The Red Racoon Dog

[Tain]

" 'Buccaneers'? What nonsense... this is space, not the oceans of Kurile."


Location: BHG Arms Station 2-5
Grid: Hotel, ?
System: Omicron Delta


It had been a long day for a wayward Bounty Hunter commander. He had been called upon months ago to manage and maintain this arming station after an unfortunate stroke of luck which involved a civilian pilot drifting into the field of battle. He had been held responsible, though he did not feel it justified. It was not that he felt nothing for the civilian's plight... just that circumstances had been beyond any control of his own.

The station was one of several in the system, designed specifically for containing the Corsair presence within Omicron Delta. The Bounty Hunters Guild had long intended to force the Corsairs out and take over there, but had run into many complications. Corsairs, ironically, were the least of them. The Nomads gave no quarter to any facility or ship they found, no matter to whether or not it was a civilian craft or one of their own. Their hauntingly transparent battleships patrolled the area thickly, intervening in all affairs and slowing commerce to a crawl. They would long have succeeded in driving the Corsairs out were it not for the Nomads. That was what High Command had said, anyway.

On top of that, there was an ever present silhouette in the far reaches of the sector... frighteningly large, but thankfully slow moving. The commander often comforted himself by dubbing it an asteroid, or a small planetoid... but none of the scouts sent to analyze it had ever returned. Surely the Nomads and Corsairs had noticed it, too. Why had they done nothing? Or perhaps they had, and were met with the same futility...

His musings were cut short as an alarm sounded from one of the consoles in his command area. He withdrew his arms from behind him and took a step back from the expansive viewport which stretched around the circular room, glancing at the crewmember responsible for running that particular kiosk. He spoke thickly, "What is it, Ensign?"

The boy looked flustered. "I'm... not sure sir. I am showing a particle disturbance in our grid, 5 klicks off starboard. It was just for a moment, sir. It's gone now."

The commander stared hard at the boy for a moment, then quickly stepped across the rotunda to look in the direction the Ensign had specified. His eyes widened in surprise. "Why wasn't the watch paying attention?! Bring them he-- no, there is no time! Battlestations! All hands, battlestations!!"

"All hands battlestations, aye sir!"

"THIS IS NOT A DRILL. I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL."

It had completely taken him off guard. The ship approaching was not a large one by any means, and it seeemed to be lightly armed even for its meager size... but it took cunning to evade their sensor net in such a way. His mind had began racing with various explanations for this, but as he continued to stare at the slow approaching ship, it hit him. There was no glow from the engine. The son of a bitch had cut power and drifted towards them. Lights in the many viewports which covered the vessel began to activate, illuminating the once-shadowy ship as it lurched forward with a soft glow beginning to ebb from its aft. What meager armament that the ship had was slowly swivelling to lock onto the station. How had they found them?!

There was a soft laugh in the command area, haunting in how lighthearted it sounded. It was from the communication officer's console. The commander tightened his lips. "Put him on the viewscreen."

What the commander then saw before him was hardly what he expected. A well kempt scarved man in a red dress shirt with a brown jacket of some sort. Behind him was a roguish-looking pilot, made obvious by his flightsuit. What truly got his attention though, was the pipewrench that the pilot was clutching in his hand. With a grin, he held it up and decreed, "This is not a drill," and wandered off chuckling to himself, no doubt heading for the ship's hangar to prepare for launch. There was no question now; they were being attacked.

The scarved man snorted and grinned, gesturing after the pilot before looking back at the communication screen aboard his ship. "I do apologise for that pun. Pretty good though, huh? I never did appreciate the comedy of that when I was in the miltiary." He paused, "Well, anyway. I want to be as cordial about this as I possibly can. All of your arms, all of your ammunition. I want to stress "all of it". This includes your station's armament. Dismount it all, and have it ready to be tractored in within an hour."

It was the commander's turn to laugh. "You can't be serious. You're threatening us with a single vessel, when we have a host of ships in this system that are coming to our aid as I speak?" He nodded to his communications officer, signalling to begin the distress beacon. The officer looked pale a moment later, just as their unwanted guest chuckled.

"One." The commander looked confused. "You had one ship able to come to your aid. But unfortunately, they had to be destroyed. Go ahead and confirm it with your sensors."

The commander swung his head to look at the Ensign in charge of sensors again, and found himself looking into the boy's frightened eyes. "... We have more than one ship." He looked back at the scarved man. "We have an entire fleet in this system."

"A fine and astute observation my good sir, but having an entire fleet here in Omicron Delta doesn't matter all that much when they have absolutely no idea that you're in danger of sucking vacuum."

The commander hesitated. "We don't have to take orders from you. We've still got our station defenses and a squadron of fighter pilots ready to launch. Weapons! Scramble fighters immediately! Lock onto that vessel!!"

The weapons officer clutched his headset as he gave the scramble order. "Attention wing commander, you have scramble authority. Code whiskey, tango, foxtrot..."

"Ripple the sh-t out of them, Jayin."

The commander flicked his gaze to the viewport again, realizing in horror that the vessel's hangar doors were ajar, and the hangar itself was empty. A cascade of techno fire echoed up the corridor leading to the station's hangar bay before silencing as the decompression safeguards closed the area off.

"I hope that there is no misunderstanding, now. We are not here to humor you, and I've got bigger guns than my partner. Before you give me excuses on how an hour isn't good enough, pay note that I'm well aware that your turrets have emergency disconnects. Your engineering section can blow them off in four minutes with the proper authorization. You can do that first in fact, or we'll just decompress your entire station, kill all of you and peruse your cargo at our leisure. Perhaps not in that order. You have five... minutes."

...

The now disarmed station had jettisoned the rest of the cargo within 56 minutes. The scarved man was reading scan reports on the containers to confirm the contents, smiling and humming to himself. The commander had never suffered such an utter defeat. Why couldn't communications get a distress signal out? The commander sighed. "It's all there," He ran his hand through his thinning hair, "You've got what you wanted. Now leave and let us live."

"All in due time, my good sir," He leaned over to speak into another communication unit briefly, "Jayin, return ship, it's all here. It was a pleasure doing business with you. Helm, give me a 180. Full burn on my mark. Oh and uh, don't tell that dreadnought where we are."

A look of puzzlement crossed the commander's face, then anger. "What? What do you mean?!" He jabbed a finger at the Ensign yet again. "Sensors, give me a report!"

The fading communications of the customized liner echoed through the station's command area. "So, how long was that decoy supposed to last again? Will it be enough time to get away? Oh, and by the way, that ECM unit you negotiated for was top notch, they couldn't see a damn thing...! Wow, we just robbed a station with a crew full of droids."

"Call the Weisshart! Call them immediately!!!"

"Unja, zis ist zie Dlednawt Weisshart, vhat ist joor sitchuwayshan?"

"We were just robbed by Corsairs!"

A familiar voice crackled over the comm before disappearing. "Not Corsairs, my good sir! Buccaneers!"

"Zis ist not possiball, vie did not trackenzie ships in joor grid? Vie hav been parsooing zie pierats for zie pust hour, und vie hav just reached zem. Zie scan ist coming closer... ah, ja, here vie are. ... ... Vat ist das?!"

An angry voice emitted from the rear of the Weisshart's bridge. "Oonter, vhere hav joo putten zie brautvurst!"

"Zis ist not a ship! It ist zie cargo barrel withenzie engine strapped to eet!"

"Oh, God... High Command will have my rank for this..."

---

Penguin.