OT: Fanfic

[JAFisher44]

Haven't named it yet, but here it is.


Kiran hated these dirty [censored] hole dives. He hated the filth, he hated the bad air, he hated the sents[1]. But, coming here was something of a necessary evil. You just couldn't find the kind of work Kiran was looking for in the kind of places he would like to hang out.

This bar was the kind of place where you always wanted to sit with your back to a wall, preferably with a straight shot to an exit, just in case. He couldn't even imagine the kind of damage being done to his clothes by... whatever it was on this seat. He sniffed the drink he had bought when he came in and decided not to risk it. Whether he drank it or not it was probably a good idea to buy it. The bartender had been giving him less dirty looks since he bought it.

'Where the hell is this guy?' he wondered. He looked around the bar nervously. This contact had offered him pretty good pay on the job he was hiring for, but the bar was filling up with sents, and by the look of things Kiran was gonna have to move on soon job or no. Humans weren't very popular anywhere Kiran had ever been, and the patrons of this bar looked like they were itching to let him know just how they felt. Luckily this planet's locals were kinda small and weedy, but given numbers and enough time to work themselves up to it, undoubtedly there would be trouble.

No sooner had Kiran pondered it than a group of about 5 of the patrons started making their way across the room, moving in his direction. The leader of the group was prominently sporting something that looked like it was likely a weapon of some sort.

"Hey, MAN!" The translator bud was only a few milliseconds behind the gibberish that emitted from the alien. It's probably worth mentioning here that the term "man" is usually a slur applied to humans and is rarely intended in any other way.

"My friends and I noticed that you are sitting at our table." There was a chorus of chirping and squelching that the translator couldn't keep up with, but was likely affirmatives and jeering.

"No problem," Kiran started to stand, "I'll find another."

The little alien put a hand on his chest, "They are all our tables."

"Fine." Kiran pushed his hand away, "I'll leave."

Kiran doubted that this little antagonist was gonna let it go at that, and he circled around the group, trying to get to the door. He noticed that the bartender was already keying a com, likely summoning local security. That was trouble that Kiran desperately wanted to avoid. Humans didn't usually fare well with local authorities. The lead bully saw that Kiran was making for the door and went for his weapon.

'[censored]!' this is exactly what Kiran had hoped to avoid. It wouldn't matter that it was self defense, he had no rights here. It was hard to reign in his finely honed combat reflexes, but he managed to avoid killing most of them. The leader wasn't so lucky. It was over in about ten seconds. The leader was dead before his weapon cleared its holster, Several important parts of its body broken or smashed. Kiran managed to hold back on the rest and just broke most of their limbs before he vaulted to the door and started randomly weaving down side streets and alleys. Once he could no longer hear the security alerts, he stopped his flight and found a dark corner and settled down, covering himself in cast off garbage.

He came to this hellhole of a planet to get a well paying job, and now he would probably have to spend a great deal of money just to get off planet with his skin intact. Of course he would check on his ship, but he was not optimistic at all about the chances of it being unmolested. The local security would likely connect it to the incident at the bar and impound it.

He stayed in the pile of refuse for about twelve hours before night fell and he felt comfortable moving out again. Even so, he skulked through alleys and moved across streets only when he could see and hear nothing. It took him nearly nine hours to cover the 5 clicks to the docking bay that hopefully held his ship. Once there he had to take more chances, there were just too many sents around to avoid all of them.

He made his way to the access portal for the dock. The terminal confirmed his fears, It was in security lock down. He moved on without stopping hoping that the stakeout that was certainly watching the portal didn't notice his slight pause. He pulled stolen blanket lower over his face and ducked into a dark corner. After just a few seconds he saw two security officers move into view from the direction he had just come.

They were moving cautiously, obviously looking for him. Well, he was already in deep [censored]. He waited till they were within about 3 meters and uncoiled like a snake. They didn't even make a sound. Both of the officers were dead before they even had time to recognize the threat. Kiran quickly searched the bodies and found access cards on both of them. He hurried back to the portal and swiped the cards over the reader. the readout went yellow and the door opened.

Kiran ducked into the dock and looked around, closing the portal behind him. It seemed empty. Even if he did get into his ship, there was no way he could take off without the security lockout being released, they would just shoot him down. Even if he evaded that he would be met in orbit by some military craft that would board him or blow him up. He had only one chance, and it was quite a risk. However, it was a risk he would have to take.

Kiran keyed his comp and queried for local access. There it was, a security access point. If he got caught doing this it was the end. They would lock everything down if he was lucky, fry his brain with feedback if he wasn't. He up-linked to the security card he took off the officer and assigned a brute force crack to its encryption. Thirty seconds only seems like a long time when you are hiding from security right under their noses. Once he unlocked all the secrets of the access card he started using its info to try to get into the dock security system. He was lucky and his comp managed to hit on the right access algorithm before it set off a security warning. Now that he was in the security system he turned off the monitoring software and boarded his vessel. If they discovered him mucking around in their system maybe he would be able to dump and try to run for it. He likely wouldn't make it, but dying in a bright explosion was better than dying in some alien prison.

Finally! Kiran keyed in the last code to release his vessel from security lock down. The system processed the request and approved it. He monitored the lock down status. It didn't change.

"[censored]!" They must be on to him. He dumped. It was mildly painful and very disorienting. After a few seconds he shook it off. Quickly he keyed in the startup sequence for his ship. Hopefully they wouldn't be expecting this. It would take his ship five minutes to power up for liftoff. It was the longest five minutes of his life. As he ran through the final checklist for takeoff he saw small forms scurrying across the causeway to the dock's AA guns.

Kiran smirked, "Too late you stupid ****s." VT liftoff was pretty much a universal docking standard, most planets forbid EV thrust lower than ten kilometers. There was a very good reason for this. Kiran reminded everyone within half a click of his dock just why EV thrust wasn't used at ground level. The downside is that that much thermal energy really draws attention.

Kiran's small vessel rose on a pillar of flame that obliterated everything within 100 meters of his dock. He really regretted the loss of innocent life, but his survival instinct was keener than his conscience. At least he wouldn't have to worry about being shot down yet. That would have to wait for orbit.

[1] Sents is a slang for sentients. It refers to any sentient being

[Atrocities]

Pretty good read there. Thanks for posting it.

[AgentZero]

Nice.

Now all you have to do is not pull an AZ and keep everyone waiting 6 months for the next installment.

[JAFisher44]

Indeed.

Kiran's vessel was built to be crewed by a minimum of three people. Kiran was able to bypass this little limitation by the use of DNI or direct neural interface. Kiran's head was a mess of the most advanced computer technology available. He could interface with almost any computer system he came across. Some, like the central core of his ship were quite nice to work with.

When interfaced, his ship was like an extension of his own body. It's sensor arrays were his senses, its thrusters his legs. It was not unlike flying through empty space. Likely this would all be over as soon as he made orbit.

Granted, a little disorderly conduct and a few murders probably wouldn't warrant a cap ship, but the orbital guard was likely tracking his position right now and dispatching several cutters to intercept him. For certain, the cutters would not be able to match his craft for speed or acceleration. The down side of this is that it is on account of the mass of all the weapons and ammunition they were pushing that he wasn't.

So, if Kiran wanted to live, and he most certainly did, all he had to do, was somehow not be where all those cutters tracked him to. This of course was not as easy as it sounds. Kiran's only chance wasn't much of a chance at all, and if any of the officers on any of those cutters was worth the pay of a recruit deckhand they would see through his ruse in no time flat.

Still, he had to try. The plan started with a freighter he had been tracking since he took off. It's escape vector was near enough to his that if he pulled off the fanciest flying of his life he could probably ghost it without dying.

Of course he was being actively tracked by those cutters. This meant that he would have to somehow convince them that he was maintaining his current trajectory. Hopefully they were lazy. Hopefully they were ignoring the really expensive batteries of sensors at their disposal. Hopefully they were just tracking the huge beacon of his thrust.

It only took about five minutes of fevered work to configure a drone to mimic the important sensor readings of his thrust. Unfortunately there was no way that it could mimic any of the other things it would need to if those damn officers were doing their jobs right.

The timing went off perfect, and Kiran cut his thrust in perfect timing with the launch of the drone. It continued at the same speed and trajectory he had occupied only seconds before. Now in free fall, his ship howled and screamed as he tried his best to maneuver toward the freighter screaming up below him.

Kiran's ship was not, by any stretch of the imagination, aerodynamic. It was not meant to glide in an atmosphere. Any sort of maneuverability it usually had was acheived through brute force thrust. Right now, he could certainly not afford any of that, it would draw too much attention. For now all he had was air brakes and a computer that could do really good physics calculations. He hoped they didn't notice the god awful turbulence he was kicking up.

Now he had to take a chance, there was no way he could actually intercept the freighter without using thrust. Hopefully the drone had moved far enough away for them not to notice. A few long seconds of hard burn and now Kiran was moving parallel to a freighter twenty times his size, about a meter apart. This was too close for most sensors to distinguish. Of course it would be all for nothing if anybody did their job right at any point. Now all he could do was wait and see how things played out.

Slowly, Kiran edged his ship closer to his newfound travel partner and winced as the magnetic grapels attached with a loud clang. Undoubtedly someone on the freighter noticed that, and now they would be running diagnostics. It wouldn't take them long to find out that they were pulling a significant extra mass. By now, if everything went right the cutters would be watching a drone burn by where they expected Kiran's ship. Klaxons would be sounding. Calls would be going out to orbital control, sensor logs would be parsed. If everything worked. If not cutters would be waiting for the freighter as it left the atmosphere. Even so it would only take minutes for them to find where he had gone to. Hopefully it would be long enough for him to get out of weapons range.

Kiran felt things smooth out as the freighter cleared the atmosphere. He listened carefully to the commercial band hoping for the impossible.

"Merchant Vessel," His computer translated the feed "Alter your trajectory to the following course and prepare for inspection."

The string of profanity that followed probably had a stronger heat signature than Kiran's ship at full burn. Kiran tried to figure his odds against four cutters, which is what his sensors told him he was up against.

"What does it matter?" he muttered to himself. At this point his only choice was to run and hope for the best. No way he could fight them. He would have to hope that his armor held out.

Mentally he keyed a sequence he was loathe to use, and groaned as about 30 gravities of thrust overloaded his inertial dampers. At max acceleration it would take about a minute for him to move out of range of the guns that would, undoubtedly, do their best to end him. Awareness faded to black as the horrible force of acceleration pulled the blood from his brain.

'Well, at least I won't feel the end.' the thought flitted through his mind just before he blacked out.

[JAFisher44]

Adam Scrambled up and over the pulverized concrete wall. With a good head start he could probably evade a centaur indefinitely. Adam did not have a good head start, and he was carrying a young girl and leading, practically dragging, her mother by the hand. He could hear the centaur and its hunting beast, it sounded like it was about a click behind them.

The woman's hand slipped out of his and he cursed as she slid back down the hill of rubble. He bounded back down to the fallen woman and hefted her into a fireman's carry, holding her arms and legs in one hand, and supported the girl with his other arm as she clung desperately to his neck.

Burdened like this he would never avoid his pursuers. He cast about for a good hiding place. Hopefully his charges would be safe and, more importantly, quiet.

There, down the wall a way, Adam spied a large crack in the wall. Quickly he approached the cubby. "Hide in here." He set the woman down on her feet and pushed her into the crack. "Keep her quiet." He squeezed her hand reassuringly. "I'll be back."

Tears streamed down the woman's face, and he could smell the fear coming off of her, but she shook her head and huddled deep into the shadows of the impromptu hiding place.

Adam knew he didn't have much time. He could hear the centaur's beast nearing. Adam scrambled up the wall above the crack and crouched, waiting.

The beast was about 3 meters long and about half that to its shoulder. Its limbs terminated in long claws and its mouth was ringed with needle sharp teeth. It looked like some psycho killer lizard, only with fur and none of the lethargy of a cold blooded animal. The beast had a ridiculously good sense of smell, probably better than Adam's, and was heading right for the crack. Adam had planned for this.

Leaping from a perch 6 meters in the air probably isn't a good idea for most normal people. Adam was not a normal person. Adam looked like a Greek god, if you imagine a Greek god that stands 210 centimeters and is covered from head to toe with scars. Adam was the first phase 3 super-soldier bio-engineered to fight the centaurs over 300 earth standard years ago.

Adam didn't waste any effort on some sort of battle-cry or scream or anything like that. So, by the time the beast noticed him it was too late to dodge. He grabbed a great fist full of the animals thick fur and plunged his knife into its thick hide and muscle.

Its scream of pain ripped into the air, and it exploded into a frenzy of thrashing limbs and tail. Adam locked a vice grip onto his foe and plunged his knife into the beast over and over. Not stabbing randomly, each wound damaged vital organs, and severed muscles and tendons. In just a few short seconds the beast lie dying and bleeding on the ground.

Adam didn't waste any time, the centaur wouldn't be far behind. As soon as the beast started to fall, he leapt to the ready. Pain exploded through his left shoulder, the crack of a firearm resounded from the concrete around him. As fast as it came the pain was gone. Adam's right arm snapped like a whip and suddenly his knife stood buried to the hilt in the centaur's abdomen.

The centaur are so called due to their resemblance to the mythical beast. The don't look like a human torso on a horse, but they are four legged, with a short torso and two manipulating limbs and a head of sorts. Their skin is thick and gray. They are very strong, and they are primarily responsible for the near-extinction of the human race.

The centaur reached down and pulled the knife free, tossing it to the side. A costly mistake. Probably this thing had never faced a super before, just normal humans. By the time it looked up from its wound Adam had cleared the distance between them and had it by its gun arm. Adam snapped its arm in 3 places with quick precise moves, twisted its, now very malleable, arm and discharged the gun into the centaur's head. It dropped like a sack.

Having bought some more time, Adam rushed back to the crack. The woman was pale and shaking. The girl clung to her franticly. Adam took the woman's hand again and lifted her into his arms, cradling both the mother and daughter in his protective embrace. Carrying both of them he couldn't move as well as he would have liked in enemy territory, but he managed to evade further pursuit. Before too long he was in his lander powering up for liftoff.

He stepped back into the passenger compartment and looked down at the monitor panels of the docs that held his new passengers. Malnutrition, no surprise there. Shock, cuts and bruises, but they would be ok. Another success. Now, program the launch and into his own doc for his new bullet wound.

[dogscoff]

Nice. I like "humans as the underdogs" stories=-)

[JAFisher44]

Well, you should like this story then, in my little universe there are 1000 registered free humans, the minimum legal amount, maybe half that living free and under the radar, and a couple hundred thousand slaves here and there. other than that we are gone. Earth is a stripped and dead planet, its atmosphere choked with industrial waste and its surface blasted bare.

[dmm]

You mean "maximum", don't you? As in, there is some law that forbids more than 1000 free humans?

Anyway, good story threads. It'll be interesting to see how you weave them.

[JAFisher44]

No, I meant maximum, Galactic law states that any race has the right to continue freely. If one sentient species attacks another, it is bound by law to leave at least 1000 free members of that race alive and free. The rest may be enslaved, killed, or whatever, but law requires that the last 1000 be left to their own devices.