Hotaru no Haka

[Eppy]

Hatsuharu Mishima and the crew of the Hacker Borderworlds Transport Meddle were on a bit of a mission. He wasn't particularly pleased about it, because the premise was that the Kisaragi's Fortune, his big brother's train, was flying off-course and was currently something along the lines of 200 klicks off of the tradelanes, flying in a straight line. The tracers he had on that ship had gone off like a crazy duck last night, so now he was out going to find her, so he'd ordered the small Kusari operation he ran up to Shikoku. He hoped he wouldn't find a wreck when he caught up with her...thank god those crates were slow.

"Fifteen klicks...she's within visual range, Haru." Hatori Sohma was the sensor/nav man. Quiet, calm and collected, he was a crappy shot and a bad negotiator but he could fly his way out of anything, and, as a bonus, he was as competent a hacker everybody else on board the ship.

"Start transmitting the override codes. Slow her down." Haru gritted his teeth. This did NOT look good.

"She's slowing down..." Hari (not Haru) breathed. "...stopped. Commencing scan and airlock controls.

"Course locked in." The helmsman-nobody knew his name, he called himself Bozo-frowned slightly and turned one of the knobs on his board.

Haru unbuttoned the top of his holster and drew out a Detroit Munitions 5500 heavy plasma pistol. He tapped the side of the power cartridge to make sure it worked; you never knew what you'd find on jobs like these. After all, he was better off behind a terminal on Mactan than anything else. These kind of physical operations didn't suit the Hackers at all.

*****

Dimly, in the back of her mind, Hotaru realized that there was once again other life on the ship. It started as a dim realization from her position sprawled out on the floor of the ship that there was movement on the hatch, but she didn't want to think about anything. She didn't want to move, think, do anything requiring brain capacity. She just wanted to lie there on the deck and wait for it to all stop.

It was over. Her father was dead. The man that kept her from that living hell a Kusari orphan could expect was now dead. She was, as they say, screwed.

She didn't resist when Uncle Haru walked in holding the bloodstained cobalt tanto and scooped her up in his arms. She saw two others wheeling out four big black bags; corpses, no doubt. Not that she cared. She was beyond caring about anything.

"Just drop me into the vacuum..."


//Critique me! Critique me!\\

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Quick comment - we thought that Panzer was the Leader, Swift. -Agmen

Which Dreadnought was that?

One of your nine.