Bumbling Pirates

Jehrico

Aboard the pirate ship Lebanon a small freighter...

"You have got to be kidding me Hardings," I said as the plan sunk into my skull, screaming "stupid" every second.

"No joke kid, were goin down there. Commander's orders." he responded matter of factly.

"But Mercury is swarming with 'brids, no way in hell we will even manage to land with out being shot to hell!" Frederick Delancy, sitting across the table said almost mockingly.

"That's where you're wrong Del, we shot down a spy drone here," Hardings touched a spot on the map in the middle of the table, which then showed a 3D view of the specific area. "And the drone recorded exactly what we thought. The Antipode side of Mercury, here," He pointed again, this time magnifying the spot. "This is where a small gap lies in the 'brid sensor grid, not sure how it got there but were gonna use it." Hardings continued "We're gonna take a small team. Me, you--" this he said pointing at me-- "Del, Mark, and Zen. We'll hit here with our pods, slip in undetected, and salvage what ever civilian stuff that is left over from the Mercury invasion." Hardings finished, sitting back in his plush captain's chair, eyes mocking us all.

"Uh sir..." Mark began. "What makes you think there is anything of value down there, I mean, the 'brids have been there a while." Mark finished and started tapping his fingers lightly.

"We don't," he said simply, his eyes lighting up with excitement. He then stood and strolled out of the room, the doors whooshing shut behind him. Everyone soon left too, heading for their gear they had in their quarters. I still sat and toyed with the stolen TDF map generator. It had every known Mercury base, civilian or other wise, in it. This plan didn't sit well with me, people used to live down there, I thought.

I sighed and kicked my feet up on the table, staring at the gray tiled ceiling for no real reason. My mind started to wander. I thought to the day when Mercury was invaded. How many people were on Mercury then? Thousands? How many civilians? I sighed. How many people came home, to find their families dead? I don't like this plan at all. Like grave desecration. Just don't feel... normal. Piracy and looting was fun and all, but maybe this is too much.

I thought for a moment.

"Nah," I said, standing up and stretching out in front of the window, and spotted Mercury. We were not that far. I just walked out down the corridor, towards the vehicle bay.

-----

"OK everyone, I want everyone on passive sensors, we don't want a bunch a cans jumping on us," Hardings ordered.

"Well if we didn't want that we should have stayed on the ship" I said sarcastically.

"Shut up," was his glamorous response.

I just shrugged my shoulders and scanned the horizon with my Basilisk. Not so much as a sensor ghost. The black sky was ominous. One look and I missed Earth's blue and comforting skies. We had landed near a long-abandoned civilian home. We didn't bother to investigate, it was falling apart from railgun holes and plasma burns. Hardings's Gorgon ran in my view, leaving a dust trail behind him. He leveled his plasma cannons at the house, before I could even respond he opened up, destroying the house completely.

"What the hell you doing!?" I yelled.

"Calm down, no one was inside."

"I don't care, maybe some survivor is around somewhere, and you just wasted his home!"

"There are no Mercury survivors!"

I didn't respond, I just maxed out the Basilisk engines towards a Nav point Hardings had set a while ago. Zen and Del were there all ready. As me and Hardings approached in silence, I noticed Del and Zen's HERCs staring up at the sky.

"What are you two pinheads doing?" Hardings yelled, still miffed about our argument.

"Watching our own deaths," Del said, startling me and Hardings.

I scanned the sky, and saw what they were looking at. A explosion-- a big one-- had happened, and debris was streaking through the sky like fire works.

"Is that--" I started.

"Yep," Zen said solemnly.

"Mark was up there!" I gasped.

I was scared now. We had no evac, limited supplies, and were the only humans on Mercury.

"Damn you, you killed us all," I yelled at Hardings. I ignored trying to think of what happened to our small freighter, and the crew.

"Calm down," he said, obviously shaken.

"So what do you suppose we do?" I said sarcastically.

"Calm down guys, we got to keep our heads," Zen said calmly.

"No I won't calm down, I want to know what our smart ass commander wants us to do now!"

"Uh, uh," Hardings mumbled, thinking hard. "We head out into the distance, I think I saw a good sized crater there on the map before we left." he said. "We can go there and think up a strategy."

"Yippee," I muttered, the direness of our situation not sinking in.

So the group solemnly headed for the Nav point, all thinking they were doomed.

-----

"It's not a message, I'm telling ya," Hardings said, sounding annoyed.

"Listen ya jack-ass, the computer says its a transmission, you know what that means?" I said sarcastically back to him

About ten minutes ago a broadband transmission was picked up by our computers; it was flagged as a transmission but it was encoded in such a way that we couldn't hear anything but static. But we (not including Hardings) had traced it to a destination in the crater, the same one we were running to, so that surprise made us all stop moving towards it.

"I'm in command here, and I say we move as far away as possible from that crater, now!" Hardings said, in a surprising calm, collected voice that sounded a bit too collected.

I swung my Bas around so I could look at his Gorgon. "You're insane, there are people there, meaning they have survived the 'brids some how, we can't pass this opportunity up!" I yelled, getting angrier at him every minute.

"How do we know its not a 'brid transmission? Or maybe a trap? Huh?" Hardings said mockingly.

"I'll take that chance," I said, the others quickly agreeing.

"So be it," Hardings said darkly.

"Huh?" I started.

I peered into Harding's cockpit. He was... no, he wouldn't.

His weapon mounts came to life, and quickly as possible he fired his quad plasma cannons at Zen's paladin, wasting it before Zen could even scream.

"Damn!" I yelled as I swiveled my HERC around to firing range, turning the power on to my weapons, twin Emps and twin nanocannons.

"Die efficiently," Hardings said coldly, turning his Gorgon to face Del who was already firing his Apoc's weapons at the Gorgon; the space around Del looked like a fireworks display.

-----

"Damn humans," Hardings said as he let a salvo of plasma beams slam into the opposing Herc, the beams splashing against the Apoc's shields like water splashing on a beach.

The human opened fire on him, the nanite beams quickly cutting his Gorgon's shoulder pods to pieces.

"Oh well, I still got you," Hardings laughed as his Gorgon fell apart and crashed into the ground. Before the moment of impact, Hardings pressed the remote trigger.

-----

"Cya in hell Hardings," I said as his Gorgon broke apart.

Suddenly my Basilisk's left knee flexor exploded outwards in a fireball from hell, lighting up my cockpit like a solarflare. I quickly realized Hardings had somehow rigged a remote mine on my HERC.

My Bas toppled to the left and slammed into the ground; my head whipped forward and hit the console with a sickening thud. That's how I sat for ten minutes, letting the blood drip from my head into my eyes, turning my vision red. When I finally lifted my head up, I caught a glimpse of what was left of Del's Apoc, a flaming heap lying on its back. I realized we needed help quick. While my vision started turning inky black I managed to activate the comm system and send a broadband distress call directed at the crater, if anyone was there, they'd hear it.

After I flipped the switch for the Transmission Send button, my head fell limp, I couldn't move it. More blood flowed down my face from an apparent serious head wound. Little stars started to fill my vision, and the sky turned a ghostly blue, and for a moment I thought I was back home, in New Geirling, before the inky blackness overwhelmed me.

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