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The Flight of Orvar

#1
Space is cold. Very cold. People always seem to romanticize it and make it out to be some place that you go and fly with the Angels but realistically it's empty, cold, and ruthless. I have fought and killed in the depths of space. I have seen stars going nova. I have seen stations filled with thousands go up in flames. Space isn't where you fly with Angels. Space is where you make a deal with the Devil.

I made one such deal. No one has seen his face but his name is Commander Baaz. There was a bounty on my head for a small "mix up" in the Valhal system when I was contacted by one of his agents offering to expunge the bounty. The only catch, as there always is one, is that I must hunt and kill for him until I pay off my bounty with 50% interest. Well, I normally wouldn't of taken such an offer and instead ran into the far reaches of space where the Coalition isn't recognized. Not an easy option though when said agent of Commander Baaz is looking through his targeting computer at me.

So here I am, in the outer reaches irregardless of my own attempts to get here. Talk about a rock and a hard place, or in this case a very irritable pirate and a tracking beacon/fusion bomb attached to my hull courtesy of Commander Baaz & Co. Sure, I could land and leave my ship behind but to ask that of me is like asking for my wife's hand. If I had a wife. Brandee is the closest I'll ever get to a wife. Some spacer told me that it was an old alcohol that was once drank upon Earth. Sounded better then Rumn, Vodqa, or Tekula. Either way, Brandee is the name of my honey, my money maker, and my ship.

I don't know why I'm telling you all of this. I should be telling you how I got out of what became the turning piont in my life. So, there I was hunting this pirate near designation BS83/24/2/1. You may be confused to what all those numbers mean guy, but to me they make sense. It's a degree system based off the original location of Earth using the XY axis multiplied by the second number, in this case 24 to account for light years as we realized we could go so much further then ever expected. The letters are for having an idea of what region of space you're going to look at like flat maps of old. The two being the second planet, and the first moon. Make sense now dirt lover? I know, it's outdated and complicated but go complain to whoever decided it was a good idea to keep around.

Anyways, so there I was hunting the pirate. He was a slippery one I tell you. It's not like in space you can "tail" someone like you see in those spy vids. No, you catch a glimpse and let your computer calculate where they are headed then head there yourself. Rinse and repeat until you get him or her in the position you want to take them out. Normally jumping after them and prepping a torpedo en route will do the trick. Just hit the space brakes and drop the only weapon that ever makes me feel like I'm compensating for something. Sit back and watch it home in and take them out. Well, this time it's not so simple. He's going in to dock at some no name space station orbiting this moon.

I thought to myself, "May as well dock Orvar. You need food, water, and some fuel."

So dock it was. I sent in my request to Dock Control and was told to hook up at Docking Station 4. Thankfully it wasn't right next to my target but close enough to Docking Station 2. I set my ship computers to track all incoming and outgoing ships and to send me all relevant data concerning any fighters and in particular my target's fighter. Hitting a button in my cockpit spins my seat around allowing me to go down a small passage running through the core of my ship which I take to the airlock. Upon reaching the threshold I do a quick diagnostic on the seal and open the first hatch then the second. A small breeze passes me as the pressure of the station pushes into my ship. Ahh, fresh air. Have you ever been inside of a small room for days on end with machinery running around the clock? It gets a little stuffy even with the atmosphere recycler running.

I put in a quick order of food, water, and fuel at the terminal outside the hatches. Normally it only takes about three minutes for the 'bots to drop off your basic cargo stuff. Thankfully the food has gotten better in recent years. Used to be protein sticks and nutrient pills to sustain you in space. Now they have little meals that are nutrient enriched because spacers kept coming in malnourished. Enough complaining about my picky palate.

So far nothing has been reported by the computers. Seems that my friend here isn't just resupplying like I took the opportunity to. It would appear he's doing some other things while he's at it. Well, not that the 'bots have all my supplies on board I usher them out real quick and close the hatches. Those holovids trick you into thinking you just unlatch and shoot off into an epic space battle where the good guy always wins and the bad guy somehow survives to be captured and questioned before being sent to some demise where he'll hopefully never hurt people again. I don't know why you've always gotta have some dialogue before someone dies to explain their actions and how they wish to repent. It's so cliche. Ninety percent of the time they go out in a big ball of fire as the atmosphere vents into space and is ignited by whatever on board is hot enough to do so. Usually the engines, unexpended ammo, or the ammo that did the dirty deed. The other ten percent is when the pilot isn't so hard headed as to actually think about ejecting himself. That's normally when someone like me would pick them up in a bay and leave them in there until an interested party is willing to pull them out kicking and screaming. Sure, they'll be stuck in a small pod while in space with enough life support to last them a few days for recovery operations and all that but they can always get out if they realize they're in a nice and secure ship with atmo.

Anyways, I get to sit around in my ship adjusting this and that and doing diagnostics on my systems. It's rare I'm offered such a luxury as to make sure every system is working at full power right before an engagement. Railguns are functioning properly, engines are kicking correctly, and my armor is charging correctly. Yes, charging correctly. You see, shields are expensive and prone to fail. I prefer charged armor that either deflects incoming rounds or makes any energy weapons fizzle out. Cheaper, more reliable, although a tad heavier making my vector thrusters work a little harder. I may not turn as fast as the other guy but if he gets the drop on me chances are I can outlast him.

Well, as the last diagnostic screen is telling me how awesome my ship is despite the mini-nuke hanging out near my engines another screen pops up to tell me the target has just sent a request to undock. I myself undock since my request has already been sent in and authorized and wait for him to undock and move away from the station. One thing sure to get you blacklisted from a station is to send shrapnel into it and I had no intentions of doing that today. I have my computers start to run targeting algorithms to make sure the guns are all in order to fire and wait for him to clear the station and prepare to hit full power and jump out of system.

That's when all Hell broke loose.

About the Author
Sigvor, also known as Sigurd and UndeadMerc89, has been gaming for the past decade. Everything from online text RPGs to being Second in Command of a well respected and successful guild in Guild Wars 2. He started writing stories for Cantr II's Webzine and then fell out of it due to getting an actual job that paid. As a player of EVE Online, Freelancer, and what he considers the epic failure of Miner Wars 2081 Sigvor has found his love interest of all these years. Limit Theory. Always wondering why procedural engines are utilized more Sigvor found his calling in Limit Theory. Not really, but it sounds good right? Haha, I'm a sarcastic guy and a tad egotistical but I honestly hope the beginning of this story is well received by my fellow space sim players. I really haven't wrote anything in years so if it's a little rough I apologize. I like realism. I like the character to sound like he's been there, done that, and reality isn't what you see in movies or read in books. I know, it's odd since he's in a sci-fi setting and you're reading it. I am open to all constructive criticism. Key word: CONSTRUCTIVE. Telling me I should quit writing and go do evil things to myself or you will do evil things to my mother isn't constructive. :) I will follow up with the continuation of this story in this thread as I write it. I may have the next "chapter" out today, tomorrow, or next week. I make no promises because reality comes first.
May the Schwartz be with you
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Re: The Flight of Orvar

#3
What happened next wasn't pretty. I was looking down at the algorithms checking their validity when it seemed like every warning light on my screens decided to go off at once. Not one, but three ships had undocked and as soon as they cleared their docking stations started active targeting on my ship. With out even asking myself why I slammed my flight stick back lifting my nose up and put engine power at one hundred percent. It wasn't meant to save me, just to get me out of all their guns and only submitting me to about fifty percent of their gun batteries. The shaking started almost instantly as rounds were directed away from me. Newton's Laws still effect even the magnetized armor you know.

At full thrust I was already nearing 1km distance from the prey turned predator. Battery power was already starting to drop as energy was diverted to rear armor plates to keep those rounds bouncing off. At this point I have an auxiliary ammo bay loading and preparing to drop smart mines. My hope was to keep them off my back end as I swing around the station to catch them off guard. That didn't really work out as planned. While I did have more velocity then they did at this point because I got the jump on them maneuvering wise they were three to my one.

Swinging around the station I came cockpit to cockpit with one of the fighters. Slamming my fighter into a hard left spin while hitting my thrusters I went into a corkscrew and dropped two of the smart mines right next to him as I appeared to go out of control. Using my speed to zip past him I spun my ship around and reversed my trajectory so I was coming up right behind him and headed straight at the two who were on my tail.

Watching the two smart mines acquire and latch onto the ship I could almost hear the screams of panic through the vacuum of space. Then came the silent but bright explosion as his ship was turned into deadly shrapnel. I think I caught a glimpse of his life support pod but it was consumed in flames and probably more shrapnel than even it's depleted uranium armor could take. That's not really what had my attention to be honest. Even as their comrade was trying to breath vacuum I was already headed straight back at them dropping four more of the smart mines hoping they would fall for the same trick before I attempted to strafe them from the side.

While normally such maneuvers would throw me into a vomiting marathon at the very least or turn my brain into jelly at worst I did take some extra measures by putting some of those fancy high grade artificial gravity plates around my pod. It left me feeling much lighter then normal gravity would of and took a lot of getting used to but hey, I can spin my ship around like a top and just barely register it. Anyways, there I was shifting to my right as the shrapnel finally reached my ship. A few pieces bounced off the armor plates because the magnetized plates simply couldn't stop all of them but that's a small thing compared to what the other guy got.

This is the part where everything went black. After the fact I learned what had gone wrong and I still think it was the most rookie mistake I ever made. It turns out smart mines, for all their artificial smartness, don't do so well against shrapnel. Well I had already dropped one or two and they were in close proximity to me when some random piece of shrapnel punctured on setting it off. My ship's computers in response did an auto-eject. The best way I can describe the feeling is like being the fool not strapped in the first time you leave planetary orbit. I got slammed into my seat as power was cut to the artificial gravity while solid rockets and explosive bolts sent me into the cold, cold space to think on my deal with the Devil.

Well, that's what I would of done if not knocked unconscious by a small but potent fusion bomb going off one kilometer behind me.
May the Schwartz be with you
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Re: The Flight of Orvar

#4
*Crackling*
...n you hea...

*Crackling*
...is is Coa...

*Crackling*
...tion Battle Sh...

*Crackling*
...Glitnir...

This is the part where I play the big tough guy. I survived my own idiocy, a small nuclear explosion, and took out my target all in one go. Well, I assume I took him out. He was headed straight for the nuclear explosion and the only thing that saved my hide was I was headed AWAY from it. I just got flung a little further then most would like. Almost to the edge of the system if records are worth anything.

I lost my baby though. Brandee was now no better than scrap if anyone bothered to pull pieces of her from the station. I am sure they would pull them out but not because they were worth something. More then likely because it was allowing atmosphere out of their precious station. Well, that is if the station survived the blast. I never did bother to stop and ask if some no name station at BS83/24/2/1 had survived a small nuke going off just outside. I was more concerned with where I was at the time and I doubt my gracious hosts would of taken kindly to me being privy to that knowledge since it's kind of damning.

I guess being in an ejection pod of a Mjolnir class fighter is going to raise a few questions. Asking about a station in the same system that had just suffered a dog fight then a nice bomb may be asking a little too much. I'm actually surprised they never did ask. Probably didn't think a pod could fly that far. Haha, maybe that bomb did save me some trouble after all. I will never know.

Either way, I found myself in a cargo hold as that guy. The guy who is smart enough to eject from his ship before being turned into a crispy critter. Well, maybe I wasn't smart enough if you want to be exact but I was smart enough to program my computer to eject me at the first sign of terminal damage. Hey, I'm always planning ahead. Well, most of the time. Sometimes I'm sleeping.

Well, as luck would have it I was in a cargo hold that would of held my own ship with some space. Normally I like spacious places. They are a rare commodity in space to be honest and I've always wanted somewhere nice and big to call mine. Maybe with some cushioned seats and even a real bed. This space had none of those though. It had me, which is normally pretty awesome in and of itself. This wasn't the case this time I'm sad to admit. The marking surrounding me spoke more of a military cargo hold. Me in a military cargo hold was no good. Never good. Down right nasty. Disturbing. Oh I could go on for hours on how wrong being in a military cargo hold is. For all I know they had already searched me and my pod and left me here until the Captain of the ship could figure out if I needed to be let back out into space or kept aboard for what I can only assume is a nefarious purpose.

As luck would have it I didn't have to wait long to find out which. Maybe I'm a little paranoid but I stayed inside my atmospherically sealed pod as I waited. Thankfully I did because one of my screens powered up and I saw the face of what appeared to be an older “gentleman” in full Coalition uniform looking at me.

“Orvar, how pleasant to see you awake. I am Captain Forseti and you are aboard the Coalition Battleship Glitnir. I would like you to exit your pod. Don't worry, we won't vent you. Once you are on deck I expect you to lay down on your stomach as some gentlemen come in and search you for any weapons. Please be quick about it.”

With that my screen cut out. It only took me about two seconds to figure following his instructions would be in my best interest. Sliding out the hatch that used to open up to the pathway that led down my ship I got on deck. Slowly I moved closer to the door and laid down on the cold, smooth metal. It even smelled clean. Oh how I hate military vessels. So upright and outstanding in every aspect with no character. Just a tool to control the people and lay down the law of the Coalition. Not like my Brandee. Nothing like my Brandee.

Before I could fall deeper into my despair the door whooshed open with four well dressed men and a woman moving into the room. They held some slightly outdated microwave rifles. Reasonable if you ask me. They make you feel like you're on fire for the first five seconds or so before certain things happen that are far less then pleasant. Perfect for the tight corridors of ships and space stations where using lasers or solid projectiles could cause some rather unwanted damage to the outer hull.

After one of the men searched my person for any nefarious devices I was lifted to my feet. The four men moved into a square around me with the oddly cute lady leading the way. It was only then I realized just how big of a ship I was in. I walked what felt like three hundred meters before we got to an elevator. AN ELEVATOR. I was on a ship with an elevator. This was one big lady if you ask me. I know, you didn't.

After boarding what I can only assume is a stupidly expensive elevator and probably cost as much as my ship we started to go up. At the time I figured it would be the bridge of the ship. A few oddball designers thought having a bottom mounted bridge would be cool and all that right until they tried reentering an atmosphere. It got a little warm.

I did end up on the bridge of the ship looking at Captain Forseti. For better or worse he was smiling at me. Not the kind of smile you give a lady at a bar or the kind of smile you have when you know you're going to do something you never should of done. No, it was the kind of smile that makes you shiver a little and wonder what's in store for you.
May the Schwartz be with you

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