A Warpmancer Short Story
Nicholas Woode-Smith
https://nicholaswoodesmith.com/
Shipborn is a short story side-story set in the Warpmancer
Universe.
Enter the 36th century by checking out Shadow, a thrilling action
space opera available on Amazon.
Check it out here!
Copyright © 2017
Warpmancer Universe
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons, living or
dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise
without the prior written permission of the publisher and the
copyright owner.
This was Erryn’s route, and she wasn’t going to give it up so
easily.
‘No way I’m even inching for those skiting zots.’
‘Not giving you a choice, Erryn.’
Barry Kolheim placed his hand on Erryn Kolheim’s shoulder,
attempting to calm her. They had the same last name, yet were
unrelated. This was not unusual among spacefarers, who oft
received their names from their ship.
It was obvious to outsiders that Barry and Erryn were very much
unrelated, with Barry possessing dark chocolate skin and Erryn, a
white that had seldom seen the sun without the forgiving protection
of a ship windscreen. Yet, despite their physical differences, they
were held together by more important things – a history and the
Kolheim. The latter of which was now under attack.
Erryn was not known for prudence when her ship or her route
were threatened. Barry’s attempt to calm her led to her
unconsciously easing her grip on the throttle, but only slightly. Her
tattooed, muscled arms were still tensed, ready to pull back the lever
and attempt to break through the Pegg blockade.
Erryn hated Pegg. There were few pilots who did not. Even with
other aliens, like the Squogg, the fat violent grako that they were,
there was still room to negotiate. They knew that a dogfight was
expensive. Lives weren’t cheap – on either side. Usually, you could
pay off a Squogg pirate without any bloodshed. Compromise.
Quick, painless. It was even better with Merka. The boar-men tried
to be nasty, but one could commonly appeal to their cousins, the
Exanoids, sense of reason. Merka pirates were not good at their
jobs. Pegg, on the other hand, they made piracy a way of life, an art.
There was no buying off a Pegg corsair. They knew that they could
always get more from swashbuckling than they ever could from
extortion. But Erryn suspected that it wasn’t even that for them.
Pegg were bloody good pirates and seldom did someone miss a
chance to show off what they were good at. As one of the best
freighter pilots on this side of Great Terra, Erryn understood the
need to show off one’s specialty. Unfortunately, the Pegg’s
undertaking of their specialty tended to result in derelict ships,
slaughtered crews and starving frontier worlds, as the traders they
relied upon for food disappeared into asteroid fields.
Erryn’s knuckles whitened on the throttle and then she let go.
She let out a breath.
Barry nodded, relieved.
‘Space is big. We’ll find a way around. You’ll find a way. You ain’t
pilot of the Kolheim for nothing.’
‘We’re on deadline, Barry,’ Erryn reminded him, before taking a
sip of the gravy from her noodle bowl. She pressed a button on the
side of the bowl to disable its grav-field, enabling her to eat. The
grav-field was an annoyance, but a necessity when eating such hot
foods around sensitive equipment.
Barry frowned.
‘Let me worry about that. You just find another way around.
Maybe skirt by Askaia Prime?’
‘Nebu-,’ Erryn finished her bite and continued, ‘Nebula in the
way. Skiting big one. We’d be unable to warp. Could be stuck there
‘Eish…any other way?’
Erryn irritably put down her bowl, reactivating the grav. She
spun her chair and brought up a holo-screen of the area.
‘Nebula is this purple splotch by Askaia. Route 103 is our usual
route. A nice clear warp to Extos III. But Pegg disruptors are a
nuisance, eh.’
She drew a straight line through Route 103, and then a 90-degree
line from their position through a position above them and then to
the other side of the blockade.
‘This is our best option. We warp to the Obzi Terrace and then
warp to the other half of Route 103…’
‘What’s the catch?’
‘Two problems. Vokken big or zot-sized. Your pick. Obzi
Terrace is an abandoned Trooper Armada facility, but the AI on the
weapon platforms got a bit bored. They shoot every freighter that
passes by. Only Armada ships get a pass.’
‘Second problem? Please tell me it’s not as bad as rogue syn
turrets.’
‘Pegg got really good radar. You know that as well as I do.
There’s a big chance they’ll tail us into the Terrace…’
‘We’re idling…’
Erryn winced as she heard the voice of Gabriella Madias. While
not an unpleasant voice (the accent was the usual clear Standard
Terran common on the five-hundred core worlds) it heralded a
dreadful owner.
‘Yes, Cap’n Madias, ma’am,’ Barry saluted. Erryn picked up her
noodle bowl again.
Captain Gabriella Madias wasn’t a shipborn, like Erryn and
Barry. She was a planet-side Mozar sow. She was born on the dirt,
not hard metal. Erryn didn’t trust dirt-birthers. But that wasn’t all
that was wrong with her. Madias wasn’t a proper cap’n. She was a
corporate appointment. The Titan Corporation, Kolheim’s current
contractual employer for the next few routes, wanted a suit to watch
over them. One of the Kolheim’s workman suggested that Titan
was attempting to train its own freighter fleet. He suggested that
Madias was a spy, learning the trade for the corporation. Money was
too good to pass up, though. And Erryn didn’t believe that Titan
needed to send spies to learn how to freight. They could get the
details off the net.
Rather, Madias was just a testament to corporate micro-
managing. Everything had to be watched. Schedules had to be
enforced. Deadlines, or as they called it, killing lines, had to be
fulfilled. Erryn knew some corporates, and they were nice enough,
for suits. She knew not every suit was like Madias. Unfortunately,
Madias didn’t help their already flagging reputation.
Madias gave a death glare to Erryn, who innocently sucked up a
thick noodle.
‘Lines are being killed, Barry.’
Madias seldom spoke directly to Erryn. Barry t
ended to be the
victim of the sow’s perpetual scolding.
‘Yes, Cap’n. We’re sorting out a way past these Pegg…’
‘Warp through. Simple. Isn’t that what pilots are for?’
Madias glanced at Erryn and sneered.
‘I’m sorry. Forgot you flunked Armada academy.’
‘Quit, Gabby. I quit Armada.’
‘Don’t call me Gabby.’
Erryn stared, stone-faced. Madias glared back. Erryn won, as
Madias turned back to Barry.
‘Time is money. Tell your nankei to pull that throttle and warp
past those big-headed midgets.’
‘Sorry, cap’n. No can do. Pegg got disruptors. Can’t warp
through them or around them. They’ve got a wide net. If we run to
it, we’re caught. Might as well just jettison the cargo and hope these
Pegg are the nice kind, and won’t torture us first…’
‘Should have hired a tougher crew…’
‘Forgive me, cap’n, but Pegg don’t care about tough. Doesn’t
matter how hard you throw a punch. The grako are too fast to get
hit. They’ll dodge, weave, bounce…till you can’t breathe from the
exertion. Then you realise it wasn’t from the exertion. They’ve cut
your oxygen pipe, or turned off the life-support on your ship. They
don’t fight fair. They shut off the gravity. They don’t need it. Their
homeworld has very little. They’ve been bouncing and gliding since
they were babes. They shut down our grav-fields first. Then the
lights. If you’re lucky, you don’t know it when you’re dead…’
‘Enough shipborn spooks.’
Madias had a good façade of being unscathed by this story, but
her hands were shaking.
‘Fine. Get around them. Do what you must.’
‘It’s not so simple…’
‘Just do it!’
‘Roger, cap’n!’
Barry ended with a salute. Madias turned heel and exited.
‘Why you lick her feet all the time, eh Barry? She’s got dirt on
them.’
Barry leant in, whispering. ‘She’s a grako, yeah, but she’s got
connections. Kolheim needs this job, Erryn. We can’t blow it.
Warp-rods are expensive.’
‘Space is big, Barry,’ Erryn grinned. ‘Plenty of other suits to lick.
Don’t need this one grako.’
‘I’d rather not blow it just because there are other options. If we
get a full-time Titan contract, we won’t be seeing her no more.’
Erryn didn’t like it. The Kolheim wasn’t supposed to be a
corporate vessel. They were hired by suits, but were supposed to be
independent. They were a family, an institution. The Kolheim was
owned by its crew, not some suit back in Great Terra or other core
world that had never tasted Stardust. Erryn didn’t trust them. But
she did trust Barry. As the usual captain of the Kolheim, Barry had
kept the ship afloat since Erryn was born. After her parents were
slain by Pegg, Barry had been the one to look after her. She didn’t
like his plan, but she owed him enough to go through with it.
Erryn nodded and changed the topic.
‘So, we making the jump to Obzi Terrace?’
Barry frowned, pulling at his white beard.
‘Fine. Make the jump.’
Erryn grinned. This wasn’t the best situation, but Erryn always
liked a challenge. Route 103 was getting boring, anyway.
‘Kolheim. Prepare for jump in T-minus sixty seconds. We’re
headed into an asteroid cluster and derelict site. There may be
hostiles, but anything’s better than Pegg. Keep strapped in, but arm
yourselves, just in case. Stay alert. Pegg may pursue.’
Barry ended the transmission and let go of the intercom button.
He then took a seat and strapped himself in. He gave a thumbs up
and Erryn turned back to the windscreen.
A Pegg armada could be seen through the scanner, casting a
disruptor net across the route. Thankfully, the Kolheim had an
excellent scanner, and could detect ships mega-miles away. The
Kolheim had been in service for over a century and that amount of
time meant a lot of upgrades. Erryn zoomed in for a better image
of one of the closer Pegg corvettes. The ship looked like one of
those lizards with the skin flaps around their heads. Erryn sneered.
It was ugly. To be fair, most ships were ugly compared to the shining
and smooth marvel that was Kolheim’s silver and gold hull. She
loved her ship.
Erryn calibrated the coordinates to the Terrace and pivoted the
Kolheim to face towards the cluster above. She continued the
countdown in her head.
‘Ten more seconds until jump,’ she announced over the
intercom.’
She placed her hand on the throttle, hoped to whatever human
god was listening that the Pegg wouldn’t follow, and then pulled
back.
The stars turned to streaks and nearby objects blurred and
disappeared instantaneously. The signal from the Pegg armada
blinked away. They were light years away now. Hopefully, they’d
stay that way.
With a jolt that would have no doubt tossed Madias around, the
Kolheim blinked into existence alongside a cluster of space rock and
derelict ships. In the distance, a red sun cast light upon the facility.
Just in front of the Kolheim was the charred hull of an Armada
frigate. The black and red flag of the Trooper Order was still clearly
illustrated across the side.
‘Looks like Xank blasts,’ Barry guessed, now looking over
Erryn’s shoulder.
‘Heard it was,’ Erryn added. ‘Bird-men went around Extos III to
destroy the outpost here. Armada was taken by surprise.’
‘Let’s not make the same mistake. Stay frosty. Well, I don’t need
to tell you that.’
‘Yessir, Barry. We can crawl the outskirts. Won’t wake up the
plats if we don’t go near them.’
Barry nodded and then left.
Erryn set the Kolheim along a clear course around the cluster
and then picked up her noodle bowl again. It was taking her a long
time to finish it with all the constant interruptions. With the room
to herself, she could now finish. In the distance, she heard chatter.
Only a few of the technicians would be working. The porters, guards
and emergency staff would be playing games, chatting and drinking
up the Stardust. A freighter as big as the Kolheim required a lot of
hands, but not all the time. In transit, when engines weren’t burning,
only a few technicians and the pilot were needed. But guards and
firemen were always needed in the case of pirates or damage to the
ship. Hopefully, they would need neither.
Route 103 was usually a safe route. It was a clear route from
Croth 7 to the Extos strip. For a frontier freighter, it was integral to
their trade. Core worlds didn’t pay for food. They had enough as is.
But food was cheap on the core worlds, and scarce on the frontier.
So, ships like the Kolheim made a booming trade supplying the
frontier settlements with food from their richer cousins.
But operating a vessel was expensive. Warp
-rods were the fuel
for warp jumps and only the frontier had warp fields sustainable
enough to feed the galaxy’s thirst for space travel. To churn a profit
from this venture, the Kolheim needed to scale up. So, it took a
contract with Titan. Thus, they didn’t need to buy their own trade
commodities. Titan would just pay them for their services. Erryn
hoped it was for the best.
Erryn steered slightly to avoid an asteroid and then took a swig
of the noodle gravy. The bowl briefly blocked her vision. When she
looked down, she was face to face with the barrel of a gun. She
stayed still, not even swallowing the gravy. If this was a syn weapon
platform, it would react to movement. She had to drift past. Pretend
to be a space rock. The lights on the cannon weren’t on, but that
could mean little. Troopers weren’t big on letting their enemies
know when their defences were online or not.
Erryn nudged the boosters, ever so slightly, to avoid a collision
with the plat. No reaction. She would have sighed, but she wasn’t in
the clear yet. The barrel was no longer levelled at the Kolheim, but
these syns had 360-degree vision. One wrong move and even the
Kolheim’s shields wouldn’t be able to hold up at this range.
Easy does it, girl.
Almost out of range. They needed that extra distance. Deflectors
weren’t instantaneous. Almost, almost…
‘We’re idli…’
The turret blinked to life and swivelled towards the Kolheim.
Erryn spat the gravy at the windscreen in fright. She locked in the
boosters and spun the controls, jinking hard. Madias took flight,
hitting the doorway with an oomph.
‘I’ll have your head, Pilot!’
Erryn ignored her, weaving as a blast of blue energy erupted from
the barrel towards them. Erryn swerved, barely avoiding the
projectile.
‘Well, so much for a quiet ride.’
Erryn activated the intercom.
‘Prepare for a bumpy flight. We’ve got projectiles incoming.
Emergency staff on standby.’
‘I’m the Captain!’ Madias shouted.
‘Only when the Captain ain’t needed, Gabby.’
Erryn activated the deflectors and then barrel rolled. More
weapon plats were activating. Some were dry-firing at her, out of
ammo. Erryn bobbed and weaved, sharp movements. Madias was
clinging to a railing, teeth chattering.
‘Close your mouth. You’ll crack your teeth.’