Prologue
On the capital planet, several interplanetary empires possessed capital cities. On what had once been Europe, existed the Prussian Imperial city of Greater Prague. On the previously titled British Isles was the center of the Imperial Commonwealth a city listed as New London. The United Planets of America had three major metropolitan sectors on the continent of North America: New York City which spread from Maine to Florida, but was no farther west than Alabama. The Texas metropolitan area, which covered all of Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, and parts of what used to be Mexico. The last urbanized area was the California Greater Metropolitan Center. The Soviet Union had two cities, Moscow, and China, which used to be a country, but when the population got too out of control they had to expand the existing cities across the entire country and then named the city after the country. Finally, The New Roman Empire’s capital, Rome, encapsulated the Italian peninsula, and covered most of northern Africa.
These various empires had hundreds of planets colonized in their name, occasionally wars broke out, but here on the capital planet, Earth, they peacefully coexisted. However, eras of nautical colonization inspire the criminal sector to band together, to raid unsuspecting civilian craft, trading craft, and any other easy loot. This is no different for the colonization of space.
Chapter 1
Janice was new. She had barely been with the Reihner Privateering Firm for five months, but even to someone as new as her, this job seemed odd. First off, the founder and Director of Special Operations of the Firm, 17-year-old John Reihner had arranged it. Ever the rascal John was not known for finding his own clients, everyone who had been aboard at the time had been suspicious. Not of the job, nothing that sensible, they all got suspicious of whether or not John had been cloned and replaced. After a good half an hour of arguing, which John did nothing to dissuade, they finally settled down and asked what the job was. He opened by saying that Jeebus Lorenzo would be participating, everyone else’s eyes had filled with comprehension and some sadness showed on the crew’s usually mirthful faces. Lorenzo, or as almost everyone loving called him, Jeebs, wasn’t actually aboard at the time, so Janice felt inclined to ask.
​“Is there a specific reason Jeebus is going on this job.” Janice asked confused, twirling her auburn hair around her finger.
Cornelius Rebecca Aspen, surprisingly the manliest of the group, opened his mouth to respond, but Reihner waved him off.
“Chief Officer Lorenzo is terminally ill, a recent visit to his doctor has informed me that he has one week left, his last wish was to go on one of our jobs, and we’re going to surprise him by taking him on one.” Reihner turned back to the rest of the group.
The group gathered was the John Reihner Privateer Firm, a group that was set up much like a mercenary group, but the fact of the matter was that they would take any job that paid, not just “merc work”. Formed five years ago by John Reihner a trouble-attracting boy from Austria he moved to America where he quickly adopted the culture and dropped all resemblance of an accent, with black hair and shocking blue eyes, he had a very charismatic personality, which was how he had recruited members for his Firm. The group was named after an ancient nautical tradition of government sanctioned pirates, and were considered by many as nautical mercenaries, which had given John the idea. However, in the year 3943 water wasn’t much of an adventurous landscape, so using the vast amount of wealth personally owned by him, Reihner bought himself a ship. Or rather, what he had thought was a ship, as it turned out it was a semi-functioning prototype model of a ship that was designed on a ship from an extremely old entertainment franchise. So John had been left with the shell and engine of an 11,000 meters tall, and 35,000 meters long, “Eclipse-class Star Destroyer”. Technically the ship was space-worthy, if he outfitted the inner compartments, added shields, weapons, life support, and figured out how to make the engine work. It was a few years later in New York, where he bought the “ship” that he met Stefano “Stromboli” Jackson. A New York local, with muddy blonde hair, brown eyes, and a considerable amount of free time. The two became fast friends, and when John learned that Jackson was an aspiring engineer, who had graduated from his university early on account of being a prodigy, he took Stromboli to the “ship” to see what he could do to help.
After several months of spending money and installing equipment, the ship looked identical to the famous space-cruiser it was based on, and would actually stand a decent chance against even the best military ships, in both speed, shield power, and payload she had quickly transformed into one of the most capable space-faring craft off or on the market.
However, there was still one glaring problem, neither Reihner, nor Stromboli had any clue how to start the ship’s highly advanced engines. Not to be discouraged, Reihner decided to move forward with the rest of his mission. He offered Jackson a position as Chief Engineer, which he graciously accepted. He then began the search for more people interested in the Privateer Firm. In a farther south district in New York they met Jamison Quinn Burns, a young man with brown hair and blue eyes, who had just graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy, he was a fully licensed navigator, and had a particular taste for adventure that had made him stick out among his peers at the academy. When Reihner described the Firm to him, Jamison joined immediately. Satisfied with the progress he’d made John contacted one of his childhood friends, Vladimir Kalashnikov, a native Russian with gold-blonde hair and forest green eyes, fulfilled the stereotype by being a weapons expert, he was more than capable of making his own as well as being skilled in their general use. Vladimir, ever the quiet one, showed up at the shipyard with a mysterious affiliate whom he called Harthus Loofa, Loofa’s jet-black hair and black eyes, and surprisingly cheery personality added to the mystery of his existence. Vladimir said that they had both heard the idea, and were more than eager to join.
The quickly growing firm toured all over America, looking for individuals who could bolster their ranks, in Texas they met Dallas Houston, a Texan with light brown hair, brown eyes, and the only cowboy to exist past 1910, as decided by the rest of the group. At a shooting competition in the same metropolitan zone, they met Elizabeth “Hawkeye” Mustang. A mild Texan, whose blonde hair and amber eyes allured young John Reihner. She was an expert sniper with any rifle she touched, who had lost the competition because most of her bullets passed through the hole made by the first bullet, which had hit dead center in the target. She joined with soon after meeting John.
On their way back to New York, the group stopped in Detroit, where they met Cornelius Rebecca Aspen, a black adolescent, with black hair and grey eyes, who had actually applied for mercenary work on a merchant space transporter. He felt that their idea was even better. In the same city, in the same hour, they met Aiden Tuber, an especially talented cook in the area. He joined because he had nothing else to do.
When the group arrived in New York again, John had to leave for Greater Prague, to retrieve his brother from his aunt’s house. He was on standby in New London, a British lad, with dirty-blonde hair and hazel eyes, only a year younger than John, tripped on his own shoelaces and landed on Reihner’s industrial strength combat boots. After profuse apologizing and helping the poor kid up, John introduced himself.
“I’m John; I’m here waiting for transport to Greater Prague so I can pick up my brother. Who are you?”
In a very cocky British accent the boy belted out, “The name’s John John Jonathan and I work her.”
​John frowned, “You can’t be older than 12, why are you working in an airport? Where are your parents?”
​The boy adopted a forlorn look, “They were killed a few years ago, train crash.”
John felt bad for John, so in a lapse of judgment he may have done what others would have called kidnapping and took the young boy with him. He retrieved his brother from Prussia, and was about to catch a plane from Rome to New York when he met the strangest individual that he had ever met.
“Excuse me, are you John Reihner?” The voice boomed across the gate, even though they were about six feet apart.
"Umm, Yes?” John looked up at the very loud individual questioningly.
The teenager was wearing a toga. With complete confidence.
For several moments, John was flabbergasted, as any sane human would be.
"Umm uh uh, can I help you?" He finally managed to squeak out.
"I wish to partake in your endeavors to begin a nautical guild of money-making adventures."
"You want to join my privateer firm?" John clarified.
"Quite."
"How did you hear about it?"
The teenager straightened, golden hair cropped short in a military cut, "Gods are omniscient, so what kind of god would I be if I hadn’t heard about it."
For the second time in as many minutes John was confused, "You think you're a god?"
He sniffed, his sky-blue eyes gleamed, “Since you are clearly awestruck I will forgive your insolence, but yes I am a god."
John was a good sport and usually played along with other people's eccentricities. So instead of contradicting the guy, he grinned, "So what's your name?"
The teen puffed his chest out, and pointed his chin up. "I am Constantine XXX."
"Well Constantine, I'd love to have you on board." John stuck out his hand for shaking.
Constantine shook it and sat next to him on the bench. As they were waiting Constantine's rigid and formal posture slowly degenerated, and he started to act more like the 15 year old that he was. By the time the four reached the ship-port that housed their current base of operations, Constantine and John were the best of friends. While godhood was still in question, Constantine was actually highly skilled in the use of firearms, hand-to-hand combat, fencing, and strategy. Once everyone had been introduced, the owner of the ship-port told the group that the ship had to be relocated by the end of the month. That man was Jeebus Lorenzo, a former Prussian citizen who had moved to America. He and John knew each other rather well, as John had to pay rent for his "parking spot". The group asked if Lorenzo was interested in joining them. He shot them down at first. The firm regrouped in the engine compartment, searching for some way to turn them on, so they could actually get their business off the ground. Literally and figuratively. Eventually John took Jamison to the bridge, so that he could learn the navigation controls if they ever learned how to start the ship.
Immediately after Jamison learned how to pilot the ship, the engines sparked to life. John and Jamison had been looking at the console, when suddenly all the engine indicators flashed from inactive, to full green.
John rushed to engine room 1, only to find John John Johnathan sprawled on the floor, apologizing to Stromboli.
"Kid stop apologizing, I just want to know how you did that." Stromboli tried to calm him down.
"I don't know what did I do?" Johnathan was beginning to realize that he was not in trouble.
"You turned the engine on."
"How did I do that?"
"That's what I want to know."
Reihner thumped down the final step into the engine room. “Stromboli, diagnosis.”
Stefano turned away from Johnathan, “Well sir, the engine is functioning at 100% capacity.”
“And Johnathan activated it?”
“Apparently, so.”
“Hey, why is everyone so surprised.” Johnathan squeaked out.
Jackson grinned at Reihner, “Test flight?”
“Oh yeah!” Reihner grinned back.
They both turned and raced towards the bridge, leaving Johnathan alone, in the engine room.
“I guess I’ll go too.” And he slowly ambled out of the room.
Meanwhile, Stromboli and Reihner were sprinting for the bridge; they reached the transporter on the engine level. The transporters on the ship operated like super-fast elevator that moved both vertically and horizontally at about 200 mph; with inertial dampeners they felt nothing. It took Jackson and Reihner about 2 minutes to reach the bridge, which was about 6 miles above the engine room. When they emerged from the transporter most of the crew had assembled on the bridge.
The bridge was a large rectangular room, which the transporter entrance bisected. On the left side of the room, towards the stern was the conference room/navigations center. Which held a large star map, and a circular conference room table. On the right side of the room, towards the bow, on the far wall was a large view port, which was made of glass reinforced by a dozen very dense but transparent materials, and when the ship was in space it would be protected by a shield.
The bow side of the room also held the Captain’s Chair. Which had emergency controls for navigation, weapons, and shields, and primary control of the intercom, coms array, energy control, the fighter bay doors, and a multitude of other necessary systems. At the time they actually only had two fighters, one for each bay, but they did have two large transport ships, a scouting ship, and an advanced armor unit for when they landed the ship, shields
To the left was the Navigators seat, a chair that was set lower to the ground and had a few large control consoles mounted to a solid steel chassis. The chair had emergency controls for weapons, shields, and energy control, and primary control of navigations, positioning thrusters, hyperdrive and emergency positioners. A prototype system installed and invented by Stromboli, the positioning thrusters would use all the energy in the shields, weapons, and engine capacitors to move the ship out of the way of an incoming attack. It could potentially move the ship 20 miles through space in any direction in less time than it takes to blink, the downsides being a temporary lack of power to shields, weapons, and engines. Moreover, the inertial dampeners would be tremendously over taxed and allow some -- survivable -- G-forces to be felt, along with a reboot period of 10 minutes, and if maneuvered incorrectly, the ship would tear itself apart under its own weight.
To the right was the Weapons Operator Seat. A mirror image of the Navigator’s seat, the weapons console had emergency controls for all navigational functions, and primary controls for hardened energy weapons -- a prototype system installed and invented by Stromboli, they function a lot like lasers and that was what most of the crew called it anyway --, missile weapons, rail guns, and shields. Slightly forward and to either side of the chairs, on a lower level sat an area with consoles, and large computing servers.
Anyhow Stromboli and Reihner came bursting into the room, with most of the other recruits of the Firm already on the bridge, Reihner took the Captain’s Chair, Jamison Burns sat down in the Navigator’s Seat, and Jackson -- temporarily -- took the Weapons Operator Seat, at least until they chose a permanent Weapons Operator. John activated the coms array and patched a connection to the takeoff tower.
All the current members of the Firm gathered around the Captain’s Chair.
“Wait.” Constantine exclaimed stopping everyone.
“What is it demigod.” Reihner asked. He was the only one allowed to call him that, because he did so non-sarcastically.
“Does the ship have a name? It is bad luck to leave a ship unnamed.” Constantine crossed his arms.
There were choruses of “Oh yeah” and “He’s right” but soon they all died down and looked towards Reihner.
The Captain sat in thought for a few moments, and then grinned to himself. “Let’s call her the Incorrigible.” Everyone agreed that the name suited both the ship and the crew, as neither had been destined to be changed by social convention. “Now,” Reihner said, swiveling his chair towards the viewport, “we need to register her, but the only place we can do that is at Space Port 1.” He turned his head towards his friends. “All officers to their stations.”
Salutes and people shuffling to get past each other followed the command. Once everyone was in a seat and strapped in, John reactivated the line to the tower.
“This is the Incorrigible prepped for takeoff and requesting permission.”
After a few minutes of silence the control tower responded, “This is Control Tower 8, the skies are clear, you are cleared for takeoff. Over.”
John cut the link, “Burns, take us up.”
“With pleasure.” Jamison grabbed the yolk, only to for use with in-atmosphere maneuvering, and tapped several buttons and commands on his console screen. The ship slowly rose in its berth, coming level with the main floor of the enormous hangar. The hangar, which had been bustling with activity seconds earlier, was occupied with the extremely loud elevating thrusters on the Incorrigible. Almost everyone in the hangar had met the enigmatic John Reihner, Captain of the unnamed, unmoving ship, that had been parked in the hangar for almost a year, and now everyone in the hangar stopped to watch the gargantuan vessel depart on her maiden voyage. Now high enough to get out of the hangar, the eight cylindrical engines on the rear of the ship, that were in fact three times the size of an average civilian ship each, fired for less than half second. Then the ship was guided slowly out of the hangar, only raising in altitude once it had fully emerged.
On that day, there were numerous reports of a steel mountain emerging from the ground, but all were put at ease that it was just the largest civilian ship that had ever been constructed and outfitted for space travel.
So here Janice was, five years later, having just joined this misfit group of what, she decided, legally qualified as mercenaries. Over all that time they had completed 493 jobs, a fourth of those were civilian clients. After several months of those, the Firm had been hired by the Prussians for 200 jobs, the Russians for 56 jobs, the UPA 43 jobs, the ICQ (Imperial Commonwealth under the Queen) for 35 jobs, and the New Roman Empire for 36 jobs. Over time, they had collected a substantial amount of new employees, and residents. Now residing on the Incorrigible were 426 people. There was more than enough space on the 20-mile long, 6-mile high, and 10-mile wide, triangular star cruiser. It also happened to be enough people to run all the extra systems on the ship, so large corporations, and empires rented the use of the science equipment. Every six months they would cycle the civilians living on the enormous cruiser. About two years after the Firm had started, at John’s request (and using his share of the money from jobs they had complete) he had another large cruiser built. It was nowhere near the size of the Incorrigible but it was the second largest civilian craft ever built. He’d had a third ship-bay built just to hold it, which had taken up a good 100th of the free-space on the ship, but was still beyond huge he’d had all the equipment that had been removed for the ship bay moved onto the new ship. The new ship The Imperishable was used for transport in atmosphere, seeing as there was only one civilian ground based ship port that could hold the Incorrigible. The much smaller but still enormous ship was a convenient ship when they were transporting civilians, completing jobs that required a smaller ship, and they could use it as an HQ during jobs that required a lot of time spent on a hostile planet. It had been around the time the second ship was built that Jeebs had finally taken Reihner up on his offer and joined the Firm.
In total there were 33 members of the Firm, 140 permanent member of the ship’s crew, and around 100 civilian and government science officers, and 168 civilians, who either lived on the ship, or operated businesses out of the ship.
The day of Jeebus Lorenzo’s job had also been a cycle day. So most members of the Firm had been overseeing clearing out of the ship, while John, Constantine, and Jeebs had gone on the job.
The Prussian Imperial Autocracy had given the job to them, and it had involved taking down a group of French Resistance Fighters in the southern area of what used to be France. The three of them had gone alone, but armed to the teeth. Any weapons used by Constantine was immediately deadly, but he preferred the VK-47, a gun that had been made by Vladimir to mimic the AK-47, the gun that had made his family famous, except it had a much greater stopping power, accuracy, and a greatly reduced recoil. Constantine had fallen in love with it immediately. VK had made enough to arm all the occupants on the ship, just in case, so it had quickly become the most used gun by the Firm. Jeebs was also carrying one, but Reihner was not. The reason for that was that Reihner was an expert marksman with one gun, and barely adequate with any others. His weapon of choice was the Colt 3280 Revolving Hand-Cannon, he had gotten it as payment for a job from the Colt Manufacturing Company, and the highly powerful revolver was the most powerful handgun that could possibly exist. It had come with three different chambers, a chamber to hold regular bullets, a chamber that held stun rounds, which were shaped like bullets, but once they impacted skin they would attach to the person, and discharge 50,000 volts of electricity into their body, and the final chamber was for specialized rounds, such as: armor piercing or hollow point rounds. Reihner cherished the gun, and used it on every job, until he was the most accurate person in the Firm, but only with that weapon.
Janice was waiting at a café in the Paris district, waiting for the return of her comrades. Reihner and the others had left three days earlier, and the civilian cycle had only taken two. The crew had received a communique stating that they would be back from the job that afternoon, and Janice had been waiting nervously for their return ever since. Finally, at 5:40 P.M she spotted Constantine and Reihner walking towards the café, they were easy to spot in their military-esque combat fatigues among the posh stylish clothing worn by the civilians in this district. Reihner’s revolver was holstered, and Constantine’s VK-47 was hanging limply from his right hand. They spotted Janice and took the two empty chairs at the outdoor table she was sitting at.
“So how’d it go?” She asked, leaning back in her chair.
“Well we completed the job.” Reihner responded.
“You got the resistance fighters?”
“We got the ones we had been hired to get, yes.”
“What do you mean by that?” Janice was confused by the way John had worded his response.
John frowned slightly for a moment, and then relaxed, “I keep forgetting you’re not from Earth.” He took a deep breath, “Well the south of France has always been anti Prussian, even before the Prussians took over Europe. That section has been in an indefinite state of war, it’s been warzone for decades, the city is half-destroyed in that area, and you can’t get in unless you’re military personnel, or hired mercenaries like us.”
“Ok, but what happened to Lorenzo?” Janice addressed the elephant in the conversation.
​Reihner took a distinct interest in the ground, so Constantine responded for him, “Jeebus fought valiantly against many foes, he could not have asked for a more honorable end.”
Janice nodded, “It’s going to be different without him. When we get back to the ship we’ll have to get his will from his room.”
John nodded, “After you get the will, have Stromboli permanently seal the room.”
“Does he have any family?”
“Only us.”
After that, the conversation shifted to a more light-hearted topic, and soon the three were laughing, and enjoying the tea they had ordered. It was long after dark when the trio returned to the Imperishable, which had been used to ferry civilians off the Incorrigible, which was currently parked at the truly enormous Spaceport 1, which had over 30,000 square miles of ship docking. The three would meet up with Vladimir and Jamison on the Imperishable and take the ship up to the landing bay on the Incorrigible. After that, they would read and carry out Jeebs’s last will and testament.
The ride from Ship-port 4 to Spaceport 1 was quick and silent. Everyone was in a foul mood, but Janice figured the crew would soon recover. After all, in a week Jeebs would have been gone either way.
All 33 members of the Firm, and the 125 members of the crew, those that were not part of the Firm, were gathered in the main atrium on the Incorrigible. Reihner stepped up to a small podium that had been set up for the event. The first several pages of the will were just personal good byes to everyone, and then the last several pages were bequeathing his personal belongings.
“To John Reihner, and Ryan Reihner, I leave the deed to Ship-port 1, the only ground based ship-port capable of fitting the Incorrigible. To…” John had to read the entire thing, and after that was over, and the bequeathed items had been distributed, the group unanimously decided to spend the rest of the evening celebrating the life of Jeebus Lorenzo.
In the end, they had spent all night partying, and by the next day, everyone had moved on from their grief. That, of course, was when disaster struck.
Spaceport 1 looked like a very large ice cube tray, with each separated square holding a ship, on the floor there was as docking port that could move to line up with the docking port on any ship so that the ship’s inhabitants could get into the large space-port/city. The largest storage container was 30 miles by 30 miles, and there were 400 of those sized docks and they made up the perimeter of the station. The next set of docks decreased in size, and so on. The outer edges were usually reserved for military only, but an exception had been made for the Incorrigible considering its enormous size.
There was a loud metallic shriek and an even louder clang that woke everyone on the Incorrigible up. Ten seconds later, a klaxon alarm sounded over the spaceport’s intercom, which had emergency access to every ship’s intercom. By the time Reihner had gotten dressed and stumbled onto the bridge, most of the deck crew had already gathered.
“I need a sit-rep somebody tell me what the hell is going on.” John plopped down in his seat, and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Ryan stood next to his brother.
“Reports indicate that a large pirate fleet is attacking the station. So the security on the station closed the emergency doors.” Ryan reported in monotone.
“Well patch me through, tell them we could help.” John straightened himself in his chair.
Ryan sighed, “We tried that sir, and they said we specifically are on lockdown, in fact our door was closed first, to keep us contained.”
“Any clue why?” Reihner was at full alert now.
“No sir, they only said it came from the highest authority.”
John focused his attention to the computer workstations that were also on the bridge. “Jerry, find out who owns Space-port 1, and why they would have anything against us. Get the ship started, if we get any opportunity to help, we’ll take it.”
“Aye sir.” The deck crew responded.
They followed the battle over the intercom, things were not going in favor of the small fleet of missile boats that guarded the station, and the tide quickly turned in favor of the large pirate fleet of cruisers. Things got even more desperate when the pirates breached the station. It was at that time, that the dock on the Incorrigible dinged, indicating that someone was trying to get aboard.
“What should we do sir?” Jamison asked.
​Reihner thought for a moment. “Connect the docks, but don’t open the bulk-head, have Vlad and Constantine meet me at the dock with stun rifles.” As Reihner left, he affixed a holster carrying his revolver to his waist over his ship uniform, which resembled a normal military naval uniform.
On his way to the elevator, he removed the bullet chamber from the gun, and slapped his stun chamber onto the holding rails. When fired, the gun would fire a burst of CO2 that propelled a metal capsule. The each capsule contained enough voltage to knock an average adult human unconscious. Once the chamber was affixed, he twirled it grandiosely on his finger, and stuffed it back in his holster in one fluid motion.
He met up with Vladimir and Constantine at one of the 18 docking chambers on the massive ship. He set them up behind the corners of the hallway so that if the people trying to get in could not see them. Once he was sure they were set up, he keyed the open code into the panel next to the dock. When the door opened, he was staring down the barrel of the G3600B, the main combat rifle of the Prussian military. In the next second the man was convulsing on the floor, Vladimir had nailed him in the neck. Reihner’s pistol had barely cleared his holster before he fired and hit the man behind the first. He went down as well. Then the stock of a rifle crashed into John’s temple. He fell to knee on the deck. All around him Prussian soldiers streamed into the ship.
“What the hell is going on?” Reihner yelled.
“John Reihner, you and your entire crew are under arrest for treason against the Prussian Empire. Stand down and you will be captured without harm.” The man speaking was trailing in after the other officers, he wore an MP uniform, and stood straight and tall, authority radiating off him in waves.
“Like hell!” Reihner gritted out, struggling to his feet. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”
Just as he reached a standing position, a baton crashed into the area between his neck and shoulder. Vladimir and Constantine turned from behind their respective corners, and opened fire. All the officers who had streamed onboard fell almost simultaneously. John stood again and personally slammed his elbow into the clavicle of the man who had beaten him with a baton, the MP Captain. Before his blow could connect, the Captain’s fist smashed into his jaw, and sent him reeling backwards.
John grinned psychotically, blood glistening on his normally white teeth, drew his revolver, and charged back into the fight. The Captain struck out again, thrown off by Reihner’s behavior. This time John snapped his revolver down on the oncoming attack. The sickening crackle of the MP’s wrist barely slowed John down as he grabbed the Captain’s head and slammed it into the nigh-impenetrable metal of the exterior bulkhead. The man slumped to the floor unconscious
“Come on,” John called out to his subordinates, “help me get them into the station dock.”
Within minutes, the Prussian soldiers had all been carried back into the spaceport-docking hallway. John tapped a few buttons on the keypad on the wall of the ship’s docking mechanism and the airlock doors on the station and the ship sealed.
Constantine tapped his earpiece, “Constantine to the bridge, detach us from the docking port.”
Vladimir nudged the MP Captain with his rifle, “What do we do about him?”
“Put him in the brig on level 432; make sure he is secured in a crash harness.”
“I feel inclined to ask why.” Constantine raised an eyebrow in worry.
John smirked, “I’m going to get us into the fight. Once you get him secure, lock yourselves down in a crash harness too.”
“I don’t like where this is going.” Vladimir groaned.
“Just do it.” John shouted back at him as he sprinted for the nearest elevator.
Within seconds, he was back on the bridge, and had taken his seat in the Captain’s Chair. He entered the com code for the engine room and depressed the intercom button. “Stromboli, how’s she looking?”
“Well sir the engine’s on and all systems are in the green, transferring control to you.” Stefano answered from the intercom panel in the engine room.
John nodded to himself and pressed the com button that broadcast him all over the ship. “Attention any and all aboard the Incorrigible the ship is about to enter a combat situation under non-conventional measures, anyone aboard is hereby ordered to the nearest crash harness equipped seat, I repeat all personnel aboard must report to the nearest crash harness equipped seat, you have two minutes.”
Everyone on the bridge looked towards John with confusion. “I would engage your crash harnesses if I were you.” John said as he did exactly that, allowing twin ‘seat belts’ to deploy and cross over his chest, locking him in his chair.
Jamison was the first to have his harness deployed. “Orders?”
“Bring weapons and sensors online.” John replied, “Can we get any idea of what’s going on out there?”
“Ah no sir.” The sensor operator replied. “We only know what we’ve intercepted from ship-to-ship communications that are going on out there.”
John sighed, “So what do we know?”
“Well sir,” Harthus responded from the weapon’s operator seat, “a pirate fleet attacked the station, it started by bombarding the military docks, wiping out about half of them and severely damaging the rest. However, the damaged ships managed to get their shields online, and engaged the pirate fleet in battle. Reinforcements have been sent from the Capital Planet defensive fleet, but they won’t arrive until about an hour from now.”
“Well then I’d say it’s about time we entered the fray don’t you think?” John looked at Burns. “Fire up the emergency positioners.”
Jamison gulped, “On it John.”
John hit the intercom again, “I hope everyone has secured themselves in a crash harness, because we’re about to use the emergency positioners to propel ourselves into an epic space battle, please keeps your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times, if you don’t they have a 100% chance of being ripped off your body.” John held down the intercom button, looked at Jamison and completely relaxed his body, “Fire them now!”
In what felt like a few seconds, but was actually less than a second, everyone on the ship was forced deep into their chair by the extreme G-forces of the several billion-ton ship moving 20 miles through space, and crashing through the containment doors on the station. To those involved in the battle it was as if the behemoth of a ship had appeared from nowhere.
On the ship, all the lights were off; only console screens were still active, casting a ghastly glow on the bridge.
Once air had returned to his lungs, John called out, “Status?”
Jamison Burns was the next to recover, “Minimal hull damage, the door wasn’t large or heavy enough to breach the hull. All systems are in the green, but engines need a few more minutes to get back online, two minutes until we can use weapons, and 34 seconds before we can activate shields.”
“Right, I’ll buy us time.” John searched the external com frequencies until he found the station the pirates were using. “This is Captain John Reihner of the Incorrigible, you know the big looking one that’s about to beat you eight ways to Sunday. If you value your livelihood I would stand down immediately, over.”
This of course had the opposite of the intended results and almost all the pirate ships immediately converged fire on the Incorrigible.
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