Cop Story

Ashes in the fall
By: The Lone Gunman AKA Matthew J. Stewart
Rouges short <= 2500 words


Translunar space
Ambrosia to Olympus Prime
Olympus System, Corporate Sector Authority (international territory)
20th November 2209 A.D.


“Masedude?”
“It’s MAZEDUDE! While you’re in my ship, you WILL pronounce the names correctly!”
“Just where do you find these people? This song is pre-contact for goodness sake!”
Allison “The Freak” Mack was more fidgety than normal this morning. Was it her new gunner? No, nothing about Elisa was worrisome, or else she wouldn’t be on the ship in the first place. Was it the ship? No, the Lawman was running as smooth as ever, temp was steady, the inertial damper was smooth, no solar storms today…nope, no reason for today to be any different from yesterday. Still, as a member of the Olympus Prime’s Police Department’s Heavy Squad, if she was called, it would to provide heavy weapons support for the orbital district. Last time she was called, a drunken aerospacer pilot flew too close to a transport, and they needed someone heavy to hook him and hold him down as they hacked his ship. Other than that, it was random scans and inspections of the many ships that went too and from Olympus Prime.
Ah well, at least she could break in Elisa to her love of electronicica. Her ship (more or less), her music. She leaned left to get a glimpse of her new gunner in that small gap between her console and the cockpit bulkhead. Elisa Rosencrantz, a native of Olympus Prime, joined the force in ’05, top scores in interplanetary navigation, blah, blah, blah. The brunette didn’t have much experience outside the office, she tracked down some hackers for a few months, but this was her first full 3-month shift in the confines of a space ship. So far, they’ve gotten along pretty well, although nothing has happened outside a few scans and escort. Truth was, she may not see action for a while, since the Lawman was meant to be one of the O.P.P.D.’s big guns, and the standard patrol runners were more than enough for most civilian situations. Good for them, bad for her.
“Sky control, this is OPPD Heavy Six, coming on duty, repeat, Heavy Six reporting for duty. What’s new today Jeff?”
“Message received, morning Freak. Stand by while I update your checklist. FYI, nothing interesting today, just the usual.”
“Freak?”
“You herd it right. From the academy, I out flew everyone, including the instructors, with most of the ‘safeties’ off or low.”
“I remember now. Sergeant Raleigh requested a transfer to Pantheon after he flew with you, said that you were the last person he wanted to fly with.”
“So I took a few years off his life, he passed me, didn’t he? What about you, you nervous about flying with the Freak?”
“Actually, I joined to get some piece and quiet. After all, the only way we’d see any action is if everything is going to hell.”
All of the sudden, the radio blared: “11-99! 11-99, All units, 11-99 at 140 deg-”
The call was cut off by two screams, one of pain, the other the high whistle of the air escaping after a hull breach. 11-99. Officer needs assistance. Just what the hell was going on?
“Looks like you spoke to soon, Sky, what the hell is going on?!”
“Heavy Six, Heavy Six, this is sky control, we have a 12-73 (Aerovehicular attack on officer) in progress at…”
The air grew stiff as Allison shifted the fusion bulb to high thrust, the inertial damper lessening, but not eliminating, the immense gees the engine torch produced as they rocketed towards the given coordinates. Elisa squinted, off on the distance, obscured by the planet’s surface were five specks of light dancing across the sky. As the dance moved to the night side, she zoomed in with the ships camera. Four of the specks were police runners, the bread and butter of the orbital district’s fleet. The fifth was an odd looking craft that looked like a dog’s head, if the ears were thruster pods, the skull the engine, and the snout…a giant gattling gun with a cockpit under the base. One of the runners fired it’s machine guns at the odd craft, but it simply jetted to the side and responded with its own gun, ripping the runner to shreds, nearly bisecting it entirely, joining the floating carcasses of THREE other runners.
On one of her screens, Allison saw the carnage as well. “Damn.”
“Oh my god,” Was all Elisa could muster. She learned in flight that despite the constant scans, heavy ship weapons could still be smuggled in system, but she never thought she’d see something like that, much less face it. A bad attitude for a cop, but the odds of finding an illegal STS weapon…was pretty good right now.
Allison recognized the craft as a Doberman class gunfighter, a small gunship that relied a little too much on it’s thrusters for travel (small main engine), but for that same fact was a deadly opponent in space, where maneuverability was key. The small size and huge gun (Looked like a GAU-10, a gauss powered variant of the legendary tank-busting GAU-8) meant a small profile to hit, the oversized thrusters were going to make it harder, the GAU-10 could chew them up, and the perp must be nearly, if not already, dry of fuel from all the dodging. If the guy could get further out into space, the Doberman would outmaneuver them, maybe even escape if he shot all of them up first. Had to drain him totally dry…
By now, the Lawman was pointed at the planet, and was flying just on the outer fringe of the planet’s gravity well. That gave Allison an idea…
“Elisa, force him down!”
The Lawman’s nose mounted quad turret swerved to life, the 30mm cannons shook the ship as explosive rounds traveling at six Kps (kilometers per second) raced away. About twenty km from the dogfight, it took a little over three seconds for the cans to reach him, but it had the desired effect of forcing him to dip into the planets well, forcing him to amp up his speed to compensate for the more noticeable pull. By now, Allison was in full stop, forward and any forward facing thrusters blasting high thrust plasma; the ID field ramped ALL the way up to eat up as much inertial motion (which wasn’t much) as it could, thus furthering the slowdown. In two seconds, she could maneuver without worrying about still heading towards the planet, which was good because in about three seconds a salvo of depleted uranium shells fired from the Doberman would reach their current position. At the last second, the ship lurched starboard, making the rounds wasted ammo.
At this point, the main engine was silent, ready to provide needed force in an instant, but the thrusters were the focal point in this dogfight. Instead of racing around on long plumes of heated plasma, they would dance on redirected engine plasma, dodging, turning and fighting in a deadly tango to the death. Well, not to the death, Allison thought as she fired a takedown drone.
The little drone was designed to latch on to a perp’s ship, eat through the armor with molecular acid, and hack the controls of the ship, bring it under the control of the police. Today, the expensive little drone was meant as nothing more as a distraction as it barreled towards the incoming cop killer. The drone flew motor first towards the Doberman as it flew towards the Lawman. At his speed, if the drone tried latching on, it would rip the craft apart like a car hitting a flag post at 140 Kph. Would he-YES, the Doberman adjusted it’s course to blast the drone, and Allison jetted the Lawman, to port, providing an excellent position for Elisa to blast the perp. The Drone eroded under a hailstorm of depleted uranium as the gunfighter jutted starboard to avoid the debris cloud. At the same time, the Lawman’s quad-gun launched a storm of cans, rounds that broke up in flight to strike the target with a storm of shrapnel. The Doberman’s pilot rotated the craft to let the gun and mount shield the rest of the fragile gunfighter. To the cops frustration, most of the shrapnel was met with a wall of resonate energy from a shield projector. The wall flared, and then dissipated under the many powerful impacts, letting the last few bits impact the hull with tremendous velocity. The energy from those high speed impacts, wile rivaling that of some bombs, was not enough to crack or pierce the hull to Allison’s disappointment, but at least it left some wicked dents.
“This is getting ridiculous.” A shield projector, slabs of military strength armor, a huge, overpowering gun, AND high powered thrusters? The little gunfighter was a bloody pocket frigate! It MUST be bone dry by now. Apparently, the remaining cops thought so too, as one launched a low-speed tow cable at the ship, now apparently lifeless as the only change in velocity or speed was from the officer’s cables none too gently tugging him to a more manageable speed.
“Attention Pilot,” ordered the officer. “You will eject the command pod from your ship now, or I WILL shoot you down you murderous son-of-a-bitch!”
The cop’s ultimatum dripped with anger, Allison could picture him holding back tears and thought of revenge, the only thought on his mind was to not grant this cop-killer the sweet embrace of death, rather have him live the rest of his life in jail, or (more favorable at the moment) be put to death. The Doberman rotated on the whispers of vented atmo (so he is dry), not to bear his gun at the officer, but rather to turn his back to him. Allison was relived that the pilot didn’t try to shoot him, but relief turned to fear as a cold, icy voice emerged from the open frequency.
“Nice try blue boy, but you’ve just handed me my golden ticket!”
The Doberman’s gun blared in unison with the forward thrusters, providing the necessary forward thrust to rocket the ship backwards into the runner, both colliding with a gut-wrenching but silent smash. Miraculously, both ships survived, but the celebration was short lived as the Doberman’s claw-like landing gear emerged and contorted to grab the runner, now twisting and turning in a futile effort to shake the perp off.
Allison keyed in the officer’s COM code. “Dammit, stop moving, my gunner can’t get a clear shot! Elisa, load the AP rounds.”
“Right, Armor piercing rounds ready in…just what the hell is that?”
Allison squinted at the tangled mass of metal in front of them, trying to deduce just what Elisa was talking about…She saw it as it flashed by: a segmented tube that led from the runner’s fuel pods to the Doberman. Realization and dread dawned on her: the Doberman was refueling!
“This is Heavy six to Runner Gamma 3-4 and Runner Gamma 3-5: GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE! The Perp is sucking Gamma 3-1 dry, so this fight is just getting started! Be ready to perform an in-well pickup!”
“Gamma 3-4, 10-4, retreating to twenty km and calling for additional backup, until then, you’re on your own Heavy six. Good luck Freak.”
Allison adjusted magnetogravimetric nozzles, attuned the plasma flow system, brought up the shields, anything and everything she could do to ready herself for the coming fight. “Elisa, make sure you’re strapped in good, were going to be pulling quite a few gees, and the ID field may be off for some maneuvers. You ready?”
“What, I have a choice?” responded Elisa playfully. “I may not have expected combat, but I am ready for anything.”
Nervous silence filled the cockpit as the Doberman hopped off the back of the Runner, now limping away on the weak backup chemical motors wile the Doberman faced the Lawman on stolen fuel. Once again, the chilly voice of the deadly pilot filled the air.
“Allison Mack, Call sign ‘Freak’, Commander of the Bulldog class Lawman, member of the OPPD’s Heavy squadron. I had hoped my little escapade would attract the attention of your illustrious squadron, but to have you yourself in the flesh…well, this is just my day.”
“Just who the hell are you, and why are you so happy to be facing down the toughest cop in Olympus?
“Jonas Styx. Professional mercenary, at your service.”
“Yea, I remember reading about you. You’re not a merc, you’re a professional cop-killer! Why are you here?”
“Why else do I come to this retched excuse for civilization? To do my job, cleaning house for a few clients, but you’ll have to ask God whom I’m talking about once I send you to the afterlife!”
And with that, Jonas rocketed forwarded, shaking his craft firing his main gun to widen the storm or rounds. Allison jetted starboard, dodging most of the rounds but a few hit the starboard shield plane, the impacts almost ripping the field apart. Allison cursed, the shield was almost shot (only at 20% integrity!) and the emitter itself was damaged from the dammed voodoo effect. Also, he had closed in during their little conversation, giving her barely a second to react. Well, she though, she can play his game. She loosed the Lawman’s main engine and shot towards Jonas closing in to about three km as Elisa attempted to shoot Jonas down. Styx boosted away, returning the favor.
Their dance became a brawl as the parties closed in close, no longer was any dodging possible, and now the challenge was to stay out of the sights of the other. The Lawman flew true on its overpowered thrusters, but the Doberman’s small mass proved to be a hard target, and already, the Lawman had taken a few hits. All it took was one hole in the hull, and then the tensile field strengthening the hull would be broken, reducing it’s incredible toughness…well, that’s an idea.
“Elisa, hold on!” Allison closed the distance with Jonas further. This close, she could see Jonas inside the cockpit, a well-dressed man with scraggly black hair and a cold smile, and he was looking at her, seeing a small redheaded girl with a mischievous smile on her face. Jonas rotated the Doberman towards Allison, but the brick-like Lawman proved quite nimble as it shot down (from Jonas’s perspective) then up as it rammed the gunfighter. The heavy craft was much different than the lighter Police Runner of earlier, as a thousand tons of military strength armor crunched the underbelly as the light gunfighter bounced off. “Shoot the engine!”
Elisa shot up the bulbous fusion engine, turning the expensive hardware into metallic Swiss cheese. The command pod ejected, allowing Allison a sigh of relief.