His face became lit by a playful sequence of red and green lights as he powered up his ship's systems.
Hours of staking out in the eerie darkness at the edge of the Badlands had produced nothing so far.
The Lane Hacker trainee known as Max Zorin had been tasked by his Senior Director to gather intelligence on Liberty law enforcement patrol paths, vessels and operatives, as part of his training.
Having found no stray patrols closer to his new home at Mactan and not daring to traverse the open space that surrounded the corporate strongholds in California and Colorado, he had decided to venture into the lion's den and try his luck under the cover of the Badlands' electrostatic discharges, which he hoped would render him invisible to the sensors of the patrols until he was close enough to make his move.
"Damn corporate tools," he sighed, while he added to himself, "nothing has changed during all these centuries of law enforcement history. Always ready to rain on your parade when you don't need them, but when you do need them, they're nowhere to be found."
"Oh well, I'm starving and my oxygen supply is running low, so I'd better head for Buffalo."
As his on-board systems had all powered up and showed a green for "go", he fired up his cruise engines and turned a vertical 180, back towards the Rogues' base.
At the same moment his scanners suddenly showed a hostile contact. And then another one. And then two more.
He quickly hit the reverse thrusters until he was stationary again and cut all power to his systems, save his scanner.
Several more contacts showed up while he methodically recorded every vessel's IFF and checked it against his fighter's database, until the little screen was glowing with red dots.
"Navy, the lot of them," he concluded. "It's a frecking Jamboree out there. What in Hades would they be up to?"
For a few suspenseful seconds he was torn in doubt. "If I flee now they'll definitely notice the sudden increase in power emmission and might pursue to investigate," he figured. "Then again, Rogues hang out in these parts all the time and a single fighter hardly poses a threat."
"Besides, chasing me into the heart of the Badlands is against their regulations, isn't it? But on the other hand, there's bound to be one or two rookies who want to show off and make a fool of themselves by chasing a lone pirate."
Although he had recently made considerable improvements to the heavily modded and customized combat systems of his Dagger, he doubted his ship would be a match for even a couple of rookies in their expensive government funded Liberator fighters.
And although he had had satisfactory results after field-testing his latest modification to his vessel's automated navigational systems, a dogfight in the Badlands was a totally different league compared to dodging chunks of ice while blasting Bounty Hunters in The Barrier.
One wrong move and his shields would be gone, his hull exposed to a lucky hit from an over-eager soldier boy.
He decided to sit this one out.
Silence filled the cockpit, punctuated only by the thumping of his heart and the sound of his breathing, which he attempted to keep shallow to conserve his limited oxygen.
The small fleet appeared to have picked this exact spot for a little rendezvous, as none of the vessels showed any signs of moving on.
"With my luck they're gonna do some routine excursions into the Badlands," Max thought. "And here is me, sitting right at the edge in my little toy fighter, all powered down and totally defenseless, ready to be made an example of."
"I should've known going to New York would be a bad idea after my last experience here. I really hate this place."
Several minutes passed and still the navy ships showed no signs of leaving.
"Just a few more minutes of oxygen left," he noticed. "I have to move soon or I won't even be able to make it back to Buffalo."
"Wait a second, I should be able to rig up the tank from my escape pod to the ship's circulation system. That should buy me some extra time."
Working feverishly, he hooked up the emergency oxygen tank to the cockpit's air supply, while keeping one eye on his scanner.
"There, that should give me at least a few minutes extra," he thought, as he sat back in his chair to resume the waiting game.
Again several minutes passed and although the navy ships had appeared to start moving around a bit, they were clearly not in a hurry to vacate the area.
"I can't wait any longer," Max decided. "I have to move now or all they'll find is a suffocated corpse."
Just as he was about to take his chances, a group of three vessels detached themselves from the cluster of contacts on his scanner and started to move in the direction where Max was hiding.
"Oh great. There we go. Well Max, time to show what you're made of," he thought.
"Water mostly, come to think of it. Although I'd prefer not to be in a position to find out," he observed with his usual morbid sense of humor.
"Well, better not let this chance to complete my mission go to waste," he thought as the vessels came within range of his short-range scanners.
He quickly scanned the three vessels and recorded model and pilot ID.
The first two turned out to be Liberator fighters, the third one a Liberty Gunboat.
"A gunboat? Into the Badlands? What a nutcase." Max thought.
The gunboat pilot seemed to be thinking along the same lines, because the patrol came to a halt about 3K away and the fighters set off in opposite directions, probably to do a recon sweep of the area.
As the navy fighters circled around, one of them was heading straight for the Dagger, still conceiled from sight and scanners in the stormy darkness.
Max's sweaty palm was resting on his console, ready to power up and drop on top of the fighter with everything he got. Which wasn't all that much, he had to concede.
"Any closer now and I'll be able to count the pimples on his face," he thought as his finger twitched near the power switch.
Breathing had become hard and he was starting to feel faint and light-headed.
His concentration must have sagged for a second due to this and he was suddenly startled to find the navy fighter right in front of him.
He was staring straight into its cockpit and there he saw the other pilot, staring right back at him.
At first he was surprised by the appearance of the other pilot.
"A woman. Well, yeah, the navy employs female pilots too of course. I knew that. You just never expect them to be. It sortof doesn't really fit with the image."
After this had sunk in, a rather bigger surprise hit him.
"Why is my ship still intact? She could've obliterated me by now. And why the hell am I not shooting? Must be the lack of oxygen to the brain causing me to not think straight."
Yet with all the force of will he could muster in his dazed condition, he could not bring himself to fire on a fellow human being he could see so up close. One that wasn't actively trying to kill him, although she had all the reasons she needed to do so. A woman, at that.
Musing thusly he sunk away into another lapse of consciousness, until he was suddenly rudely awakened by an alert from his ship's computer.
"Warning. Oxygen levels dangerously low," it droned in its excruciatingly pleasant voice, "Immediate evacuation is advised."
"Yeah. Much good that'll do me now, with no oxygen in my escape pod," Max grumbled, as he glanced at his scanners.
There was no sign of the navy fleet.
As if in a dream state he switched on power to his systems and plotted a course for Buffalo.
"Well, I guess they're not all bad," were his last thoughts before he engaged the autopilot and passed out.
...end.of.flight.recorder.data...
...encryption.in.progress...hack.terminated...
Max Zorin - Pharmaceutically enhanced engineering of automated combat routines for shipboard computer systems.
Strength: Programming microchips to dodge big rocks. Weakness: Dodging big rocks.
![[Image: LHTechnician.png]](http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e15/rnathanmorris/LH%20clan%20images/LHTechnician.png)