Last Run

        In this day and age with the human race spread across the galaxy we have turned to the vastness of space to supply our ever growing need.

They tried mining on the inhospitable ore rich giants but it never proved cost effective what with how fast workers died off and the costs of shipping the ore across the galaxy. For a while there humanity's expansions seemed to be grinding to a halt but the invention of one William Bundle, the grumbling of the colonies and the initiative of a few adventurous capitalists, considered ill advised idealists at the time, eventually led to the tapping of the resource that now provides eighty nine point eight percent of our mineral ore today, asteroids.

    About seventy years after their first endeavor that made them the richest men in the galaxy is where I come in. Name is John Nolastname or at least that’s what I'm entered as in the company police's database but I mostly just go by John. I've had a dozen or so last names, but I mostly just go by John. I figure when you spend nineteen out of twenty cycles in a ship with only six crew including yourself you don't really need a last name. Our place, my crew and I, is on the outer edge of the modern business world. The way I see it there are two kinds of capitalists these days those that play by the rules they write and those that ignore the rules altogether.

      My shipmates and I are of the latter variety; call us what you like thieves, pirates, clinically insane. We're the kids cutting the trillionares purse when his guards aren't looking...and then drinking it away in his cantina. To put is simply, we hijack asteroids, well usually bits of them. I started out working legitimate for the company as a cable man. You see asteroids are collected in extended trips into the depths of space and transported in great lines of extraterrestrial rock held in a long tail behind a massive tug ship. The connecting cables are some twenty meters around and strong enough to guarantee delivery, at least when I'm not around.

      It was my job to function as one of many stationed on one of the asteroids in a chain, first securing and then constantly monitoring the hold of the grips we bolted into the surface of the asteroids to attach the connecting cables to. It involved long periods of jetting from one asteroid to the next visually checking the bolts and grips and clamps and various other aspects of the bundle system. I was the back up to a system of sensors that had never failed. Why did I go pirate? Well maybe it was because the company decided the automated system was good enough without us cable men and our danger pay or maybe youthful poor judgment, also greed, but mostly just the boredom of the unemployed.

    At any rate I've been in this game for twenty one years now and that’s a long time in any business let alone one like mine. After all those years what have I got out of it?  Well a number of things connections, a top of the line if small starship, a few good comrades. To be honest I'm tired and getting old nearly forty, so I think this will be my last run, either because I'll be so filthy rich I can retire in style or because I'll be somewhere I have no use for riches. This is going to be the big one.         

      Normally what we do is hit a rich asteroid with a few blasts from the ships cannons or a burrowing self destructing robot if we really want to break it up. Then we pick up whatever pieces the company leaves behind and sell them off under the table for less than half of market value. This time we're going for a whole one. Why not just go find one in space and haul it in myself? Well the company has sole rights to collect and sell asteroids, as I said they write the rules. A good accountant can hide our usual stuff but there's no way to fence something that big. So why bother since you won't be able to sell it? The plan is to grab one made up almost entirely of tri..mi...anyway its rare and valuable that’s Mick's department. We'd then sell it back to the company simple enough. I hope. The difficult part will be acquiring it, the company commanders are pragmatists and half of something is better than all of nothing. Most experts, who by the way work for the company, will tell you that it is impossible to hijack an entire asteroid and they are almost certainly right. Every asteroid in a chain is protected on three fronts. The first is an extensive system of sensors on each of the asteroids telling the tug if the grip or cables are being tampered with in anyway, secondly company fighters patrol up and down the asteroids piloted by psychotic cyborgs who would sooner self destruct than give up an asteroid, and thirdly every asteroid is implanted with a tracking device that is very difficult to detach and tough enough to make it impossible to destroy quietly. Like I said they're almost certainly right.

      The reason why no one has successfully attempted such a theft as I have in mind is because they don't have my ace in the hole. KI8L97STW832YU that is the personal security code of James Francis Morrows the company COO (chief of operations) at least for the fifth sector. I acquired it by doing several dangerous favors and collecting enough evidence in the process to blackmail him to hell when he initially failed to deliver. So that’s the back story to the one that starts with me here on the bridge of my ship watching the dock crew load enough missiles, fuel, and supplies onto her for a long troublesome voyage. Small, fast and powerful that’s my ship. A mirror smooth ovular sphere makes up the main body with a simple bowl shaped thruster at the rear. I watched them carefully on the forty five wide angle cameras that covered the five areas of my ship, bridge, engine room/weapons, mess, hold and bunk. The bunks, bridge, and mess are at the top of the sphere while the engines, weapons and hold areas, far larger, make up the bulk of the ship and are where we spend the bulk of our time. I designed it to look like a pleasure cruiser, slow and shiny, which helps explain away why its hull repels any kind of sensor probe. The rich and powerful like their privacy after all and if they insist we can always show them what she can really do leaving the fastest fighters in our dust, space dust. When the loading was finished I turned to my first mate, Shane is his name, “take us out and put us on our way" I said emotionlessly. I walked down the short hall turning into the mess and pouring myself a cup of coffee.  As I turned the steel cup in my hands I knew that my crew was checking over the engines first, then the weapons, then everything else. At that moment we had begun our journey to the Burial strait a narrow point in a vast tempestuous nebula that cut this sector off from the rest of the colonies. We would hit them there. 

    My engineer, Colby, came in covered in grime and looking harried. He had been the best the company had but he left them because he likes things his own way and found the leagues of red tape to be cramping to his creative impulses. I liked him because he was the best and because he preferred work to talk, or for that matter to any form of interaction with other human beings. He sat down, no coffee for him, just a bowl of cereal rich in everything a man needs. I gave him an inquiring look and he said "just a quick bite haven't had a chance to eat since we’ve been in space dock". That was true enough overseeing the resupply had kept him busy for nine solid hours, we had been in and out as quick as possible.

"Any problems" I asked.

"None so far" was his brief response.

I smiled he didn't mince words and he didn't sign for anything he hadn't checked himself. He left a few minutes later and I followed him out passing Shane in the hall

"everything looks square from the bridge John" I nodded and turned into the bunk. We all sleep in the same room on my ship, not much point to it being otherwise us all being single men. I was tired from all the finagling and fudging of paperwork it had taken to get in and out of dock with our load. The docking process alone had taken four hours, only six minutes of which to actually fly in. I lay in my bunk the coffee keeping me awake for a few minutes as I ran over the plan in my head again. I shrugged it off, far too late to turn back now, besides I needed to sleep to think straight. I closed my eyes.

    I heard a slight creak and opened my eyes seeing Mick across the narrow aisle that separated the eight bunks down the middle. He threw me a mock salute and kept on with removing his gear. Mick had no respect in general, none of us did really, but like the rest of us he did his job along with a dozen others. In this business you either did that or ended up in a cycling airlock and no enviro suit. I checked my watch and saw that I'd been out for a little under five hours. "How do things look" I muttered swinging my feet to the floor and running my hand over my face.

"Well two out of seventy missiles look to be duds all the others do or will meet Colby's standards". I nodded that was about average. Pulling on my boots I eyed the assortment of gadgets that Mick was stowing away in the drawer that came out from under his bunk. Most of them I knew, they were the tools of a weapons expert with several others thrown in to account for his side hobby of being the most knowledgeable mineralogist I had ever encountered. Like the rest of the crew Mick was indispensible to me.

Just then Shane came over the intercom "captain, please report to the bridge". No doubt he had been watching on camera waiting for me to awake. When I stepped onto the bridge he was looking over some charts, his robotic arm removed and laying on the table behind him, he must have been tired to take it off. He turned to me but stopped when I held up my hand. I crossed to the security panel and enlarged the square showing Colby reading a display in the engine room. I tapped the button to call him on his earpiece and saw him reach up to respond.

"Everything looks passable" I heard in my ear as his lips moved on screen,

"very good". Passable by his standards was excellent by most. I turned to Shane but paused when I noticed the communications panel was warm from recent use "everything still look good?" I asked not mentioning it even though I knew it should be locked down, he nodded “then get some sleep”,

he started to go. "Captain" I cut him off

"a meeting will be held on the operation in eight hours when everybody's had a chance to rest up". It was my policy that no one knew the target until we were underway and I held a briefing to fill them in.

He looked sour at my knowing his mind but only said "Yes sir". It hadn't been hard to guess was in his head he had been pressing my rules for months now and he had probably been using those charts to see where our course was taking us. I watched him go knowing he would resolve whatever his problem was without endangering the operation, if he had to break a few rules in the process I trusted him. He had served as a lieutenant in the company police for fifteen years until he lost his  left arm and he was the closest thing to a real officer we had on this ship, he was someone to back me up in all matters.

      Eight hours later and endless tests on my own part to see that everything was running smoothly we all met in the mess over bowls of protein cereal. I looked around the table after they had finished filtering in from around the ship. Shane, Mick, Colby, and myself all wore grey jumpsuits and we had the same look of seasoned veterans about us with our matching short trimmed hair in various shades of brown and gray. The last two members of my crew were the twins, Zack and Aiden dressed in black jeans with tight fitting blue shirts of the type worn under an enviro suit and each with a long head of blond hair they matched perfectly. The only difference was there cybernetic implants; installed years ago Zack had his in his left temple and Aiden his right. The implants showed in their eyes where they had each had one eye removed and replaced with a cybernetic lens that glowed bright orange. So Orange eye left, Zack orange eye right, Aiden. The implants had been elective not out of necessity. The twins were my cable men and they had their implants synced to improve their efficiency when they were down on the asteroid. Like the others these two had once worked for the company doing the work of ten men and getting paid accordingly, until they got rid of cable men.

    They were all good men who I had worked with for years. I knew they would back me whatever the plan as long as I laid it out plain, and so I did just that. Getting to my feet I addressed them "As you all know we are on our way to the Burial Straight" the men shifted uncomfortably that straight was well named, many a colony ship had been destroyed trying to cross it until hull armor technology had improved sufficiently to make it safer. "My information tells me that a shipment will be passing through there in five days time and we are going after it." I paused to pull up several schematics on the screen behind me. “Colby, Mick will assist you in modifying as many as you deem necessary of our missiles to break the cables holding the twenty third asteroid free from the chain." They all stiffened as they realized I was talking about grabbing the entire asteroid why else would I want to cut the cables "Zack, Aiden you're going to be busy, in the hold you'll find everything you need to assemble a grapple system to secure the asteroid." They were conversing over their implants now "Shane and I will be modifying a shuttle with an EMP bomb, we will be using the code we have acquired to dock the shuttle on auto with the tug ship and shut her down, immediately after the explosion the twins will land on the the asteroid and begin work to disable the tracking device while they are still blind. The fighters protecting the chain should be greatly reduced as they will not be able to stay out in the nebula long enough for the tug to finish repairs and will most likely be called in to assist the tug. Once the fighters are down to a minimum and the tracking device is disabled we will cut the cables holding the asteroid in place and give it a push to help it get lost in the nebula. We should be able to calculate its course through the nebula to pick it up later after it is well away from the chain and any remaining fighters."

    Silence reigned in the room, Zack and Aiden had dead looks that indicated they were drawn far into their shared mind. Colby exhaled cracking his fingers, and Mick looked at Shane who said nothing. Colby, always business got up and left the room with Mick muttering as he followed. That left the twins, Shane, and I.

Zack spoke first  "I guess you realize that my brother and I are the only one who really risk anything with this plan".

I smiled "can you think of a better way to go about it, I planned it to involve as little risk as possible".

They seemed to take this with their usual good humor "not off the top of our head, it might be fun trying to come up with a working grapple system in less than five days". I knew they would take it this way their philosophy is if it couldn't get you killed it was a waste of time and that worked just fine for this mission. After they had left Shane got up and poured himself a cup of coffee.

"This plan has a lot of variables you know, simple is best I always say". He was right the plan was complicated and there were a number of places where it could go wrong but I had been over it in my head a thousand times and it was the best I could come up with. It had everything necessary and no bells or flashes it didn't.

I sighed "you know in any field the more difficult, dangerous, and skilled something is the more you get paid for it, ours is no different".

The desire to say more was visible in the careful way he held his muscular frame, not wanting to appear confrontational and finally he said "yes you're right captain" draining the last of his cup he left the room.

      A few minutes later I got up and followed him down the to the shuttle bay. We worked with little conversation Shane not seeming to welcome it; in fact everyone seemed to be keeping busy as best they could. I to threw myself into the work so as not to ponder too much on what lay ahead that stage was over, two days passed quickly. When Colby and Mick were finished with the missiles I put them to work assisting the twins while Shane and I worked finishing the shuttle and took care of all the other little things involved with running a ship.  Not only did we install the bomb tying it into the shuttles engines using them as a power source but we also made cosmetic changes to the exterior to make it look like a company shuttle. By the end of the fourth day we had everything ready.         

    Shane and I were on the bridge when Colby's signature beeped in my ear, "captain could you meet me in the mess". I didn't question him quicker to just step down the hall. When I came in he was seated at the head of the table with the inevitable bowl of cereal and something folded in grease stained white cloth on the table to his right. I walked over and turned back the cloth revealing the five centimeter long rectangular component within it. It was the detonator for our EMP, I raised my eyebrows at Colby and he reached over cracking it open with a tool from his belt, it was hollow. He swallowed "The way I see it there are a couple of possibilities here"

I interrupted "no, I checked it myself before Shane installed it". His chewing slowed to a halt as his eyes fixed behind me. I turned slowly seeing Shane standing in the doorway with a broken look on his face and a pistol in his hand.

    He moved forward a few steps keeping the gun trained on us he spoke with weak anger "damn you Colby and your infernal inspections, if the EMP had failed we could have abandoned the operation before anyone got hurt, and I would have been a wealthy man".

Colby was barely under control "you agreed" he ground his teeth "who".

Shane was almost apologetic "Morrows, I only agreed to stop you from succeeding in this operation". He grimaced "he really hates you John and he took what he could get". I understood in a second. It was a matter of timing, unable to rat us out without being caught himself Morrows had no doubt been using the days it had taken us to get ready for this operation to find himself as nice hole to hide in and counting on Shane to spite me. I saw Shane brace himself and he said “Looks like there’s only one way out of this”. He straightened his arm leveling the gun at my chest, my fingers twitched wanting to go for the gun at my side. Colby moved diving under the table as a bolt of energy sizzled through the air where his head had been. I drew and fired cutting Shane's right arm off at the shoulder. Colby was up and had the staggering Shane by the neck seeing red. Shane recovered and pushed Colby away with his robotic arm sending him stumbling back across the room and himself against the wall. For a moment we all froze he looked at the pistol on the floor and started to move, I shot him through the head. The universe seemed to come to a screeching halt as I stood there shocked. Colby got to his feet.  We looked at each other hardly able to believe what had happened even with Shane's body lying before us, the body of a good friend.

"Help me" Colby said as he got a hold of Shane's ankles. It took me a several seconds to move. This was his way he worked through things. I holstered my gun and walked over gripping Shane by the back of the neck. We carried him through to the bridge and the airlock. Setting him down within it I stood looking down at his face ruined by my beam. Colby left and returned with his arm laying it beside him. He looked at me and left without a word no doubt to fix the EMP. Stepping back onto the bridge I cycled the airlock. His body floated by the bridge windows and I watched it with my arms limp at my side until he passed out of sight. He would join all the others here in the Burial Straight having paid the ultimate price for his greed, as for me I would continue on with the operation that was the nature of this business.

    Everyone kept silent about Shane as we waited in position for the shipment to come through everything being in readiness. The tug was a day late and by the time she showed on our sensors everyone was ready for some action. I was on the bridge hurrying back and forth between monitors running a two man show alone, Mick was standing by in the missile loading dock, while Colby and the twins were in the hold with the new grapple system. I brought up the three of them on the monitor and Colby turned giving the camera a thumbs up that they were all suited up and ready to land on the asteroid. I crossed to another panel and powered up the shuttle, when it read as warm I opened the bay doors and it piloted out automatically. We all waited as the tug ship drew closer then I gave the shuttle the command to rendezvous with it.

    Our ship was on their sensors by now and the computer beeped as their own probes attempted to penetrate our hull. I noted their failure and told the shuttle to send the prerecorded message it had in its banks along with the code to the tug ship. Moments passed and then the fighters that had been headed our way veered sharply back toward the tug, I smiled grimly as a message came to us relayed through the shuttle’s communications system.

"We are honored to have you come aboard Mr. Morrows, please proceed to bay four". On the security panel I saw that the rest of the crew was watching from their monitors as the shuttle piloted smoothly into the tug ship's bay. I crossed to another panel my hand hovering over the button to detonate as I counted the seconds it would take for the shuttle to land and the bay doors to close. I wanted the pulse to have the full power of the shuttles engines and to be confined within the armor of the tug. I put my finger down on the button and watched the tug on screen as for a moment nothing happened and then her boosters failed one after another, she was adrift.

      It would take her several hours to finish even minimal repairs and the fighters could only survive in this nebula for an hour and forty minutes at the most. I fired off a message demanding to know what had happened to Morrows. Several minutes passed and we got no response so we just watched as the tug signaled the fighters with the only form of communication they had left by suiting up cranking open the bay doors manually and waving. I smiled at the twins who were laughing so hard they had to lean on one another while Colby watched disapprovingly. Touching my ear I spoke to all of them "alright the word is being passed between the fighters, Zack, Aiden be prepared to land in twenty minutes. Sitting down in front of the sensors board I watched the fighters coming up the line and queuing up to land by the dozen. When only twenty ships remained the landing stopped. I spoke to Colby and the twins "launch now". Watching from the security panel I saw Colby flip the switch and pound the button to cycle the airlock sending the twins into space. The sensor panel registered them as they sped through space using compressed air jetpacks. They landed on the asteroid and bounced onto the tracking device working in perfect harmony. The device had a half sphere base the flat side of which gripped deep into the asteroid and a spire rising out of it's base that was some seventy meters high. What the twins had to do was break into the base's secure panel using explosives and shut it down with a powerful virus I purchased for no small price.

    My eyes flicked to another screen and I saw the remaining twenty fighters depart from the tug to continue patrolling the line. I touched a button and spoke to the twins "birds coming in will signal when it’s safe to blast".

Their response was short "okay" I knew they were busy getting ready. Long minutes went by as I watched the ships go by the twenty third asteroid "ready" came the twins over the radio.

I waited until the closest fighter had passed and then I radioed "detonate now". The ship's sensors registered the blast but I doubted the fighters had their sensors being far more limited than ours. As for the visible explosion it was hardly likely it had been seen given relatively small size of the blast and the vastness of the area being patrolled.

The twins came in "virus delivered".

It should work in seconds "Cut the cables now" I ordered Mick and saw him tap two buttons in quick succession. I radioed the twins and they came back with a report that the virus was taking time. I swore timing was essential here, the missiles sped toward the cables and I hoped that that virus would work fast enough if at all. I gritted my teeth it wouldn't do for the cables to be cut and for every fighter they had to be able to follow us no matter how far we ran. "Device disabled" came the twins and a moment later the missiles hit the cables severing them with two blasts of white hot heat. "Fire at will" I called to Mick as nearby fighters changed course toward the asteroid. I didn't have time to look but I knew he was busy locking the fighters into the targeting computer. I switched over to Colby "give her a push". A moment later a small rocket flew from the shuttle bay headed for the asteroid. It was not designed to explode when it reached it but rather its nose would bury itself in the asteroid's surface while it continued to expend its fuel supply propelling it and in zero gravity the asteroid deep into the nebula. The screen lit up as Mick fired missile after missile at the every increasing number of fighters. This was getting out of control; I frowned as I thought of Shane's counsel against this operation. Something was going to give I could feel it.

Colby spoke in my ear "Captain one of the fighters is after our rocket".

Even as I brought up the rocket on screen the fighter opened fire penetrating its armor in an instant and igniting a brilliant explosion that engulfed the fighter so close behind it.

    I weighed the options for a moment then walked over to the pilot’s chair. Over my earpiece I issued orders "Mick report to the port gun, Colby starboard we're going to have to grab her while she's still in the line". There was no response I knew they were running to their stations. I sat down and switched the ship onto manual control charging the hull armor and called the twins with an update. It had been a while since I had done this, I flexed my hands before gripping the sticks that would both move the ship and fire the forward guns. Feeling the thrum of the ships engines coming up through my hands I closed my eyes. Ramming the sticks forward we blazed through the chaos of screaming fighters with tracking missiles on their tails and Colby opened up on the string of ships that was headed our way from the tug. I squeezed the trigger and powerful guns obliterated two fighters that had stood between the asteroid and our ship a moment before, I smiled. I had missed this. The asteroid was coming up fast we were close enough that I could see the twins standing on either side of the flare they had lit. I flipped the ship facing her away from them, and punched the button to launch the grip. Running to the sensor panel I held my breath as I watched the twins jet over to the grip and begin bolting it down. The ship shuddered as fighters strafed it. I returned to my chair and opened fire when they came into view destroying three out of five. For interminable seconds I fired as the ship shuddered unable to evade the attacks. 

The twin’s voice came from the console "go damn it go". It took all of my restraint to pull slowly away from the asteroid at low power reading the distance between the ship and its surface as more cable spooled out from the cargo bay. Dangerous as it was I didn't want to fry the twins with my burn. That was far enough I yelled for everyone to hang on, then I gave it everything she had. Fighters exploded all around us as we accelerated away from the chain with all guns roaring.  I held down the triggers to both my guns as we slammed into a cloud of fighters that had gathered to block our escape. The ship seemed to be trying to shake me out of my chair. Glancing down at the panel I saw that we were in bad shape and for a moment I doubted our chances. Then Mack and Colby stopped firing and I realized no more fighters were on sensors, I heard the twins whooping over the radio I smiled we had done it. Our prize was in tow and we had disappeared into the nebula not to be seen or heard from again until the day they paid.     

    It was several months later when that day finally arrived. We went through one of the bankers who for a price will arrange such trades anonymously from one party to another and make sure the two never meet. To be sure we kept our names to ourselves during the process, but I'm not worried men like that build their reputation on doing their job right and everybody has a use for them. All in all, after the bankers cut we got thirty percent of the market value of that asteroid. It was enough to make us all rich men. After repairing and refitting my ship with all the finest tech I flew her to a quiet place and bought a little piece of property to retire on. It’s been three months since then and somehow it just hasn’t been what I thought it would, its….just not me.  Colby gave me a call with a job a few days ago apparently he hadn’t taken my little speech about leaving space behind too seriously. I think I'll take it, my place it seems is among the stars after all.



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