“Bitte! Pleaaase! We will not cause any trouble! We have no home! We cannot go back. Bitte! Do not fire upon our vessel!”
Mel sat frozen, hands locked on the controls of her almost derelict Startracker, her finger millimeters from the railgun trigger. Despite the crackling distortion of the refugee ship’s clearly damaged comms array, Mel could still hear the panic in the voice of whoever was on the other side of the speaker.
Mellony Travers, Xeno, protector of the Library working class, was considering offering aid to foreign nationals.
“This… this is…” Mel choked on the word ‘Xeno.’
The Rheinland Civil War had only been going on for a matter of weeks, but hundreds of refugee ships had already begun pouring through the Hudson system. Most had at least semi-functional scanners and nav computers, and were able to make for the trade lanes after jumping into Hudson from the Hamburg jump hole. But there were others who were much less fortunate, and ended up wandering aimlessly into the Kenai Field instead…
“This is Xeno’s fighter, Cobra 3. Unknown vessel, please identify yourself,” Mel said, finally finding her voice.
But the refugee ship was not the first voice she heard over comms.
“Cobra 3, what in the F*CK are you doing!? We do not question foreigners, we ELIMINATE them!”
Of course Gavin was squad leader today. His Cobra 1 was still a few klicks away, but would be on top of them in a matter of minutes, if not seconds.
“This is das Moselle. Wir sind ein refugee ship, und we are unarmed! Wir wiederholen, wir unarmed!!”
“Mel, are you F*CKING LISTENING TO ME?!” Gavin screamed over the comm.
Mel knew that whatever choice she made next, she was truly damned.
“Moselle, this is Cobra 3. Please remove yourself from this system, or else we will be forced to fire upon your vessel. Repeat, this is Cobra 3, turn around and leave this sector or you will be fired upon.”
A new voice pierced the comms static. Mellony could swear the voice could be heard across the void of space: “Bitte, wir haben fast kein Essen mehr! Ich kann nicht nach Hause gehen!! Zuhause brennt!!”
…it was the voice of a little girl.
Mel didn’t really speak German, but she remembered a few words that her dad had taught her, and that during his casual language lessons he had reminded her that sometimes words in German and English sound almost identical. ‘Hause’ was easy: ‘House’ or probably more likely home. But ‘brennt?’ ‘Burnt?’ Wait… was that … ‘home is burning?’
Mel’s blood went cold. The next 90 seconds passed at a glacial pace as her soul left her body. There was nothing left but instinct.
“Time to f*ckin’ die, Rhein scum!” Gavin yelled as his ship careened into view.
Bright red laser cannon fire lit up the asteroid field as Cobra 1’s guns tore through the ramshackle hull of the Moselle. Bodies gushed out of the carrier and into the void of space like blood from a gaping wound as Gavin turned the ship into swiss cheese.
Everything was so brilliantly clear to Mel at that moment. There was no defending Liberty here. There was no “sticking up for the little guy” like she had been promised in the Xeno fleet. She and the rest of her newfound family were just lost puppies that had let their rage and fear turn them into ravenous wolves. The Xenos were no better than the generations of Liberty police that locked up scavs and vagrants in the Huntsville. SHE was no better.
And they were turning the ‘verse into their own personal punching bag.
“I’m so f*cking sorry, Dad,” Mel said under her breath.
Immediately launching into action, Mel powered up her tractor beam and zoomed towards the dying refugee ship. Using the moment that Gavin was blinded with bloodlust, she swooped around to the other side of the carrier and targeted the first in-tact ejection pod her scanners picked up. She activated her tractor beam, waited for the tell-tale buzzing of the beam to stop, and then targeted the next pod.
*T R A C T O R F A I L E D*
“What? No, no, no!” Mel begged. She slammed the button again.
*T R A C T O R F A I L E D*
“NO! NO!!”
*T R A C T O R F A I L E D*
*T R A C T O R F A I L E D*
*T R A C T O R F A I L E D*
“F*CK F*CK F*CK F********CK!!!” Tears started unconsciously flowing down Mel’s face.
Gavin’s voice cut through comms again: “Cobra 3, return to the Barrow NOW! Refuse a direct order and I WILL be forced to blow you outta the f*ckin’ sky.”
There was a brief pause.
“Actually,” Gavin continued. “Please refuse to comply. I’ve been ITCHIN’ to deal with you for months!”
Mel gritted her teeth, wiped her eyes, and threw her thrusters into overdrive. She hit the comm button so hard she could swear she heard her communications panel crack.
“You’ll have to catch me, coward!”
The sudden increase in Gs plastered her to her crash couch as she rocketed towards the Texas jump gate.
* * *
Mel didn’t stop until she reached Beaumont Base. Somewhere in her panicked brain she had remembered that Junkers hate Xenos more than just about anyone else she knew. Gavin stopped pursuing her sometime before she passed planet Houston, but she hadn’t really paid attention to when or where. She only briefly considered pausing once she reached the Dallis Debris Field. That was when she finally remembered that she was flying a Xeno ship with a Xeno ID.
But she pressed on. Kelvin would help her. He had to.
She didn’t have any other choice.
Before she knew it, she was picking up Beaumont Base on her scanner. Beaumont picked her up too.
“Xeno vessel, retreat or you will be fired upon.”
It was weird hearing those words come from someone else's mouth so shortly after she had said the exact same thing.
“Beaumont this is Cobr– This is Mel! Mellony Travers! For gods sakes, Beaumont, please don’t fire!”
Mel prayed that the Junkers were more merciful than Gavin had been today.
“Xeno vessel, retreat now! We will open fire.”
“Kelvin please! It’s me! It’s Mini Mel! I just want to come home! I have a civilian refugee on board. Please, Kelvin, are you listening?!”
The following pause felt like a lifetime.
Mel heard the clear sound of whooping feedback as the comms receiver was passed to another person on board the station.
“Mini Mel? You’re alive?? Is that really you? I… this is some kind of f*ckin' Xeno trick. You can’t…”
“Kelvin, it’s me I swear by the gods! Please!” Mel could feel hot tears burning her cheeks again.
“...prove it. What was your father accused of by LPI before they locked him up the second time?”
There was no way Mellony would ever forget that.
“Steal……stealing a mug of Liberty ale from an off duty officer while he was planetside on Houston…”
“Welcome back, Mini. Bay 2 is open to you.”
* * *
Mel sat on Beaumont’s hanger bay floor, staring at the open cargo door of her ship. The lone escape pod she had managed to scoop up stared back at her.
The Junker crew gave her a wide berth. Kelvin watched wearily from a distance. He had wrapped her up in a massive bear hug when she had disembarked, but she hadn’t returned it. The shock and pallor on her face was as effective at keeping people away as any porcupine quills.
“F*ck me.”
Mel shoved her palms against her knees and stood to her feet. Whoever was inside the pod was probably feeling far worse than she was. It was time to let them out.
Walking up into the cargo hold, she gently placed a hand on the pod.
“I’m so sorry,” she breathed, and hit the seal to depressurize the pod.
Mel could easily hear the sobbing voice inside over the hissing of the pod's seal depressurizing.
“Nein, nein, bitte!! Ich will nicht sterben!! Nein nein!!”
It was the little girl she’d heard over the carrier’s comms.
Mel didn’t even think, she swooped in and wrapped the child into the same embrace Kelvin had tried to give her. The girl kicked and screamed and even began to bite. Mel didn’t let go.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry.”
“NEIN! NEIN!! Wo ist meine Mutter!”
For the third and final time that day, Mellony let her tears flow freely.
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