EliteCommander

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen found himself just as lost looking at Jess’ doppelganger, though he did not end up assuming danger like Light. He noticed that Jess called her by name: Becca. So, they knew each other? It definitely felt like they were more than just business associates.

With a glance over at Light, Jess let out a heavy sigh as she shook her head and ran her hand down her face. “What’s happening, Light, is that Becca is my twin sister who definitely shouldn’t be here.” She turned back to Becca. “I hadn’t even told them about you, Becca.”

Becca adopted a slightly accusatory tone. “What, did you bring someone here who isn’t trustworthy?”

“It’s called ‘operational security’, Becca. It don’t matter who is and isn’t trustworthy; you share dangerous info to people only if they absolutely need to know.” Jess snapped back.

It felt like Becca was being a bit aloof and dismissive. “Is that what it’s called, or are you just wanting to sound smart? I say it doesn’t matter, since it’s already done. No going back now.”

Again, Jess sighed. “Guess that’s technically the smartest thing you’ve said today. Look, Light, Sen, nothing’s really changed. You’re still getting paid the same, and we’re still selling this in the end to that other group I mentioned. Becca is just going to be taking a look at the product first. They’ll handle the hand-off, so we don’t got to worry ‘bout that.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

The woman took a moment to notice Light, before she realized he was speaking to her. She looked up at him, initially confused, before replying. She sounded different from Jess. “Hmm? Oh, apologies. There is just a misunderstanding…”

A shout in a much more familiar voice interrupted from nearby. “Becca!? What the hell are you doing here!?”

Jess kicked off of the nearest wall to float over to the group, catching herself on the crates, though her attention was quite firmly on the other Human. Despite Jess’ shouting, the other woman kept entirely composed. “Taking the cargo, like we planned…”

“No, what are you doing here, Becca? Others could have handled it. There is absolutely no reason for you to be out on this rock. Such a stupid...moronic, unnecessary risk!” Jess shouted.

The other woman crossed her arms, seeming to stand her ground. “As if you have any right to tell me that. Risk is not just for you, Jess, and I am not just going to stay cooped up in an office for this. Besides, the operation always moves much more efficiently with my personal touch.”

With them standing face-to-face, even an alien could see that those faces were near identical. Senjen stayed silent through the whole exchange and just looked over at Light with a confused shrug.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Light could hear Jess let out a sigh. “Well...speak if spoken to, obviously. Don’t be rude or hostile to them. I just mean...try to let me take the lead, is all.”

With the almost negligible gravity of the asteroid beneath them, Light had to bring the ship down onto the pad and keep it in place with downthrust until the clamps could secure the ship. From there, they had to wait for a short time for the portion of the hangar they set down in to pressurize. It was separated from the loading area by an inner hangar door, which opened once the area was pressurized and the outer door sealed.

Despite the talk before of them being home free, Senjen still could not help but to feel a bit nervous. He had never sold illicit cargo before. Well...except for the one time on his first job with Light, and that had not exactly gone well. Technically, they had not violated any laws of Korit, nor done anything that would violate interstellar treaties on salvage rights, but that did not mean the company they had salvaged from would not be willing to take it back by force.

In any case, Senjen tried to at least act like he was keeping a cool head. He and Light headed to the cargo hold to wrangle the pair of crates they were selling. They were easy enough to move around in near zero-G, but it was easier to have Light’s help to get them both out at once without losing control of them.

Outside the ship, they could see what looked like three guards, all Human. They wore simple, black, full-body armor with closed helmets. All of them were the exact same model of armor, but with absolutely no markings. They were armed, but their weapons were holstered, and they were keeping their distance, with electromagnetic boots allowing them to stand comfortably on the hangar floor. There was another pair of Humans in suits that Jess went for immediately to speak to, leaving Light and Senjen to handle the cargo.

Next to the landing pad, there was a cargo platform on a rail for unloading ships, so the pair took a few minutes while Jess was handling the deal to get the crates on the platform, strapped down, and secured. It kept the pair distracted for a few minutes, so they did not see the person who approached them until she started inspecting one of the crates next to Light. It appeared to be...Jess. Her face certainly looked like Jess, she was wearing a formal business suit, which was most certainly not what she had been wearing just a few minutes ago.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

“Ah, well…” Senjen hesitated. It was a relief that they had gotten away without issue, and it was actually safe to relax. Jess had already stepped away to get out of her environment suit, so it seemed like they were actually in the clear. There was not yet any known damage to the ship, and even if there was, he probably would not be the one who ended up fixing it. For now, the only thing left was to wait. “...I guess it pushed crates well? I didn’t really get to put the new frame to use on this job. A good thing, I guess, since that would mean something was shooting at us. Still, it would be nice to put it through some real tests sometime. Just...hopefully not on this job. The only thing left is to hand off the cargo, and I’d really rather there not be any shooting there...unless one of them wanted to go target shooting for fun, maybe?” He took a few, quick moments in thought, then shook his head. “Ah, you know what I mean.”

---

The group needed only occupy themselves for roughly a day before they reached their destination. Unlike the pulsar they had just visited, this was a normal, main sequence star that was unremarkable in just about any way, so it was much easier to approach. It was safe to simply exit FTL near to the asteroid itself

Being near enough to the asteroid, detecting the outpost buried inside was easy enough. It was quite a large asteroid, though not enough to hold a spherical shape. Most of the structure was underground, with only a hangar door, currently closed, on the surface to allow ships to land. Fortunately, the hangar looked to be generously large, so their ship would not have trouble fitting inside.

Jess floated up behind Light, holding herself in place in the doorway to the cockpit. “Okay, I’ll send ahead a message to let ‘em know it’s us. Once they open up the hanger, just land and wait for it to re-pressurize, then get the crates out there. They’ll want to inspect them, which is fine. You don’t need to talk to them much, and in fact, I’d really prefer you not. I’ll do the talking, you can just bring them out there and...stand around.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen did not understand what Light was trying to do. He was clearly in a good mood, which was nice, but Senjen just ended up standing like a statue, staring back at Light’s tentacles. Did he want him to swing back? Was he supposed to dodge, or...something else? Ultimately, he settled on trying to give a light, friendly punch to Light’s side, which ended up even more slow and awkward due to the gel.

“Ah...yeah. I mean...yeah! We’re home free now, right? Not like there’s any way to track in FTL, so it’ll be clear to the drop-off.” Senjen finally responded.

Jess unstrapped herself from her seat, then was finally able to unseal and remove the helmet from her suit. “Could you be more overconfident? All it would take is a few decent-sized guns to leave this freighter dead in the water. Yeah it worked, but, ah...shit.” She let out a sigh and relaxed her shoulders. “No, I don’t think even I can be mad about this one right now. You really did good, Light, and that’s no lie. You tracked down that ship in a fraction of the time I thought it was going to take, and that might have honestly saved our asses. Those pirates got sloppy tracking us; probably because they were having to rush just to keep up.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Despite the impact, the other ship was still flying, though it was worse for wear than Light’s. A few pieces of their ship were torn from the hull and dropped to the planet below, but it still managed a relatively quick turn to follow Light’s path. His sensors showed them lining up behind his ship...then simply lingering. For about ten seconds they followed, with neither a hail nor a shot fired, during which time they likely ran their own damage assessment. During the impact, Light had struck their ship’s primary, and only, weapon.

“Looks like they’re breaking off.” Jess’ voice chimed in through their comm channel. She had not gone up to the cockpit, but instead had instead strapped herself in to the first seat she had been able to reach before they launched. The acceleration, and the impact, had rattled her, but she had been secured. She was patched in to the ship’s computer and was following along through its sensor readouts. “I don’t know if you’re that good, or just that lucky Light, but let’s get out of here before that luck gets tested again. Here’s the coordinates for the system we need to head to. It’s on the way back to Korit, about a day away from here. We’re heading to an asteroid orbiting the star, between the second and third planet in the system.”

The star system Jess had marked for them was uninhabited, and of little interest to any major power. It had no habitable planets, no strategic position, and no remarkable quantities or types of resources. Such places were perfect for outlaws, or any others who needed a secret outpost or base, as finding them by chance was like finding a needle in the largest haystack imaginable.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen tucked himself in a corner of the cargo bay with his pistol at the ready, but no one approached their ship. Not before Light managed to get it off the ground. The incoming ship had been trying to stay out of sight and was just about to come into view over the ridge at the edge of a crater. Since Light’s ship had it tagged for a while now on approach, there had been no hiding for it. Though, the other ship’s crew would have no way of knowing that.

Scans from Light’s ship would have been able to reveal a bit more about it by now. He still did not have enough detail to identify a model, nor whether it was armed, but he could tell the ship was smaller, and almost certainly not of Tindrel make. By its size and shape, it was probably more agile, but would not have as robust of a hull.

Light was coming up on the ridge quickly, and the other ship would not be far beyond.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen opened the compartment on his upper thigh and drew one of his pistols. It was the energy weapon he had been using for a few years now. Walking over to the loading ramp, he peered outside and tried to get a good look out over the area. Higher gravity meant flatter terrain overall, but this was a planet with neither geological activity nor an atmosphere. Craters from asteroid impacts remained pretty much permanently, and they created plenty of uneven terrain through which one could hide their approach.

Jess stayed back in the cargo hold, well-away from the entrance. Her breaths were starting to get quicker, which could be heard through the radio. “I hope you know what you’re doing. Your ship isn’t armed, but theirs very well may be.”

Being that Light’s ship was close, it only took a few moments for it to set down just outside. It would make for a much easier and quicker time moving the crates, though as expected, Light soon received an alert that his ship’s sensor array was picking up the other ship taking off as well. They would just have a few minutes to load up the crates.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

“I...wait, hold on! Need to think about this.” Jess shouted, rather unnecessarily loudly through their radio channel. “A ship? And you said it’s parked nearby…” She looked out towards the cargo ramp, then around the hold. It was hard to tell at a glance what might be in the hold with the mess of crates that had been flung around everywhere in the crash, but that did not seem to be what Jess was focusing on. She had already seen the manifest, and she knew there was nothing there that could help them.

“Damn it, could be scavengers, maybe even pirates. Might not be too much of a difference, really. If they’re parked out of sight, that means they’re trying to sneak up on us, and I doubt it’s for anything good. If that’s how they’re doing it, then they’re probably coming over land, trying to get the jump on us. If you call over the ship, then they’ll know they’re out of time, and that will pretty much force them to bring over theirs too. Might be able to get out in time, but it’ll be up to you and your ship to get away with them chasing us.”

Senjen’s hand was hovering over his holster, despite the fact that there was still no signs of life anywhere near them. “You could have she ship set back down, pretend it didn’t detect anything. They’ll probably think they’re still hidden. If we can push the crates out to the ship before they get here, then we could just take off and get out of here without giving them any time to react. We’d definitely be in the clear then.”

Jess shook her head and crossed her arms. “If we can load up the crates in time. That’s one hell of an ‘if’. Because if they manage to get to us first, then we could get caught in a bad position. If we know where their ship is parked, though, then we can make a pretty good guess as to what route they’ll take to get to us. We could find a good ambush point to give us the advantage when it comes down to a gunfight.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

As it turned out, performing another scan of the area was a wise decision. With an expanded scan, the ship’s sensors picked up on an anomaly. There were traces of propellant byproducts the sensors could detect, indicative of a ship that had been boosting quickly. It had not come from their own ship, nor was it left over from the crashed freighter. The only remaining option was that another ship had been nearby, and a more focused scan in that direction would reveal it. It blended well into the terrain, but there was another ship, comparable in size to Light’s, hiding out in a crater a fair distance away. Based on the byproducts the scans detected, it had come in after Light had landed, so the fact that his ship’s passive scans had not detected it meant that it had been trying to approach stealthily. Likely, it had gone wide around the planet and approached from very low altitude to hide itself on sensors. It was out of sight, but close enough that its crew could feasibly reach them over ground, especially if they had vehicles.