Rig Runner

Author's note: this story has been re-edited to bring it up to my current standards as part of an effort to make Ebooks. It features improved editing, grammar, punctuation, and also includes rewrites and expanded scenes where necessary. Please see my bio for more information.

CHAPTER 1: SILENT RUNNING

Eriksen was jolted back to consciousness by blaring alarms. The console in front of his seat blinked with red warning lights that burned into his retinas as he struggled to get his bearings, leaving ghostly trails in his eyes as he tried in vain to blink them away. Where was he? He felt almost drunk, like his brain couldn't process his surroundings properly. Every nerve in his damned body stung as if he had been tagged by a riot grenade.

There was something in his mouth...hard plastic, and he spat it out onto the deck at his feet as he struggled to unfasten the harness that had him strapped tightly to the chair. Wait...it was a bit, to stop him from biting his tongue off during superlight travel. Yes, he remembered now. He was the pilot of this ship, no, a freighter. He must have just landed on the outskirts of his destination system. That or a problem had interrupted his jump, what the hell was going on?

He unfastened the clasp on the harness and rose to his feet unsteadily, stretching his limbs as his mind unfogged and everything came into focus again. He was no stranger to the wracking energies of superlight travel, but although frequent exposure to the higher dimensions of spacetime made such jumps easier, it never made them...easy.

"Now what the fuck is the problem?" Eriksen muttered to himself as he examined the pilot's console. Proximity warning, that couldn't be right. He should have come out well on the near side of the star's Oort cloud, there shouldn't be anything out this far. He turned his attention to a nearby monitor and tapped at it incredulously, his eyes narrowing as he examined the readout. The scanner did indeed appear to show a small object directly in the freighter's path, the behemoth's onboard computer had already initiated an evasive burn in an attempt to avoid it.

Couldn't be an asteroid, too small, so what...

His blood ran cold, his heart stopping in his chest as he came to the only logical conclusion. Pirates.

He scrambled to zip up his pressure suit, securing the flexible hood that would serve as an impromptu helmet in the case of a sudden decompression, checking the computer display on his wrist to make sure there were no leaks. He typed furiously at his console, trying to activate the ship's distress beacon, but his comms were being jammed. Damned pirates must have an EWAR package, that didn't bode well. They must be professionals.

He had a small caliber pistol stowed where regulations stated that the cockpit's fire extinguisher was supposed to be, a nine-millimeter Walther. It wasn't exactly military grade, but you couldn't go around firing railguns inside a civilian ship. You might be able to blow a fist-sized hole in an intruder, but you'd also be blowing a fist-sized hole in anything that was directly behind him, in this case a damned spaceship hull. It was better than nothing, however. He popped open the glass case to retrieve the handgun, checking the magazine and then pocketing it. He dashed out of the cockpit section of the freighter and into the hab module, trying to come up with a plan, his heart racing as he considered his options.

There had been reports of pirates near the outer colonies, but not this far into UNN controlled space. Whoever would take a risk like this was going to be a real hardcase. That or they were completely fucking unhinged, which with pirates was just as likely a prospect.

This vessel was big and slow, fast in the long term, but it took time to build up speed in realspace. It was completely incapable of outrunning or outmaneuvering a smaller and more agile vessel in the short term. He couldn't evade them, and as a civilian freighter owned by a shipping company, he had no shipboard weapons. The freighter was a long, thin scaffold upon which dozens of massive shipping containers were secured, skeletal and fragile. There was a cockpit and a habitation module on the front of the structure, while the engines along with their generators were down at the bottom end, giving the vessel the appearance of a giant cotton swab from a distance.

If they wanted control of the ship in order to secure the cargo, then they would have to board it, and they could attempt that in one of two places. They could either storm the hab module in order to access the cockpit and wrest control of the ship from him, or they could try to take the engines down, leaving him dead in the water. They wouldn't use ship-to-ship weapons, assuming that they had any. The reactors that powered the superlight drive were nuclear, and there was no black market for irradiated slag.

The easiest way to board the ship was through the small hangar just behind the hab module, it was large enough to house two shuttles if they were docked close together and it was open to space save for a forcefield that kept the air inside. From there they could either make their way to the cockpit or go aft down the maintenance tunnel that ran along the spine of the vessel, towards the engines.

He could seal himself inside the cockpit, and they would have a hard time getting to him. Perhaps it would stall them for long enough that another ship might happen upon him and raise the alarm. This was a commercial shipping route after all. The problem with that plan was that they'd still have free reign of the engines. There was a radiation-proof bulkhead that could be sealed in the event of a core breach, they'd never cut through that, but that would also activate the emergency mode and shut down the generators. Without power, he'd lose life support, and they'd only have to wait him out until he opened the doors of his own volition.

No, he was going to have to be smart about this, what he needed was a plan.

***

"Civilian freighter, this is the captain of the Black Claw. Surrender and prepare to be boarded. Relinquish control of your vessel, and you will not be harmed..."

Eriksen didn't recognize the accent, they must be from some remote backwater colony. As he watched their ship close on him through the viewport, it became clear that something didn't add up. This wasn't some hand-me-down skiff launched from a nearby asteroid base, it looked almost like a retired UNN Warden. They were Navy patrol vessels, commonly deployed on long realspace patrols to monitor activity in UNN controlled systems. They could house a small crew over long periods of time, and they could even make short-range superlight jumps. They were far from small, about the size of the average yacht, and they could carry boarding craft to be used during impromptu customs inspections.

How the hell would pirates have gotten their hands on a Warden? It made perfect sense, they were designed for long deployments in deep space, and they had capabilities that were perfectly suited to piracy. But any such vessels should have been sold off for scrap metal once retired from service. Perhaps some unscrupulous scrap dealer had been selling them on? Still, it would have taken a pretty penny to buy even a completely totaled Warden and just as much to make it spaceworthy again.

As it drew closer and its black-painted hull was illuminated by his freighter's floodlights, he noticed that it was covered in frankly shoddy repairs, as if someone had welded scrap metal to its airframe with no real idea of what it was originally supposed to look like. Some kind of mentally unstable mechanic had welded armor all over its hull that ruined its usually sleek profile, and it had spikes jutting out in front of it at odd angles as if they were expecting to do some ramming. Normally Wardens could make planetfall, but this thing looked as if it would break apart like it was made of plywood if exposed to the stress of reentry. Just who the hell was he dealing with here? Mad pirates with a lot of money and no sense?

He watched as a smaller shuttle broke away from the misshapen Warden, its thrusters flaring as it maneuvered towards the freighter's hangar bay. Ensuring that the comforting weight of the handgun was still present in his pocket, he steeled himself and left the hab module, walking down the narrow corridor towards the bay.

***

The shuttle settled on the deck, its landing gear bouncing as it absorbed the impact, the engines glowing orange with excess heat that he could feel from across the room as they cooled. The shuttle was odd too, far older than the Warden, he wasn't even sure that it was of UNN origin.

He bristled as the access ramp to the rear of the lander began to lower with a hydraulic hiss, what sounded like heavy boots scraping against metal echoing in the hangar as the crew descended. Something about them seemed off, were they wearing some kind of powered exosuits? Their gait was strange, they were too tall, and...

Eriksen had to fight the overpowering urge to flee, to turn on his heels and sprint back to the cockpit, locking every door between him and these pirates and damn the consequences. He felt a deep, primal dread that transcended simple fear, as if some ancient predator was staring him down and licking its chops hungrily in anticipation of making a meal of him. Those weren't boots scraping against the deck, they were hooked claws. These were Borealans.

Known colloquially as Mad Cats, they were the prized alien shock troopers of the UNN, eight feet of muscle and death all wrapped up in the savage appearance of a bipedal tiger. They walked on two digitigrade legs, basically humanoid if not for the claws and tail, their faces strangely uncanny with the flat brow of a cat and a pink feline nose. Their bodies were mostly clean of fur much like a human, besides for their arms below the elbow and their legs below the knee, along with the round ears that protruded from their hair and their long tails that trailed behind them.

These were not UNN personnel, however, not even close. Whenever Eriksen had seen pictures of them, they had been wearing either standard-issue Navy blue jumpsuits or the black combat armor that was favored by the Marines, humanity's crack commandos. The dress sense of these pirates might have been funny under circumstances where his life wasn't in immediate danger. It was all leather, they looked like a damned biker gang. Upon closer inspection, it was actually quite elaborate. It didn't look like anything that he had ever seen before, it almost looked as if they had tanned the hide and tailored the clothing themselves. By that he meant that it looked handcrafted, it wasn't a complaint about the quality by any means, everything had little personal touches and quirks that one just didn't see in mass-produced gear. There were designs pressed into the jackets that almost looked like hunting scenes, elaborately decorated buttons and clasps, no two items of clothing were the same. It was odd the things you noticed when you were on the verge of pissing your overalls in terror.

What was obviously the ringleader elbowed past its fellows and Eriksen was surprised to see that it was a woman, a very developed and intimidating woman at that. The high gravity of their home planet gave even the most lethargic of these aliens bodies that professional athletes would die for, her muscles bulging from beneath clothing that was tight enough to creak as she stepped forward. Her skin was so dark that it almost matched the color of her Warden's hull and her blonde hair was bleached nearly white in the harsh glare of the hangar's lights. She looked him up and down with her yellow, feline eyes, and he couldn't help but glance at the massive hand cannon that was holstered on her hip.

He tried to collect himself, his survival depended on him appearing calm and collected, even if he wasn't. His plan would only work if he could lull them into a false sense of security, make them feel like he wasn't a threat. He wasn't sure if that would be easier or harder with Borealans.

"The captain of the Black Claw, I presume?" Eriksen managed to keep his voice level, his hands clasped behind his back so that the aliens wouldn't see them shaking.

"Are you the pilot of this freighter?" the massive female asked in that strange, rolling accent as she eyed him suspiciously. "Show me your hands, don't make any sudden moves."

At least she spoke good English. He raised his hands to show her that they were empty, the Walther was stashed in his pocket safely out of view. They wouldn't expect him to be armed and if he could make himself appear harmless enough, they might not even frisk him. It was a risk, but one that he had to take.

"As you requested, I'm surrendering," he said. "This doesn't need to be a problem. They don't pay me enough to die for a shipment of fucking farming equipment."

"And that's what you're hauling?" the pirate captain asked incredulously, "farming equipment?"

"That's...what's on the manifest," he replied, with a little less conviction than he had intended. Her eyes narrowed, and she cocked her head at him, Eriksen slowly lowering his hands to let them rest at his sides.

"Perhaps you will bring this manifest to us so that we can verify what your...farming equipment is worth..."

He was lying of course, both about the cargo and about them not paying him enough to risk his life for the company. If he handed over his freight to the pirates, he might well escape with his life, but he'd be brought before a tribunal. He'd be fired for sure, and his license would almost certainly be revoked. He'd spend the rest of his life either queuing for bread or toiling in some godforsaken mining colony. Not that he could trust the word of pirates, his organs were as valuable as a whole shipping container worth of goods and a damn sight easier to smuggle.

No, he couldn't just hand his livelihood over to them, and it was immediately apparent that he couldn't overpower them either. He would have to get inside their heads, play on their biases, see if he could get a bead on how they interacted and find a chink in the armor. It was already apparent that they were extremely hierarchical, that could be a potential weakness. They were constantly glancing at their captain as if they were afraid of her. If they were scared of being reprimanded then they might not be able to take initiative and react quickly in a crisis, he could perhaps use that to his advantage. His plan relied on getting them all in one place, relaxed and unsuspecting, and then he would sow chaos and take them completely by surprise.

It would work. It had to work, or he'd be dead.

***

He led the towering aliens into the hab module. They had to duck under the human-sized door frame as they entered the padded corridor, automatic doors to their left and right leading to crew quarters and bathrooms. This was where the small, usually one-man crew lived when they weren't piloting the ship. It was cramped, but it wasn't much worse than life on any space station or Navy vessel. The majority of the food and supplies were stored in crates in the hangar, dehydrated rations and canned food mostly, the water was all recycled so at least he could use as much of that as he wanted.

The crew trailed behind their captain, four of them, all males. Were they a matriarchal society perhaps? That wasn't something that he had heard, but he didn't know much about their culture. Perhaps she was just the biggest and baddest of the bunch, judging by the way the others seemed almost to recoil when she looked in their direction. Like beaten dogs, he thought, arriving at the door to the cockpit.

He stood in front of it, staring at the closed door, and the captain gave him a hard shove from behind that almost knocked him off balance.

"What's the holdup? Open the door."

"It's sealed," he stammered, trying to sound surprised. "The security lockdown must have been engaged when an unauthorized shuttle entered the hangar. God damn it." He pounded his fist on the door in frustration, hoping that she would buy his act. He had done this himself, of course, there was no automated security system.

"Security lockdown," the captain snarled, "what is this security lockdown?"

"It's automatic. If the ship's sensors detect a vessel entering the bay that doesn't have a valid callsign, it locks down the cockpit to protect the pilot. Problem is I wasn't in the cockpit at the time, I was heading down to the hangar to meet you. What's worse, the button to disengage it is inside."

"I have not heard of this lockdown before," she hissed, leaning closer to him and sniffing him. What the hell was she doing, trying to smell fear on him or something? Did she have a way to tell if he was lying? In one smooth and rehearsed motion she unholstered her handgun and spun it on her finger, bringing the cold metal to bear against his temple. He winced and closed his eyes, feeling the gun pressing against his head, the caliber so large that he could have poked his finger down the barrel without touching the sides. He heard the hammer click, a revolver then? Odd choice.

"If you're lying, I'll paint your brains all over the wall," she murmured. She was uncomfortably close to him now, her lips an inch from his ear, her warm breath blowing on his skin.

"Hang on, hang on, I swear it's just a security feature! I have no control over this! I do know how to disable it though, I can show you."

He felt her pull the barrel of the gun away from his temple, the pirate holstering it in a similarly flashy manner, crossing her arms and staring down at him with those feline pupils.

"How?"

"The...the engine room," Eriksen replied as he wiped his brow with the sleeve of his pressure suit. "I can cut the power to the door from there and it will slide right open. It's just a short walk down the access tunnel."

"If you're lying to me, I can do worse things than just shoot you," the captain said. He didn't doubt it, but what he did doubt was that these pirates had any idea how a freighter worked. He was pulling this out of his ass, and it was actually working, they were just taking his word for it because they didn't know any better. It was hard to blame them for their ignorance, he didn't know anything about making leather jackets or being a thieving asshole. Everyone had their own area of expertise.

He turned and inched past her, pressing himself flat up against the wall to get by her in the narrow corridor, her narrowed eyes tracking him as he averted his gaze and started off back towards the hangar. Her subordinates waited to follow behind her, they really were acting like trained animals more than anything resembling a crew. As intimidating as they were it was becoming a little hard to take them seriously. Their captain was an ice queen, however. She wouldn't hesitate to pluck his heart from his chest and show it to him if he crossed her. He could feel an evil aura coming off her like she was wearing eau de psychopath. Things had gone his way so far, but he had to be careful not to get cocky and underestimate them, especially her.

They returned to the hangar bay and crossed over to the far side, ducking under the stubby wings of the shuttle in the confined space and heading to the door that led to the access tunnel. It was a narrow maintenance tube that ran down the skeletal spine of the freighter upon which the cargo containers were anchored, connecting the forward section of the vessel to the aft. It was designed to let the crew access the engines and reactors in an emergency. It wasn't exactly a leisurely stroll. The aliens would certainly hit their heads on protruding pipes and get tangled in loose cables, and the more annoyed they got, the less attention they'd be paying to him.