The Journal of Caius Oakley

[Coin]

The following is based on actual events. Names have been witheld to protect the relevant person's dignity

The touch of her lips lingered on my cheek throughout the launch sequence. "All frosty as winter, and then she melts in 30 seconds? I just dont get it". Maybe she was playacting at frostiness, maybe she was playacting at melting too.

With long range scanners indicating that the Cambridge system was clear of traffic, I avoided the trade lane to Battleship Norfolk, and instead cruised directly to the Omega 5 jump-hole. If Mr Alex High and Mighty DAubeny wanted ghosting, he'd get ghosting.
As soon as I had cleared the jump-hole in Omega 5, I veered away from Cadiz base. I knew that even if they did manage to scan me, the Corsairs'd let me continue with a small tax as I was basically running empty, but the phrase 'warm reception in an asteroid field' was looping itself through my brain. Once clear past Cadiz, I lined up on the Omega 41 jump-hole and checked the long range scanners for trouble ahead.

Trouble arrived, but in the weirdest form. Fifteen clicks inside Omega 41, I picked up a reading from a Corsair gunboat that had just undocked from Leon. Ten clicks away and she was hailing me, demanding that I stop and pay a tax of 2m. "Hehehe, these arent the tactics of one trained by the OPG" I thought. "Wouldnt like to be in your shoes when they catch up with you". I knew that her weapons, as formidable as they are on a gunboat, wouldnt reach me from 10K away, and so I continued on to the Omicron Theta hole, hoping to lose the larger ship in the asteroid fields ahead.

I suppose we must have made comic figures for all the pirates in Omicron Theta; a Gunboat chasing after a Firefly, wailing that the tax hadnt been paid, and the Firefly carrying on regardless. By the time I'd reached the Sigma 17 hole, I was starting to get nervous the gunboat wasnt gaining, but I wasnt losing her either, and as I raced at full power to the mooring point orbiting Kurile, slamming on the anchors at the last possible second, eliciting a squawk of indignant fury from the landing tower, the gunboat cleared the nebula and entered the gravitational pool that surrounds Kurile. "Okay", I thought, as I locked the ship down onto the landing pad, "getting out will be a lot harder than getting in".

I jumped down from the cockpit, waving away the dock hands approach. Its okay, boys, 'Im here to buy equipment, the cargo bay's empty'. The last thing I wanted was to have ghosted across five systems, just to let any nosey parker poke around my hold as soon as I landed. Activating the cargo ramp to show the (mostly) empty interior, the dock hands lost interest and sauntered off. Thankfully, the VIP transport container was locked down at the back of the hold to balance the ship, and was out of their line-of-sight. Prudence told me to close up the ramp whilst opening Alex's luxury casket.

A hacking cough greeted me, concealed by cloud of smoke that billowed out as soon as the hatchway opened. 'Alex!' I yelled and darted inside, grabbing hold of his jumpsuit and belt, dragging him out onto the cargo bay deck.

'It's... it's okay. My <cough>, my fault. I lit a cigar without thinking, forgetting that those damn things dont have air conditioning, only CO2 scrubbers. Ive been smoking the same cigar now for the last 3 hours'.

I said nothing, and I'm pretty sure I kept my face blank as I crossed the cargo hold to the medical locker for the emergency oxygen. He feebly waved it away. 'You look terrible' I said. 'Take a few breaths of this, we'll get some KP rations inside you, and then when you're feeling better, you can tell me that you were going to get better anyway'. Truth be told, he did look terrible. His face was green and his bloodshot eyes were vacant and unfocused.

The oxygen brought back the colour to his cheeks, enough for him to sit up and wave away the KP rations, which indicated he was coming back to his senses.

'No thank you, I'd prefer some real food later'.

'Heh, I don't blame you, it's only synth paste'.

As I walked around the ship, looking for asteroid damage, Alex, in his Flight Engineer guise, had rustled up a floating cargo loader and a pair of dock hands to load up the luggage. I was bending a radio aerial back into shape - it must have taken a direct blow on the mounting - when Alex said 'Be ready in an hour'.

His officious tone drew puzzled glances from the dock hands. I could tell they were thinking Why is a Flight Engineer ordering a Captain around?" I said nothing, merely nodded once, but I followed their progress across the landing pad towards the spaceport terminal buildings out of the corner of my eye. [i]"Well, nice to know that he's feeling his old self again".

I was ready long before the hour. The equipment shop made short work of the minor damage caused by the loose asteroids, and only a few new pieces of radiation shielding were needed. My shield batteries and nanobot storage compartments were full, as was my countermeasure launcher magazine. With Alex's attempt to turn himself into a kipper, I'd not had time to tell him about the excitement awaiting us outside the atmosphere of this sickly planet, and with Alex's insistence on secrecy, I didn't want to draw attention to myself by asking Samura to make things nice and safe again. Besides that, they'd only chase the gunboat back to Omicron Theta - I didn't like the idea of being ambushed after a worm-hole jump, things are disorientated, you're more often than not upside-down and back-to-front, and it takes a while for the ship to become responsive. Enough time for a shield to be stripped away.

After the second hour passed, I completed the pre-launch checks again, just to have something to do. I was beginning to draw the attention of the dock hands - most ships land and launch pretty soon, not take up residence. I was starting to wonder if I should go look for His Lardship, when he came bouncing across the landing pad, looking flustered.

'How soon can you launch, Mr. Oakley?'

'How soon can you climb inside your casket?'

He fairly scampered up the ramp into the cargo hold, and was almost secured inside the VIP container before I reached the controls.

'We in a hurry to get to back to Cambridge?'

'No. Were in a hurry to leave Sigma 17.'

"Oh great", I thought, "trouble if I stay, trouble if I leave. I guess no point in asking for an escort now".

The unusually rough exit from the docking ring was possibly the smoothest part of the journey back. The corsair gunboat was in orbit around Kurile - how she wasnt being fired upon by the planets defences Ill never know - and to make things worse, she was between us and the Omicron Theta jump hole.
"Here goes nothing" I thought, as I engaged cruise engines.

Perhaps it was my tactic of diving towards her that confused her, but the cruise disruptor hit just as I was passing underneath her bows, and the disruption ceased before I'd cleared her stern. I re-engaged cruise, and by the time the gunboat had turned her bulk around, I had cleared the range of her train disruptor missiles. I barrelled towards the Omicron Theta jump-hole, docking at the last second, with the gunboat hot on my tail.

Luck was with me - I emerged first, and some distance away from the jump-hole, closer to Corfu than Freeport 9. Dodging the asteroids with as little margin as I dared, I relied on my smaller ship fitting through spaces that the gunboat could not. As the asteroid field around the Sigma 17 jump-hole fell away behind me, I had opened up a 7k lead, and it looked like I might make it.

The asteroid field around the Omega 41 jump-hole is so sparse that even battleships can cruise through it, and I knew that the next docking sequence had to be perfect, or the lead I had opened up would evaporate. Thankfully, the jump-hole was aligned, and traffic-free, and I jumped through, with the gunboat still on my six. My cruise engines kicked in, and I set a course that passed dangerously close to the neutron star that dominates Omega 41, poisoning the whole system with radiation. I hoped that the new radiation shields would hold up, and that the VIP casket in the hold would filter out the worst radiation. I know that this was a little reckless endangerment of Alex's life, but, hell, he wanted to ghost across the most pirate infested systems in the whole of Sirius.

The density of the asteroids had taken their toll on the gunboat too - my lead had increased to 9K. If it had reached 10k, I would have passed right by the Omega 5 hole and taken my chances with Omega 47. I hate jumping into systems blind, with no knowledge of who or what is waiting for you, but having a clear and present danger behind you is enough to make you choose rashly.

As it was, the lead never increased. In fact, it decreased sharply. I bounced off the smallest of asteroids and began pinballing wildly, watching the Omega 5 jump-hole flash past my viewscreen, and watching the gunboat grind down on me. A lucky bounce and rebound set me back on course, and I barrelled into the Omega 5 hole with the gunboat 5k behind.

My cruise engines whined at this forced high intensity drain, and I took a risk with Cadiz, passing close enough to see the faces of the people in the station bars viewing window. My gamble didn't pay off. A fighter coming out of Cadiz slapped me into an asteroid, which bounced me back onto Cadiz, and before I knew it I was pinballing violently, with my lead over the gunboat down to 1k, who was hailing me.

'Hello little Firefly. I'd like my tax now.'

'Uh Hi, I guess. Ok, Ill pay up, you did catch me after all.'

'4 million.'

'What? You said 2!'

'That was before you started playing hide and seek.'

'Hmm. Ok. But I got to get away from the turrets on Cadiz. I musta slapped into the station hard enough to activate the damage protocols. Follow me.'

'Alright - but no tricks'

"No tricks? Of course there's going to be a trick you half-baked moron". I righted the ship, pointed it at the Cambridge jump-hole, kicked into cruise and weaved my way through the thickest parts of the asteroid field I could find. The gunboat dropped back to 4k within 15 seconds, the jump-hole was clear, I was through and out the other side and feeling pretty damn pleased with myself as I was cruising towards Cambridge, with the gunboat hot on my tail. Right up until the gunboat hailed me on a private channel.

Like a lion escorting a mouse through cat-land.

What? Was he trying to say that he was keeping pirates off my back? In a way, I guess that he did they were all probably laughing too much at this inept and over-equipped rookie pirate chasing one trader across 6 systems. I docked with the mooring fixture in a thoughtful mood, which persisted as the atmosphere of Cambridge slipped past the Firefly's hull. Had Alex arranged for this escort? It would explain why the gunboat tailed me, rather than waited for me to return and ambushed me. It might also explain why he seemed unconcerned about the trip out - so unconcerned that he was ready to dive out into Sigma 17 without asking if the system was clear.

My feet had taken me to the cargo ramp, and I walked straight to the casket. Alex was sat on the bunk with his feet up, a big difference from the last time Id let him out.

'Thank you for the trip, Mr. Oakley'

'No problem. Just one question - the money?'

'I believe you have an appointment with the ship dealership here?' With that, he brushed past me and walked down the cargo ramp.

'Hey!'

He turned around 'Yes, Mr. Oakley?'

'Your luggage, it was left on Kurile.'

'Yes, Mr. Oakley. As I told you, it was just some paperwork.'

'Pretty bulky paperwork.'

'Yes, Mr. Oakley - Goodbye.'

I locked up the cargo hold, and completed the post-flight checks in a dark humour. I began to suspect that I wasnt going to get paid. "What the hell, lets go to the ship dealers anyway".

The dealer behind the counter was the one I'd bought the Firefly from just the day before - only a day? - and he welcomed me with a smile.

'Good afternoon, Sir. I trust that everything with your new ship is satisfactory.'

'Oh yes, I just wanted to enquire about armour upgrades.'

'Oh yes Sir? I believe that the equipment dealer here sells upgrades up to level three at standard prices. His voice dropped to a quiet murmur, but I think that the equipment dealers on planet Gran Canaria may have something far more suitable for you.'

"Gran Canaria? First avoid Rheinland, then go to a Samura base, and now Zoners? Just how many pies are Alex DAubenys fat fingers in?"

Well, that could wait until tomorrow. I needed a shower, a meal and a beer, in that order. Female company during any of these activities would be welcome. As soon as this thought crossed my mind, it was replaced by an image of Beatrice, walking across the landing pad. "Hell, yeah, she can scrub my back any day" I grinned to myself, but I was soon thinking about exactly what Little Miss Confident, who can go from frosty to needy in seconds flat, was doing hiding out in a corner of the universe, and how well was she doing it?

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