“I can take a few shots on what's left in the-”
“One more word and you're on your way back to Triton,” Minh said firmly.
“Yes sir.”
“Man, meeting you in the sims I'd never think you could be so serious,” Slick mentioned off the squad channel as he ensured the ship's shields and power generation were set as high as possible.
“It's the price of doing it for real.” Minh watched as the space blurred by the obscuring field loomed so largely that he couldn't see around it. His ship punched through, the energy shields around his fighter protected them from any electromagnetic interference. His eyes went wide.
Around a grey, brown and white dwarf planet were arranged a massive latticework of docking platforms, factories, refineries, living sections, defensive systems, solar collectors, factories and other less notable subsections. Spaced evenly out across the dwarf planet's equator were five large installations with pylons extending out like fine silver thorns. They were moving before their eyes, slowly shifting in waves around the top of the station's circular bases.
As Minh looked closer and checked his threat scanner he noticed that there were very few power readings coming from the station. The defence systems were all marked as inoperable. The remnants of hundreds of other ships, most of them long range haulers, were adrift, dead in space.
As two of his squadron moved through the barrier behind him he noticed what was keeping everything within the obscuring barrier that surrounded the dwarf planet. “I have at least nine cruisers, all different profiles. There are other active ships as well,” Minh announced.
“Confirmed. Nine ships varying in mass, all armed. A couple are modified galleons, the others are cruisers. I see one carrier, looks like the command ship. There are about thirty other ships, between twenty five and ninety meters in length. Looks like one of the cruisers is launching fighters. Half of them don't match anything on record. Wait-” Slick worked his comm controls for a moment, fine tuning and trying to filter out a layer of wavering static. “I have an emergency transmission here, looks like it was from a boosted personal comm. It's a digital stream of text that says the miners are holed up in the central complex. They were attacked and disarmed by Eden Fleet and a group of raiders just rushed the station. They don't think the two groups are connected, but they've been fighting a losing battle. The text is recent, seems to back up our intelligence.”
“Eden Fleet and then raiders. That's epic bad luck. Are we getting a ping from Triton?”
“No. No two way comm through the barrier and I can't raise the installation.”
“All right. Finger, take your scan results along with the text from the installation and head back through the barrier just far enough to get a message to Triton.”
“Aye!” he replied as his starfighter spun and accelerated in the opposite direction.
“This is RAD comm. We have laid claim to this salvage. If you do not leave immediately we will interpret your actions as a challenge and will force you out of our space,” came the communication from the largest vessel, the Palamo.
“First, what's a RAD comm?”
“We are Royal Acquisition and Distribution, a licensed salvaging operation.”
“You've laid claim to this entire space?”
“Yes. You read as Triton intercept forces. Please confirm.”
“We're only here for safe harbour and trade. We could use some raw materials and would love a visit to the gift shop.”
“This is a salvage operation. We will fire upon you if you proceed.”
“All right, don't get testy. Before I go, I'm wondering if you have a claim ticket or license number I can pass along to my carrier's command deck. I need something to go back to Captain Valance with and if this is a legitimate claim, well, you should have some kind of fifty digit number or something, I can try to remember it. If not, well, I can't speak for myself, but the Captain might have an issue with you claiming all this for yourselves while there are still people aboard the station. I mean, look at it all! Using the ships you have it's at least a hundred trips back and forth between here and wherever you auction your crap off,” Minh grinned.
“We-” the RAD officer started before unceremoniously closing his end of the channel.
“Are you seriously taunting this guy? They've got forty three ships out there right now,” Slick said from behind him in an alarmed whisper.
“Shhh, daddy's picking a fight,” Minh whispered back. “If these are claim agents I'm the Bad Luck Bear. I might not have much time out here on the raggedy edge, but I know Captain Valance wouldn't want to trade with raiders while there are station workers ready to be saved. There's nothing like a gratitude discount when you're trading.”
“Please power down and prepare to be boarded,” retorted the RAD communications officer.
“So you're raiders!” Minh laughed. “Should have said so. I'll be right back.” He cut communications and flipped his starfighter end over end, angling all engines to fire in the opposite direction, towards the barrier. “Okay, order everyone to head outside the barrier. Tell them to be ready for pursuit,” Minh instructed Slick.
They passed through the barrier and Minh immediately heard Oz's voice. “-thirty five percent diamond.”
“Say again?” Minh asked.
“That planetoid in the centre of the mining facility, it's over thirty five percent diamond according to the readings Finger relayed to us.”
“I've spoken to a representative of the small fleet hiding inside the barrier. They call themselves RAD, Royal Acquisition and Distribution. Asked them for some kind of formal documentation and they choked.”
“That confirms it, raiders. That organization doesn't have a listing in Triton’s computer, and the only references we see on the Stellarnet update point to a bunch of commercial Starliner and warehouse robberies.”
“I think we can scare 'em off.”
“Hold position outside the barrier. Fire only if fired upon, we've got to play this right,” Oz replied.
Oz turned from the main Flight deck console and looked to where Captain Valance was coming down the bridge ramp, he could see Ayan in the command chair above. Something was wrong, he could tell, but it wasn't the time to bring it up. “What do you think? I'm sure if we released all the information we had Minh would make the right decisions.”
“No. We run this like they're raiders, nothing more. I'll tell you when we can change tactics.'
“Excuse me,” interjected an older fellow with grey-blond hair. His brow was deeply furrowed. “That planetoid in the centre has twelve earth masses in less than a tenth of the space,”
“We know, you already interpreted Finger's scans and forwarded them to my station, thank you Edward.” Oz replied.
The older gentleman waved him off and went on; “Listen. Just from these crude scans I can see this was a dwarf star that burned out leaving the diamond core behind. If you were to look at the station surrounding it you'd see that there's a gravity mill built around the main installation and right in the middle of that there's a firefight going on.” He selected a small portion of a large circular segment in the middle of the station and enhanced the image. “They could be the station's proper owners defending their installation and these raiders as you call them are probably still fighting to take the station.”
“All right, that's all I need to know,” Captain Valance started, turning back towards the semi-transparent bridge ramp.
Edward caught his arm. “That's not all you need to know Captain. If we could save the people in there they could give us all kinds of information about this station and they might even trade with us. Furthermore, you might be able to convince them to give us enough raw diamond material to say, enhance our manufacturing processes for two months. It would only take half a ton and with the process I see them using that's nothing to them if their cultivation systems are still operational. It's important that your people don't do any more damage to the main installation than-”
Jake brushed the man's hand off. “I heard you. Return to your station. Forward completed analysis and situation data up the chain of command.”
“What? I'm providing vital information here! I have to make sure you give my contributions the attention they deserve, that you don't just go blasting in and render the whole operation useless! As the only trained astrophysicist here I'm uniquely qualified-”
Jake gripped his shoulder, looked him in the eye and spoke firmly, quietly; “No one has time to inflate your
