Dangerous Toys (Part Twenty)

Genie’s first move was to seal up her ship and kick her engines up to ‘suicidal’. She didn’t carry passengers so it was unlikely to squash much. She double-checked that she hadn’t got any passengers. No-one wanted a repeat of that event, it had taken a week to clean the cabin. She hung her Avatar in the closet and hummed her way through her networks. Today she could blow seven shades of hell out of these scumbags and there would be no complaints. Internally she felt that the XCC were the wrong sort of bastards, always trying to be nice. She could save Loki and the puppy and everyone would be happy. Oh, and the Engineer. Probably most of the others. Whatever. She began to rise from the swirling clouds of gas with a smile.

Patrica was currently swearing softy as she came into range of more and more of the Incice pirates. Her shields were solid for now, but she had nothing to shoot back with. Oscars rocks were keeping them busy and her flares were throwing their aim but she needed weapons. Loki was growling at the screens. One of the Incice seemed to be in distress, its shields flickering and its power erratic. One of her flares must have reached the systems. “Oscar, can you predict when that bastard is going to lose shields?” Her AI ran a quick scan, “Every third cycle if it is a standard build. It appears to be repairing, however.” Patrica growled, “Point whatever we have at that ship and make sure it hits their engines as the shields flicker. Let’s see if we can make an impression.”

The so-called weapons array on the Dangerous Toys amounted to little more than collision protection. There had been no piracy in human systems for years and they probably hadn’t been upgraded since they were built. She had never even looked at them. She guessed they had never been fired in anger. What happened next was a real surprise when a military-grade plasma beam suddenly cut the enemy engines in half and blew the ship to shrapnel. Out loud she swore, “What the fuck was that? Oscar do a scan of our weapons. That is not on the specs.” Suddenly she realised. This was a pirate ship, of course they had hidden shit like this. “Oscar, do a full scan for other weapons systems onboard. Whatever the pirates built, find it and fire it. Full defensive fire until we reach the Genie.”

Three people were currently sharing her surprise. The Incice AI was trying to calculate if it had been a fluke hit when one of his ships had lost shields, Genie was pissed that the little trader was killing her prey and Oscar was finding he had lots more guns. They all shared a similar reaction and opened fire. Blinding plasma filled the space between them.

Whatever the surprise when the Dangerous Toys shot one of his ships out of space, it was as nothing when the Genie rose from the depths of the gas planet at a speed that left a firestorm behind her. She swamped all the wavelength she could with a traditional war song, probably to disrupt coordination but mostly because she liked to rock out. She was no little trader truck, she was built to fight any war that mankind might face and enjoy it. The Incice fleet now felt the full range of her weapons to the sound of ‘Killing in the Name’. Her speed was such that no immediate firing solution appeared and for the first and closest three frigates that was too late. She grinned with the hat-trick, “Dangerous Toys, you might want to get behind me. This is going to get messy.”

Patrica swore as she watched the carnage. Four of the enemy were now falling in pieces towards the planet. The Genie was moving too fast to stay in her cover. Rabid bitch was too keen on shooting things. “Oscar stay as close as you can and pass the weapons to my control. I need you on shields and engines. Take the power from wherever you need it.” She called /Longnose/, “Sir, get the men into the lifepods. This might go wrong quickly.”

/Longnose/ watched as a dark ship erupted from the gas giant. Technically he knew it was human but it certainly didn’t look like it. It was just a weapon. Patrica had mumbled something about the human-AI alliance and left it at that. It was four times the size of his ship and built out of pure human tech. It practically stank of /suddendeathmachine threat/. He remembered that humans weren’t allowed to work on other peoples weapons. He was suddenly glad about that. He turned to the crew, “Alright, hit the pods. Our Engineer has brought her friends but I want you ready. I’ll launch from here if needed. Go.” He turned to his head of security. “Get our guests into the pods but keep an eye on them.”

He picked up /Scentofhappy/ and handed her to the Security chief. “Mind her. Shoot anything that tries to hurt her.” The startled Chief saluted, “Aye Captain.” The Captain leaned in close to the unhappy dog, ‘/PackleaderKeepsPuppiesSafe/Guard/Love/’ His puppy whined a bit but then sniffed ‘/ScentofhappyBravelikeLoki/GuardBadHunter/’ The Captain smiled, ‘/Brave/GuardWell/’

Patrica began deep-breathing, trying to keep track of her enemies. The Genie was doing some mad dance through their forces while Oscar desperately tried to keep up. The Incice fleet had stopped shooting at her, preferring to try and kill this mad machine that had appeared from the dark. Patrica decided to teach them to pay attention to her. Fuckers were trying to kill her dog. She picked out one of the Genies victims as it struggled to repair and slammed everything she had into the engines again. It erupted in a satisfying ball of debris. She went looking for the next one.

Genie laughed out loud when the little ship swooped in and stole her kill. Good girl. She decided to leave a few more for her to play with.

The Wellerman was pushing the ships to their limit when he hit the system. He could smell the plasma burning the moment he tracked into normal space. He could also hear the singing. Out loud he groaned, “What the fuck is she doing here?” He commed his five ships, “Alright new plan. The incice fleet, poor bastards, are busy. We are going directly to the Dangerous Toys and covering her retreat. This engagement is level-eight, so I never want to hear a word about it again. I’m sure your bonus will help you remember that. Good luck. Crew to weapons.”

Genie was enjoying herself when the Wellerman pinged into the system. Ugg. She decided to save time, “Hi dad, nice of you you to drop in. I didn’t think you ever left your sandbox.”

Patrica was feeling like perhaps the Genie was taking the piss. She wasn’t bothering to finish off any of the enemies, leaving injured and broken ships for her to deal with. Fine, except that she didn’t have the speed or power to do it. Now that they knew she carried heavy weapons they were punishing the ship. Her ship was only surviving through Oscar’s heroic efforts and her blind faith in picking targets but they were going to run out of luck or power. She turned, /Loki/Suit/Now/’ Her dog sniffed and went to pick up his suit. It was currently his favourite blanket.

Oscar spoke out, “Engineer, the Wellerman has arrived in the system. We are to await his ships and break for the Orbital. He said, and this is a direct quote, “Let Genie look after these poor bastards”. Query?”

Patrica smiled briefly. “I guess they have met before. Plot our way to the Wellerman and give me an ETA. We will break for the Orbital once they have us covered. In the meantime, we fight on. Eyes front Oscar.”

The Incice AI was struggling. The unknown ship was far more lethal than his own ships and he was unable to mass his fleet against it because the Dangerous Toys was far more heavily armed and shielded than reported. The pair were splitting his fleet and causing havoc. Just as he geared his ships up to the dual-threat he picked up a new human fleet arriving in the system. He could not face a triple-sided engagement. He decided to fulfil his initial orders. The Dangerous Toys must perish.

Another of his ships fell to the dark ship, lost in some mad dance of plasma that he couldn’t calculate. Enough. He turned his ships to the Dangerous Toys and began firing, picking up as much speed as they could and ignoring the damage from the murderous stranger. He set them all on a suicide run. It only needed one.