<< Last week’s ship was a side view. This week’s ship is a top view. This one is much larger than last weeks. Just fyi. ty,DD >>
By David C. Daoust
Zhou lowered herself down into the small pod her men had taken to calling a ‘Jacker’. The vehicle was called this for the simple fact, that it was used primarily for high jacking ships. Maybe not the cleverest of names, but she’d never considered her men to be clever. Once she pried herself within the hodgepodge vehicle, the seat, which could hardly be considered such, was little more than a cushion between her legs as she straddled the ridiculously oversized engine that was clearly built for a much larger contraption. She had to scrunch herself down further just so the door would seal her within.
The oversized terminal in front of her flipped on as she started punching buttons, bringing the power online. She could hear, one by one, as the rest of the Jackers were being deployed. Each one was launched from the side of the ship, appearing as escape pods to any that may notice the act. Mainly because they actually were escape pods, just highly modified.
Zhou still couldn’t believe that traitor scum foreman had screwed her so royally. And just the fact, that he thought, she would see the Stockades… the idiot! He may as well blown-up her ship himself. Pirates were not well liked among the Royal Alliance. ‘Shoot on sight’ was a standing order from most Viceroys -they had enough competition against the Consortium, without then losing even more to Pirates.
It was a bit of a gamble that the battleship would not also target the small pods as they punched from the Black Bruise. But really, the whole plan was a gamble, they had never gone after a ship this size. Easily ten times the size of the Bruise. The whole thing was crazy! Crazy was her bread and butter though, and her men would follow her to the edge of the galaxy. Though, notably, to all those left without a Jacker, they just watched their beloved captain abandon ship, leaving them to crash-land onto a moon…
‘Problems for another day,’ Zhou dismissed the thought just as her modified pod suddenly slid into position and popped out the side of her starship, the thought that she may never again see this ship, barely registered in her mind, as she steeled herself for what was to come.
The monitor in front of her was filled with the blackness of space, the standard thrusters of the escape pods, were enough to steady her. It took her a moment of searching, carefully firing her thrusters, to get herself lined up, but eventually she had the Battleship, still chasing the much smaller Swiftblade, within her cross-hairs as she drifted through the nothing.
Zhou could monitor the rest of her raiders as well. Each one was drifting steadily, not really in a formation- They’d learned a long time ago that any organization among the pods, tended to tip off the target. So they drifted as naturally as possible, while still positioning for their strike.
It was likely that the Alliance crew had never witnessed their tactics, not surprising, considering most Pirates did not have access to Zhou’s funds. Clearly the captain had given the order to ignore the pods, because the ridiculous amount of turrets on the Lawbringer did not pick them off one by one, as they easily could have.
It was just a matter of waiting ‘til their target moved within range.
The Jacker was built around an old fashioned Javelin, a weapon used near the end of the Factions War. It was able to fire a short-range burst, to punch a hole through even the most powerful of shields. Though rather than firing a laser, to destroy the targeted systems, as was done in the war, instead, the Jacker launched itself, not only through the shield, but then to impale the ship, burrowing deep through the hull. Not to destroy the system, but to fuse with it, to override the systems, stripping those in command of the ship- of those functions.
The small light at her terminal began flashing yellow, which meant she was zeroing in on her target. More and more of her men were getting into position, as the battleship sped after the bruise. For the most part they would all launch at once, because once they started their assault, those aboard would know it. Anyone left drifting would probably be blown out of the sky.
It was a tricky business high jacking ships, trial and error had taught them much. They had regularly updated their targeting software, and all those men, each within their own pod, had done this easily a hundred times by now. Nothing beat hands-on experience.
As soon as her light flashed red, she gripped the cushion tight between her legs, and with a bellowing battle cry she launched the pod, full thrust, at the floating wall in the distance.
Just as she reached the shield, she triggered her javelin, the shield bowed and burst as she punched straight into the ship, the laser like tip of her pod cut deep through the hull of the battleship, the components of the pod itself branching out through the vital system cluster, like tentacles. Not only to route the systems, but to patch the whole behind her as the Jacker burrowed through the metal frame.
She read the return as more and more of her men successfully drilled into the Royal Alliance battleship. More and more of the systems, which at first flickered off, were, one by one, rewired to her terminal.
The strategy itself was far more complex than anything anyone else was doing, and it was largely thanks to Zhou’s in depth knowledge of the intricate details of the Ark-Law (which was all in thanks to her heritage) that allowed them to pull it off. Zhou knew that an unmanned device, able to complete these actions, would be considered a ‘drone’ even with one of the three’s AI behind it. But since there was a person within the Jacker, risking his/her life, it was considered a weapon, like a gun. This means the arks will complete the job requested of it. A device programmed to use the strategy would fail, fail every time, because the arks won’t fight in place of humans, only fulfill requests at their direct command. Since she was there to break the shield, since she was there to burrow through the hull, since she was there to reroute the systems to her command, it all went off without a hitch. Only an action requested from those aboard could foil her, and she doubted they had a full grasp of what the pods were doing. It was a subtle difference that confounded those without knowledge of the true AIs. But a difference Zhou had long since worked to her advantage. Zhou alone knew that this was likely the same AI rerouting command, from one terminal to another.
Not that the job was complete, once they’d taken control of the Battleship’s systems. There were still all those pesky Constables within, but that was also why she had targeted the life support systems herself. The oversized canister of knockout gas, which was taking up even more space than the engine within the pod, would be more than efficient at putting an end to their involvement.
Once the pod had fused with the vent systems, she pulled a gas mask over her head and reached down to flip the valve that would release the mixture into the air systems throughout the ship.
Finally, the Jacker burrowed far enough to reach a hallway. She punched the door open, and slid out best she could. She was actually hanging upside down, trying to flip herself to the ground, when the small group of soldiers came around the corner. By their slow reaction, and lack of weapons, they hadn’t expected to find her, anymore than Zhou expected their helmets to be equipped with a gas mask.
‘Cuz right, soldiers got helmets…’ Zhou thought with a grimace.
Still hanging upside down, Zhou immediately whipped out her guns and began firing, forcing them back around the corner. She pulled herself back into the pod, flipped through her systems, tried to locate the rest of her men.
She was on her own.
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