The Remnant of Rav'aak

Chapter 1

The whiny ring of the alarm bounced off the walls of the cabin, reverberating into my ear dreams like an incessant chatter. I forced the throttle to the right, dodging the ship out of range of the guided missile. The zero-G missile whizzed past the hull, very nearly grazing it. That was way too close. I veered even further to the right, pulling the ship behind an asteroid that was big enough to hide me for a few minutes before I had to maneuver out of its orbit. The alarm shut off, I was out of their range for now.

Who would want to attack me in the middle of an asteroid belt? One wrong move and they'd be dodging debris for hours. I had to formulate a plan. Whoever they were, they had the drop on me. I barely had enough firepower to make a quick escape. Just maybe, if I planned this right, I could shake them off my tail. I pushed the ship further, slowly rounding my way around the massive, icy rock.

I pressed the switch for the microphone, broadcasting a message to the nearest base. "May-day! May-day! Requesting immediate assistance. Taking heavy fire from an unknown assailant. My coordinates are 12.15/278/-23 degrees off of Alpha Centauri. Over."

"Copy that on your position and status. What's your call sign? Over."

"My call is Shazam: Sierra. Hotel. Alpha. Zulu. Alpha. Mike. Over."

"Roger, Shazam. We've got dispatch coming your way, approximately 15 AU's away. Can you stay under cover for 8 minutes?"

"No, I don't have that luxury." I switched off the mic, adrenaline boiling down through my fingertips.

"Ginger, check for hostile activity. One Astronomical Unit radius."

The ship's online system chirped back, {"Checking For Hostiles: 1 AU radius"} There was a sonar-like ping that emanated from the panel, displaying the ship that had fired the missile at me. {"Hostile Location: 0.672 AU from your location. Approaching fast. Do you recommend any counter-measures?"}

"Not yet, Gin. On my mark, you're going to divert all power into weapons. I want you to lay on them everything we've got."

{"May I recommend keeping power in the safety protocol?"}

"Nope, now..." I opened up the weapons screen, readying the trigger, "wait for my mark and put as much power as you can into the shield."

{Understood. Diverting 87% of power to defense. Would you like to divert some power to your music player as usual?}

"Is that even a question?" A bead of sweat trickled down the side of my brow and I clenched my teeth as my focus sharpened on my attacker.

{85% of power to defense. Now playing "Barracuda" by Heart.} Like muscle memory, I pushed the throttle up to full speed and grabbed hold of the steering handle. The ship moved smoothly as it roared to life, veering over the curving horizon of grey dust. I looped around to the other side of the asteroid, steering in the direction of my attacker. The ship picked up speed until it couldn't muster another millimeter of acceleration and sailed through the ink of the vacuum.

I couldn't see anything until the attacker fired off their first two shots, one after the other. Both of which whistled far overhead. Warning shots? They're acting like hadn't just tried to shoot me dead. Why try to give me a chance to surrender now?

Whatever their reason, I wasn't going to go down without trying everything. Two more shots were fired near me before they gave up their bargain. Almost just as quickly, they began firing off a barrage of weapon fire. Every single one of their shots went into my shield, and it was degrading fast.  Their ship finally started to come into view. It was about the size of mine, but they didn't have any distinguishing markers. They must've been rogues trying to sabotage police cruisers.

{Shields down to 50%... 38%!} Ginger chirped excitedly. The ship started shaking as the integrity of the shields worsened. The speed was lessened with each hit, but I kept the throttle up, trying to muster every ounce of energy this ship had. I was almost right on top of them now. {24%!}

"I'm almost there!" I yelled. A nasty pit in my stomach pleaded to abort, to turn back and wait for help. I knew that help wouldn't come fast enough, I had to keep these guys busy. I wasn't far from them now

{15%... 8%... Shield compromised!}

"Mark!" I shouted, pulling the ship just over theirs. As I maneuvered out of their way, I heard the release of every explosive I had. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to stun the crap out of their civilian minds. I swiveled my ship around just in time to see their's rattle from side to side and come to a halt.

"Ginger, aim the Deescalator at them. Make sure their defense system knows I have my gun trained on them."

{You are currently out of ammo.}

"They don't need to know that! I need to scare them until help arrives."

{Your power is at 20%. I recommend turning off music to save oxygen.}

"Nah, it's fine. I won't sing." I sat back in my seat, waiting for the blaring lights of other police cruisers. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and wondered. Why would rogues come so close to a police base to randomly attack one of us?

A flush of anxiety washed over me and I shot forward in my seat. I scanned the tracker for any sign of unaccounted-for enemy ships. There wasn't a blip even remotely close. My eyes widened as the sonar-like ping resounded, showing two police cruisers closing in on my location. I relaxed, sitting back into the seat, and rested my eyes on the rogues. They were starting to roar back to life. 

Static crackled through the radio. "Ksssh! Call-sign Rooster, closing in on your location."

"Hurry! They look like they're about to book it and I don't have the power to back you up. Over."

"Roger that, double-time, Bravo!" The radio crackled back into silence. 

The two cruisers picked up the pace and neared into view. Having spotted them, the rogue ship blasted off a few shots before hightailing its way away from us. 

"Come on! Pick it up!" I yelled at the cruisers, urging them on as if anything I said could help them pick up their sorry pace. I wanted to catch these guys, bad. The cruisers were matching the pace of the rogue now, gaining on them slowly. But, then, an iridescent blue light sparked and flashed like a firecracker on the rogue's jets. Within seconds, the entire inky black was dissipated by a bright white light that faded in seconds. My eyes fought to adjust back to the typical darkness of the vacuum of space. The two cruisers were left stunned and drifting. The rogue was nowhere in sight.

***

What does it mean to follow an order?

What does it mean to keep the peace?

It means to put your life on the line so that everyone else has a fair fight, an equal chance, to keep living their lives.

So, if you risk yourself enough times, when is it your turn?

I didn't see my turn coming anytime soon.

***