We huddled between the containers as the ships swopped in over the asteroid. They were carefully probing the range for one flyover but when no missiles came flying, they got braver. The third time it wasn’t a flyover anymore but a hover over the containers.

“What are we doing and why did the missiles not fire?” Ralgau asked. “Actually, why did none of the turrets fire?”

“I slaved them to manual control when we ran over here. I want to control what happens next… “ I turned in his direction. “Are you ready for something crazy?”

I explained my plan to him on broad strokes. No need to go into fine details, they never worked anyway. More of an idea than a plan anyway.

He snorted. “You are crazy! But it is interesting. And I have a CLON contract. Since I don’t expect to survive this, I might as well get to the station that much quicker. As long as you promise to not hesitate like you did with Ygglog when it becomes a necessity.”

“Can’t promise that but I promise to try. Also it is ‘if’ not when.”

He just grunted. Could be that he agreed, could be that he had something in his throat. Equal chances, really. Then without turning back he made his way to the ore cart hover vehicle thing.

In the meantime the ships had come around once more and were hovering over the claim, close to the loading area. Seems they were scanning for us.

I quickly snuck around that container and disabled the anchors that held it in place. Each of the containers had a built in antigrav unit that could ‘hover’ an empty container in 1g. The idea was that it allowed loading bots to maneuver them into the right position.

“Hello claim, we see that you have had a meteor impact. Anybody alive down there?”

The com request was submitted on open channel. I ignored it. Seems like they didn’t have the best scanners. Better than I hoped.

“Claim, we are willing to render medical assistance if necessary. Please respond.”

Again, we responded with silence. One side of the container was already floating up to about ten centimeters above the rock surface and I made my way to the other side. I disabled the anchoring there as well and floated the container down to just above surface level.

“Asteroid claim, we are landing to check for survivors and render aid.”

Fuck me. If I didn’t recognize the ships from before I would actually trust them. If I wouldn’t see the flashing red icons from the turret sensors I would have asked for pickup. But no, I suspected that these guys were somehow responsible. And even if they didn’t, I am sure that they were here to take advantage of this situation somehow. So my plan didn’t involve asking them for help.

It didn’t take long for one of the ships to settle down on the surface of our temporary home. I snuck a peak around the container corner and saw that the hatch of the ship opened and two people in cav suits jumped out, plasma rifles in hands. Medical aid my ass.

They looked around for a moment before splitting up. One heading towards the containers, the other towards the shelter area. Shit, I had to make up my mind now. Target or goal priority. Target priority would be the person heading towards the containers, landed ship, flying ship, shelter checker. Goal priority was different. The people running around on foot were way low in that order.

The person checking the container area made the decision for me, namely by stepping into the space between the unanchored one and the one next to it. There were maybe three meters of space between them and he walked in the middle of that space, attentive but with his plasma rifle held loosely in his hands. Not trained in urban warfare I concluded. Which this basically was or at least what it reminded me of. Narrow hallway, aisles to either side - similar to the door to door training exercises we had run.

I waited until he was halfway between the two ten meter long containers. They were three meters high. With 0.4g and some strength and agility enhancement he could probably clear the height between them. I hoped he would notice too late or didn’t have any implants for these stats when I whispered “Go!” into my com and sprinted towards the landed ship.

I didn’t look back but seeing the red dot disappear on my hud showed me that the plan up to this point was working. Ralgau had used the Ore sled to push on the not anchored container creating a plasteel and Red Moon sandwich. I wasn’t sure that would work but it went better than anticipated. Now the rest just needed to work out too.

I was about ten meters from the landed ship’s hatch when I saw the red dot from the shelter head in my direction. A step later I saw him. He brought his rifle up and instead of aiming for forward movement I pushed to sail high. As I was coming down towards the asteroid surface again I saw a green plasma discharge liquefy a part of the stone and spray shrapnel in all directions. What I didn’t see was the fistsized rock that hit me in my upper thigh.

Object A, roughly Quirt-sized, is traveling in one direction. Object B is of smaller size and weight but higher velocity travels on a different trajectory. Objects A and B collide. Calculate the impact that the collision has on Object A.

Well, this impact was not something that ever came up in math class: I screamed into my helmet. Fuck that hurt. As in the: Something-must-be-broken kind of hurt. Of course pain wasn't the only problem because the impact had added a spin to my course. One moment I was seeing the floor come closer and I am preparing myself to land. The next moment I was looking out into space, my legs forcefully knocked out from under me.

I had no idea how far I would spin. So I rolled up as much as I could, unconsciously held my breath and hoped that I would come down in a somewhat controlled fashion. Next thing I knew was more pain, crashing my right shoulder and arm into the rock. My head whipped to the side and smacked into the ground. Good thing the gravity was 0.4 because this would have hurt a lot more if it would have been higher. Of course, I wouldn’t have jumped so high either. 70% health remaining.

I rolled over onto my stomach and looked into the shooter’s direction seeing him duck behind a stack of mining supplies as a plasma bolt from the other side burned into the supplies. I grabbed my flechette that had been jostled out of my hand as I bounced on the asteroid and started crawl-floating towards the ship.

I needed to get some skill for low and no gravity movement and combat. This was ridiculous. It was like moving underwater. Not the resistance but the speed. Everything seemed to move slow - minus the plasma bolts. I needed to get out of the open quickly but couldn’t. Instead I pushed my legs up slightly and then used my hands to walk myself forward in the hopes of providing less of a target.

Push off, step, step, step. Push off, step, step, step. All the while my head darting back and forth, making sure the shooter wasn’t taking aim and checking if I would make it to the ship. My shoulder and arm still hurting from the impact and my head pounding from the adrenaline and the blow I had taken.

In the end, it didn’t take me that long to get to the shuttle, especially as the pain seemed to recede seconds after the impact. I needed to talk to someone about this. I totally forgot. A) Why was this still so painful and b) what was up with it going away so quick after?

Shelter Checker was still pinned down but stuck his arm and rifle over the pile of supplies and fired a few unaimed shots in my direction. Nothing hit me but one of them hit the ship and left a scorch mark on the side of the hatch.

You know what the most surreal thing about fighting like this is? I mean the lack of gravity is weird, sure. But the lack of sound is totally mind breaking. When the containers crashed I did not hear screeching of metal or the scream of the person being squished between them. I didn’t hear shots being fired or the impacts or sizzles or whatever sound plasma bolts were making. I did not hear the thrusters on the ship flaring. All I heard were my own painful grunts, heavy breathing and my heart racing.

I managed to get into the hatch of the ship just as it lifted off. Catching myself on the side of the corridor with my uninjured shoulder I was able to stay up right and keep hold of my flechette. About ten meters away I saw the head of the pilot poke out above the backrest.

Instead of shooting from here and hoping I didn’t damage the cockpit I made my way closer to him. He had not reacted to me being in the ship so I guess he was not aware of me yet and I hoped it would last for a bit longer.

And that thought must have jinxed it. I was five meters away when he suddenly fumbled for the gun at his side and started looking over his shoulder. Not sure how he figured it out, maybe his buddy told him. I did not ask him and instead aimed with my fucked up arm and pulled the trigger.

Since my fight on the station I had a slightly better idea of how the weapon would respond and was able to keep it on target. I mean the flechette did not really have a recoil per se but it did have this weird kind of auto fire and that made the weapon vibrate in my hand. That reinforced the lesson my old academy instructor had given me: Don’t try to use a weapon in combat that you don’t know. Which wouldn’t have been a problem with a whole bunch of real world and simulated weapons because of my gaming career. But since I never really played sci-fi RPGs before, I had nothing to rely on and should have tested the weapon before using it. Note to self...

Anyway, I kept it on target and nailed a whole bunch of the needle-like darts into his shoulder and the side of his helmet while he struggled to turn to me and bring his own weapon up. He didn’t get there. A ship filled with a whole lot of, quite literally, nothing and a bunch of holes in your vac suit didn’t go well hand in hand.

Of course it wasn’t instantaneous. While the pilot struggled I activated the turrets. The second ship had already taken off and was barreling out of laser range. Should I let it go? I mentally marked the ship I was in as yellow and gave the laser turrets the fire command. The AI would take care of the rest. If it finished the ship, all good. If it didn’t, all good too.

“Ralgau, how are things down there?”

“Still exchanging fire. He is dug in and I don’t have the skills to do anything about it.”

“Let me see if I can distract him.”

By now I had made my way to the pilot who was still struggling but weakly. I felt bad because it must be a horrible way to die and I decided that I didn’t now ever want to go that way. Especially not if I would remember it. Then my eyes fell on his weapon which he was still weakly trying to pull from his holster.

I holstered the flechette, roughly shoved his hand out of the way and pulled his plasma pistol. Looked like plasma was the preferred weaponry of the Red Moon, or at least this ship’s crew. I put the muzzle close’ish to his head, closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. Fucking execution style.

Small Arms skill increased.

Current Skill Level: 5 / 100

I hated myself. Then I reminded myself that this was a game and I had killed an NPC. Just an NPC. Shit was too real. I pushed him out of his seat and slid into it myself.