The Altercation

[JOTRkid]

Six months ago
Sigma-13, Yanagi depot

Up until now, it had been a calm day at Yanagi.
"Hey, slim!"
I stopped, looking in the direction of the voice.
"Yea, you! That injector assembly, can you hand it to me?"
"Yea, sure. Which one is it?"
"The non-magnetic one. You didn't notice that we're not working on a fusion drive?"
"Oh. Slipped my mind" I approached the work-bench, found the assembly, and passed it up.
"This one going to be a winner?"
"Yea slim. Well, that's assuming the pilot can handle it."

Gas cloud racing was a somewhat new sport, dangerous as well.
Imagine asteroid racing, except it had been moved inside a volatile gas
cloud, and the asteroids removed. Now imagine that the ships involved go
at near cruise-disruptor speeds. You might ask yourself, "How can I attain
such speed?" The answer is simple: Strip everything off a ship that doesn't
make it go faster. Hull plating, Cargo hold, Life support, Escape mechanisms,
Shields, all removed in the name of speed. So much had been removed
that the ships could no longer use fusion drives. Instead, they used
incredibly volatile chemical engines.

"Be reminded that my money is going to be on the other racer - don't work too hard"
"Ha! You're going to lose a lot then."
With that, I was off.

I entered the bar just a few minutes later, just in time to see the racers undock,
and place my bet. As I entered I noted a somewhat unusual figure in the bar -
A woman. Right after I had put a fortune on racer two, I made my way toward her.
As I pulled out a chair, she looked up at me and said "Well, aren't you brave."
"How did you know?" I said in a joking manner.
"Not many people would want to sit near a Corsair cruiser captain"
"An especially lovely one?"
"Well thank you"
"So, why aren't you, well, in uniform? Why are you dressed in something that casual?"
"Well it got your company, didn't it?"
"That it did"
"It's a bit hard to do when you are known on this station. Are you new?"
"Most of the time I'm out salvaging some wreck."
Jokingly, she said "Ah, the romantic life of a junker. So what's your name?"
"Tim, but everyone here calls me slim, for obvious reasons."
"Mine's Julia. Nice to meet you, slim"
"Well, what one did you bet on?"
"Racer one, the pilot is a good friend of mine."
"I helped a bit on the construction of racer one, I wouldn't put money on it"
"Well then, we'll see"

There we sat, watching the screen that had been set up in the bar. The race had
gone on for about three minutes when I noticed something wrong with racer one.
The engine assembly had started to spew flame onto a fuel tank. It was the kind
of thing you would have to have some experience with to notice. I realized that
when I picked up the injector assembly a small pin had fallen out. Seconds passed
like hours, but not very long after the jet had started the whole ship erupted in flames.
Shrapnel was flung about, as were chunks of the pilot that trailed blood for a short
time.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a mass fly at me from the direction of the
Corsair. I ducked forward and saw that she had jumped at me with a knife - no
doubt enraged by the loss of her friend. Before I even heard the thud of her hitting
the floor, I tried to simultaneously stand, face in the direction of her, and upholster
my sidearm. This did not work out well for me, and I found myself on the floor,
utility-pistol in hand. I had a policy of leaving it on the lowest setting when it was
holstered. I looked up and noticed the Corsairs figure charging towards me, and
with a panicked motion I fired.

Atomized blood and flesh jetted from her neck, as the plasma bolt continued to
bore a hole in the wall of the bar. She fell over to the left, gushing blood onto
the metal grate of the bar floor. I checked the slider that controlled the power
of the blast, and I figured I must have knocked all the way to maximum power
during my fall.

In a very noisy fashion, I roused myself to my feet. Mid-sentence, I heard
"...hit slim, they're gonna be after you now. C'mon man, we've gotta get
you outta here."

As luck would have it, the station had a spare Recycler SHF in it's hangar.
The hope was I would make it safely away from Corsair space. The hope paid off.