-up unnatural speed, the thug didn't even manage to point his pistol at her before she landed a high kick on his jaw, shattering the bone and breaking his neck in a single motion. By the time the thug with a shattered jaw managed to recoil off the nearby alley wall Mike had already headshot another thug and by the time he hit the ground Mike finished off the last one with another well-aimed headshot.

Walking over to Lissandra who was still on the ground, Mike crouched down to better meet her eye-level with his pistol still drawn.

"Whew... Please show me some sort of proof that states you're who you're saying Miss Lissandra, otherwise, we're going to have a real fucking problem."

While Mike wore a warm smile on his face, Lissandra didn't fail to notice that his eyes weren't smiling in the slightest.