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Jonathan's Story by Keiran Earl Jonathan's Story Life is full of little ironies. Jonathan smirked as he reflected on the events of the past hour. You work hard, pay your bills, keep your nose out of other people's business and keep your hands clean - well, most of the time anyhow - but where do you end up? His eyes flicked over the few instrument panels gently glowing green in the dark chamber. Nothing. That was what his scanner had told him earlier as well. Funny. Disturbing too. He tried to think who would want him dead. And who would want him dead but be dumb enough to let him get away. He couldn't think of anyone at all. That was perfect. Nobody wanted him dead and nobody had come and tried to kill him. And nobody let him slip away in the debris field. He was a young guy, but stable. He kept his life simple. Simple haircut, simple clothes, simple ship, simple job. He worked longer hours than most, but he knew how to spend his money. And how to save it. There wasn't a lot of money to be made mining and trading, so most people ignored it. That was fine for him. That just meant that there was more for the taking. It had been a while since anyone had come and tried to rip off his cargo. Not too much glamour in blowing people away for a few tons of rock and ore. Especially when the pilot knows a thing or two about pulling through some tight scrapes. Jonathan took another look at the quiet display screens. With another three hours to go before arriving at the nearest base, he figured he could safely try to catch a few winks. The cold barren stretches of flatspace were lonely and dull. He shifted his weight against the soft walls of the cramped enclosure, glad that he had taken the time to install some extra padding for what he had guessed would be a long haul. It is hard to really relax when you know that the only thing between you and "the Big Sleep" are a few power-saving instruments built only to search for known enemy ship configurations. And you know with certainty that they cannot be trusted. There wasn't even a window to look out of to check the old-fashioned way. He picked up a poly-back book that he had brought with him and opened to the place marked. Within its pages was a quaint little book downloaded from the Central Library network full of little quips and quotes from wise-sounding men of history. He reviewed the last thing he had read from its self-illuminating pages. "Keep your friends close - and your enemies closer." Hmph. Something to think about. The next one. "Keep your hands clean, and your sword sharp, but always be ready to run." Was it prophecy or irony? He was inclined to think the latter. Those were words to live by. Words he had always lived by. His ship reflected this take on life. He had stuck with the small time, keeping a ship with some manoeverability, and some weapons that packed a punch while he moved smaller payloads of cargo. A slightly above average ship for a slightly above average pilot. Recently he had picked up a tow hitch and an AutoMineMaster 3000. He had been pretty happy with it as it let him get a lot more done faster and even let him make profitable use of some personal down-time too. He also had a feeling that it might have been attracting some attention from others who wanted to make money efficiently as well. Jonathan was far from famous, but enough people knew him or of him that he seldom had to point his guns at other ships. His face brushed against the soft quilting he was resting against, and he shook his head, reminded of exactly where he was and how he got there. * It had been an average day. Tow the autominer into a clear area, next to a few asteroids and carve them into smaller, more manageable pieces so the automated cargo refiner could get to work. Re-mesh the tractor uplink, sell a few rocks to the local trading post and start again. He had gone about it quite mechanically, not giving his routine much thought when something caught his eye on the radar. It was moving fast as it caught up with him before the radar had blipped for it twice. His first thought had been of pirates, so he had quickly slid into position to get his autominer trailer out of there. He figured they would be less inclined to fire on him if they risked losing the booty and that would buy him enough time to jump the heck out of there. He was wrong. The first few shots nailed his shiny new AutoMineMaster scoring holes in its shiny paint job and destabilizing his tractor beam link. This caused his ship to jolt and skirk as the link flared and quickly re-synced. Nice technology. Realizing that this wasn't a standard pirate raid, he pulled a straight line thruster burn, pulling hard into a portside turn while dropping the tow link to let his newly scarred toy sail out of what was to be a battle zone. He pushed his thrusters hard, firing right into the face of his attacker. Their shields absorbed the hit and he got a quick scan in as he passed close in a wing to wing flyby. That was what threw him. His scanner came up empty. "Checking Database" What was that supposed to mean? He suddenly wished that he had looked up instead of flying by instruments when he had a chance to see his enemy. "Know thy enemy - and know thyself." Silly little book. He was brought back to reality with the sound of his ship computer registering a missile lock. Damn. He hated missiles. He dropped his Razor brand flare in the missile's path, but it didn't quite line up and the missile screamed past it. Another flare dropped took it out just before it could impact. Close. Another missile was already moving in. So was the enemy ship though, so he dropped a flare and banked hard to avoid the ships gunfire. The missile ignored the flare. Damn. He really hated expensive missiles. He started to wonder again why someone was willing to spend so much money to take him out. He hadn't been caught doing anything illegal and he didn't know of any bounty on his head. Who was flying this ship? What kind of ship was it anyways? The computer had still come up with nothing and he was running out of time. The enemy ship was quick enough too that he hadn't even had a chance to see it through the window. His eyes bounced from his shield strength to his generator power to his hull integrity and then to a large red button with a protective plastic cover bearing the word "Genie", inscribed in a standard decorative font. He hoped that whoever it was only had room for two missiles on their ship. Keeping a very close eye on his bird's-eye view screen, he dropped all of his remaining flares into his wake to take out the expensive missile just as it got too close to maneuver away. Now to business. The other ship was closing fast, so he straightened up his course from his erratic evasive pattern, lining up a column of destructive weapons fire moving in on his tail. He kicked over to the right just far enough to evade the barrage and killed his thruster to make a close quarters tailwhip. He jammed his weapon into the firing position and lifted the plastic cover protecting the large red button. He stood up to get a good look out the window. His eyes strained to glean as much detail as possible even as he heard his shields drop and his batteries flatten. He watched intently as the ship passed by and out of the viewing area, making use of a brief moment of peace where no weapons fire or impact could be heard to let the image of the ship he had just seen sink in. The moment was too brief and the relative quiet was shattered almost simultaneously by the sound of weapons fire against the hull and the warning sound declaring critical structural integrity levels. His hand pressed the large red button. In the fraction of a second before the floor beneath him opened up to dump him into the escape pod, he had the forethought to grab a little light reading material which slipped out of his hand during the ejection process and flew wildly around, damaging the cabin light and finally falling down directly onto Jonathan's eye. * After the escape pod stabilized, Jonathan jumped to the instrument panel and moved the small craft to the opposite side of a large asteroid from the attacking vessel and did a little asteroid hopping to pull a little "needle in the haystack" act. Dubiously hidden, he watched the numbers on the instruments and scanners with disbelief as the individual who attacked him very thoroughly destroyed his equipment and every single unit of refined cargo that had spilled out. Did they think he had some sort of emotional attachment to the Plastex storage units? Were they trying to make him take revenge? Had they seriously lost track of him in the asteroid field? His disbelief was furthered even more when they suddenly hit their Hyperdrive and disappeared. * Returning to the present, Jonathan rubbed the small bruise on his eye and tossed the book down. A moment later, he thought better of it and put the book in his pocket so it wouldn't cause any more damage if there was more "turbulence". Settling back down against the soft padding, he went over the plan in his head. "Keep your friends close - and your enemies closer." Suddenly, it wasn't quite so quaint anymore. * After docking at the Trading Post and enduring the snickering of the dock crew when he declined to leave his small pink thumbscanner passkey with their checkroom, Jonathan headed straight to the Shipyard Office. Anwar Peterson smiled when he saw Jonathan enter his office. His eyes sparkled at the sight of an old classmate. "Ah, life is so full of little ironies isn't it? I hardly ever see you since you started working the distant asteroid fields. But what was it, two weeks ago that you bought that MineMaster 3000? And here you are again. Perhaps it is time to finally upgrade to a bigger, better ship? I hope there were no problems with the MineMaster." Jonathan looked at him grimly and said plainly, "Anwar, I need a favor." "What do you have in mind, my old friend?" "I need to use the ShipFind Service." Anwar raised an eyebrow. "So it is time to upgrade, but isn't there perhaps something in my showroom that might interest you? What ship are you looking for? I have a slightly used Cargo King with a set of brand new Rothspar deluxe turret guns or perhaps…" His voice trailed off as he noticed the very stern look on Jonathan's face. Now did not appear to be the time for the sales pitch. Jonathan looked Anwar straight in the eye and said, "Baker Systems Gunship One." Anwar stared at Jonathan. His voiced dropped to a near whisper. "What exactly do you want with that ship? That's a one-off museum piece. You don't have anywhere near the kind of cash to buy something like that." With a slightly different tone of voice, he added, "Do you?" Jonathan slowly placed the pink thumbscanner passkey for his Genie escape pod on the counter and slid it towards the salesman. "I'm also going to need a ship capable of Hyperjumps - something fast." His tone was all business. Anwar swallowed quietly and moved to his computer terminal. He tersely stated, "It looks like the Baker Systems Gunship is in sector [23,12] on display at a Galactic Starcity. I have a stripped down Dagger that can move like solar wind and will have you there in three jumps." Anwar paused a moment, then added in mild distress, "That ship is worth more than this entire base and my inventory combined. Tell me this isn't about revenge. They got you once, I am guessing. You can't fight a war by yourself, even with that ship. What's at stake here, is it a girl? Is it a territory thing? Whatever it is, there must be a better way. That ship is either for show or starting a war. There's a cost that's far greater than just money here. Is it worth getting yourself killed?" Jonathan said nothing, tapping his passkey and offering it to the merchant. Anwar smiled, taking it in his hand, and said "I hope you understand I can't give you any money back for a used escape pod without the mounting and installation clips." He looked at it for a moment longer, then asked, "If you need to pay for a ship with an escape pod at my store, what hope have you got of paying for the Baker vessel?" Anwar kept looking at Jonathan for an answer as he absentmindedly reached in a drawer and slid his own thumb over a sensor. He brought a dark blue passkey to his mouth and softly spoke the word "sell" along with some security codes. Placing the key on the counter, a sudden thought caused him to keep his hand on it. Jonathan slowly moved his hand over to the passkey. Two sets of eyes followed his hand to where it rested gently, but firmly on the key now waiting the swipe of a new owner's thumbprint. Two pairs of eyes. Two hands. The hands stayed. The eyes moved slowly upwards to where they met. A little something from the book wandered inappropriately through Jonathan's troubled mind. "Keep your friends close - and your enemies closer." He could feel the electricity building in the space between his fingertips and Anwar's. Without making any sudden movements, he very slowly moved his hand on top of his old friend's. Beads of sweat started to gather on Anwar's forehead. Jonathan leaned in closer to Anwar's face. "I've been doing some checking on the Guild networks. It seems that you've been a little naughty this far from police supervision. Between the Police, the Pirates and the Bounty Hunters, it looks like I am just about the only guy left who could really consider you a close friend… close enough to see past the name changes and put all the pieces together." Jonathan held Anwar's hand firmly as his other hand slipped into his pocket. "You were right Anwar." Anwar's voice wavered slightly. "About what?" he asked. "What you said when I walked in the door. Life is full of little ironies. Totally right." * The scrawny, lightweight fighter ship eased into the docking ring. As it uplinked with the bases Automated Pilot Service computer, the lone occupant nervously reviewed his plan. The main viewscreen jumped to life with a dazzling commercial, "Welcome to Unicorn - the friendliest, funnest, family oriented StarCity in Flatspace! We have the best waterslides, tastiest Recyce Cream™ - now available in Chocolate, Coffee, Mocha, Brown Sugar and Peanut flavors - as well as the biggest Zero-G Bounce-a-Rama your kids have ever…" Jonathan snapped the sound off, but continued to watch in silence as the various shows and tours flashed by on his screen, stopping just one display for more information. After securing a ticket, he checked the time and got ready to disembark. * "This ship was the first model made by Renton to include a place to mount a second flare launcher. Note the symmetrical launching vents there… and there…" The presenter made cute little circles around the small black ports on the back of the Willow Wasp with her laser pointer and smiled at her tour group. A big white toothy grin. Her gaze shifted from disinterested face to disinterested face and ended up somewhere in the middle, smile beaming off into the distance. A tiny beep sounded from her earring, cuing her next comment, "No doubt many of you space-farers are glad of modifications like these. Further proof that we at Renton have your safety at heart." Again the smile along with a demonstrative gesture placing her two hands gently over her heart. Jonathan glanced around wryly to see who else she might be referring to. A small boy around six years old seemed to have better things to do than listen to the tour guide. He had his finger up his nose and had been amusing himself by launching 'flares' of his own into the empty blackness below the moving platform to see if he could hit any of the ships in this cavernous museum. Jonathan casually played with the thin band of caution tape that ringed the edge of the flat people transporter as he watched the child duck under the band and lean way out to watch the progress of his latest projectile. Jonathan's eyes flitted back to the tour guide who was still staring at nothing with hands clasped over her heart indicating the great care the she and others at Renton had for everyone's safety. Another soft beep sounded and the mobile platform hummed into motion, causing the young boy to reach and flail until he grabbed the protective tape behind his head. "We are on our way again, this time to the view the pride and joy of the Renton Museum of Modern SpaceFlight History. This is the exhibit you have all been waiting for!" The young woman made an enthusiastic gesture to indicate that she truly meant to include each and every one of her two tour visitors. "Baker Systems Gunship One." She enunciated clearly and lilted each word as she spoke it making it sound like she wanted to decorate one of flatspace's most lethal historical weapons with cherry blossoms and hyssop. Jonathan stopped watching the little boy. She was right. This was what he was waiting for. His mind was now occupied with a single purpose. "Built only a few years ago, this is Baker Systems Flagship, built under consultation from the top hull design specialists from Renton and constructed with the greatest care and attention to every single nut, bolt, weld and circuit. There simply isn't another ship like it." She finished her introductory spiel with a broad sweeping open-palm gesture and another trademark smile. Her eyes jumped into focus as Jonathan strode purposefully towards her. "That's why I am going to buy it." "I'm sorry sir, it's not for sale. This ship is the centerpiece of our collection here at the Rento…." Jonathan cut her off, gently reaching out and tapping her arm that was still ridiculously stretched out in presentation. "Everything's for sale baby, just some things have a higher price." Embarrassed, she brought her arm down to her side and relaxed into a little more natural tone. Behind Jonathan, she could see the young boy, still with his finger up his nose, but motionless, watching the slight deviation in the tour. "Who do I need to talk to?" "Why do you need this ship? There are plenty of very powerful ships available for a fraction of the cost…" "It's a matter of safety, not just for me, but for you and others as well…" pausing for a moment, he motioned with his head towards the boy, "even him. Life's too short to worry about something as meaningless as money. Just give me a name." * "Tyro Hatsumi?" "Yeah, that's me." said the short man, turning down the tuneless Neo-Punk music that reverberated through the office. "What you want?" "I need to see your high-card merchandise." "No problem." Tyro flipped on a little 3D display unit that quickly scrolled through a handful of customized fighters and massive warships. "Big or small, we got 'em all." "No." said Jonathan, ignoring the display and looking the careless employee dead in the eye, "The other high-card merchandise." "Sorry, no lookie-loos. You wanna see that stuff, you gotta be a serious buyer." Tyro played with his swivel chair. "I'm gonna need some ID or something." Jonathan reached out and tapped on the counter's touch sensitive bank link area a one followed by 5 zeros. "How's that for ID?" Tyro stopped fiddling with his chair. He turned off his music and nodded deliberately as he held up his thumb and said, "Man, you are so wrong. We totally don't take bribes in this kind of establishment. You insult me." Immediately after the words had left his mouth, he reached his hand under the counter and flicked a switch. Instantly, the door slammed shut and deadbolted. The windows darkened to black. Tyro's hand emerged from under the counter with a screwdriver. Lifting up the 3D display unit, he pried the Plastex cover from the bottom, allowing a short piece of red wire to fall out. He grabbed the wire and inserted one end of it into a small hole on the side of the unit, connecting the other end of it to something inside the circuitry underneath. "OK. I hope I don't need to remind you that what you are about to see is for your eyes only. Don't go blabbing this around to just anyone or I will provide your name and bank account to the cops claiming you stole whatever it is that you are here to… uhhh… buy. The amount just to view this merchandise is a pittance compared with what would be offered as a reward to recover any of the things you are probably interested in. Cops can be pretty effective when they are motivated." A short list of items showed up in blue light above the holographic display unit, arranged in order by price. Jonathan's eyes moved to the bottom of the list, then to Tyro's face, looking past the soft glowing blue reflection into a pair of rather surprised dark eyes. Something about Tyro's eyes reminded Jonathan of another ship merchant and a twinge of guilt passed through him as he pressed his thumb on the bank panel scanner next to the rather long string of numbers. He hated what he had done to get the cash he was so quickly handing away. When a little green light started flashing "Accepted", both men resumed breathing. Tyro quickly spouted off a little disclaimer, "Please remember that the price of this is greatly inflated due to a large number of major payoffs. It in no way reflects the quality or reliability of the goods. We are not friends or business partners. I never want to see you again and you pretty sure don't want to ever see me again. Everything is sold as is with no guarantees. I bear absolutely no responsibility for absolutely anything beyond giving you this." Tyro handed over a little rainbow colored passkey. "This will open the door. An official passkey can be generated inside the ship. This key will upload the codes to the ship and collapse on itself once you open the door. You need nothing more from me." Tyro rebooted the 3D holo-display unit and removed the red wire, putting things back as before. He kicked a switch under the counter and the lighting resumed normal levels. The windows regained transparency and the door unlocked and opened, chiming in an electronic voice, "Open. Welcome! Come in." Turning his music back up, Tyro leaned back in his chair, calling out, "Now get out of here before I call the cops for asking such a thing! We only serve good, law-abiding citizens like ourselves!" * His heart was already pounding and he wanted desperately to run, but Jonathan walked slowly and with measure back to the museum tour. Just his luck. Seven people were lined up in a tour group, ready with cameras, sunhats and museum brochures. The young boy was still on the tour platform having a little argument with the tour guide while Jonathan lined up with the tourists. Jonathan waited with heaving anticipation for the tour guide to begin loading the next set of guests, but she seemed occupied with the little boy. He kept putting his finger in his nose and she kept pushing his hand away. Hmph. Free babysitting? The tourists in front of Jonathan thought the spectacle was quite amusing and one of them took a picture. The flash reminded the tour guide of the waiting visitors and she moved to welcome them to the floating transport. Watching the kid had given Jonathan an idea. He pushed his way to the front of the line and did something totally unexpected. He sneezed. Apologizing profusely, he sneezed again. "I sure hope that's not another one of those terrible plagues…" he joked, adding another sneeze at the end of his sentence for impact. The tourists didn't think it was funny and scurried off in search of sanitizer. The tour guide didn't think it was funny either, but she understood and in a few moments, the three of them were floating through the first few portions of the tour area. Soft beeps incited her to her repertoire and her smile returned as she went through the required motions of what she knew would likely be her last tour of the day. A soft beep cued unheeded. "So you talked to him then?" Jonathan stopped tapping his foot impatiently. "Yeah." "Is there a real danger on its way then?" "I believe so." "What should I do?" "I really don't know. But you can start by dropping me off at my new ship." Another beep. The tour platform wasn't ready to move quite yet. Jonathan looked at the woman expectantly. "You know they will fire me for this don't you?" The woman flipped open a small panel on her arm, inserted her thumb and began manually controlling the tour platform. Jonathan looked at her inquiringly. "You're a robot?" She shook her head. "Cybernetic implant. It's part of the job description." After a brief moment of reflection on what she was doing, she quietly added, "I hope it doesn't leave a scar when they take it out." The platform moved over the Gunship. "Wow. Look at that!" exclaimed the boy. Jonathan too was impressed, staring single-mindedly. "Yeah, neat ship, huh." "No. I've seen this ship a thousand times. Look at that!" Jonathan rolled his eyes. "Yeah kid, you'll make a great turret gunner one day. Score one hit for you. Now, if you'll excuse me…" Jonathan impatiently crouched under the restrictive tape border and jumped onto the Gunship. Pressing his thumb against the scanner on his rainbow colored passkey, he watched the colors ripple and change. After a beep from the ship's door, the multi-colored unit disintegrated into a fine powder and faded away. A hatch opened on the top of the ship and Jonathan climbed down to the interior of the vessel. The tour instantly became a forgotten memory. * It was a mean looking ship, built with purpose and care. He remembered when he first heard of it. He had been near graduating high school and it had strongly influenced his desire to become a pilot. He had been considering studying business, but that changed when his friend, Warren Peters showed him the ad in an e-magazine. From that day, both young men knew that spaceships would be the new focus of their lives. One would go on to fly them, the other to sell them. Together, they had attended the demonstration and the sound of the announcer's voice now filled his ears nostalgically as he rushed through his pre-flight check with delight. "This engineering marvel is the result of the collaboration between the cream of the crop from Baker Systems and Renton Shipbuilders. Every single device has been retooled and redesigned specifically for this ship. Everything is operating beyond peak efficiency and has been trimmed to extremely low weight. All remaining payload space has been used with the highest quality armor coated in Prototype Government Issue stealth paint making the ship invisible to most standard issue scanners, radar and missile tracking systems. Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes on the future!" A feast for the eyes indeed. He had been worried that some parts might have been stripped out by sticky-fingered museum maintenance staff, but his worries proved unfounded as the ship's generators slowly stirred to action. The pilot's HUD listed everything as it should be. It was amazing how many things they had been able to put into such a light and maneuverable ship. The thing that amazed him most though, was that after sitting in a museum for years, the air was as fresh as a field of daisies. They really had thought of every detail. "Here's some firepower for you fine folks. The Baker Gunship One sports not one, but three main guns, as well as a main rotatable turret capable of supporting a standard gun fixture, and two secondary standard turrets. The engineers worked overtime on this one, fitting a total of four specially modified Thanatos Platinum Edition Artillery units including one in that turret you see spinning a salute to you all. I'm sure glad there's a friendly guy manning that thing, with its 50% faster firing rate and 30% heavier shells. Even the small side turrets have the Baker touch; yielding ultra-high speed miniature artillery launchers that would make even a P9 blush." Jonathan was mildly surprised to note that even these special weapons had not been touched. Perhaps that was because they were specially fitted to this ship and nothing else could use them. What worried him was that the other possibility was that the security around here was so tight that no thieves would dare to attempt such a foolhardy job. The maneuvering thrusters hummed to life. It was time to leave. It is one thing to buy a ship from a museum with bribes and payoffs, but it's another thing entirely to try to shoot your way out from the heart of a Goliath StarCity. Hoping for the best, but dreading the worst, Jonathan tentatively hovered his hand over the radio button. He pressed it. "Good day Mr. Andrews. It seems your new ship is ready to go. This is Walea Mololua, the assistant curator of the Modern SpaceFlight division. My husband and I wish you the best with your new purchase. To navigate out of here, follow the red marker lights until you are in the disembarkation lane from the StarCity. You won't have any trouble with local enforcement, but try not to scratch her once you leave this sector. Oh, and if you are ever in the neighborhood of sector [7,26], feel free to look us up. We placed a bid on a small Trading Post where we hope to raise a family. Walea out." Jonathan heaved a tremendous sigh of relief. Tyro wasn't kidding when he said that there were major payoffs to be made to make this purchase possible. Money well spent. * The first priority upon leaving the station was to get the ship to full operational strength. He moved the ship a short distance from the station and started testing systems. He was slightly unnerved when he noticed that there was no shield system in place. He would have to remedy that at the next base he ran into. If they were willing to work on a ship such as this. Getting people to work on your ship "no questions asked" tended to get progressively more expensive as the number of questions not being asked increased. A quick blast from the main guns revealed no problems, but the turrets appeared unmanned. Wandering down to the turret chambers, he was pleasantly surprised to find automated robot gunners merely needing a flick of the switch. Newly confident and sporting a wicked grin, he knew just which sector to plot into the Hyperdrive to get a real test workout. * As suspected, the moment he arrived in the un-patrolled asteroid field, a handful of scans greeted him musically. Jonathan was used to this and having worked the mining circuits for some time, enough people were used to seeing his ship that this was normally little cause for concern. It was different this time. He was no longer a slightly above average pilot in a slightly above average ship. He was now a slightly above average pilot in a phenomenal, legendary ship. Nobody would recognize him as the pilot of Gunship One nor would anybody care who was at the helm. Three ships slid into radar range. Typically, by the time they got anywhere near this close, most pilots would have opened fire and engaged. The apprehensive silence of the stationary fighter ships' guns could only mean one thing. "Can't believe your eyes, can you?" Jonathan chuckled to himself as one of the ships radioed him requesting ship designation. Jonathan sent confirmation of his ship designation in the form of a single round from each of his guns simultaneously released by a single short squeeze of the trigger. The three rounds of Thanatos Special Edition artillery collectively tore the small Fokker Starmaster into useless chunks in the briefest instant, passing through the shield almost as if it hadn't been there. The dance began suddenly as two distress calls immediately lit up Jonathan's Comm channel monitor. The two ships slammed their thrusters to max and tried to circle around to the Gunship's rear. Jonathan calmly set his turrets to firing on one ship, while he swung his ship in the opposite direction to follow the other with his main guns. Jonathan whistled at the responsiveness of the compact, but rather heavy ship as it effortlessly turned so sharply that he felt like he was competing in a Flight School race in a souped-up Axxel Lightlaser. It was all over in less than a minute. Even as the core fragments were still bubbling from the heat of the explosion, he could hear as people were responding to the distress calls and scanning his ship. He didn't mind knocking off a few pirate raiders that habitually preyed upon inexperienced pilots immediately after arriving in a sector, but he didn't really feel like wasting a bunch of guys who were just trying to be helpful. Warren had been right there too. This ship was only good for a showroom or starting a war. This wasn't the war he intended to start, so he entered a heading into his Hyperdrive computer and made a quick exit. Recalling his purpose, he got to work in the shelter of a thick nebula. It was truly amazing how everything simply worked better on this ship. * There they were. He could see them. But his scanner couldn't figure out what they were. Eight ships of a very unusual, but to Jonathan easily recognizable, design slowly circled a very strange-looking, small base. They appeared to be non-human, and he guessed that they were relative newcomers to this corner of flatspace, but he didn't have to guess that they were not here to make friends. Every one of their ships was heavily armed and bore clear signs of having engaged in many intense battles. He couldn't make out much of what they were doing, or what they were saying, but whatever it was, they seemed to be doing and saying a lot of it. One ship would Hyperjump away, and return a short while later with a flurry of communication to the other ships. By observing the hull designs and the frequency which they were jumping and returning, he could only guess how many dozens of ships were currently streaming through flatspace looking for a fight or otherwise engaged. He guessed that they were learning about fighting by ambushing one ship at a time, just as they had done to him. One word kept repeating itself with great frequency. He couldn't hear it clearly, eavesdropping as he was on Comm channels at strange ends of the radio spectrum, but it sounded a little like "scary", "scared" or "scarred". Regardless, he knew his plan had come to maturity. It was time to do something himself. He switched his guns from simultaneous fire to staggered fire for a slightly more dog-fight worthy setup and, curling his finger around the weapons trigger, fired up his thrusters to go see if he could teach them a thing or two about fighting humans.