Captian Karith
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Posted - 2008.09.08 06:17:00 -
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The battlecruiser rumbled like a sleeping giant as the ship emerged from its frictionless warp bubble into the harsh environment of interplanetary space. The Brutix had seen better days. From the standpoint of the Guristas, it looked seemed as if the once sleek and painted war machine had been attacked by locusts. The hull had sustained near fatal injuries on several occasions, its armor ripped and melted off in hundreds of encounters, inexpertly reapplied and rebuilt time and time again by its proud owner.
"Bloody con artists the lot of them..."
The Captain had just turned off his hull repair. The last mission his agent gave his nearly sent him back in a pod, and his self repair was just finished. Most pilots left hull work to the professionals and simply handled the armor, but professionals cost money, and the Captain liked keeping his.
The Guristas were caught off guard. The outpost in Aunia they were anchored at had been secretly established only a few days ago. Pilots scrambled to the controls. This intruder could have been commissioned by the Federation to wipe them out, but at second glance at the interlopers ship, they figured him an unlucky explorer, an easy kill.
They were half right.
Target the nearest 4 frigates and the closest cruiser, launch drones on standby.
The Captain's conscious thoughts raced through the implants in his mind to the hardwireing in his capsule.
Batteries 1 through 3 on One, batteries 4 through 7 on Two, engage drones on target Three.
Railguns flared to life, drones spurred through the starlit void. Focusing fire was the smart thing to do, but the Captain liked synchronized explosions and they were easy targets. Two frigates buckled and shattered under rail fire, the third ground to a halt and exploded seconds later from drone fire. That left a single frigate and four cruisers. Cake.
Focus all fire on cruiser One.
The fight would be mechanical now, orbit, fire volley after volley, rinse repeat. He could do this in his sleep.
"Cap-i-tan Karith! How are we doing tonight?"
One of the blank monitors began to glow with the grinning face of Karith's corp member, fresh back from R and R.
"Well good evening to you sir, meet any fine ladies this time?"
"Ah well," The grin faded a little, "More of a personal retreat then womanizing pursuit."
"Sure. You know that if you just off yourself now, your clone might look better." The ship gave a loud snap, signifying that the shield had been broken, the Captain flipped on the armor repair and switched targets. Five to go. "Do us all a favor."
"Your funny, we all know that God himself couldn't make a more devilish-"
Kisshh
The monitors died, the view screen blackened, his mental UI flashed and went blank, lights went off, audio stopped, railguns stopped firing, and the engine stopped humming.
There was pure darkness and perfect silence.
"Oh SH*T, Noo no no no..."
A red emergency light flicked on, bathing the capsule in an ominous red glow. The Captain flailed wildly at manual switches, buttons, nothing was responsive. He had to do a hard boot, manually shut down every system and restart the capacitor by hand.
Emergency systems on battery had come online, the Captain started the reboot process talking wildly to himself.
"I told them twice the system client was bugged." the metal vibrated in shock suddenly, causing the Captain to twitch. His ship was taking hull damage. "Why now, why not in dock? No no.. quickly quickly..."
There was a horrific audio sundering of metal. the capsule shook violently. "Oh god please no."
Subsystems online, Main systems were powering... Visual!
"Bloody ****!"
For the Captain was not in his ship. His ship was 500 meters away, in a twisted heap of scrap and gas and flame. "But that's not fair."
Karith pounded his fist on his pod, drifting away from the ship he had sunk every isk of his earning into.
Home.
And the Captain of scrap began limping home.
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